Blanche Davidian

I horrified my mother-in-law when the first mad cow panic broke a couple of years ago by polishing off a hu-u-u-u-ge plate of spaghetti and meatballs at one of her favorite italian restaurants. I second (and third) Patrick S on pretty much every point he made. I feel like the news media definitely exacerbates the fear people have about such things, blowing the fear in their minds out of proportion to the actual risks they bear.

My husband likes candy, all kinds. I have never known him to walk into a grocery store or a gas station and not return with a candy bar in his pocket. I bake on occasion, but after a few servings of home baked goodness he will return to the candy. He will put away any quantity that is laid before him, regardless of how hungry he may be. He is always in the mood for candy. He is a very moderate eater in most respects. I blame his hippie parents for trying to keep him away from refined sugars at an early age--an admirable goal, admittedly, but it seems to have backfired on them since he eats candy like he'll never be able to have another piece!

Man, my parents would have infuriated the upthread posters. My siblings and I (I'm in my mid-twenties, little brother is still in high school) were dragged to bars and "nice" restaurants throughout our childhood. Although we've got a way to go yet, proximity to cigarette smoke and alcohol didn't turn us into chain-smoking lushes or sickly asthmatic consumptives. If anything, we learned manners early. When I went to college I definitely noticed I had a better grasp of "how to act in public" than many of my peers--heck, I have better manners than some of their parents! I'm sure our presence wasn't always welcome (one particular meal where my baby brother knocked over a water glass three times springs to mind...), but I think for the most part we were well-behaved and pretty invisible. My parents still frequent many of their haunts from our childhood, so I guess that's a pretty good indicator that we behaved okay. I think it is at least marginally acceptable to take children into at a bar/restaurant before 6:30 p.m. After that, make it family-friendly. Also, don't take your kids to the late movie. They always look so miserable and sleepy when everybody shuffles out at midnight or 1 a.m.!

Uh, are you sure?

I've never been diagnosed with a food allergy, but bananas, black walnuts, canteloupe and raw carrots make my mouth itch like crazy! I eat them all anyway, despite frequent castigations from family (hi mom!) about how I'm playing russian roulette with my health. It really bothers me that people claim to be "allergic" to things they are truly not, either foods or scents. I sympathize if you don't want to explain the particulars of your specific less-heard-of medical condition, but people who merely are seeking to avoid a food they don't like/doesn't agree with them shouldn't claim to be "allergic." It makes it harder for people with TRUE allergies to get their requests taken seriously, ESPECIALLY in restaurants. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I am scrupulous about keeping track of friends' food preferences and dietary restrictions because I want to eat out/in with them and don't want them to think I'm an unpleasant co-diner/cook because I'm judging them for being difficult, whiny little babies. (I secretly do, but nobody has to know but us chickens!)

New Year's at Costco was awesome: bottles of Veuve Cliquot were <$35. If you are a savvy wine-kateer Costco and Sam's can yield some unexpected (and cheap!) finds. I just wish they had a better beer selection--I sometimes get sick of the usual Shiner and Fat Tire.

I like the Mosquito for breakfast and the Saltwater Grill for lunch and dinner. My MIL lives down the street from DiBella's so we eat there quite a bit when we visit. We USED to eat at a divey bar called Sonny's but they got a new cook and changed the menu quite a bit. Their fried shrimp sammiches were AWESOME. I *hate hate hate* Fisherman's Wharf. Has anyone been down to Crystal Beach to eat at Stingeree's? I was not impressed until my husband ordered the special one day--totally the way to go rather than ordering off the menu. I like the Acoustic Cafe, too. The only place in the world you can get Star Bock!

Thanks for all the helpful replies! A couple more questions: Does anybody cook with tempeh or seitan? Does anybody buy the fake meat stuff from companies like Morningstar Farms? By the way, I am 100% of the mind that it's counterproductive to disguise "meat substitutes" as meat. Nothing could be more dreadful than tasting a big ol' spoonful of a vegetarian friend's "Faux Tuna Salad" or "TVP Chili" and then having to answer the question "Doesn't it taste JUST like the REAL THING?!?!?!" Some of it can be pretty good, but it NEVER tastes like the real thing.

