onrushpam

I always want a pickle with my sandwich, but many of my lunch companions are anti-pickle. At the sandwich shop we all love, they used to give a pickle with every sandwich. A couple of years ago, they put a little sign on the counter where you order. It says, "Tell us if you want a pickle!" So, I get my pickle and sometimes I tell an anti-pickle companion to ask for one, too. (The shop has good pickles!) As a result, they are accomodating the pickle lovers, while not seeing dozens of pickles dumped into the trash. I think that little sign is genius! Their lunch meal-deal is a sandwich, a pickle (if you choose), a bag of chips (huge selection) and a drink. They also have a soup every day. They recently discontinued their soup/half sandwich lunch special, which I loved. Another favorite sandwich shop (more expensive) gives everybody a pickle. Their "meal deal" includes a sandwich, a pickle, and a choice of very good potato salad or a small bag of chips/pretzels and a drink. They also have a soup/half sandwich or soup/salad deal. Both of these places are locally owned, but part of small regional chain operations. They use high-quality ingredients, have good bread and good service. The first place is more of a sub shop (though they also offer soup, good salads and non-sub sandwiches). The more expensive place is also a bagel place, doing decent bagels, breakfast sandwiches and good coffee, along with their lunch business. Neither is open past mid-afternoon. I think the idea of offering some sort of mini sweet is great! I'd gladly pass on a bag of chips for a good little bite of something sweet at the end. You might even consider offering both choices... sandwich/salad side or sandwich/sweet or all three for the big eaters. Both these places have been around a long time and are packed at lunch... to the point it can be hard find parking and you sometimes have to wait in a fairly long line. They are near each other, near but not immediately next to a university campus, not at all near any big office complexes or downtown. Both have terrible parking arrangements. So, the people who go there put up with a bit of inconvenience. They are doing something right. Oh, and this might not fit your image, but the sub shop place and my favorite pizza/pasta/calzone place offer a 10-20% discount to all law enforcement and active military peeps. Both those places get a huge lunch business from that. All those good-looking guys in uniforms draw in a fair number of women who just like to look!

Is this this place? Bumblefish

It's interesting to see this topic surface today... I just did my weekend's shopping at our local (very rural) market, rather than making my usual trip to the big town of Tallahassee. I love our local market, because I always find interesting items there. Today they had great huge styrofoam trays of 20+ "split trotters". That's what the label said! They were huge pig's feet, split in half length-wise. I nearly bought a tray, but restrained myself because I had no idea what I might do with them!

Totally off topic, but whats the diff? Meat is meat. ← I don't know... and that was probably a misrepresentation... They do eat chicken and turkey. But, they have not eaten red meat for a very long time. I think maybe they are having a bit of a struggle coming to terms with eating their baby goats? They tried some ground goat meat from another goat farmer and liked it. So, they just asked to have it all ground, until I said I wanted some not ground! Would it make any sense to ask for the tenderloin? If goat tenderloin is good, it seems a waste to grind it. We've had some awesome little apps made from the tenderloins of the hare our dogs catch in the dessert. (Gfron1, now you know why we go to NM every winter!)

Can anyone help? A friend has dairy goats, but they are slaughtering some young males. They get all their meat ground. (They used to be vegetarians and don't do "meat on bones"). I can ask for whatever cuts I want. I know what I like in lamb, but don't know if goat will be at all similar. I've had a butterflied leg of goat, marinated and grilled. And, we LOVE goat curry. There's just two of us and we don't have a lot of freezer space, so no huge cuts. What should I ask for?

Wow! Marlene, could you please post the details of how you did that with the hash browns on the bottom? DH and I have been seriously enjoying fritattas lately and that one looks SO good!

Field peas of all sorts... white acres, lady peas, cream peas, butter beans, pink eyes. I love them all! Other than butter beans, I had never experienced any of these growing up in the Ozarks. We bought some white acres at the farmers' market our first summer here and have been HUGE field pea consumers ever since. We are starting to get a few from Florida now. But, the REAL good stuff will start next month, along with the sweet corn. I can't wait!

I have a recipe I've used a lot for holiday buffets. I'm away from home now, so can't post it. But, it is marinated in red wine and herbs and cooked in a roasting bag, then sliced thinly and served on small rolls. The recipe includes a delicious molded lemon/horseradish cream condiment. I'll try to remember to post it when I get home. Pam

Whatever they get for "chunk light" is really okay... not at all dark... I'm picky about my tuna salad and rarely order it out. But, I like JJ's. Friends who hate celery dislike it. But, I LOVE celery in my tuna salad, so it makes me happy.

