mizducky

Unpleasantly strong is polite. ← Glad you said that first. I thought I was down with acquired-taste soft drinks because I enjoyed Dr. Brown's Cel-ray Tonic, but then I ran into Moxie and knew I'd met my match.

I found out some entertaining stuff when I did a little research into the history of Salisbury steak, the hamburger's (supposedly) dressier relative. Turns out it got that name from a 19th-century food-faddist physician by the name of Dr. James Salisbury, who believed that vegetables and starches were bad for you, and instead advocated a diet of "the muscle pulp of lean beef made into cakes and broiled," three times a day. Sounds appetizing when put that way, no? Here's a link with more info. Meanwhile, this Wikipedia article confirms my suspicion that most people these days use the terms "Salisbury steak" and "hamburger steak" more-or-less interchangeably, and that the only real differences between a hamburger per se and a hamburger/Salisbury steak is that the former is on a bun and surrounded with informal connotations, and the latter is on a plate topped with gravy with a side of (alleged) upscale pretentions. Though the exemplars of Salisbury steaks I endured through many elementary school hot lunches certainly undermines any of those pretentions. Oh, and the tail end of the above-cited Wikipedia article mentions several regional variants that I think would be worth you checking into -- including the Japanese take on hamburger steak, and the legendary Hawaiian plate lunch favorite known as the loco moco. By the way, somebody mentioned a vertical hamburger grill in a previous post ... the most legendary grill of that sort is arguably the one at Louis' Lunch, a venerable old-school diner in New Haven Connecticut which lays claim to producing the "original hamburger." (Yes, I know that claim is way disputed. I'm just the messenger here, folks!). Here's Louis' Lunch's home page ... wow, that was a bonanza of apostrophes in there, wasn't it? Edited to add -- oh wait, that was you the original poster who asked about the vertical hamburger grill! Well ... now you know.

That's one hell of a freakin' awesome lobster roll. Though it had better be, given what you went through to get its contents.

Hurrah! Can't wait to absorb all that Down East flavor ... not to mention the food!

I suspect they were king oyster mushrooms a.k.a. eryngii mushrooms. They are big and meaty with a tendency to toughness unless braised into submission; the big fat stems, when sliced into slabs, can indeed look a lot like steak fries. Pity they didn't cook them long enough, because they can be quite nice if handled right. But it sounds like this restaurant is not about the newfangled ingredients but the old standbys anyway.

I'm a fond follower of the New York Jewish fan of Chinese(/American) food trend, but I hadn't even thought about this chow fun business. Now that you mention it, though, the only time I remember eating chow fun growing up in the New York Metro area was the few times I'd travel in to Manhattan to meet my dad for lunch, and he would take me to Wo Hop (his office was right near Chinatown). I don't recall ever having chow fun at any of the suburban (Rockland and Bergen County) Chinese restaurants my family frequented when we dined all together. Though for all I know, that might be because my parents simply didn't order it at those places ... isn't memory a funny thing?

Random food trivia: one of my cookbooks tells me that the name of the dish "imam bayildi" translates as "The Imam Fainted," and that he fainted, according to legend, when he learned how much (expensive) olive oil went into preparing this dish--as you've probably experienced, eggplant can exhibit a spongelike capacity for sucking up a ton of oil. Amsterdam's Pride celebration looks like one helluva lotta fun.

Just caught up. Wow. Terrific blog. I so want to go to Amsterdam one of these days. I'm digging how your interests in music and food overlap, as those two interests also overlap in my life. In fact, one of the many reasons why I'd like to visit Amsterdam one of these days is the fact that one of my musician friends performs there on a semi-regular basis. Thanks for making the idea of such a visit even more tempting.

