Dianabanana

Really? I have exactly the opposite perception: cold butter has little flavor at all, and only reveals its flavor as it softens and approaches a nice spreadable consistency. ← This is interesting! I've never heard anyone say that butter tastes best cold, but I think I agree, at least for unsalted butter. It certainly tastes different than warmer butter--more of a pure milk flavor. I would think that as it gets warmer, we are able to taste more flavor components in the butter, so that it is more flavorful, but whether you think that tastes better is a matter of, er, taste.

I love this particular combination: I make a stir fry using shelled frozen edamame, julienned carrots, and baby corn, with a sauce made from soy, chile-garlic paste, sugar, and sesame oil, and the whole thing topped with chopped peanuts. I almost always have these ingredients on hand, it's super-fast to make, and tastes really fresh even though the only actual fresh ingredient is the carrots, so it's a great fall-back dish.

When you say "loses its freshness very quickly," what exactly do you mean? How long does it keep? (The people in the store pull out one piece after another, scrutinizing and rejecting, scrutinizing and rejecting. They seem very serious about their gobo!)

All of these dips sound delicious. Going in the opposite direction from dips that have lots of different fresh ingredients, I'm going to give you one that you will always be able to make even when the cupboard is utterly bare--and it's good! Mayonnaise Thai chili-garlic sauce Maybe some lemon juice depending on your mayonnaise Try that on crab cakes some time, too.

When I was in Tokyo, I saw lots of very small tsukemono shops offering perhaps 20 different kinds of pickles. I am wondering about these. - Were these "artisanal" tsukemono makers? Did they make the pickles there in the shop? - The tsukemono I tried were absolutely delicious, so much better than anything I've been able to find in the US, and they seemed like they used way less food coloring. Is this quality of tsukemono available in the US? It seems like there would be a demand for it in a market like Los Angeles. I would love to be able to mail order them. - I bought a bunch of packages from the little tsukemono shops and brought them home in my suitcase, but I was worried the whole time because they were refrigerated at the shop and of course it's a long trip home. We ate them without incident, but was this a wise thing to do? How long can they stay out of refrigeration?

When I go to the Asian grocery, I always see elderly people standing in front of the burdock, slowly and meticulously scrutinizing each piece. At times they seem almost entranced! What are they looking for? What should I be looking for?

Snark attack - of those places, the only one I would eat in is Red Mill - and I am not even a burger fan. Maybe Kidd Valley, for a milkshake. Mae's and Mama's? Not even for free, and probably not even if you paid me. ← I agree with tsquare here. While the descriptions of the decor is (are?) spot on, the food at both Mae's and Mama's is awful. And I'm not squeamish about restaurant cleanliness per se, but Mae's lack of cleanliness makes me shudder. For tacos - I think there is a taco crawl thread here somewhere. Let me see if I can find it. That will give you a good starting point. For pizza I would recommend Serious Pie, Via Tribunali or Pagliacci. For a diner - a true diner - gotta be Varsity Inn in Wallingford. For bakeries - Dahlia Bakery, Macrina, Fresh Flours, Hiroki and Cafe Besalu are my favorites. I'm not a chocolate fan so I can't help you there. ← I've never been to Mae's, but can confirm that Mama's is profoundly awful.

You people are scaring me.

I know it's "wrong," but I adore cold butter. And just to show how truly transgressive I can be, I also adore my ice cream frozen hard. But that's another thread.

What are these? What are the ingredients? This is the first I've heard of them. For your Siberian Pine stuff, it sounds like it might have qualities in common with kewra (screw pine essence), which is used in some Indian pilafs and many Indian desserts. You could look to those for inspiration.

Yes, but it's hard to imagine that the mail-order corn on the cob (!!! still can't get over that) is a "decent product" by the time it gets to the consumer.

This isn't original to me, but it's simple and way more than the sum of its parts. Buy one of those packages of small, sweet peppers that have been all over the stores this year--you know, they cost about $5 and have little red, orange, and yellow peppers in them. Slit them, stuff them with a little miso, then saute them in canola oil until they shrivel up and brown a little. This is my bastardized version of what I think is a real Japanese dish, except I have been unable to find the right kind of peppers (don't even know what they're called--they're small, sweet, and green). I have also just sauteed regular red bell pepper strips and added miso. It's delicious, but not as delicious as the stuffed peppers. I'm not even sure what kinds of miso I have as the labels are all in Japanese, but I tried different kinds and I think I liked a mixture of brown (genmai?) and red (aka?) best. The saikyo was too sweet.

