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This can be said for many many things Glad you stocked up without fear. Half the fun is experimenting. I hope you live in a place with good variety.

This? Is me. I'm not the type to plan meals a week in advance. I don't think I even plan meals a meal in advance. I'm a sucker for the look, feel, or smell of food, so I walk into a grocery and see what looks good that day. I'm helpless in an open-air market, and I'm reduced to goo around street food. As to when I eat... I'm a grazer. Years ago in college, I suffered bleeding ulcers. My Doc urged me to retrain myself to eat a little at a time, but to eat often. Even though the ulcers are long gone, the eating pattern stuck. I graze during the morning and afternoon (veggies, cheese, and the occasional piece of baklava) and eat my meal in the evening. Fun thread

I'm also in the 'What? You can cook?" dating pool, so anything I put on the table usually elicits appreciation. One of these days, I need to find a man that can cook. But, I've also found that letting the object of my affection witness (or help) with the cooking process can be quite affective. Think about it... close quarters... all that heat... availability of interesting impliments (I kid!)... Just make sure you've got something that can live in the oven for awhile. Otherwise, hockey pucks for dinner.

Don't you just hate it when food and sauce conspire against you? Great story - thanks for the laugh!

Just received my Southern Season catalog. I fell in lust with the place during grad school (when I couldn't afford their good stuff), and order for friends and family every year. Unfortunately, they haven't gotten the hint that I love the place, so I also have to order something for myself

MHarney - thanks for the recap. Accurate and funny is always a winning combo. Now that I've seen the show, I have to agree that the crew has finally found the sweet spot. This was well-paced, damn funny, and a good mix of food, culture, and abuse of the host. I loved the zen vibe of the Malaysia ep, but they knocked this one out of the park. The Vegas previews? Toss Tony out of a plane? Pass the popcorn - I'm so there.

Aaaah, back to the dirty stuff. Good times. ← Careful what you wish for... I still have wonton wrappers and I'm not afraid to use them

I have to ask... I think I recognize the pork (?) chop, but what is the green stuff? And how is the chop white? ditto at least you feel more like Keller after learning from your mistakes. One of the best ways of learning may be to screw up and look at your errors and the situation then learn from them instead of blaming the recipe or source. Just my 2#. ← I'll ditto that ditto. That's how I learned to cook when I was a kid, much to my mother's shagrin. I wish I had a photo of the 'there is such a thing as too much tumeric' lesson. That mac and cheese looked positively radioactive

Grub - you mean burger buns aren't supposed to look like that? Trust me, they look better than a lot of my attempts. But, then again, I do not seem to possess the proper genetic chromosome necessary for successful grilling Even though the fries are a little, um, speckled, I'd eat that burger. Then again, I should probably be posting that in the PMS thread That actually looks very good right now. But the salmon... oh my. Gotta know what you did with it - was it fixable? Fed to the dogs? Inquiring minds want to know.

I guess the pinkness didn't really come through as strongly in the photo. Trust me, in person... pepto mixed with dog food

I can't believe I'm doing this... This is actually a very tasty oxtail stew. My hand slipped when I was adding the red wine... hence the pinkish sheen. These are steamed wontons stuffed with oxtail, leeks, shrooms, and bleu cheese. They looked alright until I added the balsamic vinegar/stock reduction. It resulted in food porn, and not the good kind I'm ashamed... so ashamed...

I'll answer the Bittman question since I brought it up. If you interpret 'fundamentals' as how to deal with basic ingredients, I think Bittman fits. But, as I noted upthread, it is likely more appropriate for the non-cook or the unadventureous cook. Certainly not the eG crowd. If you are interpreting 'fundamentals' as cooking technique, then Bittman isn't much help. After reading your last post, I suspect you meant the latter. You should start a new thread for this - its an endlessly interesting topic (yes, I am also a geek). And, we're dangerously close to hijacking jackal10's thread

I like Bittman's How to Cook Everything as a gift for friends who don't cook, or for those who don't have a lot of variety in their repertoire. For me, Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Trang's Essentials of Asian Cuisine are 2 that I keep returning to over and over again. Topic? The Cook's Book looks wonderful. I'm going to have to break my 'no new cookbooks until I put together the new bookcase' rule and pick up a copy. Guess I know what I'm doing this weekend

Well, that law is a new one on me... ← Oh, it gets worse... You can only buy the good stuff in a liquor store. Not a grocery store, not a convienience store, and as I said earlier, never ever cold. However, I should clarify that this only applies to stores, not bars or restaurants. You can get the good stuff chilled there, as I often do That's hilarious - having done both, and only willing to do one again, I can attest to it's truth.