Aw shucks. Be under no illusions, folks--I have my share of bewildered and exasperated moments with my friend here. And it's equally (if not more so) a credit to him that we work out our moments of mutual exasperation with something approaching grace. I was fortunate to find excellent freshpicked corn at a local farmer's market yesterday. That joyed both E's and my hearts--I hadn't had corn on the cob in ages, and these were goooooooooood. I deliberately overcooked the ahi so that it was just a tiny bit pink in the middle--I thought raw-looking fish would freak E out. He commented that it wasn't something he'd be inspired to order in a restaurant in future. On the other hand, he did eat every last bit of his serving. Heh. Actions speak louder than words. We had a big positive discussion about healthier eating patterns last night. For the time being, no more cookies or sugar-sweetened soft drinks will be entering the house, and I'll be keeping a supply of ready-to-eat carrot and celery sticks etc. on hand at all times (the veggie-sticks thing started him down the "oh, that's too much fuss" route again, but I quickly reiterated the "That's my job" and "you deserve the fuss" mantras, and mollified him again, at least for the time being). Heh. The weight loss thing seems to be motivating E more than the healthier eating thing, but as long as I can help steer those motivations, I think it's all to the good. Roast chicken tonight. With promises of good chicken salad in the future. And I also bought a bunch of candycane beets from the farmer's market--I'm thinking I'll do either roots or greens tonight, maybe both--we'll see.

The first, last, and only time I have been in a Red Lobster was when a business acquaintance asked me what I wanted in repayment for a big favor; I said I wanted a lobster dinner. Little did I imagine that he would cheap out by taking me to a RL. That had to be the skankiest lobster I had ever eaten, confirming all my deepest prejudices about such places. Haven't been back since. Maybe if somebody gave me a gift card, I would be persuaded to check out this new improved RL. But I ain't checking it out on my nickel.

As someone who used to live in Seattle, I'd say one thing I seriously miss from that town is really *good* Thai food. Yes, there are Thai restaurants here in San Diego, including some that many people think of as "good" ... but IMO the average Seattle Thai restaurant is head and shoulders abouve the average San Diego Thai restaurant. Otherwise, I'd second the NW seafood suggestion. Heh. Gayla, I understand where you're coming from with the San Diego Mexican food scene, but let me assure you that Seattle's Mexican food scene, with maybe a very few exceptions, has much much less to offer.

Heh. Like I said, I'm not stressing on the Miracle Whip thing. I might even try suggesting to him that we experiment with the low-fat version. Funny bits of food-related conversation over breakfast. I commented that he was having a light breakfast today (just a bowl of cereal with milk -- sometimes he augments that with either two soft-boiled eggs, or toast, or both). He said he could easily do without breakfast, but that he knew that would "not be good." Hmmm ... in the afternoon when he's a little more awake, I'll have to ask him whether he thinks he's dieting or something, because I definitely want to gently steer that towards wiser food choices as opposed to, say, blanket not-eating during the day and then binging on cookies after I go to bed at night. Then ... I have a couple of portions of flash-frozen ahi tuna from Trader Joe's haunting the freezer, and I wanted to try them out on him. When I first bought them, he just could not get his brain wrapped around the idea of eating tuna that did not come out of a can! So this morning, I said: "How would you feel about fish tonight?" "What kind?" (slightly suspicious tone of voice). "It's called 'ahi'". "Oh. Is it something you broil, or boil ...?" (Heh. Trying to determine if Ellen's about to do another 'fussy' meal." "I'm probably going to cook it in a pan on the stove. Very simple." "Oh. Okay." "I just noticed that we weren't eating enough fish, and we should eat more, it's good for you." "Yes. But I don't. I don't like much fish." "Well, we'll try it, and if you don't like it I can always make you a sandwich." "Oh, I always eat what you make." And he always reserves his right to do his type of fussing over my type of fussing. But I am learning to reserve my right to ... well, not so much ignore his fussing, as to note it, take it into account, but stay the course until more evidence collects that I should change. Not to dismiss his demurrings at all, but I'm beginning to realize that he just likes to fuss; nomatter what I'd do, he'd probably have some comment about it. So I am officially declaring the elimination of all fussy comments to be a non-goal, and proceeding on my merry way.

