Rebecca263

I never had gefilte fish until I was in my 20's. I adore it! But, then, I also adore fruitcake, so who am I to judge by?

You know, I've been thinking of that funny habit of dipping salty french fried potatoes into a chocolate shake. Why not add MSG to the mix? I don't have any chocolate fixings here to work with tonight, but I'm hoping to decide on a menu of some kind and delve into this. After all, I AM the girl who FACED THE FEAR with the Velveeta Fudge (it was terrible to me, but a big hit at my sister's house)!

Lat's ignore the OT posts and get back to the matter at hand: will MSG enhance certain chocolates?

Then there is bacon+toffee+chocolate... also a possibility. I've been thinking about kernels of corn in chocolate for awhile now. MSG might enhance the butter in that combo.

I've been thinking that a chocolate with a tiny bit of ginger, wasabi, lime, chili, edamame paste, maybe roasted spiced almonds, or something like that, might actually be savory. Umami! Maybe a slightly salty caramel enrobed in a lightly MSG spiked chocolate would be good. I mean, if we're going to do it, we should work and hope for the best, non?

Eight years ago Kiddle bought a bag of Manischewitz' soup mix and 'cooked' dinner for me on Mother's Day! The soup was actually pretty good! My first surprise Mother's day meal, I'll never forget it.

Respectfully, I don't think much of truthinlabeling.org. They keep churning out a lot of skewed propaganda, and it gives me a headache, because MY nuerotransmitters are allergic to that stuff! You can search online and find any number of sites skewed to one opinion or another on any subject that you can think of. I'll stick with the more scientific sites, likethis or even THIS guy is more trustworthy than TIL! It is incorrect that naturally occurring MSG is different in any way from the MSG you buy in a bag or jar. There is absolutely NO difference. A food scientist and a glutamate receptor can not tell the source of any MSG, chemically. Also, many foods have MUCH more naturally occurring MSG in them than you will get in a traditional American Chinese restaurant meal. You only need to eat an ounce of many cheeses to get more MSG than you will eat in those traditional American Chinese meals! And, it is the exact same MSG as that made from seaweed or beets. No chemical difference in any of them. I have a family member who is certain that she is deathly allergic to MSG. At my home I am careful to feed her only foods that do not have any added MSG, and when she piles the Parmesan Reggiano on her(delicious, by the way) mushroom/tomato sauced pasta at her home, I don't argue with her. We have a number of scientists and chemical engineers in the family who like to argue with her about it, but, I respect her right to her opinion, and I respect yours as well. That said, let's not hijack this thread with this wrangling any further. If you don't care for MSG, and it is an evil chemical for you, don't read any further, because someone is about to try MSG with chocolate, and you won't like the result, regardless of the flavor profile! Finally, sote23, I truly mean it when I say that I respect your right to your opinion. I am sure you have 'researched' the subject, and as I have as well, and come to a different conclusion, it's all a wash. Oh, and the vitamin bit? Hogwash!

However, you should never let go of the handle of your ibrik while you are making your coffee, anyway. One extra moment on the fire in between boilings and the foam can overflow the top of the pot and that is a ghastly mess! So, you can get yourself a defuser, or not-You're still going to be holding onto that little pot! Oh, and also, if you ordered one with a metal handle, the handle gets hot, you will want to use a mitt.

Shabbat! We had a challah from the freezer and some grape juice. I just felt too sick, and kiddle and I didn't realize until Friday just how poorly I was. She isn't much of a last minute cook, that's one problem with having a 16 year old genius in the house. I feel so badly about it that I made some vegetable stew for next week, just in case, and froze it. One of my nieces was here, but she had already eaten dinner, and she was shocked that we actually do any Shabbat at all. The prayer for bread was truly sung at a loud level though, and with extra enthusiasm! The tiny freezer of fright is full now, with some other items for quick eats, just in case. I'll never be caught like that again, I promise! That's another reason I wish my sis would get with the Shabbat program! Can I vent with you all? She goes to shul more often than we do, her kids go to Hebrew school and have Bat Mitzvahs that rival most weddings, but to get her to do a Shabbat, it would be a miracle! She DOES do a weekly Sunday night dinner, with macaroni and gravy, instead. PS: my wonderful boss has given me the past few weeks off, but I am truly ill and have to leave my fun new job. I just can't do the physical work. It put me in the hospital! Very sad.

