mizducky

Well, the good news is that your appetite seems to be in good shape even if your stomach isn't. I can tell when I'm *really* sick, because I lose all interest in food whatsoever. My suggestion would be to try broths. There's a reason behind all the chicken soup lore--a nice mild poultry broth is good nutrition, gentle on the tummy, and tasty too. If you simmer a smallish amount of raw white rice in it for a couple of hours till the rice semi-dissolves and thickens the broth, you have the Chinese rice porridge known as congee, which is also great when you're feeling poorly. Or you can put in some simple noodles, some ginger, and even some garlic if you simmer it till its nice and soft. Another thing I eat when I'm feeling poorly: I boil up a bunch of pasta, and then season it with soy sauce and maybe a little bit of sesame oil. I find fermented soy products (in moderate amounts) really soothing to my stomach somehow. If you've been keeping these kinds of foods, or the BRAT (bananas/rice/applesauce/toast) diet down okay for a couple of days, I think you could try some simply-prepared chicken breast next. In general, think stuff that's mildly seasoned, and long-simmered, so that it won't make your stomach work any harder than it may be ready for. I'd stay away from raw fruits and vegetables and most dairy for awhile--they're a bit harder to digest. A possible exception might be a good-quality plain yogurt--but try it cautiously at first to see if your tummy is okay with it.

Oh god. You've just reminded me of a time, a few decades ago, when my music-lover friends and I had made our annual pilgrimage to Tanglewood (for those not familiar, the beautiful outdoor concert venue in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts where the Boston Symphony makes its summer home). Everyone was well along in the traditional pre-concert picnic when--you guessed it--one of those Northeast summer thunder-squalls materialized out of nowhere. For about 30 solid minutes it was like God had turned on the big-ass water spigot. I mean, you'd have needed gills to breathe out there. Oh, and the lightning and thunder! Man, you never saw people run for cover so fast. But they didn't forget their food! Expanding on this with some more anecdotal evidence to weigh: I'm a big fan of Buffalo wings, and a pub around the corner from me on Walnut Street happens to serve Philly's best. And unlike a lot of places that serve wing segments (probably from a big bag of IQF wing segments), this place serves whole wings. Eight of them in a regular order (their only size), for $7.95. Time was when I polished off an entire plateful of these in one sitting. On my two most recent visits to Moriarty's--both of them since starting to exercise regularly in Widener's fitness center--I've only been able to finish four. The other four end up either in roommates' or friends' stomachs or as a late-night munchie. Now, I don't know whether this is due to the exercise changing my metabolism or my appetite, or something else, but I do know that eight whole wings is actually a lot of chicken, enough for two to share. ← Time was when I'd have been one of the people sniffing at the teensy portions at high-end restaurants, making smart-ass remarks wondering where the rest of my dinner had gotten to. But as my recent weight-loss thang has progressed, my appetite has shrunk. I mean, it feels like my stomach has literally shrunk--I can't put away the amounts I used to, because I actually start feeling uncomfortably full a whole lot sooner. So now those petite portions, especially as part of a multi-course meal, actually make sense to me. Funny how that works. (Edited to fix randomnesses)

Y'know, I grew up in a house with not one but two huge mulberry trees on its property, and it never once occurred to me to try eating them. Perhaps our appetites were put off by the smelly staining fermented mess of windfall berries these trees dropped on our yard every year--especially since we kids sometimes got drafted to rake/sweep the crap up. The birds absolutely adored the berries, though--I think I've already related elsewhere on eGullet the spectacle we once saw when the bluejays got into the fermented windfall mulberries and began flapping about and crashing and making a huge amount of racket. If bluejays are the fratboys of the avian world, then bluejays on fermented mulberries are the *drunken* fratboys of that world. However, as a teenager I did once get a taste of this fermented mulberry beverage created by an older gentlmen who was a friend of my Russian-emigre piano teacher. I was given to understand this was a traditional brew from this fellow's home region in the Ukraine. It was kinda thick and foamy, like a mead, and frankly I didn't find it all that appealing--but that might have just been my youthful inexperienced palate. I have no idea what that beverage was called, though, nor anything else about it. Googling produces some mulberry mead recipes, but no historical/cultural info. If anyone knows anything about this stuff I'd be very interested.

