touaregsand

Purchased lemon juice is really bad. I like the lemonade from hot dog on a stick. They slice a lemon in half and then use some pumping thingamajig, it releases the oils from the peel into the lemonade. It's really fragrant. Cut a bunch of lemons in half and smash away. Lots of sugar, ice and of course water. Voila! I don't know where you are or what type of fundraising event it is. In LA at an event like this depending on the crowd $3-$5 a glass would work. They won't complain if the lemonade is really good. An experiment to try to cut costs (thus adding more to the fund) is to cut the fresh squeeze with the packaged stuff. The method I describe above add so much yummy lemon oil fragrance, that I don't think too many people will notice. But then again I've never tried the packaged lemon juice,

1. Do you eat brown rice or regular rice, or do you have no rice? Regular rice, occassionally brown rice. 2. Do you put the rice into a bowl or plate and then top it with your entree? Or do you alternate bites of rice and dish? Bowl, I can't stand to eat rice from a plate. I alternate bites of rice and a dish, at the end sometimes spoon sauce on my rice and finish eating with a spoon. I like to keep my rice looking nice and clean throughout a meal, so I reserve this maneuver for the last few bites. 3. Are you a chopstick user or a fork and spoon user? Chopsticks, spoon for the previous maneuver I mentioned. Fork, wtf is THAT? 4. Do you eat everything, all the vegetables but not the ________, or only meat? I eat almost everything. Prefer the vegetables, since I'm what could be called mostly vegetarian. 5. Are you one of these people who think that fried chicken wings covered in hot sauce on top of pork fried rice constitutes proper Chinese takeout? Blech! Er, no. 6. When ordering takeout, do you always get the same thing or do you try out different things? I try different things. 7. What's your favorite place and your least favorite place, and could you please describe them? Least favorite is that Panda whatever chain crap. Most favorite changes usually something from K town or Chinatown. SGF is just too far for me. 8. Do you have a best takeout experience? Let's hear it. It wasn't neccessarily the best food, but it was really welcomed in Texas. I had been eating umm... well I won't say 'cause I don't want some regional backlash. It was greasy, but sooooo good compared to um...well ya know. 9. Do you have a worst takeout experience? Let's hear that as well. Guam and Saipan are tied for this. Gross, the stuff was a sin against food. The kind of food you just wonder, what the hell was the cook thinking? Awful, greasy, burnt, salty, greasy, burnt, salty, greasy, burnt, salty... I'm particularly interested in hearing non-NYC-based answers. Okay, I'm in Los Angeles.

Gordon Ramsay RHR, the 3 star restaurant in London is a relentless turner of tables, they even inform you that you may have to vacate your table after 2 hours. This is extremely short for a restaurant of this caliber and style, yet Michelin seems to be willing to go along with this and still give them 3 stars. ← Wow, 2 hours? That's like an appetizer and a main course. Not enough time for me. Or am I just a slow eater?

Mrs Butterworth used to give me nightmares. Even during breakfast, I would stare at the bottle waiting for her arms to start moving. (I had an overly active imagination when I was a kid). I don't want to bad mouth Aunt Jemima though. Uncle Ben, the worse rice ever. The Taster's Choice guy apparently got a ton of money in a recent lawsuit, what is it like 30 years in the coming? Betty Crocker, bitch can't bake. The Clabber girl was cute though. Mikey the life cereal kid... what was that urban legend? He died from eating those hot rock candies that "exploded" in your mouth, immediately followed by a cola? The Hamburger helper helping hand! The most dangerous character if you think about. Pretending to help with crap in a box. Remember the singing California raisins? "I heard it through the grapevine" Now there using Keller. Can Keller sing and dance like those raisins? NOT! Okay, I'll stop admitting that I watched WAY too much TV when I was a kid.

I made this last night. I purposely tried to keep the ingredients "whole" and easily recognizable for photographic purposes. Upon service at the table, the raw egg should be immediately stirred into the chigae and it will cook immediately. I also "cheated" on the broth. I used more clams then normally and I added a dash of fish sauce instead of making a seperate stock of myulchi (sundried anchovies and dashima (kombu) broth. Turned out fine. This is what soondubu looks like at a restaurant before it gets to your table. The photo is contained within an article about tofu in general which I though might be an interesting read for my fellow tofu lovers. http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=1367

Hilarious! My six year will love this stuff, especially the Hello Kitty. (I hope she outgrows it in a few years. I hope she's not wearing Hello Kitty underwear when she's in her 20's. Even though I'm an Asian woman I will never understand ) Back on topic, good news is that even my American born and so far raised kids prefer bento type lunches to sandwiches. Not that there's anything wrong with sandwiches, I just find it easier to "sneak" in healthful stuff into a bento lunch.

