Foam Pants

Well, I think that mine took at least nine hours, probably more. Plus, I live in a pretty cold climate so the stock cooled quickly on the counter as well. My chicken stock is not an incredibly strong gel so I think it took awhile.

So, after work, I look into the fridge and poke the chicken stock container and thought " Crap! It didn't set. I'm going to be the only kid in class with a total failure! I am so ashamed." I then took the offender out of the fridge and popped the top to give it the evil eye and... duh, it is gel. It's just a very jiggly gel. Color me relieved. My brown stock is set to simmer the night away and it looks pretty good. I went with the simpler route and roasted the lot. I have been taking lots of photos and will post them tomorrow. My question is this: You mentioned that deglazing the roasting pan would be a bad idea as the fat from this process is sort of rank. When I was done roasting, I had a significant amount of liquid (maybe should have roasted more?) which I, uh, dumped in the pot. Should I have not done this? It just seemed like good stuff.

I once torched a bag of popcorn and got yelled at by my co-workers. Since then I'v been too scared to go near the dang micro. I usually try to keep some banana chips. There is a grocery store about half a block away so I don't really need to keep anything. Get me some fried chicken!

I have reduced my chicken stock by about half and placed a portion in the fridge. It didn't gel. Did I not reduce enough or did I really mess something up? Beef stock is tonight. I took a cup or so of the chicken stock out and made a simple soup from it. It was wonderful! Thanks for guiding me through a process I should have tried a long time ago. Too bad I already tossed out the chicken fat instead of rendering it.

I think creamy, savory soups are the way to go. Maybe a spoon bread like indian pudding. Cheesy grits are very tasty. Do you think you would have to chew a cold salad made with very fine couscous? It might be a little hard going down, though, as it isn't as moist. I think you are losing out on a fine opportunity to go beer and ice cream for a month.

My mom has the same weird affliction. She often burns one of those scented candles in the kitchen so you then have wisteria three cheese lasagna. BLECH! I forgot to add the smell of seal fat being melted and the smell of a salmon cannery. Two smells I could go a lifetime without smelling again.

I really like the smell a roasting chicken makes. The last time I made one it even smelled good out on the street. One of the smells I like the least is when my dad processes beef fat scraps to make suet for the birds. The best thing you can say about this process is the seasoning on his cast iron pans is to die for.

I have a stupid question. Is there such a thing as pork or ham stock? There are certainly a lot of soups that have ham as a flavor in them like those with beans or potatoes. I think red-eye gravy is also based on ham. Is there no call for ham/pork stock? Is it just that it doesn't take very long to get the flavor out of a hambone so you can toss it in the dish?

This snake stick thing is creeping me out. Do they make Mountain Dew out of these things? Edited for spelling

