IowaDee

Hell, America is called the Melting Pot for a good reason. We also seem to have the knack of making foreign food into something all our own. Drag classic Latin American food across the border, give it a twist and-boom- Tex Mex for your dining pleasure. Same with Chinese. Watch the crews we brought in to build the railroads eat. Get a serious case of envy and before you know it, we have our own version in dishes like chop suey. And don't forget those super American fortune cookies. And don't get me started on the way we have made Italian food our own. We are probably the only country that has had the opportunity to create a food culture from scratch and we are still growing and evolving with each new wave of newcomers. Personally I can't wait to see what takes center stage on the table next.

Perhaps- but if you lived in small town Iowa as I do, you would fall to your knees and thank the Tamale Gods for giving them to you. The only other choice being Hormel ones in a can. Yup, those really exist.

Why wait for a movie? The trip could become a weekly show so great that you could kick a certain "Guy" to the curb. egullet on the go

How many of you will be going? I can't imagine one person could survive with their sanity intact! I sense the basis of another book in all of this if you do. Can't wait to hitchhike with you.

What????no partridge in a pear tree? And not a single swan a swimming either.

Heck, eating the wrapper the bread was in would beat the hell out of kale in my book.

Amazon has a deal until 5 p.m that lets you save 30% on one book. I think the max is $10.00 The code is HOLIDAY30. Felt good to order a cookbook that had been on my wish list for months.

Okay, that got the old taste buds going. Until we moved to Iowa, lobster was always on the menu on Thanksgiving. Hubby stopped at the Santa Monica Pier on the way home from work. He picked out the baddest, biggest critter in the tank and had it cooked. Never should have let the kids join us at the table. They loved the stuff too and it became pretty expensive to feed us all. Of course we thought we were ultra classy because we drank the newly discovered, to us, Cold Duck. I have yet to taste a Maine lobster but it is on my "must eat" list. I love the idea of a family starting their own traditions and not being hide-bound to the turkey, stuffing, cranberry menus. It is easier if you grew up in a family where food was just fuel rather than edible art form for the tummy. No traditions to break, just new ones that are all yours. Happy Eating Friends.

I have an amazing mano and metate from a dig in Baldwin Hills, CA. A professor from UCLA brought students to the site one summer and collected it and some other artifacts. My great uncle managed the oil lease where the dig was and they gifted it to him as a thank you. Many years ago, our daughter won a blue ribbon at the Iowa State Fair as a 4-H member. The catagory was for the oldest kitchen tool you own. She used it to grind corn and made corn muffins. It still lives on but only as a conversation piece. The rocks near Big Bear Lake have many grinding holes in them. I can remember stuffing pine nuts in them as a kid. Fun times.

That's amazing. The one item looks like an early version of the comal which I use all the time. I wonder if it was used for making pita?

Like so many others, I want to thank you for taking the time and effort to share your amazing meals. This is the type of thing that brought me here!

I too love homemade items but only if I know the home where they came from. I am "blessed" with a sister-in-law who loves to gift family members with fruits of her labors. I do appreciate her hard work but the end results are cringe worthy. Her husband actually related an instance where he walked into the kitchen one morning and saw a mouse "ice skating" across the stick of butter that was on the table. He thought it was cute but I saw the family do a collective shudder.

I have ordered things from The Santa Fe Cooking School and always been pleased with them. Lots of the items seem pretty unique to the area.

This is amazing to me. So many of us, myself included, had pretty miserable times at the family dinner table. And yet, we have become real lovers of food and the processes involved to produce it. I dreaded meal time as a kid. It took years to distance myself from the crappy meals I grew up on and realize that I could do so much better. The journey has been fun and ongoing.

Yeah, but will they have a place to tether my flying car while I'm printing dinner?

There was a show on the Food Channel last Wednesday. Mo Rocca was taking a tour of newly trending foods. One stop was on the West coast, California I think A couple was producing amazing cake toppers using the 3D printers. Building one took forever but the end product was unreal. The downside was they were making them for Duff Goldman. Might have been on the Cooking Channel?

I don't think many people care about most of the meal just as long as they get their "just desserts."

Probably be several servings of impeach cobbler.

Well here in Iowa Joni Ernst would be happy to supply all the hog balls one could want. How about humble pie for dessert after eating crow as a main dish?

They were lucky ladies. I grew up in the era of Tupperware parties and could "burp" a lid with the best of them.

I have the giant version of this. I noticed that where ever The Two Fat Ladies were they always had a bowl like this to use. I suspect they carted their own around. No way in heck could every kitchen have one! I use mine to mix up batches of bird pudding for the winged critters that winter here. The rest of the time is lives on top of the kitchen cabinet and looks like I really do know how to cook. Fooled 'em again.

When i was a kid, a woman gave out Bible tracts. Just imagine what her yard looked like the next morning! Knee deep in crumbled paper.

I don't dislike him but what I dislike very much about his triple D show are the close ups of him shoving food into his face. I have no desire to count his fillings for examine his tonsils at close range.

That is a stunning cake! How lucky to have a DIL that can bake like that. Have you considered celebrating unbirthdays as well?

Fresh corn on the cob