Pierogi

Not so new. I have a couple from Kyocera, who were the innovators in ceramic knives. I've probably had them for 2 or 3 years. I have a large one and a smaller one. I find I rarely use them, simply because they are the "harp" shaped peelers, rather than the traditional straight veggie peelers. I just find the harp shape more cumbersome to use. That being said, the large one is FABULOUS for peeling hard to peel things, like hard squashes, jicama and celery root. It is really, really tough, and will power through very thick skins in a breeze. It may be a dreaded uni-tasker, but it is supremely efficient at the uni-task it performs. When I use it, its in a situation that I really need it, and nothing else will replace it. The smaller one, not so much. I find myself reaching for my Oxo peeler, which is configured in the traditional shape, much more often. The Kyocera does a great job, I just find the feel of it weird and off-putting. The difference between it and the Oxo in terms of the amount of peel removed is, IMHO, minimal. The other thing to get used to is the lightness of the material. I have to remind myself "hey, these are really sharp" because they almost look like toys. But they *DO* work, for sure. Edit because apparently "efficient" is really difficult to spell !

A subject near and dear to my heart. *ALL* my salads have to have crunchy bits in them. The contrast between them and the rest of the textures is at least 50% of the appeal of the salad. Regular players are croutons, sunflower seeds, nuts (pecans, almonds, pine nuts and pistachios, hate walnuts), pepitas, crispy chow mein noodles, and freeze-dried sweet corn kernals (ohhhhh, the best. Marketed in SoCal by Melissa's specialty produce, and usually found at Bristol Farms. Think corn on the cob, only crunchy...). Sesame sticks from Trader Joe's, those are pretty darn good too, sweet or spicy. Bacon bits for sure, but they're more of a savory accent for me, rather than crunchy. Jicama, but I'd still go for a nut or seed in addition. Same with radishes. Love them, but still need the starchy crunch. *Hanging head in shame* Chun King of all companies, used to sell a fried rice noodle that was to die for. It was packaged like their chow mein noodles, in a cardboard can, but these noodles were super thin, and super crisp, and had a great flavor. I haven't seen them in the supers for a couple of years, and I miss them. They were probably my all time favorite Salad Crunchie Bit. Trader Joe's sells something called I think "Salad Stuff" or something like that. It's a mix of pepitas, slivered almonds and pine nuts. That's pretty darn good too.

Not. And never. Answer your question? Awful stuff, simply awful. I started to say awful "food", but that's a gross mis-statement. Subway does not sell food. Subway sells *stuff*.

Absolutely #1 is Heath Bars.....ohhhhhhhh, Heath Bars. #2 would be Peppermint Patties....love the mix of dark chocolate with the peppermint cream(?) or the peppermint whatever #3 would be a tie between Rolos/Baby Ruths/Paydays/*fresh* Butterfingers and Almond Joys. I really can't choose just one out of these, they are all an addictive downfall !

Yeah, no lie ! I've seen him do that on "Made in Spain" on PBS here in the States, as well as on other shows he's guested on. Michael V. took the new title of "Current Ass Hat" with his snarky comments about Kevin's dish. Get over yourself, already Michael. You got schooled. My money's on Kevin taking it all. He's strong, and building strength as he goes. My heart just breaks for Jen, though. I hope she can pull it together. I cheered when Mike I. got the boot ! He was just a pig. And speaking of that... Was anyone else as offended as I was by Bartelotta's consistent reference to Jen and Robin as "the girls"? Ewwww. Women. The term is *women*.

The little stickers are pure EVIL. The ink I believe, is a vegetable dye, and in my experience, washes off pretty easily. The EVIL stickers pull thin skins like pears and stone fruit along with them, or they don't want to come off at all, and you have to gouge out a hole to remove them. One of the worst inventions ever.

On a related tack, but not exactly on point, how does one get the $#Q()U* wax off of fruit where you eat the peels? I bought some beautiful Honeycrisp apples last week that are about the size of soft balls.....they are simply gorgeous. But when I went to wash one to take for lunch, I could not get past the slippery slope that was the surface of the thing. According to the politically correct sign the the MegaMart I bought the apples from, its a "harmless vegetable glaze" but I do NOT want it on my apples. Or pears. Or tomatoes. Or anything, really.

