annabelle

Rotuts, start here: http://www.bing.com/search?q=public+school+districts+that+confiscates+home-made+lunches&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC

Me, too! My black little heart grew three sizes that day.

In some school districts, yes.

Modernist Cuisine looks like cooking for guys who aren't into other fiddly pastimes, like racing muscle cars or motorcycles. It's needlessly tedious, requires scads of dedicated equipment, is prone to failure, and need endless tweaking. Perfect for the guy in the kitchen: provided he has his own kitchen since the rest of us want to eat before 72 hours have elapsed. /traditionalist snob

The appalling thing about this pink slime, is that it is to be used at public schools for consumption by our children. It's too gross for hamburger restaurants, but since no one else wants it, we'll feed it to the kids. What kind of logic is that? There are commercials on television in rotation right now about a fresh dog food for your pet that needs to be kept in the refrigerator to maintain its "goodness". So, Fido needs fresh, only the finest, blah, blah, blah food, but it is okay for Peter and Susie to knosh on true mystery meat at school? And knosh they will, especially if they live in Chicago or one of the other public school districts that confiscates home-made lunches.

Soylent Pink: it's what's for school lunch!

The cake mix guy? Who knew?

Oh, I wasn't trying to dog on Ma and Pa restaurants. I was just mad that this particular diner had been reviewed in Gourmetmagazine and raved about. I felt betrayed. I could have gone a few miles up the road to the awesome Mexican restaurant that costs less and is mucho better.

Amen. In my post that got eaten , I made a reference to a diner that had been reviewed by that couple (whose names escape me) who review "Roadfood" in various spots in the US. This particular diner is on historic Route 66 a couple of towns over from me. The authors had raved about the chicken fried steak, so we decided to stop in for lunch when we were in the town and try it out. It was dreadful. Bland, obviously frozen, white gravy from a mix. Instant potatoes and canned green beans on the side with heat 'n' serve rolls and margarine pats to round it out. If that wasn't the worst of it, the iced tea was terrible as well and I had to ask for clean flatware and napkins at our rickety uneven table. Our waitress dropped off our food, with the check and disappeared. Some might find that sort of thing "charming"; I call it a waste of $20. The only out I can give the diner and the reviewers is the possibility that the diner owners were given a heads-up about being reviewed and busted out some good product and then fell back into their shiftless ways. Give me Denny's anyday.

Thank you, James. I was just going to say much the same thing. *In fact, I composed a very long post that went *poof!* so I will just second yours.

Use margarine instead.

Two pie courses, Lisa? You are made of stauncher stuff than me! I've been on a pie kick the last few months and I think I'll make a blueberry pie for Pi Day.

I knew what you meant, g. Some people live their whole lives looking to be offended. And many of them post of that site.

We are an island of Catholics in a sea of Baptists here in Oklahoma. Our parish is small, so the Knights of Columbus did a fish fry on Ash Wednesday and we're on our own on Fridays. The Knights fried up white bass, hush puppies with finely chopped jalapeno peppers in the batter, corn on the cob and creamy coleslaw, and a table of sheet cakes, cookies and a pie or two. It was excellent. It was a free will offering meal, as well, after Mass and the money collected is used for the Catholic Youth. My husband is a heathen and won't go to Church with us, so I brought him home a carry away with everything but dessert and corn since they were gone by then.

There are a tremendous number of things that I am able to prepare in relatively little time due to modern conveniences like the home food processor, an immersion blender, a KA mixer with attachments, and a microwave oven. There is simply no need for me to spend all day in the kitchen unless I choose to. I'm with Alcuin on this: I think we are really in the Golden Age of the homecook, not the decline. We have the luxury of cooking for fun and experimentation; the availability of exotic ingredients in far flung locales and instructional video on either television or on the computer on how and where to use them. When I first moved into my own apartment at the age of 18, I had a set of pots and pans and a chef's knife and that was it. My eldest son at 22 has a batterie de cuisine like I had at 30: food processor, microwave, toaster oven, pots and pans, whisks and good knives, a coffee maker, a range top and oven and a full sized refrigerator. People who look back with rose colored glasses are misremembering the good old days.

Oh boy. Quoting Marx and talking about the demise of homecooking? Welcome, anyway. Women have increasingly entered the workforce in the past fifty years and that has certainly impacted the frequency and perhaps quality of home-cooking. Only the upper middle class can truly afford to have only one wage earner per family these days. (Excellent article about same in the WSJ yesterday by James Taranto.) It has also been quite unusual for most families who are not very wealthy to have household help until the last generation or so. Even then, help is usually reserved for the care of children (au pair) or a once a week housekeeper. There are exceptions, of course, but I am speaking in the aggregate. Most people work longer hours than in the past to make a modest wage and their work often requires a great deal of travel. If nothing else, plain old exhaustion is more of a culprit than a lack of caring. It's easier to stop off at the market and pick up a rotisserie chicken than to come home and prepare that chicken from scratch. At least it is hot and it's not pizza.

That recipe sounds really good! I'll have to see if I can get my paws on some sunchokes.

Precisely. I asked the question about whether Mario was crooked, because it is likely Paula is in the middle of the same kind of a decision-making process.

Here: http://www.metro.us/newyork/local/article/1118630--mario-batali-agrees-to-pay-5-25-million-settlement-in-tip-skimming-controversy

Argh. Wrong link. I'll have to go find it. Hang on.

They didn't show it, Shelby. They just talked about it on the reunion show. It happened off camera, apparently.

Read all about it <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mario_batali_sued_over_wages_tips_3Pf49xGylFyt68XMGiIcYN">'>http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mario_batali_sued_over_wages_tips_3Pf49xGylFyt68XMGiIcYN"> here </a>. html fail Try this: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mario_batali_sued_over_wages_tips_3Pf49xGylFyt68XMGiIcYN

How can you say that? Do you know these people? How about Mario Batali having to cough up $5.25 Million to settle a tip lawsuit? Is Mario a crook?

Argh! I had forgotten about that one.

Sarah talking to Emeril like that was uncalled for and she should have manned up (so to speak) and apologized to him when that door of opportunity swung open. Instead, she tried to pretend she didn't know what Andy was talking about and then stepped right in it in the next sentence. So much for setting an example for the young'uns back home, Sarah. Way to go, Grayson for calling out Heather for being a bully to Beverly and telling her that she did too owe Bev an apology. Heather really is a piece of work. Tom tells her that they have never seen a contestant act like her in umpteen seasons of TC, and she shrugs it off, with a "Well, everyone knows I'm bossy". B*tch, please. I could have done without seeing that photo of Ty's behind, Andy. Thankyouverymuch. I'm glad Beverly got a chance to challenge Heather's interpretation of Heather's behavior and its possible effect on her professionally. I was glad to see that the other girls had apologized to her and that she was comfortable sitting next to Lindsay. Grayson, my mother would wash your mouth out with soap, young lady. I don't care if there is a lot of profanity in the kitchen: you were in a minivan at one point and with mixed company most of the time.