I'm stuck in a state that requires, by law, that all beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% or higher is sold warm. So, I can attest to what the other posters are saying. Check any freshness dates (or the amount of dust on the bottles), don't buy the stuff near windows, etc. I've rarely gotten a bad bottle.

Hi, I'm inny, and I'm a lily-guilder... I must have melted cheese in mashed potatos - the sharper, the better (bleu is my favorite). Toss in a little sour cream, lots of butter, and the stuff barely makes it to the table. I almost always finish blanched veggies in a quick sautee of bacon. Heck, everything is either finished with bacon or butter or cream. For a midnight snack, prosciutto on buttered toasted crusty bread with a thin slice of brie, a slice of peach, and a drizzle of very old balsamic vinegar. Now I'm hungry. I wonder if there's any prosciutto in the house...

For those who care about such things... The new ratings are here! The new ratings are here! </Steve Martin> Actually, this is not completely bad news. The households are down a wee bit from last week, but the desired demo is up a little. Also, it didn't drop nearly as many Arrested Development viewers as I thought it would. Coupled with the news that Fox isn't dropping it from the schedule, it looks like KC has a chance to finish out at least half a season. Oh, and for all you Alias fans out there, Michael Vartan (Vaughn, Alias) is doing a guest stint on KC... The title looks promising

Great assessment, jhlurie. Of the 3 episodes that have aired, this was the most uneven. How is it possible that the foodie stuff was less funny? Kitchen pecking orders and no eyebrows should be comedy gold. Larroquette? Even though his dry wit should be perfectly at home here, it just didn't work for me. Maybe that's because the characterization of Jack's wit is a little too... wet? (What is the opposite of dry wit?) I'll add a positive - the food looked absolutely great. I have no idea how authentic it was, but it looked better than the money shots on some cooking shows.

I haven't lived in the Triangle since '96, but I can vouch for Chapel Hill's El Rodeo. I just hope they haven't gone downhill since I was there. I still have friends in the area, so if you haven't passed your deadline, I can ask around.

Terrific analogy. I first fell in love with cooking shows on PBS and was ecstatic when FN came to my cable. It was my 'default' channel - the channel that was on when nothing else was on, or I just needed background noise. Now I've come full circle and am back to PSB for my cooking show fix. And congrats to Sara - its nice to see another talented FN refugee escape to greener pastures. ETA: because I really do know how to spell.

I didn't say it was a particularly good drinking game But there is at least a little 'Bourdainism' in each show. The cocaine through the dried penne in the pilot's opening and the close-up of the ubiquitous thumb ring in the second are two examples that come to mind. Still, I wish it were funnier, or dramady-er, or just better.

Agreed. I think we'd end up with a tone that is much closer to the book. Can you imagine if a wordsmith like Milch (Deadwood) got their grubby little mitts on it? All said, I'll still stick around for next week. If nothing else, I can play the 'spot things I recognize from the book' drinking game.

Guess I'll be the ratings chick again this week... And these are down from last week. I actually thought this episode was a little tighter than the pilot. Not necessarily funnier, but tighter.

I'll bite. I'm approaching this discussion from the perspective of both an author and reader. I'm not a food professional by any stretch of anyone's imagination, but I do have a lot of respect for the parties involved (both with the book and this discussion). So, here's my take, for what its worth. I think that there is an unstated relationship between an author and a reader. With the genre of memoir, there is absolutely an understanding that an author's perspective of events will be skewed by their experiences, memories, and a host of other psychological factors. Its a given. No problem. However, the author is telling me a story (or situation or event) in the context of non-fiction. If they have purposefully omitted facts or context that skews the story, then that is another matter. In other words (believe me, I'm not lacking words... just ask my editor), if the story as written doesn't match the story as perceived by the author, then the fundamental 'relationship' between author and reader is broken. Leave out things that will hurt others? Fine. Just don't change the perception that you, the author, are trying to convey. If you can't do that, don't write about it. Can I get some popcorn before I return to the nose-bleed seats?

sizzleteeth - you make an excellent point. But, I wonder whether or not the issue here is less a matter of perception than a matter of deception (in the most minor sense of the word). As a reader, I expect a non-fiction writer to be honest about including details that will help me understand and interpret the situation being described, as the author understands it. I don't expect the pure unvarnished truth - that's a matter of perception. However, if an author omits details that will help me understand things in the way s/he understands them, then the veracity of the rest is in question. Its a niggling point, but that's my view from the cheap seats. I'll go back to my popcorn now...