What was your family food culture when you were growing up? My food culture was Midwestern Germanic. Meat with a side of meat sort of thing. My grandma's house was very traditional midwest farmhouse. Breakfast was a simple affair. Dinner was served late afternoon and usually was burned meat with gravy, bread, jam, jello something or other, mashed potatoes, cooked veggies, and lots of coffee. Supper was this again out of the fridge. Summer brought lots of produce in Iowa and Grandma kept three gardens so it was plentiful. Eating at home was simpler. It was just burned. Was meal time important? We almost always ate supper together. It wasn't about the food, it was to hold us together. The actual time of the meal was unimportant and often depended on what sporting season it was. My father was a small town coach and we would schedule our meals to fit around baseball, basketball, you name it. The meal was a vehicle to get an audience together to tell stories to. Storytelling is a family pastime. Was cooking important? My mother, wonderful woman that she is, is one of the crappiest cooks I have ever met. Thank god she doesn't use the internet much and will never read this. Eating as a family was important, food was a sidebar. Holidays were a different matter entirely. Then food took center stage and mom turned out a wonderful turkey with good German stuffing that looked dazzling on the sideboard. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? In my mother's house, manners were optional. I often was the most uptight about these things, telling my father how disGUSting sucking taco off of your fingers is. Manners at Grandma's were farmhouse manners. Elbows were on the table just as often as gravy which means every meal. But mess something or be rude to her and your will get a beatin' which my backside learned when I spread a full glass of milk across her impeccable formica. Who cooked in the family? My mother had cooking included in her job description which I think she felt suckered into. Mom hates cooking and it shows. The woman burns everything including soup. She would hit on something and stick to it for months at a time. I remember about a five months of chalky, over-cooked chicken breasts pan fried with two cans of mushrooms. My dad built our house and, during the construction, we spent a year with a utility sink and a microwave as a kitchen. We ate microwave hotdogs and meatloaf... for a year. I feel that I also should mention that the temporary toilet was in the same room as the micro and sink which also reinforced just how I felt about those meals. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? We sometimes ate chinese. There was this little restaurant at the edge of nowhere when I was a kid called Peking Palace. Now they have a huge fancy place but, back then, they shared space with a bike shop. When I was very young, the lady who ran the kitchen would come out and show me how to use chopsticks. She didn't speak my language and I didn't speak hers but I can use chopsticks thanks to her. I never understood how strange this experience was until I grew up and realized how ethnically homogenous Iowa really is. I ate a lot of ballpark popcorn during the summer which counts, I suppose. It was a real treat to get a paper cup full of Coke and some popcorn as I watched my dad call the shots from the 3rd baseline. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? At Grandma's the kiddy table was huge and the highlight! I had cousins and cousins and cousins. Hell, I had kids of cousins. It was a crazy kid fest. We would have gravy poured over white bread, fudge brownies and grandpa's ice cream till we puked then go out and harrass my aunt's prize chickens. If grandpa was having a good time, we would get great stories about the wild times he had as a youth. My mother didn't approve as grandpa used the word "damn" like some people use the word "uh." When did you get that first sip of wine? Wine? you mean like Night Train or Thunderbird? Was there a pre-meal prayer? We were not religious except for my grandma. Once a year my grandma hosted a pancake breakfast for her church group. All these white-haired ladies and hunched over old men in seed caps scattered over the lawn, eating cakes off of paper plates. Grandpa would sit on the porch and walk down the steps to flip the pancakes and would refuse to sit with god's people. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? Our rotating menu consisted of several weeks of this then several weeks of that. My sack lunch was half a bologna sandwich with an apple until I hit 14 when it switched to half a dried beef sandwich. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Well, I like to think that I can cook better than mom. Her burn everything till cinder mentality made an impact on me, though. When asked how I like my beef I say "as rare as you feel comfortable with." I try to harrass my boyfriend into eating at the table and listening to my crazy stories but it rarely happens. It is a part of my life I miss more than I can say.

I made this recipe last night and it turned out well. I baked instead of grilling since I don't have a grill and I think the texture could have used improvement. I think I will have to get out the grill pan next time. Another problem I ran into was I had no fenugreek. There isn't a single place in town that sells it. I looked at five grocers and two Philippino mini-marts without any luck. To try to make up for this, I added some commercially prepared curry powder high in fenugreek and a small amount of celery seed. I am not sure if this made up for the fact or created a bastard child but the taste was still good. A local grocer has started carrying fire roasted tomatos by Muir Glen. I used them hoping to make up for the loss of grilly taste and I think it helped a bit. Meanwhile, I need to mail order some fenugreek for future use. I might try out that link as well.

The crab meat gratin sounds easy and good. I like crab meat done that way stuffed into mushroom caps and broiled. Simple but tasty. Crust the salmon? Hmmm...... Usually I do my salmon pretty simple. I hit upon a modification of my salsa recipe which adds some peach or mango to it and it goes great with grilled salmon rubbed with a bit of salt and lots of pepper. I think I am going to try a salmon steak with some grilled tomatos and polenta styled after a recent meal had at a nice restaurant. I think the sunny flavors will go well with summer. I am intrigued with this crusted salmon idea. The wheels are turning. Of course, the wheels are very tiny so it is going to take a while.

