Pierogi

Absolutely stunning ! What a brilliant idea to close the peppers with a slice of tomato.

Ohhhhhhhhh, Bob's was the BEST. Used to go there with my parents on a regular basis, and then it became THE place to hang out after high school football games. Those shakes in the silver goblets.........

Wow........just.......wow. I'm so stunned that Tre is gone. I for sure thought he'd be in the final two. Although he was certainly the epitome of class and dignity in his leave-taking. He took full responsibility and acknowledged that as "executive" chef for the restaurant, it was all him on the line. What a refreshing change ! But still.......wow. And yeah, even with bad eyes, (getting worse with age) and an absolute total lack of hand-eye coordination, I could totally dice Casey under the table on onions. I mean........COME ON. That was pathetic. Wow..........

Gebhardts.........oh man. Now *THERE'S* a memory. About 15 years ago, when SoCal was blasted by wicked winter rain storms, there was one day that it literally took me 6 hours to drive 22 miles home from work. The rain had stopped by the time I'd left, but the damage had been done. A tornado (or a "water spout") had come through my neighborhood, the freeways had all flooded out and been closed, it was brutal. Especially for an area that doesn't ever see actual weather. And it was the first time I'd faced a crisis without a parent. I had been scheduled to go out to dinner with a friend that night, who had called me at work and said, you'd better get home, the roof's off the neighborhood grocery store ! This was before cell phones, so I said, ok, I'll call you when I get there, thinking I'd still be home at a reasonable time to go get something to eat. I left work at about 3:30, pulled into home about 9:30 and called, almost in tears from the utter frustration of the drive. Vicki said, did you eat? Me.......NO...sniff.....snivle. Over she came with a can of Dennison's chili and a can of Gehbardt tamales. That and a glass of scotch made one hell of a dinner. Gebhardt's.......haven't had 'em since. Only had 'em a few times before that, but they certainly do have their place.

Ahhhhhhhh, but that's the PUBLIC WASP-face, isn't it? It's perfectly OK to sit on the floor of the kitchen, sobbing, while the dishwasher is running and no one can hear. Trust me..... Time, dear Maggie, time is the best salve of all. Eventually, when it is your time, and only your time, no one else's schedule fits, you will loose the deep, searing, open hurt and even the memories of your cooking frenzy for your family will give you pleasure and comfort. You will know, in your heart, it was a good thing in the truest sense of the phrase. That it felt good "just to stir up a bechamel" is a positive thing. Take baby steps, listen to your heart, and it will all be OK. With time......

Like the other respondants, I'm in the seasoned flour/egg wash/breading camp. My only contribution is that I like my egg wash pretty thin (dilute the egg with some water, although milk also works, I prefer the water). Seems to make the breading less *gloppy* (technical word, that). Breading can be whatever seems appropriate to the "bread-ee" as it were. I particularly like panko, but regular bread crumbs work just fine, as do saltine crumbs. I usually don't like flour for the "breading" part. That seems to cross the line into batterdom, and I believe they are different critters. Breading, at least to me, equals pan fried or oven baked/roasted/fried (with copious amounts of oil for the latter). Batter equals deep frying, or way more oil than pan frying.

TOTALLY have enjoyed this blog and your glimpse of life in the opposite corner of the country from me. And your coast, so different from SoCal's wide, sandy beaches. LOVED it. Thank you for taking us into your world.

What she said. Like you, and Marlene, and countless others, I went through the same things when my parents died. My mother, who I lost 4 years later than Daddy, was the hardest too, because she'd been THE COOK. With her, I watched Julia, and the Galloping Gourmet, and Jaques and the Frugal Gourmet and so many more. And from her I learned how to make someone feel deeply, profoundly and completely, envelopingly loved by the offer of food that has been lovingly prepared. While she was dying, I cooked like a madwoman. I'd eat dinner at midnight (having to be at work at 8 a.m.) because I HAD TO COOK. After........well, I ate a lot of frozen pizzas, and Mickey D's and Kraft mac 'n' cheese. Oddly enough, I still cooked for friends. I have one friend who I've known since high school. During this time, we were both betwixt and between SOs. Every Saturday night Vicki came for dinner. Every Saturday night I blew out the stops. That sort of helped. And sort of didn't. I threw away a lot of food in those days....... But one day, one day....I got a craving. For something Mom used to make. And through tears, using her old pans & recipe, I made it. It was good. And then, gradually, it was all good. Or mostly good. Give yourself some space and time and it will come. It will come as an epiphany. One day it will be right, and it will feel that way. Until then, lean on hubby. Right now you are associating the act of cooking with a) grief and loss and b) duty. Let time bring you back to the joy... ETA---hugs Maggie. Hang in there.

