annecros
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Posts posted by annecros
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I've had one for about a year (bought at Amazon for ~$40). Its okay, really nice for big dinner parties, but it's a little bit of an odd duck: Its too wide for my stovetop, and the walls are a bit too thin for it to retain heat like a le cruset. The size is nice (wide and flat) for putting in the oven, though.
For $40 you can't beat it though if you need a mammoth pot to make curry for ten, but I suspect I'll retire it when I have enough cash flow for a proper gigantic dutch oven.
or maybe I'm using it improperly, who knows.
The kids have all moved out now, so I am in a situation where I am cooking for two most of the time. Difficult.
I've got a dutch oven that size, that gets pulled out two or three times a year these days. I guess it depends upon your situation and lifestyle, but yes I agree it is a deal.
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Here's the "everyday" pan I put on my Christmas list.
http://www.cutleryandmore.com/details.asp?SKU=10073
Looks like a deal to me, but it is OOS for the time being.
Here's another pan:
http://www.cutleryandmore.com/details.asp?SKU=7233
I like the everyday pan better, I think, of the two. Hopefully Santa was on the ball.
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http://members.tripod.com/~Barefoot_Lass/cola.htmlCoca cola will remove the rust. Soak for a few hours. Do not try to substitute other colas, they don't work.That's really a frightening thought. If coke can remove rust from a cast-iron pan, think of what it can do to your stomach lining. I also heard it'll make your enamel sink sparkling clean. Yet, I drink it.
Don't be scared. Emitrol, one of the best anti-emetics out there, is an actual one on one equivalent to cola syrup. Glucose, fructose, and phosphoric acid. Add the carbonation, and you have a cola. Phosophoric acid is milder than the natural acids in your stomach. HCL can produce a pretty nasty chemical burn. When it is needed, it works very well.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
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Just speaking for myself, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Lodge preseason - as long as you treat it as the initial seasoning on the cast iron, and not consider it a completely seasoned piece.
In fact, it is superior to what you will get with new, raw iron and lard and a slow oven, which is the usual starting point. Just treat the preseason as a head start, and you will be fine. Steel wool, or a Kurly Kate, and elbow grease will do a more effective job of getting rid of rust than a coke bath on used and rusted cast iron.
Use it. Use and time is the only way to get a decent season, regardless of wether the cast iron is new, in a state suitable for reconditioning, or scrubbed back down to raw iron. Even a few of the peices I have that aren't used as often as others and were stored with a decent season, may need a little initial use when I pull them back out again.
Use it. Cast iron needs to be needed. I prefer to fry chicken, and more chicken, and more. Others have suggested frying up batch after batch of bacon, and that sounds like a great method to me.
I've rescued a few pots and pans in my day, from conditions that would probably make some shudder. Have some very, very nice old pieces purchased for pennies that some others would probably have passed on as unsalvagable. I haven't seen a piece of cast iron yet that SOMETHING couldn't be done to save it.
I am wondering why you would want to use a cast iron piece for sauces. Maybe you have something in mind that I am not understanding. To me, there are much more suitable tools out there for that type of thing. Lighter, and heats faster than cast iron. Once cast iron is heated, though, you can't beat it for uniformity. Very good for anything fried, simmered, or if you are into dutch oven cooking, just fantastic. Then there is cornbread. I own and use enamel on cast iron for braising, and that is what I use for creamed corn and some other applications. I also have copper bottom, stainless steel, cephaon, blah, blah, and on and on and various other implements for different applications. After all, you don't want to drive a screw with a hammer. And you can't possibly have too many pots and pans.
Anyway, just MOO, take it for what it is worth.
Annie
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I learned to swim in a tank out in Todd Field in west Texas. Of course we are special, we're Texans.
And for annecros, I still store the bacon drippings in a coffee can. Isn't that the only way to do it? My Mamma taught me that. Bless her heart.
Well, I have seen them stored in a covered bowl on the stove top. Mamma said that was just nasty, but that my Aunt just didn't know any better, bless her heart. Must have been the way she was raised or something...
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Am I the only one reading along that feels deprived because I never went to a "pond draining"?