A downside to the Walmartization of organic food is that, as when Walmart has inserted its huge clout into other supply chains, it tends to play hob with producers, as well as the independent retailers who had set up arrangements with those producers. For instance, the current issue of the monthly newsletter from my local food co-op notes that they're already experiencing gaps in their supplies of various organic produce items as their major suppliers re-adjust to Walmart's titanic demand. Hopefully that will settle down at least a little bit, but given that my co-op notes that they're already hunting for other suppliers to fill in, it appears they're anticipating this suplly-chain turbulence to go on for awhile. My big concern is that Walmart will hoover up so much of the available supply-pipeline volume that, even though there might be an economy-of-scale for Walmart itself, small retailers like my food coop will get marginalized right out of access to that supply chain. Fortunately, my food coop has a hard core of customers philosophically opposed to Walmart models and disposed towards co-operative business, but I fear other indie retailers might not be so lucky--let alone indie producers whose operations simply aren't big enough to fit Walmart's requirements for suppliers, and thus lose access to the big supply-pipeline as the suppliers put all their economic eggs in Walmart's basket. (But then, these are always some of the big concerns when Walmart moves into a new sector, as far as I've observed...)

Let's see ... when I used to go car-camping, I got pretty damn minimalist and made out quite well. In fact, I found it kind of an interesting adventure in its own right--made me think of those "Boxcar Children" books where the four orphans resourcefully set up housekeeping in the woods. IIRC, my car-camping rig consisted of one big deep non-stick skillet with lid; one heavy-bottomed lidded saucepan; just enough dishes and flatware for my companion and me; one large lidded Rubbermaid bowl that served for mixing, serving, and storing; a few assorted cooking utensils (spatula, stirring spoon, utility knife, can opener, Swiss Army knife with corkscrew/bottle opener, etc.); and a plastic cutting board. I had along a small assortment of seasonings, a cooler chest, a big Thermos, and a 5-gallon folding vinyl water container. My VW camper van had a built-in sink and a cooler of its own, but no stove, so I brought along a two-burner Coleman camping stove. And that was pretty much it--and with a little ingenuity it was quite enough to turn out some satisfying meals. Even now, my setup is relatively minimal. I don't seem to be all that big on gadgets. I keep thinking I should really get a food processor one of these days, but somehow I never have. The roommate owns a microwave and a George Foreman Grill, both of which I've found useful--but I've yet to ever go out and buy either such appliance on my own. Now that I've gotten into the Foreman Grill, I probably will buy one for myself whenever I next move, but I seriously doubt I'd ever buy a microwave if an apartment didn't already come with one built-in. I once owned a bread machine and an ice-cream maker, but only because in both cases friends of mine were getting rid of their old ones for cheap or for nuthin'--I seriously doubt I would buy either new/at full price. I do love my pressure cooker and wok, though--and I'm glad I finally own a suribachi again. No fancy knives. No Le Creuset. No cast iron of any sort--actually, that's something I really should fix, given how inexpensive a good basic Lodge pan is. It's just my tightwad streak showing up again--I love looking at all the purty kitchen stuff, but somehow I'm usually content just looking rather than buying (I'm sure salespeople absolutely *love* me. ). But the no running hot water thang? I was okay doing without when camping, but I gotta say I would severely miss it in my everyday home cooking scene. I'm a real bug about getting kitchenware *clean*, and while I can tough it out without a dishwasher, having to heat water every time I needed to wash something would get to be a real drag real fast.

Heh. Fascinating gadget, that. You wouldn't happen to know if it's possible to load one of the gizmo's little grow pods with seeds of one's own choosing, would you? Erm ... for those of my friends who are "seedy" ... Bet there would be a huge market for that kind of thing. (I really am paying attention to the food, too ... )

As I once remarked to my husband the morning after a long night of dancing on New Year's Eve, "Champagne is not an effective means of hydration." ← What about hair of the dog??? I love that Crystal Light is advertising their product in such a way that says "Buy me! I have so little to offer that I do nothing to affect that glass of water you were going to drink anyway!" Obviously that's not the actual goal, just what the marketing made me think of... ← Heh, I wonder how long before beer and other alcoholic beverage companies begin doing the same. ;P They already market their light beers as "low-carb." ← Heh--there's already been a bunch of beer ad campaigns going on at great length about the quality of the water they use. In fact, I saw a huge billboard praising a beer's water quality just the other day. Okay, I do realize that water quality does make a difference, but still--c'mon! Always makes me think of the old Firesign Theatre routine: "Bear Whiz Beer! It's in the water, son--that's why it's yellow!"

