mizducky

Oops! I forgot to mention that, although the auction action is taking place now (actually, the planning/soliciting of volunteer hosts is starting right now, the auction itself is over a couple of Sundays in November), the actual date/time of delivering on the dinners is up to the seller, in negotiation with the winning bidder. Lots of flexibility that way. So--if I do go with the Passover seder, I can auction it off at the November event, then deliver on the meal in the normal timeframe (which will be next April)--plenty of time to gear up. There is a tradition of a post-Yom Kippur break-the-fast meal, though I don't recall hearing of anyone elaborating it into a formal Seder ritual. Y'know, I thought about doing an Indian dinner--I adore working with all the spices and such. Doing some kind of pan-Asian meal also occurred to me. And with both of these meals it would be way easy to offer a vegetarian option, which I bet would be a big draw with a significant segment of the congregation. Hmmmm ... add those onto the short list of ideas.

Well, y'all will be happy to know that, with all the support and encouragement you have given me here, my culinary "gilded turd" has succeeded in finding its way into the trash. Ahhhh, the feeling of liberation!

My church is going to be holding a silent-auction fundraiser event entitled "Dining for Dollars," in which all auction items are to be food events of various sorts. This joys my heart no end, because I used to offer my cooking services all the time as auction fodder for other organizations. But now comes the first fun--and challenging--part: trying to decide what kind of dining experience to offer. Since my place is just totally inadequate for hosting people for a dinner, I'm going to do what I've done in previous similar adventures, which is to specify that the dinner I'm offering is to be cooked and served in the winning bidder's home (or other location of their choice, which they are in charge of providing). Then I make like a personal chef, showing up on their doorstep on the designated day with all required foodstuffs (and any extra implements that they don't already own), and cook and serve the meal. Having done this before, I know I can handle six to eight diners without too much fuss. So I've got the location and the general size of the event figured out. But I still have to decide what the heck to cook. Again, having done this before, I know it really helps the auction item to "go" if it has an interesting and unifying theme. And I also know that for my own entertainment and ease, it helps if the dinner revolves around at least a couple of items I do well and enjoy doing. Also, since this is for a west coast Unitarian Universalist church, I know I'm working with a demographic that actively enjoys multi-cultural experiences, probably has some reasonably sophisticated tastes in food, and also probably has some interest in "healthy" cuisines. The flyer soliciting donations for this event had a whole slew of suggested themes, everything from ethnic dinners to a sailing/picnic adventure to "food for the body/food for the soul: a quiet evening of regenerating food and meditation", to dinners centered around various holidays from around the world. So I've got *lots* of latitude. Donated dinners I've done in the past, for other groups, that were real hits: --Pacific rim fusion cuisine dinner (featuring grilled marinated salmon steaks with a ceviche starter) --Italian dinner (featuring pasta puttanesca plus a big antipasto) --Vegetarian gourmet dinner (leaning heavily on the "Vegetarian Epicure" books) I could always do one of those again. But where would be the fun in that? Right now, I'm playing around with two different ideas that really appeal to me: --When I asked myself what dish was calling me to cook it for this kind of event, the first thing that popped into my head was risotto. I could see building a lovely meal around a big main-course risotto, with a really nice starter, salad, and dessert to round it out. And it would be a relatively easy meal to pull off. --I've been wanting to do a UU version of a Passover seder for some time now, and I bet there'd be a whole bunch of church members who would really light up at the chance to participate in one. And it would give me a chance to try and make some decent gefilte fish from scratch. On the downside, I think this would be a bunch more work than the risotto dinner idea--seders are long intricate meals, even if I do a simplified non-doctrinaire meal for the liberal UU crowd, and I'd possibly be involved in helping teach the ritual and cultural stuff to folks not familiar with it. And that's all the further I've thought about this so far. I've got until October 23 to turn in my official form, but I figured it would be fun to run this whole thing by you, my fellow food freaks, to get your comments and suggestions.

Having no offspring of my own, I'll have to regale you with a story from my own childhood. In my hometown was a beloved local ice cream parlor--long gone, alas--with a big sign at the front counter listing all their 40-something flavors and such. And at the bottom of this sign was a notice reading "SORRY CONES AVAILABLE AT COUNTER ONLY" (pretty much exactly like that, all capitals, no punctuation). Well, I puzzled over that notice every time we went for ice cream, and finally got up the nerve to ask my parents if I could order a "sorry cone." It took them a moment to figure out what the heck I was talking about, but boy did they ever crack up--and boy was I ever miffed! ("But that's what the sign said!")