Trader Joe's has a product they call "Mediterranean Cheese Style Yogurt" and it has the taste and consistency you're describing here. TJ's Greek-style yogurt is the one I usually get, but this thicker one is also excellent. REALLY makes a nice thick relish or raita. It could convince me to quit buying sour cream.

Have NO clue how they do it, and will be quite interested in the responses to this query to see if someone does. But I absolutely do love Greek yogurt. No more runny raitas, for one thing ! The flavor is absolutely much superior to regular yogurt as well.

Darienne, in my I'd say 10 or 15-strong collection of Sunset cookbooks, I have the 5th printing of the Oriental book, © 1991 ! I just made pork tonkatsu out of it a couple of weeks ago. Sunset was a great series of beginners books, and a good introduction to "non-American" (at least non-1950's midwest American) cuisine. I learned a lot from them, and although I have mostly moved beyond them now, there are about 5 or 10 recipes from them I still use on a regular basis. And let me add to the shout-outs for Graham Kerr and Pierre Franey's "60-Minute Gourmet" books. I don't have any of Graham's, but I do have the first Franey, and it's also still a gem. Learned a lot watching Graham with my mom, though. I also have to give some props to The Frugal Gourmet. Although his issues certainly tainted his personal life, and his professional one, he was a solid cook, with solid techniques, and good cookbooks. I have I think 4 or 5 of them, and again, though I no longer cook much from them, I learned a ton from them at the time, and there are still a few go-to recipes of his that I use over and over.

OK. Just as a heads up/word to the wise here. I work for a scientific supply house that sells rotovaps and all the supporting equipment/flasks/controllers/tubing etc. I work in the compliance area, and my current project is researching how indivual States control so-called "drug apparatus". Currently, the Feds don't control stuff like this. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can order it without any worries about the Feds sniffing around. The story is, however, very different in many States. My project isn't complete, and I can't speak for every State, but I do know, FOR ABSOLUTE CERTAIN, that in some States (California for example) this type of equipment is definately controlled as "drug manufacturing apparatus" that can be used to cook meth, crack, PCP and all sorts of other nasties. The definitions of "drug manufacturing apparatus" are deliberately vague. It can include things like "flasks", "tubing", "controllers", "condensers" and "extractors". Not to say you won't be able to buy this sort of stuff from scientific supply houses, and you probably can score it easily from Ebay, but..... If you are going to try to buy it from scientific supply houses be prepared for some very pointed questions, and the possibility that if you are not affiliated with a licensed business, they will not sell to you. If you are trying to buy from Ebay or from another on-line auction/private reseller, be prepared that you may be dealing with an undercover narc. FYI, I've worked in Regulatory Compliance for about 30 years. I know my stuff, and I know how to read regulations and statutes. Just sayin'.

The latest obsession from TJ's is from the freezer case “Trader Joe’s Wild Mushroom & Black Truffle Flatbread with Mozzarella Cheese”. About $4.99 and to FREAKIN’ die for……… You can really taste the truffle and it blends perfectly with the wild 'shrooms and the cheese. I had it for a light entree, but it would certainly work for an appetizer, or as a nibble for a cocktail party, cut into small pieces. It was WONDERFUL. Nice crisp crust too.

Also a good question. For me, the percentage "used" of these would be MUCH higher, approaching 100%, while the raw numbers of recipes "clipped" would be miniscule. I only go in search of recipes off the web when I want something I don't think I have in the mounds of clippings, or in one of my cookbooks. So it's a directed effort. When I find something interesting, I print it, and go on about my business. I typically don't spend any time cruising through food websites like Epicurious or Recipezaar or whatever, just to see what there is to see. As I said in another thread, I'm a hard copy person. To browse, I like paper in my hands, not electrons on a screen,.

