Dante

Whoa, Sabang – we used to go there frequently. It sounds like we were discontemporaneous neighbors. I also feel your pain - missing the dining options in Maryland's DC 'burbs is what motivated me to learn to cook. We used to live on Hermitage Ave- right off of Georgia Ave, down the street from the library in Wheaton, so I lived within a mile (walking-distance for me) of quite a few nice places- Los Chorros for Salvadoran, Dusit for Thai, the now late-and-lamented Thanh Thanh for Vietnamese, a really nice kebab house by Hanh Ah Reum's Asian market whose name I can't recall right now... and, of course, the Metro to take me to anywhere else I wanted to go (except Georgetown, so getting to Dean & DeLuca's was a bit of a chore). Tony Chang's for Mongolian Barbecue, Red Tomato for Italian, and, of course, Jaleo for Tapas... Cradle of Flavor by James Oseland, is a wonderful cookbook that includes recipes from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Crouching Tyler started a thread on Cooking with 'Cradle of Flavor', One Recipe at a Time. thanx! I'll have to check that out! and thanx to SuzySushi and StevenC for their recommendations too! I'll do some research - one of my housemates has been making a point of late to remind me that we do in fact have limited space for cookbooks in the house, so I have to exercise extreme discretion in what I pick up. Sincerely, Dante

Hello. I go by the name Dante. I’ve just started posting on eGullet a couple of weeks ago. And already I’m asking questions… When I lived in the DC Metro area, I had access to a wide variety of dining options and cuisines to choose from. I now live in New Hampshire which, while not the culinary wasteland I’d feared it would be (quite the opposite, actually), does not offer certain options that I’d become fond of during my DC-area residence. I’ve made up for this lack for the most part by striving to learn some of the styles I don’t have access to up here, but one still continues to elude me. I used to live about a mile from a wonderful little Indonesian restaurant called Sabang, which I miss quite a bit. Can anyone out there recommend a good Indonesian cookbook? Sincerely, Dante

Dante, thanks for the recipe! My pleasure. If you give it a try, I'd like to know how it goes. I have Hoisin, oyster sauce, garlic black bean, fish sauce and siracha-type sauces. Do you mix them with anything or are they sufficient by themselves? I've used siracha-type sauces just as a condiment but haven't made a sauce incorporating it. Me, personally, I use the above as ingredients, rather than as condiments in and of themselves, with the exception of sriracha, which I use as both. BTW- last night I made the fish-cakes recipe from the link that was posted earlier on this thread. I did tweak it a bit- made the fish cakes and the sambal from scratch (I'm kind of funny that way). It went wonderfully with some carrots on the side. Sincerely, Dante

I haven't seen a thread on this topic yet, but what is the most embarrasing cookbook in your collection? "Doctor Who Cookbook" 'cause, y'know, I've been a fan since the mid-70's, so, I *had* to... Sincerely, Dante

I would suggest you check out hzrt8w's Chinese food pictorials here. oh, my...utterly gorgeous! I think I've got some ideas for next week's menu... Sincerely, Dante

I've been on a stir-fry kick lately. The sauce I've been using varies little and is a hodgepodge of whatever I have on hand. Some soy sauce, some garlic black bean sauce, some Shaoxing wine, a little chicken broth, grated ginger and some corn starch to thicken it all up. I need to expand my sauce repertoire and am looking for new from-scratch recipes for stir-fry sauces. Well, the one I use that always gets rave reviews is the following: 1/2 cup maple syrup (the real stuff) 1/4 cup tamari 1/4 cup sherry 2 tbsp cornstarch 1 tsp fresh grated ginger dash cayenne pepper mixed together thoroughly and added in last couple of minutes of cooking it's the maple syrup that makes it, naturally. sincerely, Dante

Do you have a nice pantry space? Actually, I do, but I have the incredible luck to live in a big house in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire, the result of the pooling of four people's incomes and an inheritance. We have a nice, semi-well-organized pantry which also has space for the bulk of the house "culinary library" (approx. 150 books). Our previous house didn't have one, we just had cabinets which weren't as well organized (I got to set up the current kitchen, I had no hand in the previous one). good amount of shelving, plus overhead beams to hang baskets and mesh bags of potatoes and onions. Dante

I was having this discussion last night, but with regards to Red Velvet Cake. How is "red" a flavor? Could I make Green Velvet Cake and have the same cake? I t-h-i-n-k the red just comes from colouring, but I'll gladly accept any info to the contrary anyone out there may have. My only direct experience with Red Velvet Cake comes from Red Velvet Cake Ice Cream. Never had it in its pure form. But it may surprise you how much effect colour can have on perceived flavour- just the implications that the brain picks up and transmits to the taste buds. I've got this thing where I sort of "taste" colours- I sometimes describe things as tasting "red", "green", etc.- could be some weird anomaly of my brain or possibly early imprinting- associating tastes with the colouring of certain foods I enjoyed early in my life before that differentiation- thing kicked in in my cognitive development. Dante

Let me be the first to say "Welcome! Dante". Why, thank you. nice to be here. I've thought for a while that i'd like to find a good foodie site- forums, resources, etc. , something that covered the widest range possible, and stumbled across eGullet during a Google -search for...something else, can't recall now. I believe that "white" cheddar on packaging tends to be a marketing tool only. <snip> That's pretty much what I'd surmised as well. I've studied a bit about marketing, plus I got a crash-course of sorts in food labeling a few months ago while doing pre-publication reviewing of a book by the dietitian who works for the local food co-op, so these things kind of hit me automatically now. Dante

So why is "white cheddar" so often offered as a flavor claim on packaging? What does it all mean? The easy answer would be for the purposes of marketing to people who don't know any better... (for one thing, added adjectives draw the eye more) A more kind answer would be to point out that said chedder lacks colouring additives. Dante (eGullet newbie)