Lady T

What a delightful first post! Welcome . ← Twice welcome! Had you, by the way, thought of taking *two* Nilla wafers and squirting the canned cheese between, to make a sandwich? All sorts of things you could use to season the cheese before the second wafer comes down to hold it in place, too...

Would there be any practical purpose to occasionally do a sort of 'split-level' menu choice, so that traditionalists could be happy without anything they would experience as jarring, and folks who like their flavors unfettered by what others are used to could do the same? I'm okay with virtually anything on a sushi plate if it's fresh and it tastes good and it's not actively trying to get away while I'm trying to eat it...but I can see how some experiments would be startling to other parties. Sushi's a huge subject, with room to make everyone happy, surely?

Perhaps the McCainBurger should include a slice of crow? I like the idea of Spam as a variation, particularly combined with that thin slice of pineapple...

Wow, that's tough. But it'd have to be my Wusthof knives, and the block where they reside. Those knives and that block have followed me through 26 years of residences, and relationships, and jobs, and so many many meals. I can replace the skillets and the pots (I'd probably take the opportunity to upgrade 'em to heavier-weight items)...but those knives are my friends and partners.

Kona coffee is one of the gentlest and most delightful wake-ups I know, particularly brewed strong with generous amounts of cream and honey. One of the best sources I've used is: http://www.wingskonacoffee.com/ This stuff will work, undiluted, with any creamy cheese like Brie -- particularly if you partner it with something sweet like dried apricots or tart like cranberries. I like to doctor it, but that's up to personal tastes. (Edited for a last minute spelling error.)

White sauce works well for me. (Drawn butter calls too much attention to what's actually there, as of this year's Julbord, anyhow. I still have trouble getting past the whole cooked-in-lye thing.) Better yet if there are a few carrots with dill on the plate, and a few chunks of roasted potato, and some serious aquavit in the glass.

Lady T, good Champagne goes with anything! ← No argument about that at all, at all! I did a half recipe of James Beard's sauteed chicken with tarragon; served that with a baked potato and sauteed spinach and an inexpensive but surprisingly serviceable and good Chardonnay (and again, just for emphasis: a glass or three of good Champagne works here too. Judiu is precisely right.). Dessert was homemade pumpkin pie, which I don't stop making until Ash Wednesday at least... Damn, it's good -- and damn, it helps fight off the inward cold.

Hot chocolate in the morning. What accompanies it almost doesn't matter, but hot buttered toast is really wonderful. One of the simplest soups in the world: finely minced shallots and two or three kinds of mushrooms cooked in butter, plus good chicken broth, S + P, and finely chopped fresh thyme (all to taste; sorry, can't begin to approximate quantities). Simmer briefly until flavors work together. Irresistible. A bit of dairy/half & half/whipping cream simmered slowly in will give you a cream of mushroom soup that will wean one away from Campbell's forever if that hasn't happened already). A tiny bit of chopped parsley is good, and hot buttered toast is also good. Your fave stinky cheese, plus fruit, plus the rest of that toast makes a good finale. (Okay: I can be bread-centric too, especially in cold weather and especially if it's my own home baking.) Above all in the cold nights: roast chicken, well salted and peppered, slathered with an olive oil and lemon juice mixture, and with lemon wedges and a bundle of your herb(s) of choice stuffed inside. Include roasted potatoes and your favorite steamed buttered green veg, and stand back. Good Champagne goes wth both that lunch and those dinners.

Mince. Doctored with extra fruit, butter, and booze (Grand Marnier, this year). Seriously wonderful hot, with pour cream and very hot fresh coffee the morning after.

Good heavens. I've been eating short-grain brown rice cooked in water (with a good solid lump of butter and a little salt) as a breakfast cereal for decades on end, with whatever fresh fruit is in season and a little yogurt (peach is wonderful). I've been eating short-grain brown rice cooked in a combination of chicken broth and white wine -- with a touch more of that same butter and salt, and a shallot sliced into the mix -- as a vegetable with my meals (particularly nice with most kinds of fish), also for decades on end. Also works a treat in tandem with wild rice and sautee'd mushrooms. That second brown rice recipe is the foundation of one of my staples when the paychecks aren't biting: Poverty Casserole, the baked agglomeration of beans/rice/whole-kernel corn/garlic/green salsa/cheese that has kept me in one piece many times until things got better. I dare to state that the only white rices currently stocked in my kitchen are the Carnaroli I use in risotto and the wonderful perfumey long-grain Basmati I find on Devon Avenue in Little India (a Chicago neighborhood). I don't use either one as often as the brown short-grain, truly. Where ya been, girlfriend? If you buy it as fresh as possible (Whole Paycheck is good for this, I've found) and keep it in the fridge to guard against rancidity, brown rice can be wonderfully nuttily good; cook it slowly enough in enough flavorful liquid and it doesn't crunch -- it offers more resistance than the white stuff, but it's a whole 'nother food on its own merits. Enjoy!

