Kent D

Well, I try not to mention my neighborhood barbecue joint to too many people, because it's already a line out the door during lunchtime and no place to park, but at the same time I still feel guilty that one of my favorite burger stands went belly up because maybe I DIDN'T tell enough people about it. Not that I hold that much sway over the success or failure of my neighborhood restaurants...

So...not that any other country would WANT to produce American Cheese, but is the term American Cheese protected, or could a Canadian or Bulgarian cheese company produce and label American Cheese?

I've always got my grits from War Eagle Mill in Arkansas, but I believe they're just yellow corn grits, not specifically hominy grits. I did see a mention on another message board about Anson Mills, somewhere in South Carolina, and this post said that they DID have hominy grits, but I don't see anything definite on their website. They do have quite a mix of grit products, including commercial volumes. If you haven't already, you might check with Anson Mills, or even War Eagle. oh, and here's the thread on mouthfulsfood.com forum. Along with a discussion of grits, mush, and polenta, there are several snarky comments about Rachael Ray.

I've got two problems -- an 11-yr-old daughter who eats nothing but the cellophane-wrapped cheese slices and the occasional slice of cheddar, and a 7-yr-old daughter who demands feta, goat cheese, asiago, roquefort, stilton...it's hard to keep them all in cheese, as well as my own appetites. Fortunately, our local grocery is starting to stock some smaller blocks of strange and interesting cheeses by the deli counter, so we're trying those out, while keeping my older daughter stocked with her plain, vanilla (style, not flavor) cheese. We're working on her slowly - we did get her to eat a smoked goat cheese from the Netherlands the other day.

Not sure if it's worth relocating for (although the cumulative affect of it and several million other things certainly would be )! If Angelo's hadn't closed I would offer to meet you in Emporia and swap marinated eggplant for soup. Bummer about Tanya's. Larkspur and the French bakery on Douglas (near Seneca) had pretty good soup once upon a time IIRC. ← Not to stray off-topic... The Wichita paper used to run the recipe for marinated eggplant about once a year, but it was rather labor-intensive, and they finally announced "This is the last time", and I lost it...before I had a chance to try making it. And I've lived just blocks from La Gallette (the bakery at Douglas and Seneca), but I've never been in there. It never looks open when I drive by. Guess I should try, if its got good soup. and those pics look really yummy, u/e.

I dunno, but I wish they'd release seasons 1 and 2 on something other than iTunes or DVDs that are $10 for two eps. The first is annoying because I can only watch it on my slow-ass laptop or my iPod, and I just plain can't afford the second. (If I could, I would, believe me.) Travel Channel, are you listening? Eh. Prolly not. If they were listening to me, there'd be an all-Bourdain, all the time channel by now. ← I just popped over to eBay, and if you search 'No Reservations Bourdain", you can order some of the DVD's at $4.99 "Buy it Now" (plus shipping) from the Discovery Store, as well as some up for bid.

Well, it'll either be an interesting and potentially-book-worthy experience, or you'll end up throwing yourself overboard into the rotating propeller blades. Hope it's a good time!

Well, that sounds scrumptious. I think I'll move to Kansas City...no wait, I think I'll send the link to my brother, have him check it out for me, and then decide whether to move or not. Maybe they'll just franchise to Wichita -- we need a decent cup of soup down here, since Tanya's Soup Kitchen closed.

You know, after reading that article, I have determined that I will likely never dine in a top-of-the-line New York restaurant. I wouldn't enjoy it, I wouldn't find it comfortable in the least, and my wife would likely punch out the server before we got to the cheese course. I realize that the writer may have exagerrated just a little, but I don't need some condescending server telling me HOW to enjoy my dinner or have the chef approve my choices. They're my choices, and I'll decide if I approve of them when they're served.

Winter (and the toilet seat) won't seem so cold now - my copy of "Nasty Bits" has arrived. Perhaps MSN knew what they were doing when they delayed sending the copies until I really needed it...

Now THAT I might try! I just thought that a dinner-plate-sized slab of breaded pork might be overwhelming on first exposure.

