Suzanne F

'Splain, please. The big round cookies? chocolate soda with vanilla ice cream (or is it vanilla soda with chocolate ice cream)? vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce? beluga caviar with mashed potatoes? It's just that a lot of different regions have different "black and whites."

Freezing isn't necessarily bad; it's just unnecessary. Wrap it well, as others have suggested, and keep it in the fridge. If a sort of whitish film develops on the surface, that's due to either plastic wrapping, or salt leeching out. In either case, nothing to worry about, just scrape it off. Even if a little blue-green mold develops, just scrape it off. And if it dries out to the point where you can't cut or grate it, make stock with it! A terrific base for minestrone or pasta sauces.

Ah, popovers. When I was a kid, there was a restaurant called Patricia Murphy's not too far out on Long Island (NY) -- it was as close to fine dining as we did back then (almost 50 years ago ). Two things I can never forget: the relish tray that came when you sat down, with watermelon pickle and cottage cheese, among other items, and the POPOVERS they brought around the room regularly. They were right out of the oven, NOT pierced, so my father burned his fingers with the steam every time. God, they were good: light, eggy, ethereal. (Since you seem to have solved your problem, I see no need to add any advice; just to reminisce. )

Jinmyo: well, there are only 2 of us, and when I can get a good deal on stuff, I take advantage of it. But as anyone who's been here can attest, I keep an anally complete inventory of what's in the freezer, and rotate as much as I can. Nick: the distributor is Nestlé USA, Inc., Foreign Trade Division, Glendale, CA 91203. "For Nutritional Information please write to P.O. Box 29055, Glendale, CA 91209-9055" I don't "throw out" bottles and jars. If I'm going to save them, I wash themand then save; if I won't be saving them, I rinse them and pile them on one end of the pass-through, and when the cleaner comes on Wednesdays, she puts them in the recycling bin. Since today's Thursday, the bottle was still sitting there. Torakris: We'd probably be vegetarians if The Food Emporium didn't reduce the price of last-day-of-sale meat! When all the earners are self-employed, there are bound to be some lean times -- one year, between maintenance and mortgage we spent over 60% of our income! So any way to economize is all right by me -- as long as the initial quality was good. On to dinner, Thursday, August 28th: 2? 2-1/2? glasses of La Gitana, plus a slug or two of Festival Chardonnay later during the cooking. The actual meal: 1 thigh of Mamster's Pancetta Embossed Chicken -- played with, as is my wont: I too just put the pancetta under the skin. Not as beautiful, but still damn tasty. And I deglazed the pan with the aforementioned Paumanok Festival Chardonnay 2000, their lesser version, and a bit of chicken stock. Mounted with a cube of my herb butter, which has multiple herbs, lemon juice and zest, garlic, and lord knows what else (maybe even a little guacamole dip left from the potluck ). Served with roast garlic mashed potatoes -- the garlic I roasted earlier, plus some "Roasted Garlic Cream Cheese" and 1% yogurt. More stir-fried Swiss chard (freshly cooked). HWOE's salad, with lettuces from earlier in the week and brand new tomato and kirby from the Greenmarket , same dressing as yesterday. Paumanok Barrel-Fermented Chardonnay 2000, their better version. It was a fine, fine dinner, if I say so myself. Anyway, HWOE said so, too. PS: the pernil will be for Monday's dinner. I put the plantains in the fridge so they won't ripen any more and I can make tostones, not maduros. Is that okay?

