mizducky

I was inspired to start this topic by the Lutefisk Pie topic over in Cooking, where the inherent humor-potential of the main ingredient inspired a couple of posters to offer such bits of folk artistry as this Ode to Lutefisk. I dunno if I'm just regressing to childhood or what, but this kind of admittedly sophomoric (or younger) humor always gets a grin out of me. Anybody remember, way back in the early years of Prairie Home Companion, a recurring feature called "The Department of Folk Song"? It was always dedicated to this kind of parody song, and a great many of these songs had to do with beloved (or loathed) food products. Most of us here in the States are probably familiar with the ol' "Beans beans the musical fruit..." and "Beans in my ears" songs. But what other food-oriented doggerel of this sort do you recall learning? Where did you learn it? (School? Summer camp? The military? Somewhere else?) Oh yeah, and I can't imagine this kind of humor isn't an international phenomenon--or is it? I'd love to know, for instance, whether musical fun is made of certain foods in, say, France. Or Japan. Or other places around the world. I'll start. My personal favorite in this style of humor is a song I learned of through Prairie Home Companion: What a Friend We Have in Cheeses.

I agree. Also--Tim, I hope you don't take this question amiss, but when you say you wind up with the chicken raw near the thigh joint, are you certain that it's raw, and not just pink from leaking marrow? At least here in the states, a lot of chickens are coming to market young enough that the marrow in their leg bones is not fully matured, such that when cooked the bones leak a little pink/redness into the surrounding meat. A lot of people do mistake that red color for underdone meat, even though the leg meat is fully cooked and safe, and keep cooking the chicken trying to get rid of the redness, resulting in an overcooked bird. Anyway, just sanity-checking here... As for me, I use a pretty standard approach to roasting a whole chicken, and I've never produced an inedible bird. At the same time, while I get decently not-dry breasts on my roast chickens, I simply don't expect them to be as moist as the dark meat. To be sure, I always had a preference for the dark meat anyway, so I tend to roast so as to optimize the dark meat, and other than sensible precautions such as generously greasing up the bird and including something either in the cavity or in the pan or both for moisture, I let the breasts kinda fend for themselves. I also think it helps that my roasting utensil is one of those big old-school cheapo speckleware enameled roasters, with a v-angle rack placed within it (I have a lid for this pan, but don't use it when roasting). I am persuaded that the dark enamel coating on the pan and its relatively high walls help by absorbing heat and radiating it upward/inward at the bird. I also think having the bird up on a rack (as opposed to sitting on the pan bottom, or sitting on a bed of veggies, etc.) helps by getting full air circulation around the bird's bottom, speeding up the cooking of the dark meat so it doesn't lag so much behind the white meat. And then you can put some liquid in the bottom of the pan without having the bird sitting right in the liquid and braising its butt instead of roasting it.

Depending on the trip involved, I've done everything from just bringing a credit card and trusting to fate, to equipping myself for a full week or more of car camping. Typical camping adventure from several years ago--a run from Seattle to NE California (around Lassen Volcanic Park) in a 1979 VW camper van equpped w/sink and cooler, but no stove or refridgerator. On this trip, I recall hauling along a two-burner Coleman propane stove; a bunch o' rugged cookware I didn't mind getting a little blackened over campfires, including a big-ass skillet and an old-school percolator; COFFEE!!! ; an assortment of dried bulk items from the food co-op, including black bean soup mix, dried vegetable mix, and quick-cooking grains and beans such as bulghur and lentils; a big package of bacon ends and pieces (we kept the cooler well-cooled, so this lasted us a goodly long time); a big folding vinyl water container with spigot and hauling handle; a small stash of seasonings, condiments, and cooking oil; a small stash of canned goods such as tuna, sardines, and tomatoes; crackers, trail mix, and other durable snacks; and a bunch of utensils, flatware, and dishes purchased at an army/navy surplus store. We started the trip with a small amount of perishables (hard cheese, salami, fresh fruit), and replenished as needed by stops in local grocery stores (or general stores once we got way the hell out in the sticks). For plane travel, I try to have at least some kind of healthy snack along so I'm not totally at the mercy of airport and airline foods, but sometimes I'm just too rushed to manage that. If I do have the time, preferred travel snacks have been nutrition bars and trail mix. For day car trips--like my fairly regular jaunts up to LA--I used to have this set routine. In addition to the trail mix/nutrition bar strategy, I used to go through a fast-food drive-through right before I got on the freeway, and pick up an order or two of the more driver-friendly finger-food-like offerings, like chicken fingers and fries, and a big-ass cup of diet Coke. (Rest assured, those concerned about drivers who dine at the wheel, that I would only hit this stuff either when not in major conjestion, or conversely when I was sitting in one of the many LA-area traffic jams). Now, however, I'm on this healthy-eating regimen, so the chicken fingers and fries are right out. And the trail mix is probably not a good idea in large quantities either. I've got a jaunt up to LA scheduled for the last weekend of this month, so I'm already thinking about car-food I can take that's "healthy" but a little more interesting than carrot and celery sticks. Maybe a packet of sun-dried tomatoes--I actually like chewing on those things.

