mizducky

Not only coffee, but also Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper. And beer. Mustn't forget the beer as periodic positive enforcement. And among some circles, REAL programmers have built-in radar for any free food left over from any meeting. Thirty seconds after the conference room is vacated, the vultures descend. Erm. Not that I have any personal experience with such behavior. Heaven forfend, and all that.

Just did the Classic Midnight Supermarket Run, to lay in provisions for the next stint of madness. Four liters of diet pop, big ol' bag of tortilla chips, big ol' jar of salsa ... and a two-pound block of Tillamook medium cheddar. With these, I will either conquer the world ... or come down with some kind of deficiency disease. Maybe both, I dunno. Erm ... y'know, I forgot about how much caffeine Diet Coke contains. Especially when one drinks a super-sized "cup" of the stuff. bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt...

Having inhaled mass quantities of cheese while working, I can totally identify with this. And with the funked-up keyboard too, though cheese is not the main culprit there. Quite alright--been there, done that, only reason I can't do it anymore is because I did it so much that it massively contributed to my first major bout with GERD. But I remember a landmark two weeks of all-nighters at the end of my freshman year of college--holed up in a study room with my coffeemaker and study-stuff, drank mass quantities o' java all night, indulged in a little "herbal relaxicant" so I could stop vibrating enough to grab a couple hours of sleep ... wash, rinse, repeat. For two whole weeks. I managed, by that effort alone, to turn what was going to be an F for one course into a C+ ... and spent the next three days or so sleeping it all off. (Edited to fix idjit typos--maybe I do need to hit the caffeine again! )

I have a work-related deadline that falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and the final push towards it started this week (which is why I have not been as obsessively present on eGullet the past couple of days as has become my habit ). Because of that looming deadline, my food prep and consumption has gotten extremely makeshift in the past couple of days. Yesterday, I was basically nailed to my computer all day and most of the night, and didn't even find enough time to run out for take-out fast-food, let alone to cook anything more involved than the bowl of spaghetti with jarred sauce that wound up being dinner. Today at least I was out of the house on an errand, so was able to hit the Jack-in-the-Box drive-through on the way back--I would have preferred making a detour to the 99 Ranch for takeout, but I feared being late for a meeting. I recall all-nighters and exam-crams in college and grad school, where we'd eat the most outrageous junk-food crap and drink pots of coffee. I also recall grinding towards deadlines at various computer companies, during which we'd give the vending machines in the nearest staff kitchen a major workout. And nowadays there's the typical marathon-rehearsal procedure of ordering a pile o' pizza to be delivered. And when I'm grinding at the deadline by myself at home, food can sometimes get *real* primitive--howzabout harried-person's nachos? Pile bunch o' tortilla chips in microwave-safe container. Top with several slices of cheese. Nuke till cheese melts. Slop some salsa on top. Inhale. Repeat as necessary. Or even more primitive--just haul the bag of tortilla chips and several slices of cheese into the office and inhale those while hacking away on the computer? So--what are other folks' true confessions about the food you consume when there is simply no time or extra energy to even breathe, let alone cook?

I must confess that part of me is glad chicken thighs are still considered "low-rent" -- gotta leave at least a few bargain cuts at the meat counter! Every time one of those varieties of animal protein once considered poor people's food gets "discovered" by the gourmet-food world, its price jumps so that it's no longer a bargain. Much as I love to defend dark-meat chicken as the taste-leader on the bird, I don't exactly welcome seeing it get so popular that its price inflates too.

The fish balls look yummy. (Maybe I'll serve them instead of gefilte fish some day! ) But since I've never had dace before, your comments about the fish's distinctive taste intrigue me--could you say a little about what it tastes like? Oh, and just for grins--I went Googling to find out more about this fish, and found this. (I note that this fellow seems to be describing--and waxing humorous about--a different version of this dish...)

I've made Jewish-style gribenes any number of times as a byproduct of rendering schmaltz--this sounds like a very intriguing (and yummy!) alternate approach. One of these days I need to get some chicken skin and experiment.

