cakewalk

I'm not a Bamba person. Bissli all the way. YES! Bisli or Bust!!

Decision-making demands a certain amount of integrity. Also a bit of thought. There are many groups of those who consider themselves, and are considered by others, to be "most religious," and each group will abide by differing decisions. (Orthodox Judaism springs readily to mind here.) This doesn't make one group "right" and the other "wrong." It means they have made different decisions for themselves (religious laws are, after all, interpreted). Most are honest enough to realize that they have made those decisions for themselves, and not for others. And they would, most likely, respond to your thoughtful dinner invitation with an equally thoughtful refusal. For those who accept the invitation, as Bux said early on, they have a certain obligation to inform their hosts of their own particular needs. If the host is able and willing to fulfill those needs, fine and dandy. If not, well, it's always nice for mature adults to behave like mature adults. If I invite someone to my home for a meal, it's because I want them to be there. So yes, I would (and have) gone out of my way to cook things that they can eat. Or, more accurately, to not cook. (Cold foods, salads, fruit, etc. have a different standing in terms of keeping kosher.) I keep a kosher home, but I know plenty of people whose observance of kashrut differs dramatically from mine, and they would not be comfortable eating a cooked meal in my home. I don't take this as an insult. I understand the differences. They are not trying to demean me in any way. They just observe things differently. As is often the case, the issue at hand is not really "religion." It is "personality." There are many people who want to force their beliefs on others. There are also "others" who resent everyone else's beliefs, whether or not there's any forcing going on. I try to sidestep this stuff. Last night I had dinner at the home of old friends of mine. They don't keep kosher at all. (They're not Jewish.) They always have something vegetarian for me. (And the husband is a serious cook, so it's always good.) There are a lot of Jews who wouldn't eat anything in my friends' home, because their utensils are not kosher no matter what they cook, but I do eat there. There's no need for either of us to pass judgement on the other. We all make different decisions for ourselves. Accept it.

I did this once (only once.) It didn't defrost well, the consistency/texture was ruined. Maybe others have had better luck.

What's to laugh? Mr. Reese made a killing on that combination!

Actually I prefer my chocolate to be filled with ... more chocolate! Nuts are okay too. But no fruity cremes or any of that crap.

Damn that is weird, isn't it. At first I thought maybe it was pareve chocolate that contains no milk products and can be eaten after meat. (Still a silly picture, but at least it would be somewhat of an explanation.) But it specifically says in Hebrew at the bottom, "milk chocolate." I'm not familiar with that brand at all, whereas the other two are very popular in Israel. Very weird.

Pignoli turn bad? Thanks for that information. Someone (I don't remember who) once made the suggestion of putting pesto in ice cube trays, so that you could have small portions to use when you want them. I did this a few weeks ago -- and promptly forgot about it. And last night I got home late -- and hungry -- and was wondering what to eat and I remembered the pesto in the ice cube trays. Really, what a brilliant idea. Thanks! BTW -- I make pesto using only basil leaves, garlic cloves (lots of them), salt, pepper, a bit of EVOO, and a bit of lemon juice. No cheese, no nuts, no thousands of calories (and it's pareve!) It's from a James Beard recipe that he devised when he was put on a low-fat, salt-free diet (his recipe has no salt, mine does.) It comes out very good, and I'm going to try it with other greens -- and put them in ice cube trays.

The carrot cakes above look wonderful. But have you tried them without the frostings? I love carrot cake, but I like it best just as a loaf cake, without any frosting. It is a completely different kind of cake than a layered, frosted carrot cake. I've been making the one in Moosewood for years, it's a standard and pretty good loaf cake, but nothing special. And why shouldn't a loaf cake be special? The triple layer cake with citrus cream cheese frosting looks truly wonderful, and I might try that without the frosting. But one question: it calls for only 2 cups of flour (and 2 cups of sugar and 4 eggs). Is that a typo? It seems like it should take more flour than that.

A friend of mine makes a great avocado salad -- main ingredients are avocado slices, orange sections, red onion. It creates an incredible combination of flavors, I love it, it really zings! on your palate. She puts different things in it each time, but those are the three constants.

They all sound great. But I'm surprised to see that none of the recipes calls for any sort of pork product at all. It seems unusual for something that is a typically southern dish (most of which I have learned about on eG, and most of which call for some sort of pork product.) Just wondering if there might be a particular reason for that as far as this dish goes. What is hominy? Is it different than grits? As you can tell, this post is from a completely northern perspective.

Hitler was a vegetarian. Not sure about Schweitzer. Wrong. Oft repeated, but a total fiction. Why Hitler Was NOT A Vegetarian Whew. Well, that makes me feel a lot better about him.

That was going to be my next question, because I have looked for butterfat content on different butters and never seem to find it. I thought maybe my reading skills were slipping. Thanks FoodMan and alacarte for your answers.

European butter, okay. But what is "European-style" butter? I'm always a bit suspicious when things end in "-style" -- maybe I'm just cynical, but I usually take that to mean "fake."

A good friend of my lived in a co-op right above a Food Emporium. She was on the third floor and several times a week she would be awoken to the sound of truck engines idling while they were unloading deliveries. After months of frustratingly early wake-ups she approached the manager of the store and inquired as to whether the trucks could turn their motors off. The manager said he would see what he could do and sure enough the street became reasonably quiet in the early hours of the morning. I like that. No lawsuits, no fights, no threats, no yelling, no arguments. A simple request, and the willingness to comply.