Tommy, you are so full of it. pattimw: NYS pinot is pretty damn good. Not yet up there with Oregon, but at least as good as, if not better than, California. And for Jinmyo: I did a massive grocery shopping trip (end of the month; use up the coupons) having eaten only the half a peach. So on the way home I tore open the package of Stringsters (1-ounce portions of string cheese) and ate a couple as I walked down the promenade along the East River, pushing my filled-to-the-top shopping cart. Fortunately, the tide had not gone out completely yet. This store is the big Pathmark just north of the Manhattan Bridge. It serves a clientele from Chinatown, Little Italy, Loisaida and the Lower East Side, including various public housing projects. So the diversity of products is quite a bit greater than at my white-bread Food Emporium. Once home, I had to check out the package of LU Le Fondant ("Fine Chocolate Filled Wafers") to make sure they had survived the trip home. This was washed down with a spritzer of white grape and peach juice with seltzer. While putting away the groceries, had the last of the cornbread/chili/cheese casserole from the other night, heated in the nuker. Followed by a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter. (I was disappointed at the grocery: I wanted to get Skippy Creamy in the tube -- with a coupon, of course -- but they didn't have any today.) That's it for eating so far today. Wanna hear what I prepped with the stuff I bought? cut up 6 whole chicken legs; 2 of the thighs will be dinner tonight; the rest into the freezer quartered two packages of (reduced price) button mushrooms; sauteed and packed them for the freezer; ditto two packages of (reduced price) sliced mushrooms. This supermarket always has some cheap produce that will be fine if cooked. sliced and pickled a nice big white onion, with salt, sugar, white vinegar, Mexican oregano, and coriander seeds separated and put to roast 2-1/2 heads of garlic, which I'm smelling even now and the best: put a bone-in pork shoulder to marinate in anticipation of making pernil over the weekend. The marinade is cilantro, flat leaf parsley, lotsa garlic, a couple of large shallots, Dijon mustard, black pepper, allspice, coriander, cinnamon, a little red pepper flakes, the last of that goddamn bottle of Maggi Seasoning I bought last year after Suvir said how much he loved it , a little dried rosemary, a lot of dried thyme, plus olive oil and Naranja Agria (sour orange juice). The whole thing is sitting in the fridge, waiting to be massaged and turned over. Not sure when during the weekend I'll cook it; but I figure it can sit at least two days. I'll make tostones (fried green plantain slices), kale, and rice to go with it. I can hardly wait! Okay, gotta go make dinner now. And oh look, it's time to have a glass of sherry. Or two. Or . . . edited to add: Damn! I keep forgetting that I left off Fat Guys sour pickles from the list of stuff I still have from the potluck. I'll bring them to the New Jersey pig feast; maybe they'll be the eGullet version of the Xmas fruitcake that gets passed around year after year. Also forgot to mention the freshly grated Parmigiano and Pecorino Romano on the pasta. Forgive me, Santa Marcella. But I figured it would be all right since there originally had been sausage in some of the sauce.

Why do women pay so much for dry cleaning? Don't ask me; if I can't wash it, I don't buy it. Besides, I only buy dresses in print fabrics with red backgrounds. Seriously, though, pricing discrimination in dry cleaning has long since been proven.

Thursday, August 28: Vitamin pills plus water. The peach half I didn't eat yesterday. Not as good from the fridge, as at room temperature. Yeah, I know a blog is supposed to be one-way, but Hey, I'm getting lonely here! Doesn't anybody want to say anything? Pretty please??

Warning: do not read that piece on an empty stomach!!! Mmmmmmmm, grits is good. The "regional" part is complemented by this year's Southern Foodways Symposium on Appalachia. I never knew if that area was really Southern, but I guess this says it is.

HWOE refuses to buy any tie that costs more than $10. (Of course, I have to go with him so he doesn't come home with something that looks like it costs < $10.) So by the time the stains start to show, it's cheaper to just replace the tie. Why on earth do men pay so much money for ties???

How long can you wait for all the regulars to die off? Is it worth it? Buy the cookbook, make the recipes, and then you tell us.

Next installment: Dinner, Wednesday, August 27th: Again, only one glass of La Gitana (good girl!) A cuvée of tomato sauces from the freezer: some with red kidney beans and tuna, some with cabbage (but without any of the chunks of sausage from the original), warmed together with a large dollop of MegC's tapenade and a sprinkling of Spanish smoked paprika. This was served mixed with squid-ink penne. The constant-but-freshly-made salad, with olive oil, white balsamic and white wine vinegars. 1/2 bottle of Wagner (Finger Lakes) Reserve Pinot Nooir, 1999 -- a wine mentioned yesterday in the NY Times as Good (and Good for You).

MatthewB: a public answer to your private query: "Why The New Cook or Essentials of Cooking over Complete Techniques?" All three of them have great photographs, which I think are essential in demonstrating techniques on the page; no matter how well it is said, if it isn't shown there's no way to know if you did it correctly. And the texts of all three are clear and unambiguous. Mainly it's a question of how the books are organized, in relation to the way I like to learn and the way I like to teach. The New Cook is the most basic, for someone who knows virtually nothing about cooking and not much about food. It is organized along those lines: first information (with pictures) on ingredients and equipment; then many basic prep techniques; thirteen Master Recipes that illustrate the use of the techniques, with step-by-step pictures; finally a set of recipes that bring together several techniques, with occasional pictorial reminders. It's probably too basic for you. But I like the progression it makes. Essentials of Cooking is also excellent information on techniques, but I don't like the way it's organized. You just have to bounce around the pages too much. Prepping vegetables and fruits is at the front before any recipes; prepping shellfish and poultry is within each chapter of recipes using them; but prepping whole fish and large cuts of meat ("Working from Scratch") is at the back, AFTER all the recipes. I hate being told to do something, but not being told HOW to do it until after I've tried on my own. Just too much flipping pages back and forth for me; not something I want to have to do in the middle of prepping and cooking. The lack of consistency in organization bothers me; it might not bother you. But it's not a book to work through, front to back. If Complete Techniques is not truly 100% complete, at least for classic French cooking, I'd be very surprised. Compared to the other two, it's massive. But for someone who wants to become comfortable with cooking techniques, is it really helpful to include carving potatoes into roses as a "basic?" It just seems overwhelming to me, and therefore daunting. I'm sure it isn't all that difficult to follow the later chapters from start to finish. But it's just so exhaustingly, classically, French.

