SuzySushi

Add one for me: Our local Costco has begun carrying the latest revised editions of the Wei-Chuan cookbook series from Taiwan. I picked up one I didn't already have, Chinese Cooking for Beginners. Only Wei-Chuan could consider made-from-scratch mooncakes a beginner's level recipe!

The most popular cakes in Hawaii are chiffon layer cakes with tropical-flavored fillings/toppings such as guava, lilikoi (passion fruit), and coconut. Chocolate dobash torte, a layer cake with chocolate filling and frosting, is another favorite. Tropical fruits are also widely used in quick breads such as mango bread and papaya bread; these often contain macadamia nuts as well.

Happy Birthday Ben Sook!!! We went to a birthday party last night. We brought Costco roast chicken; other guests brought fried wonton, ahi limu poke (cubes of seasoned raw tuna with ogo seaweed), tofu and beansprout salad, dinner rolls, brie, hummus, and wine. Instead of the traditional birthday cake, there were pumpkin praline cheesecake, pumpkin mousse cake, and homemade brownies. We thought of bringing mooncakes (they actually had gift boxed assortments on sale at Costco, from mainland China), but decided against it since we didn't know how receptive the other guests would be. On the drive over, we howled at the moon. [Edited to add a few items I forgot.]

By genre/ethnicity first, then by size and/or author within each group. I've grouped together books on American food, Mexican and South American, European food by cuisine, Middle Eastern food, Asian food by cuisine (with the largest sections devoted to Chinese and Japanese cooking), then a shelf of baking and dessert books and holiday cooking. I have a pretty good memory and can usually lay my hands on any given book within minutes -- unless someone else has moved it!

I use a neutral vegetable oil for cooking Chinese food. Interesting the comments on the difference in flavor between Chinese peanut oils nad Planters. Maybe that's wht I was never impressed by using peanut oil to cook Chinese food at home! (Gotta go get an imported brand!) I'm also curious about the couple of comments on using extra-virgin olive oil. The one time I used extra-virgin olive oil to stir-fry a Mediterranean-style dish, I scorched my wok irreparably and had to buy a new one!

I'm not in the restaurant business, but the weirdest request I ever witnessed took place years ago in a NYC restaurant that specialized in authentic Brittany-style crepes. Clients at a nearby table loudly berated a waitress because there wasn't any maple syrup available! ("Crepes are pancakes, right?")

Yes, I think most Americans misunderstand Japanese cuisine -- but like smallworld indicates, most Americans also misunderstand "more familiar" cuisines like Italian (pizza and spaghetti), Mexican (tacos), and even Chinese (egg rolls and sweet & sour pork)! Even here in Hawaii, where Japanese food is a deep part of the local culture, most Japanese restaurants serve only certain dishes and not the full range of Japanese cuisine. Also, in my opinion, Japanese restaurants in Hawaii fall into five categories: 1) Restaurants that cater to Japanese tourists who are unadventurous and want familiar food -- some of these are expensive kaiseki restaurants, and others are cheap ramen & gyoza places. 2) Restaurants that cater to American and other Western tourists -- such as Benihana-type places. Many of these are not owned and/or staffed by Japanese. Japanese restaurants in hotels tend to be either type 1 or type 2. 3) "Local" Japanese okazu-ya operated by Japanese who have been in Hawaii for generations. These are kind of like diners* (maybe in Japan you'd call them "family restaurants"?), and the food is not high quality. 4) A handful of restaurants whose chefs are trained in traditional Japanese food cuisine, that serve "authentic" traditional Japanese dishes. 5) Another handful of restaurants with Japanese chefs who prepare their own style of "new wave" Japanese cuisine (often with "fusion" or European influences). As Culinista notes, most restaurants serve the same menu all year. However, a few do pay attention to seasonality by offering special dishes based on the availability of seasonal ingredients. As far as my personal understanding of Japanese cuisine goes, my initial education came from dining, shopping, and cooking side-by-side Japanese friends (and their mothers!) in the USA and Japan. They took me to their favorite restaurants, I visited or stayed in their homes, went shopping with them, helped cook the family meals. They taught me how to cook rice in a saucepan, how to make dashi from scratch, how to clean squid, how to judge the temperature of cooking oil with a chopstick.... all first-hand lessons that were invaluable. I've followed that up by reading all the cookbooks and essays I can get my hands on. And I'm still learning new things, even after cooking Japanese food for more than 30 years.