My husband says his dad used to eat peanut butter and mustard sandwiches. Sounds utterly revolting to me, but I know this is probably the only thread in which I'll have occasion to mention it, so there it is.

Oh, shoot! We ate it all!

Had them in a shortbread cookie at Dahlia Bakery the other day. Subtle, but good.

That would be Mr. Tom Douglas and the coco cream pie is fabulous, although I have a special weakness for coconut cream pie. Maybe you can tweak it and put some Skor bits in the crust as well and some freshly toasted mac nuts in the filling to get closer to your elusive Hawaiian fantasy dessert? ← I was going to post about this pie as well; available at The Dhalia Bakery. The recipe is available, though I have not made it. The filling is at http://www.books-for-cooks.com/recipes/rc_...glas_kitch.html while it looks like you'll need the rest of the book to get the crust. ← Actually, here's a slight variant of the Triple Coconut Cream Pie that includes the recipe for the crust: Triple Coconut Cream Pie ← Yup. They sell this pie in a mini "pie bite" version, so you can feel all abstemious about it. Except my place is just down the street from Dahlia and I have to pass it to get just about anywhere I want to go, which means I end up buying one coming, then going, then coming, then going . . . .

Crackers with cold butter and jam. Milky tea with a LOT of sugar.

Well phooey! I just went and bought my first-ever package of Dufours--for THIRTEEN DOLLARS--then I come here and read this! Quick, somebody tell me the Dufours is 2.5 times better than TJ's.

Thank you for your suggestions. I ended up making matsutake gohan. I compared a bunch of different recipes and no two were in agreement. One had dashi and soy, one had soy and sake, one had soy, sake, and mirin, etc. In the end I used two rice cooker cups of rice, 1T dark soy, 1T light soy, 1T sake, and 1t mirin, added water to the 2-cup mark, then added my shredded matsutake. It was delicious! I was kind of hoping I wouldn't like it too much because I don't need any more expensive food habits, but I'm afraid I liked it quite a lot. These were matsutake from Washington/Oregon. Do Japanese matsutake ever show up in the US?

I made this before I went to bed and chilled them. Yummy snack, Kristin. I ate a few chunks with a sandwich (healthier then Chips) ← I am glad you enjoyed it, this is still one of my favorite foods. I now make it extra lemon-y by tossing in the the lemon half as well after squeezing it. ← I made this this morning for our bentos. So pretty with the yellow flesh and reddish-purple skins. Tastes great, too. Thank you!

I just bought two medium-sized matsutake mushrooms at Uwajimaya. Only two because they were US $60 a pound! I've never had them before. What should I do with them?

Thank you, Hiroyuki. I will look for cooking sake and give it a try. Recently I have used sake to make teriyaki salmon, tamagoyaki, and in a recipe by Hiroko Shimbo for summer vegetables in a sauce with miso and toban jian.

I am bewildered when it comes to cooking with sake. For instance, I have read that sake is like wine in that it should be drunk within a few days of opening the bottle, and that if you don't drink it all, it can be used for cooking. But how long can you keep an open bottle for use in cooking? I don't cook with it every day, so it tends to hang around. I recently discovered that I can get Sho Chiku Bai and a couple of other brands (forget the names) in single-serving bottles, but of course it's more expensive that way, and I wonder if it's an unnecessary expense. Which brings me to my second question--what's a reasonable brand to use for cooking? I imagine that for cooking you don't need an expensive brand, but how cheap is too cheap? Seattle's Uwajimaya has a pretty big selection, so I think that I would be able to find any reasonably common brand you might recommend.

In a nearby town you can get a beer at the Tam O'Shanter Tervan.

I think it might be a matter of attitude. Not to blame the victim, but I often notice that fearful women frequently seem to find themselves in difficult situations. The concept of "inadvertent messages" has never entered my head, and all these years I've just been blithely having lovely, trouble-free solo meals whenever the occasion arises.