mizducky

No, hathor! "My" boyfriends are the Yankees ... as in Mr. Fabby calls to say he's taking an earlier flight/train home, so I can clear the Yanks out. (for him, it's the Lakers Girls.) Your husband looks famous/familiar in a 'haven't I seen you before" way. ← I gotta confess that the "gee, he looks familiar" thought was niggling at the back of my mind, too ... until I went Googling and found this photo. Okay, the resemblance isn't anywhere near as strong as my memory was insisting it was ... but I still got a grin out of it. Your husband's secret alternate existence as a rock star?

Yay! eGullet telepathy, how about that?

Hathor-- I'm guessing that your problems with uploading photos over a cranky dial-up line might be helped by converting them to a lower resolution (DPI). Do you have any photo processing software on your computer? (Like Photoshop?) Feel free to PM me about this if you'd like. (Signed, a friendly neighborhood computer/food geek ) (edited to fix late night tyop )

And never did a man look more debonair flipping the bird.

La dolce vita, baby. (with way cute cats )

And in the spirit of this sin, I feel the need to free-associate to one of my favorite bits of Yom Kippur humor. I haven't owned a copy of the delightful cookbook Love and Knishes in years, but as I recall, in the table of contents there was listed a mysterious chapter entitled "Yom Kippur Cookery." When you turned to the indicated page, you found one short paragraph, reading: "Ah ha! You looked! Shame on you! You should be fasting!" (Me, I think the main thing I need to atone for is going on and on ad nauseum about "healthy eating." Oh, and despite having become such a tedious bore on the subject, I still seriously need to atone for the crappy Mexican takeout I ate the other night )

I think my learning curve with Japanese food has probably resembled that of any number of American food geeks. Naturally curious about any and all new cuisines, but kind of clueless, I was first turned on to the few exemplars of Japanese food then available in the 1980s in a reasonably big city (Boston). So at that time, in my 20s, all I knew about Japanese food was sushi; tempura; teryaki; miso soup; and some vague notions that some stewed dishes existed. And I was exposed to at least the Americanized version of a kaiseki meal. Oh, and I picked up a kind of weird snobbery in that I looked down on Benihana and its ilk as strictly for American rubes who were afraid of raw fish. Somewhere in there, I did my brief adventure into macrobiotics, and unintentionally got exposed to a whole bunch of other, more homey/homely Japanese ingredients, like all the sea vegetables. At the same time, I had no idea just how removed from mainstream Japanese cuisine the whole brown rice trip was. I've learned a good bit more since, from books, from friends, and from the Internet (including this site), but I still feel like I have tons to learn. I do feel that Japanese cuisines, and Asian cuisines in general, have terrific lessons to teach me as an American about more healthful ways of eating. Just the portion sizes and the ratios of animal protein to starches to vegetables in a typical Japanese meal is IMO much more heathy than the still-standard American meal of a huge slab of meat, lots of carbohydrates, and maybe a little (overprocessed) vegetables as an afterthought. And Japanese fermented foods (miso, shoyu, pickles) and sea vegetables just offer so much nutrition and flavor, for which there are no real equivalents in American cuisine.

Very cool! Gotta try this one of these centuries--though it will probably have to wait until I acquire all the ingredients (or their equivalents--for instance, I'm not sure where I would find the Chartreuse VEP in this town). It was a major revelation, by the way, getting a glimpse of the Grammercy Tavern's bar menu--not just for the exalted level of the recipes, but even the mere use of brown booze in new and sophisticated cocktails. In over-touristed San Diego, I can't seem to find a bar that advertises anything except concoctions made with a bazillion rainbow-colored sugary ingredients piled on top of vodka--many of which they dare to call "martinis" just because they serve them in a cocktail glass. (Maybe I'm still just drinking in the wrong places, but wherever the *real* cocktail lounges are in this burg, they hide 'em well...) Thank you for a most excellent blog. I feel like I need a week of recuperative spa cuisine just from reading it.

Oh dear. Can computer keyboards be shorted out by a puddle of drool? So much I could comment on, but I'll just content myself with these: I like how the Terrace Bagel "mascot" bears a sartorial resemblance to Mr. Peanut. Now that's what I call a serious bagel. Enjoy your party!

But I like Ah Leung's pan! It looks like it has many years of cooking stories to tell. I also like the recipe lots. I'm another one always on the lookout for new-to-me ways to prepare vegetables. And, hey, now I have an excuse to go play with another Chinese ingredient (like I needed an excuse... ).

You can just go a google search for "buchner funnel kit, pump" You want to make sure you get the complete kit with the pump. It should run you about 45 to 50 bucks. ← In fact, Here's one right here. (I have no earthly use for one of these gizmos myself, right at the moment, but the looks of it just gave me all sorts of fond flashbacks to, erm, "acquiring" random bits of glassware from my college chem lab for, erm, experiments. Yep, that's right, they were experiments. ) Do tell Mizducky! ← Weeeeeeeelllllll ... let's just say that the "experiments" would probably be off-topic for eGullet ... except, perhaps, for the effects of said "experiments" on the subjects' appetites.

