Jaymes

Re; tuna. I used to think the same thing. Have you priced canned tuna lately? Have you weighed the yield from an average 5 oz. can? Let me tell, the result is NOT pretty. A 5 oz. can yields about 3.5 oz. of meat. With cooking loss, that translates into about 4 oz. raw. At about a buck and a quarter per can, that's $5 a lb. $5/lb is NOT cheap, even for fish. Even on sale for $.99 a can that's still $4/lb- a decent price for fish, but not cheap at all compared to sale chicken or beef. And $1.25/can is low end tuna. TJs albacore (one of the better tunas) is $1.60, effectively putting it in the $6/lb. realm. Maybe tuna is effectively inexpensive because one tends to eat a can in a single sitting (and not more), but pound for pound, canned tuna is not cheap. Well, yikes. Okay. So skip the tuna.

The columnist didn't say "no names." If you're enjoying the service and want to remember that person's name, perhaps to request him/her for next time, you're perfectly free to ask and he/she is perfectly free to tell you. What the writer is referring to is the (to me anyway) silly and unnecessary ritual of appearing at your table and immediately announcing, unprompted, "Hi. I'm Jeff and I'll be your server tonight." To put this into proper perspective, if Jeff walked up and you immediately introduced yourself, do you think Jeff might find that a little odd? Inappropriate? Even off-putting? And why? Same two people. Same cursory and fleeting relationship. So why is one of these scenarios odd and the other a grand idea?

Yes, or put it into a sauce of some kind and pour it over a starch. Also don't need much of it. And if you get a protein with lots of different parts - like a chicken or turkey - you can think of imaginative ways to use it all.

Since we're nearing Thanksgiving, if you could find a loss leader turkey somewhere, either for 30 cents a pound, or maybe even free, that might be a great place to start. Sacks of potatoes and bags of beans are pretty affordable. Canned tuna also.

Always the very, very best suggestion. But difficult for some folk, methinks.

Heath Bars. Maybe not the best chocolate and maybe not the best English toffee, but really, really good nonetheless.

I'd almost be willing to bet that there's no such thing as a long-time southern cook that doesn't own a copy of River Road Recipes. At least, I don't think I've ever met one.

Certainly ubiquitous in Vietnamese cooking as well. I think it's a pretty foreign flavor for folks that haven't tried it until well into their adult years and, if that's your circumstance, it definitely takes some getting used to. Personally, I love it. Especially a big mound of the stuff sitting on top of my pho.

Well, really, nothing discussed around these parts is "worth a moment's consideration," but people certainly do manage! So true. Most of this is pretty trivial, isn't it, in the overall scheme of things I mean. But it often engenders quite heated exchange. In this case, I feel pretty sure that people that call hot chocolate beverages made with cocoa powder "hot chocolate" happily will continue to do so (without a moment's consideration ) until somebody demonstrates that cocoa powder isn't chocolate. Jenni, and others that choose to make this finite distinction for themselves, are clearly 100% correct - for themselves. I just don't think that they'll get very far trying to correct the rest of us for whom it's equally correct to call all hot chocolate beverages "hot chocolate." And I'd say that this conversation seems to bear that out. One thing I've noticed in my 65 years of living and my 40 relocations all over the world is that, especially when it comes to regional slang and nomenclature, people don't like being told that the way they've all done it for years (and understand it perfectly well among themselves) is "wrong."

Boy does that bring back memories of the gracious olden days of service. Not only did they transfer the bar tab, if you were a lady, or if they even suspected that you might be, they carried your drink to your dining table, too, so you wouldn't have to traipse through the dining room with a mittfull of booze. It was automatic. Now, if you asked somebody to do that, they'd look at you like you had just grown a third eye in the middle of your forehead. Something I know from experience.

Thanks Jaymes. I've never made a rum ball. Truth be told, I'm not even sure what a rum ball is, but I'll look up a recipe right away. Rum balls (and their southern cousins, bourbon balls) are de rigueur Christmas treats in many locales. Can't go wrong with a tin of them. And they benefit from 'curing.'