So, help me out here, I'm confused.... Did you nuke them before you packed them for lunch (to thaw....?), and then packed them and ate them (nuked again?) Or did you let them thaw and then nuke them when it was time to eat them for lunch? If they were thawed, then nuked at the time of eating, was there any sauce, and if so, what was it? Or were they frozen when you packed them, and had thawed enough by lunch that minimal nuking was required. Seriously, I am a remedial microwave user (usually just to melt butter/chocolate/etc. or steam veggies for dinner, or reheat leftovers) so this is sort of new ground. Although I don't do bento, per se, I am always looking for things to schlep for lunch that will keep me from spending lots of money on bad food. Edit to add, yes, the 5-spice pork meatballs w/ a sweet & sour sauce sound yummy.... TIA !!

Good question ! I've always skewed towards magazines, simply because I took/take so many more of them than newspapers. And even in the glory days of newspaper food sections, at best they were maybe 10-20 pages long, as opposed to magazines. Having said that, in the glory days of newspaper food sections, I usually found at least one per week that I clipped. Now, it's more like one every 2-3 months, if that. Food sections are a sorry imitation of what they once were, that's for sure.

Oh God..... You've hit my secret compulsion. May as well get the confession over with. Hello. My name is Roberta and I am an obsessive recipe clipper. I believe it must be hereditary. My Mom was addicted to clipping recipes from magazines and newspapers too. I remember ragging on her unmercifully when I was a snot-nosed 20-something about the massive quantities of recipe clippings she had. I believe my rant was something along the lines of “you know, Momma, if YOU made a new recipe every day from your files, and *I* made a new recipe every day from your files, we’d never get through them all by the time I die !” And now, I have become my mother. And yet. I keep clipping. I would say I actually use 0.0005% of the ones I clip, and maybe repeat 0.005% of those. I am hopelessly addicted. Admitting it is the first step, isn’t it ?

Oh. My. God. YESSSSSS ! Oh yes. The *original* (at least original to me) Milano cookies. The doughnuts. THE BREAD. The little sign in the window.....ohhhhhh, Helms. Their trucks were sooooooo cool. The woodwork on the bakery trays was fantastic. What a special after school treat when I lived in an area where the Helms Man came in the afternoon. OK, how about this one, also from Southern California. The Van De Kamp's Ladies IN THE GROCERY STORES, helping you find their products, in their blue dresses, with the white, starched pinafores and white starched, winged caps? And the Swedish Twist? And the Dutch Girl Cookies.......ahh, Van De Kamp's how I long for your baked goods, and not the massed produced twaddle that bears your label these days.... Swedish Twist....*sigh*....

Oh Lord, yes. In a similar vein, "Family Circle's Illustrated Library of Cooking". This one's 16 volumes. It was given away as a premium at one of the local grocery chains in the early 70's. (Remember grocery premiums....? Trading stamps? Corning ware? Tumblers? Oy, that's another memory lane.) Mom had all 16 volumes, and that set was another one of my summer reading rotation. By this time, I had actually become interested in cooking, so the recipes were even more interesting. Have these, too, and probably need to cruise through them when I'm done with revisiting Fannie Farmer.

Thought of one other thing. Whipping, or heavy, cream that was not "ultrapasturized". It just doesn't yield the same results as the old time stuff.

BUY. Buy as many as you can. But then, I'm a hard copy person. I still actually SUBSCRIBE to newspapers. Two of them. And I will until they cease publishing. Oh, I look at others on the web (and even the web sites of the two I actually pay for) regularly, but I like holding the damn paper, in my hands, and folding it to read it more easily, and having the ink stain my fingers. I do a lot of web surfing at work, pulling down information that relates to the company I work for, and how we need to set policy/procedures. I always print a hard copy, its just easier for me to read and deal with. For cookbooks, there's a lot to be found in the graphics and the photos. That can't be replicated on a computer monitor, nor by a normal person's printer. I have close to 150 cookbooks. I want about another 10, urgently. I love the smell of books, the feel of books, the way I can browse them when I'm about to fall asleep, and find something that immediately inspires me. Can't do that with a computer. At least not easily. Not to say I don't pull recipes down off the web, but that's a whole other addiction.

