Soupcon

I have two memorable meals. The first one in.............France. I was on my belated honeymoon and we spent three weeks driving around England (a couple of days) and the rest of the time in Europe. Driving north from Spain, through Perpignan and north up the west bank of the Rhone river we stopped for dinner and the night at an auberge I think near Viviers or Le Teil. Can't unfortunately remember the name of the auberge or exactly where it was except it overlooked the river and was overlooked itself by a ruined castle on the hill across the road from it. The auberge had three or four simply furnished rooms to let and a large dining room well populated by locals. The meal was fab. I had never had food like this before and have spent the last 30 plus years trying to learn how to cook like this. We ordered the PRIX FIXE which started with mussels on the half shell, went on to a dish of local sausage and potatoes, followed by a fish course, a meat course, a salad course and a cheese course. The cheese course was accompanied by a local liqueur, green like chartreuse but not chartreuse and quite addicting. The second memorable meal was at "Au Tournant de la Rivière" just south of Montreal in the townships. A group of us flew from Toronto to Montreal and stayed for the weekend at the Ritz-Carlton - a very old fashioned hotel with tons of character as well as awesome service. Dinner was on Sat night and we rented a limousine to drive us to the restaurant and back. Dinner was fab here as well. Have no idea what I ate but just remember the food was quite out of this world. Mind you this was at least 20 years ago so this restaurant which was the only one in Canada at that time to merit 2 or 3 Michelin stars may have disappeared or have declined in quality by now.

Has anyone made this? http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008...n_i_1.html#more I am salivating just imagining eating this stuff and am on my way out the door to buy and icecream machine - not that I really neeeeeeeded one before - I do now. Wow.

Try drinking eating dairy products from Canada. Being from Chicago you aren't far from Detroit and Canada - perhaps sks in Windsor can oblige. Dairy cows in the Great White North are not fed rGBH by law but probably consume approx the same diet of grass/hay and grains/legumes. So if our milk does not give you the same physical s&s, then rGBH is probably the culprit not that Monsanto will agree.

Corn fed livestock ie the beef you crave, is fed a diet of corn to produce the marbling so prized in high end meat. Corn grown to day is intensively farmed and requires tons of fossil fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. Most of the corn grown in the US and Canada is GMO and therefor under the control of two or three huge multinationals as is fossil fuel. Animals farmed intensively require antibiotics in large amounts to prevent infections which spread like wildfire in such dense populations. Think about the number of resistant strains of bacteria that infect us today and wonder if some of that comes from eating intensively farmed meat fed/injected with antibiotics in order to prevent diseases in these intensively farmed animal populations. One of the benchmarks of an increased standard of living or wealth is increased meat eating. We eat more meat than poor countries. We actually only need three ounces of protein daily to maintain good health. The body cares not what the protein source is.. meat, fish, poultry or plant. So in fact to maintain our lifestyle we use huge amounts of fossil fuel to grow perfectly edible plant protein in the form of wheat, barley, soy, etc which we then feed to cows and chicken which can produce just as good protein in a slightly longer period of time if the cows are grass fed and the chickens are allowed to walk around the barnyard. Why feed the animals these grains when larger human populations can use them for their required three ounces of protein a dayat a greatly reduced cost. And now horrors of horrors we are growing corn, a perfectly good human source of protein never mind its GMO properties, to make biofuel. Madness!!! I am not suggesting we all become vegetarians but buying meat from organically managed farms and buying organically farmed vegetables will reduce the use of fossil fuels, increase the number of small farmers, reduce the number of factory farms which care only about profit (profit is not a bad word to me, I am an economist after all), protect the seed supply from belonging to a few multinationals that are using you as their experimental animals in their GMO lab.

The dishwasher is an old secret. I have used mine to warm dishes for years.

Fresh pineapple, usually in the middle of the night when mso had to drive many ks to find a fruit store open. And although not a food craving the temp in the house in the winters I was pregnant could not be above C 15* (F 60* for those south of the border) during the day and even had to be colder at night. I would even leave all the windows open and go outside with my coat open in below zero (F 30 *) weather regularly.