And just as a side note, did they call them ponds in the rural south, or tanks?
You should feel deprived! Every child has a right to be eaten up by mosquitos, slop around in the mud with snakes and catfish, get cut up and scratched up in debris from the bottom of the pond, covered from head to toe in mud and play until they drop! It really was not the appropriate place for children, but I guess my family figured they needed the cheap labor! I wouldn't have wanted my little ones near a pond draining. But they sure were a good time, and those were different times. Amazing we survived some of the situations we were in.
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Ever had the immature eggs from the hen that got butchered for the chicken and dumplings, in the chicken and dumplings? I'm sure there will be "gaks" and "squeals" in response, but they really are incredible, little tasty pearls.
Absolutely, though we didn't necessarily have them in chicken and dumplings, but rather as a separate treat, usually for the cooks (who in my grandmother's case was also the butcher) and any favored children who happened to be helping out in the kitchen. They were, frankly, too good to share with the men. The liver was similarly divvied up.
Seems like maybe my mom had a special name for them, but I can't recall it at the moment. We were likely too busy eating to talk.
OK, that does it. I need to call Mom anyway, and I am going to ask her what they are called! It's going to drive me nuts if I don't.
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RE, Of course I know Baxley! Who doesn't?
Seriously though, there was not a flea market, thrift shop or farmer's market south of Atlanta and north of the Florida state line that was too "out of the way" for my mother. And Dad never saw a dirt road he didn't feel the need to drive down until it ran out. The thing to do on Sunday afternoons after dinner was to go for a "ride around" - which would consist of getting into a big old gas hog and driving around the country aimlessly. As the youngest, brother and I usually got to go along, if they weren't able to sucker one of the older kids into watching us, that is. Seems like there was a huge farmer's market in Jasper or Ellijay that Mom liked to hit. And, I had an older sister in Savannah, so we knew every conceivable route through that area. My very best friend went to school in Statesboro. Lot's of old houses in that part of the state. Lot's of pre civil war stuff still around, if I remember correctly. My first husband's family was from Effingham county, and that was my first real introduction to the great seafood in that area. Visiting his grandparents, I was introduced to fish and grits for breakfast, low country boil (they called it goulash) and blue crab and shrimp. They had retired to a lovely place on Lemon Island, SC, and had access to the water and a pontoon boat and a couple of john boats. Present hubby is German, but his stepfather was from Adel (so close to hell you can see Sparks!). That was a real culture shock for him. His first exposure to the US was at the age of 5, speaking only German, and staying at a farm house outside of Adel with no indoor plumbing! He wanted to go back to Germany, and his Oma.
Funny you should say that about rice, because there was always a pot of rice on the table with every meal. Rice and gravy was obligatory. It was almost as obligatory as the plate of sliced tomatos. Grits were a breakfast food in our house usually. We didn't do the seafood though, but that was my Mom. She couldn't stand it. Dad loved it though. His family was back and forth between Georgia and the Gulf Coast of Florida when he was a kid, so there was more coastal influence there. We ate more cornbread than biscuits. Mom's biscuits were just awful! But she made up for it with her cornbread and cakes. I went to Granny for biscuits.
3 out of 4 grandparents in my family were teetotalers, except for the "medicinal" muscadine wine, of course. My great grandmother actually made a "tincture" for her rheumatism, which consisted of poppy sap preserved in alcohol. Yep, real opium poppies! My father's father was an incorrigable drunk, however. Quite the moonshiner, if family legends are to be believed, and I don't see why not. I only tasted buck once, and that was all anyone needs I think to make up one's mind. Seeing the wasps work the skimmings is enough to put anybody off.
Yep, the old folks are the only ones who still treat me like a fragile flower, and call me "Missy"! I have to admit that I eat it up whenever I get the chance.
It's nice to run across somebody from back home from time to time. Down here, my next door neighbor is as equally likely to be from upstate NY, Haiti, Cuba, South America or Jersey as they are from Florida! Thanks for the chance to visit a bit!
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fou, let me guess. I bet the bacon drippings were stored in a coffee can?