Congrats, Chad! With all the material and contributors and stuff you're planning on including in this book, it sounds like it will be one kickass tome! Heh. And if you're also including a compendium of knife-oriented humor, you know you also gotta reference the classic Saturday Night Live Julia Child skit.

I have such mixed feelings about this. I am actually intrigued by the idea of these wraps. I do happen to be looking for more interesting ways to do vegetable-on-vegetable dishes, and these would help. However: I confess I'm kind of suspicious about how I had to read, like, 3/4 of the way down the USDA press release to find any mention whatosever about how the danged things taste, and then it was just the vague adjective "tasty." I can't help thinking that if the things did taste good they'd have dedicated as much verbiage to that as they did to the new products' flexibility and colorfulness.

This might actually turn out to be entertaining, in a campy so-bad-it's-good kind of way. God knows I'm sitting here cracking up just thinking about the projected cast--the producers couldn't have packed more nuts into this cheeseball if they tried. In fact, if I had happened across that story without attribution, I would have been tempted to guess it was an Onion parody. So--here's a question for those inclined to perhaps-masochistic humor: what celebrity did they neglect to hire so far that desperately needs to be part of this number to totally put it over the top (or send it the rest of the way into the gutter)? Myself, I'm torn between William Shatner (he really didn't get to be his full cheezoid self in that UPN attempt at Iron Chef) and Carson Kressley (no explanation required, I would imagine).

Hmmm ... wondering if, for those folks with the food-on-a-stick issue, whether the material of the stick makes any difference. For instance, I vaguely recall seeing some kid's frozen novelties on plastic handles rather than wooden sticks--would a plastic "stick" help matters for any of you, or not? It's not at the level of an aversion, but I do find accidentally clinking my teeth with metal utensils to be rather more unpleasant than I would have imagined is "normal" (whatever the hell "normal" may be--as I've been known to joke, "normalcy" is possibly an over-rated concept ). I do have a very few food aversions--not profound ones, as I am capable of eating the foods involved, and even sort of enjoying them, but I don't think they're ever destined to become favorites of mine. One is canned tomato soup. The color, smell, and mouth-feel all strike me the *wrong* way. I think my mom jinxed me here--she hated the stuff, and regaled me as a kid with a story of how, when she was a kid, she poured the tomato soup that came with her school lunch into the pocket of her coat to avoid being forced to eat it, much to the horror of *her* mom. My version of the aversion (rhyme a happy accident) once extended to tomato juice, although that eased some when I got old enough to experience Bloody Marys for the first time. Mind you, I love tomatoes in every other way imaginable--including raw, seeds and jelly gunk and all. And I love tomato-based soups like cioppino. It's just the Campbell's style creamy tomato soup that puts me off. Oh, and here's one that's been bemusing me recently--I just don't dig the texture of fresh raw pears. I love the flavor just fine--it's the grainy texture of the flesh that kinda puts me off. I adore dried pears, cooked pears---hell, even canned pears. Raw, no dice. I just bought some the other day, because I find this averson of mine so silly. But no dice--still don't really groove on the things. Sigh.

Hey, yeah, let's hear it for coping with PMS cravings while on a diet! Ack phoeey!!! I have been so freakin' grumpy the past few days, it's a wonder none of my friends has hauled off and bought me a box of chocolates and a slab of prime rib just to get me to chill the hell out. I sometimes think that the only thing that's keeping me from going off the diet to self-medicate with food is the certain knowledge that, the morning after, I'd go off on a whole new freakout because I blew off the diet so egregiously. Fortunately, my "dieting" philosophy includes the concept of controlled pre-planned splurges--okay, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it's been working for me so far. So--I have a date for dinner with some foodie friends on Thursday, and I'm giving myself permission to relax the diet for that dinner. Fortunately, it's a Vietnamese restaurant--I tend to do less damage to my diet at Asian restaurants just because of the nature of the cuisines, but as I love those cuisines so, it still registers as a psyche-soothing treat for me.

