mizducky

Then there's the follow-on joke: Why do the natives stay out of the forest from noon to 2:00pm? ... Because that's when the elephants jump out of the cherry trees. Thanks, folks, I'm here all week, remember to tip your waitresses ...

Cool! I'm only barely familiar with amaranth leaves, and have never heard of drumstick leaves at all until now. Next time I'm in an Indian market I'll be sure to keep an eye peeled for them. Folks from the American Southeast may find this kind of laughable, but I taught myself how to cook greens with hamhocks out of a cookbook (in my defense, it was this Kwanzaa cookbook, a most excellent compendium of cooking from all over the African diaspora). I start from the "Three mixed greens" recipe in that book, mainly using two rather than three varieties of greens, usually collards and mustard greens. I simmer a couple of hamhocks alone in water to cover for about 45 minutes first, discarding the water, to give the hocks a headstart and remove some of their excessive saltiness. I then re-submerge them in either more water or some broth, bring them up to a boil, pile in my sliced well-cleaned greens (sometimes this takes a couple of iterations of piling in greens and covering until that lot wilts and makes room for more), add a dried red chile or two and a glug of wine vinegar, and simmer the whole thing covered for a good hour or two until the meat is falling from the bones and the greens are super-tender. Sometimes I add a chopped sweated onion before the long simmer starts, especially if I'm using water rather than broth. This really works best with tough and/or strong-flavored greens like the collards and mustard greens; kale and turnip greens are also great for this. Something really tender like spinach would probably turn into a grayish unpalatable mush with this kind of rough treatment.

Sounds like "Oh-Moo Rice" is a slight variation in both name and contents on the Japanese dish omuraisu, whose name in turn is a Japanization of the English words "omelette rice." (Heh. And of course English borrowed the word "omelette" from French--all so cross-cultural, innit? ) (And is "Japanization" even a word? Oh well--it is now! )

Hurrah! Felicitations! Both on your birthday, and on a most enticing-looking birthday dinner!

If I'm reading this website correctly, those colorful bits inside the shrimp are possibly her ovaries (scroll down to the diagram titled "Life-cycle of a Shrimp" and check out the text at #8); I guess you could think of the ovaries as unfertilized roe. Anyway, what the female winds up carrying outside her body is a packet of sperm (a "spermatophore") deposited on her by the male; she then secretes her eggs so that they get fertilized by the sperm outside of her body, drop to the ocean floor, and start developing into more shrimp.

This guy is hiking across the Australian outback and manages to get himself totally lost. After a few days of wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, he finally stumbles upon this tiny little village--in fact, it seems to consist of only a single house. The sign says the town's name is Mercy. He staggers up to the door of the lone house and bangs on it. The owner comes to the door, sees the hiker is in a bad way, and quickly invites him inside. "I know just what you need to fix you up," says the householder. "You need a nice big cup of our town's famous Koala Bear tea." The householder disappears into his kitchen and busies himself, and soon emerges with a "cup" that's more like a big bowl, full of a steaming broth. The hiker is so famished that he doesn't think twice, just takes the bowl and starts drinking. It really is delicious--more of a soup than a tea--and soon he's drained the bowl to the dregs. Then he looks at those dregs: bones, guts, fur ... there was in fact an entire koala in this tea. He blurts out "Man, you could have at least taken all this rubbish out first!" The householder, offended, pulls himself up and says: "Oh! But sir! ..." (wait for it ... ) "... the Koala Tea of Mercy is not strained!" (Ow! Quit looking at me in that tone of voice! )

Well, I grew up in the suburbs of New York City (Rockland County, NY, close to the Jersey border), which is one of the motherlodes of diner cuisine, and my recollection is that the majority of diners in that area are run by Greek families, so you'd see lots of Greek specialties on the menus. This one diner my family used to go to a lot when I was a kid had a moussaka dinner that was huge enough to feed about two or three longshoremen. Edited to add: You'd frequently find Italian specialities on the menus of many NY metro area diners too--lasagna, manicotti, etc. On a recent trip to New Mexico, I discovered the joys of green chile cheeseburgers--I think they were on the menu of every roadside cafe we happened into. And here in San Diego, nearly every diner-type place takes at least a stab at some sort of Mexican-ish dishes--taco plates, huevos rancheros, breakfast burritos, etc.

Maybe we could call it "Stupid Food Tricks" a la Letterman.

I'm not much of a baker, but what if you started with "blondies" rather than brownies? Or some other kind of non-chocolate (butterscotch? shortbread?) bar-type baked good? Then the item would already be close enough to cheese color that you'd have less trouble camoflaging it with a lighter-colored frosting/glaze/etc.

Heh. I experienced a similar case of Recipe Anxiety the last time I picked up a nice hunk of pork belly with no immediate plan of action in mind. After dithering over several recipe choices, I finally managed to remind myself that this was hardly the last pork belly on the planet, and whatever recipes I chose not to use on the poor thing this time, I could always try out at some future date. The spell thus broken, I then simply asked myself what flavors and textures were calling to me at that moment, and went with that. (Happened to be a braise with soy sauce and star anise, if memory serves...)

