BeeZee

After all the rich Thanksgiving dinners (we had one Thurs, one Fri), had to come up with something lighter for dinner guests on Saturday. Made a nice batch of pear/fennel soup, really simple and a good starter. Would also be great with grilled cheese sandwiches, I think.

Back to the root question of can an omnivore and a picky eater have a happy relationship? In part it is dependant on how important food and eating out are to the omnivore as a vocation/hobby. If you look forward all week to a special meal out, and your dining partner is miserable, how enjoyable can it be for you? You can certainly eschew certain foods as an individual in a relationship (I hate eggs, the smell makes me retch...so my husband only eats them out when I'm not with him). There have to be some compromises in any good relationship. It's not shallow to question a person's attitude towards eating as a component of the relationship, as it can be indicative of attitudes towards other things and how one person relates to another. Crux of the issue with the couple in the OP is that one person was trying to enforce his will (his food likes) upon his date. Sounds like control issues in the bigger picture.

Agree, Sabra is great (just returned from supermarket with big tub of hoummous-chunky style and sauteed eggplant). Guess the only thing (for me) is the economics...it's $3.99 for a tub that would probably cost me $2.00 to make. Actually sometimes I make a batch and blend it with the pre-made stuff, since I like less tehina in mine than hubby.

Punkin, what part of NJ are you in, maybe someone will know local professionals they might recommend?

There are a lot of decent restaurants in SNJ which are BYOB because liquor licenses are scarce and wildly expensive. One of the best Japanese restaurants in NJ is in Haddonfield, it is Fuji. Recently moved to this new location. It is actually in a little mall in downtown Haddonfield (Kings Hwy), but don't let that throw you. http://www.fujirestaurant.com/ Another option, Mexican "inspired" is the Tortilla Press in Collingswood. http://www.thetortillapress.com/ Stop off at Moore Brothers (in an industrial park in Pennsauken) and tell them where you are eating, they'll make suggestions. http://www.wineaccess.com/store/moorebrosnj

Ro-Tel is a brand of canned tomatoes with green chilis...they sell both whole tomatoes and chopped. Look for the white label, it will stand out from the other tomato products and their red labels! It is not available in all markets, either.

Ditto, that was my introduction to the volcanic cheese dip...from a dear friend I met at work (a really bad office environment, but made great friends) who moved up north from Memphis, and was insistent that only Ro-Tel brand would do. It made an appearance at all of our afterwork gatherings... I also loved the grilled cheese sandwiches at the college dining hall, made with Velveeta, bread hard and crusty on the edges. The molten goo had a way of coating the roof of your mouth if you weren't careful.

I had fresh ricotta gelato yesterday (Bent Spoon - Princeton NJ) and it was great...I want to try to make a version of that (I liked the texture, it was almost chewy). Any thoughts about modifying the cheesecake icecream recipe? The gelato had no eggs. Add some candied fruit/tiny choc chips = cannoli gelato anyone?

It seems like the quantity of ingrediants is inversely proportional to the quality...if you have really good "stuff" for your sandwich, why muck it up with a bunch of other ingredients. Last night I had a sandwich of leftover grilled chicken (sliced down about 1/4" thick) on great portugese bread onto which I had mashed ripe avocado. Each bite, you taste both ingredients and can enjoy the taste of each. Too many items results in limited ability to actually taste any of the individual ingredients. And agreed, if the bread's no good, it's a waste of time.

Dead bug in food. Live doesn't worry me. Unkempt wait staff...if they appear to have not washed clothes or body recently, not much hope for the sink in the restroom having been used.

Always bring a nice big cooler filled with ice. Refrig on sailboats often too small and not terribly cold. If you do seafood, serve it first day. Prep as much as you can ahead of time and just pack it into plastic containers. Snacks should be plentiful (life on the water builds your appetite!). Good things to bring which tolerate less than ice-cold storage are hummous and crudite; cut up fresh fruit; salsa and chips. For lunch, pasta salad is good (avoid mayo-based if you can) and you can add cooked chicken to it if you like. Have fun!

Search tip: check your local public library. I often check out cookbooks to decide if I want to purchase them. This one's a keeper.

" I must admit that it has never even occurred to me to ask to touch the fish. Really? But I can definitely say that that would be the last time I shopped at a place where they let the customers finger the fish." Forgot to say that I would, as posted above, ask for plastic to cover my hand. People are more sensitive to having raw meat being touched, even though it is going to be cooked. I just hate walking thru the produce aisle and seeing people violating (for lack of a better word) all of the fruit and veg. Not to mention the kid wiping his nose then poking away at everything from the cart. Fruit/veg wash = good.

