dividend

If this thread isn't a joke - why would you want organic kool-aid? And what would free-range kool-aid even mean? It seems to me that drinking something as inherently processed and unnatural as kool-aid violates the spirit of moving to a free-range, organic diet. I'm not trying to troll, I'm genuinely curious.

My brother is a pretty good artist, so last year for Christmas he gave me homemade food art, in the form of 3 8-inch square little oil painting of bell peppers, red, green, and yellow. They're really awesome, and he nicely mounted them in nice black frames. I was blown away by his thoughtfullness and creativity. Everyone who sees them on my kitchen walls comments. They don't photograph well at all, unfortunately. My best friend from forever is a photographer. I ordered two framed prints from her website, from this page: http://www.kasphotography.com/SimpleViewer/?album=Still_Life I have the smashed tomato and the three martini glasses hanging on my walls. I love the fact that I can cover my walls with the work of my talented family members and friends.

Forgive me if this topic has been done to death. I searched for similar threads and didn't see a recent one. I was at a party on Saturday, and I met a woman who has a second job as a waitress at Longhorn Steakhouse. (I'm not sure how regional of a chain this is. It's a lower mid-priced, western themed steakhouse.) Like every waitress I've ever met, she had stories from the trenches, mostly about bad tippers, in the form of indignant rants. One of her stories involved her astonishment that a couple (who split an order) with a check totaling $7.53 had the audacity to ask for change from a $10 bill. They then left her $1.25 for a tip. She told this story with much eye-rolling and italics, expecting me to commiserate with her over these obvious cheapskates. Instead, I pointed out that they had left almost exactly 15% of their bill. I always leave right around 15% of the bill as tip, rounding up to the closest $0.50 for simplicities sake. She apparently took issue with my reaction, and snottily informed me that 18-20% was the new minimum for tipping. Annoyed with her attitude, I asked her when the minimum had gotten raised. It got me thinking. What is an acceptable percentage to tip? Am I a cheapskate for leaving a standard 15%? Was the couple in question cheap for doing the same, instead of just leaving $10? (It seemed like a questionable situation to be the subject of a rant.) Should that percentage change if the total bill is small? Is there a minimum amount that should be left? I'm not talking about high dollar places, more cafes or mid range chain places. I have friends who've worked stints as waiters, and I know what shitty work it can be. I don't want to be a bad customer, so help me out.

That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this topic - I love that poem entitled This is Just to Say:

That's a fun winery, perched up on the bluff overlooking the river valley. Last year the organized bicycle ride along the Katy (rail trail) camped there. It was funny to see exhausted riders pitching tents among the grapes, trying to find shade from the late afternoon heat. I also picked up some very drinkable wine from a little winery in Cole Camp (?), a little German influenced town about an hour miles east of Kansas City. Here's an interesting article, mostly about grass roots efforts to implement place-based labelling for goods local to Missouri, but it touches on the wineries in the river valley.

I really enjoy her show, and the only recipe I've made from it is probably the most requested thing I cook. Shrimp stuffed twice baked potatoes: These are the BEST twice baked potatoes in the universe. I agree with the others posting here that you can make her recipes when you're cooking to make other people happy. She may over-do the southern thing; I don't know - I'm from Kansas, and I find her charming.

My favorite kitchen store (the fantastic Prydes Old Westport in Kansas City, MO) offers fresh hot coffee or tea in glass mugs as soon as you walk in the door. That's a small thing, but such a nice touch. I'm a sucker for little details, so I also adore the beautiful job they do of gift-wrapping, and thus I go there any time I need a wedding/shower gift. Also - staff who are obviously passionate about food and cooking. I've learned a ton just be eavesdropping on the staff's conversations, and today they gave my mom some pretty sound advice about All-Clad vs. Cuisinart stainless steel stuff. Knife sharpening is a great suggestion. My store doesn't do this. Have a small, but relevant and well thought out cookbook selection.

I made Fifi's gumbo from this post, and it was fantastic! Thank you so much for that recipe and all the clear instructions. I was a total gumbo novice, and I'm so glad I decided to try it. I didn't have the nerve to take the roux as dark as in some of the pictures, so this batch turned out pretty thick. When I did a final tasting after it was done, my first thought was - this is way too rich. But it was perfect over rice. I ate half of it for lunch at work last week, and the other half is frozen with rice. Oh, and I've never smelled anything quite like the chopped trinity hitting the roux - it's intoxicating. I'm glad this cookoff has been bumped up lately!