I just use regular loaf pans -- aluminum or pyrex, or a smaller steel one that seems to lose more of its tin lining every time. In other words, the same pans I use for plain old meatloaf. But then I've never done one en croute. The breakaway molds are indeed better for that; but personally I don't like en croute: always soggy pastry no matter what you do, and not much value added. Since I've, um, never followed a recipe so I don't know how you'd make adaptations for different size molds. BTW: are you sure your LeC is that small? Is it the really narrow kind? Try to get a hold of the "Terrines, Pates & Galantines" volume of the Time-Life The Good Cook series from 1982. If you work your way through that one, you will be a real master. It's got tons of technique pictures, and recipes from all over the world.

Culinary Artistry can indeed inspire you to put foods together that you might not otherwise. I adore it for that. But before you can feel comfortable cooking without a recipe, you need to have all your basic cooking techniques down: saute, poaching, braising, grilling, roasting, shallow-fry, deep-fry; and you have to understand the basic chemistry of cooking (why is overcooked meat dry? what is an emulsion? etc.). For the latter, you cannot beat Shirley Corriher's CookWise. For the former, The New Cook by Mary Berry & Marlena Spieler is great at a very basic level; James Peterson's Essentials of Cooking is also terrific. Nothing whatsoever against St. Jacques -- but looking at these others against Complete Techniques in light of what you've said, these might be better to work through. And of course you have to follow every lesson in eGCI. If you have trouble finding The New Cook, let me know; I bought extra copies specifically to send to friends in need.

And since the institution of the smoking ban, LH Downtown is a zillion times better just as an environment in which to eat. Yes, service is haphazard, bordering on terrible. And most of the food is at best okay. But hey, they have a few good items (how could I forget the tartiflette and the shrimp cocktail, served head-on ), and I don't always want to schlep across town to Le Zinc late at night.

[very very jealous] Bet tonight's dinner is CORN [/vvj]

Liver is good. I eat it out when I can, because HWOE doesn't like it except as chopped chicken liver. Fegato all Veneziana is basically liver-and-onions: thinly sliced onions sauteed in butter and oil until soft but not browned; add very, very thinly sliced liver to the onions and cook it quickly to brown; season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with parsley. The recipe I'm looking at calls for 1-1/2 pounds of onions for 2 pounds of liver. Remember, too, that liver can be an excellent accompaniment to bacon. Added: and as usual, Jinmyo is the speaker of truth: liver MUST be rare.

Good afternoon, all. Just back from lunch out (nothing before other than water) at The Little Bigger Place, a post-9/11 Cinderella story.* Split Pea soup -- which I don't make at home because HWOE doesn't like it (one of his very few failings ); it came with a roll in the form of croutons -- sliced and grilled. A "blintz" which is really a filled crepe, with ham, fresh raw tomato, and swiss cheese. Part of a slice of chocolate cake with white frosting (yeah, yeah I know I said . . . but it came with the rest of the meal. ). 2 cups of coffee with milk, a large pink lemonade, and water (not in that order). *the story about The Little Bigger Place: Owned by a couple of cooks from Pueblo (where else? ) It used to be The Little Place, a tiny, 8-seat restaurant a couple of blocks from the WTC. Not damaged 9/11, but they were shut for over a month and a half. Reopened 11/1. A short time later, they were able to move to the vacant space on the corner as The Little Bigger Place, and do a thriving breakfast and lunch business. American and a lot of simple Mexican stuff, all very fresh and good. The kind of place you really want to do well, very warm and welcoming, clearly know how to make the most of their humble ingredients. There were 2 pieces about the people and the place on "The Next Big Thing" on NPR, 10/20-21/01 and 11/3-4/01, because an NPR producer was a regular there. It helps to have influential friends. (In case you want a nice, cheap place to eat in Lower Manhattan, it's at the corner of West Broadway and Warren, diagonally across from Kitchenette.)