Oooooh! Love the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and their food! Love Indian food! Always up for seeing the innards of any major food market. Always up for learning more about the cuisine of a culture I'm not yet familiar with (although I had at least heard of Zoroastrianism before). Heck, all the above choices sound lovely. And also--love that cute little kitty! (The photo of your deck where she's serenely enthroned in its exact center just cracks me up--so typically cat-like.)

Myself, I've thought I was a freak for a looooooong time. And not just about cooking either. But now that I've been hanging with all you fellow cooking freaks ... well, I don't necessarily think I'm any less of a freak (and not just about cooking either), but at least I feel a little more support for the cooking aspect of my freakhood. Erm ... unless, of course, we've all just been enabling each other. Aaaaah, what the hell. Normalcy is overrated! Freakhood forever!!! Uhhhhh ... (somewhat) more seriously: it's hard to pick any one single thing that I've learned here that's been momentous, because there's just a general onslaught of good stuff. But if you twisted my arm, I'd have to say it's been learning from those of you who hail from Asian countries or otherwise have first-hand experience with the homestyle everyday cooking of those countries. That kind of cross-cultural food lore exchange is literally priceless, and has majorly enriched my already-strong appreciation of those cuisines. On the downside: I fear that the last thing I needed in my life was yet another on-line time-sink that happens to be more entertaining than my actual paid employment.

Heheheh. I've been at an event with a mashed potato bar--one of the choices for topping the taters was caviar! A lot of people at that event seemed to be overlooking the mashed potatoes and their little fish-eggy acoutrements, but I was more than happy to make up for their neglect.

Way the heck back in college chemistry class, we used similar thingies, which at least in Chem were called pipettes. I'm not asking any questions, but only because I'm just happily soaking it all in.

Normally, I'd say that I find really perfect strawberries the most seductive fruit in the world. But then there's always this line: "Oh, Beulah, peel me a grape." -- Mae West Although Sistah Mae could probably make just about anything sound sensuous as all get out.

Just wanted to add my thanks and praise too, Daniel. It's been a good while since my last drive-and-graze roadtrip. Need to fix that sometime soon ... (you sure you don't want to go into the culinary tourguide business? I bet you'd have a lot of customers. )

Holishkes a.k.a. Stuffed Cabbage Serves 4 as Main Dish. By request, here is my mother's recipe for stuffed cabbage. The ingredient list pretty closely follows an old cookbook she also bequeathed to me, entitled--nu, vhat else?--Jewish Cookery, by one Leah W. Leonard, originally ©1949 and apparently long out of print (my mom's edition is dated 1951). But the method given here is based on my memory of how she did it, rather than the different (and rather terse) method given in the book. 1 lb ground beef 1/4 c uncooked white rice (not converted or parboiled) 1 egg 1 onion, grated 1 carrot, grated 1/4 tsp salt pepper to taste 10 cabbage leaves 1/4 c lemon juice or vinegar, OR 1/8 tsp. citric acid ("sour salt") 1/2 c brown sugar 1 c tomato sauce, canned (or home-made, if you prefer) water to cover Combine the ground beef, rice, egg, onion, carrot, salt, and pepper. Blanch the cabbage leaves briefly, so they're just soft enough that you'll be able to bend them without breaking them; drain and dry them. Stuff the leaves with the ground beef mixture by placing a spoonful of stuffing inside each leaf, folding the sides in, and then rolling it up snugly--as if you were rolling an eggroll or burrito or such. Place the rolls in a deep skillet or pot with a tight-fitting lid, one just big enough to hold all the rolls in a single layer (when they're packed in like that, they won't come undone while cooking). Combine your souring agent of choice, the brown sugar, and the tomato sauce and pour over the cabbage rolls. Add just enough water so that the rolls are covered. Simmer tightly covered over moderate heat until done--at least an hour, possibly/probably more like 90 minutes. Notes: --The original recipe said to finish the dish in the oven, uncovered so that the rolls brown, but my mother always cooked them entirely on the stovetop. --You should feel free to get more adventurous with the seasonings than my mom did; myself, I'd probably at the very least add a bunch of minced garlic to the stuffing, but then I'm a garlic fiend. Keywords: Main Dish, Vegetables, Jewish, Rice, Beef, Dinner ( RG1413 )

Oh dear ... I'd be afraid the birds would fly over our house afterwards and, erm, recycle the end-product.

Heh. Unfortunately, like coupon-clipping and other such theoretically-thrifty behaviors, the reality is hardly thrifty at all. In fact, I wasted some perfectly good tomatoes and garbanzo beans on that slop. I should remember that the next time I'm tempted to be "thrifty" this way.