There are a lot of scientific and nonscientific(anecdotal) writings on the web around our dear friend and foe, MSG. Here's one I liked:Which Tomato Do YOU Like?

Well, then! I suppose that you refuse to eat most cheeses(really, ANY dairy at all, it all contains MSG, in varying amounts), anything containing yeast, most beans, including andything SOY, seaweeds, mushrooms, most nuts, ANY eggs or any vegetables from the nightshade family,( i.e.:tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants). You see, almost every food contains MSG naturally, as MSG is a NATURALLY occurring substance in most foods, and occurs in higher concentrations in the aforementioned foods. Oh, and by the way, there are a few other food ingredients with similar chemical reactions to the tongue, which you will be hard pressed to avoid, as well: inosine 5'-monophosphate (IMP) and guanosine 5'-monophosphate (GMP)-. However, good luck with that! I'm really surprised when people start up on the evils of MSG without researching exactly WHAT it is, and WHERE it is. It's like being an active member of PETA and wearing leather shoes or make up; or like being the vegan espousing CEO of Whole Foods, and selling dead animal flesh and animal milks in your stores. Not that I find anything wrong with ingesting those products, myself. edited by me:lol, I said andy-thing, jejejej!

The raw foods movement is a type of veganism, no dairy or animal for sure, but also nothing heated above 118F and no grains, as far as I can tell. Spelt seems to be used though. Seeds and nuts are usually used in place of grains. Milks are made from nuts, fruits and avocadoes, as are cheeses. The premise is that raw foods are high in enzymes that give us better nutrition, but mostly kiddle is thinking that the food is intriguing and delicious.

You know, I'm thinking that the icing on good black and white (half and lhalf) cookies is pretty darned delicious. Is that a kind of fondant?

Well, they will probably have fruit "pies" at least. Kiddle is wanting raviolis and other raw specialties. I'm going to keep trying for that, but this place is a good start, and we haven't been in Montclair as yet! Thanks!!!

Hi! The problem is not YOU, your water or your coffee. It's your lovely little butter melter. An ibrik has a tapered shape, and there is a real reason for this. The bottom of the pot is the widest part, the body tapers upwards to a narrower top, and then there is a flared lip. You NEED this tapered shape in order to get foam, and the lip assists in holding in the foam as the water goes through it's boiling process. Now, you CAN make a coffee beverage in your little pot, but you can't make a coffee with crema or foam in it. You need the tapered top because it enables a slight air pressure to build when the coffee and water are heated to boiling, which causes the foaming. You can get an ibrik pretty cheaply, and it's really worth it! I've had mine for over 20 years (bought used in a thrift shop for .99 cents) , and I know women who have ibriks that are over 70 years old. Now, don't throw out that butter melter, it's perfect for heating milk for American coffee. edited to add: my favorite ibrik, by the way, is my everyday ibrik, mentioned above. It's tin lined brass, slightly dented and with a long handle.

We were meandering around New Jersey a few months ago, and I thought that I saw a place, but now we can not locate any such restaurant! Does anyone here on eGullet know of a place, within an hour or two of the Freehold area? Kiddle wants to try some 'fancy' raw food.

3 additions to my own collection today, Indian Cookery, by Dharamjit Signh, a paperback which I have yet to peruse; as my daughter is currently adoring curries and mild dahls, this will be a welcome addition to our kitchen. Next I found Michel Guerard's books, Cuisine Minceur and Cuisine Gourmande. Lovely looking copies, and I think I'll read them this weekend. I do adore finding older books that I've never read!

The truth is I'll eat almost any salad, but if I HAD to choose only one, it would be this: the salad my father used to make in the late70's- finely chopped, lettuces, cucumbers, scallions, radishes, artichoke hearts and tomatoes all mixed with a boatload of blue cheese and a vinaigrette. I want that salad served to me in the 'kid' punch bowl just as he used to serve it, and I want to eat it in our old kitchen ... otherwise, whatever salad those other folks on this thread said is fine with me.

Um, mango goes fantasically well with chocolate in our house... and we have gaggles of 16 and 17 year olds hovering around often. I make dark chocolate shells and spoon mango sorbet into them. Big hit. Especially when you flake some coconut and toast it for the topping. Then add some pineapple fingers. And a hunk of cake alongside on the plate. Said plate having sometimes been prepped with a glaze of pineapple preserves. I think I'm hungry. I pass for 16 if the lights are low, is this an evening affair?