Bravo! I have nothing substantive to add to this conversation, except to observe that I have eaten lutefisk and actually thought it was not half bad at all. Oh, and then there's this bit of humor in the same vein as the above song--search on "lutefisk pie" to find the bit I mean (although the rest of the page is pretty droll as well).

Here's a third for Siesels. I also highly recommend their elder sister, Iowa Meat Farms, which is maybe a little further south than you wanted, but hey, it's still north of downtown (Mission Gorge Road, about 4 blocks north of I-8). Here's the website for both Iowa Meat Farms and Siesel's. A caution: they're both a bit on the pricey side (though you do get appropriate quality for the money).

Hi Ed! Say, our buddy Kirk/mmm-yoso recently reported on his blog that Emerald, once his favorite dim sum place in town, has not really been the same quality-wise since re-opening after the fire they had several months back. Instead, Kirk now recommends Emerald's sister restaurant, Pearl, up in Rancho Bernardo. I never got to Emerald before the fire, but I dined at Pearl just recently and thought it was terrific. Anyway, just tossing in my dos pesetas here.

I'm plotzing already. I love that stuff.

Not necessarily. I clearly remember those pedestal dishes from Chinese restaurants of my youth in the suburbs of New York City. Complete with the lids, and no porcelain dish between the food and the metal. As a kid I thought it was a fun game to be constantly lifting and replacing the lids to get at the food.

In motels and hotels here in the States, I usually see simple two-cup electric "Mr. Coffee" style drip coffeemakers, supplied with pre-measured packets of ground coffee. The coffeemakers are pretty foolproof, and the more upscale places can dress them up simply by choosing more upscale coffees for those little packets. Here's an example of the kind of gizmo I mean (it's listed as a 5-cup maker, but as those are 5-oz "cups", the amount it actually makes is more like two normal-sized mugfuls). Thank you for prompting me to look up more info about these amazing flowers--I had seen them before, but never knew they were native to your area. And according to this page, apparently northern San Diego County was one of the first places they were grown in the States--who knew?

How about some banana chutney? I've never made it myself, but it sounds like an excellent way to preserve some of your bananas. Looks like there are other banana chutney recipes out there on the Web too--the above-cited one is just the first one I turned up.

You know, if all else fails, you could invest in a bread-making machine. I suppose one could manage to make even a bread machine screw up, but it is damn difficult. I owned a second-hand older-model bread machine once, and it really turned out an excellent loaf. And I understand that there are now bread machines available that make traditional-shaped loaves (as opposed to the tall cylindrical or square loaves typical of the first generation or so of the gizmos). However, I do hope jackal10 does succeed in his lessons with you. IMO There is nothing quite so satisfying as kneading and punching down bread dough. Extremely theraputic--and much more yummy than going to a shrink.

Just surfacing from a work deadline to say I'm really enjoying this blog. Fascinating look at a part of the world I know almost nothing about. I also couldn't resist commenting on this: One surprise feature of a memorable group camping weekend I once took at Kalaloch, Washington (right on the Pacific Coast, part of Olympic National Park) was a dead whale carcass just a little ways up the beach. Fortunately the prevailing winds were blowing the stink away from us, but on those brief occasions when the wind shifted and gave us a whiff--boy howdy, what a a mindbending STINK!!! A few brave souls hiked over for a closer look--I don't quite know how they managed it without passing out. I'm not sure what the park staff wound up doing with the poor critter--it was still out there when our group departed. At least our group didn't have to give up on our weekend plans, nor even relocate our camp kitchen. In fact, we had a wonderful time, in an idyllic setting (though very different terrain from your stretch of shoreline).

I'm really liking the seafood idea too. I dunno about your area, but I'm thinking of typical food stalls I've seen at various festivals in various states, and I don't remember seeing too many offering seafood. Even in Seattle, the most I usually saw was salmon burgers, and one booth that did cajun blackened fish. So I think you'd have a lot of unexplored marketing territory in which to play. If you did New England-style fried clams, with bellies intact, I can almost guarantee you would pick up an immediate following of clam junkies fed up with the nasty little strip clams served at most places outside of New England. And then you could follow through on the theme with lobster rolls, clam chowder, hand-cut fries, roasted corn on the cob, coleslaw etc. All of these are easily packaged for portability, and re-arrangeable into combo plates, a la carte choices, etc. You could even build in a little mystique in terms of special "secret recipe" coating/seasoning on the fried items, a signature souped-up tartar sauce, etc. I know I'd sure go for this.

The new Uwajimaya campus had been open about a year or so when I left Seattle, and you better believe I was in there a lot before I left. heheheheheh ... guessing this blogger's identity is gonna be pretty easy ...

