cakewalk

Olives.

Burnt baby my foot. It's beautiful, it's perfectly done, my stomach is growling and my mouth is watering.

Has Stonyfield Farms changed their recipe? I used to love their yougurt. Then around the time that they changed their packaging -- smaller containers, no "real" lids -- (and swore up and down that the content of said container was still the same), I stopped loving it. It tastes sweeter (too sweet) and the consistency is entirely different. Anyone else notice this? Or is it just my, um, (forgive me) palate?

Well then, don't mess with it. I've made it both ways. If I'm busy and doing other things, I don't turn it. Otherwise, I do. And yes, I think it makes a difference. But not enough to upset me either way.

The recipe below is from a previous e-Gullet thread. It's very simple, even though the recipe is very detailed (and helpful), and I use it again and again. It always comes out great and makes the best roast chicken ever (sorry Mom). One of the biggest "revelations" for me was realizing that drying the darned chicken makes such a big difference! (Anyway, the "I" in the recipe below is not me.) Many thanks, still, to Yvonne. --------------------------- One has to start somewhere, and what draws me to Hazan's recipe is its reliability and simplicity. Even Hazan writes that "again and again, through the years, I meet people who come up to me to say, 'I have made your chicken with two lemons and it is the most amazingly simple recipe, the juiciest, best-tasting chicken I have ever had'". I agree and guests at our home always say how good this dish is. I've made it as detailed as possible. I heartily recommend Hazan's book (previously mentioned): Needed in kitchen [list mine]: Roasting pan--Aluminum or enameled cast iron (10 inches wide, 14 inches long approx, 2-3 inches deep). Paper towels Implements to remove chicken from pan--e.g., large fork Oven gloves Cooking foil Tooth picks/skewer String Meat thermometer (optional) My adaptation of Hazan's Roast chicken with lemons Ingredients: 3 pound (approx) chicken [this will serve four] Salt Black pepper, freshly ground 2 small lemons [sunkist lemons are particularly good just now--thin skins and juicy] I am now paraphrasing Hazan's instructions and adding my own in brackets 1. [Look inside oven, and make sure that the racks are assembled in such a way that will allow pan with chicken in upper part of oven.] Turn on oven and preheat to 350F 2. [inspect cavity of bird and remove any giblets (e.g., neck, liver) and discard.] Run cold tap water over the chicken, inside and out. [This will kills a lot of bacteria if there are any.] Place chicken on a cutting board or big plate, and with generous amounts of paper towel dry inside and outside of bird. Get chicken as dry as possible. 3. Spread and rub in salt & pepper [Hazan doesn't quantify--I'd say around 2 teaspoons salt, one teaspoon pepper] inside and outside of chicken 4. Rinse lemons under tap, dry with towel. Roll lemons between your palm and counter-top a couple of times [this will release juices], then puncture them several times with sharp tool--e.g., fork, skewer. 5. Put lemons inside cavity. [sometimes two won't fit, so I cut the second in half and put in one and one half.] [With chicken breast-up] close the opening loosely with tooth pick, or small skewer or needle and thread but no need to close very tightly. Take some string and tie the two legs together at the knuckle. This is done in order to keep the legs from moving in the cooking and tearing the skin. 6. Place chicken breast up* in roasting pan, and put in oven. Do not add fat as this dish is self-basting. Wash sink and surfaces that have come into contact with the chicken with hot soapy water. 7. Cook for one hour. [Take a look after around 45 mins and see if the breast looks as though it's taking on too brown a color. If so, cover only the breast with piece of foil.] 8. After one hour, turn oven up to 400F and cook for 20 minutes more. [This will get the skin crispy, and I remove foil, if using it, about 10 mins before end.] Allow 20 to 25 minutes' TOTAL cooking period per pound of chicken. 9. [To test whether chicken is done pierce and see whether juices are clear. If pinkish, more cooking is needed. If using meat thermometer, don't push it in so far that it touches the bone. Bone does not well reflect temperature of meat. Also, place thermometer in thickest part which takes the longest to cook. So place thermometer in the thigh. Remove chicken from oven when thigh reaches 165F. Let rest at room temperature for around 10 minutes during which time bird will continue to cook. Final temperature will be 165-175F. Source: Stephen Schmidt's Master recipes: A new approach to the fundamentals of good cooking]. 10. [Remove chicken when done and on stable surface, take large fork, or something similar, and tilt chicken so that juices escape from loosely closed opening into pan. Place chicken on platter/carving board. With spoon scrape all remaining traces of chicken skin, and juices from the pan and pour into a little jug. If overly greasy, remove excess fat with spoon. Serve as accompaniment or simply pour over chicken pieces once carved.] 11. Carve and eat. *Hazan suggests putting bird breast-down for first half hour then turning over for rest of cooking time. Both g. and I agree that this leads to breast skin sticking slightly to bottom, and we have better results cooking breast-up throughout. The above recipe now looks much more complicated than it actually is and looks twice as long as Hazan's. Oh, dear. I think I may have spelled it out too much. Though if nothing else it was instructive for me to articulate what I do with the recipe. Despite the length, I will not accept that this is a complicated recipe.

Potatoes, any way shape or form. Never met a potato I didn't like.

New York, and it's Fuji apples all the way. So crisp and sweet. Yum.

I sent several boxes to friends of mine in Israel when Oreos became kosher. They still talk about it. I never really liked Oreos myself. Another vote for Le Petit Ecolier (dark chocolate only).

Yes, I stopped in there for a coffee once, it was truly memorably awful. Worst cup of coffee I ever had was in some hotel (can't remember the name of it) in London quite a few years ago. The funny thing was, it also served one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had. Very fresh, steaming hot, in a French press, it was truly delicious. So I asked for another cup, which was clearly a mistake, since some idiot in the kitchen assumed a second cup meant pouring hot water over the already used coffee grounds in the French press. I took a sip and spit it back into the cup and left.

