HungryC

Placemats, usually, for everyday meals. Tablecloth, sometimes, for a change of pace. Tablecloth for company, as I don't have enough placemats for a group. Tablecloth "tourism": my grandmother had a well-laundered cotton cloth printed with maps & scenes of the German countryside, sent to her by a cousin in the military stationed at Landsruhe. I vividly recall eating her braised chicken while tracing the lines on the maps, wondering if little German children somewhere were eating chicken for Sunday dinner...what did their chicken taste like?

I have a 2.25 quart handled saucepan; I use it all the time for low-and-slow cooking, esp southern style veggies. I can saute seasoning meat (andouille, tasso, bacon, pickled pork) over high heat to render the fat, then brown onions & aromatics deeply, then add the veggies directly to the pot with liquid...the cast iron allows me to achieve an even simmer over very low heat. Yes, you can do these things in an all-metal saucepan, but I find that the fond created in the inital browning is better in the enameled cast iron, and the subsequent simmer requires a much lower flame. Plus, I can make a roux in the saucepan & add baby green limas, or petits pois, and continue to cook over low heat with no scorching or uneven heating. My absolute favorite LC is the low, wide buffet pans (recently renamed "braisers" in the promo literature)...perfect for etouffee, chicken fricasee, etc. I just thought of another truly useless, relatively expensive kitchen item: the nitrogen powered cream whipper. I can understand using this in a production environment, but in a home kitchen? You pay $100 for the thing, then you have to keep buying cartridges to power it. I'd rather have a good whisk any day.

Just goes to show how your style of cooking & general repertoire of favorite dishes can make a dramatic difference in your perception of utility: I have a LC handled saucepan that's one of the most-used pots in my kitchen.

I nominate decorative glass stove hoods (see here). How on earth would you ever keep the thing clean?

If the shell sticks to the flesh, the shrimp is overcooked, pure and simple. It takes an amazingly short time to properly cook a shell-on shrimp, and gentle heat is better for a saute, rather than a scary hot stirfry (though scary-hot stirfry is great if you plan to eat the shrimp shells-n-all, chinese style). My (fairly) foolproof indicator for doneness is the shell separating from the flesh along the back curve of the shrimp--a small space will open up as the flesh cooks/shrinks a little, and it will be slightly translucent. That's it--shrimp's done. Go no further, or you will have stuck shells. So if you plan to hold the shrimp for a time before serving, you definitely need to undercook. Best bet is to cook & then serve immediately. Re: boiled shrimp, once the shrimp have reached this shell separation point, quickly strain and dump into a sink full of ice to prevent overcooking. Or, if you want to serve 'em hot, spread the shrimp out into a wide, shallow pan so that the temp quickly drops. A stacked-up bowl or deep dish will lead to overcooking/shell sticking from residual heat. Fresh off the boat RAW shrimp (never frozen, alive less than 24 hours before) are very hard to peel, though not impossible....wait 24 hours and they'll peel just fine, and peeling is always easier if the shrimp are as cold as possible. I've never noticed that uber-fresh cooked shrimp are any harder to peel (if properly cooked). Now I'm gonna have to go buy some shrimp to eat tonight!

I do the same thing, only in a different direction--wash, trim, then line up on a cutting board. Split the white ends in half (lengthwise), stopping when you get to the green part. Stack as many as your hand will fit around, then chop from the white end to the green end. This way, you don't have to stop once you start chopping.

Green onions are indeed a staple in my native cuisine, and some people do just use the green tops. I was taught to trim off the bottom inch (the part with the rootlets) of storebought onions, which you then plant in a sunny spot (ground or pot). Within a short time, you'll have fresh onion tops at your disposal...here's blog post I wrote about this practice, with pics of my backyard green onion crop, grown from trimmings. In cajun/creole home cooking, most people just chop & use the whole onion, not bothering to separate the white from the green.

Even my dog-loving hubby, treasurer of our state bar's animal law section, would be offended at the equation of human children with animals. Dogs are prohibited by the health code. It is patently selfish to expect an establishment required by law to follow certain rules to make an exception for you, regardless of the weather. It's not really about customer service at all.

--ice cream flavor designer --small-town cafe (meat-n-three joint serving southern & cajun home cooking, focusing on pot cooking), but I only want to devise the menu, not do the actual cooking, serving, or managing of the place! --simple, in-home cooking school for individuals/very small groups

I, for one, don't want to be seated in a dining room with a (potentially wet or dry) dog. You could have easily solved your own problem by switching your order to takeout. Why would you want to hold the restaurant accountable for the weather and prevailing American customs regarding dog-free dining? (You can imagine that I'm unhappy about Southwest Airlines' recent decision to allow pets onboard for a $75 fee--as if air quality wasn't bad enough without pet dander added to the mix).