A vegetarian friend and I have agreed to get together to cook on a regular basis, and I was hoping to pick up some tips from folks who have had experience cooking with what I'll call "meat substitutes"--tofu, tempeh, tvp and the cornucopia of fake meat products like Soyrizo or I Can't Believe It's Not Bacon! I've had success with vegetarian cooking in the past, but also enough spectacular failures that I'm wary about trying anything new without some preliminary research.

I threw a dinner party for my parents once where prime rib was planned to be the main course. Then I found out several of the guests were practicing Hindus. Always ask about dietary restrictions! It may seem ridiculous to you, but you may wind up seriously offending someone.

I'm sure they consider their readership when developing criteria for rating products like food, which would make surveys like that at least marginally instructive. I wasn't trying to imply that the staff of Consumer Reports are rubes--just that in order to appeal to readers they have to sort of shoot for the middlebrow...

Didn't Consumer Reports declare Claim Jumper to be the best chain restaurant? I guess that would tell you a little bit about what they thought about food.

Sorry to divert the thread back to its original topic: I think a big part of the problem is that a lot of Americans don't eat fresh vegetables. If you think about the foods most people have access to--from fast food or fast/casual restaurants (think TGI Mc Funster's) to the boxed/bagged convenience meals you can buy at the supermarket--vegetables most likely come batter-dipped and deep-fried or frozen and reconstituted. I don't blame the people I know who "don't like vegetables" (and scarily, there are a lot of them) when their only encounter with a pea is the kind that comes in a can, and the only steamed broccoli they've had is part of the "vegetable medley" sitting next to their riblets. It's not so much the fried chicken that does you in, but the fried chicken with a side of fries.

Amanda Hesser has a recipe for "Shallot-Cassis Marmalade" in her book "Cooking for Mr. Latte." I served it with Charouce and crackers at a dinner party, and my friends ate so much of it there was no room for dinner! The plate was literally licked clean. Confit is good used in the same way. ::drool::

YES! My cats' food bin is proudly labelled "Cat Fud." No "food" for them!

I got a bottle at Grapevine Market yesterday. It was one of *two* bottles left!

Going to Spec's is a holy pilgrimage for my out-of-town family. I used to live in Houston, just blocks from the Smith Street location and would shop there above Whole Foods or Central Market for wine and gourmet groceries. If you pay cash, you can't beat the prices. I took my wine-geek dad to Whole Foods and Grapevine Market now that I'm living in Austin, and we were surprised to find WF's prices lower than GM. Overall, he was pretty disappointed with GM, though he still bought a case of wine. (My parents live in the midwest and load up while visiting me in Texas on stuff they can't get back home.) Funny story about Spec's: my cousin (from small-town KS) and his three friends crashed my apartment in Houston last spring break, so I took them to Spec's for "supplies." My cousin walks in, all exicted, looking around like a kid at Disney World. He keeps walking and smiling until he realizes how totally enormous that store really is, and started laughing hysterically because he was surrounded by so much booze he was basically in an alcoholic paradise. My family drinks a lot.

My wedding was so much fun and the food was one of the best parts. We got married at my husband's crunchy-granola Quaker boarding school, where we still have lots of friends on the staff. They offered to cook for us and made totally fantastic fresh baked bread (a Quaker thing), rare roast beef and grilled tahini portobello mushrooms for filling, baba ganoush and hummus for the avalanche of crudite, and a couple of salads I now have no memory of. Another staff member baked our strawberry-filled wedding cake and we ordered a vegan chocolate cake from the local Co-Op. Beer was from a local brewery, and I rented a margarita/daquiri machine because the reception was outside in July. My husband and I have never been vegetarian/vegan, but a lot of our guests were and we wanted everyone to be full as a tick and drunk as a lord. My carnivore father/uncles fell on the mushrooms like they were t-bone steaks--I got so many compliments on them even though my midwestern family is kind of afraid of "hippie food." Three years later, the food is still talked about amongst friends and family, especially since another family member recently married and served the traditional rubber chicken dinner...

I set up my now husband and his first college roommate. Their favorite meal was called "Gut-Filler"--white rice, into which was stirred an undiluted can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of tuna. Typically, it was eaten out of the cooking vessel on the couch, a spoon for each eater. The hilarious thing was, roomie was a line cook at a fancy restaurant and would insist on the rice being toasted in the pan before being boiled/steamed. Considering what they were about to do to the innocent pan of rice, it was ridiculous to watch them flinging golden brown kernels of rice all over their filthy kitchen. I love them both, but man, it was *so* nasty.