I'm no longer a Seattle resident, and most of the current residents on this thread have much fresher info. But I would like to put in a good word for Flexcar--this car-sharing enterprise can be very helpful to those going car-free in Seattle (and a growing number of other cities as well). These folks, along with a bus pass, allowed me to comfortably do without a car in Seattle for several years. Oh yeah--second on Uwajimaya in the International District. Plus there's a whole cluster of Asian (mostly Vietnamese) groceries and restaurants spreading out from the intersection of 12th Ave. S. and S. Jackson St.

Interesting about the arbitrariness of the 8 glasses stat! According to the info on one of the meds I'm taking, I'm supposedly well-advised to drink even more than 8 eight-ounce glasses--it should be more like 12! Glub glub glub I'm drowning! I find myself struggling to get the 8 glasses in ... but on the other hand, I can tell by changes in my bodily condition that I really do feel better when I consistently get the full 8 in (in addition to anything I take in via water content in my food). So, yeah, nice to know that I should go with my intuition on when it feels like I'm getting enough. Still, I do have a daily struggle around enticing myself by any means necessary to drink my daily allotment of fluids. I find that not only tea and coffee, but some herbal teas and sugary drinks (not just pop but also pure fruit juices) have various diuretic effects on me. However, their diuretic effect is far from completely negating their hydrating potential; rather more like still a net positive on the liquid-intake front, though not as efficient as pure water. And what these beverages lose in too-quickly pissed-away moisture, they more than make up in their ability to make me want to drink them (a half-gallon of plain water, no matter how gussied up, is frankly kinda boring to me). So it's all a trade-off -- how much tasty but partly-counterproductive additives you're willing to intake in order to get the benefit of the liquid content. Oh yeah--perhaps it goes without saying, but booze really excels in the counterproductive diuretic-effect department. P.S. Yeah, ultimately all of this fluid eventually gets recycled out sooner or later--after all, one of the many reasons for proper fluid intake is to make sure the body's elimination functions have all the water they need to function optimally. The difference is that certain of those water-additives (i.e. flavors, caffeine, etc etc etc) throw off the equation so that more water gets excreted, sooner, than would have happened with an equal volume of pure water. All other things being held equal for your unique bodily condition, of course ...

Oh my. This is gonna be one killer blog. I am all for underground campus enterprises, food-related or otherwise. (Hey Sandy--remember our later-celebrated classmate Peter Sellars and his undergrad theatrical enterprise, the Explosives "B" Caberet? That was going on right there in your dorm, wasn't it?) If all else fails, maybe you could take an off-campus apartment and StudioKitchen away with legal impunity (at least vis-a-vis school regulations). And maybe I'm naive, but I would think a biz/marketing degree could come in real handy opening one's own restaurant. (At the risk of wandering off-topic, I'm almost as interested in reading about who you're going to go hear at the Bowery Ballroom tonight as the restaurants you're going to hit in the meantime. ) (oh yeah ... going on 50 and still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up either )

Matzoh? Not just for house siding any more .... ← Shades of an ancient "Saturday Night Live" fake commercial routine: "It's a floor wax!" "It's a dessert topping!" "No, you're both right! It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!" Sorry, couldn't resist ...

Oooooh! Purty! I really like cardoons--haven't had any, or even seen any in markets, in forever. Do you grow any for food as well as for looks? If I don't get a chance to get back in here before this blog closes, let me take the time now to say thanks for a most enjoyable blog.

Just to underline that everything old is new again: remember that ad campaign a few decades ago for Levy's Jewish rye bread, with the slogan "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's"? There were several versions of the print ad--the version I recall best featured an (extremely photogenic) young African-American boy chowing down on a sandwich with a big grin on his face. I recall seeing the posters in the New York subways back in the day. How did Levy's make out with that ad campaign, by the way? Anybody know how successful it was?

I don't have kids. I do have nephews, ages 4 and 8, who live way the heck on the other coast. I've already discussed with my sister that I'm way overdue for a visit, so that among many other things her boys will get to know their aunt better. I'd already been kind of planning to have fun with showing up and being the cra-zee auntie from California , but now you've got me thinking that I could add some crazy cooking to that mix for even better effect. My sister is a good cook too--maybe we could do a cooking extravaganza together. Some of my favorite memories involve witnessing/participating in family cooking extravaganzas, so even if the nephers aren't themselves into cooking yet, I bet this could be a similarly heavily-imprinted memory for them. As for the rest ... well, my church is slowly but surely starting to become a repository of my cooking persona. In fact, in about fifteen minutes I'm about to light out for there with a load of supplies for the coffee hour. I wouldn't mind at all getting a rep for being one of the Known Congregational Cooks. As I said to the member who is the defacto kitchen manager, Zen tradition has it that the most spiritually advanced monk in the monastery is usually the cook. I dunno about the "spiritually advanced" bit, but I wouldn't mind leaving a legacy to that congregation of cooking as being a full body/brain/heart/spirit experience.

