nibor

Tent very loosely in tin foil.

Andiesenji, Do you use the Berkey to purify your water for daily use? Our drinking water has tasted, well, like sh*t since they started mixing 20% recycled sewage into it down here in Orange County. A Britta filter doesn't help much, so I reluctantly switched to bottled. My earthquake preparedness waxes and wanes and is pretty poor right now. Would a Berkey would solve both of my problems?

I love it when you two head north. Please post location photos when you are out and about. Or "oot and aboot" as my Canadian friends say.

Why would there be sugar in hot dogs at all?

Over your career you must have seen a lot of trends come and go. One recent practice I don't like is the injection of liquids into pork and chicken. How do you avoid this stuff?

There is also a little grocery called Hyde Park Produce on 53rd St. A lot of people love HPP but I only shopped there once when I lived in Hyde Park. As per the name, it does carry produce. However, the other sections of the store seemed oddly stocked and I ended up having to go to Treasure Island on the way home to find most of the stuff on my list.

Unless you feel like driving up the the Whole Foods in the Roosevelt Road shopping area, you shop at Treasure Island. People in Hyde Park complain about how expensive TI is, but it is relative. The prices there are much cheaper than where I live most of the time, in southern CA.

On our birthdays my mom would make our favorite foods, no matter whether they went together or not. Every kid had their favorites. I could count on mine: bbq spareribs and home-made french fries, followed by German sweet chocolate cake. My mom is long gone now and my husband takes me out on my birthday. Which is sweet but not the same.

While your post is pretty funny, she is obviously an alcoholic and probably mentally ill in some respect. Which I find sad rather than funny.

I used to avoid buying whole chickens due to the laziness factor. Once I got a sharp boning knife I started viewing them as fun....

I am with Emily_R: Save meaty carcasses in the freezer. I recently went on a chicken galantine kick. I made stock from each carcass, then used that stock to poach the next galantine, which produced another carcass, and so on. I have so much (totally delicious) stock in my freezer right now that it is almost a problem.

I got a set like that when I got married, and most of the pieces just cluttered up my kitchen until I finally hauled them off to Goodwill. What you REALLY need will depend on what you like to cook, how elaborate your projects are, how many people you will be cooking for, etc. That information will be revealed to you as time goes on. People are trying to steer you towards buying high-quality basic items that most cooks actually use.

As noted above, we don't know what you like to cook. But for what it is worth, my lousy cooking skills benefited greatly from the purchase of a Le Creuset dutch oven, a Lodge cast iron frying pan, a Victorinox boning knife and an immersion blender. I have never owned a "real" blender, much less a $500 one. I have multiple plastic cutting boards so I can I throw them in the dishwasher after making dinner. If you bake or like to grind your own meat, a standing mixer, like a KitchenAid, with some attachments will eat up some of that BBB money.

Boone's Farm Apple Wine. Tastes much worse coming up than going down......

Hot soapy water for the counters and floor. Bar Keepers Friend for the ceramic sink and an occasional pan, Windex for the glass-fronted cupboards, baking soda to soak away burned stuff on the stainless steel cooktop. Bleach only occasionally on the grout around the sink if it starts to look moldy - remembering to keep it dry works better.

Some years ago we vacationed in the odd little town of Everglades City, Florida. I call it odd because it had been laid out to grow to an extent that it never did, so much of the "grid" of city streets was empty. Maybe 500 people live there now. Anyway, the seafood and in particular the shrimp that we ate there were fantastic. I keep fantasizing about moving to Everglades City just to eat the shrimp.

Russ Parsons (very favorably) reviewed Alain Paassard's 'The Art of Cooking With Vegetables' in the Los Angeles Times today: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-calcook-20120707,0,3399742.story

What kind of spices went into that pig leg?

I don't like the new wide style. It takes up too much room in the cupboard.

What does she eat?

When I lived in Berlin many years ago I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies. I could not find chocolate chips, so I chopped up some bars of chocolate. My recipe also called for baking powder. I had to get it at a compounding pharmacy. They weighed it out like a drug into a little glassine envelope. Not for the cookies, but I was also unable to find peanut butter except for a few expensive jars of Skippy in the "American novelty" section of the food floor at KaDeWe.

A photo of the cute towels? A source? Thanks.Darienne, they Ritz cotton bar mops. I don't see the exact ones I bought online, but they are like the ones at this link in lime/lemon/orange without the contrasting borders: http://www.amazon.co...pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1

I have been watching this thread for a long time. I am not much of a cook, but this is what I like to eat. So I bought the Time Life book "Terrines, Pates & Galantines", and "Pates and Terrines" by Lounque et al. They are incredible, like science fiction! I am starting out with chicken galantine. Here is a blurry photo of attempt #2. Stuffed with ham, tongue, pistachios, kale and mushrooms. I watched the Jacques Pepin video prior to deboning. Nonetheless it took me about 20 minutes. I cut myself, drew blood and made a sticky mess of my kitchen. The end result tasted pretty good though. I freeze slices and take them to work along with a salad. Now I need to figure out how to have a glass of red wine to go with, without getting in trouble.

Yes. I haven't seen them in a month or so.

A photo of the cute towels? A source? Thanks. I bought them at my local grocery - Gelson's, in Newport Beach, CA. I will look at the label next time I am there.