Looks like there have been a whole bunch of topics on tamarind here on eGullet--just plug the word into Search and they'll all pop up. In addition, there was a whole lot of useful info on using tamarind in the pad thai cookoff topic. Heh--the remainder of the block of tamarind I bought to participate in that thread is still cooling its figurative heels in my fridge. Tasty stuff, but a little goes a loooooong way.

Continuing to heartily enjoy this blog ... I'm curious about the beans to use for cassoulet, especially because I have a kind of love/hate relationship with dried beans. I want to like them more, because they're so healthy and thrifty (not to mention fun to cook--I'm another pressure cooker fan). But alas, there are a lot of varieties of dried legume that I just don't care for. I do like chick peas and lentils a whole lot, and black beans some of the time. But in particular the small white beans that I've seen recommended in a number of cassoulet recipes just don't do a whole lot for me. Perhaps in a cassoulet, drenched with all those lucious fats, they'd finally turn me on. But I confess one of the many reasons I've been hesitant to experiment with making cassoulet on my own is that I'd hate to put in all that work and all those fine ingredients only to discover that the beans still don't do it for me. I've seen both here and in the Cassoulet thread mention of various other types of beans, including ones deemed more traditional. I'm looking forward to any more opinions and tips you might want to offer on the matter.

One of the group of gay guys I used to hang with back in my 20s in Boston had a huge collection of antique silverplate serving pieces--trays, bowls, I don't even remember the half of it--many of which were family heirlooms. Hard to beat a collection that had been started a couple generations before you were born! When our group would head off for our annual weekend at Tanglewood, this guy would bring a bunch of that stuff along, turning our before-concert picnic on the Tanglewood concert grounts into a truly decadent experience (if the food we brought hadn't already done so, which it usually did). Oh and while we're at it, lesbians are not immune to the charms of tableware lust either. An ex of mine has a huge collection of beautifully ornate heirloom bone china teacups, most of which came from her extensive family back in Iowa--plus a classic wood-and-glass china cupboard (I want to say it was Queen Anne style) which she patiently schlepped from Iowa, had stripped and re-stained, so she could display all these gorgeous little teacups in the splendor they deserved. I think it amused her no end to think of her DAR forebears sipping out of those cups at ladies' luncheons and such.

Oh my. Y'know, we really need a more emphatic emoticon than around here. Like a ROFLMAO one. Thanks, Fresser, I needed that. Seriously. Oh, and MT-Tarragon: I eat the peels from my oranges all the time. Not from duress, but because I just like 'em. I've been known to eat other citrus peels and all too. I just think of it as fresh marmelade.

Heh. I have only just now escaped from an eight-hour incarceration in my HMO's emergency room. The good news is that all the tests they ran on me turned out negative. The bad news was that, somewhere around 9pm, I began to seriously lose my cool, no doubt prompted by the fact that I hadn't eaten since noon. The potentially ugly news: in an attempt to mollify me, one of the nurses offered to bring me some dinner. At that point, I realized the only thing that could possibly make me feel worse about sitting for hours on a gurney in one of those charming backless gowns with IVs in both arms and electrodes all over my chest would be to confront a miserable hospital meal--especially when I figured out that, having duly fed me, the staff would feel they could keep me waiting another three or four hours with impunity. So I told them don't bother, just bring me a glass of water and get me the *%$# out of there before I started hollering bloody murder and scaring the other patients. Boy, did they ever pick up the pace after that! Winesonoma, I feel for you. Best wishes for a full recovery, and hope you get sprung from jail real soon now.

It looks like definitions 1 and 2 are relevant, and conceivably 3a (but that's a stretch and would involve the "morals" of food). ← Oh yeah, I think "morality" does definitely play a role here. I seem to recall there was a whole strain of the heavily church-based temperance movement's arguments for prohibition in the US that emphasized what they saw as the immorality of booze in any quantity, not merely the physical unhealthiness of overindulgence in alcohol. The arguments would extend to the general unwholesomeness of the boozing lifestyle, to saloons as dens of iniquity, etc. etc. etc. I also find a decidedly moralistic tinge to a number of present-day health advocates' exhortations to ban fats, etc. from the diet. (And personally I find that tinge a really unhelpful turn-off--I'm seeking info, understanding, and support, not yet another guilt-trip.)

Heh. I think I have a related addiction--I like to just *look* at tableware and kitchenware. My family's skinflint training has got me pretty well inoculated against buying, but I have a real bad habit of wandering through housewares stores as if they were museums, looking at every little thing and going "oooooh." And then not buying anything. I'm sure shopkeepers all hate me. Although ... I'm going to be moving at the end of the month, and will actually have a freer reign WRT kitchen-stuff in my new apartment share. So--wow! An officially sanctioned excuse to actually buy stuff that even my frugal parents wouldn't have scoffed at! Be afraid, be very very afraid!