Hey merstar, glad the info is useful. I just pulled it out, and measured and it's 7 inches high, even. At the widest point, I'd say its 11 inches "across" because it has the little ears on the side that let you use it with both the big KAs that have the lifts, as well as the tilt-head models. I think, IFIRC, it makes 2 pints ? I think I've gotten about 4 cups of base in the unit and didn't overflow it. And I fibbed a bit....it doesn't fit in the spare bowl, but does tuck away pretty well. Certainly much better than a stand-alone unit would.

A couple of other suggestions come to my mind. Simply dress thinly sliced cukes with creme fraiche and chopped chives. S&P to taste. Now, growing up my Mom made a Polish version of this regularly. Thinly slice the cukes (seed & peel as desired.......) add some chopped scallions, and make a dressing of sour cream, an acid (vinegar or lemon juice), a bit of sugar, S&P, and some dill (fresh is obviously best, dried will do). All of this is to taste. Add some finely chopped hard boiled egg whites if you want, and press the yolks over the top through a strainer (a la Polonaise, dontcha know). I still make this regularly. The dill is the key.

I got the Kitchen-Aid attachement last year and I LOVE it !! I resisted one of the other models for a long time, although I lusted after the Cuisinart for many years. I just couldn't justify the storage/counter space for something I knew I'd use maybe once a month. I don't think its much larger than the Cusinart bowl (which one of my friends has) and as Preserver said, it assuages my conscience about having a uni-tasker. It fits inside my spare KA bowl (I have 2) and therefore in my cupboard quite nicely. My freezer is roomy (its one of the freezer on the bottom units) but usually packed, and I have not had a problem finding a home for it when I need to freeze it. It does make great ice cream & sorbet. I've been very pleased with it. BTW, my KA is not one of the mega-horsepower models, and it handles the task just fine.

In the same vein as the layered salad, 7-layer dip. Refrieds, cheese, salsa. etc. served with tortilla chips. Make your own pizzas? On the grill, maybe even using Boboli crusts. Set out a lot of potential toppings (shredded cheese, bought...sliced pepperoni, bought...sliced salami, bought...veggies, sliced the day before...sausage, sauteed the day before...you get the drift). Throw a pork roast in the slow-cooker with some BBQ sauce and make pulled pork sandwiches. Make some slaw, some good buns and you're golden.

OHHHHH MG...........mental note.......that sounds SPECTACULAR. Thanks for the hint.

Regarding the "faux night on the town issue" I guess I have 2 opinions (only 2, there's a surprise........ ) And let me preface it by saying I most certainly am NOT a professional chef/cook, nor have I ever known one. However... I am a grown-up professional and many days, if not most, my days at work do not go as planned. I arrive in the morning fully certain my day is going to go THIS WAY and I will do THESE THINGS and most days it goes THAT WAY and I do THOSE THINGS. Heck, that even happens in my personal life. I just put on my big-girl panties and deal with it. Which is what the "cheftestants" should've done when they realized their night on the town was a ruse. Oh well, it wasn't what I expected......I'll suck it up, deal with it and get through the new situation. I'll whine when its over, and commiserate with my colleagues, but we'll cope. And excel. Regarding the attire, however, I completely agree that I would've been very annoyed by having to work a line in club attire, especially in stilletto heels and décolletage-baring tops. Tough to hold your dignity and be professional in that sort of outfit, never mind be safe (and comfortable !) in a professional, fast-moving, cramped kitchen. That ploy put those women at risk IMO, and was tacky and stupid. But again, I'd have kvetched about it afterwards, and not let it detract from my performance. Hell, I'd have kicked those 5-inch FM-pumps off under the nearest counter where no one could trip over them and cooked barefoot. Nothing I haven't done before at work when I've been in crisis mode and my feet have been killing me. Of course, I wasn't around sharp things, and boiling liquids, but still........I would've ditched those shoes in a nanosecond. Especially in the grocery store. Other than that, Hung needs to realize he's not a professional cook to please only his own tastes and Howie needs a perpetual Valium IV-drip. And a good smack upside his inflated head. LOVED Tre's grits & shrimp. Will be downloading that recipe.