You can just go a google search for "buchner funnel kit, pump" You want to make sure you get the complete kit with the pump. It should run you about 45 to 50 bucks. ← In fact, Here's one right here. (I have no earthly use for one of these gizmos myself, right at the moment, but the looks of it just gave me all sorts of fond flashbacks to, erm, "acquiring" random bits of glassware from my college chem lab for, erm, experiments. Yep, that's right, they were experiments. )

I can't help being reminded of that classic ditty, The Rooster Song. Well done!

I too feel the full spectrum of opinions has been pretty well addressed ... except, perhaps. for the recurring suggestion that people who use a lot of profanity in their communications are either lacking in smarts or in self-esteem. I hereby offer at least anecdotal evidence to the contrary. As a youth, my expertise in expletives took a huge upward leap with my years at Harvard/Radcliffe, an educational institution whose students usually have little problem with either their brains or their egos. My experience was that these Ivy League undergrads blasphemed with enough vigor (not to mention creativity) to make a sailor blush. I doubt it's changed much since I graduated in 1979. Staying sort of on-topic: I'm one who believes expletive use depends on the publication's house style. In an alternative weekly I'd expect even the restaurant reviews to contain the occasional expletive, though I would grow impatient if the reviewer was just being lazy about describing exactly why s/he thought the food was shitty. In a mainstream daily, an undisguised expletive would cause me to raise an eyebrow--not because my morals were offended, but rather, perhaps, my sense of editorial taste. But if a Bourdain were being interviewed, even in a mainstream pub, I'd expect at least some indication, however discreet, that profanity was happening--otherwise, it just wouldn't be accurate reportage of the subject's personality. Edited to add: Tony, if you're reading this, I hope you're more amused than anything else at being one of our examples ...

I'm coming out of lurking-mode also. Great blog! Brussel Sprouts! ← Oh I love brussel sprouts. We may have a winner. ← Anybody who digs brussel sprouts is A-OK in my book! I was going to suggest some kind of green veggie myself--say, spinach, if you could find confirmed locally-sourced stuff. But roasted brussel sprouts will do just fine.

I woke up this morning and realized I do have a request, inspired by the yellow Chartreuse in this photo. I do have a fondness for the green Chartreuse (when I can find it), though I usually just drink it straight or on the rocks. I would love to know a more civilized/less cavewoman way of enjoying the stuff. If it appeals to you to demo any cocktails containing green Chartreuse, I wouldn't mind at all. Seriously. My eyes are having a hard time focusing. I think my weight went from 190 to 200 from eating that. Must... lie.... down. ← Totally enjoying the vicarious thrills of your food overload over here. Both the sandwich, and that very X-rated eclair. Yowza.

I taught myself how to make yeast bread many moons ago out of the original "Vegetarian Epicure." I just found Anna Thomas' introduction and attitude so cheerful and encouraging--she sounded so into the sheer fun of playing around with the dough and the yeast-beasties that the intimidation factor was practically nil.

Expat New Yorker here ... okay, well, I only lived in NYC the first year of my life, but spent the rest of my youth in the suburbs with frequent forays back into The City, so it's really cool to see whole different takes on the place. I had an aunt and uncle and a whole nest of cousins who lived in Brooklyn, but that was in a less glamorous time and neighborhood--as a kid, I didn't pick up enough Brooklyn geography to recall the neighborhood's exact name, but I vaguely recall it was somewhere sort of near the King's Plaza shopping mall. (And all my relatives from there all spoke like Fran Drescher. For reals.) No suggestions for where you should visit--just enjoying seeing the town from a different perspective. Also admiring your kitchen--especially that tin ceiling and that wonderful shade of red--and envying the chanterelles and pork belly on your dinner party menu. Plus, as someone who (even after suggestions) can't seem to escape from Manhattans botched by bad bartenders, I'm looking forward to seeing more exemplars of what a *good* bartender can do.

Peeling after cooking is just so much easier that there's no reason I can think of for doing it any other way. And I find roasting beets less messy, and the results more flavorful.

These two posts have caused me to remember one of the funniest, albeit hazardous, food-play events I have ever witnessed: the Jello tug of war to end all Jello tug of wars. It was a morale event staged by the department of the Large Seattle-Area Software Company (who shall remain nameless ) that I used to work for. It actually started off as a fund-raising challenge for the annual United Way fund drive. Anyway, two program managers signed up to captain two tug-of-war teams, and I think they got kind of competitive in the team sign-ups. The department director's administrative assistant (used to being den mother for these Animal House-style events) spent a few days making trash-cans-ful of raspberry gelatin. The event, for some bizarre reason, was staged not outdoors, but indoors in our lovely two-story atrium, with only a few plastic tarps protecting the ivory wall-to-wall carpet from the waiting vat of gelatinous goo. First there was a big party, with a pick-up band and everything, and lotsa cheap beer--which of course the programmers inhaled like fish in water. After all sorts of posturing and trash-talking by the various team heads and members, the actual main event was almost an anticlimax--it was mere minutes before one team succeeded in hauling the other through the big vat of Jello, scattering it in all directions. Lots of whooping and hollering, and jello-sodden competitors standing around dripping ... And then I noticed various beer-sodden techies picking up handfuls of jello, and obviously thinking about their *aerodynamic properties* ... and that's when I decided to make my exit. When I came into work the next morning, the atrium carpet looked like it had been shampooed within an inch of its life, but there was still a faint pink stain where the vat of Jello had stood ... I seriously doubt anybody got in trouble, though. This was not by any means the first time this particular department head had actively encouraged mayhem verging on property destruction by his team, often involving aerodynamic food play (i.e. "ship parties" during which drunken techies roamed the halls looking for victims to spray with cheap "champagne," etc). In fact, he was known for proudly proclaiming at our weekly morale/status meetings that we were "the most feared and hated department" in our company. Animal House indeed!