As far as commercial products, I love Stouffer's mac & cheese. And CPK chicken garlic alfredo pizza. And the occasional two pack of White Castle cheeseburgers. Those are solely for post-drinking craving though. Does ice cream count? I almost always have a pint of vanilla bean Haagen Daas. If you press plastic wrap tightly against the surface of the ice cream before you close the pint, it stays good a long time, and I can eat it in tiny amounts without worrying about it going bad. As for the homemade frozen goodness, blocks of chicken stock, portions of smoked meat, soups, berries, homemade twice baked potatoes, homemade meatballs, corn, homemade wedges of mac & cheese, prosciutto and bacon (frozen flat and sealed in individual portions as I live alone). All of this is flash frozen and then vacuum sealed. I love my foodsaver. My parents eat a lot more frozen food then I do, mostly bulk stuff from Sam's/Costco. Alot of it is preprocessed crap, but I think Mom just got tired of cooking every night. So now they go for quick and easy.

I made the jelly. It's basically 10 oz of cream soda, 2 oz of Jack, and 3 cups of sugar boiled with some liquid pectin and then jarred. It makes a wonderfully white trash ice cream topping if you melt it a bit. I think spice cake makes a better breakfast than a dessert.

Ling - I tried your spice cake adapation today. I'm not a very good baker of sweet things, but it sounded great and I had everything on hand. I subsituted 5 spice powder for the cloves and the nutmeg, and it turned out delicious! I had a warm peice with a tiny scoop of vanilla icecream and some Jack Daniels / Cream Soda jelly, since making caramel intimidates me. I think this recipe would be great with some orange zest, too, or maybe some kind of orange marmalade topping. It sort of cries out for citrus to me.

I've been experimenting with salad dressings lately. I made one this week that turned out pretty good: 1 cup plain yogurt 1 cup buttermilk 1 whole head of roasted garlic cloves kosher salt coarse black pepper dried dill Whiz it all together in a blender. I've found a great way to jazz up a vinagraitte is to add fruit preserves or jam. My preferred ratio is 3:1:1 EVOO:vinegar:jam + salt and pepper. Balsamic and raspberry or strawberry, apple cider and apple, even lime juice and blueberry. These are great on main dish salads.

I did an organized bicycle ride / camping trip this summer, 5 days with breakfast and dinner provided for over 300 riders in outdoor pavilion type areas. What we ate that week for dinner was pretty typical of what's been said so far: - mixed green salad, hard tomatoes - some kind of one dish red sauce pasta, normally really mushy - rolls, w/ packets of margerine or - slices of cooked roast meat - mashed potatoes w/ gravy from a packet - overcooked mixed veggies Followed by cake, straight from Walmart. Breakfasts were of the same ilk: - rubbery, mass scrambled eggs - frozen sausage links - limp, fatty bacon - biscuit w/ gravy from a packet - watered down juice and bad coffee To be fair, these were small towns along the Katy Trail in Missouri, and 7/10 meals, all the cooking was done by volunteers either from the towns, or from MO Dept. of Natural Resources, which organized the ride. Mission accomplished with these dinners though. Nothing offensive, it was all tasty in a bland midwest comfort food kind of way, and, let's face it, after 68 miles on a bicycle, you just want to refuel, so we ate huge portions. I loved the kitsch of it all, particularly The Pancake Man, who, for a couple of breakfasts, cooked 30 or 40 pretty good pancakes at a time using a long griddle and a batter dispensing machine that looked like a mini crop sprayer. I suspect it's a small minority of people (among Americans at least) who produce better food than this stuff at home on a regular basis. Alot of it is on par with what my Mom cooked growing up.

Seeing this attitude so cavelierly tossed off irks me to no end. Do most supermarkets not have produce sections? Or sell raw ingredients? If people aren't cooking from scratch, it's not because they don't have the time/access. It's because they're not making it a priority. Let's lay the responsibility for making good food decisions where it belongs (squarely on individiuals), and not offload it onto regulations that restrict choices for the rest of us, ok?

Salmon caviar. Ugh. It's a texture thing for me. Soft, plasticky bubbles that randomly burst under my teeth, filling my mouth with intense, mucousy fishiness? No thanks. Tried it once at a sushi place, and I could feel my stomach heaving. It sort of baffles me to see the experiments around here using sodium alginate to replicate this texture. I think the results of that would skeeve me out as well.

I don't think the canned stuff is that much cheaper, although I've never bought it myself. I buy wedges of the real stuff from an Italian market, and even by the quarter pound, it lasts me a long time. And it only takes a few seconds longer to grate what I need then to measure out of the can. But I really don't think cost or time savings are what motivate people to buy the green can. I think most of us fall into the small minority of people to whom it makes sense to say "I can't afford/don't have a source for high quality _____, so I'll go without." Most people don't care as much as we do. Around here, nobody would look at me cross-eyed for spending a whole paycheck on cookware last year, or for shopping for food at four different stores/markets on a regular basis, things for which some of my friends call me crazy. Around here, it's sort of de rigeur to abhor the Olive Garden and shun the ubiquitous green can of Kraft. But it irks me when it gets made into a moral issue. Like if I like Kraft, or the Olive Garden, I'm inferior. That's not the case. Parmigianno Reggiano may very well be objectively better than Kraft (I suspect that may be true), but I'm not an idiot for shaking some over my spaghetti when I'm at my parents house, and enjoying it. I try hard not to be a "food snob". Threads like this to me represent the best and worst of eG. Best in the sense that I'm happy to be among people who feel the same way I do about making quality food decisions. Worst in the sense that I don't like feeling ashamed for liking the Olive Garden.

