KateW

Yes. The chicken alfredo is good, the chicken is nicely grilled and the sauce tastes the same as the one I make at home with cream, parm cheese and butter. The chicken piccata is good, so is their pizza, and zuppa toscana. The food isn't fabulous, but I don't see what's wrong with it either. Edit: My boyfriend likes it a lot too. It's just about the most upscale restaurant he'll eat at

I think I'm odd in the respect that I can enjoy the most exotic, top quality food and still also enjoy fast food and chain restaurants. Growing up, my parents and I rarely went to chain restaurants. I grew up on home cooked meals and Japanese restaurants, but I do remember going to Chi Chi's and the Ground Round. As I got older and started going out to eat with friends I experienced more fast food, pizza and chain restaurants and enjoyed it. I also would go to very good restaurants with my family and enjoyed that very much too. When my boyfriend and I go out to eat we go to those chain restaurants and fast food places. When I go out to eat with my family, we go to more upscale places. What exactly is so horrible the Olive Garden? I've never had a bad meal there.

I remember. It was just a few months ago

Tourne. (shudder) We had to do this in stocks and sauces as part of our knife skills grade. I'm still not sure how to get 7 sides out of it... I think there are much prettier and easier ways to prepare potatoes and such.

Yes, yes. I get these 3 bags at a time in Flushing, Queens or Manhattan's Chinatown. I especially like them as cough-drop substitutes when I'm having respiratory symptoms. They are very good. Yeah, I eat them too when I get tired of popping those menthol drops!

I like a chewy ginger candy called ting ting jahe. Mom got it for me at a joyce chen store but now I reorder it online by simply googling ting ting jahe and picking one of the many online vendors that sells it because I can never remember where I last ordered it from. It's very spicy and wrapped in paper. Its ingredients are sugar, maltose, ginger, and starch.

What town?

Wonder if the cats will like this lemon tuna...Could present a whole line of canned cat food spritzed with lemon. Now that's gourmet!

A fortune cookie. Fortune: You will make a sudden rise in life. Quite a good one to add the phrase "in bed" to.

oxyclean never seemed to work for me unless I could do a laundry right after the stain happened. this was near impossible at culinary school. once I got pen on my dining room vest and the teacher said use club soda, and I tried in vain, even though it was right after the accident. that spot never did come out.

Chinese food never tastes good later to me. Mexican food.

certainly yes. i'm suprised they let you buy soda at that age LOL Well even my mother drinks a pepsi with dinner sometimes. But yeah, I need to learn a little something about wines and start sampling those with dinner more often. I just never know what to get.

Soda, cranberry juice with club soda, water, very occasionally wine, lemonade, a beer...but most often soda. Is 24 too old to be having soda with meals?

I wasn't allowed to have soda for the longest time, except shirley temples, and then I was finally weaned into Pepsi by splitting a can with my mom. Also I never had any of those fake juice drinks. It was always cranberry juice. No sugary cereal. I owe it to her that I am 24 and haven't had a cavity yet. We always had healthy meals; I never touched fast food or fried food until I was like 14.

You all must have nice big kitchens. I'm stuck with an apartment kitchen and I have to share the space with my boyfriend. Most fruit is too bulky to have a lot of...but I like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, peaches if they're really good...hmm what else. I love tomatoes (yes they are a fruit). Things with seed(s) surrounded by flesh are fruits and things that have no seeds but rather flowers are vegetables, if I have my facts right. And yes strawberries are still fruit even though their seeds are on the outside :) I think there are two kinds of fruits that don't have seeds, one is the pineapple and the other one escapes me. Soon as I have my school notebook handy I will remember LOL... anyway this is a little off topic but I got going with the question of if a tomato is a fruit.

This describes me perfectly. I told people I was going to cooking school to learn everything I could because I love cooking for people and making them happy. People scoffed, and I'm not sure why, because after a year of school I am still here for the same reasons. My "career" started with rolling out pie dough with my mother and cooking the scraps of dough into little cookies sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. That is my first food memory. As for the socials skills, I am lacking in that department and I fear I will never be one of those charismatic, outgoing chefs you always hear about. But I always hope to be a good person--and a good chef.