Hi, Chappie-- I must confess that the idea of sauerkraut in a dairy-based soup/stew doesn't immediately appeal to me. Are there any baseline rules your recipe has to adhere to in order to qualify as chowder? I mean, even among traditional chowders there's variants that have little or no dairy in them. Off the top of my head, I thought it might be fun to come up with a Southeast Asian spin on chowder, with coconut milk (alone or in addition to dairy) in the base, lemongrass and curry spices in the seasoning, and lotsa shrimp and scallops and such. (Although, now that I think of it, given that the sour-ish lemongrass/coconut milk combo appeals to me, maybe the sour cabbage/dairy combo would too, after all ... interesting how the mind works ... ) Edited to add--oh yeah, and squid! If you decide to run with the SE Asian concept, I'd think squid could be a real stand-out ingredient.

Here's some info about Russian cuisine (including 19th century info) that I found through Google: A history of Russian cuisine, including the 19th century. The English is slightly and IMO charmingly stilted--I can almost hear it being spoken with an accent. Another historic survey, this one courtesy of Aeroflot. This Moscow restaurant put a lot of little informative notes about the history of almost every dish on its extensive menu (click the "menu" link at the top of the page). The main things I picked up: 1) Yep, 19th century Russian cuisine definitely showed a lot of heavy influence from France and other European countries, but with a definite filtering through Russian food traditions. 2) Because of the influence of the Russian Orthodox church, which required a huge number of fast days, traditional Russian cuisine has a whole lot of fish and vegetable dishes. 3) Blini and Russian black bread apparently go back centuries, and everyone, rich and poor, ate these foods for centuries. 4) Soups and grain dishes were also popular with both rich and poor. 5) Vodka and tea (served from a samovar, sucked through a cube of sugar held between the teeth) were apparently very big in the 19th century. Enjoy!

Alas, I haven't watched ICA in ages, but I might hunt down this episode if only to hear Alton Brown utter this line quoted in the article: "Oh, my, dear Lord! Chef Dufresne is extruding! Oh! He's extruding . . . "

Nope, never have, never would. I'm secure enough about my own cooking skills that, even when I do run out of time and have to bring a store-brought offering to a potluck or something, I don't feel the need to pretend I made it. In fact, when I do have to bring store-stuff to an event, I tend to joke about it--"hand-bought food" is my mock boast. Actually, as somebody up-thread already remarked, shopping for really *good* stuff is an art in itself, so oftentimes my boast about the "hand-bought food" is no idle boast--I'm kinda proud that I found such neat stuff (a.k.a. "le food geek, c'est moi." ) I confess I just can't get my brain wrapped around the mindset of someone who would attempt to pretend store-bought food was their own. I just can't identify with being so intimidated by cultural pressures, or so aggressive about wanting to impress, as to want to try to fool somebody that way. What's the point? Sooner or later the subterfuge will fall apart, and then you'd wind up looking like a total ass. And even if somehow you were never found out---well, geez, who would want to base any kind of relationship on silly little lies like that?

Ah, Provincetown! Don't get me started! A glance at your website tells me that there are subjects we musn't pursue under eGullet auspices. Among the permitted ones, did you experience Sal's Place? Sal del Deo is a dear friend and one of the finest spontaneously natural cooks I've observed. Just watching him build a tomato sauce is a form of higher enlightenment. ← Yeah, I think most of my own P-town escapades would definitely be way the heck off-topic to eGullet. But as to food: alas, I don't think I ever got to Sal's Place (although time, and some of those escapades, may be playing tricks with my memory). But I do recall at least one lovely time at Ciro and Sal's--of course Sal was long gone from there by the time I showed up, and the exact memory of what we ate is also long gone, but the general enjoyment of that evening has stayed with me.

So, then, that would mean that jello molds are wholesome? ← When served by a wholesome Lutheran church lady, they are. (Maybe this indicates my feelings of cynicism about such fuzzy terms as "wholesome". I guess I think such terms are more about psychology and sociology than about the actual quality of the food.)

Heh. A most apropos quote. "Wholesome" as a concept is definitely a bit hard to nail down, but I'd say a good rule of thumb is, if you could imagine the residents of Lake Wobegone eating it, especially at a church supper, it probably qualifies as wholesome. At least by American food-mythos standards.

I'm really not much of an orange juice drinker at all. Growing up, my family just didn't do orange juice with breakfast, so I seem to have missed that entire bit of American societal programming. I love citrus, but I prefer to consume it intact (she sez, as she surveys the remains of a huge and tasty red grapefruit she just finished inhaling about three minutes ago). And I think nearly every time I have bought supermarket OJ, either frozen or liquid, it's been as an ingredient for some recipe--of course, I'll happily drink the leftovers, but otherwise it's never there in my fridge. In general, I do like to drink fruit juices occasionally, but I tend to prefer the organo-groovy types from the natural foods store/food co-op/TJ's etc. And when I have them, I tend to think of them as food rather than beverage, if you follow me--I mean I'm drinking them for the nutritive value (and yumminess) rather than to quench my thirst. For the latter purpose I prefer something a lot less sweet, that I can drink a ton of without giving myself a sugar overload--like flavored sparkling water, or, heck, just plain water.