Lisa Shock

I've been trying ever since Midori came to the US. It just winds up being too sweet in some things and too mildly flavored in others. I stopped buying it a while back. The only drink I'd try now would be a gin Daisy made with it.

What type of potatoes? There are hundreds of types available in stores in the US, and each country has unique cultivars now. -My love of Sangre potatoes has to do with their having lots of flavor and a slight sweetness.

If you want to see one of these in action, Sur La Table stores are doing live demos of it tomorrow, Sunday, morning. If you miss it, some stores will schedule a demo for you.

I love eating dried fruit as-is, and I also like fruitcake. But, my favorite application is this recipe for Apricot Confections. You can make and store them for a month, so, they are great to just have around the house in case of unexpected guests. They are also great for holidays because you can get one item for your cookie platter out of the way super-early. They contain coconut, but, even people who don't like coconut seem to like them. I have made them vegan by subbing coconut cream for the SCM. Someday soon, I am going to try substituting ground nuts, a soft type like pecans or walnuts for the coconut.

IMO, potatoes do not freeze well, they wind up with a weird texture. You'd be better off washing some potatoes for him and pre-packaging some toppings. Coq Au Vin freezes well. So do lots of Indian dishes, if he'll eat them. In general, I think stews work well, just leave the potatoes out and let him add them later. I make tomato soup from #10 cans of tomatoes and freeze it in cup size portions. I'd also have some veggies around that can be made into a salad, and make a few dressings that he likes. Bread freezes well, and if he can be trained to use the broiler, a whole world of broiled, open faced sandwiches opens up. HERE's an article on tartines. You could freeze some tart-sized savory crusts and show him how to beat a couple of eggs and make a quiche with a handfull of odds and end from the fridge. Good luck!

I'm a vegetarian and some meals can be very reasonable. True, you could blow your whole budget on fancy salad items, so, look for sales and buy what gives you a lot for the money, like carrots or cabbage. I like salad with almost every meal, and generally with a vegetarian meal, you can usually afford to serve one. Make your own dressing, the salad dressing aisle is where you waste the most money at the supermarket. Honestly, making things from scratch is the key to keeping within budget for this project. Dry beans can be the center of some great meals, and they are the cheapest way to go -canned beans cost a lot more. Some bean meals: Falafel Red Beans & Rice Curries (with and without veggies) Enchiladas (vegetarian) Burritos (vegetarian) Bean soups, don't forget minestrone Tofu is also a great meal maker. It can be used in many dishes from all over Asia. Some markets sell packages of prepared deep fried cubes, which are great in stir fry. Some markets also prepared baked tofu, which has a chewy texture and is great in American-Chinese recipes calling for meat like kung pao tofu, mu shu tofu, etc. -as well as stir fry. Tofu can also be frozen to create a spongy texture, which when ground up can make a nice lasagna filling, or used in recipes to make tofu balls, etc. Making your own breads will save you a fortune. Both quick breads (biscuits, cornbread, beer bread, tortillas, crepes, etc.) and yeasted bread (rolls, pitas, buns, sliced bread, etc.) will add a lot to a meal for very little money. I get 25lbs of bread flour at Costco for $8.75, and they sell a pound of yeast for $2.75 -that's a lot of bread at about 55 cents a loaf. I buy rice in 10-25lb sacks at the asian market, you save a lot of money by buying in bulk. Their most expensive rice works out to being $1/lb. The ordinary stuff, say an everyday jasmine, is about 30 cents a pound. If your family will eat brown rice, obviously it's more nutritious. One asian market which is not close to me, has outrageously cheap produce. When I go there, maybe twice a year, I pick up a supply of vegetables which will last (onions, shallots, carrots) plus I make sure that what we have for dinner that night uses fresh produce from them. I guess a lot of the trick here is shopping carefully. Also, while it may take more time to make some things, be smart, have a plan and you can make extra and save time. Examples: Make a slow cooker full of plain beans or garbanzos. Then make several dishes throughout the week. Bonus, freeze any extra beans and use like you would canned beans. Make 2-4 times the dough you need, then refrigerate and on later days make: rolls, flatbread with toppings, calzones, pizza, buns, baguettes, etc. Makes extra rice, it freezes well, plus day-old cold rice makes better fried rice, IMO. Hope this helps!

