NWKate

Don't use that language in front of me! My sister's favorite hot dish...and yet another reason why the midwest is a good place to be from! Kate

Russ Parsons had a great article about this in the LA Times not too long ago- someone help as I don't know how to post links. Kate

Just the mere mention of it makes me shudder with Fargo flashbacks. It was always a part of our infamous (and largely indigestable) holiday meals along with neon red apples, potatoes au gratin and alternately overcooked or raw turkey! Kate

I make cocoa from the recipe on Hershey's unsweetened cocoa and have loved it since I was a kid! Of course, the additional vanilla and nutmeg may help... Kate

You're right. Baked Cheetos and whole milk are not at all equal with respect to cholesterol and saturated fat. A serving of whole milk has 5 times the saturated fat and >35 times the cholesterol of a serving of baked Cheetos. ← Just gotta love people who quote selectively! Now how about the rest of the quote- the part where I said that until you can show me that baked cheetos provide the same amount of nutrients, vitamins and minerals as whole milk, I vote to stay with the milk! Kate

I am rather skewed on this topic having once worked at an Indian (Native American) school where the entire school recieved free meals as the majority of enrollees were low income. I am sure that the meals we provided gave these children the only nutrition some of them recieved and I would be loathe to take away their milk- full fat or not- given the nutrients it provided. To say that baked cheetos and 4% milk are nutritionally equal due to the similarity in amounts cholesterol and saturated fats is both ludicrous and dangerous. Until you can show me that baked cheetos provide the same protein, mineral, and vitamin content, I say stick with the milk! Kate

...oh, the shame, the shame... Being vertically challenged, I am frightened every time I grab a chair and actually look up there. Last year, I found a 3 year old package of Boboli that hadn't gone to mold( which made me wonder, briefly, what its half-life in one's digestive system is). Now, besides the dust that has become structural, some geriatric bananas, oat and honey granola bars, breakfast cereal that refuses to die, and tortilla chips that went stale around the time of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Guess what I'm doing tonight? Kate

This reminds me of the time I brought my infamous double chocolate raspberry whipped cream cake to a holiday gathering. One of the moms there has SERIOUS control issues. The rest of us and our children dug into the cake happily as she handed pieces of cut apples to her sons. THEN, she cut herself a big piece of the cake which she proceeded to eat in front of her now screaming children. She finally plucked a lone fresh raspberry from her cake to quiet one of them as she shoveled the whipped cream frosting into her mouth. Apparently the poor darlings weren't allowed to have sugar. (And we wonder why her #1 son is out of control in high school!) Kate

...wlecome to my childhood! After reading that article, I am truly having Fargo flashbacks. Can you say "Chicken & Rice Casserole"? Sure, I knew you could!" Kate

I like to make Moroccan Root Vegetable soup having gotten the recipe off the NYT cooking & recipe forum.

Homemade hummus is always nice!

Yes, but it must be prepared in a kosher kitchen with meat or dairy pans and utensils and served on the appropriate dishes with the appropriate silverware. Keeping kosher is sort of like being pregnant- either you is or you ain't!

it sounds wonderful! Last year I was invited to dinner at the home of dear friends who made a kosher meal as their child keeps kosher( except that they don't keep kosher and served the meal using their own china and silverware...never mind). I would love to have the recipe for your gravy.

"Maybe we should start a thread called "strange hambone stories". Actually, a friend gave me two smoked ham hocks because she had no idea how to use them. Drool, can you say greens and hamhocks, split pea soup, navy bean soup...drool...

During my college day, I lived in a housing coop in Madison Wisconsin. While not strictly a potluck, one of the house jobs was to cook the main meal for the household. One of the cooks developed an unhealthy obsession with all things garbanzo. Needless to say, after garbanzo bean loaf, salad, soup, pate, stir fry and all other aberrations thereof, I have avoided them to this day. On another note, Thanksgiving at my house is potluck. I invite all my guest with the caveat that no greenbean casseroles with crispy onions or sweet potatoes with congealing marshmallows will be allowed entrance!

So many meals...so little time. Having grown up in Fargo, North Dakota and believing well into my twenties that all vegetables grew in cans, the memories abound. My mother, for example, made the world's worst spaghetti sauce. Ground beef, canned tomatoes, and chili pepper- period. For most of my adult life, I have avidly avoided any opportunities to dine on spaghetti with anything remotely resembling red sauce. Thus, when invited to dinner, I always ask what is to be served under the guise of wondering what wine to provide. Sadly, whenever the dreaded entree was mentioned, I always managed to have a sick child or other emergency waiting in the wings. Until, that is, my 37th birthday when my best friend from college invited me to a celebratory barbecue. And it rained. Not without a plan B, she started cooking, (yes, you've guessed it) "dah, dah, dah, DUN"- the dreaded RED SAUCE FROM H_LL! I used to think my mother was the worst cook, but now my friend has totally underwhelmed me. Not only was it a meal designed to produce Fargo flashbacks, but the aftermath was equally apalling. During the cleanup, while my friend scraped the leftover spaghetti, watermelon and corn into a bowl for compost, another guest proceeded to shove every leftover salad- greens, cole slaw, tortellini and potato- into one container to eat later. And yet, the best was yet to come! My friend and I produced sons within 6 weeks of each other. Hers is organizationally challenged, to say the least. The day following the birthday bash, she reminded her beloved child that he needed to be awake, bathed and fed by the time she picked him up at noon. Sadly it was not to be. Thwarted once again, she rushed him through the bath, handed him his clothes and asked if he had eaten. Beofre he could say no, she had grabbed a bowl from the fridge, a fork from the drawer and stuffed all of them into the van. "Listen", she growled, "before I'm done with this sales call, I want this bowl empty." "But mom", he said. " Just eat it!" she demanded through clenched teeth while shoving the bowl at him. She came back to find her son clutching an empty bowl- well, almost empty, save for the few watermelon seeds and lonely corn kernals floating near the bottom. Thus ends the saga of how she fed her son compost for lunch.