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NWKate

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Posts posted by NWKate

    Recipes for Dummies

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    Frankly, the dumbing down of cookbooks is simply to be expected given what we see in society in general. When I was in graduate school a few years back, I was appalled by the number of my classmates who could not construct a decent sentence let alone a paragraph- and this was in an education program! Not only that, but given the basic editing functions of most word processing programs, I found this simply frightening. So, if these are the individuals who will be teaching our kids, what can one expect? Honestly, I think the general cook would be better off if he turned off the Food Network (yikes!) and picked up a cookbook. But that would presume a basic literacy!

    Kate

    Illogical kitchen habits

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    Actually, I use my tea kettle to boil water for coffee several times a day so IT'S STAYIN' ON THE FRICKIN RANGE! A funny little quirk in my house is that it has also become the repository for AM messages. My son used to put them on my bedroom door where they were promptly ignored but now they are placed on the tea kettle's handle where I always notice them!

    Kate

    ( who staggers to the kettle first thing in the morning in search of morning coffee!) :laugh::laugh::laugh:

    Coffee Crisis!

    in Coffee & Tea

    Posted · Edited by NWKate (log)

    We have been losing power off and on all day and finally lost it for good around 11:30 this morning due to a tree on a power pole. Generally, I have enough freshly ground coffee to get me through but not today. After standing vacantly at my coffee grinder for over a minute, I knew I was in trouble. No problem, I thought- after all, how long can it take to cut down a tree? After 4 hours, I was getting desparate! Finally, I dumped some beans in 2 layers of paper bags and started whacking them with my rolling pin.

    At this point, my teenage son walked in, took one look at me and said, "Um, Mom, are you okay?" (always a good question when faced with a menopausal woman with a raised rolling pin!).

    My point is, I have now ground enough reserves ( and safely placed them in my freezer) to get through a prolonged outage. What lengths have you gone to to get your fix?

    Kate

    neo-Luddite

    Building a Kosher Cookbook Collection

    in Cookbooks & References

    Posted · Edited by NWKate (log)

    I love the NYT Passover Cookbook, Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook, and Evelyn Rose's The New Complete International Jewish Cookbook.

    I also enjoy picking up synagogue cookbooks at garage sales and the like. My own synagogue's cookbook is well-loved and well-stained!

    Also, in my document file, I keep a subcategory of Jewish recipes further subdivided into holidays, meat, dairy, and pareve.

    Kate

    How do you manage your recipes?

    in Kitchen Consumer

    Posted

    My recipe organization efforts are still a work in progress, but here are the highlights:

    I have a folder in my computer called "Recipes."  In it are subfolders, with names like "Cookies" and "Poultry".  I think it's important to create categories that make sense to you, whether anyone else would like or be able to follow your system, themselves.

    Here's the important part:  If you go to the Epicurious website, most of the recipes in Bon Appetit and Gourmet can be found after the issue is no longer current.  Any of those recipes can be called up, highlighted (click and drag, in other words), and copied and pasted into a word processing file.  I find it helpful to paste them "unformatted."  In either Word or WordPerfect, go to Edit, then Paste Special, then choose Unformatted Text.  That will paste plain text into your document, without a lot of formatting codes that can make it difficult to work with.  Then save to the appropriate folder.

    I'm with you on this one. I have failed miserably at managing clipped recipes in notebooks et al and find it a lot easier to manage electronically. Also, this enables me to pull up several recipes at once and compare!

    Kate

    Potluck disasters

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted

    Okay, there was the time I dated an attorney who shared an office with several other attorneys. One of the other lawyers was a skinflinty Germanic nightmare who micromanaged her staff into constant turnover. For their office potluck, my friend polled his staff and had the lunch catered by the local restaurant of their choice. The other attorney? She bought her staff Subway sandwiches and a soda! I kid you not!

    Kate

    Green Bean Casserole

    in Food Traditions & Culture

    Posted · Edited by NWKate (log)

    Just  the mere mention of it makes me shudder with Fargo flashbacks.

    Remember the buffet scene where Officer Marge Gunderson piles her tray high with steam-table goodies? Surely some green bean casserole found its way onto her plate.

    Oh, God, Fargo! My nominee for Best Coen Brothers Film Yet Made--and the Coen Brothers have yet to make a bad one, though Barton Fink was just a bit too surreal for me to handle at the time I saw it.

    That stoic expression on Gunderson's face as she's driving back from just having dealt with the guy who fed his ex-partner in crime into the wood chipper was too freaky for words--in its own way more chilling than tossing the guy in the wood chipper.

    But then, that's an Upper Midwestern thing.

    I wouldn't know from that down my way, where everyone's Glad To Meet You. (That aspect of Central Plains culture gives East Coast folk the creeps.)

    I loved the movie too- probably because I lived it- having been raised in the land of "Ya, sure, Bob ya betcha" I have more bad food memories than there is time or space to relate! :laugh: for example there was the time with the lutefisk dinner at my boss' house...never mind!

    Kate

    edited for computer illiteracy!

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