mrs.inkling

Browniebaker: Thanks for the input on your family's way of eating hot and sour soup, and the insight on it being very traditional to allow diners to season according to taste. I do respect and understand that. However, as a work-from-home, harried mother of a 13-month-old daughter (with another child on the way in January), I need an awesome recipe that doesn't require fiddling around with, as it's hard getting time to cook fun stuff these days.

Engerson and Gary Soup: OK, I must check out the recipe you noted. Hest88 and Browniebaker: Yes, I've tried tinkering with the amount of heat and sourness, but have not been entirely successful. Also, I have to admit a certain impatience with doing so. It reminds me of my experience at P.F. Chang's (an overrated restaurant, IMHO). I order hot and sour soup, and they bring the soup out and tell me to add vinegar and chile oil until I like it. I want the soup brought to my table tasting great, dang it. I don't want to have to fiddle with it for two or three minutes.

Help! I have several Asian cookbooks (only a few that focus on just Chinese), and have yet to find a great hot and sour soup recipe. I want a good balance between the hot and the sour, but the recipes I've tried usually taste more sour than hot. Any suggestions?

I'm enjoying this thread, as I love cooking Asian food, but I tend to have Asian cookbooks that cover a few different types of cuisine, not solely Chinese. I have three Nina Simonds books (Spoonful of Ginger, Asian Noodles and China Express), so I can vouch for those. I also have Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen, but have only made a few things out of there. (The sweet and sour pork is awesome.) I'm curious, though, about your opinions of Martin Yan's cookbooks. I only have one, and have liked everything I've made out of there, but again, it has a mix of Asian dishes, not solely Chinese. I'll have to check out Ken Hom's books.

Ballast-regime: Sounds like perhaps my husband and I need to give Pizzeria Bianco's another try. We might have hit it on an off night.

Ballast-regime: I think I must be in the overwhelming minority of people not impressed with Pizzeria Bianco. Of course, I only went once, and probably need a return trip to form a fair opinion. But I recall a long wait for pizza that was pretty good, but not "all that." We ordered two pizzas that had fairly strong flavors -- one had carmelized onions and mushrooms, I think -- and I hardly ate any, it was so heavy and cloying. Again, I think I need another trip to see what I'm apparently missing. But frankly, I'd rather go to Classic Italian Pizza in Tempe. It's closer, and I've always liked the food there. (Although it's recently under new ownership and I don't know if the quality is the same.) Mark: Personally, I like Tarbell's. I've only been there twice in the past couple of years, but both times, I really enjoyed my food and wine.

OK, I'm not in the food business -- I love cooking at home and write about restaurants for my local newspaper, but that's it -- so my perspective is different than that of many other people who have posted here. That said ... I enjoyed the show. I don't watch reality shows, but I know enough about them to take them with a grain of salt. So, I watched last night knowing not everything is totally accurate and some stuff was clearly done for TV purposes, and thought it was interesting. I'll watch it again, even with all the heavy-handed product endorsements. I do agree with two observations pointed out repeatedly here: 1) Rocco whining at the beginning got old, and as a former PR person, it was sooo nice to see the PR guy tell him to stop moping and get to work. 2) The building manager's Pink Panther visits were the best part of the show.