Being Dead is No Excuse This little book is hardly the comprehensive guide to southern cooking, but, in addition to being laugh-out-loud funny, the stories and traditions and recipes and vignettes are a priceless slice of life and manners and attitudes of the south.

Rum balls, in a tightly-sealed tin, keep practically forever.

Right. It's Discovery Channel's highest-rated program. The restaurant is probably hoping that those of us that watch that show will think that the crab comes right off of one of those boats. We see the crews holding up monster crabs the size of a small Chevy and think to ourselves, "Boy I'd like to try one of them." It would get my attention. Deadliest Catch

Sure, the recipe I listed earlier in the thread (adapted from Pierre Hermé and some traditional sources) uses a chocolate mixture that's 1/6 cocoa powder by weight. But, golly... What would you call it?

The chocolate vs. cocoa thing here is a bit pedantic. Cocoa is chocolate with much of the cocoa butter removed. Sure, all else being equal, cocoa will give a less rich drink. But all else needn't be equal. Higher fat milk or cream also give richness. And richness isn't always what you want. Sometimes you might like a lighter drink. And counter to some people's intuition, more richness mutes chocolate flavor, it doesn't enhance it. I completely agree with this, which is why I generally prefer my hot chocolate to be made with water.

Forgive me for being pedantic, but I definitely see them as two different things, though I enjoy both. Cocoa powder has a really deep cocoa flavour, but chocolate has cocoa butter and so seems to me to be richer. I usually make cocoa as a warming bed time drink - the cocoa flavour is intense, but it's not too rich. Hot chocolate on the other hand is a breakfast/ snack/ dessert/ treat, because it is so creamy and rich. I generally have my "hot chocolate" made with a wedge of crumbly Mexican chocolate and water. Not sure where that fits in with your two finite categories. As for your quest to change the regional common vernacular, all I can say to you is "good luck." And if you manage it, please let me know. I've got a few I'd like to change.

For me, it's candy corn, too. But only because I can't stand the stuff. It's the only candy I can think of that I don't like. So at Halloween, I buy bags of it to give out to the trick-or-treaters. I discovered long ago that I eat up anything else.

I think it's just regional. Nobody would say that cocoa powder isn't "chocolate." Because clearly, without question, it is. When you make a hot drink with it, what you've got is a hot chocolate drink. So the folks that call all hot drinks made with chocolate "hot chocolate," because that's regionally what they're accustomed to, and because regionally everybody else there calls it "hot chocolate" too and knows what they're talking about, are also literally correct. And aren't about to change. Or even, frankly, think it's worth a moment's consideration.

Because that sort of foil was originally made of tin. So everybody called it 'tin foil.' When tin was replaced by aluminum, many folks continued to refer to it by the earlier, and, let's face it, easier, name. I often still refer to it as 'tin foil' even though I very well know it's not. My elderly parents call it 'tin foil' because that's what it was when it first hit their mama's kitchens as a fabulous new invention.

Wonder how MicBacchus, the OP, is doing in Myrtle Beach. One thing that nobody mentioned is that Myrtle Beach has a huge military presence. Any place where you find US soldiers, you also find a large number of Asian wives, many of whom have opened small markets, restaurants, gift shops, etc. I know MicBacchus has been there a while and undoubtedly has found many options, but if he/she has not looked for good Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Thai, etc., food, he/she should immediately begin a search.

Hey, it sells itself!

Did the "very sticky almost solid base" have a consistency similar to jelly beans? If so, perhaps it was a version of Turkish Delight, available throughout the Middle East.

It IS milk, so not forever. But in my experience, much longer than regular fresh milk. Maybe even as much as a month. But if you have any doubts, it's pretty easy to just put a little on the end of your finger and taste it. You can freeze it as well. Does change the consistency a bit, but if you're going to cook with it, that doesn't really matter.

I've found that if I split up the couples, the conversation is MUCH livelier. So that's what I always do. It's really kind of amazing. Even at a small table. With couples, there's always one person that's more verbal and dominate, and the other tends to defer to that one. Split them up and everybody starts talking.