Do I even have any kosher products in the house right now? ... Wait, yes I do--I have a box of Wollf's kasha that I finally tracked down. Growing up, assorted kosher brand products did show up on our family's shelves pretty regularly. My mom often started her split pea or beef/barley soups with those tube-shaped cellophane sleeves of soup mix--wait, are those made by Manishevitz? I haven't bought one in forever. What else? Pickles, all the time--we definitely prefered the kosher brands. Pickled herring. Horseradish. Hebrew National hot dogs and salami. Very occasionally, jarred gefilte fish--and not even for Passover; my mom and I went through phases of eating it because we supposed it was "dietetic". Also, matzoh was a regular everyday snacking cracker around our house. Not the Tam-Tams--the full-sheet matzohs. My personal opinion is that Manishevitz et al could really have a hit on their hands if they marketed the hell out of matzoh to the general population as a super-healthy snack cracker. Sure beats the hell outta most rice cakes.

When I initially saw someone refer to this salad at chukka seaweed salad, I thought it was 中華, the Japanese word to describe Chinese style foods but it should be written chuuka or even chuka. I tried looking it up on the internet and I all come up with is this salad and some boots! ← I tried searching on "chukka" or "chuka" also, and in addition to the seaweed salad--and the boots --also came up with a noodle salad: hiyashi chuka. I am not a Japanese-speaker, but I couldn't help wondering if "chukka/chuka" might signify some style of salad, or some other quality that the seaweed salad and noodle salad shared.

Heh. I realize that the meta-answer to my query is that I simply have to either start drinking in a better class of bar, or give up expecting much of anything from the places I currently go. Or both. Or I should just stock up the home liquor stash (which is non-existent right now--any drinking I currently do, I do out) and make these puppies at home. Which begs the question: when cocktail-savvy folks get stuck in a bar that is *not* of the best, what do they order as their "safety" drink--i.e. one that the bartender can't screw up too much, and that won't tax the bar's rather basic stock? Do they just throw up their hands and get a beer instead? Stick to *mumble* and soda? Suggestions for survival strategies welcome.

Congrats on being in the middle of a pretty damn exciting sounding curriculum! Just a couple of random ideas: Breadmaking always charmed my inner child (you get to stretch and pound this stuff! It does biochemical voodoo and gets big! It looks so funny when it deflates when you punch it down! ) Plus getting them hooked on real bread is IMO a very good thing. Doing an all-day smoked pork butt might be a bit challenging to fit into the class schedule (not to mention attention-span), but you might do a little indoor smoking in a wok or one of those stovetop smoker gizmos. Are there any field trips connected with this program? It would be really cool to take the kids to someplace doing artisanal foods, or to a small independent farm.

Hi Shmily, You might want to check out the topic I started awhile back, San Diego cheap eats mini-reviews, which has become a grab-bag of all sorts of inexpensive places from all around the San Diego area, including some forays into North County. Also, my two eGullet foodblogs (listed in my signature) have some more info about San Diego cheap eats. Enjoy!

So, as I posted in another topic earlier today, I am a long-time Manhattan drinker. I really like this drink. Plus it's reliable. Even when it's carelessly made by a slipshod bartender in a dive or a rock club, it's still more-or-less drinkable; and when it's made right by somebody who really cares, it's a thing of beauty. Plus it isn't gooped up with tons of sugary junk (okay, the maraschino cherry is its own little bomb of sugary crap, but still, we ain't talkin' White Russian candy-milkshake crap here ... ) Still ... I've begun to feel like I'm in a bit of a cocktail rut, and would like to have an alternate go-to drink. The trouble is, most of the things I really like in a drink sorta steer me back to the Manhattan (or its close sibling the Rob Roy): --a brown liquor --only a modest and discreet amount of sweetness --simple enough, and relatively familiar enough, that most bartenders have at least heard of the damn thing (when I go out, I want to spend my time enjoying my drink, my company, my food, and/or the entertainment--not educating the bartender). So--any suggestions for what drinks I should investigate? I'm not deadset against any liquor other than the brown ones--once in a blue moon I do like a properly made martini--but I do have an abiding fondness for the bourbon. I was thinking of checking out the Old Fashioned ... though I fear it might be too "old fashioned" for the young-thing bartenders in the joints I frequent. I also thought about other Manhattan variations (perfect; dry) ... jeez, maybe I just need to start going to different bars, because again I'm visualizing the guys tending bar in my usual watering hole with their eyes rolling back in their heads ... So anyway--can I be helped?

