Grub

Woah, NICE picture! Everyone's using digital cameras these days -- and I feel like an old fart for even suspecting that you're making use of an SLR (I'm sure digital cameras can (or shortly will) emulate anything possible on film ) -- but just to make sure, didya use a digital camera for that shot, and how'dya do that brilliant double/long-time exposure with the arms and chopsticks?

The burgers? I was planning on doing some "squealers" -- ie., some minced bacon added into the beef, but was left with no bacon. So I opted for some blue cheese instead (as well as a bit of ground cumin and coriander -- I saw Jamie Oliver make an "Elvis" burger that way, hah!). Well, blue cheese is just way too heavy for red meat in my opinion -- I've had fillet mignons with blue cheese before, and I should know better. That burger sat like a lead brick in my stomach. Uh. Good eats at the moment, mind you. But uh, heavy. The salmon was kind of "fixable": Admit your mistakes, beg forgiveness (and cover the worst of the icky stuff up -- if yer serving it with pasta and a white sauce, your prospects are all the much better ) and hope for the best -- if you have a reasonably forgiving audience, you're okay... But uh, not a proud moment, that...

I've been on a tear, lately... First off, some salmon grilled over coals that were far too hot. I learned (from egullet, of course) that the white guck that is excreted from the salmon is a surefire sign that the salmon is overcooked -- but in this case, the salmon was still uncooked and red on the inside. Gah. Next up, I was trying to make some cheese sauce... Just a basic bechamel sauce, with some cheese melted into it. But it got all chunky and 'orrible, so I figured I'd run it through the shieve. It instantly harded up and stuck to the shieve -- I didn't even think to take a picture of it until after I'd mamanged to remove most of it. You shoulda seen what it looked like earlier... How ya like yer burger buns? Extra sooty? Great! I feel like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman: "I'm an EXCELLENT griller." After another attempt on the buns, I got the burger meal together. But this picture is just such a complete and utter mess... The fries were done beforehand, in a wok, with some garlic salt and spice rub to make em nice and zesty -- that'd be the blackened specks, cause it was all burnt. Then they were left in the oven so as to be nice and soggy and horrible by the time the burgers were done. Semi-melted cheddar cheese just doesn't look good in a picture, either.

I agree it has to do with the (incorrect) assumption that vegetarian food is bland, but part of it is also because some (not all, of course!) vegetarians treat their dietary preferences as a religion. Hell, they treat it as something beyond religion. I mean, you don't generally have religious people proselytizing in the office -- but I had a vegetarian dude with huge posters in his cube, of a Tyrosannosaurus Rex and a list of 10 reasons why eating meat is wrong, wrong, wrong... And also a poster that explained why eating meat is the exact same thing as eating excrement... That kinda stuff just rubs people the wrong way. It's called over-selling.

I'm quite fond of scepticism, and opposed to hype & bullshit, so I appreciate you calling me on it -- everyone should be so honest. And I've not had any genuine South Carolina BBQ for years, so I can't honestly compare it, considering the fragile nature of human memories... And nope, I wouldn't really know anything about "putting the whole thing together as you would 'normally'... (as if you were going to slow cook it for hours in a smoker), and then just chuck it in a crock pot?" I've never done a proper Carolina BBQ/grilling/smoking thing -- well, other than eating it, hehehe. I've grilled/bbq'd a lot of stuff. And I know there is a difference between grilling and barbequing, and smoking... But I gots to say, this pork shoulder was fried, or sauteed in a pan, before being dumped in the crock-pot. Lots and lots of lovely bits of caramelised bark and crusty stuff. It was browned beforehand. And you could definitely find some great bits in that forked mess, that was crusted and caramelised and whatnot. Very cool, thanks dude. I'll pass that one on!