Whoops--life got hectic in there for a few days, but I'm still cookin' ... Dunno yet about the goulash or stroganoff. Oyster stew might be a possibility. Salmon patties, I might try sometime ... except when I suggested them to him once, he said he'd much prefer just eating the salmon plain, just as it came out of the can. I'm discovering that another side to his saying he doesn't want anything too adventurous is that he has some mixed feelings about me making what he considers a big fuss over his food--even though I've assured him that a lot of these dishes he thinks are a big fuss are things I can knock off in my sleep. Part of this is due to him being a longtime singleton; his own cooking has been so much open a can / microwave a packaged meal stuff that when he sees me spending even as little as thirty minutes putting together something from scratch in the kitchen, to him it spells "big fuss." (Rachel Ray would probably freak him right the hell out. ) But another part of it is definitely depression issues. I think when he gets blue, he starts feeling he's being a burden on others, doesn't want them to fuss over him, etc. I just gently keep on repeating that it's no fuss, and to never fear, I have plenty of recipes that are super-lazy for whenver I need a break. (Of course, my idea of super-lazy he might still feel is a fuss, but I don't go there when I'm trying to reassure him.) Now a new wrinkle has been added ... this evening, for the second time in as many weeks, he brought up his perception that he's putting on weight -- and then, in an only-semi-joking tone of voice, asks me "so what are you going to do about it?" As if implying that it's my cooking that's to blame. In an equally bantering tone, I replied that it's not my cooking, nor the amounts of it he's eating, that are making him put on weight -- it's all the oatmeal cookies and peanut butter and crackers he snacks on late at night, and the full-sugar soda he goes through by the two-liter bottle. (I didn't even touch the amount of margarine and Miracle Whip he regularly slathers on his bread.) I then asked him if he was really serious about taking off some weight in a healthy way (despite the past issues with malnutrition, he does have a significant gut on him, and it wouldn't hurt for him to slim down a little as long as it's done right). The "really serious" question took him aback; but I might yet convince him to at least cut way down on the soda pop, and maybe the oatmeal cookies -- those two changes alone might be enough. Ironically, just this evening I had for the very first time made a dessert to go with dinner. Strawberry shortcake--super-easy shortcut shortcake all the way, with whipped cream out of a can, supermarket strawberries, and those darned Pillsbury poppin' out of the can biscuits (the Grands turn out to be pretty damn good--certainly worlds better than this Yankee grrl could ever manage--but I hadn't made them in years, so you all would have laughed to see me jump about three feet when that can went POP!!!! when I opened it! Yikes, that think was loud!) So maybe some of the "your food is making me fat" reaction was because of that ... although I was quick to point out that as desserts go, strawberry shortcake is one of the more low-impact ones I could think of. But see, I think this fretting about weight has other layers to it -- it's probably also yet another cover for "ma, she's making me eat different, and I'd just like to eat my same-old way without anyone bothering me, even though that included inadequate nutrtion and forgetting to eat altogether." So the conversation will continue, and so will my efforts to roll along with E's various moods and reactions while continuing to work on nourishing him (in all senses of that word). Anyway ... I let him do breakfast on his own -- he's got a routine and he's pretty good at it (even though I sometimes wince when I see him continually just barely get plates, pots, etc. on the counter--I really think he's got some kind of visual comprehension thing happening where he's not correctly judging the edges of tables and such ... he's come close to missing a chair when sitting and winding up on the floor on more than one occasion that I've witnessed). At first I was making every lunch for him too -- now I only do that occasionally, and other times make suggestions of what's in the refrigerator that he might eat (though I try to keep a mental tally of what I see him eat). I do make dinner for him almost every night--there's been one or two times when I have been gone out for a full day; he has a small stash of healthy TV-dinner things in the freezer for those occasions. And there's been a few times that I was having dinner out with friends, but made sure to make dinner for him before I headed out. I may yet sneak some real mayonnaise in on his coleslaw some day--or even some lowfat plain yogurt!!!--but I decided early on that it would be too traumatic for me to pry his jar of Miracle Whip away from him right at the start. Who knows, though? Maybe under the banner of his "weight loss" thing I can convince him to kiss the Whip goodbye! Above all, though, my attitude is that ultimately it's not about my opinion as to what is good eating, it's about what's best for E's health and wellbeing (physical and emotional). I try my best to remove my ego from the exercise, and to view any criticisms E offers as being not about the quality of my cooking -- I remain satisfied with that -- but about all sorts of other issues as outlined above.