For anyone into Sixties/Seventies kitsch, the Heartland Cafe, in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the North Side, is fun, moderately priced, and has plenty for a vegetarian to enjoy -- including some pretty decent (yea, even prizewinning, though I find it a touch bland and sweet) chili. Check the nightly specials menu for all sorts of cool seasonal stuff. Not far from that location, south and west a bit in the Indian neighborhood that centers roughly around the intersection of Devon and Western Avenues, is Hema's Kitchen. Seriously wonderful, and seriously cheap. (Allot plenty of time, though, because the service is seriously slow. Good-natured as all get out...but slow.) If you've got the cash to spend, the suggestion of Trotter's is plenty apt. Amazing combinations of flavor and texture, drop-dead quality, and a wine list to read like the Great American Novel (almost that long, too). Rick Bayless' two restaurants, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, in the River North neighborhood, have all sorts of meatless options. Enjoy!

Potato wedges, marinated in olive oil, salted and peppered, and baked at 375 degrees F for a half hour or so. With a nice big splodge of good mayonnaise for dipping and a glass or two of round rich white wine. I'm gonna be okay. Real soon.

Now that is hard-core. Wow.

The Long Island Rainbow is a maneuver not to be attempted by armatures, or people who want to keep their jobs. Here is a quick how to… The Long Island Rainbow 1. Have nothing but distain and loathing for your boss. 2. Have another job lined up because you will be fired if caught. 3. Scoop ice into largest vessel within arms reach. Place on bar mat in front of you. 4. Grab the well vodka between your middle and index finger of your left hand. 5. Grab the well gin (it’s right next to the vodka.) between your left index and thumb. Hoist. 6. Snatch the rotgut rum in the O.K. sign of your right hand. 7. Wedge the house tequila in the top part of the figure 8 that your thumb and pointer finger make. 8. Jiggle the bottles until the speed pourers are pointing vaguely in the same direction. 9. Upend those motherfuckers. The hills and valleys of your knuckles should be touching, the bottles perfectly vertical. 10.When the glass is almost half full take a deep breath. 11. Drop the bottles two (2) inches into the glass, and then in one big fluid motion make a heart in the air with your fists. 12. The bigger the “humps” on the top of the heart are the more liquid will “rainbow”. Done properly you can hit the ceiling, screw your boss, punish a pesky bar back, and get the hot chick in the white shirt soaking wet. 13. In reverse order (tequila, rum, gin, vodka) put bottles back in the speed rail. 14. Grab the triple sec and the cobra at the same time. 15. fill the glass with sour mix and 2 oz of triple sec. 16 Top with A SPLASH of coke. 17. Toss a straw in there, and garnish with a lemon. When done properly there should be about 7oz. of booze in the drink and 12-15 everywhere else. ← Good God. Now that is a drink and a half. Beautiful theater, though. How many of those do you sell in the average evening? And how many does it take before the average patron needs a cab home?

I cook rice by ear: as liquid is absorbed, the burbling turns to hissing, and then, juuuuust before silence, it's time to uncover, and stir/fluff, and serve. (The above doesn't apply to risotto, when I want and need the entire symphony of sight/sound/taste/touch/smell. There have been evenings when I almost had more fun cooking the stuff than eating. Almost, I said.)

Loving me some baby back ribs. An entire slab. With cole slaw, and potatoes roasted in wedges with olive oil/herbs. All for me. Not sharing, not this time. Yum.

If you would, please, move over, Bubbles. I brought a couple of bags of marshmallows to roast over that bonfire. And the long forks on which to roast 'em. Somebody else figure out how to set up a fondue pot with serious chocolate melting in it, so that we can swirl the hot marshmallows therein. Serious medicine called for here, I think...

Hang tough, Lilija. You know the correct answer, of course: "Yes. I just did. If I need to, I'll do it again. And your problem with that is...WHAT...again?" The threat of imminent murder-preceded-by-week-of-torture is all in the tone of voice. It's easy...

Is there room for one more for the whole weekend, including the 'Nasty Bits' dinner at Blackbird and the Saturday event at Immanuel? (Edited to match my quotation marks.)

Wow. I'm with that poster upthread: if I do in fact go to heaven, that's the kitchen that'll be waiting for me there -- along with lots of friends with whom to cook and eat. Beautiful blog, ma'am.

That one's a poser. My suggestion would be to source the best, freshest, safest raw milk, then do the churning yourself under conditions you control yourself. Try Googling sources up in Wisconsin, maybe, and following up on 'em by phone?

Listening carefully...I live about three (3) blocks from the Evanston Farmers' Market and about six (6) blocks from the Evanston outlet of Whole Foods, and one half block from First Evanston Liquors. All I need is Fresser and the 'Mobile, and there's almost nothing I can't help do in the way of provisioning. Listening with a biiiiiiig grin on my face --

Damn. I've enjoyed that place every time I've been there. Hope Bubala's got something else interesting up his sleeve...

And you know, of course, that an early draft of that famous and thought-provoking British choral work of the last century was titled A Child of Our Tzimmes, yes? No? Ah well. It was a good try. Let me state, for the record, that (even with, or maybe because of, my U of C-founded capacity to equivocate) I like both latkes and hamantaschen. My question, however, subdivides the conflict: Sour cream, or applesauce? In equal immoderation, of course. Discuss.

I made three for my cherished peeps out in Maine last week: spiced pumpkin, and plain smooth rich egg custard, and mince with added fruit and a solid jolt of Grand Marnier. They're all good when you've got the need.