djyee100

Mary Karlin, who teaches at Ramekins in Sonoma, has a cookbook devoted to wood-fired cooking that is coming right off the grill. http://www.amazon.com/Wood-Fired-Cooking-T...33174954&sr=8-1 Some sample recipes off Mary's website, here: http://www.elementsoftaste.com/wood-fired-...ng.html#recipes I've cooked and tasted Mary's food in cooking class, although I haven't seen the cookbook yet, and I think her food is good. ETA: Ten Speed Press says the release date for the cookbook is Feb 17. But you know how that date can be approximate.

sorry, but we're going to need a photo here. ???? Maybe I'm missing something, and I'm not at all familiar with the Treasure Island store setup...but is there any reason you haven't asked at the store? At the markets I go to, if Customer Service doesn't know, it puts me in touch with the buyer for the dept, who answers my questions. If you live outside the Treasure Island store area, maybe a phone call to the store?

I cook from Julia's Mastering The Art, and I like it. But I agree, tastes change, and these recipes are very heavy on the fat. I usually decrease the fat (if I can) by 25-30%. It is a little bothersome to always be tweaking recipes, of course. Julia's The Way to Cook, IMO, is an updated and shortened version of Mastering the Art. You could look at that book. Another book I liked to read, but never cooked from, is Anne Willan's La Varenne Pratique. I suggest you check out that book as well.

I still don't like it much, so I sympathize with your niece. She doesn't have to like tofu to be Chinese. I suggest putting a block of firm tofu in a colander, weighting it with a plate topped with a couple cans, and leaving it for 20 mins or more to press out some water and firm up the texture. Then cook the tofu in a strong flavored sauce, like Ma Po Tofu or in a black bean garlic sauce. If that doesn't do it, give up.

And please tell us your results. I've never heard of this method.

The chili may have tasted especially good because of the quality of the chile powder, i.e., the restaurant may grind its own chile powder. Fresh-ground chile powder would beat Safeway's brand any day. Fresh-ground chile powder is more intense, with more flavors that dance around your mouth. The same is true of fresh homemade curry powder and curry paste, too. I make my own chile powder by seeding and stemming whole dried chiles, then roasting them over low heat in a dry frying pan with a pinch of salt. The salt helps keep down the fumes. I roast my chiles until they are very brown, even mahogany brown, and I know people who like them even darker. When you're done, let the chiles cool, then grind them in a spice grinder, which is nothing more than a cheapo coffee grinder dedicated to spices. This is a smoky flavored chile powder. I suppose you can simply grind dried chile peppers without roasting them, but I've never tried that. You can lightly toast other whole spices, like cumin, and grind them too, right before you make your chili. Fresh-ground spices in any dish make a big difference. Let any toasted spices cool before grinding, however. The heat might melt the plastic top of the cheapo coffee grinder! If you visit Santa Fe again, buy dried New Mexican chiles there, preferably from a farmers mkt, and take them home with you. They'll likely to be fresher and of better quality than your local Safeway's.

Just a thought. If central mgmt is responsible for those fake sales, not only may they be in trouble with consumer protection laws, they may be risking a class action lawsuit for fraud and unfair business practices. ETA: Don't mean to blather about legal actions. But if your market is targeted to people who are under financial constraints and who are very price-conscious, it bothers me very much that your store is pulling a trick like this.

Are all the stores in the chain like this? Or do you think the management of this particular store is to blame? In any case, I suggest you send a letter (a letter, not an email, not a phone call) to the CEO of the company and list all your gripes. You don't have to downplay the problems, either. The way you've described the store here on EGullet makes the situation quite clear. If the CEO is doing his/her job, the CEO shd care about attracting more customers by improving the store. If you have problems with this store, I bet other people do too. Then there are other matters that should ring alarm bells with a competent CEO. For example: Yup, health inspections. And-- I don't know about consumer protection laws in your state, but if I saw these things in a supermarket where I live, I'd be on the phone to the Attorney General's office, Consumer Protection Division. Especially #25. And as for this-- Not only sanitation, but what about occupational health and safety for the store's workers, allowed to use shopping carts like step ladders?