We eat Jimmy John's often because they are one of the few places that will reliably deliver to our office. Like Chirs, my favorite is the Italian Night Club (or the smaller #5). I also like the tuna salad in the "unwich". The lettuce wrap is usually very fresh and crisp. I dump it in a big bowl and cut it up to make a salad. Eating the lettuce wrap is VERY messy! My favorite Italian subs or antipasto salads are from Larry's. But, they don't deliver. So, Jimmy John's works. My big complaint with Jimmy John's is they only have SWEET tea.

If you have access to fresh or frozen field peas (pink eyes, lady peas, white acres), you can make a wonderful relish of the cooked/cooled peas mixed with fresh corn, sweet (Vidalia) onion, red bell pepper, cilantro, olive oil and lime juice. It's one of my favorites for summer potlucks. You can use it as a relish or serve as salsa with chips, or as a sidedish salad.

I, too, had a disaster with this... Bought a bad of refrigerated dough a few days ago from Publix. It looked great! I set it out when I started pre-heating the oven. It went CRAZY and was very poufy when I took it out of the bag. I could NOT get it to stretch. I eventually tried rolling it with a pin... no luck. I finally just gave up and through the sauce and cheese on the pile of dough. DH is eating it now. I have no desire to touch it. Not the fault of the method... but what the heck was up with that dough???

We went to our new Costco for the first time yesterday. It's been open a little over a week. We went in the morning, not too long after they opened. Parked very near the door, got our membership sign-up handled quickly and didn't have to wait in line at the checkout. (Well, we had to wait a couple of minutes while the young man ahead of us flirted with the very attractive checker)! MUCH better than our experiences at Sam's Club, where we always had to wait in long lines. They may have extra help on board right now. It will be interesting to see if the services maintains at the excellent level we saw yesterday.

These are definitely dried and were labeled as such. But, they are the freshest dried beans I've ever bought. They cooked up quickly and had a very creamy texture. They're in the pantry now, but I think I'll put them in the fridge. We are blessed to have access to all sorts of fresh Southern peas and I stock the freezer with them in late summer. But, you're right. I never see fresh shelled beans at the markets.

Two come to mind for me... (1) Dinner at some less-than-memorable Tex-Mex joint in Kansas City... What made it memorable was the people gathered around the table. 15 or so very good friends gathered from near and far, all on our way to a Jimmy Buffet concert at the Starlight Theatre. The night was perfect. We had SUCH a good time!!! I remember sitting at the table, thinking how very lucky I was to have so many wonderful friends! (2) Dinner at Elspeth's house. Elspeth is a noted greyhound breeder in England. We had met her once before, but in hectic circumstances. On this night, she prepared a dinner in our honor and invited a few other elders of the greyhound world. In addition to her acumen with the dogs, Elspeth turned out to be a FABULOUS cook and hostess. The food was wonderful and I tasted two items I'd never had before... partridge and treacle tart. All the food was wonderful. I laughed until I cried over Elspeth's stories. I left feeling very, very blessed to have been treated to such a special night. So, two memorable dinners... one with forgettable food and one with great food... both made memorable by the people at the table! Pam

Made this recipe for Salsa Verde Carnitas because I had the ingredients and not much else in the house. Used jar of Frontera salsa verde that was in the pantry (I have NO idea why/when/where I bought it). It was just one of those days when I went to Google for inspiration on making due with what I had... So easy and so good! I want to do it again soon, with my own homemade salsa verde.

Yesterday, I made a quick run to the little regional chain store in the small town closest to us. They cater to the Hispanic community and often have very nice produce, including items I don't see in the bigger town where I work. I noticed they had 2 lb ziplock bags of pinto and black beans that looked wonderful! So, I grabbed a bag of the pintos. They are labled "dried pinto beans". But, they were in the produce coolers. They must be a new item, because the checkout guy had a hard time getting them to ring up. I'm cooking some now, with Fat Guy's oven method. They will be done MUCH sooner than the typical dried beans we get. DH tasted them and said, "YUUUMMMM"! So, I had to taste... Oh MY!!! They are GOOOOOD!!! Do I need to refrigerate the rest of them? Or put them in the freezer? I think these beans are a real "find"! So, I want to treat them properly and go back for more! How do I properly preserve the goodness of these? Pam