I always wondered why they were called Chinese cookies. They always seem to be either almond or vanilla flavored, with the big chocolate drop in the center. I think they're a New York bakery thing, although I may be wrong about that (I admit I'm New York-centric.) They were a real treat when we were kids.

Hmmmm. So are we.

I think you're coming to this conclusion with absolutely nothing to back it up. It's an assumption on your part (and one I disagree with), not a conclusion of any sort. You're assuming that if a person doesn't actually say "I'm a vegetarian because I love vegetables," then it means he doesn't really like vegetables, or doesn't really care about how they taste one way or the other; that his philosophy, whatever it may be, overrides matters of taste or likes and dislikes. I think it's much more likely that, if asked, a vegetarian won't say it because he'll assume it's a given that he likes vegetables, and then get on to his other reasons, whatever they may be, because those reasons are not "givens." And yes, I agree with mongo_jones, evangelism is a terrible bore, isn't it.

I think, or rather hope, that we may be seeing a return to the neighborhood market with the advent of these stores. In other words, the "I'll go to the fishmonger, or butcher, or cheese store rather than the large supermarket." I hope so, anyway. I agree, that would be very nice. But it all comes down to money (of course). The fishmonger, the butcher, etc. weren't considered "specialty" stores back in the day, and if their prices weren't reasonable you went to the guy up the block or across the street. And since each shopkeeper knew that there *was* a guy up the block or across the street, they were careful about what they charged. And the shopkeepers' rents weren't astronomical, so they could charge prices that average people could afford. And on and on. I guess as long as they're considered "specialty stores" instead of just plain old food shops, it will always have come down to a matter of economics. Thems the times we lives in.

This is something Steingarten discusses in his books, I think. If you look at most of the vegetarians in the world who are vegetarians in a predominately omniverious society rather than places like India where vegetarianism is quite common and complex vegetarian cuisines have evolved over centuries due to religious reasons, almost all of them in the Western world are in the US and UK. An interesting fact is that, while French and Italian omniverous diets include lots of vegetables because people from these cultures love vegetables, most American and British vegetarians pursue their dietary philosophy for reasons other than a love of vegetables. When Western vegetarians are asked why they are vegetarians, health considerations is far and away the top answer, followed by ethical/political reasons. "I love vegetables" is fairly low on the list, somewhere after "I don't know." What this means is that most vegetarians in the US and UK tend on average to be evangelical about vegetarianism, because their dietary choice is founded in strong beliefs of one kind or another. This is another reason why, on average, US and UK vegetarian cuisine lags so far behind others around the world in quality, with the food tending to get worse as the dietary philosophy becomes more dogmatic. This makes sense, when one considers that the gustatory quality of the food that is consumed becomes less and less important as the dietary philosophy diverges more from the mainstream and becomes more rigid. It is only with extreme care, considerable expertise and creative talent (e.g., at NYC's Pure Food & Wine) that something as extreme as raw vegan food is made enjoyable and non-monotonous from a purely gustatory standpoint. I think you're missing something pretty basic here. "I love vegetables" is not a reason to become a vegetarian because, well, you can be an omnivore and *still* love vegetables and eat as many as you want. Loving vegetables has nothing to do with omitting meat from one's diet. For someone to say, "I'm a vegetarian because I love vegetables" borders on the inane. So it makes perfect sense for "health reasons" or "philosophical reasons" to be the answer given to the "why are you a vegetarian?" question. The "evangelism" is part of the personality. If people who evangelize about their vegetarianism weren't veggies, they'd evangelize about something else. Perhaps they'd evangelize *against* vegetarianism?

"Stephen Klym, managing director of Warburg Realty Partnership, a residential brokerage, said, "Gourmet is the key word ? it has to be like shopping on Park Avenue." While grocery stores in general are not considered highly desirable, he said, the upscale Whole Foods stores in the basement of the Time-Warner Center at Columbus Circle and in the Chelsea Mercantile building on Seventh Avenue at 24th Street, part of an international chain featuring natural food, are considered desirable amenities, rather then problems." I have mixed feelings about this whole trend, just as I have mixed feelings about the gentrification of many New York neighborhoods (of which this, I believe, is a part). I like specialty shops. Once in a while I can even afford to buy things in them. But while it's nice to see them around, it is part of the changing face of the city's neighborhoods. These stores have a particular clientele, and that clientele has to be within a certain wage earning capacity. It's not as if having more of these types of stores actually introduces more people to specialty foods and diversified ways of cooking and eating. Or does it? That would be nice, but I suspect it limits and even omits more people than it introduces to its products. It bothers me that Manhattan continues the trend of being a city for the wealthy.

This is something like the sandwhich I often get at Pret a Manger: avocado and thinly slice parmesan (such a good combination), sprouts, tomato, arugula, and -- the best part -- pine nuts. On WW bread which, quite frankly, could be better (it's mushy). I figure I'm probably a minority of one on this, but I don't like sandwiches that make me break my jaw in order to take a bit.

I'd say this is a question of attitude and personality rather than diet and its particular restrictions. While it might be "easier" to socialize with only like-minded people, there are many who chose the "less easy" route. One's diet does not determine one's personality. Unless, as I mentioned before, you deny yourself chocolate!

I made this the other day, it really is very good. Thanks for mentioning it, I had been looking for some good quinoa recipes.

Or chocolate. Denying oneself chocolate most definitely creates irritability. This is a known fact.

I just bought some in Fairway this afternoon (the power of suggestion). I wanted the bison franks but they didn't have any, so I got the beef franks. They're almost twice as much as Hebrew National. They did have bison salami, but I didn't get it. There were quite a few other things by this brand as well. I'd never heard of it before, so thanks.