Kind of, that roast on the cover actually looks to be a bit on the small side. I can recall putting roasts in the oven which were like large hams, over a foot high. We raised our own beef for a while, and they'd custom butcher it for us, so mom ordered the cuts. I don't know if they were like modern day standards or not. Some of the pictures from inside the book look familiar.

I saw salmon in aspic, and lots of other garde manger items at luncheons. Never had trotters, but, we were from the North. I certainly saw plenty of Perfection Salad and the like. IMO, there's a difference between what one would serve to the family, or mom would serve just to the kids (tuna casserole) vs what people made for dinner parties. Especially when beef was so cheap in the 50s and 60s. My mom used to serve giant roasts, and/or Wellingtons, I haven't seen a slab of meat that big at the supermarket in decades. In my family, meatloaf and casseroles were only served when dad wasn't home, ditto for a lot of chicken dishes. Cornish game hens were popular, too. (and, they are easy to serve)

And, as to why it was made with veal, the big cities had dairies farms. I know it sounds weird now, but New York, Chicago, Boston, etc. all had several dairies within city limits because good refrigerated transportation and distribution systems did not exist. Veal is traditionally from male calves, a by-product of dairy farms.

Before factory farming started in the 1930s, chicken was one of the most expensive foods you could buy. I recall seeing a magazine article about a decade ago where they adjusted the average 1930 price per pound for chicken to its 1990s equivalent and it came in at $9/lb. Literary references to chicken being eaten were meant to invoke images of wealth and prestige -kind of like when we mention caviar and champagne.

Most of the time, more money means thicker gauge metal or a better type of tri-ply or somesuch. The better pans should mention something along these lines, and you can compare and see if you're just paying for a name, or if it's quality. If you have a Home Goods near you, I'd visit every so often to see what they have. I've gotten some really great pans there at huge discounts.

Oh yeah, heated oils turn rancid faster lots of cross linking going on what with the exposure to oxygen, etc. Can you make a half-batch? Or, maybe give some away?

There's a small chance that botulism spores might be in it, and the oil provides a nice anaerobic environment for them to grow in.

Might be the weather. It's been unusually humid for the past couple of weeks here in Phoenix.

I have no idea, but I did have it in a traditional Italian restaurant in Tokyo.

It's not just about pasteurization, it's also about older breeds of cattle, ones that weren't bred for volume output. Try to find a Jersey-only dairy and get their cream. Barring that, get Guernsey. Holsteins and their hybrid descendants produce a lot of milk, but, it's fairly flavorless. Even as a child, I could taste the difference blindfolded. But, I was lucky enough to live next door to a dairy farm for a while.

It's up to you, but, upon reflection, I'd avoid fondue. It had a bit of a resurgence about ten years ago, at least here in the US, and I recall seeing fondue pots for sale in all of the mass market retailers like Walmart, Target, KMart, etc. I think it's gotten too much fame as a retro food.

We can get a duck press very easily here in the US: brass, steel. Ebay sellers actually have several models, a couple for under $300.

I think this is it. I just made a half-batch of it. (kind of, I only had block cheese and was sort of iffy on how much to use) It had that odd texture and the flavor was a bit flat/watery. It was not gooey, the cheese part did not stretch or run at all. And, it was in no way greasy. The watery part may have been because I used skim milk. Anyway, when it first came out of the oven it was clearly a solid mass. The egginess held it together and had a fluffiness, a sort of lightness about it. The cheese flavor was more of a background note or aftertaste. I can't really compare it to anything, and I have never had the cafeteria in question's offering, but, this seems to match the blog post.

That's a good question. I would like to point out that, at least in the US, we made really terrible imitation world foods until some good Chinese, Japanese, and Indian, etc. cookbooks started to be published here in the late 60s and early 70s. The Time/Life books helped, too. You could make a dinner entirely out of the bad old 'Chinese' foods from old cookbooks. (of course, you'll need to find someone who collects bad old cookbooks... ) Or make a meal from one of the old Trader Vic cookbooks.

Yeah, that was the blog post I found. I discounted the Safeway post a little, just because the blogger specifically said the texture was like egg whites had been folded in, like a dessert. It sounded like she'd never had a savory souffle. If you're going to experiment, I'd leave out vegetables and meats. The original doesn't have them and they may affect your water balance. I agree with the blogger, this does not look like ordinary baked macaroni and cheese. The cheese part in the traditional stuff is gooey and has a smooth texture. Personally, I would take this recipe and before starting par-boil 4 cups of dry elbows, drain, and then mix in at the end. Bake in rectangular pan that is large enough to hold the mixture and allow for about a 25% rise.

