annabelle

Yeah, those wing-nutty Vietnamese immagrants in Orange County NEVER eat fish.

There has been more trashing of dopey dads in food related commercials in the last few years, so I think gfweb is on to their gimmick that moms buy the groceries. I agree it doesn't make mom a better cook, just in charge of the checkbook. I wrote to General Mills a while back and asked them how several of their Cheerio commercials would fly if the gender roles were reversed. Basically, the wife was all but calling the husband an idiot. Nasturally, I received no response other than a generic one about how wholesome their products were. Go figure.

I don't like those ice cube trays, either. The noise is like scratching on a chalkboard to me. The plastic trays that twist were better but didn't last long. I heart my ice maker.

Well, I wasn't so much referring to your original question, as to a few other thoughts expressed throughout the thread. As I said, it seems to me that that rather dismissive, condescending, and derogatory opinion of the middle-American palate surfaces around here with considerable regularity. And although of course it's often true to some extent, in my opinion, anyway, more often it's a lazy, facile, cliched, simplistic, easily-repeated stereotype that is just not valid. Thank you for this, Jaymes. I grow weary of hearing and reading all of the time about how provincial we Americans, especially we Southerners are. It's like some people who are newly come to religion and can't pass up an opportunity to tell you how you are doing it wrong. I'll tell you what I find "provincial." And that is the notion that Americans are somehow always different (i.e. worse) than everybody else on the planet. When people start saying that, I immediately think that they just haven't traveled much. I have. Not only have I been (literally) around the world, I've lived in several other countries (Hong Kong, The Philippines, Panama, Germany), and can tell you that Americans are certainly not the only ones that often prefer to see something familiar when they sit down at the dinner table. In every nation where I've visited/lived, you find folks that are adventuresome eaters. And folks that aren't so much. Sometimes I really wonder why so many of us Americans seem to feel the need to bash ourselves. Whether the criticism is valid. Or not. I hear ya, sister. We are the most generous nation and people on the planet and yet we not only get grief from the rest of the world, but from our own citizens. Just because my husband like mashed potatoes and gravy as often as I'll make them for him, doesn't make him stuck in a rut. It's what he likes best and he happily eats everything else I make for him, so why does it matter if he doesn't care for rice? Same deal with my dad who loves different types of foods (he is 80) and will try anything, but he wants his bread or rolls with his supper. It's very puzzling to me, in fact it makes me angry when I hear my friends talk about "the world" hating us as a nation and what lousy tourists we are. What does that even mean? Isn't the duty of the host to make the guest comforable, especially when they are spending money, and not to snot at them for having different habits? I find that quite rude.

Oh yeah ? And since when was California the barometer of white western culture ? You tell me where this baromter is located, then. I specifically stated that this was *my* experience, not that of WWC, which sounds like a phrase one learns in a social sciences class, btw.

That isn't exactly correct, in my experience, Blether. I worked for Mazda (American division)for most of the '80's and nearly all of our functions featured sushi and sashimi at cocktail parties. In the affluent beach communities in SoCal, where I lived and worked then, sushi was a really big deal. We'd go out after work to have drinks and a snack and scream "Konichi-wa!" back at the sushi chefs. Good times.

Well, I wasn't so much referring to your original question, as to a few other thoughts expressed throughout the thread. As I said, it seems to me that that rather dismissive, condescending, and derogatory opinion of the middle-American palate surfaces around here with considerable regularity. And although of course it's often true to some extent, in my opinion, anyway, more often it's a lazy, facile, cliched, simplistic, easily-repeated stereotype that is just not valid. Thank you for this, Jaymes. I grow weary of hearing and reading all of the time about how provincial we Americans, especially we Southerners are. It's like some people who are newly come to religion and can't pass up an opportunity to tell you how you are doing it wrong.

I've heard that defense a lot, but to me, mackerel tastes entirely different than salmon, which is entirely different from snapper, which is entirely different from cod, pollack, and other (in my opinion, slightly boring) whitefish, and so on. Hell, I say slightly boring because to me many whitefish have so LITTLE taste. To me it's like someone saying "I don't eat fruit." What fruit? apples? oranges? bananas? cherries? How can you make such a sweeping generalization? People generalize all of the time. I even see it on this forum. I personally love fish, however, the quality that I can get here is terrible. We are not supposed to fish the lake that we live on because of the blue algae, so that leaves the elderly fillets at the market or the frozen fillets in the freezer section. My kids are equal opportunity haters of fish and won't eat canned tuna, either.