Since the responses on the hamburger toppings thread have been so interesting and varied, I thought it was time to pay some attention to the other summertime favorite cookout food, the hot dog. So.....Fellow Foodies and E-Gulletiers, what's on YOUR dog? Mine; first choice mustard, chopped onions & sweet pickle relish. 2nd place, chili, sharp cheddar & chopped onions. 3rd place, 'kraut, mustard & chopped onions.

ONIONS (preferably thinly sliced red onions, or sweet onions like Vidalias...) must have onions. Grilled ok, fresh better. After that, catsup, tomato, S&P. Sometimes good strong cheese (extra sharp Cheddar or bleu), sometimes bacon, sometimes mayo. But always onions. It ain't a burger without onions. And a nice, sturdy bun/roll. Like a Kaiser roll. None of those wimpy, fluffy, cottony wonderbread type rolls. Maybe a nice onion/egg bun.

Actually, for those of us with weak and or achy hands (I have pretty severe rheumatoid arthritis, and my knuckles and wrists are among my most affected joints) those things are a Godsend....there are some jars/bottles that I would not be able to get into without one of these guys.

The 2nd worst thing I've done to myself in the kitchen involved swirling hot caramel around the bottom of a small ramekin for individual flans. I swirled, thinking the whole time "I've got to be really careful, this stuff is REALLY hot.....", and the caramel lept right out over the edge of the ramekin and down my left middle finger. Left quite a nice little divot for quite some time.. The 1st worst thing involved 6 stitches......

Excellent topic/question ! Yes, for baking I measure religiously. Too many baking disasters, and I don't claim to be a pastry chef, or a baker. For "cooking" its really mostly free-form. I do measure rice & coffee as others have mentioned (and the water component for both). And couscous too.....The roux bases for sauces & gumbos/jambalayas, since I think the ratio of fat to flour is pretty critical to the consistency of the final product. Pretty much anything else is by feel. I sometimes check myself (I'll place one of my dry measuring cups on the cutting board) and compare the pile of chopped goods to the cup, and I'm usually pretty much dead on. And of course, I taste as I go, so if whatever I'm cooking needs *something* I can add it before its too late. One of my friends used to majorly bust my chops because I'd throw all sorts of stuff into a pan by feel, but I'd compulsively measure out the butter by the markings on the stick. I guess because they were there, I felt compelled to use them ! (I don't do that anymore.....heehee)

The day my parents and I moved into the house I grew up in, or grew to adulthood in. It was the first one my parents owned. I was 12, and it was mid-July. I had been helping Mom pack and clean the old house, and also work on the new one, which was, to put it mildly......a fixer. Mom & I had gone to the new house to wait for the movers, and my Dad was ferrying car loads of smaller stuff back and forth, so we were loading closets, and cupboards and you know the drill. About 2 in the afternoon, Mom & I took a break. The movers would arrive in about 1/2 an hour and we knew we wouldn't have time to eat anything until much later. She had packed some sandwiches and we sat on the brick hearth of the fireplace in *OUR* den, with a tinny transistor radio blasting late 60's AM rock 'n' roll, and had......Spam sandwiches. With mustard and paper-thin sliced onion. I don't think I've ever eaten anything better.

Ohhhhhhh, so many, so many.......I'm sure more will come to me, probably as I'm trying to go to sleep tonight........ Totally agree on the shaker top thingies. In that same category would be the drizzly-top inserts on bottles of sauces (soy, Worchestershire, fish, etc.) and vinegars. Right into the trash they go. The onion "slicing guides", avocado slicers/skinners (sort of look like a harp) and the "knuckle guard" I see in high end cookware catalogs. The slicing guides look like a large set of salad tongs, and you're supposed to grasp the onions in the cups, and slice between the fingers. I think they market them for tomatoes as well. One word.......WHY? Sure would be hard on your knife edge ! Same thing with the avocado slicer/skinner thing. How hard is it to peel and slice an avocado? And the knuckle guard just looks damn dangerous. It's a metal THING you slip your index, middle and ring fingers into, and supposedly you won't knick yourself from big old mean Mr. Knife. Me, all I can see is me catching Mr. Knife in the top of it, and slicing all the skin off those three fingers from the middle knuckle on down. Oh, and the thing that looks like 5 or 6 thin spikes set into a wood handle that you use to grab the onion while you're slicing. Shrimp peelers/deveiners. Again, how hard is it to peel a shrimp? Garlic slicers. 'Nuff said.