Add some to homemade ketchup...or to homemade mashed potatoes (yum!)

wow, y'all are making me feel positively tidy (thanks!) i have two placemats, a portmeirion bowl full of new potatoes (just as pretty as fruit, don't you think?), a DC guidebook, movie ticket stubs, and an Amedei dark chocolate hazelnut bar.

--i follow the ones you've listed, plus chowhound, Mr. Lake's forum, and nolaeats.com, as well as the (fairly inactive) board sponsored by SoFaB. --moderation does drive some of the ebb & flow of discussion sites; at times, heavy-handedness has driven away traffic, while the lack of any meaningful moderation on some boards allows the discussion to wander way-way off topic and to devolve into incivility. neworleans.com's food board died after changes in ownership & board software required most users to re-register multiple times, and the board was plagued by technical difficulties for a while, then plagued by ill-tempered, caustic posters who added little to anyone's food knowledge. --so much of "board chatter" in NO seems to be tourist traffic: where do I eat in the Quarter, where can I eat near the convention center, etc. I find that I get more new and interesting information out of local bloggers than I do from the discussion boards these days.

Rugelach? apricot, chocolate, walnut, or make multiple kinds.

A very fine mesh skimmer (the kind used for skimming scum off of broth) works wonders for removing fat. If you dip it into the broth (all the way to the bottom of the pot), a layer of liquid saturates the fine mesh, which allows the skimmed liquid fat to float over the mesh opening. I was quite surprised at how well it works. Here's a link to the kind of fine mesh skimmer I'm trying to describe: http://www.amazon.com/Off-Top-Skimmer-Larg...d/dp/B000YOPA48

The legs (aka "nest") is far from flimsy; I roll the large Egg in its nest in/out of the garage and 25-30 feet across the patio with no problems. It doesn't wobble in the least. Still, if you want something more substantial, the optional table is available (or plans to build your own table). If I had a hillside lot, I probably WOULD build a smokehouse. My dad is always regaling me with tales of his smokehouse....and my mother mutters about how he'd call her and make her go out and tend the fire while he was off at work!

I have an Amana downdraft unit (vent is built into the cooktop, between the burners). It is vented to the outside. It is pretty useless for removing vapors/odor, as the low setting doesn't seem to pull away any vapors, and the high setting pulls the cooking flames sideways away from the pots. It IS very good at dispersing heat, though: I use it to cool the kitchen after using the oven. I'd trade the downdraft in a heartbeat for a "real" upper hood (only the externally vented kind, though: why does anyone bother with the non-vented version?)

Brown-bagging can save $25-$50 per work week; money much better spent on travel or good food than on mediocre turkey sandwiches or tired salads from the corner deli. [ETA: ditching the coffee-house habit helps, too.]

I'm not sure how British cooks employ the term "brown crabmeat" (or even what species of crab they might be using). Regarding the blue crab (callinectes sapidus), "white" (aka lump) crabmeat is from the body of the crab. "Brown" crabmeat is from the claw segments--it isn't snowy white, but rather has a brownish tint to the outer layers from the shell's pigment. Brown/claw meat is slightly cheaper, but just as delicious as lump.

I find that squishy white bread freezes okay (though I'm talking about the homemade squishy kind, not storebought); I make a whole batch of homemade burger buns and store the (baked) excess in the freezer. Defrost/warm in a slow oven (300 or so) until you can split, then toast--they're as good as fresh-baked. Storebought bread: I usually toss bread ends & leftover rolls into a freezer bag & eventually make bread pudding (savory or sweet). I use it for crumbs, too, but I generally make the crumbs first, then store in the freezer.

Best & cheapest 'round my area: delicious bahn mi (vietnamese poboys) at my favorite asian mega-supermarket cost $2.50 each, stuffed with roast pork, homemade rolled pork, pate, etc and pickled daikon, carrots, cucumbers, jalapenos, and homemade mayo.

I made a batch of scones this weekend and discovered that the food processor makes the whole process incredibly easy. It's a perfect instrument for cutting in the fat; four or five pulses did the trick. It took longer to measure the ingredients than to mix the dough.

Here in the deep south, it's almost always a side dish.

A good all-purpose repair adhesive for pottery, glass, metal, etc. is Duco Cement. Comes in a green & yellow tube, sold at the hardware store. I like it b/c it holds tight, but isn't so permanent as to ruin whatever you've glued (good for repairs on decorative fine china).

What sort of flour are you using? If you can get your hands on a french-style blend with relatively high ash content, you might get closer to the texture you seek.