Oh dear! That one on the left looks a little like Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force! (So ... what is that stuff, really?)

Burrito de cabeza from one of my favorite local taquerias, Taco Motion in Pacific Beach.

Weeeeellllll ... I dunno if I'd order meatloaf at just any restaurant. But a hot open-face meatloaf sandwich with gravy and mashed potatoes is one of the glories of classic diner fare. I've ordered that in diners a lot. Just sayin'. And speaking of diners, some of them have traditionally had relatively lengthy menus. They are indeed hard to navigate when one hits the diner at 3am after a night of booze and loud rock music, but for me that's sorta part of the charm. Another type of establishment which traditionally features menus that go on forever is the classic Jewish-style deli. Here's a typical example from a local exemplar of the form. But at least these places have a unified concept, so that all the bazillion dishes are mainly variations on a relatively few themes (diner: breakfast plates, dinner plates, burgers, sandwiches, etc.; deli: sandwiches, Jewish specialties, smoked fish plates, etc.), so once you've got the general schema down, you can navigate the menu relatively easily. Perhaps even more importantly, the cooks have got the general schema down, so that they can throw together, say, any of numerous variants of three-egg omelettes or overstuffed deli sandwiches with high accuracy and quality. But compare this to those mid-level restaurants with humongous menus trying to be all things to all people. The mid-level chains like Cheesecake Factory seem to be the worst offenders in this regard. CF's online menu actually boasts "There is truly something for everyone!" But that philosophy produces a menu in which there are 29 "specialties" alone, leaping from Italian to Tex-Mex to Asian to several varieties of American regional to I dunno what-all else--plus pages of pizzas, steaks, sandwiches, and oh yeah, I guess they still sell cheesecake too, huh? Now that kind of menu, in which there is no organic relationship between any of the bazillion items offered, makes no sense to me whatsoever. Further, I have an exceedingly difficult time believing that any one kitchen staff can do justice to all those dishes from all those divergent backgrounds. (Of course, when it's a chain like the Cheesecake Factory, I have an exceedingly difficult time believing that the majority of their food isn't shipped in mostly pre-cooked portions from a corporate commisary... )

Yeah, now that I've done some Googling, I've assured myself that I wasn't imagining (or whatever) the smoked tails. My guess is that the tails showing up at retail is a byproduct in the huge growth in retail packaging of turkey breast fillets, ground turkey, etc. At some point the suppliers must have figured that somebody would buy these tails if they packaged them up. They must be growing gigundo-bionic turkeys, by the way--I regularly buy the fresh tails for soup-making and whatnot, and the things are HUGE--if the tail of the bird is that humongous, the bird itself must have been the size of a small Volkswagen. The things are extremely fatty, but for those of us who used to fight over who got to eat the turkey's tail every Thanksgiving, tails by the pound are a guilty pleasure. They'd be a natural for smoking.

Mind you, I am a total novice deep-fryer and have never attempted a whole bird. But you got me curious enough to Google. I turned up a number of Asian-oriented recipes that all include a preliminary step of steaming the duck before deep-frying it. My admittedly naive guess is that this step either gets a little excess fat out from under the duck's skin, or causes that skin to get crispier when deep-fried, or some of both. In any case, these two recipes looked pretty promising: Here's one And here's the other ("timur" in the ingredients is apparently Szechuan pepper)

Well, "Aunt Flo" (as one of my friends calls "her") has arrived at my house, but even though I'm all achey-breaky now, the cravings continue ... it usually takes me about 24 hours until my metabolism shifts gears, and I suddenly realize "hmm, has it really been ten hours since last I ate anything?" But in the meantime ... I hear the siren call of the local Asian buffet, murmuring "spare ribs, spare ribs ... " Oddly, while I probably would Hoover up any deep-fried candy bar or other chocolatey item if it happened to be conveniently nearby, what I really crave when the hormones are surging is high-fat-content animal protein. This is why, at this time of month especially, pork products are my friends.