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Oh, and RE, do they let you sample the buck now that you are a bit older?
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Wow, RE, sounds like we are home folks. I was born in Albany, raised in Tifton, spent a couple of years in the Thomasville area, then High School back in Albany. Daddy was from Seminole County, and Mom from Mitchell County. Spring Creek and Sale City, respectively. I left Albany at about 20, and now live in South Florida. Mom still lives there, along with cousins and more cousins and a couple of siblings! I was one of ten, Dad was one of fourteen, and my Granny on Mom's side was one of nine.
Those pond drainings were a lot of fun as a kid, and the fish fry later was more fun. I think it was because tons of kids were always around to play with. Running wild! And we WERE a wild bunch.
As a girl, I was kept away from a lot of the gorier aspects of the hog cuttings. I did participate in picking and pulling the pork we usually roasted the same day, and the other food preparation activities, and my grandfather made the best sausage! The smell of the lard being rendered, and those fresh pork rinds cooking off on a cold morning, was amazing. Then the smokehouse would be going every time we went up there after that for a while. When I was very little, I remember one event where they butchered a cow as well. It was an extended family kind of thing, with relatives all coming in and leaving with portions of the freshly butchered meat.
Although he wasn't named, I witnessed (up close) my Grandfather wring the head off a rooster that had pecked my baby brother and made him cry. Grandaddy lost his temper over that one, because the rooster had drawn blood and my brother was just a toddler and got hysterical. My mom had a fit, because I ran into the house with that blood all over my clothes! I must have been a sight to see! I don't remember if that rooster made it into the pot, but knowing my grandparents they probably did have an unplanned pot of chicken and dumplings for supper.
Great memories. Maybe I will go through Tifton and stop by the Agrirama next time I make a trip home.
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Hey R.E., and yep, my Dad hogged the roe! He wasn't much of a fisherman himself, but when those little fish were spawning a cane pole and some earthworms were all you needed. It would have been either bream or crappy at our home, with the odd catfish thrown in but I associate the roe with the bream and crappy. It was a rare thing for us to get fish from the ocean in my childhood. I could probably eat a dozen of those hushpuppies! We also dropped little red new potatoes into the fish grease, and fried them whole. Just buckets of sweet tea, too. Thanks for reminding me!
Where did you go to the syrup boil? I used to take my kids, when they were kids, to the Agrirama in Tifton, GA if I happened to be visiting at the right time of the year. It really is a nice place to take kids. Working grist mill located there, as well. It is right off I-75 in Tifton, if anyone ever passes that way it is usually a good way to kill a few hours. They are usually doing whatever is in season, if things haven't changed in recent years. Was a fantastic way to demonstrate to my children their heritage, as they were born in the 80's and most of the older folks were gone by the time they came up. They have been to their share of family reunions and funerals, but no huge family pig butchering parties or pond drainings like I was treated to as a kid. My parents were still keeping fowl for a time though. As little bits they got to hang around the chicken house, get chased by geese (and a MEAN old tom turkey Dad kept just for fun), and in turn chase the guinea fowl around. When Dad passed, Mom donated the guinea fowl to Chehaw park, and gave the turkey to a family friend who actually butchered and ate the tough old bird! The geese and chickens just withered away through attrition.
Now, I am looking at grandchildren in the immediate next few years, who will need to understand good food.
Man, I'm getting old!
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Add me to the eggs in the giblet gravy thing! Raised in Southwest Georgia, always been there, always will be in my home.
I can do ya one better, I think. Ever had the immature eggs from the hen that got butchered for the chicken and dumplings, in the chicken and dumplings? I'm sure there will be "gaks" and "squeals" in response, but they really are incredible, little tasty pearls. In a pot of C&D's, with rolled dumplings all puffed up like little pillows, and the warm, rich, buttery sauce. Lot's of black pepper. I was told as a child the black pepper was added so that you wouldn't notice the gnats in the C&D's at the summer picnic! Yes, I had some mean older relatives...but they were fun, and if we did nothing else, we ate good! I remember that was a name put to those little immature eggs, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were called. They were considered a special treat, if you got them on your plate.