I love the South. One of the first of many memorable meals I had there was at an old boarding-house that had slowly been converted into a restaurant, serving home-cooked southern food that was passed around the tables from customer to customer -- prix fixe. People were chatting like old friends; like a family. And when people got up, they'd say things like "Well, it's been real nice eatin' with ya, ya'll take care now!" It was really nice and friendly. The rest of the country should learn a thing or two from that -- hell, the rest of the world, too. Another, even more memorable meal I had, was a South Carolina pulled pork sandwich. I was highly suspicious of it at first -- vinegar and mustard didn't seem like no damn barbeque flavor I'd ever heard of... You use ketchup, not mustard in a barbeque sauce, right? Oh boy, that was an eye-opener! That South Carolina mustard & vinegar combo is ingenious. Now, the tragedy is, I never see that style of barbeque anywhere. Texas style brisket, and ribs of all manner of shapes and styles, you got plenty of that. Even pulled pork -- but not the mustard vinegar style. And cooking something like that, well that's just impractical. 16 hours minimum, right? Well, a buddy of mine got a bright idea -- he decided to do the thing in a crockpot. He got a bone-in pork shoulder, cooked up some of that mustard-vinegar sauce, mixed it in with some vegetable stock and dumped the whole thing in the crockpot and left it overnight, on "low." For a total of 18 hours. Served on buns. This stuff was A-freakin'-MAZING. It's so long since I first tasted that pulled pork sandwich in Charleston that I can't swear, as far as how they compare, but honestly, I think this was every bit as great, if not quite possibly quite a bit better. Have you ever done this? I don't mean just slow-cooked pork, but specifically, the South Carolina style thing? I'd really like to hear from anyone who has. I've tasted this as left-overs (it was a pretty big thing -- I'm sure there'll be an official period of mourning & crying & wailing once it's gone ) and normally, I always feel like adding something to a leftover dish, like salt, pepper, soy sauce -- just anything to sort of bring it to life again. But not with this. It's so intensely full of flavors, there's just no reason to do it. But I did ponder the idea of accoutrements (we used none). Maybe some lettuce, and/or some very finely diced, red onions (or even shallots, unless that would be too delicate). What could be added to such a pulled pork sandwich, to improve it? Would love to hear some opinions on this one...

Oh man... That is awesome, just awesome!

Interesting stuff about the origin of Balti, there! But when you putting up that Vindaloo recipe, uh? As impressed and/or obsessed as I've been with Waaza's, I am always willing to try another variant. And I, for one, think the idea of marinating something for a week sounds pretty damn interesting...

I had another go at Waaza's Vindaloo recently, although since I was just cooking it for myself, I took once single, lazy shortcut... I didn't bother chopping the onions up manually. I normally use a mandoline with a very fine blade setting (about 2mm or so) and then chop the resulting slices into a very fine dice. This time, I just chopped the oinions very coarsely, and ran them through a blender. By the time I managed to get that mess chopped into uniformly sized pieces, some of it was quite liquified... So if I were to take such a shortcut again, I'll use a food processor instead -- you don't get quite such a violently, and fine chopping action with that... This seemed to have an effect on the cooking processes, as it seemed to speed it up a LOT. Previously, I've cooked this dish for three and for five people, and thus there has been just a lot more stuff in it, so it makes sense that it should cook faster this time -- but it ended up taking nearly half as much time as it did previously. The end result was very good -- but not as good as the first time I did it. The taste wasn't as complex and satisfying as the first time. It is pretty frustrating to have made the dish twice since I made it (successfully) the first time, and not manage to achieve quite the same, superb result -- BUT it makes me respect the recipe all the more, as it seems to be so absolutely perfectly balanced...

Water is not allowed while you're fasting. ← Well, I was specifically wondering about Ramadan. The term "fast" can imply quite a few different types of restrictions -- religious or otherwise. At any rate, I looked it up, and yeah it seems water is not allowed... I was aware dispensation is given for both food and drink, for the sick and infirm. I was just thinking, if you're doing hard physical labor, outdoor, in the sun, and no water -- that's gotta be tough.

Is that really the case? Water not allowed during Ramadan?

Steak au poivre (Someone please tell me why it got tagged with this peculiar English-French label. Why not just Steak with Pepper, or peppersteak -- or (pardon my lack of French) Fillet Au Poivre, or Buef Au Poivre?) But uh, at any rate, I screwed this one up... It's the simplest way you can make a good steak -- you don't need any uber super duper 50,000 BTU burning stoves to make a good steak. 1) Just crack some pepper corns, and pad them into the steaks, and pan-fry them in butter in a regular pan (NOT a non-stick) over medium/med-high heat, and let it rest in the oven on "warm" while you prep the sauce. With a regular pan (as opposed to nonstick), you'll get a few browned bits left that will provide great flavor for your sauce. 2) Put the steaks on a plate, covered with tinfoil, and leave them in the oven on "warm." 3) Whisk up the sticky bits in the pan with some beef stock, heavy cream (double cream) and some decent mustard, and let it reduce. It makes for a fantastic steak. The sauce is amazing. You can use half beef stock and half cognac if you feel inclined and want to be really fancy -- and hey, this can be a fantastically fancy dish. I've done it several times before, and it was always great. This time (when I finally got around to taking a picture of it), it looked bloody awful. I made two steaks, and ended up taking a picture of the plate with the least "steak-like shape" on it. Also, the asparagus look completely limp -- they weren't (I just left them on "warm" in the oven, and I guess the way I arranged them on the steak doesn't help much). But most of all, the sauce looks like it has the consistency of skimmed milk.

Minestrone!

That's a great analogy! I think this could be applied to many areas, like music or painting, or just about anything... Whether you are capable of creating a meal might not affect your subjective enjoyment of it, but being knowledgeable of its preparation would certainly help you appreciate it better. Whether you gain this knowledge from talking to chefs (or other food enthusiasts for that matter), or gain it from trying to cook it yourself, is another matter. simply put, you could learn more about a meal from a 5 minute chat with a master, than a hundred hours of trying to cook it yourself... Of course, the best would be to both speak to a master, and cook yourself...