Totally. I live in the Los Angeles basin, in a pretty large suburb (anywhere else in the country and we'd be a big city.....) and I can't think of one. Not a one. One of the local supermarket chains has in-house butchers, and that's part of their advertising strategy, because its so rare. None of the other chains (probably about 3 or 4 others) do any in-house breaking down of primal cuts, that I'm aware of. The upscale chains do, but not the mid-level ones. And a stand alone butcher shop. No way. VERY few stand alone bakeries as well, unless they specialize in cupcakes Ummmm, that was *supposed* to reference Mattsea's comment about the rareness of butchers. Evidently I'm still learnin' the new format.

137 total (give or take) of which I'd consider 103 to be the "regulars". The balance are kept just because, or because they have sentimental value. Of the 103, I would say 20 of them get used for more than one recipe, so that's about a 22% average. But. Like others, I believe there is great value even in those you've never cooked from, or don't cook from regularly. They're a great read, if nothing else (usually), and enhance your knowledge base. That's always a good thing. Edit to say.....both numbers reflect only bound, independently published cookbooks. Not the pamphlets that come with appliances, nor magazines (I have every issue of Cook's Illustrated I've received) nor those dastardly little "checkout stand" pamphlets that I was addicted to for a very long time.

I started to say it wasn't cookbooks that got me started, and made me the cook I am, but rather it was my mother, and then I realized that the maternal influence was supplemented by two of her cookbooks. I used to read them for fun when I was bored, and didn't have anything else to read (I was a voracious reader when I was a kid). I would read these books over and over, even though I pretty much knew the contents backwards and forwards: #1 - "Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans" copyright 1948 by the Polanie Publishing Company, of the Polanie Club in Minneapolis. Mom's edition is ©1954, and she got it for a wedding present. It's a gem. Not only are there true "old country" recipes (there's a cake in here you bake on a spit, in front of an open fire, that uses 40 eggs and 2 pounds EACH of butter, sugar and flour. You pour the batter over a rod, turn the rod, and just keep building up the layers. It doesn't say how long it takes, but I'm guessing a day or so), but interspersed in the recipes are Polish proverbs, and each of the chapters has an introduction that gives you the background behind the traditions and the dishes. There are also chapters that discuss the traditions surrounding Easter, Christmas, the harvest and so on. It's my absolute treasure, and still the source for my pierogi and pierogi filling recipes. Also my signature Christmas cookies, Polish Tea Cakes. #2 - The 9th Edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, ©1951. Also a wedding present. Although Fannie is still listed as the nominal author, Wilma Lord Perkins is described as having "completely revised" the 9th edition. My copy is held together with duct tape. Mom always said that she learned how to cook from this book. I can't think of anything I make from it any longer, but having pulled it out to get the publishing details, I think I'll take a cruise through it again to see what I can see. I do know Mom's pineapple upside down cake came from this book. Just seeing the cover and opening it gave me such a rush of......being....I can't describe it. That both of the books have annotations in Mom's handwriting don't lessen the value, for sure. Of the ones that *I* purchased, I'd say: #1 - Paul Prudhomme's "Louisianna Kitchen". This and the Polish cookbook are the ones I'd rescue if the house was on fire. #2 - An entire series of the Sunset cookbooks (JAZ, I was so happy to see you cite 2 of them. They were such a wonderful resource). Probably the ones I used most were their Mexican, salad, and one called "Cooking for Two". They were very basic, and I've moved beyond them for the most part, but they were great teachers. The Mexican one is surprisingly authentic, probably because Sunset is a California publication. #3 - Julia Child's "The Way To Cook". As a reference and as an inspiration. Thanks, JAZ, for making me pull out the Fannie Farmer.

You're not really going to use any yeast to start a sourdough starter, are you? I dunno..... . I'm not? This is all new territory for me, and dangerously close to scary territory like science and math. I'll confess I haven't read this whole thread, start to finish, in some time, and that is probably where I should begin. No yeast, huh? I can see I have much to learn.

I happened to stumble onto a repeat of an old Iron Chef America episode last night, where Richard Blais went up against Mario. Who do you think was one of Blais' sous chefs? Why none other than Eli from TC6. Small culinary world, apparently.....