Gross is this veg. My mother cooked them to death and to date at least a century or more later (according to my kids) I still can't stand the thought never mind the smell of them. Pure torture it was when I was a kid sitting at the table until at least midnight because we had to eat everything on our plate and we were not allowed to "get down" from the table until the plate was empty. Yuck Yuck Yuck. Ugh. Bleh.

Probably too late but - use the bbq. I was without an oven for 4 months - its a long story - and used the bbq from Sept to mid Jan until my new one was installed. I used it like an oven and it worked wonderfully well. I also use it in the summer when it is too damned hot to heat up the kitchen.

Stephen I bet you have a polder thermometer for oven roasting/baking. The polder can be calibrated in metric ie celcius which is a great way to get use to temp conversion when roasting or baking. I spent a year converting until my youngest son pointed out the teeny weeny almost microscopic (I needed new glasses I guess ) button on the bottom for Celsius or Fahrenheit read out.

If you are thinking of buying high end appliances, you might consider buying in the US and having them shipped to Canada. I bought a Blue Star 6 burner cooktop (which through Prestichef was priced at $8,000.00 Canadian two years ago) from a California retailer I found on the internet selling same cooktop which after shipping, customs, tax, and currency translation cost me slightly over $3,000.00 Canadian. Today this would be considerably less as the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the US dollar. Canadian retailers are charging at least a 25% or more premium just for the privalege of purchasing the same appliance in Canada over the price charged in the US... just 25 miles away.

I was not tring to diminish the importance of diet at all. I was stating in fact what happens in hospitals these days. Over a period of time using the blood sugar history and how a particular patient reacts to specific doses of the prescribed insulin, diabetic teaching nurses - specialists in their field - in conjuntion with endocrinologists will determine the insulin needs of their patients. Over time, some patients will learn to manage their diabetes better than any endocrineologist or diabetic teaching nurse. However the vast majority of patients are given specific insulin dosages for specific times of day (depending on the type of insulin(s) presribed) based on their blood sugar diary. Patients are prescribed an 1800 cal/kilocal diabetic diet routinely but many pay no attention to calories and physicians increase insulin doses over time to compensate for the increased caloric intake of their patients. New diabetics who are overweight lose weight initially but many find that having their insulin doses increased compensates for their desire to continue to eat as before and the weight is regained. Many patients on the other hand do watch what they eat and limit their carb and protein intake accordingly.

As a nurse I can tell you that diabetic exchanges are a thing of the past. People are taught to take their blood sugar prior to eating (at least four times a day - before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime snack) and a give themselves the required dose(s) of insulin for that blood sugar level. Diabetics keep blood sugar diaries so that they become familiar with their eating patterns and their insulin requirements based on food intake and exercise (assuming they exercise which many nowadays do not). Hospitals, diabetic clinics, and endocrineologists spend hours working out the required types of insulin, doseages and timing of these doses to manage each individual well over many months. I have many new diabetics where I work and do most of the diabetic teaching for my patients and diet is a very small part of the management of diabetes today. So prepare what you would normally for any guest as they (your guest) will manage their diabetes as they do normally at home.

Stef Try toasting thinly sliced farmer's rye bread as a foil for the poached eggs. Toasting carmelizes some of the sugar in the bread and the thin rye bread toasted is yummy, especially when dripping with butter and seville orange marmalade. This is my favourite toast for everything and a perfect base for poached eggs.

Potatoes dauphinoise made with heavy (35-40%) cream, no cheese and garlic of course. For those who ask I tell them it is low in calories for and a version of scalloped potatoes for those interested. Most not familiar with this dish can't figure out there is garlic in and I don't tell. Stick buns made with yeast dough. If I am in a hurry I cheat and use yeasted pizza dough you can find at the supermarket for the bread base. People go nuts for these and they are so easy to make and make it look like you have spent all day slaving over a hot stove instead of the hour you really spent.