No pictures, cuz I'm camera challenged... Heck, I don't even take pictures of my dogs! But, OH MY, we had a good dinner tonight! I love, love, love steamed clams... but, until tonight had not tried the semi-newly-available Florida farmed clams. They were pretty good, but VERY salty! I'm not sure what's up with that??? Steamed the clams in white wine and a bunch of local organic green garlic, finished with some butter and parsley. They were GOOD! Alongside was a fabulous salad made with a couple varieties of beautiful lettuce from the same farm as the green garlic, some roasted beets from another local grower, grated Parm cheese and a quick vinagrette. And, Snowangel, just for you... two ears of the most perfect sweet corn... the first of our semi-local crop. Oh, that corn was SOOO good! It just needed a quick bath in boiling water... We ate it unadorned... It was just pure goodness! I missed out on the Swiss chard at the growers market... I'll try for some of that on Wednesday. Yep, we are into the best part of the year for good localish food in the Florida Panhandle. Plant City isn't exactly local to us, but the strawberries have been amazing this year! I still have a few stalks/bulbs of the green garlic... need to figure out what to do with them tomorrow. Pam

Like Rachel, my first thought was England... but there are too many buildings in the landscape... and my UK friends aren't too fond of "streaky bacon"... I'm stumped...

I was talkin' about the spring green English peas... the few little green gems we could have at Easter time. Those we could shell on the porch. I don't remember field peas in Missouri... but, I did my fair share of swatting and swiping picking pole beans and bush beans and digging taters! I've come to LOVE field peas of all sorts down here in Georgia. But, I buy 'em at the farmers market, where they hull 'em for me in a frabjous machine! I only wish I could tell them to load me up a bushel or two. I'd love to take the gorgeous whole pods home to my own screened porch, where I could sit under the spinning fan and hull them myself. Time and a bazillion greyhounds don't allow that! So, I just buy bushels of them already hulled and put them up in the freezer for the cool nights of what passes for winter down here. Our new Costco opens next week... high on my list of items to buy will be a gallon o' pickles for making some of Rachel's "cheaters"!!! Pam

Ah Rachel... your talk of sweet green peas made me cry! I remember so well, helping my Grandma shell "English" peas on the porch in the not-yet-hot sunshine. I'd eat more of the little peas raw than I put into the bowl for her to cook. At the time, I didn't understand why Grandma fussed at me! Now, I know... there were precious few of those little green jewels. Saturday will be my first (maybe only) chance to get to the growers' market for some Spring goodness... tender lettuce, green garlic, baby new onions and MAYBE a little bag o' peas??? I fear it may be too late for the peas down here. I thought of you last night when we went to our little local seafood joint. Aside the very good grilled grouper and fresh asparagus, I had creamy grits topped with a big mound of grated rat cheese! Pam

I've used this many times for everything from a butterflied leg-o-lamb on the grill to kebabs, chops, steaks... I'm not very precise about it, but just this as a guide. A few times, when out of lemons, I've used white wine or good vinegar. I like the lemon juice best, but wine and/or vinegar works, too.

OMG! This just gave me a huge blast from my past! (It's funny how food memories bring back things you've long forgot about!) Many, many, many years ago, I was an eager young theatre major at a small college in Missouri. Over Spring Break, we did a "tour" of high schools in Kansas and Oklahoma. Our troupe was parcelled out each night to various homes in whatever community we'd landed in. For some reason, every lovely, gracious hostess I was assigned to decided that ham loaf would be the perfect thing to serve a hungry college kid! I'd never had the pleasure of eating ham loaf before that week and have never eaten it again! But, I sure ate a lot of it that week! For me, once ham has been frozen, there's nothing worthwhile to do with it except use it for seasoning soup, beans, veg, etc. Freezing ham really changes the texture in a negative way. Pam

The title of this thread caught my eye... I know nothing about rum. But, when I was teaching, I used to read The Scarlet Ibis to my 9th grade English students. It was in their anthology, but was too difficult for many of them to get through. I read it to them because I wanted them to love the story as much as I did. I could never get through it dry-eyed! I wonder what brought them to name the rum? The Scarlet Ibis Pam edited to add link to the story...

There's a big list of foods I've converted DH to over the years! (His mom is sweet as can be, but a TERRIBLE cook, so some of it is understandable. But some of his dislikes were just weird!) Among the things he thought he didn't like: Many veg, including broccoli, asparagus, butter/lima beans, brussels sprouts, squash of all kinds, sweet potatoes Lamb Cheese of any kind, including cream cheese (he's still picky on this one, but likes a lot of good cheeses) Melon (he still won't eat watermelon, but likes other types) Shrimp and other shellfish prepared any way but fried Meatloaf Artichokes Dates Strawberries (Huh?) He converted me on spinach (I always liked it raw, but now I like it cooked) He still hasn't won me over on blueberries or oatmeal and I haven't convinced him on cheddar or cottage cheese In the 35+ years we've been together, we've enjoyed learning to love lots of new foods together. Pam