(I can hear the uproarious laughter now....)

In cases like this, I just assume someone at the store level is ignorant of the difference. Recently, we've been buying wedges of Appenzeller cheese at our local Safeway. The store stickers say "Swiss cheese." Yeah, it's from Switzerland, but...

Little trick I saw in a magazine just this month: use a mesh tea strainer to sprinkle confectioners' sugar or cocoa over cakes or candies. A ball-type tea strainer also makes a good holder for a bouquet garni or whole spices you want to flavor a stew, but need to pull out before serving.

I love it! Keep it coming!

I jumped here from Torakris's thread on Planning Japanese Meals. Like Kris, I make joubi sai dishes (such as hijiki, yaki nasu, etc.) frequently but my family usually finishes them the same day they're prepared! And because we don't eat Japanese food every day, there isn't really a point to prepare large quantities ahead of time and keep them in the fridge to use later in the week. For gohan no tomo, we always have kizami nori (confetti-like nori strips) and furikake in the house, and I'm partial to House brand ume-jiso paste in tubes. We used to use nori tsukudani, too, but that has too much salt and sugar for our current dietary habits.

Hmmmm.... I haven't done a formal meal for some time now, but when I do, I follow Japanese conventions of meal planning with different types of courses, cooking methods, and colors. I've never served quite as many courses as on your full list, however. For instance, I'd serve suimono OR miso soup -- not both at the same meal. Likewise, I'd probably do a sunomono OR an aemono, not both. For everyday Japanese meals, I tend to serve "sansai" without the "ichijuu"! We have miso soup when dining out, but rarely at home -- it's just too much food for everyday, especially when my daughter follows up her dinners with juice or milk. Unless it's a one-pot or one-dish meal (such as sukiyaki, donburi, curry, or noodles), I'll do a main course and two side dishes, plus rice and pickles. I don't consciously plan out the colors or cooking methods, but I suppose from so much exposure to Japanese culture from cooking and eating with Japanese friends, I've absorbed the precepts of Japanese meal planning so they've become second-nature.

Indian and Southeast Asian markets carry jars of tamarind concentrate, which can be reconstituted to use as tamarind juice. The brand in my fridge is CTF (Combine Thai Foods) from Thailand. Latin-American markets also carry beverage cans of tamarind nectar (usually Goya or Jumex brands), but I believe that has sugar added.

Last I recall, there are special rules that need to be followed for an "offical" eGullet get-together, and this board no longer seems to have a dedicated moderator since SKChai resigned... I'll PM you, but weren't you just asking about soul food places (like Molly's Smokehouse in Wahiawa)? I also haven't yet tried the new Cuban place in Chinatown. Have either of you?

Here in Hawaii, you have to distinguish between hotel banquet and community potluck events. I haven't been to a hotel banquet in a long time, but the "inoffensive" menu generally runs to some kind of chicken breast, sauteed baby vegetables, a fairly dry and flavorless rice pilaf (maybe with a few strands of wild rice thrown in), mesclun salad, and a frozen white chocolate dessert on raspberry coulis. Community potluck events feature a groaning board mixing local and ethnic traditions: hamburgers, teriyaki chicken, kalua pig (shredded smoked pork), kalbi (Korean BBQ shortribs), chili, sashimi (almost always maguro/ahi/tuna) and/or sushi (nigiri, maki, and/or inari sushi -- here called "cone sushi"), various kinds of poke (seasoned raw fish cubes), lomi-lomi salmon (chopped salted salmon mixed with chopped tomatoes and scallions), possibly a platter of shrimp or crab legs, chow mein or yakisoba, steamed white rice, maybe fried rice as well, maybe gyoza (potstickers) or shu mai (steamed Chinese dumplings), maybe fried spring rolls and/or Vietnamese summer rolls, potato salad, macaroni salad, green salad. For dessert, there are assorted pies and cakes, cookies, and always brownies. Edited to add: Oh yes, based on MizDucky's post below, there's also a platter of cut-up fruit, usually watermelon, other melons, and pineapple.

