cakewalk

Who Cut the Cheese? Actually you might want to call it something simple like: Glenn's Personally I like Melt. Let's go to Melt's? I don't know about that. People will drop the "t" and start calling it Mel's. You can always call it Glenn's Top Five and change the top five sandwiches each week (or month, or whenever you feel like it.) Best of luck to you, whatever you call it.

Yom Kippur is surrounded by more food than most regular days! For me, the most important part of breaking the fast is drinking. Water, juice, coffee -- and more water. It is only an hour or so later that I even become interested in food, and my favorite at that point is usually good bread and butter and cheese with a hot drink. It is so simple, but always so completely satisfying.

Bless this thread. Today's NY Times crossword puzzle, 22 down: "In modern lingo, a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat" I never coulda done it without you, eGullet!

"Roasted Pomegranate Turkey Breast" Now that sounds like something different (at least to me). Can you tell us more?

Thanks for that link, BeJam, that is definitely worth a try. (Talk about a niche market.) But the new Forman grill is still on my wish list.

The grilling surfaces can now be removed and put into the dishwasher to be cleaned. That is great news. I love the Forman grill, but I often don't bother with it because cleaning it is such a pain in the butt. So the new one is now on my wish list.

Part of the mess-up seems to be about the baking powder and/or soda. If you double (or halve) a cake recipe, do you adjust these items likewise or leave the same amount as in the original recipe? I want to halve some recipes because I bought those sweet little cake-like molds, and I was wondering about this. I'd like to make different types of cakes rather than all the same. (Is this off-topic? Can we leave doubling and halving together? )

I made the Moist and Majestic Honey Cake the other night and brought it in to work today. Now that is one good cake (I usually think honey cakes are dry and tasteless, but not this one. And it has a truly lovely flavor to it, I think mostly because of the whiskey and the cloves.) I'll be making it again Monday night for Rosh Hashana. Shana Tova to everyone -- a sweet, healthy, happy, and peaceful year.

Oy, my kishkes!

ME TOO! I can't take it any more!! (Thanks, I needed that.) (Psst, hey, I have an idea what we can do with all them mealy termaters.)

When I was a kid, my neighbor was eating these cookies and he offered me one. My parents never bought fig newtons and I didn't know what they were, so I asked him. He said they were cookies filled with chocolate. Well what could be wrong with that? So I took one, expecting a cookie filled with chocolate. Oh my. It was awful. Not because it was really awful, of course, but because it was decidedly NOT a cookie filled with chocolate! I was well into adulthood (*very* well into adulthood) before I could even LOOK at a fig newton again, never mind eat one. They're not too bad. I've never tasted any of the other flavors. But really, why don't they just fill the damned things with chocolate?

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook has a recipe for baked artichokes ("grown-up" artichokes) that I have made with baby artichokes. It is absolutely delicious.

Is it just me, or do other people buy stuff at greenmarkets that turns out to be much less than extraordinary? If I go to a greenmarket, I ususally go to Union Square. So far most of the heirloom tomatoes I've bought have been mealy and tasteless. I can get that in my neighborhood supermarket! (Speaking of which, they usually have mealy and tasteless produce but last week I bought the most delicious Mineola oranges, they were from South Africa, really juicy and sweet.) Anyway, getting back to Union Square. I also bought these little plums. They were also pretty much on the tasteless side, although at least they weren't mealy. (The corn I bought was delicious, though. Lifachot ze.) This sort of thing happens a lot more often than it should (IMO). Has anyone else had this experience, or should I assume that this is a deliberate plot against me?

This may be a topic of its own, but what do you do with all the egg *yolks*?

I bought one of these yesterday, since I was walking down Broadway and there was hardly any line at all (I guess all the upper west siders were in the Hamptons or something?). Anyway, the pastry part was really good, I liked that a lot. Flaky and crispy (Can it be both? It was.), a bit sweet, very good. The cream took some getting used to. It was much less sweet than I thought it would be, so the first bite was a surprise. Once I got used to that, I thought it could use some more flavor, more vanilla (much more, in fact.) But it wasn't bad. And it really is messy. Not the sort of thing you can eat while strolling down Broadway without making a bit of a mess of yourself. I think it would be better with some nice chocolate squiggles across the top, but I think everything is better with chocolate. I don't have any comparisons to make, since this is the first time I ever ate a cream puff! But I remember that when I was about 10, my friend Beverly and I tried to make cream puffs (her parents were out and we were in her house and we were bored), but the only thing we succeeded in making was a mess! (And Beverly got in trouble.)