The combination of sweet and meat isn't one of my favorites either. I used to hate honey mustard but now if it's done right, it's pretty good on fried chicken fingers. I've never cooked a sweet sauce with meat myself and I rarely choose it at restaurants but I can't say I hate it.

Because what if the one egg in your salad that you serve to one customer is the egg that has the salmonella. Your customer doesn't care that there were 19,999 good eggs.

I've seen two types of products like this...one that I guess is individual servings of PB that is in like a push up type tube, and one that I assume has more than one serving of it in a tube that you can squirt it out of like ketchup. I think the one with lots of servings is cool but the individual thing just seems weird because it doesn't look good for anything except eating PB by itself...and that is just weird. Edit: Ive just seen the commercials, which is why I'm a little unclear on the concepts.

Ok, it is my goal in life to make it to the French Laundry. But I need to know some things...What is the attire? Do they have a la carte, or just tasting menus and prix fixe? If they have a la carte, what are the prices? I tried to find a website with this information but had no luck and I know I can find a much better array of info from you all Thanks, and if anyone has divulged these details before, please feel free to point me to them.

I think it's less embarrassing to check the burger than it would be to bite into something unwanted and have to spit it or or worse lol... And I never trust restaurants. Just like you (or at least I do) subconciously check to see if the steak is done to order, I think checking under the bun is just habit. I usually don't specify 'plain hamburger' because of the risk of not getting it that way but when I get the burger I usually take off whatever I don't want. It varies and is usually too complicated to tell to the server anyway...(I want onions but only about half as much as you usually put on, and a tomato, but only if it is nice and red, and lettuce if it is not brown...)...it's just easier to see what I get and go from there. What's embarrassing about ordering a plain burger anyway? Sometimes that's just what I want. And you get more soda if you don't get ice.

My mom freezes bread (I'm not sure if there's a real point to this) so I have to microwave a couple pieces for about 20 seconds for a sandwich. I use it to take the chill off refrigerated red wine (about 7 seconds). Microwaved popcorn (that way I can have lots of butter without seeing how much I actually put on it), noodles in a cup, frozen meals and snacks, melting butter (although I do this on the stove sometimes too), making bacon. Oh and microwaving Peeps! (18 seconds) I used to use it for reheating food but I am happy to say I now use the oven and the stove. I saw something about 'too high internal temps' and I am curious, how high is too high and what is the problem with this (other than burning your mouth)?

There is actually something I read once where you shouldn't eat past 8 or 10 or something because your body doesn't metabolise it as well and you gain more weight. But I don't follow that.

OMG NeroW! You dated my boyfriend! Seriously..my boyfriend isn't that bad, but close. He won't eat anything with bones still in it. No onions, no vegetables except canned corn or corn on the cob, or peas. Gourmet to him is chicken parmagiana from Olive Garden, but he hates going there because it's too fancy for him. No alcohol, except a Mike's hard lemonade once in a while. He used to only eat processed cheese, but now likes some of my "weird" cheese like Havarti with dill, or pepper Jack cheese. He says he's allergic to yogurt. Nothing too spicy. No tomatoes in the chili. No tofu. He does, however, like rice if it is mixed in with whatever sauce the protein is served with. (Gravy, or mixed with the General Gau's chicken, which is all he will eat from a Chinese place.) He too would get grossed out by things like mopping up egg yolks with toast, or getting ketchup out of a bottle with a knife. On our first date, I was so nervous I shredded my paper straw wrapper onto the table and learned years later how much it bugged him. Playing with food, or anything to do with food, totally creeps him out. He can't even watch me cut up raw chicken for dinner (Chicken Helper, of course). The only difference is, he doesn't try to enforce his habits on me, like you indicated about the butter. In fact, he bought margarine the other day for his new apartment and bought butter sticks for me :) This was after I unsuccessfully tried to explain to him why margarine is bad. Fruit, he will eat apples...and that's about it. He thinks granola bars are healthy. He also thinks diet soda is good for you. I try to explain that "good for you" and "not as bad as the other stuff" are two different things. Another difference between you and me NeroW...I am still dating this guy. But we'll see how long that lasts

I like that!