Bacon has fallen out of favor because of its fat, but if you're not eating other kinds of meat, bacon is a great flavoring in soups or stews, and you're not eating too much fat either. A little bacon goes a long way. This is one of my favorite soups, very hearty and rich-tasting. POTATO SOUP Adapted recipe from NY Times Bread and Soup Cookbook 3-4 slices bacon, diced 3 large onions, finely chopped 6 mushrooms, finely chopped 4 TB flour 9 cups beef bouillon or stock 6 large potatoes, thinly sliced, peeled if you like 3 egg yolks 1 1/2 cups sour cream 2 TB freshly chopped parsley Saute the bacon in a large pot for 5 mins, add the onions and mushrooms, and cook another 5 mins or so until soft. Stir in the flour, then add in the bouillon or stock, stirring constantly. Add the potatoes. Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 hour. Lightly beat the egg yolks and mix with sour cream. Stir 1/2 cup of hot soup into the egg yolk mixture, then add the mixture to the rest of the soup. Let the soup heat for another 10 mins, stirring and making sure the soup doesn't boil. Adjust for salt. Sprinkle with parsley, and serve immediately.

Chocolate Macadamia Nut Pie? This is a notable one-- http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/chocolatemacnutpie.asp Before you dispose of all those macadamia nuts, have you ever tried frying chicken or fish with a macadamia nut crust? And if you do SE Asian cooking, macadamia nuts are the common substitute for hard-to-find candlenuts.

On a couple memorable occasions, I ate too much very rich food and like your women friends, I had a stomach ache and barfed it up before the end of the evening. That was not the kind of food I normally eat or cook. Even though you and your dinner companions ate the same foods, people have different tolerances. Typically women have less tolerance for alcohol than men do, because of their smaller bodies, and I wonder if that could be a factor for other foods as well.

Since the leaves from red beets also have a spinach-like taste, I think you could do a substitute for flavor. However, I'm not familiar with white beet leaves. The red beet leaves may leach some color into the dish that you might not find desirable.

We ate various crab dishes in the south, but the crab was shelled so I couldn't tell what kind it was. We polished off the crab dishes pretty fast, too...not much time to ask questions before the food was gone.

Thanks for the info, Batard. Before I read your post, I didn't realize what kind of radishes Jaz was referring to. This radish is spicy, but it's one of my favorite radishes for eating just plain raw. I once ate it at a potluck party where someone served thin raw slices of this radish with sour cream onion dip. That was yummy. I've also eaten it cut up in chunks in a kind of braised Asian veggie stirfry with a soy garlic sauce (again, somebody else's dish). Cooked, the radish loses its spiciness and reminded me of turnip. Except it wasn't turnip, and I couldn't identify it until I asked the cook. Personally, I think the radish is more interesting when eaten raw.

Soy sauce commonly contains wheat, although I don't know if this means only gluten. See the last paragraph before the Notes here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_sauce Also "Foods Commonly Containing Wheat" here: http://foodallergies.about.com/od/wheatall...heatallergy.htm I did a search on Google for "wheat in soy sauce" and came up with a bunch of links.

Back to our itinerary: We traveled by long boat to the island in the Andeman Sea where we would be staying for a few days. The two boats carrying our group moved alongside. Clickclickclick. A stop for lunch at an island on the way. A morning walk on the island where we stayed. A beachcomber's collection of shells. We filled our days with swimming and snorkeling, and kayaking, too. Our trip was coming to a close. Back to Bangkok for one more swing through a food market. Last chance to sample fresh "yellow pillow" durian, ...and to ogle a display of fresh scallops, ...and to snack on sticky rice sweets. (Clockwise from left) White sticky rice with yam, sticky rice with butterfly pea flower (that turns the rice blue), and black sticky rice with coconut. At our farewell dinner we were treated to a performance of traditional Thai music and dance. The next day we flew back to winter and the Xmas holidays in the USA. Our group has been emailing each other, and we mention jet lag. But I will admit to dinner lag. For a month in Thailand I sat down at the dinner table in a restaurant, and six or more delicious dishes magically appeared for me to eat. And I never had to clean up afterwards, either. I keep waiting for that to happen at home.