Over 250, mostly in my "Food" folder. Some, like eGullet, I visit often. Others I've noted for reference but rarely go back to. Besides eGullet, some of my favorites include: AsiaRecipe.com The Cook's Thesaurus Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages International Vegetarian Union - Vegan Recipes Around the World Mellieur du Chef (in French) The Recipe Link SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle Food Pages) SOAR RecipeSource The Star Online CyberKuali (Malaysia) Tokyo Food Page USDA U.S. Nutrient Database Viet World Kitchen Yasuko-San's Home Cooking (Japanese)

I agree about the French bread from St. Germain and Bale. I used to get my Italian bread from Donato's restaurant in Manoa (I'd call them and they'd sell me a few loaves), but sadly that is no more. I'm not a ciabatta fan so can't answer to that!

Since no one has yet addressed the place of fruit in Japan and Japanese culture, let me jump in and say that from my experience, the Japanese treat fruit much the way Koreans do. Fruit is often expensive in Japan, and each piece will be chosen with care. Fruits are typically cut up (or sectioned) and shared, even a single mandarin orange. After a formal dinner once, I was served three grapes -- not a handful or a bunch, as Americans would serve. They were kyoho grapes, extremely large, juicy grapes prized in Japan for their perfumy flavor and definitely worthy of comment! In Japan and China, certain fruits also have symbolic meanings, for instance, mandarin oranges with a stem and leaf are given as New Year's gifts for good fortune.

As others have said, it's virtually impossible to eliminate all sodium from one's diet because sodium is a natural component of most foods. Typically, a "low sodium" diet will restrict sodium to 2,000 mg a day; a "very low sodium" diet will carry a restriction of 500 to 1,000 mg. Find out which diet your FIL is on -- there's a vast difference in flexibility! Easy changes include no salt added in cooking. (Find out if your FIL is allowed to have potassium-based salt substitutes. Don't use them in cooking, but if allowed, they can be sprinkled on at the table.) Use lemon juice, vinegar, garlic, herbs, and spices to add more flavor. Avoid salty foods like pickles, prepared sauces, instant ramen (but you weren't going to use that anyway, right?), bouillon powder, etc. Also watch out for "hidden sodium" in baked goods made with baking powder or baking soda. If you want to bake your own, health food stores carry baking powder that does not contain sodium. One website I've used for recipes is HERE. It's written for congestive heart failure patients, but the recipes are all-purpose.

Nice catch!

Pablum was an instant baby cereal developed by Canadian pediatricians in the 1930s and marketed in Canada and the United Statesas the ideal "first food" at least through the baby boom generation. It was nutritional, but very bland.

Hmmmnnn.... you wouldn't like my stepson, then. He's a tattoo artist & body piercer, and the uniform he decided upon for his shop is a black chef's coat over black pants. He says it's sturdy, practical, and makes him look cool yet professional.

Something tells me you're going to have some trouble with this on future flights. I would stick to sandwiches / cookies / fruits / vegetables, and only things that don't need to stay cold. Anything that's vaguely gel- or liquid-like is going to get confiscated. ← Hmmm, I never thought about the ice thing. I have a travel pack( from the pharmacutical company) that has two small ice packs and a place for my Byetta( diabetic medicine). My Diabetic meds MUST stay cold so I wonder what I'm going to do. I'm taking a flight next week too. ← Cali, like others have said, best to call the airlines ahead of time. The TSA's rules are not clear as to whether ice packs constitute permitted "diabetes supplies." It could be that the hard plastic ice packs are permissible, while the gel-type ones are not. Best to ask! You should also carry a written prescription from your doctor for all medications and supplies, and keep them in their original containers with their prescribing labels that have your name on them.

Actually, thyme leaves are pretty close in flavor!