SuzySushi

Ohhh... one of my pet food peeves about my otherwise wonderfully foodie husband is that he likes his meals to be "piping hot" and often reheats his plate in the microwave even though I've JUST portioned out dinner. ARGH!!!!!!!

Here's my submission: traditional Breton Buckwheat Crêpes (Crêpes Sarrasin). Batter recipe is: 1-1/4 cups milk 3 eggs 1/2 cup buckwheat flour 1/4 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 3 tablespoons melted butter Combine all ingredients except butter and whisk well. Pour into a bowl. Let stand 1 hour. Whisk in butter. Heat a lightly oiled 10" crêpe pan over medium-high heat. Pour in a scant 1/4 cup batter and tilt pan quickly to cover the bottom. Cook 2 to 3 minutes until bubbles appear on the surface and the bottom is golden brown. Turn and cook the other side about 15 seconds. Makes about 12 crêpes. I filled these with Swiss cheese and ham, rolled them up, and finished them with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

And don't forget the popovers while you're at it... one of the first recipes I learned how to make in home ec class.

My husband and my daughter have insulin-dependent diabetes, and I cook for all of us. Best thing you can do is find out from SIL and MIL exactly what their dietary restrictions are. Are they on a fixed carb diet? Is SIL counting carbs and adjusting her insulin to fit? Do they have other dietary restrictions? (A lot of "low-carb" recipes promoted during the low-carb craze are very high in fat, which is not good for diabetic diets.) Are they using sugar substitutes instead of sugar in recipes?

So, we're* finally heading off to San Francisco in July for a 10-day visit, staying with my stepson in the Potrero district the first few nights (THANKS, guys, for the neighborhood eatery recommendations), then driving up to Napa & Sonoma with a 2-night stay in Calistoga. We've been to SF and wine country many times, though not for several years. However, our flight arrives from Honolulu at 6:15 a.m. on a weekday. We're not due at SIL's house till 6 p.m. Where should we go/eat in between, especially early breakfast spots? We'll be picking up a rental car at the airport and were thinking of driving into town to check out the new-to-us Ferry Marketplace, but I just read that most of the shops don't open till 10 a.m. We'll also probably need a shady place to park and catch a few winks. Ideas? * We = me, my husband, and our 9 year old daughter.

It's meant to be eaten. Keeps the candy from sticking to your fingers when picking it up.

Croquettes. In white sauce. It's the middle of the night here, and I woke up dreaming about them. OMG, how could I have forgotten them? We had them about twice a month when I was a kid.

I'm not familiar with that brand, but do you mean edible rice paper?

I"m not sure if they meant to imply this in the article or not, but do the cheesecakes have transfats in them? If so, what ingredient would they use that has transfats? Margarine instead of butter? I guess the crusts could use margarine. I wouldn't think there would be transfats in the cheesecake portion. ← I took the article to mean that they're reformulating other foods on their menus, much like fast-food chains and food manufacturers have been racing to eliminate trans fats from their cooking processes and entire lines of packaged cookies, crackers, frozen dinners, and French fries. Whether or not the cheesecakes have trans fats, Cheesecake Factory isn't changing those recipes (or cheesecake portion sizes, I presume).

Here ya go: Cheesecake Factory Is Slimming Down Responding to changing times, Cheesecake Factory is testing a new menu in Los Angeles allowing customers to ask for smaller portions of a dozen popular dishes, and has also added completely trans fat-free food menus.

Gotta love your subtitle!

Also, check out the recommendations in Let's Go: Paris or its companion volume Let's Go: France. My copies of the books are more than 10 years old, but I've found them to be pretty reliable guides for traveling on a budget. Restaurants are arranged by arrondissments and the books even have decent neighborhood walking maps.

I've always thought the quintessential Australian grilled food was Shrimp on the Barbie! But here's a link to a database with lots of Australian (and other) recipes: Food Down Under.

While you guys are at it, I'd love to get hold of a tried & true recipe for a really dense, heavy, dark multigrain bread (not plain pumpernickel) baked in a bread machine. We have a new bread machine and my husband can't find the recipe he used to bake dark bread in our old one.

My first wild strawberries, when I was 22, in Rome, Italy. Absolutely ambrosia.

La lot leaves are a unique herb. You might be able to find them at a Vietnamese market, but if you can't, reasonable substitutes include fresh shiso leaves (from a Japanese or Korean market) or grape leaves (rinse first to get off most of the salt). Here's a link to a page on Vietnamese herbs.

All I can say is, boy are you dedicated! I would've given up long ago. (In fact, I did give up long ago.) Yay, Apicio!!!

Crepes are so retro that they're new again. Several crepes cookbooks came out just last year, and there's at least one Japanese chain of restaurants that specializes in crepes.

I have to go drag out the tarragon and make myself a pot of vichyssoise (I've always liked that soup -- real comfort food). Come to think of it, Craig Claiborne's recipe for vichyssoise doesn't call for tarragon. I just looked it up in my copy of the NYT cookbook, inherited from my deceased mother-in-law and held together with duct tape. It must have been well-loved in its day.

A little off-topic, but the bright red uniforms were, like those in ancient Sparta, designed to hide the color of blood and promote more bravery (or is it bravado?) among soldiers.

NB: Square Meals and American Gourmet, two out-of-print cookbooks/culinary histories by Jane Stern (the latter with her husband Michael) are lovely repositories of retro foods from the 1920s through 1950s.

Coquilles St. Jacques are retro??? Oh, the horror!!! I love making those as a starter to a dinner party.

The tofu isn't really a "substitute" as the recipe suggestion is right on the package of seasoning mix. It's really tasty and I make it for my vegetarian son-in-law wheneve he visits Hawaii. I've mailed him care packages of the mix, too. I think vegetarians at the party will be pleased because it's something out-of-the-ordinary to do with tofu.

"Vegetarian Hawaiian entree" is almost an oxymoron because so many authentic Hawaiian entrees rely on a combination of meat and vegetables. A couple of thoughts, however. Noh Foods (www.nohfoods.com) makes a Hawaiian Poke Mix that combines dried red seaweed with Hawaiian salt and chiles. It's generally mixed with cubes of raw tuna to make a popular appetizer called Poke (POH-key), but it's also good with cubes of tofu. You should be able to find it at Uwajimaya. Portuguese Bean Soup is a very popular local dish. It's usually made with smoked ham and sausage, but you can make a reasonable facsimile with veggie sausage (such as Boca brand or others if they're available in your area). There's a nice recipe at http://onokinegrindz.typepad.com/ono_kine_...de_feijao_.html Noh is also the company that makes powdered haupia (coconut pudding) mix -- that's a dessert, I know, not an entree or salad. I seem to recall posting a from-scratch recipe in another thread. Hawaii isn't big on salads except for the ubiquitous potato-macaroni salad (a combination of potato salad and macaroni salad, heavy on the mayonnaise). A tropical fruit salad is always a good bet, though. For fancier presentation, you can pile it into half pineapple shells.

Hmmm.... my own personal ethnic cuisine would be a combination of Jewish deli (or is it Russian peasant?) fare like kasha, or a bowl of sour cream with cubes of hot potato; combined with Chinese stir-fries--especially anything served with noodles; and classic Japanese dishes (the first food I learned to cook first-hand from friends). Eclectic ethnic?