Tomato season is upon us and I wish to preserve summer for use in the winter. How to? I have canned tomatoes before and will do so again this year but wish also to slow roast tomatoes for use at Christmas or in January next. Clue me in please.

I have ignition problems on my simmer burner on which I spilled hot sugar from not watching the pot. However my trusty barbeque lighter works just as well. The ignition still fires so you know the burner has been turned on but the burner does not light. The ignition quits firing as soon as the burner is lit manually.

I measured accurately everything I cooked until I attended a cooking school for non professionals many years ago, One of the disciplines we had to learn, as we were deliberately not provided with any measuring implements, was to cook without measuring except by weight in the hand, by eye, handfull or partial handfull, pinch, glug, etc. of what ever we were using. Thank God they did that. It freed me up to experiment with food and to never follow a recipe slavishly again except if I want to. I can change a recipe on the fly and really only use cook books for ideas now. In baking on the other hand we weighed everything. I bake little now

The chicken is bad. DO NOT EAT IT. Take it back and demand your money back. Fresh meat or poultry has no smell at all. As it rots ie putrifies, it starts to stink... bacteria are at work munching away. Well hung (aged) game ie fowl in England/Europe smells as it is partially rotten and is an aquired taste. Well aged beef also smells, but the rotten bits that smell are cut off well aged meat before you see it in the butchers case.

I have no idea what ratio I use. I coat the leaves lightly with evoo and then add lemon juice/vinegar to taste, toss, season with s & p, add what ever garnish I choose, toss again and serve. I never make "salad dressing" and find that the bottled mixes my children buy eventually are thrown out as I find them so sweet they detract from the flavours of the salad ingredients which is really what salad is all about.

Oops. Meant beer in cans. (not beef in cans... hard to drink that).

If the boat has a barbeque on the stern rail then one evening meal is cooked here. If not a hibachi or small gas barbeque on the dock might be an option. There is nothing like eating late into the evening sitting in the cockpit at the cockpit table under the light of a stern anchor light while on a hook (at anchor) in a pretty secluded bay; much wine (which can be cooled in the water in a net over the side) should be at hand for this meal. During the day while sailing I suggest soupcons of liquor on the rocks (with mix if you must) as a libation after the sun is over the yardarm (after 12 noon). or beef in cans (no glass on board a boat please). Breakfast should be brunch and consist of bread, cheeses, fruit, jams etc. Food for the remainder of the day may be sandwiches you make like those you make at home with cold cuts, lettuce (you did mention an icebox), mayonnaise (does not need to be refrigerated otherwise I would have died years ago) and anything else you care to bring. Enjoy.

"The New Best Recipe" (C.I.) has the best recipe for Key Lime pie I have found to date. I admit to adding more zest than called for and probably more lime juice as I dislike sweet pies and prefer a bit of bite. I never make pies with this recipe but prefer tarts and use in a pinch frozen tart shells. My 26 year old asked for these as his birthday cake this year. Mom obliged.

Absolutely... in a nanno second. I work 12 hour shifts (days and nights) 7 days in 14 and am absolutely wacked when I get home at 8 pm and am in no mood to cook as I need to jump into bed by 10pm or I'll end up watching test patterns as I have fallen asleep watching the news. My brain after 12 hours at work does not compute how to use stove. It barely figures out how to get food or foot in mouth before shut eye time.

When buying the roast ask the butcher for more suet/beef fat to put on top of the roast when roasting.... ergo more drippings, more gravy, better yorkshire pud, and even possibly enough for fried bread the next day perish the thought.

I love liver and onions. Why oh why can't my local diner figure out how to cook liver rare instead of well done ( which I detest)? I'm the only one at home who loves this dish and buying liver (calves or chicken) from my organic meat supplyer in small enough quantities for one is nearly impossible. Do chicken or calves livers freeze well enough to pan fry when thawed or is there a loss in texture and flavour?