Geez, to quote Bugs Bunny, "what a maroon"... You gotta feel fresh fish to make sure it's still firm. The guy probably had been brainwashed by the corporate videos on hygiene.

Fat Guy expresses something similar to what I was thinking (just more eloquently than I could have)...I was thinking it was somewhat a function of feeling that these were foods of our poor, makeshift past, things we cooked because we couldn't afford the "better" quality ingredients (ie, "peasant food"). The younger, upwardly mobile generation sees these traditional foods as part of the immigrant class, not part of the assimilated culture - an anachronism maybe? Personally, I don't enjoy most of the traditional Eastern European foods of my ancestors. Except potato latkes

Totally intrigued by this thread, I also purchased some beans online (Vanilla Products USA - grade A Tahitian). OMG, the mailbox was never so fragrant! I only ordered 20 beans, and am using some right now to make vanilla sugar, since I don't have a suitable jar for extract right now. After I sliced the pods last night, I enjoyed the residual fragrance on my fingers...didn't want to wash my hands! Have some triple wrapped in saran and one of the sealed packs in a freezer ziploc (stored at room temp) and I can still smell them...heavenly.

I think that a lot of adults had similar experience with foods that were supposed to be eaten "because they are good for you"...they were so poorly prepared (bland, plain, uninspired) that good for you = tasteless. In this month's Gourmet mag Ruth Reichl comments on how different it is to eat vegetarian now vs. then. As we all become more knowledgeable about how to properly prepare produce and other foods while retaining their "good for you" qualities, it becomes much easier to incorporate them into a healthier diet.

I go to a Passover dinner every year which has at least 2 vegetarians in attendance; they agree that they can be very happy with the "side" dishes. I'm always in charge of the vegetarian sides since the hostess isn't really "in" to that stuff...usually bring a farfel stuffing (made with veg broth) or potato kugel. Considering a Passover lasagne (uses matzoh instead of noodles) this year.

I did find a recipe that used potato starch, too. Might be fun to experiment the weekend before and have a backup kugel (haha).

Someone on another board posed a question about making gnocchi with matzoh meal, anyone try this? Oh, and I've never even made gnocchi the "regular" way, so I don't know if this is too difficult, to start making substitutions on something which sounds like it's tempremental to changes in the dry/moisture ratio.

Had a fantastic dinner last night, first visit to David Drake and we will definitely come back. Most of the items are on the web site, some menu items slightly different. No pic's... Amuse- mini cod cake (tasty, perfectly crunchy) Appetizer- I had the celery root/pear soup. Very tasty, it was garnished with sweet little mushrooms and walnut. Not sweet, and I didn't actually taste pear until the bottom of the bowl. Husband had shrimp risotto which came with a nice garlic broth. Entree- I had the honey roasted duck breast. Nicely done, cooked more medium than rare, very tender. Crispy delicious skin. Root vegetable fricasse had spaghetti squash (formed into a "bowl") with bits of lobster, baby beet, baby brussel sprout, and carrot. Served w/tamarind sauce. Husband had a roasted flatiron steak, served with red wine sauce. Looked like a nice piece of meat, tender. We each just had one glass of wine, I had the sauvignon blanc and he had the malbec. Very nice. Amuse after entree: chilled green apple soup with blue cheese foam served in shot glasses - fantastic. Tangy and refreshing. Dessert: I had papaya consumme, which was different than the description on the web site. They present a bowl with the dessert layered in the center (roasted pineapple bits, lime creme fraiche, coconut ice cream) then pour the papaya into the bowl. Very good, flavorful and not overly sweet. Husband had the chocolate parfait (a very popular option) which Randi has pictured above). Extra: plate of fruit jelly and little cookies Extra #2: husband had told them it was my birthday when making the reservation and I got a special plate with a cookie made in a grid pattern topped with a "tube" of strawberry mousse filled with mango puree. Overall an excellent experience, service was great. We sat at the round table in the corner by the fireplace, which was nice because it gets you a little outside the "traffic path". Some of the tables are pretty close together.

Whoo! I'm going for dinner tonite...hubby looked at the website and drooled over the short ribs, hopefully they will be on the menu!

What about Rat's in Hamilton? I've never been, but know several people who enjoyed it.

And on a related note, Jewish person who looks forward to this time of the year because I LOVE hot cross buns for breakfast or snack! Plus, markets have better selection of seafood as "Lenten specials".

How about the idea that all veg must be barely cooked/crunchy?