I think a lot of people just don't like the taste of fish. My kids hate it and so does my mother. Fresh, frozen, breaded, baked, fried, you name it, they hate it. Then there is the husband who is allergic to shellfish.

Hi, Randi! Thanks for blogging again. Is it weird to be back in California? It's a good thing you never got the metric system mastered after all! I'm pleased that you are giving us a chance to catch up on your adventures and best of luck on the bar exam.

Don't knock the fruit slices, though I agree about the mint. My cousins used to eat this pink popcorn that was molded into bricks. I mean, it was pepto bismol pink. I was always afraid to try it but it looked scary and smelled bad.

Cool! I'd like to learn what brought her back to the States and what she's doing now.

Well, my top guesses of you and Kim, with your portable cakes, are not right. Who else packs cake with them? And loves large burritos with avocado? I say we need another photo.

Yes, Kim does seem to always be packing cake. "Have Cake Will Travel" I thought it was Genkinaonna, but she is guessing on this thread, too. Hmmm...

That isn't Kim's kitchen.

Most butchers in the US are union employees and make a pretty hefty wage. Like Scoop, I have found really good butchers who are willing to cut meat to order at Costco and Sam's Club. I contrast that to my local "butcher" who managed to screw up a prime rib I special ordered for Christmas a few years ago. This guy's family has owned the local butcher shop for 60 years and from what I can tell, this particular butcher learned nothing by doing and probably figured meat-cutting was genetic or learned by osmosis.

Another chicken story: My father was a farm-boy in 1930's Nebraska and one of his chores was to help slaughter chickens. The daughter of neighboring farmers was to help with this task and, seeing as they were both around seven or eight years old, they took turns chopping off the chickens heads and turning the bodies loose. They had a trusty piece of tape or string with them and measured how far each chicken ran before expiring. Hilarity ensued and no one could agree on who won this contest, only that the chickens were the losers...but tasty.

Thank you. "Bless your heart" can mean "aren't you wonderful" or "good Lord, you're dumber than a sack of hammers."

But nothing like the iceberg my farmer grows. Amazing. You have your own personal famer? How feudal. I grow a very large truck garden every year, but still have to rely on the markets for stuff like iceberg lettuces and asparagus. It is simply too hot here for those crops.

My mother tells of chopping chickens heads off with a small hatchet. Apparently the chickens knew when the jig was up and huddled around the doomed hen. Her grandmother had no time to waste with hatchets and simply wrung their necks. The "good ole days" were a little more close to the bone, eh?

Yuck. This sounds quite similar to a chicken-fried steak recipe a co-worker was telling me about. Made with rib-eye. And instant white gravy from a packet. I just said, "My. That sounds different." My mother was likewise an extremely poor child of migrant farmworkers. Meat was a luxury. She recalls many meals made of grits or oatmeal for supper. Butter was a luxury and milk, too. She stills makes excellent green beans cooked forever with salt pork and fantastic cornbread. And to the OP, I have never made stroganoff with paprika.

I'll speak for myself and what I propose is inversely proportional to what katie meadow is saying re: subsidized daycare, et al. I'm all for scraping our confiscatory tax system that forces two parent families to have two income earners to live a decent life that involves home cooking and time to spend enjoying one's life rather than racing after that rat. I don't begrudge anyone a fast food or a meal eaten out at a restaurant. TG things are different today than they were for my mother who hated to cook and did it everyday for us while we were growing up. Breakfast, packed lunches, and a hot dinner. Three meals a day. Seven days a week.

I think Mr. Bittman can do whatever he wants with his time and so can I.

Are you making hard pretzels or soft pretzels? I've only ever made soft pretzels and those are par-boiled in a baking soda bath before bakng. I never heard of using lye. Is there a food-grade lye?

Thanks. Time flies! I'll have to think some more about what you could do here since there are fewer restrictions.