Peruvian seafood! OhMyHolyKernels, there is nthing like that! Makes me homesick for Miami. And now, out with the trusty map...

I, fortunately, or perhaps not so, am left handed. Yes, sinister, I know. A lower mortality table, too! Many of my Asian AND Middle Eastern friends' parents do NOT approve of my left handedness at the table. My father (of Syrian descent), who was born left handed and is now right handed, was punished severely as a child, for each instance of left handedness. So, I adore Ethiopian, Indian, African, Chinese, basically ALL Eastern hemisphere food, but I am careful to chant in my head, "right hand, right hand, right hand in the food". I just don't ever want to offend anyone, so I try my best not to use the fingers of my left hand when I'm eating in public.

You aren't kidding when you call Kiddle exacting! This was her Sweet 16 and our first year without Thal Brothers(Miami Beach buttercream masters) or the store 91 Publix baker(her favorite 'junky' frosting) to do the deed. She HATES fake buttercream, we only eat cake on rare occasions, and we couldn't find anyone who makes a decent frosting in our area. As she repeated to me often "It's for my only 16th BIRTHDAY!". I had looked into a cake from an NYC baker, but decided against it, as the local bakery agreed to make a buttercream with real butter. This was a cake for 48, BTW. I ordered a cake for double that, and there were no leftovers. That's nothing. You should have been with us while we were trying local pizzerias for the aforementioned birthday. It literally took months and dozens of slices to decide. Finally, I had to pay extra because they, although they make a delicious cake with a fine crumb and flavor, normally make a shortening based "buttercream", and HRH said that would not do. They were willing to make a genuine buttercream for more money (and it was delicious, maybe it was Italian, because it wasn't very sweet), and told me that they had a European client ask for this a few years before. Real buttercream is more expensive than bucket buttercream! And it's worth it!

Oh.My.Holy.Butter. This thread has my daughter in the throes of yet another fit against commercial cakes. Last year for her birthday we had to try over 17 bakeries in our new hometown before I finally ended up paying a local well known bakery an EXTRA fee to make genuine buttercream frosting for the buttercream frosting that they ADVERTISE as their buttercream frosting. This year, kiddle insists, I shall be forced to make the cake myself, enough to feed 40, and I'm, well, let's say that I'm 'challenged' in the art of finishing a frosted cake. That's the kindest way to put it. Talk about an ugly frosted cake! But, it will be delicious, and she says that is what cake is for. The idea of a box as cover is ingenious! This could become a keepsake for the guest of honor, what a great marketing idea! They could use the box to hold cards and favors for posterity, perfect! American buttercream is an abomination against humanity, and I do not understand why any independent bakery would use it. I mean, a chain food store, well, they're the fast food of cakes, fine, let them. But, a local, privately owned baker? How INANE. What is the point? And, on the subject of FONDANT, which is the point of this thread, I know : I find fondant to be ridiculous. I received a fruit cake from an expat American friend(who is living in London) 3 years ago that had a fondant cover, I was flummoxed as to why. He said that is how they are made; now I know why. YUCK. What I really hated was that the fondant had absorbed some of the cake bits and I couldn't get them off wthout some of the paste, what a waste of cake bits! My hope is that fondant is a fad which will trickle down to the masses over the next decade, and thus fall out of favor with high end bakers again. I will NEVER pay for a cake that is not delicious through and through, from stem to stern, naked AND dressed. I WILL gladly always pay a premium for a more beautiful, more delicious cake than what I could make at home, but otherwise, we're not doing business my baking friend. And I'm sorry about that, bcause I make a terribly ugly cake.

From Plant City to the Redlands, Florida says strawberries to me, but Strawberry Pie? NOT my favorite. Let's look at it this way, even on a big binge, you can't eat an entire Pecan Pie on your own, but a Key Lime pie is completely doable. I say Key Lime Pie, and bring it on!

Fish bones, I agree, I draw the line at most fish bones. But, fresh sardines, fried up whole, THOSE are some fine bones! I don't count here, though. In the realm of real food, (i.e. not packaged stuff, ala boxed meals, frozen meals, canned pasta or veggies)I'll eat practically anything. Well, no Spam. I'm sorry, I just CAN'T. The smell alone makes me ill. edited? yup, broken keyboard spelling repairs.