Thanks for the correction. I thought all griddled coconut cakes were called kanom krok, but a review of some class notes brought up kanom bah bin. I only recall that one vendor (in the picture) making kanom bah bin with the little pastry rings. Most of the time I saw vendors making the half-sphere (aebleskiver shaped) kanom krok.

We only went as far south as Krabi. Most roti makers I observed took small balls of dough and skillfully tossed them into thin circles. But I also saw a few roti makers take a moist ball of dough, and rub it against a hot griddle to form a film on the griddle. Then they pulled the film off the griddle, and they had a crepe. Here's another variation on roti filling for you. Roti stuffed with pink and green spun sugar, which we ate in Sukhothai.

From Chiang Mai, we returned to Bangkok for a little sightseeing before proceeding to the south. The Royal Barge Museum in Bangkok-- It's good to be king. We traveled south by van from Bangkok, through an ever lusher landscape of coconut palms, palm oil palms, and rubber trees. We stopped at the market in Hua Hin, where the south's abundant seafood was on display. This is pomfret (below) and horseshoe crab... ...and huge piles of dried shrimp and fish for sale. South of Hua Hin, we ate a wonderful seafood lunch at a beachfront restaurant. The view from the dining room, and a member of our group on the beach-- The front yard of the restaurant was covered with drying racks of smelly squid. Ew! Was this supposed to be a good restaurant? But sundried, slightly fermented "sour" squid is one of the restaurant's signature dishes. And it was tasty. We ate seafood salad, too, Giant steamed prawns, Crabmeat salad topped with fried basil, And fried whole fish smothered in a sauce of garlic and peanuts. The next day, we were back in the vans for our final leg to the southern town of Krabi. Before reaching Krabi, we stopped for lunch at a Muslim restaurant that specializes in roti, thin grilled breads stuffed with different fillings like curry, bananas, eggs, condensed milk and sugar, or even chocolate. These women can flip and stretch out a paperthin round of dough in seconds, before laying it on the grill. Kasma with the family that owns the roti restaurant. The next morning, an optional early wake-up call to visit and eat breakfast at a kanom jeen (fermented rice noodle) factory. The natural early risers and the hard-core foodies showed up. Fermenting dough for the noodles (which attracts those teeny black flies). With a press, the dough is extruded into hot water, forming noodles. The finished noodles, rinsed and drained. We breakfasted at the restaurant adjoining the factory, and the menu was spicy fish curry with kanom jeen and southern (Thai) style fried chicken. The kanom jeen curry was served with many different condiments for you to play with. The fried chicken was cut up Asian style, meaning the whole chicken was hacked apart with a cleaver and you chewed on neck bones, the back, and (if this was your favorite chicken part), the pope's nose. The reddish tint comes from annatto in the batter. Spicy fish curry, fresh rice noodles, and fried chicken don't exactly make the kind of breakfast that Americans are used to. But our group managed somehow. Our group managed so well that we polished off two big platters of fried chicken, and wondered if we should order a third. But we restrained ourselves. We had the rest of a long day to eat through. Then we spent the next part of the day burning off breakfast with a visit to a hot springs, a swim in a beautiful freshwater pond, and a nature hike in a forest preserve. After the forest preserve, we alighted from our vans in a small shopping mall, and made a beeline to this ice cream vendor. She made us "Thai sundaes" in plastic cups, layers of cooked sticky rice, palm seeds, coconut ice cream, and peanuts, drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. This was one of my favorite street-vendor snacks in Thailand. More to come...

Here's what a blog has to say about the Yunnan Chinese who came to north Thailand and stayed to plant tea: "The Chinese in this part of Thailand are the remnants of the KMT (Kuomintang) - Chiang Kai Sheik supporters who fled Yunnan province when Mao’s communists took over. They trekked through the highlands across Burma and landed up here in Thailand. The original plan was to stay here for some years, replenish and attack China in two waves - one from here and other from Taiwan. This plan never materialized. The Chinese have stayed back and made this place their home." http://preetamrai.com/weblog/archives/2008...d-mae-hong-son/ My closest approximation of the taste--The fried frog skins taste like the grilled salmon skin at Japanese restaurants, with no soy sauce or other marinade on it. I thought the frog skins had a darker, earthier flavor compared to salmon skin. The texture of the fried frog skins was very crunchy, like pork cracklings.