Yeah, only one. It's not willpower. As I said, I'm not that big on desserts. But in the original mention, I did correct "tablespoonspoonful." Now, steak, prime rib, or lamb chops -- I could never have just one bite of THOSE. Or grilled fish (sorry, Elyse ). Or oysters, whatever the month. Give me savory or give me dearth.

Okay: dinner, Tuesday, August 26 2 and a half, well, maybe 3 glasses of La Gitana -- which, by the way, is a manzanilla (I was wrong before) From the freezer: 1/3 of the last 2 wedges of snowangel's eGRA corn bread, split, covered with homemade beef chili. Sprinkled with grated pepper jack and Cabot's Hunter's Cheddar (the best supermarket cheddar, for my $$$). Baked until hot and bubbly. Topped at the table with yogurt (had to toss the Mexican-style sour cream: fuzzy ), Old El Paso Chunky medium salsa and homemade salsa verde. The everpresent salad, tonight with balsamic vinegar and olive oil (HWOE ). Red Hook IPA. And for once in a very long while, a tablespoonful of Haagen Dazs Café Mocha Frappé -- actually just chocolate and coffee in the same container, what a scam. Now, more water as I type and wait for my laundry to dry.

I'm ba-ack! even though I haven't had anything but water since I last posted. Sure: that's why god invented freezers. And there was a LOT of food left! Lessee, I've still got the Italian sausage you left; about half of the terrine I made; 8 portions of FG's brisket, with 2 cups each of the jus, horseradish cream, and DtheC's sauce*; about 1 cup of Belmont3's brandade; one of the Balthazar baguettes (at this point, I really hope I wrapped it well enough ); about a dozen small pieces of jhlurie's (bought) baklava; some of MegC's tapenade (not frozen); and a little more than a full box of crackers that everyone rightfully ignored in favor of Elyse's cheese thingies. Oh, and most of the coffee liqueur and all of the anise liqueur that anil brought. Actually there may be a few other items, but in now-unrecognizable forms, so they don't count. Which reminds me: I still never posted HWOE's reaction to the wine he traded with Belmont3. Here it is now (Andre = Belmont3, obviously):

Glad I could help! I just adore Asia Market. First learned about it when I worked at Match Uptown -- that's where we'd get our lemongrass and Thai basil and cellophane noodles and all that stuff. Very nice people to deal with, and excellent produce. I like that store on Mosco, too, but that's where I tend to need to figure out how to use what I've bought all on my own; the staff has trouble translating into English. That doesn't really faze me, though. Such interesting items! And it's the only place I've found Knorr Tom Yam bouillon cubes, mmmmmmm. But I've been noticing a wider variety of Asian products in the Chinatown supermarkets -- Hong Kong (my favorite at the moment) and others. More Thai, Japanese, Indonesian than they used to have.

Yes, NeroW is correct. But really, it is unfair of me to call him that. He is the salad maker par excellence (mainly because he eats 4 times as much of it as I do, so it's his job ) and the ne plus ultra of oatmeal cookers. Oatmeal he learned from his father -- thick, dry, and chunky -- rather than his mother -- wet and slimy . I mean the style of oatmeal; not his parents themselves. And he's the house sommelier. But to continue the blog: While out taking a walk and doing errands, I took in chicken onigiri from Daikichi, and a few "chicken fritters" (breaded fried slices of chicken breast) from Jubilee market. (As I just said on the Les Halles thread, I love chicken.) Then when I got home, a big glass of grapefuit juice cocktail, the kind with other fruit juices instead of sugar-water. And more NYC DEP 2003 (our house name for water). Doesn't it seem that lychees are in season so much longer this year? Is it because they're growing them in Florida now??? Onward to dinner! (I'm not really a snacker, nor a dessert eater, as you'll see.)

Instant is the fine-grained stuff you mix with boiling liquid, wait 5 minutes, stir, and eat. Near East is a supermarket brand. It may not be the greatest, but it sure can be a life-saver. Reguar takes longer to steam. Israeli is something else entirely.

You have trouble finding it? I'm really surprised. I'm used to seeing it in all kinds of cheese stores, and even some supermarkets. I'm in lower Manhattan, and do a lot of my shopping at a supermarket/gourmet store called Jubilee. They and another similar place nearby have some decent cheeses, if you don't mind them pre-cut and shrink-wrapped.