Fair enough. I suppose on my trips to France I always assumed that I would be going back, which I will again and again unless something catastrophic happens, like I die or something. Convenience over quality isn't something I fall into lightly, especially when it comes to food. But when traveling with my children I've been known to embrace it at times as a godsend. I've never been one of those organized, prepared moms. Pack wholesome snacks for a long trip? What? This reminds me when we were in the Beaujolais once with our then 1 1/2 year old daughter, we ran out of milk and didn't notice untill 10:00 PM and I asked my husband you mean EVERYTHING is closed, NOTHING is open. You can take the girl out of the city, but the city out of the girl? I love the good old days more in theory sometimes because I'm not always prepared to practice it when my six year old is whining and my two year old is having a typical toddler moment. I think that Melton and I tried to explain the context in which Courtepaille might be okay. We never said it was GOOD.

Casper's cousin the hermaphrodite Pilsbury dough boy. Boy? The know it all Mr Owl definitively saying, "it takes three licks to get to the center of a tootsie role pop" when it's obvious his assertion doesn't have hard scientific ground to stand on. Even a three year old can tell he crunched and bit on the third "lick"!

Emeril knows his techniques. He did push it a little with the oversized plates, but that was his target audience folks who like more is more. I'm more of a less is more, keep it simple without taking out the "soul" of the dish sort of person. Regardless, I still think that Emeril is a talented and SKILLED chef. Anyway, I don't really have a problem with most celebrity chefs. I figure I'm not the target viewer and switch channels. Even the "cool" ones are in the business of promoting themselves and making money, aren't they? Flay and Ray are the only two that I found totally unwatchable.

Hilarious! I'm visualizing diners driving up in foot propelled cars... Priceless. Thanks for the laugh.

Living in Los Angeles I'm desperate even for a run of the mill French baguette. Sorry IMO (and every post I make is of course just that, my opinion but adding IMO sometimes seems to act as a social buffer) the overall quality of bread is awful in the States (yes, I've travelled a bit domestically so I know it's not just an LA thing ). Even the so called artisanal bread is so heavy they could be used as weapons.

Courtepaille is not that bad for the price and the convenience. They're usually off autoroutes for crying out loud. It's certainly better than Black Angus or Outback Steakhouse since we're talking about American style steaks. (yeah I know Outback is Australian so don't post a correction. ) If there was an equivilant in America I'd take road trips more often.

20 people for dinner? Do a whole salmon. For the sake of your own enjoyment I think it's best to stick with family style service. Prepare the whole salmon (clean and trim, or have your fishmonger do it for you), place it on a baking tray, prep the other ingredients and store them seperately in the morning. When your ready to bake compose your dish and pop it in the oven. If you're REALLY keen on the papillote, same concept. It's all in the mise en place. Portion out the salmon, prep all your ingredients, cut 20 sheets of parchment paper. You can do all of this the morning of. It really won't take that long to put it all together a la minute. With a little help 10-15 minutes max. Voila!

suzysushi- http://home.lkk.com/product/product_detail...=17&image3.y=14 This is it. Chili Bean Sauce or Doban Djan. Lee Kum Kee is the brand that I buy, because it's readily available at most supermarkets Asian or not in Los Angeles.

Error message for this link and the previous one. Help please. I'm interested in more bento box ideas for my kids.

I usually like mine to have a fairly simple selection of fish as well. But the version Soba is describing sounds tasty enough and for $16.00 it's definately worth a try. I make it at home and I order it when I go out. At home I make it with tuna or yellowtail, chiffonade of lettuce, kaiware sprouts, finely julliened carrot and finely jullienned cucumber, garnish with tobiko row. Sometimes I dress it with soy and wasabi. Sometimes with Kochujang thinned down with Rice vinegar.

In the manner of Diet for a Small Planet, I've often thought that Mussel farms could be the savior of starving third world nations everywhere. Just throw some sort of floating devices into the ocean with a long rope hanging from them and seed the ropes with mussel "eggs". They'd grow like underwater weeds and require virtually no upkeep. Easy enough to harvest by running one's gloved hand down the rope and detaching the mature specimens. Voila! Cheap and easy protein source for anyone that wants it. Has anyone done this yet? And if not, how come? ← For the same reason that mass-growing of various forms of edible seaweed and algae aren't being experimented enough with. ← What's the reason?

I like my sea cucumber raw with chili sauce. Is it eaten raw over there as well? I love, LOVE the big open outdoor markets in Asia! Thank you for posting the photos.

Hoenghwe is not at all dangerous to make at home. I grew up my mom's homemade stuff. That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger! My mom takes the opposite position, that the commercially made stuff can be bad for you. I've wathced her make hundreds of times. It's made with frozen skate that's readily available at the Korean market. You can have the butcher slice it for you, which I recommend. But my mom is a "purist" and does the labor intensive of cutting rock, hard frozen skate manually at home. The sliced skate is then "cooked" in vinegar, Heinz white vinegar (the big cheap jug)... I'll ask her what here seasoning mix is and post it later. It'll take about a week, she's out of country. EDIT: just noticed the gaejang part. That's easy to make at home and not dangerous. My mom makes the best. I'll a get a recipe for you too. If I forget just PM me.