Thank you so much!

Sorry to post an off-topic message here, but couldn't think of a better place to ask... Since Japanese makes use of Chinese characters, are their meanings the same in both languages? I saw a wrestler with a kanji tattoo that I looked up, and found to mean "sheep," which seemed a bit strange. The sign was YOO (on) / hitsji (kun): On the off chance that it was a work in progress, the only derivative kanji I noticed (in my Kanji & Kana -- Hadamitzky & Spahn book) one that meant ocean, foreign or Western. That doesn't seem like a very sensible tattoo either, but better than "sheep." So I'm wondering, unless there is a different meaning in Chinese, maybe this dude made a mistake (or had a trick played on him, heheh).

I've tried the Yellow Tail a couple of times (most recently tonight). I'm by no means an expert, but it seems to have an unusual aroma that I've never smelt from other wines -- something nearly soapy... It tasted fine, but on both occasions, it had this unusual aroma.

There are so many amazing pictures in this thread now, it's a true inspiration... Turkey burgers: Made with lean, ground turkey meat, quick cook oats, an egg, finely chopped celery, salt, pepper -- and three finely chopped, dried apricots... Grilled and touched with a glaze of mustard and orange marmelade. Slightly unusual, but very tasty.

That was an extremely articulate post. I don't think I can match its lyrical standards (I had to look up Mr. Camus), but uh, being a nerd (and proud of it), I've got an observation about washing dishes: It's a simple task that doesn't take long to accomplish, and we can feel confident in our ability to carry it out with complete success. In these modern times, when most people's lives are fairly complicated, such a task can be a nice change of pace. A novel I once read featured a successful, female lawer as its main character. Her husband was also a lawer, but nowhere near as successful as her, and he was extremely bitter about this. Her friends thought he was a petty, miserable piece of sh!t, and bit by bit, they started thinking of her as a feminist hero. Like, they really put her up on a pedestal. But she had a dirty secret: She loved doing the dishes (and had to hide this from her friends) -- because it was a simple, short task that she knew she could carry out without much chance of failure. In contrast to the extremely lengthy, complicated, and extremely challenging tasks she did at work. That's why doing dishes can be so therapeutical. Even if I didn't get anything done at work -- and even if I screwed up the dinner itself -- I know that I can still accomplish that one task successfully...

This is too much fun... Mind ya, some of these dishes look pretty nice -- I mean, plenty good enough to eat, and certainly not bad enough to be embarrassed over. But then again, I might just have particularly low standards, heheheh Well, I made another boo-boo last night... Was doing some corn-on-the-cob on the grill, and hey, that's easy, right? I've never screwed that up before... Well, I cooked them over medium heat, and they developed some reasonable colors, and then I took them off, rearranged the coals for high heat, to grill some fish steaks, and put the cobs back on, but around the edge of the grill, just for uh, I dunno, for good measure? I don't know why I put them back on. I just never realized that you could overcoook these things. Unfortunlately, my camera doesn't have macro capability, but here's the result... You can kinda make out how shrunken the corn is. They're just completely deflated. I tried gnawing at it like an emaciated beaver on crank, but there was just nuthen there... Oh well, you live and learn.

Uh, nothing to contribute here, but just wanted to say thanks for the thread -- please keep it up, as I'm enjoying this...

By the by, does anyone know how galanga is pronounced? Is it GAL-anga, or gal-ANG-ga? I've seen it spelled galangal (pronounced GAL-angal) and also laos...

That should be food that LOOKS bad... I've made plenty of food that looked bad but tasted fine (I think part of it is just a complete lack of professional education, about presentation etc.) I don't think I've ever made anything that looked great, but tasted bad, but it wouldn't really make much sense to post such a picture here, seeing that we can only view, and never taste the dishes online... Shalmanese, those are some real beauties! I'd never dare to be so brazen in a one-upmanship over whose food looks best, but in this case I dare say I've got ya beat; my disaster lamb looks worse than any of your dishes -- no offense (or compliment) intended. Keep 'em coming guys.

I have no idea where I read this, but there was some sort of "study" that insisted servers got better tip when touching -- but that this "trick" only worked for female servers. This seemed to make sense to me, at least until I read all the responses here. So maybe the conclusion should be that this "trick" only works if you're a hot waitress, and only on unattractive, male customers..?

yeah, we should have one of those! ← Okay, I've done it -- a hall of shame, or a diary of regrettable foods. Of course, I'll still post my culinary efforts in this thread (hopefully, most of them), but I'll reserve the true disasters for the thread below. And hopefully, I'll be in good company. Dinner! (What WHERE you thinking?)