[Do you cheat when you chop onions?]

Ummmmm, since when is eliminating the horizontal cuts "cheating".....?

That's the only way I've ever done it, at least routinely. Thank you FG for validating my so-called technique.

Occasionally, very occasionally, when I'm channeling Julia Child or Lidia Bastianich, I'll try the horizontal cut thing. Scary, scary, scary, time-consuming and in my mind, doesn't produce much better size pieces than the "cheaters" way.

And yes, my knives are very sharp, ask the ER tech who put 6 stitches in my left thumb on Thursday night.

[Parsley Salad]

Jacques Pepin has one in his "Fast Food My Way" book that I've not made, but saw him make on the show. It looked very yummy. Maybe its on the web??? PM me if you'd like me to send you the recipe if you don't have the book, or can't find it online.

[American palates]

.......but it was fairly obvious why. Both came from a background of boring, least common denominator food; a mixture of both mediocore home cooking, low end restaurants, and packaged food.......

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I don't know that I necessarily agree with that. My Mom could be accused of cooking the same sort of meals. *SHE* tried, but was totally constrained by Daddy's pedestrian Wisconsin farm-boy tastes (sorry, Wisconsin farm-boys......). If it wasn't a slab 'o' gray meat and some sort of potatoes and overcooked peas or corn, Daddy wasn't interested in it. Going out for dinner usually meant the local and era-specific equivalent of Denny's. Saturday dinner, to give Mom a break, was McDonald's. *shiver*

And yet.........I've become a foodie. Actually, so did Mom after Daddy passed. She and I had some wonderful meals together. We actually had some wonderful meals together, the 3 of us, once Mom and I realized we could satisfy Daddy by charring a steak to hockey-puck consistency, and then making US a pan of lasagna or enchiladas or quiche or whatever.

I have a friend, my best friend, whose family served, and still serves, instant mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. I've trained her up pretty good as well, she just asked me for a subscription to Cook's Illustrated for her birthday !

I think for both of us, yes, it was the act of sitting down and sharing the meal that laid the foundation for the future. Food was important. Cooking for someone is just about the most significant thing you can do for them. Sharing YOUR larder, what's more loving than that? And that was the message, not the quality of the end product, but the sharing of it, and the giving of it. That's what instills the respect of the ingredients and the process and the outcome that defines a *foodie*.

In a nutshell, YES absolutely palates can be trained, and do grow and mature. I eat things that my parents would never have considered. You can overcome the pedestrian offerings of your youth, but food and meals and the sharing of them have to have been made important enough for you to want to experience the entire spectrum that's available to you. If meals are seen as an inconvenience, nuked burritos will always be enough for your needs.

(Good Golly Miss Molly I hope I'm doin' this right..........first time out trying to quote.... )

[Canned Tomatoes]

S&W brand is my choice. Either the pre-diced, or the whole ones that I crush up by hand. They may be a regional brand to the West Coast, though. I do know that they are a California-based grower's cooperative.

Totally agree that the San Marzanos aren't worth the cost & hassle of finding them. IIRC, America's Test Kitchen said basically the same thing in one of the episodes I saw over this last weekend.

[Viva v. Bounty and beyond]

Brawny Pick-A-Size here as well. Also the only paper towels I've seen locally that are white with no printed design. On the extremely rare occasion I want to nuke something, and cover it with a paper towel, that makes a difference, Nothing worse than a quesadilla with a lover-ly pastel floral pattern transfered to the top....

[cloudberries, fiddleheads etc...how to market]

Two specialty produce marketers come to mind that, I believe are national, or at least regional are Melissa's and Frieda's. I'm sure they have web sites. They both carry things that at one point were considered "exotic" even here in the Megalopolis. I saw (and purchased) fiddleheads at Trader Joe's last year. It may be worth giving them a call or an e-mail as well. I don't know how perishable these commodities are (I'd guess fairly....) but they may have insight as to how to get them into their distribution chain. I am pretty sure that the fiddleheads I bought (and loved) last year are not local.