Assuming you have a US passport you can stay for 3 months with a tourist visa, unless the Laws have changed like right now. So don't worry about the bi-monthly trips unless it's for leisure. PM me and I'll tell you what my impression is of the three month limit. You can fine cuisine du terroir and cuisine gastronomique under one roof, especially in the regions in France that are known for the terroir based cooking. Lyon is a shining example of this. But really at this level of restaurant, the ingredients will be top notch wherever you are. As for refining your techniques, you can do this just as well in a one star place as you can in a three star place. Or even at a place that's very close to having a star. So I wouldn't fixate on the number of stars so much. Although the reality is when you get back home the number of stars will look pretty good on your resume. What you learn is still more important than that. Things to prepare... A place to stage first. I don't know how old you are, but age can be an obstacle, not an impossible one, but I'm trying to be realistic with you. I would suggest when trying to set up a stage, humility and eagerness to learn should be thouroughly expressed. The big names that you worked for in America won't matter so much over there, but you can use it in a different way. Tell them you really want to refine your skills in a way that you don't think is possible in the States (a little cultural ego stroking doesn't hurt). Don't give them the impression that you will try to attach yourself to the Chef, it can be a turn off. Remember at this level the entire line is pretty damn good at what they do. It's not like the chef is doing all the "hands off" work, highly unlikely. So even the cold section guy is performing up to snuff, don't forget to watch him too and on up the line. Learn from the entire kitchen system. A place to stay...

No, but it would qualify as a 'this is your brain on drugs' moment! The best outdoor bud probably does come from Humboldt, Mendocino and Shasta. But nowadays, geography is completely irrelevant, because so many people have moved to an indoor grow, and you can grow the same freakishly potent doobage whether you live in Alaska or Cali. ← I had some hydroponically grown stuff in Tejas. At least that's what I was told. WOW. Potent stuff. I'm old fashioned I like the mellow high, smoke it slow throughout the day.

I'm tired of LA for now Seoul- Myong Dong- It's in the center of the city. Pretty dense with restaurants and shops. This is where you find Lotte Department store. It's HUGE. Shinsa Dong- Colleg area. Fun street food, bars, clubs and of course restaurants. Kangnam- Apkujung area Uber trendy, filthy rich kids. Over priced restaurants, straining to be trendy. But hey, if you got the dough it can be fun Of course the outdoor markets. Namdaemun and Tongdaemun. These are really fun to go to. Lots of bargain shopping and produce. Itaewon- It's the place for foreigners. You'll find a concentration of foreign restaurants here. And a ton of bargains on clothing, footwear, luggage...

I forgot to add Olvera Stree to my downtown LA list. It's not a neighborhood, but it's a slice of Mexican history in LA, which is important. There is also Grand Central Market on Hill. Great place to stock up on Mexican/Central American pantry items, cheap produce and inexpensive food. One more thing about K-Town (Korean town) it's definately one of the more 24 hour parts of town. La Brea- South of Beverly (that area) a little block of some trendy and expensive Vintage shops, clothes and furniture, some food. This is the area where the "shitty" LA attitude becomes noticeable (mostly folks who aren't native Angelenos, by the way. they try too hard to be soooo LA ) West of La Brea there is Third Street and Beverly Blvd. Not exactly walking and eating, more like driving and stopping in sections to walk and eat. Mid range restaurants some fine dining. This is where you will probably run into a "celebrity" or two. Trendy shops, prices mid to expensive. Melrose- Way back when, when I was in High School it wasn't as commercially developed. A few shops here and there. Vintage clothing stores. Now it's really for tourists, but they do have some cool vintage clothes shops which can also be found on Third and Beverly. Fairfax- South of Olympic. If you're interested in Ethiopian, there is a little row of shops and restaurants. In Beverly Hills there is another Beverly (can't remember if it's street or blvd, easy enough to find). It's a nice little walking and eating "node" in that area. You can find pretty inexpensive food and have coffee, people watch.

I never get the munchies. Well that should be past tense, my smoking days are over, well if I'm at a party and it's just there. I have no discipline. Anyway, highschool. We were partying. Bong and some joints. One guy was smoking Thai buds...um... a little while later he's drinking the bong water! Would that qualify as a "marijuana munchie"? Is the stuff from Humboldt still the best in Cali *sigh*

SF- I'd add Union Street and The Wharf, the kids love it. Does SF have one of the "best" tourist wharfs in the States? DaddyA tells us more about Vancouver...