Yeah, San Diego's restaurant scene isn't anywhere near as exalted as the Bay Area or LA, but you can still find some charming dining. I'd suggest you check out restaurant listings for La Jolla, the (very ritzy) town just north of San Diego. La Jolla's downtown is very charming, very walkable (rare in Southern California), right near some extremely beautiful shoreline, and studded with cute shops and galleries as well as extremely nice restaurants (or so I'm told about the restos, as I hardly ever get up there to dine myself). A bit more low-budget and funky, but also charming in its own hippy-surfer way, is the San Diego seaside neighborhood Ocean Beach. There's a whole little photo-essay on Ocean Beach, as well as a sampling of cheap-but-good eats around San Diego, in the foodblog I did a couple of months ago. If you stay in downtown San Diego, you'll be in close proximity to the Gaslamp District, where there's lots of restaurants, bars, and clubs--I don't go down there very often, though, due to the crowds. If you head a little north from downtown, you'll get to Hillcrest, another neighborhood with a goodly stock of restaurants--I am especially fond of Khyber Pass, specializing in Afghan cuisine, but there are several other nice ones in that area. Oh, and as you work your way up the coast to LA, there are a number of charming seaside towns, each of which have restaurants that strive to take advantage of those seaside views. I had a really nice dinner once at White Horses in San Clemente, which was definitely augmented by the pretty view of the shore.

I might just do that. Although Uwajimaya tends to lean more towards the Japanese side. If I have the time, I'd rather drive 20 extra minutes to 99 Ranch Market in the Great Wall Mall (that's really what it's called.) They have a great Dim Sum place in the same building. Imperial Garden. ← Whoa! When did that mall open up?!? If it existed while I still lived in Seattle (I left in August 2002), I must have been totally not paying proper attention, because I would have been all over that joint if I'd known about it. (And I should own stock in IKEA now, with all the business I gave that IKEA down in the same area.) If you do decide to visit Great Wall instead of Uwajimaya, I wouldn't mind one bit!

Aha--you have touched on a vocabulary conundrum of mine. While growing up, I heard the term "schmear" all the time, and always in reference to cream cheese on a bagel--and yet, at least in my family, the word "schmear" itself was not synonymous with cream cheese. We always ssid the full phrase "a schmear of cream cheese", not just "a shmear." And yet, I don't recall any of us using the word "shmear" with any other foodstuff. For that matter, growing up, we never bought pre-schmeared bagels out. You bought the bagels, the cream cheese, and the other goodies, brought them home, and then did your assembling and schmearing and eating. So who knows--maybe there were deli countermen all over 1960s Rockland County who were using "shmear" as synonymous with cream cheese, and I never knew it. So--I dunno. Just a family-specific word weirdness? I'll be watching this thread to see.

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." --David Byrne (sorry, couldn't resist) ← And I couldn't resist adding that I thought that line originated with Jules Feiffer (I sure remember hearing it before I remember first hearing of the Talking Heads), although Google reveals that there is actually considerable disagreement about its attribution ... but boy is this ever topic drift! Hauling this back on-topic ... Henry, here's the bazillion-dollar question: have you gotten involved in any restaurant design yet? With your knowledge and enthusiasm (not to mention your design chops and friendship network), I for one think you'd be a natural.

I love Marjorie (and their roast chicken) but I would vote for omakase at Nishino. ← I agree--Marjorie sounds lovely, but I am such a sucker for really excellent sushi. Henry, I am now so homesick for Seattle it's ridiculous. It's those shots of the Market that put me over the edge (terrific photography, by the way). I'm really overdue for a visit--gotta fix that soon. Now if you really want to score a nostalgia-knockout punch on me, all you'd have to do is take your camera down to Uwajimaya ...

Gosh, Leo. I've never looked at it this way. Do people really laugh at us? Really, really? Sure, we're aware of the 'joke' that the chinese eats anything under the sun, but we've always acknowledged that with 'pride', lol. Methinks eating all these exotics has formed a thick skin on me. ← Oh god. I once had to resign from an on-line discussion group on another board, because I got so pissed off at the existence of a long-running discussion that proceeded to indulge in every derogatory attitude about Chinese food I had ever heard of--and a few I hadn't. And anytime I or anyone else told 'em they were being offensive, some "free speech" advocate would retort that it was important for these prejudices to be aired so that people would be educated about them or something. Fine, but "educating" usually doesn't involve so much derisive chortling and sniggering, folks. Here, though, I am enjoying listening to y'all share about these sometimes-misunderstood foods, not only with humor but also with genuine fondness for the culture and cuisines involved. Which I think is really really cool, and the way Life should be.