I was beginning my preparations for my Super Bowl party, and I always try to "theme food" it, so with the Colts making the game I was worried about "what do they EAT in Indiana?". I was really hoping New Orleans would beat Chicago, because Mardi Gras food trumps deep-dish pizza and Chicago dogs. Don't know if I can pull off the pork sandwiches in a party atmosphere, but I could probably make a nice Amish pie to go with the deep pizza pie. My family is pretty forgiving where the Super Bowl menu is concerned, so long as there's plenty to eat.

Well, I can't vouch for the legitimacy of this claim, but according to this hamburger history site, Oscar Bilby of Tulsa, Oklahoma created and served the first bun-attached hamburger on July 4th, 1891, well before either CT or TX, but didn't actually open a burger stand until 1933. And I will also trumpet the fact that the first burger chain, White Castle, was started right here in Wichita, KS in 1921, although no White Castles remain here. To me, it's not who was first, but who makes them best. It's like determining who made the first meatloaf -- maybe some old Greek dude did, but I doubt that it tasted as good as Grandma's...

Wichita almost has a Asian buffet on every corner now, and they all have a special feature -- sushi, crab legs, Mongolian grill service, Szechuan, Hunan, Thai, Vietnamese. The wife and I tried one new place that had wonderful decor, a Mongolian grill, some dish with tiny little octopi(sp?) in it...and the food had no flavor whatsoever. Things that were labeled Hunan and Szechuan seemed to have as their primary flavor...corn starch? The only condiments available for flavoring were soy sauce and ketchup. Blecch! While I've heard of families being "banned" in some places for their kids "wasting food", I've never witnessed or experienced it, because we're pretty good about making the kids take only what they'll eat, and of course I never leave anything on a plate. And I can't believe any restaurant around here banning an entire industry from their clientele, just because of the cutthroat nature of our market.

NOW I'm feeling inspired -- my daughter loves meatloaf, so maybe a double-layer of meatloaf baked in cake pans, frosted together with some pink-tinted mashed potatoes, candles on top... of course, I'm not sure how her party guests will take it. At least around these parts, cupcakes have been at birthday parties for decades. Most moms would bake a single-layer cake in one of those foil pans in the shape of a cartoon character, and then surround it with a dozen cupcakes for individual servings. Then you have a cake to stick candles in and serve to the adults, and cupcakes for the kids. I never cared for cupcakes -- I don't like eating cake with my hands, unless it's pound cake.

Oh, no -- at our house, cheese IS one of the 4 major food groups, in addition to Other Dairy, Meat, and Veggies/Fruits/Nuts&whatnots. (wait a minute -- I forgot bread in there somehow...)

Well, it will be a significant step down for the next mission -- the cuisine of Rachael Ray is going up this next time. Not your ordinary Thai-chicken-in-a-tube (Delaware News/Jounal by way of USA Today) Apparently, they'll let just about anyone cook for the space program now.

If I HAVE to eat sweet potatoes, it's only mashed with marshmallows. I "catered" a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for my co-workers, and they wanted their sweet potatoes that way, so that's what I gave them. Boiled and mashed, little butter and cream, some brown sugar and molasses, couple pinches of pie spices, dash of salt, top with the marshmallows...yummy. And I made real cranberry sauce - 1 bag cranberries, 1/2 cup merlot, 1/2 cup sugar, zest and juice from one orange, pinch of nutmeg. Cook em til they pop, mash them down a little. I will never feel guilty for any family "traditions" that we serve at Thanksgiving, green bean casserole included. But we're a bunch of middle-class hillbillies, anyway.