See, sandwiches are total comfort food for me, child of the New York metro area. If there's some way to figure out/ask what would be the bereaved folks' comfort food of choice, fulfilling that would be really beautiful. I also think nomatter what the food gift is, the gesture itself can be comforting to people. (Though of course you'd also like the gift to be useful and pleasing ...)

An additional reason why I think wistfully of Espresso Vivace Roasteria in Seattle (besides their absolutely kick-ass coffee) was their barristas' talents in latte foam art. They even posted photos of especially nice designs on the wall.

Continuing to add all these great suggestions to my list ... Tonight we had turkey sausages -- alas, a bit too dry, even to my taste -- and fresh cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes I picked up at a local farmer's market. Mr. "E" adores good fresh tomatoes and cukes, and I love seeing him eat them thar veggies. I did a major grocery run today, and got E a couple of cans of the Bush's beans. I also picked up a couple of cans of kidney beans, because E spoke fondly of chili made with ground beef and kidney beans. "Chili?!? I thought you didn't like spicy food!" I exclaimed. "Well, I don't like my chili very spicy," he replied. Ahah. We're not talking chile-head gourmet competition chili, we're talking 1950s Good Housekeeping Cookbook chili -- the kind with, like, one teaspoon of chili powder (note that's "chili" not "chile" powder) for the whole batch. Okay, we can do that -- and I can doctor up my serving with my trusty bottle of hot sauce. I also got him some peanuts for snacking. He's rather picky about his nuts too. The first batch I got him was a can of Planter's fancy mixed nuts -- figured he'd like a name brand -- but he said they tasted stale and "off" to him. Next was a package of fancy fruit-and-nut mix from one of my favorite ethnic markets. Those didn't taste right to him either. This time, I bought plain old roasted and salted peanuts from a local Mexican market. These he pronounced fresh enough; he happily mixed them with some raisins and snacked out. I picked up a top round steak for London Broil for tomorrow night's dinner. I think I'll accompany it with some cole slaw -- made with Miracle Whip, sigh -- and some simple boiled potatoes -- he has also mentioned boiled potatoes fondly, commenting that this whole newfangled roasted potato thing was tasty enough but, again, not what he's used to.

Oh, I'd love to have the lemongrass, thank you! I'll PM you ... About the nitrogen--hey, I dunno, I'm the one looking for the "gardening for dummies" website, y'know? All I know is that one of the gardening websites I did stumble upon so far suggested that legumes need their soil beefed up that way. But maybe pre-packaged container-planting soil has got that enrichment already? (Or maybe the site I was looking at had a vested interest in selling plant food? )

Y'know, it's been forever since I actually bought a bouillon cube--I like those little jars of soup base paste better--but I have long noticed the exuberance with which lots of cultures have embraced instant soup/seasoning products of various sorts. And while I haven't gotten hooked on cubes, I do cop to a more general addiction to cruising Asian markets for interesting ingredients, so I identify with the obsession aspect. Isn't it fun? And as addictions go, it's relatively low-budget and even tasty. Hey, people collect Coca-Cola cans from around the world--why the heck not other food items? Party on!

Not a diet book per se, but I get a lot of mileage out of the Victory Garden cookbook. Lots of tasty vegetable dishes are a boon to any diet IMO. It'll also help your friend expand her veggie repertoire.