Heheheheheh ... reminds me of a parody-doggerel from my grade school days: "Oh say can you see Any bedbugs on me? If you do, take a few, But leave some for me!" Okay, now it's time for me to ante up, and I can't believe how much embarrassment I had to fight in order to post the following beauteous picture: This unattractive slop is a result of the bad convergence of several of my peculiar food behaviors: 1) My mom trained me so well to avoid wasting food that I can't bear to throw out leftovers, no matter how uninspiring they may be; 2) This in turn evolved into a penchant for trying to combine leftovers in various ways in an attempt to conceal their flaws; 3) When said combinations don't succeed as desired, I have a tendency to try throwing in additional stuff in an attempt to salvage the dish. So ... I had some leftover garbanzo beans and brown rice. I also had a left-over first attempt at cooking nopales--I didn't care for the finished product's taste or texture, but because of behavior (1), I just couldn't bring myself to simply toss 'em and try again (I have since learned that I should have gone for the really small paddles, instead of the big ones I got). I also had about a half-can's worth of leftover chipotle chiles in adobo, and some fresh roma tomatos, so I got the brilliant idea of combining them all and making some kind of stew/chili/thang. So I started a little mirepoix of onions/celery/carrot in a big pot, and then threw in all the other stuff to simmer. Realizing I needed a bit more liquid in there, I thought of another leftover in the fridge, this some (very jelled!) broth left from a batch of stewed pig's feet (which, while tasty, could have provided another photo worthy of this thread, but alas I didn't think to snap any). Anyway, so in went the jelled broth too, which did quickly liquefy. Everything seemed to be humming along quite nicely, but the finished flavor--urk. The chipotles and adobo were way too strong, drowning out almost everything else ... except those damn nopales, whose flavor, texture, and even odor were still putting me off. But could I leave well enough alone? Of course not! I had to try adding a can of tomato sauce, to see if it would even things out. It didn't. And the result is this gelatinous mass of red ... stuff. To be sure, this is straight out of the fridge, and it would loosen up some if heated. But trust me, it doesn't look (or taste) any more appetizing when hot. The saddest thing of all is that I still can't quite bring myself to throw this mess out. Not that I can bring myself to eat it either. I'll probably wind up keeping it in the fridge until it either goes haz-mat or just gets too much in the way, and then it'll get tossed (no doubt along with the disposable plastic container I've placed it in, which by that point will be contaminated past the point of no return). Whew. Okay, my conscience is clear. (Of that mess, at any rate.)

Fearless Housemate has an unholy obsession for fast food in general, and Mickey D's McRib sandwich in particular. The other day he couldn't resist letting drop that the local McD's was serving McRibs again, and that he was all agog over it. Now, I had never had a McRib, and to tell you the truth, the idea of a pre-formed meat-tile shaped with little rib-like nubs sticking out of it did not do much to inspire me to change that. But when FH appeared in my office doorway about 2 hours ago announcing he was off to McD's to get a McRib, and asking if I wanted anything from there, I decided it was time to find out what-all he was going so nutz for, so I told him to get me a McRib too. Verdict: ech. It's tasty enough, for what is essentially a griddle-cooked chopped pork patty. The sauce is too sweet for my tastes, and there's way too much of it. I don't regret eating the thing, but I probably won't ever get one on my own. And I still think the riblet shape is just plain silly.