The next day in Chiang Mai, we walked from our hotel to a Muslim restaurant for breakfast. The adventurous among us sampled goat with yellow rice. Well fortified with Muslim food, we visited a historical Buddhist temple in old Chiang Mai. In Thailand, teenaged boys are expected to spend one or two years in the monkhood. As monks they are supposed to learn "gentleness" before they marry. Below, a Temple resident who has attained nirvana. A visit to the Chiang Mai food market. A load of jackfruit arrives in style. A vendor of mango and sticky rice snacks. Tiny shrimp and assorted insects for your delectation. No insects for you? How about some kanom krok, grilled coconut macaroon cakes? Yum! Also on the snack tray, fried bananas and yam balls. While in Chiang Mai, we ate a hearty lunch at a restaurant known for its traditional Northeastern-style food. A platter of Northeastern-style sausage, Fried frog skins, Hung-lay curry, And a salad with pineapple, dragonfruit (white fruit with black speckles), crunchy guava, apples, green beans, tomatoes, grapes, and peanuts, in a sweet and sour dressing. Sounds goofy, but this salad was a big hit with our group. The piece de resistance, fried bamboo worms. They don't taste like much. They're just crunchy. For dessert, ruam mitt, crushed ice with grass jelly, pandan noodles, mock pomegranate seeds, and jackfruit. Besides the traditional dishes, there is, of course, the nontraditional side of the Thai food scene, such as...um... With his hands in a prayer position and a slight bow, Ronald is giving the Thai greeting, or wai. When in Thailand, do as... More to come. But no more Ronald, I promise.

We continued onward, traveling north, to one of my favorite stops, a museum devoted to traditional textiles and natural dyes. This beautiful old Thai house was worth viewing on its own. Vats of berries for black dye. A demonstration of a small cotton gin removing the seeds from the bolls. Back on the road, and a stop to watch some farmers thresh rice by beating the bundles against the ground (each bundle weighs about 50 lbs). Then they blew away the chaff with giant fans. A stop at another hilltribe village. Kasma gave out photos she took of the village on her previous trip last year. A tea plantation run by former refugees from Yunnan province, China, and a tea tasting. By this time we had traveled far north, to within a quarter-mile of the Burmese border. Our group crossed a suspension bridge over the Pai River. A few jokers jumped up and down to see how much the bridge would sway. The coward with her hand on the fence is yours truly. Up early the next day, to catch the morning mist over this rice paddy. And one of my favorite sights from this trip, a Buddhist temple in the Burmese style, with the filigree trim, surrounded by rolling green hills. You have to keep up your strength for sightseeing, and roadside vendors abound. How about a snack? Our leader Kasma wore her Thai finery during the trip. A Lisu hilltribe village. Looks quaint, doesn't it? But hilltribe women have cellphones in their sewing baskets, and those huts may hide some good-sized satellite dishes. One of our group modelled a wedding headdress and vest. The vest decorations are heavy silver beads and buckles, and 1930s coins from French Indochina. A boatride on the underground river of the Tham Lod Caverns. After the boat ride, I and another member of our group--Amber, with the camera--hiked to the roof of the cavern. There we viewed wooden coffins shaped like boats, used by people 3,000 to 4,000 years ago to bury their dead in hidden alcoves high up in the cavern. On the road again, we headed south to Chiang Mai. Outside the city, we stopped at a restaurant for a great lunch. Green papaya salad, Catfish larb, Grilled pork neck, And spicy pork innards soup. More to come...