1. What was your family food culture when you were growing up? Middle-American wheat-state with a slight German/Penn Dutch influence. If they serve it at a church dinner/social, we were eating it. 2. Was meal time important? I think so - even as we got wrapped up in our various social activities, we tried to be home for even a quick meal together before we scattered. And holidays were (and still are) all about food. 3. Was cooking important? Yes -- both because we couldn't afford to eat out more than once a week or so, and because we preferred dining together around the family table. All 4 of my grandparents were great cooks (both grandfathers ran restaurants/lunch counters, one grandmother ran food service for a couple school districts). 4. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? I don't remember it ever being brought up, but I don't remember seeing blatant elbows on the table. 5. Who cooked in the family? My Mom, primarily, until we got old enough to help/take over (I cooked my first full family meal, with some help, when I was 6), although my Dad cooks a good breakfast and can grill flesh of all forms. All four of their kids are competent cooks now. 6. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occasions? In our small town, dining options were limited to a couple family diners, a family-run mexican restaurant and a burger shop, but we'd eat at least one meal out a week, venturing up to Wichita (20 minute drive) a couple times a month. It wasn't until much later that we got a Pizza Hut, Subway, A&W, etc. 7. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? Only when we couldn't all sit at one table, although it wasn't segregation as much as convenience. 8. When did you get that first sip of wine? Er...legally? Real wine? Not counting the screw-top swill (back before screw-top wine was acceptable) I drank in high school, probably Christmas after my first semester at college. Dad's still trying to bring me around on the joys of wine, although I don't spend a lot of time analyzing the nuances -- I just drink it and enjoy it. 9. Was there a pre-meal prayer? Most Sundays, holiday meals, and whenever someone from church was dining at our table. We were regular church-goers, but not overly pious at the family table. 10. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? My Mom had a repetoire of 20 main dishes or so that made appearances over the course of a month, and Fridays or Saturdays were likely "Taco Night" (which entailed Mexican dishes in many forms), and you could count on Roast a couple Sundays a month, but no, there was no planned rotation. 11. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Family tradition is VERY important to me, and I still replicate many of the old standards, although I certainly "tweak" the recipes, and I don't overcook the beef. Okay, I don't HAVE any recipes, which is going to make it VERY difficult to pass them on to my daughters. Regretfully, we eat out more than we should, but I try to cook a couple sitdown meals on the weekend and my wife covers the dinner shift during the week. And at family gatherings, I'm still militant about making sure family traditions are maintained, i.e. Christmas morning brunch, Easter dinner, Oktoberfest, the Super Bowl...

I'm just glad to hear that Lawrence now has restaurants worthy of a review. When I was up there at KU, many years ago, there was maybe one good restaurant in town, and none of us could afford to eat there. And regarding the Wichita restaurant reviewing, the market is so volatile that most new restaurants don't last long enough to get a bad review.

For Thanksgiving, all the casseroles - broccoli, green bean, cheese grits, my mother-in-law's whole ham that roasts overnight, the pies, oh, yes the pies. I've "catered" a dinner for my 2nd-shift coworkers the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and have discovered after 40 years that I LIKE cranberry sauce and cornbread dressing. Better late than never... And for Christmas, peppernut cookies, rum balls, my Mom's Cathedral Window cookies, spiced cider...the family Christmas brunch...I'm getting hungry now...

Not only does my wife freak when anything touches on her plate, she's a sequence eater, also. She'll eat her vegetable, then her potato, then the main course. I prefer culinary chaos -- I love putting a dab of 12 different things on my Thanksgiving plate, and combining taste and texture -- turkey gravy and cheese grits, cranberry relish and sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole and turkey, and then mop the plate with my roll. I wonder if that's why they still make me sit at the kid's table...

Well, I liked DD and their coconut macaroon and chocolate honey-dipped donuts, but then KK came to town and DD ran away, crying. But my favorite donuts, apple fritters from a hole-in-the-wall local store, Sugar and Spice Donuts, are no more because they apparently were driven out of business. So now it's almost KK by default.

Chris, great show -- I loved how after always hearing "Geno's vs. Pat's - which steak sandwich is the best?", you go and find the REAL best steak, although let's face it, they're all head and shoulders above anything that could be obtained here on the lonesome prairie. I'm sorry I missed the first one -- I dropped the ball setting my VCR, although I'm sure I'll catch a repeat. Good luck with the continued success!

Now wait a minute -- Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic is a girlie beer? I kind of like it with Thanksgiving leftovers...that's not wrong, is it?