I think you could do a nice non-Asian stuffing for those with some combination of mushrooms, a grain/bread item, plus appropriate binders and (non-Asian) seasonings. Maybe make a little mushroom risotto (assuming your guests do dairy), or polenta with mushrooms. (Mushrooms are one of my go-to items for vegetarian cooking.)

Recently, I've been seeing smoked turkey necks in one of the supermarkets I frequent. I'd been seeing (and cooking with) the smoked legs, wings, and sometimes thighs for years, but the necks were a first for me. I bought some of these necks the other day, and used them in a batch of lentils last night. Really excellent flavor, though obviously not a lot of meat. A little tougher than other smoked turkey parts, though. Next time I'm going to try giving the necks about an hour's lead time simmering by themselves before adding the lentils (I like my lentils not to get too mushy). I vaguely recall seeing smoked turkey tails in a store at some point--has anybody else ever seen these, or am I hallucinating about food again?

A whole bunch more ingredients I have not yet had an opportunity to learn how to use. Thanks, hzrt8w!

Seconded on the clam fritters (another New England food I dearly miss). And how about pakoras?

I bet you'd have good luck with your rugelach quest at this establishment. Rugelach are indeed a great good thing ... I may "need" some myself fairly soon, but fortunately I know where to look for them here in Sandy Eggo. (Now I'm trying to think of operas about food. (More Songs About Buildings And Food? Oops, sorry, wrong musical genre!) Okay, let's see: there's "The Love for Three Oranges" ... and ... ????)

Opera, food, and more cute critters--what more does a blog need?

Does John Lithgow sing and dance about it? Or maybe some Canadian musical-comedy star? What rhymes with "Gardennay" anyway? Every day? Flambee? ← Why, Big-boo-TAY, of course! (Don't mind me, my brain's still stuck on "Buckaroo Banzai." ) Trying desperately to stay on topic: I too can't figure out why canned soups, and processed foods in general, go so danged heavy-handed on the sodium. If it's to make up for flavor deficits in other areas, it ain't working by me--the stuff just winds up tasting overly-salty in addition to tasting lackluster. Just as well, because the amount of salt in canned soups means I just can't eat them anymore, because one or two servings are more than enough to make my feet turn into dirigibles.

"And now," according to the shmooze on said website, "it's wrapped in a vibrant new look that reflects your own exciting and unique lifestyle!" I'm not exactly sure what a soft-drink can design reflecting my unique lifestyle would look like, but I'm pretty sure neither the new or old Fresca can design is it. Meanwhile, I confess part of me just does not get this soft drink industry marketing strategy of taking a product's original flavor profile and expanding it until the spin-off products bear little resemblance to the original. Fresca was okay; it was grapefruity. But now it's also peach and black cherry? Similar thing with Seven-Up--now there's again cherry, and I dunno what-all else. Why doesn't somebody just make a danged cherry soda brand, instead of these flavor-variants of established brands?!?!? Like I said, I don't get it. (I'm sure the marketers have done tons of studies suggesting that people pick up recognizeable brands more often than totally new ones ... I guess I just don't think that way.)

I'm still doing my best to avoid TV these days, so I haven't seen the ad ... so now I'm running my own dream-version of the ad in my head, only with Lithgow as Lord John Whorfin from "Buckaroo Banzai": "Laugh while you can, monkey-boy--I've got all the soup!" (I like my imaginary ad better, but somehow I don't think Campbell's would buy it... )

(peeking into the Texas forum) Oh my! I don't know which makes me drool more, the burgers or those ginormous onion rings! (sez she who hasn't had a decent onion ring in so long, it's criminal)

Oh dear. And what was I just saying about the contents of some baby's diaper...?

Okay, I am just now recovering from dinner at one of my favorite cheep-ass Asian buffets, where I inhaled mass quantities of (very meaty!) spareribs, plus random assorted shellfish, and am feeling much better for it. At least, for the time being. (Too bad there isn't a full moon out so I could howl at it. )