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I wonder if annecros would share her gingerbread recipe that she mentioned upthread?
How about it Annie, please?
Of course! It is an old one from a handwritten card I got from my aunt who passed away. I need to pull it out later today, I'm way behind on my Christmas baking! Will post it later tonight.
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HAHA, agreed. Vegetables know no boundaries or borders. I have converted a couple of okra haters in my day. They were skeptical, but are now converts. Most amazing is my German husband! He turned up his nose at that "slimy" stuff, until he tried it fresh and properly prepared in a pot of butter beans. Then I pickled some, and he went nuts! I have to keep a cold pack in the fridge for him, available whenever he gets the urge.
I have to admit though, my proudest moment was when I taught my stepdaughter how to appreciate a rhutabaga, and now she eats the leftovers for breakfast if she hasn't had them in a while! That's another root vegetable that produces very tasty, tender greens, that get lopped off!
Hubby turned me on to Kohlrabbi (sp?). I like it very much. I can eat bowls and bowls of it in a cream sauce. I don't care for the greens there, though. Too delicate to hold up. But the root is fantastic.
Breaks my heart that the big pot of field peas and snaps, that I used to ladle over my cornbread and eat for dessert (yep, dessert, as a child), is called "cowpeas" up north and fed to livestock from what I understand. One favorite after school snack was warmed over greens, in a sandwich of cornbread.
Yep, grits are good food. And there is a lot of good food in the world!
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It is interesting. Polenta is just making do with what you had plenty of, just like grits are. Ground, dried corn is easy to store and keep, nutritious, and very tasty when you make a "porridge" out of it. Water, salt, fat and seasoning.
I do know that collards kept many a family fed over the winter during the depression era, and before. My mother remembers a family that lost the farm, and they took the collards up from the garden, loaded them on a wagon, and took them to transplant wherever they were going. After looking up the nutrional value, I can see why. A pot of those greens, with some fat from the preserved pork, and cornbread on the side, you can put in a good days work with plenty of fuel. Add the artistry of the southern cook, and it is a pleasure to eat on top of it all!
I have a treasure in a letter my grandmother wrote to my father during WWII. She told him that the summer vegetables were in, and that she hoped that he would get home to visit in time to enjoy them. To this day, I think my favorite meal is the "vegetable" meal that many southerners would recognize. Creamed corn, peas, butter beans, sliced tomatoes, cucumber salad, sometimes some boiled okra (boiled with either the peas or butter beans), sometimes some smothered crookneck squash, served with fried streak of lean. Oh, yeah, and a plate of crispy hoecakes. The meat was very much a condiment. This meal says warm weather in the south to me. My stepdaughter requests it specifically on her birthday every year. It is a chore to cook, and I cook all day for her birthday dinner, but back in the day - it was just what was around, being canned and preserved at the time, and easy to put out a real spread while you were preserving the bounty.
Wow, now I'm hungry!
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I've never understood why people from the north so eagerly embrace a bowl of cream of wheat, but turn up their noses at grits! I eat and enjoy both, but on a plate with some scrambled eggs and a ham steak, I want my grits. REAL grits too. Not those dehydrated instant things that some restaurants attempt to pass off.
Yep, polenta is Italian for grits. I love the way that some southern cuisine is not recognized for the character, nutrional value, and international heritage that it is entitled to, unless it is presented by someone not from the south.
Collards and Kale are kissing cousins. In fact, when I first moved to South Florida and had difficulty in finding fresh mustard greens to cut my turnip greens, I substituted Kale, and it really is a very good combo. It staved off my craving for turnips and mustard, anyway.
And why in the world do the supermarkets insist on cutting those lovely greens off the top of the turnips? What are they doing, throwing them away? Such a waste of a tasty and nutritious food.
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Funny, but I made my first mince pie (I deplore mincemeat) for the family at Thanksgiving, and they went nuts over it and informed me that it was a new holiday tradition.
I don't like marzipan either. Very pretty, but I find it inedible, personally.