Breakfast is my favorite meal, and if it weren't for silly things like work I'd eat breakfast for hours every day. But I also can't stomache it first thing in the morning. An hour or two after I wake up, that's the perfect time for breakfast. I go through stages of what I want to eat. Lately it's been some combination of fruit, yoghurt and granola, a huge bowl of it. The plums have been so nice. And coffee. (Never had orange juice on cereal, though.)

As a result of this thread, I went to Ben and Jerry's the other day and simply had to have: coffee coffee buzz buzz, chocolate brownie fudge something or other, and cherry garcia. Together, in a cup. (A big cup.) Oh my, that was good. And now to mix metaphors (or threads, if you will): I was walking around as I ate the ice cream, and all of a sudden I looked down and I noticed driblets of ice cream all over my pants. Completely bypassed my shirt (and yes, I am fairly well endowed) and went straight to the pants. I guess it's because I was standing up and walking around? Someone else can figure out the physics of it all. The ice cream was great.

So do you refuse to eat at McDonald's as well? I should hope so! Right, but not because of their color scheme!

so cakewalk, are you suggesting that the ice cream snickers are better frozen? just want to make sure we're all on the same page here. ah, tommy, I should have known better than to try and put anything past you. So I have a regular snickers bar hanging out in the freezer. Oh the things eGullet makes one do.

You're talking about the ice cream Snicker's bars? Those are surprisingly good and taste surprisingly like real snickers. Yes, the ice cream snickers. They're wonderful. I'm not a big fan of caramel, but somehow when it's frozen it's completely different. But now I'll have to freeze a regular snicker's bar and see what that's like. Oh goody, a science experiment, I can hardly wait.

Ketchup and eggs is truly a gross combination. Whenever I see the colors red-and-yellow together I immediately think of ketchup and eggs. So this aversion affects my clothes closet as well.

Mmmmmm, frozen snicker's bars. They come in boxes of six which I dare not buy because I can eat them all in one sitting. (I don't like regular snicker's. Go figure.)

Wasn't it Holly Moore who used to have that wonderful avatar of a much besplattered shirt? On a very fine-looking chest, I might add (yes, men have them too). I usually slobber coffee all over myself at some point while reading through this site.

I think a lot of cravings come about because our bodies need something. I have low iron levels, and every so often I get an intense craving for a "me'urav yerushalmi," which is organ meats mixed together and fried on a grill with onions and quite a bit of grease and whatnot. Not my usual cup of tea but when I get it, it is the most delicious thing in the world. When I lived in Jerusalem I would just indulge the craving since it was there for the asking. It's a bit more difficult now, so I just get woozy and faint every once in a while. And of course there's that monthly necessity of dark chocolate. If that is not indulged, the end result may well be murder. Indulgence is far cheaper and much less trouble. What is it in chocolate that our bodies need at that time? (And don't tell me it's not our bodies but our minds, my body rejects that answer! ) BTW -- I also had no idea what a corn dog was. Sounds good; indulge, I say.

Just finished Everything is Illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer); funny and painful, not to mention confusing. Just started Life of Pi (Yann Martel); it does get to you right from the start. It's been too hot to read much.

That's what I thought. So a kosher guest showing up to a nonkosher dinner party would be a nonissue. If the kosher guest shows up and knows you aren't kosher, he/she ain't keepin' kosher that night. K Technically, yes, if it is not cooked in a kosher kitchen it is not kosher, because the utensils are not kosher (even if the food is). But people keep different "levels" of kashrut (e.g., they make up their own rules and standards for themselves). I'll eat fish in a non-kosher restaurant, even though I know it is technically not kosher. We all draw our own lines in the sand. If I'm invited to someone's home and they are not kosher, I guess there are a lot of "ifs." Am I close enough to the host to make a special request, or should I just say thank you and decline? I would never put the host on the spot and expect him/her to accomodate me.

I've noticed that eGullet has an uncanny knack of stepping into the same river twice, and even three or four times. But we can space it properly.

Just curious. Let's say these midwesterners go to a high-end NYC restaurant and behave like (gasp) midwesterners. Okay, so they don't know how to dress properly, it's true. But is it therefore permissable, acceptable, correct, understandable or whatever-able for the professional waitstaff at said restaurant to treat them rudely? And, from what I gather in this thread, is it okay that their treatment of other customers (high-end NYC customers even) then become rude in turn? Somehow these poor unsuspecting midwesterners are being blamed for what seems to be a general decline in customer service. IOW - are we playing blame the victim here? That's what it sounds like.

NY bagels :: Montreal bagels apples :: oranges I mean really. Those two hallmarks of NYC eats -- bagels and pizza -- will never be what they once were. Alas. But we soldier on.

Yes it was. I remember it fondly from my early childhood as the afternoon paper. And fuck Mudrock. PJ I have to join forces with ye. I grew up reading the Post, and then one day in the early seventies it turned into a National Enquirer clone. I can still remember my shock! (need for emoticon with hair standing on end) That was a sad, sad day indeed. It still is.

And here all this time I thought ice cream trucks were a New York City phenomenon. Oh how provincial we Noo Yawkahs are! I remember Good Humor trucks, they didn't have music like Mister Softee, they had bells that the Good Humor Man would jingle as he rode into the neighborhood. When I had my own place for the first time I remember the sound of those bells carried all the way up to my sixth floor apartment, and I would grab money and race downstairs. Sometimes I'd make it on time, sometimes not. I used to love the chocolate eclair ice cream bars.