Yay! We've got action! Wow, that looks like one very cool book--and aiming right at what I was trying to get at when I started this topic. Re: "meat on a stick" -- definitely an appropos category; and at the same time I must confess the first thing I thought of when I saw that phrase was Minnesota state fair food. Yes, an extremely interesting read, that. And here I was going to venture that moles might be an example of a unique food/technique--all those hours of grinding together and cooking together all those disparate ingredients--but yeah, now I realize that description does indeed also fit the preparation of a number of Indian sauces. Oh yeah, it does seem pretty clear that access to specific ingredients does mightily influence cuisines across cultures. Another example I can think of is the use of sea vegetables--obviously it helps to have a source of fresh seaweeds close at hand, so it makes sense that two island cultures as disparate as Japan and Ireland would make use of the food. It's also apparent that necessity in general plays a role in these cross-cultural similarities. One time-honored example: the same techniques seem to turn up over and over in terms of traditional pre-refridgeration methods of preserving food--sooner or later, it seems, virtually every culture came up with various combinations of drying, salting, smoking, curing, culturing, fermenting, brining, etc. to preserve perishable foods. And from those techniques it would only be a few short leaps to such foodstuffs as alcoholic beverages; yeasted breads; cheeses; pickles; sausages and hams; preserved fish and condiments based on same; and on and on. Not to mention how the economic incentive to find sources of spices for food preservation influenced world history--and in turn, culinary history and cross-fertilization. And then, sometimes the functional qualities of the foodstuff itself might dictate the range of techniques people use on it across cultures. A couple of possible examples: starchy foods allow a whole bunch of recurring techniques in terms of thickening liquids; refined sugar's properties allow a whole bunch of recurring candy-making techniques. Yeah, pasta as such has been discussed a whole lot. It might be more fun to consider some other concepts that haven't been quite as widely discussed. (Although if anyone has any new or cogent cross-cultural insights on pasta, sure, fire away!) Here's a couple of other random thoughts: --While traditional Asian cuisines (other than Indian, I mean) have not really been into dairy, I've long been struck by the parallels between Western cheese-making technique and Eastern tofu-making technique. I think there's a definite shared concept in there, in terms of taking a protein-rich food, coagulating the protein therein, and then further processing the results in various ways. --Smoked meats are common in lots of cultures; but are there other cultures whose approach to smoking meats produces anything like the various forms of American barbeque? (I honestly don't know--seeking to educate myself here. Most other smoked meats that I can think of tend to be much drier and storage-ready, like hams for example ...)

We were having a grand old time in the Stuffed Cabbage topic, comparing and contrasting different recipes that we learned from our respective forebears, the different names for the same/similar dish in various cultures, and so on and so forth. It gradually became quite apparent that the idea of cooking some kind of stuffing inside a leaf wrapper was popular across a whole bunch of cultures, all around the world. Nor is the stuffed-leaf concept the only culinary meme/archetype/whatever-you-want-to-call it out there. Another that immediately springs to mind is the concept of the stuffed dumpling/dough object (this had come up in the course of the Pierogi thread. And there are tons more, I'm sure. This kind of stuff fascinates the heck out of me--not only the basic "wow!" of comparing and contrasting all those different approaches to the same concept, but also the intriguing way food concepts and names migrate and morph along the way--either by long-term close proximity between cultures; or a historical event that linked up two previously-unconnected cultures (trade, war, travel, exploration, conquest, colonization, etc.). And then there are those cases in which similar food ideas pop up in entirely separate cultures, totally independently of each other, with no prior contact or communication (one example: my understanding is that Mexico had tamales going on for several centuries before ever coming into contact with any European cultures into wrapping leaves around food or sticking fillings inside dough). So--I'm throwing this whole concept of the cross-cultural culinary meme/archetype/thingie out to the rest of y'all, to see if anyone else is into playing amateur culinary anthropologist/sociologist along with me. Possible subtopics include (but are not limited to) identifying various of these culinary memes; identifying, comparing, and contrasting examplars of said memes from various cultures; exploring how these memes traveled around, evolving as they went; identifying other possible cases in which a "meme" popped up totally independently, without prior cross-cultural contact; and I'd also be tickled to see if anyone can identify a food/dish that is unique, only ever found in one specific culture (I don't doubt that there must be a few, but I sure as heck can't think of any right off the top of my head).

So who among you folks here who are up to your necks in stuffed cabbage will accept mizducky's challenge? She has thrown down the proverbial gauntlet of foods which are cross-culturally related ... mizducky, might you offer us your wit and insights if you accept your own challenge? Perhaps Marco Polo? ← Heh. Let me think a little about how best to word the opening salvo. Very cool! Mizducky~ In my tribe holuski were a whole 'nother animal, specifically a spaetzle -type dumpling made with veal. Sheesh, this Eastern European border-changing could drive us all nuts ! ← Yep, that's one part of the challenge of studying the cross-cultural food thang--when you're talking cultures that live right alongside each other, there's inevitably a bunch of cross-cultural fluidity both in the cuisine(s) and the words(s). But equally fascinating to me is when strikingly similar food memes develop independently in cultures that had no prior contact with each other (at least at the time the foods developed). Okay, obviously this related topic is calling to me ... Edited to add: okay--topic is up over here. Enjoy!

Somehow I hadn't gotten around to reading this thread until now. Oh. My. God. You people are a riot. And it's a shame that I'm home alone right now, so that there's nobody to wander by and ask why I'm making strangled guffawing noises, in response to which I can then show them the photos that engendered said noises and cause them to run away screaming. (Fearless Housemate has a real low threshold for the "ick" reaction. ) I'm pretty wiped out right now, but tomorrow I gotta haul out the camera and take some photos of the regrettable concoction currently hiding in shame in my refrigerator. Gotta share the pain, y'know.