Now, gingerbread is the bomb. I have a recipe that actually tastes good with beer!
Annie
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Hershey's Hot Cocoa off the tin recipe for me too!
Warm, comfort food. A mug o' love!
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It's not the gelatin that offends. Jellied eels, tripe terrine, soft boiled eggs set in an aspic made from clarified consomme are all wonderful. I love savory aspics--aslong as they're not made with sugared and artificially flavored gelatin. I supsect the reverse may be true for many others. I wonder if there's a case to be made that those who love Jello molds, have the strongest dislikes for aspics. I suppose it's a culture thing. I had a wonderful salad at Blue Hill the other night. Among the variety of textures offered by cooked, raw and pickled vegetables, there were nuts and seeds and bits of intense mushroom jelly (aspic).
Well, I like them both, sometimes. Not always on the same day, even. It depends. Sincerely.
I think I was more open minded towards aspics, because of the savory "jello molds" I had experienced over my childhood. It was easy for me to think of something as appetizing, even though it was suspended in a cold, semi-solid medium.
After all, gelatin is simply protein.
I think that anyone that has an aversion to "congealed", just simply has an aversion to congealed. It is just not for everybody. Some get it, and some most decidely do not. I have an aversion to saurbraten, but I love some other "saured" dishes. Same mehtod, different ingredient, but very different effect on my taste buds. Go figure.
But, that is only my opinion. Drawn from personal experience and observation.
Annie
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Wow. One more word, then I shut up, I promise.
Here is the quote:
"And, BTW I looked over this book, I thought that it was a brilliant piece of , um, 'marketing'. I found most of the recipes in this book mainly really weird, and a bit frightening in their milieu of the nonexistent fantasy most people seem to have of the US in the fifties. Hmm, I suppose it would be political of me to say...I see the theme of the book, now? Perhaps it's not really about food, but is a metaphor for the desires of the presidency. I'm just saying.... it quacks like a duck, it looks like a duck, it lays duck eggs, but maybe I'm being political if I say it's a duck?"
Wierd? Frightening? Have you never picked up a church fund raising cookbook? And then you say a cookbook is not a cookbook, but a "metaphor for the desires of the presidency"?
Yep, you got political.
There are good and bad cookbooks. I have found some very nice recipes buried in cookbooks that are generally rehashes of recipes that are so old they are worn out. But drawing a metaphorical theme from the recipes (point A) to the desires of a political office (point B) is yes, political.
Now, I must shut up and behave myself, and go stir my chile. I shouldn't have clicked on this thread again, I suppose.
MOO.
Annie
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Must put in a plug for last year's Christmas present from hubby.
Innova. Stainless steel pressure cooker, model 42010 C.
Competitively priced, versatile, and worth a lookup.
It has performed admirably, and features lots of extra's like the adjustible wieghts, sealing ring and safety lock release, rack/steamer basket, and 5 year warranty.
Just a real good, all around pressure cooker at a reasonable price. Good starter cooker that performs as well as some of the more expensive options out there. Get one like this, use it to experiment, then keep it around for utility work.
MOO.
Annie
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Wow. All I can say is how political this whole, entire, ever loving thread became, and how quickly!
Sad. Thought I could retreat from the politics on this board, but oh well.
Obviously, those preparing and reviewing the dishes had some political agenda in the first two articles linked. Shock at thickening with egg yolks? Give me a break. Egg yolks have been used as a thickening agent forever. They work.
Cream? Somebody is bashing cream in a recipe? There are very few occaisions that I have witnessed in that cream did not improve flavor or texture. After all, cream is good stuff.
High fat? What about the thread here dedicated to lard?
And for those articles written by those who chose to prepare the recipes outside of specs because they had guests who were of a different political opinion, oh well that is just sad. As well as those that would cheerlead them.
If you undercook the chicken, the chicken will be undercooked. How is this supposed to have some parralell to the war against terrorism?
I am sorry I even clicked on this thread and read the two thirds that I did.
I will shut up now. Except that politics do not belong in the kitchen, any more than they do at the dinner table.
Annie
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"Yeah, I don't think I would ever do that."