Yum! Thanks, andiesenji, I am so totally doing this for Halloween! I wonder if I can locate a big ol' cauldron to serve it out of ...

Heh. My organo-groovy church, at first glance, does a bit better than the norm at the inoffensive all-church meal thang, but as I've now hung out enough to have experienced a couple of annual events in a row, I now see that they have their own ruts as well. So, for instance, at the annual pledge campaign luncheon, there is always some kind of pasta/lasagna dish, in both omnivore and vegetarian versions; some kind of large tossed green salad; a crudite platter with some variation of ranch dressing and/or hummus as dip; some sort of bread (usually sliced baguette and/or wedged pita); a platter of cut-up fruit; and assorted cookies. The first time I encountered this spread, I was pleasantly surprised. The second, third, and so on, well, the surprise had worn off sufficiently that I began to notice the ho-hum-ness of the food. I mean, the dishes were nice enough, but ... well ... heh--such an easily-jaded foodie I am. Anyway, I'm now plotting with the matriarch kitchen volunteer about helping with sneaking in a little more variety here and there. She really would like to see more variety coming out of that kitchen, but most of her all-volunteer teams tend to lack the time, interest, and/or skill set to experiment, especially when they already have what they consider sure-fire meal formulas.

Now that's interesting. I have made a practice of avoiding the fish option at any of these kinds of "official" dinners, certain they would dry it out or turn it to mush or otherwise ruin it; and that most people would likewise avoid the fish either for similar reasons or because there seem to be so many fish-phobes out in the American public. But then I noticed you are posting from Ann Arbor--so I'm thinking your local population is much more familiar with, and much more fond of, the local lake fish. When I was in Seattle, I recall salmon being a frequent offering at these kinds of functions--either as the inoffensive chunk o' fillet with some kind of sauce and/or crust treatment, or very occasionally various attempts at Native American style barbequed salmon. And at least one wedding dinner buffet featured the whole chilled poached sides of salmon--but that was definitely a cut above the usual community dinner. I would occasionally violate my don't-order-fish rule for these dinners if salmon was an option--I found it tended to survive the inevitable heat-and-hold issues of large catered dinners better than other fish I could think of, though it would still arrive more well-done than I would have preferred. But anything to avoid the dreaded rubber chicken breast! I haven't had to attend any such functions since I moved down here to San Diego, so I dunno what they do here. Totally guessing, but I'd bet cash money that salsa and/or avocado make appearances as garnishes on otherwise standard inoffensive dishes.

The last time I was at my favorite not-watered-down-for-non-Chinese Szechuan restaurant here in town, Ba Ren, we were served a wonderful winter squash dish. It consisted of a whole kabocha squash, stuffed with meats (I think mostly if not all pork) and hot spices, and then steamed for a couple of hours or so until everything inside the squash's rind was meltingly tender. When serving, you'd scoop out some of the squash flesh along with the stewed meat. The combination of the sweet squash, the Szechuan spices, and the savory meat juices and fats was fabulous. Alas I have no recipe--I'm trying to figure this one out myself. We did have to special-order it ahead earlier that day to give them time to prepare it. They used an about 8-inch diameter kabocha; it arrived at the table still wearing some plastic film wrapped around the lower outside shell, which we thought was probably applied to help keep its shape during the steaming process. I figure the same dish could be done in a similar-sized, really meaty Western-style pumpkin, though my little experience with kabochas suggest that they tend to run sweeter and thicker-fleshed. If nothing else, I've got some fun experiments and/or recipe-hunting ahead of me.

I nearly always cook the stems right along with the leaves whenever I do a braise of any cooking green--collards, kale, turnip greens, mustard greens, beet greens, you name it. If the stems are tough, like those of collards, I cut them into about 1/4-inch slices; if they're a little less tough, like those of mustard or beet greens, I cut them into longer segments. And then I just chuck 'em in along with the leaves and proceed with the recipe. I just started doing this on my own because I couldn't bear wasting all that stuff. Speaking of celeriac: the little bit of root left on the bottoms of bunches of celery to keep the ribs together is wonderful. Basically, it's a little chunk of celeriac that you get for free along with your celery. I think it would be great in soups, stews, and stocks ... I dunno, because in my kitchen it usually winds up being a "cook's treat."