I recently made a mango cheesecake that came out awful (and it wasn't my fault!!). I thought mango would be a great flavor in cheesecake, and I daresay it might be, but it wasn't even discernable and the texture of the cheesecake was yukky. So I think it must have been the recipe -- if you've made mango cheesecakes that you thought were good, I'd love to have your recipe. I can't imagine any fruit that wouldn't be a good partner with cheeses used in cheesecake. (I hate guavas altogether, so I can't even begin to comment on the guava cheesecake.) But still, I'd say it has more to do with the recipe than with the type of fruit. Then again, what do I know?

I wonder if that will be any sort of a threat to Subway. I can imagine a group of people undecided about where to eat, because half want burgers and half want subs. Now they can get everything at McDonald's. So it can be successful, because it gives the customer more choices. Whether or not it will be good is another question altogether. I'll find out on eGullet! (I can't remember the last time I was in a McDonald's.)

I am firmly in the "eat out" camp. I can be pretty wishy-washy about a lot of things, but not this. Don't even *attempt* to cook anything for at least the first week after you've moved. I'm living in the same apartment now for about three years. During the five years previous to this, I moved about 8 or 9 times, I can't even remember any more. New York will do that to a girl. Yes, it is definitely why God gave us restaurants. (And friends, God bless them.) Eat out, it will give you a great opportunity to get to know your new neighborhood.

And don't forget the potato chips!

Periodically I will tell myself that I have to be more organized and start to make shopping lists; then I ususally forget to take the list with me when I go to the supermarket. So I give in, and tell myself that I just don't do things that way and shouldn't bother. Repeat.

Well, not exactly. There is no overall hierarchy, that is true. But most Jews who consdier themselves to be Orthodox will belong to particular communities, be it Lubavitch or something else, and they will follow the interpretations of the community leader. It is misleading (even just plain incorrect) to say that observance is based on individual interpretation. The issue is exceedingly complex, and while many of us may not appreciate it or even like it, I don't think its complexities should be diminished. As for glatt kosher, it refers to very specific ways of slaughtering and then, in particular, examining the animal after it is ritually slaughtered to make sure there are no lesions that would have killed the animal even without the ritual slaughter (thereby making it unkosher). Again, enormously complex stuff. Anyway, since "glatt" kosher is sort of "more than just plain kosher," the slang has evolved accordingly; however, it does refer to something very specific.

I know what meshuganner means...never heard " meshuganner frum." What's that mean? To be "frum" is to be religious. An Orthodox Jew. So to be meshugganer frum is, well ... an opinion? It's yiddish, and I think it might be slang, but I'm not sure of it's origin. Anyone?

That's cool. But would you still call it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Can somebody explain to me please why it is still called a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when it is loaded down with: bacon cheddar (aged cheddar, at that) cucumbers mayo (mayo!) sprouts mustard onions tahina S & P etc., etc. If the peanut butter and jelly are optional ... well, what kind of sandwich have we got? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

I didn't read Bux's post as saying that this thread shouldn't exist. I read it as a caution to people who don't realize that a thread such as this can never cover all the complexities of religious dietary prohibitions. There are a lot of people who simply don't realize that, and it is important to point it out. There was an eGullet thread a while back about a man who started selling his crabcakes (or maybe it was shrimp, I don't remember the details) and advertised them as strictly kosher. Apparently, someone had told him that kosher meant "clean," and he figured, well, my stuff is clean. That's an extreme example, of course. But the point is that it's always a good idea to keep in mind that, no matter how much you might know, there are always going to be aspects of religious doctrine that you most likely don't know. BTW -- slyaspie -- that was a fascinating post.