Alas, the original research article, published in the journal Nature, is only available online if one is willing to cough up $30. I'm not willing. I did find this article which, while still a layperson-non-technical piece, goes into a bit more detail about how much olive oil contains a reasonable "dose" of this wonder-enzyme, and how to determine what quality/type of olive oil has a higher concentration of it. Note that, according to the study's honcho, you don't need to get olive oil directly from a press. Now as to larger issues ... The propensity of mainstream Western medicine, when discovering something like this enzyme, to immediately jump to the idea of isolating it, synthesizing it, and turning it into a pharmaceutical, is one about which I've always had reservations. Not to say that this approach would never work--obviously it has worked, lots of times (witness digitalis, aspirin, and countless other drugs originally isolated from natural sources). But a lot of these naturally-occuring chemicals tend to have all sorts of equally naturally-occurring variants and side-players that work together synergistically, which effect would be lost by isolating the single "star" chemical and turning it into a uniform synthetic drug. Mind you, I also happen to think the way a lot of nutritional-supplement companies have sort of imitated this pharmaceutical paradigm, by isolating and highly refining such substances from natural sources and presenting them as nice neat little pills, is not an optimum approach either, for similar reasons (though I admit supplements can be very handy, and I do use them). And obviously it would be just plain foolish to just tank on the "magic" food in its natural state--at the very least, such behavior would result in a grossly unbalanced diet, and at worst you might find yourself making the medical journals for discovering some heretofore unknown toxic effect of high doses of the food. But weaving these kinds of findings into a *balanced* diet, I think, does have a lot of potential. There are, as a matter of fact, a number of other foodstuffs whose anti-inflammatory properties have been corroborated by scientific research--ginger and turmeric are two I can think of just off the top of my head, but there are more. And fortunately, a lot of these foodstuffs are also yummy, and several even play pretty well together from a culinary standpoint. I could visualize a healing regimen for persons suffering from inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, which would include a diet rich in a variety of anti-inflammatory foods as just one part of a multi-level approach (also including appropriate use of modern medicines, plus exercise/physical therapy, massage, etc. etc. etc.--y'know, all the good stuff). Meanwhile, I'm taking notes on this little story for a possible future article for one of the medical research websites I write for. Thanks for the research help!

Heh. Looks like you omitted the name of this tasty beverage ... said name, however, is given away by the shape of its container. The One and Only ...

No reflections on current museum dining to offer, but I do have some strong memories of that old cafeteria in the Metropolitan, as that museum was one of the perennial favorite field trip destinations for public schools throughout the New York metro area (probably still that way to this day, but right now I'm talking way the heck back in the 1960s). Even as a kid I remember thinking the Met cafeteria's food was a major bummer, and a major mis-match with the grandiosity of the room's decor. I guess I was a little food snob already at age eight, eh? And I was also enough of a wise-acre at that age to notice how outrageous the prices were. Plus they served you hot water for tea in those little heat-proof glass carafes, which are a hazard to life and limb in a cafeteria setting--ever try to jockey a full tray of food, plus one of these little glass hand-grenades full of near-boiling water, through swarms of school-kids while searching desperately for an unoccupied table? Recipe for disaster, that was.

Yeah, I love the cross-cultural connections too. I'm still such a novice about the cuisines of the various Asian cultures, but from what I've seen they've definitely taken the "food stuffed into leaves" culinary meme to some pretty impressive heights (and yep, I'd say kim chi definitely counts). And they've been cooking with cabbage for a good long time too, it would seem--here's a fun little overview of the history of cabbage that I found. Probably fodder for a whole other topic, if it hasn't been done already, would be the whole concept of cross-cultural culinary memes (another one that immediately springs to mind is the archetypal dumpling/ravioli/potsticker/food-stuffed-in-dough thing, but I know there are tons more). Heh. Whenever that Deb Duchon, the nutritional anthropologist, makes a guest appearance on "Good Eats," I find myself thinking what an incredibly cool profession that must be.

I got curious about how Jewish cuisine had gotten into using sour salt, and did a little Googling. Didn't find an answer to my question--yet--but did find this interesting article on the popularity of sweet-and-sour combinations in general in Eastern European Jewish cookery, including some more info on sour salt.

I think fingerbowls are pretty useful, but what I *really* dig are the oshibori hand towels presented at Japanese meals. There's something incredibly soothing about wiping one's hands with a nice steamy-hot towel--really adds to the feeling of being pampered.