The fish dishes are a definite yes. He likes fish--and he could use the omega-3 fatty acid content. (As could I.) Speaking of seafood: amusing conversation he and I had just now over dinner--I asked him if he'd trust me, a non-New Englander, to make clam chowder for him. He responded that he'd want to know what color my clam chowder was. I assured him that I detest Manhattan-style clam chowder, and he said well alright then. So--clam chowder on the horizon too. By the way, the stewed beef heart with prunes--oh, and apples too, that was part of the recipe--came out pretty nice. Not noticeable oversweet at all. I could have stood for it to be a bit more strongly seasoned, but, well, you know ...

For the first time in ages and ages, I have outdoor space plus the time and inclination to try and grow stuff. This is major, because up to now in my life I have manifested the Black Thumb--all plants seem to die under my "care". But I'm of a mind to give it a go one more time, especially since I have this nice little space just outside my bedroom that's perfect for container-gardening--in fact, there are five plants out there right now (a ficus, a shifflera, a couple different types of begonias--I think--a palmetto--again I think--and an aloe). This little mini-courtyard is on the south side of the condo, so it gets pretty good sun, even though it's bounded on all sides by a solid privacy fence. Checking what veggies can grow in the late summer/fall season here in San Diego, I've decided I want to try growing sugar snap peas. Any advice to the novice vegetable gardener? I know I need to put up a trellis of some sort for the pea plants to climb ... the web also suggests using some sort of plant food that will supply nitrogen so the peas can do their nitrogen-fixing legume thing ... but I have no idea what brand to get. Is there a "gardening for dummies" website I should consult?

Terrific blog! I'm all into the spiritual aspects of food and cooking--there's so many levels to that, and they're universal, reaching across religious traditions the same way love of food reaches across cultural, national, and political divides. So--right on!

Shepherd's pie goes on the list. There's even a box of instant mashed potatoes in the pantry already! Tonight, by request, I am making beef heart with prunes. The beef heart I'm definitely up for. The prunes ... heh. Y'all have heard me sound off in other topics about my personal distaste for sweet notes in otherwise savory dishes. But E has definitely got a sweet tooth, plus this is a recipe from his beloved McCall's cookbook so it's got nostalgia value for him. I'm telling myself it's just like tzimmes ... which, actually, it kind of is. And this also underlines a point that came up in CaliPoutine's topic on making dinner for seniors: the tastebuds for sweetness persist long after many other tastebuds have bitten the dust. Hmmmm. I see a lot of overly-sweet (to my taste) dishes in my future too! Fortunately, though, I've got my bottles of soy sauces and hot sauces at the ready, so I can magically turn my portion of sweet stuff into something a little more Southeast Asian.