Why not? Do you normally purchase a car without a test drive? Would you buy a house without having a walk around the inside? Date someone without finding out at least the basics? What do you do if you are unsure if you would like an unfamiliar menu item, or a special even?
Not order it? Just to be safe? What exactly do you do if you have never tried something before, or if you have eaten an item before, but are particular in the preparation method? How would you know that the change you drop on the special is worthy, if there is some doubt?
Myself, and the best restaurant owners I have come into contact with, would much rather the customer ask for a taste, than not order something at all. Especially if they are not sure if they will like the item or not.
A happy customer likes the food. If they don't like what you have to offer, well fine. Then don't get a great big honkin plate of it, complain to others that you don't like it, and never patronize the establishment again, because you feel like you were ripped.
I always wanted happy customers. Chef's want happy customers. Every owner I ever met wants happy customers.
I guess I am probably coming across as a little pushy on this issue, and please don't take this personally if you do not feel comfortable asking for a bit of sauce or a garnish.
Sorry. But, service fed me and two kids when things were not good. Outstanding service always pays off.
And, I understand that other's may not feel comfortable making such a request. But, I don't think that it reflects poorly upon anyone who does, either.
I will shutup now. I promise.
Expensive food for rich people
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
Wow! This is a very interesting thread.
Objectively, I would have to disagree that good food at a reasonable price is not available to the masses in the United States. Less than a mile from my home, there is a shopping center called Pinewood Square, I think. Located at this shopping center, you will find an Outback, a McDonalds, an Italian place called "Paisano's" that is family run and serves good pasta, pizza, and great hoagies, a Greek place that is also family operated that serves the gamut of Greek home cooking in a diner type atmosphere, a Quizno's, a Coldstone Creamery, a locally owned sports bar that serves up greasy fried food at all hours, and a new Mexican place that is owned and operated by a chef formerly employed by the Four Seasons that is my current place to pick up tacos when I have a taste for them and don't feel like cooking them myself. Anchoring the shopping plaza is a Publix, that accepts food stamps of course, and is very well stocked with nearly all of the provisions needed to make nearly any of the dishes prepared in the rest of the shopping plaza. Even in the 7-11's in the area, you can not only by the roller grilled hotdog, but you can pick up tuna salad on a pita, a cobb salad, a chef salad, a fruit salad, a cuban sandwich, etc. It is amazing the number of hardworking people who eat out of a 7-11. About a mile and a half from here, there is another strip mall with chinese, a sushi/hibachi place, another Italian place, a pretty decent Thai place and a Baskin Robbins.
This is pretty typical of my experience in the area in which I live, and where else but America?
And, considering the economy in the United States, these places wouldn't make it, much less get the financing to get off the ground, if they weren't serving good food at a reasonable price that people can afford to purchase living in the economy.
Now, I can also drive fifteen or twenty minutes and go to the Breakers, the Governor's Club, the Four Season's, or hit some of those trendy places on Worth Avenue in West Palm Beach - I could do it on a regular basis if I wished to mortgage my first born!
I think that perhaps the perception that American's don't eat well is a matter of some choices made by individuals. No, you don't see food carts on every corner, except in population areas that are dense enough to support this sort of industry. New York has been brought up as an example, and it is a very good one.
I think climate and culture can have an affect here as well. Comparing Thailand to the entire United States really is comparing apples to pineapples. There are so many subclimates in the US, cultural influences from all over the world, availability of raw materials is so varied, you can and will have a very different eating experience anywhere you hang your hat. I have been told by a family running a bakery here in Florida, who are from New York, that the difference in water hardness has to be compensated for in their baking in order to serve "New York Style" breads and pastry's.
I guess if I had a better idea of what your definition of good food is, then perhaps I would find more common ground with your theory. For me, good food is nutritious and tastes good. Now, my idea of tastes good may not be another's.
I'll be warming up a pot of turnips and mustard, and baking cheddar/garlic biscuits served with country ham slices for lunch today. MMMMM - good stuff. A lot of nutrition and calories there as well, but another person may not be able to tolerate the salt and fat. Oh well.