No doubt about it. I use Brita pitchers myself, even though my municipal tap water is consistently rated very well. Various reasons prevent me from installing a filter on the tap itself, or an under-sink unit. So I use the Brita. I cook with the Brita water, especially when water is an ingredient, like in soups, use it for coffee, give it to the doggies in their bowl. And, I DO buy bottled water. I make sure its "spring water" and the source is listed on the label. I don't buy Aqua Fina or Dasani. They're rip-offs. Because.......when filtered tap water is marketed as something unatainable by the average consumer, there's the rub as Shakespeare said. When you pay upwards of a buck a bottle for this stuff, and you can get a good, in-line RO/UV filtration system for what it costs you for less than a year's supply of someone ELSE'S filtered tap water, that really is marketing fluff and as I said, sleazy. That's Coca-Cola and PepsiCo playing on consumer's ignorance, and propensity to follow the shiny, flashy, glittery, expensive marketing gimmicks. I for one, won't support it. It's part of the fleecing of America as someone once said, and I choose not to participate in it.

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I also had the idea of maybe making your friends a quiche. (Hmmmmmmm, thinking about answering E-Gullet posts and food while trying to go to sleep, mental note, add to you know you're an E-Gulletier when.....LOL) Seriously, again, quiche is ultimately "customize-able", and can be reheated quite easily by nuking. Also edible at room temp. That and a nice, fresh side salad with homemade dressing would be a great summer meal. There are some lovely quiche recipes out there that use fresh corn.........

The point has been well-made by the previous posters' responses. The average, gullible American consumer figures if a) its in a bottle and b) its expensive its gotta be better than what they can get from the tap, or even from the tap with a filtration system. Consumers usually don't read the labels, and they sure don't realize what "PWS" means. (That was Pepsi's explanation today....they label the water with PWS, so *people should know* they said in a very Corporate tone of voice. No where on the label did they define PWS as, um, Public Water Source. Suh-prise, suh-prise suh-prise......) To pass this stuff off as better than tap water is to me tantamount with the old-time snake oil salesmen. There truly is a sucker born every minute. However, again, the average consumer doesn't realize the scam being perpetrated on them. Not to come off as elitist, but us foodies read labels a little better than most. Me, I'm also pretty savvy about labeling in general, and finding my way through FDA's regs, because that's my field. I knew a long time ago that if it didn't say "spring" or "mineral" water on the label, and list the source, it was probably coming from some municipal pipe somewhere. Joe Average, not so much. Ohhhhhh-ahhhhhhh, filtered, must be good ! Exotic even. Is the marketing gonna kill someone, probably not. Is it dishonest, again, probably not (PWS and all.....), although that point could be debated. Is it sorta sleezy, IMO, yeah. Like the new Clorox disinfectant kitchen spray that's nothing more than diluted bleach. Its just a way to get gullible consumers to part with their money for something not so special. Edit 'cuz you don't disEnfect something, you disinfect it. OY !

Normally I would vote for the lasagna/casserole/stew type of offering, but as many have pointed out, not in the dog days summer. How about a jug of gazpacho? Refreshing, a beautiful way to show off lovely, in season produce, "personalize-able" to varied tastes, lasts a while in the fridge..... A hearty, main-dish salad, composed in a large tupperware type container (think maybe Chinese chicken salad, Salade Nicoise, etc) with the home-made dressing in another non-returnable container. With some lovely, crusty bread (ideally home-baked) on the side. A fruit tart or crostata (sp??) or gallette, again using the best summer fruits (cherries, berries, stone fruits) you can find. I second the roast chicken or ham idea as well, that will give them leftovers for sandwiches and salads after the main meal.