Many thanks for all your kind words! I swear I wasn't fishing for compliments on taking on this situation (though it's very sweet to receive them). In fact, it's a win-win situation for the both of us, as I had just found out that my now-previous roommate was giving up our apartment and moving on, so I was looking at finding new housing as well. Many excellent suggestions here. I'm making myself a list. Getting myself a copy of the Fannie Farmer cookbook is a brilliant idea. E has great fondness for his old copy of the McCall's cookbook, and a little notebook full of hand-written and clipped recipes he'd collected over the years. I confess I have trouble reading either--especially the little notebook--without frequent shudders. They're rife with calls for canned cream of mumble soup, instant soup packets, bottled dressings, and other pre-packaged artificial-ingredient-drenched shortcuts. There's even a recipe for Cool Whip Pie. But these are the things he loves, so I'm adapting. I even made the meatloaf recipe right off the back of the Lipton Soup Mix box last week. (I did use half ground beef and half turkey, at least. ) To me, it tasted like, well, Lipton Soup Mix--and thus too salty, and too assertively artificial-onion-flavored. But he adored it. So I guess there's more soup mix in my future. I do frequently make a "light" version of whatever we're having for dinner, so that I don't blow my own health regimen out of the water. Or I'll make extra veggies, and give myself a smaller portion of the entree and a bigger portion of the veg. Several folks have suggested baked beans, Boston or otherwise. E mentioned those fondly just the other night. Though when I responded enthusiastically to the adventure of making them from scratch for the first time, he replied that he was thinking more along the lines of the canned brand Bush's baked beans, which he remembered fondly from his childhood, suggesting that instead of me doing all the work of from-scratch that he'd be perfectly happy with the Bush's and some finely-grated coleslaw as a nice light dinner. Nothing against Bush's--I haven't tried them, but I understand they're a good brand--but I'm still trying to get my brain wrapped around somebody turning down the prospect of made-from-scratch beans in favor of canned. I'm still not 100% sure if that's all about him preferring the canned, or some mixed feelings on his part of seeing me go to all the trouble of the from-scratch version. Again understandably, he has several layers of issues going on about me "doing" for him: some old WASP misgivings about anyone making a fuss on his behalf; some grief about the age-related deficits that make it necessary that he have help; the long-time bachelor's discomfort with sharing his space and having his routine unsettled by a newcomer who seemingly does everything differently ... Which touches on another issue. It's not like his kitchen was a disaster area--in fact, it's a very nice kitchen, with decent equipment and--that rarity of rarities in Southern California, an actual gas range (mid-level 1970s-era consumer model, so it's not a big BTU-burner--but it's gas, thank the cooking gods!). The issue with the kitchen is, well ... think of how a kitchen might be arranged by a 75-year-old bachelor New Englander with not much real cooking expertise in the first place, and some growing forgetfulness in recent years. Got it? Stuff randomly and idiosyncratically stored here there and everywhere; stuff either precariously stacked, or even worse not stacked at all so that there was huge wasteage of space; lots of stale stuff that should have been chucked ages ago; and some gear that is just totally inadquate. He has several little knives with steel blades that have been sharpened so often over the years, and mistakenly run through the dishwasher so many times, that the wood handles are like driftwood and the blades crumbling at the edges. But he not only insists on continuing to use them, but looked scandalized when I refused to use them myself--let alone when I suggested that they be removed from the knife block and retired from service. We also had a little controversy over his insisting on clearing the table, loading the dishwasher and putting stuff down the disposal after dinner. I suspect that he was always way haphazard about these things--I've met too many people who haven't a clue about how to load a dishwasher properly. But there are some definite relatively-recent nuances that I admit concerned me deeply, such as holding dishes at an angle that threatens to spill their contents on the floor, or placing them on the counter such that they're hanging way over the edge just waiting to be knocked onto the floor; or confusedly shuffling items in the dishwasher, seeing that they don't fit but not quite figuring out how to fix it. When he put his hand down the (fortunately stopped!) disposal to clear something he insisted would be okay to put down there but wasn't, I confess I freaked out a little over-fiercely. I wish I had handled that more diplomatically, but, eh, we talked it out and it's done. I assured him that his self-worth or usefulness to the world in no way hinged on his ability to look like he's holding up his end in the kitchen--that's what I'm there for, to free him up from those duties. So now at least I don't have to be a nervous wreck while he clears the table anymore. (It's worth noting that the situation that first brought E's growing issues to light was a kitchen mishap--a social worker had arrived to do an intake assessment on him just in time to find him accidentally setting fire to a box of Cheerios he had left standing on a burner of the stove. I am massively for encouraging him to be as independant as possible--but that inevitably has to be tempered with realism about the risk of accidents.)

Bless you and all cancer warriors. When my mom was in the hospital with cancer, we found that the only thing that tempted her to eat was melon--canteloup and honeydew. We would feed her pieces of melon a spoonful or two at a time, whatever she felt up to handling. Jamie Lee, re your doctor's refusal to prescribe med marijuana: I don't know how Oregon is currently working it, but here in California one can take a copy of one's medical records to an independent med-weed-friendly physician, have him or her certify that your condition does indeed require the weed, and then take that certification to a med-weed clinic ... that is, if you can find one that the Feds haven't shut down in defiance of California state law. I do think it's worth the hassle, though--there are few meds, whether modern or traditional, so effective at fighting the nausea and stimulating the appetite as cannabis. And IMO nothing is so fundamental to restoring good health and quality of life as good nutrition. Best of luck to you.