Nakji, I don't know what kind of liquor that very happy group imbibed in the Hmong village. But let me put it this way: they seemed very happy. I don't recall any dishes in particular that contained the lotus seeds (note to others: lotus seeds are the 15 baht item in the picture, the little round balls embedded in what's left of the flower). When I was in China last year, we peeled and ate them as street snacks. They're like bland white melon, very refreshing in hot weather. At a restaurant in China, I ate lotus seed stuffed in soft steamed corn dumplings. Yes, corn. This was a modern Chinese recipe, no doubt. We ate water spinach as sauteed greens with garlic and lots of small red chiles. We also ate water spinach that was mixed up with batter and deep-fried in little cakes, then topped with a mixture of sauteed pork, shallots, and chiles. Both versions were delicious, and I'm salivating as I remember and write this. (and also in reply to Piglit). We didn't do any cooking on the tour (sorry if the title gives that impression). But many dedicated cooks were in our group, and cooking was always on our minds!

For four weeks in November and December, I and others traveled in Thailand with my Thai cooking teacher, Kasma Loha-Unchit. We did lots of sightseeing and shopping, but with a bunch of foodies and a cooking teacher on board, the trip was very food-oriented, as you might guess. When I told a friend about my upcoming trip, she said, "Oink!" Oink, indeed. Before you ask, we landed at Bangkok airport days before the takeover, and departed Bangkok a month later when the crisis was over. When the brouhaha was at its worst, we were away from Bangkok, way up north near the Burmese border. Things were calm there. Our main concern was to avoid wearing bright yellow clothes like the pro-democracy demonstrators, since we were in the red shirt provinces favoring the former prime minister. Please Note: None of these photos are mine. The photos were taken by Lillian and Amber, two members of our group, and reprinted here with their permission. Thanks, Lillian and Amber! Our first full day in Bangkok, and a visit to the market in the morning. A street stall selling two kinds of panfried chive cakes, one puffy and round, the other denser and square. Sightseeing at the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok. The next morning, a trip outside Bangkok to the Damnoen Saduak floating market in Rajburi. Plenty of people watching opportunities We ate our spicy noodle lunch at a dockside restaurant that was half on the water. One cook prepped the food on the dock, the other cooked in a boat tied up alongside. The next day we headed north from Bangkok to the historical ruins of Ayuthaya. A shrine to Buddha and his first five disciples. The next day, the historical site of Sukhothai. The site contains many shrines and statues of Buddha, but this giant one stirred my imagination. Inside the shrine, behind the Buddha, is a hidden stairway that one can climb to the head of the Buddha. A long ago king, using the stairway, spoke from the lips of the Buddha and exhorted his men to march off to war. (As someone noted, this was a profound perversion of the Buddhist philosophy.) A member of our group demonstrates that this is a really big Buddha. Our group included foodies and former students of Kasma's, and this gardener at Sukhothai attracted our attention. The gardener was clearing off some thick weedy plants growing around the perimeter of the reflecting pond. And those weeds were yummy water spinach! Maybe for the gardener's lunch? The next day we visited the market. Some vendors at the Sukhothai market-- A display of garlic and shallots for sale-- And a beautiful stand of chiles. I bought a kilo of chiles to take home (the chiles in the second row, far left), and packed them with my luggage. After a few days my clothes began to smell of chiles. But if you like chiles, this is not such a bad thing. Shopping and sightseeing take energy. Time for a snack of fried sweet potato balls. Our group tried out many other snacks in the market also, in the interest of cross-cultural food research. The next day, back in our vans, we drove up the hills of the Mae Sa valley, to visit a Hmong village where Kasma has friends. The view going up the hills. A roadside resident greets us. The Hmong village-- And a convivial group trying out the local liquor. More to come...

I'll agree with others here that your CSA does not appear to be quite up to speed, and that for your location, this is not the best time to join. Part of the CSA experience, also, is to recognize the cycles of Nature. You accept and appreciate what Nature gives you through the seasons. Even in northern California, my weekly CSA boxes are skimpy in the winter, and the potatoes, squashes, and other root vegetables coming out of storage can be a little scuzzy around the edges. But the winter boxes balance out the lush and abundant CSA boxes I receive in the summer and early fall. That's the natural cycle! Have you voiced your dissatisfactions to your CSA? A new CSA may need some time and feedback to get into gear. My CSA is very established and grows over 90 crops a year. But as one of the farm owners said to me ruefully, it took years for them to learn how to do that and to satisfy their CSA customers.