The big encyclopedic calorie-counter websites include full nutritional info about all sorts of wines, beers, and spirits, including a bunch specifically by brand-name. The site I use most often is CalorieKing, though there are other equally-extensive sites out there. And yeah, what everyone has already said about the specific calorie ranges of distilled spirits, sweetened spirits/liqueurs, beers, wines, etc. Myself, I found it not too difficult to adjust my booze preferences to my weight-loss routine. I'm a Manhattan-drinker, but I've decided with the infrequency of my indulgences I'm not gonna sweat the small amounts of sweet vermouth involved, let alone the damn cherry. Otherwise, I either choose straight bourbon, or a dry wine. Now if I could just find another cocktail I like as much as a Manhattan, but not any sweeter/gunked up than a Manhattan (and also not so obscure/complicated that I have to teach the bartender how to make the damn thing ... ) (edited because I can never spell "liqueur" right the first time )

Just looked up purslane on Wikipedia, and -- whoa! check this out! I'm always up for finding new vegetables to add to my repertoire, and this little nugget of nutritional info is certainly an additional motivator, at least for me. Now that I think about it, I could swear I've seen the stuff in one of the Mexican markets I frequent, under its Spanish name. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for verdolagas the next time I'm shopping there.

Yep, that certainly works great with collards, including the splash of sour at the end. Other acids also work great--I especially like a nice tart red wine vinegar. When I'm not doing the full-fledged ham hock thing, I often do collards by starting with some sauted garlic and onion/shallots/etc.; I then give the greens a bit of a toss in the sauted veggies, add a smallish amount of well-flavored broth (chicken or vegetable), and braise, covered, till tender. Oh yeah--many recipes say to discard the stems, but I love 'em--just slice them up into small pieces and they'll cook at the same rate as the leaves. (Ham hocks, by the way, are cuts from the lower portion of a pig's leg--I think of it as their ankles--smoked/brined with skin and bones intact. Cooking with them is like cooking with a nice well-flavored ham bone--really perks up beans, rice, and other long-simmered dishes. However, they do tend to be really salty--I usually parboil ham hocks before adding them to a recipe. Smoked turkey parts, becoming more and more available, are a great substitute--they tend to be significantly lower in fat, though not so much lower in sodium.) I usually just slice/quarter and toss with olive oil, S&P. Same as the infamous roasted cauliflower, you can roast them together. The roasted fennel tastes amazing when dusted with parmesan or pecorino out of the oven. ← Yep, that's how I do it too. First I give the fennel bulbs a trim--remove all the feathery leafy bits, and the stalks; the fatter stalks I do include in the roast, but the skinny bits I think would just burn. Then I take the bulbs and slice them lengthwise--i.e. perpendicular to the root-end, so that the slices hold together because they're still connected by a bit of the root. And then season 'em up and roast them just as sanrensho says. (You don't need to discard the trimmings--raw, they make great garnishes.) More veggie action: last night I kept it really simple--after cooking a pork chop on the ol' reliable Foreman Grill, I cut some zucchini in halves lengthwise, crosshatched the cut surfaces, seasoned them up with a bottled spice blend, and then slapped them on the grill's hot still-porkified surface. Five minutes grilling with the top lid down and voila! yummy "grilled" zuke, full o' porky flavor!

Yeah, as I recall, I really lost control of the liquid content on that dish. IIRC, I put in something like a cup of liquid; but though I know better, I totally spaced about eggplant's ability to give off a whole bunch of liquid of its own. So, yeah, things did get a mite bit soupy. As well as that distinctive grayish-brown eggplant color.

Heh. I wonder if, a century from now, foodies will be similarly scratching their heads over the name "freedom fries" -- "gee, they seemed to get a ton of press for a few years in there, then they vanished off the face of the culinary map! Anybody over in the States ever hear of them?" It does give one pause--how many other food terms over the years had their fifteen minutes of fame and fashion and then disappeared?