I took my Mom to Spin after reading about it here a while ago, and we both really liked it. The $7.95 lunch special with the mini pizza and small salad is a very good value, and if I worked near there I would definately make it a go-to place for the odd lunch out. We got there within a few minutes of opening, so there was no line. A few people did queue up behind us while we decided what to order, but there's a huge menu on the wall and paper menus to pick up while in line, so I didn't notice that being much of a problem. By the time we left, the place was packed with a long line, so I would definately go early if possible.

I think that what's in the calories we're consuming is just as important as how many. I've started ordering 2 chicken soft tacos (instead of the standard 3), with all the fixins, and it's a pretty moderate 650 calories, even with the added sour cream and cheese. I feel better not leaving stuffed to the gills. And I would tend to think that it's better for me that those calories come from minimally processed, "naturally raised" animals and organic beans than from a mystery meat burger and fries. In other words, all calories are not created equal.[/derail] Back to my original point - this thread has focused a lot on the negative aspects of chain restaurants, and this is an example where a large chain has the potential to be a force for good. I wish more chain restaurants followed the made-in-house fresh, fast model, instead of sacrificing quality for speed, because it's obviously not a zero-sum game.

I thought of this thread while reading my Chipotle cup from lunch today, with the title CHIPOTLE, UNCHAINED: I love Chipotle. (Particularly since I work in the culinary wasteland of the I-29 corridor south of the airport.) And, this back-of-the-cup literature raises a couple of good points, not necassarily negated by the "Chipotle is owned by McDonald's" arguments. If I accept the gist of the argument that a large chain actually has power to influence profitability and hence availability of quality products, then my dining dollar is potentially well spent at Chipotle.

On Sunday, I had dinner in a restaurant in Chicago that was recommended in this forum, and I saw at least 2 courses with foie gras in the chef's tasting menu. And I didn't do my duty as a law-abiding citizen and report it.

That's horrific. Has anyone actually made it past the wait and eaten there? I mean, one of us has to throw ourself on the grenade and report back for the greater good, right? I'm picturing a build-your-own dino wearing a baby eG shirt as like the ultimate in foodie irony.

I think something that gets forgotten in discussions about chain restaurants is the fact that we didn't all grow up as gourmands. When I was kid (grew up in Overland Park), restaurants that have been throroughly skewered in this thread were special occasion dinners. We did many a New Year's Eve dinner at Red Lobster, I went out for prom at the Cheesecake Factory on the Plaza, and there were several yearly birthday dinners at the Olive Garden. My family is squarely middle class, so $100+ dinners for the four of us were a treat. It's funny, you know those commercials for the Olive Garden with the whole, "When you're here, you're family" thing? Those make me smile because I think of eating special dinners there with my family. Now that I'm 25 and living on my own, I know that there are better eating options out there. In fact, I've got a list that just keeps growing of local restaurants to try. I enjoy finding new great places to eat on my meager dining out budget. But part of that is because I enjoy food as a hobby. So I'll take my SO to Tatsu's for a nice dinner instead of going to Applebee's, or check out 40 Sardines for my birthday, if I have the choice. But if I didn't care about food as a hobby, my choices would be different. And my preferences now don't make me think any less of people who don't make the same kinds of choices I do. I still enjoy eating at Red Lobster on Mom's birthday, or when my SO takes me for a nice dinner at the Olive Garden. Not an eye-rolling, grudging enjoyment either. I really enjoy those meals just as much as taking them someplace of my choosing. To each his own.

RE: Internet storage of recipes, I use www.recipezaar.com. I think it's like $20/year or something for "premium membership", and it's really simple to input recipes, plus you automatically get nutrition analysis for each one (that could be good or bad ). Kind of cool community, less gourmet-oriented than around here though. You can make your recipes public, so other people can see them and review them, or keep them private. It works for me.

My cookbook collection has grown, not in huge quantity, but in quality. The biggest thing has been the international nature of (this and other) web communities. I live in Kansas City, and I'm continuously suprised when I go looking for cookbooks like Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf, or Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures, and discover that no libaries or bookstores in my area have copies. It's kind of cool because it makes me feel like I know a secret. The other thing that I love has already been touched on - the sheer volume of discussion available surrounding recipes and cooking techniques. I get drawn in to threads about things I would probably have just skipped over if I saw them in a magazine or a cookbook. And thanks to that interaction, I'm baking sourdough bread on a regular basis, cooking better dried beans than anyone I know, and am completely addicted to roasted cauliflower. It's been wonderful has been transitioning all of my favorite recipes to internet storage. I love knowing I can access them pretty much wherever I am.

Source for my quotes from the Zogby poll: http://www.nofoiegras.org/Zogby_NY5-06.pdf