I own a Braun Multi Mix, but it's a really old model they no longer make. The newer ones (Multi Quick) seem ok, amazon independent sellers have a good price. It's a motor you can put a stick blender or tiny food processor onto. I rarely use the food processor attachment, generally just when I want to chop a lot of onion fast. No grating, though. I bought a couple of sizes of steel milkshake machine cups (they show up at thrift shops all the time, and Restaurant Depot sells them for $3) and use them with the immersion blender for smaller quantities. For larger amounts, you can obviously just use it in a pan. I will point out that my mixer (Delonghi/Kenwood) has a full sized food processor attachment, continuous grater/shredder attachment, and a mini prep food processor attachment.

I'd say go with Sylvia all the way. I totally agree with Green Beans Amandine I was going to put that in my post and somehow got distracted. The only other cookbook I'd recommend in addition to Sylvia's is The Pyromaniac's Cookbook, 1968. (copies on amazon are too expensive, check eBay) Ignore the modern re-issue. I also saw something about claret jelly online, with notes of its heyday being the 1930s, in the UK. Dunno if any European eG members have memories of this, I have no idea if it's appropriate. And yes, tomato aspic is simply tomato juice (back in the day from a can) or V8 and gelatine. Sometimes it was doctored up with hot sauce or celery or celery salt or just anything people used for Bloody Marys, including clam juice. Use the fancy individual portion sized gelatin molds for it. Or, make one large mold, but, use a extra fancy type. I always liked it, but, I think I am in the minority. It has a texture that's odd. So, maybe not.

You might do better with an immersion blender. They're easier to clean. You can also make a small half-cup of peanut butter or puree two gallons of soup, so, it's flexible. You just don't have the option to grate or shred.

I was a kid, so my memory won't be perfect and my experiences were limited... In the US, in the sixties, there was a huge craze for serving Beef Wellington. I can recall people using canned cream of mushroom soup & refrigerated crescent roll dough in versions created by ladies magazines. But Julia made it on an early episode of her TV show and America just went crazy for it. I recall that flambeing was pretty popular in the sixties as well. I attended several dinner parties where everything served was flaming. Cherries jubilee and lobster bisque are all I can remember, though. Of course, fondue was big. It's also kind of a fussy meal, what with the rules and games and whatnot. Also, good cheese was really difficult to come by. I recall that duck a l'orange was popular in restaurants. Also, for many of us, going out to a 'fancy restaurant' meant French food, huge menus pulled almost entirely from Escoffier, served by gloved waiters who spoke French. At the banquets my father had to attend several times a year, steamed artichokes with lemon butter were often served. What I can recall from parties held in people's houses: Hors d' oeuvres: Rumaki (none of the revisionist stuff! a water chestnut surrounded by a soy-sauce marinated chicken liver [lightly pounded] wrapped in bacon and broiled) Swedish Meatballs -actually all sorts of meatballs, I recall some 'porcupine' ones made with rice Meals: Crepes had a big moment in the mid-70s, IIRC some people had entire crepe dinners to show off their pan from France. Baguettes were being flown over to NY & DC on the Concorde from France, your friends were super-impressed if you served one. Shrimp cocktails here in the US, very popular. Wedge salad, just a slab of iceberg and bottled dressing -often Catalina. Nowadays, it's been codified into a dish with blue cheese and bacon, back then, there was more flexibility with dressings. But, always bottled dressing. Spinach salad with warm bacon dressing was big in the late 70s. Broiled steaks, actually almost anything broiled. Waldorf Salad Orange and onion salad; they actually used to give us this in elementary school. Tomato aspic as a starter. Desserts: Champagne sorbet was served between courses at fancy meals as a palate cleanser. 'Bars' were big in the 1970s, but more of a snack than dessert. Layered bars became the norm after a while, I recall a lot of them being made with cake mixes. Bundt cakes were a huge fad, particularly the 'tunnel of fudge' type. Baked Alaska was very popular, as was lemon meringue pie. My parents kept a Rumtopf pot going, but I have no idea how common that was. Carrot cake caught on the early 70s. Zucchini 'bread'...