Thanks to a friend of mine I was just saddled with a huge amount of sockeye steaks, a chunk of halibut bigger than my head, and a lot of king crab. I am taking suggestions on the crab. It is about a pound of frozen king crab leg meat and I am running a blank. Anyone have a favorite crab recipe?

fajitas. I have it down to a quick routine in the kitchen and I usually have the major components on hand. Plus they are pretty tasty as leftovers as well.

I don't get the bread and butter / sweet pickle relish myself but I do like kosher dills with my tuna salad. I have to admit to really liking tuna salad. I make mine with some finely diced celery, onion, garlic, and parsley and add in some mayo, mustard, pepper, and dillweed. I can't take credit for this as I got the idea out of "Cook's." I think sweet pickle relish is yucky in almost everything. I consider the pickles to go into relish to be the bad pickles they couldn't sell whole. Now, having seen some nasty ass pickles in my day, I can't imagine how bad the relish pickles had to be. I have no idea if this is true. BTW, I once got a big 'ol piece of corn cob in a jar of kosher dills. It didn't taste too bad.

Well, I have been mulling all this great advice over and I have come to a few conclusions: 1. I need to use more water and more salt. 2. I need to acquire a stone. Please don't laugh, not everyone has one! I had a dose of luck, though. A lady at work has just donated hers to me and it is sitting in my cube as I type. Yippy! 3. I need to stop letting it rise after I punch it. I don't know what I was thinking, I was getting some lovely oven spring but it's exactly what I don't want. 4. I need to age the dough a bit in the fridge. After making pizza twice this week, I am giving it a rest until this weekend. Plus, I have some contract work on a very tight deadline. PLUS it is sunny outside which, as Beans knows, is a reason to drop all effort and head for the woods! I will be trying pizza at least once this weekend following some of the suggestions I've been given. I'll even take pictures.

Well, I guess I am trying for something at either extreme. Either a nice crispy pizza that isn't too dry OR a nice thick and chewy one. I think that the thick pizza appeals to me more. I am mostly thinking about taste. I want a wonderful, heady shot of really great bread taste, the kind you get when you have great focaccia or ciabatta ( pardon my spelling). I have thought about finding a good recipe for one of those but, after a few tries, I can't even get focaccia to turn out much better than Wal-Mart bakery quality. I refuse to throw in the towel. I will master good bread starting with pizza crust! I am going home to look up my recipe. Right now I am cheating my employer out of the time they pay me for. I would feel guilty if I wasn't so obsessed with eating.

Rare is the moment when I wish I owned a TV. I wish I owned a TV. Is anyone taping these?

I am using Gold Medal Bread flour which is relatively high in gluten. I could try adding some gluten to the mix. I think you might be on to something, my dough never seems to work itself up to that really stretchy, rip-resistant stage I am wanting even if I knead the stuff to death. I am using fresh yeast, maybe a little too active. My house recently switched to a quick rise yeast (boyfriend's idea) and we keep it in the freezer. It is a fairly fresh bottle of granular quick rise yeast, Red Star brand.

I really enjoy baking pizza at home but the crust I make is completely white bread blah. I am using the basic french bread recipe from Julia Child's Way to Cook with some olive oil mixed in. One rise, punch it down, let it rest, roll it out, brush it with more oil, top it, bake it in a relatively hot oven. It comes out like I have slapped some sauce and cheese on a slice of Wonder. I think it is crazy to go to the work of making dough to have it turn out so boring. I am no baker so I have tried improving what I am putting on the pizza but I know that I am at a dead end until my dough improves. Is there anything I should be doing to the recipe I already have to improve it or do I need to abandon it in favor of another? I am open to anything. I adore pizza and want to make a worthy pie at home.

What is this Bandits movie you folks are talking about? I did a search for it on Internet Movie Datbase and didn't come up with anything that sounded like a match. Big Night is wonderful and always makes me hungry. When they unmold that giant ball of foody goodness I want to climb through the screen.

A honey-maid is a lemonade where instead of sugar they use honey, or at least partially honey. It mostly tastes like honey water with a dash of acid but nothing tastes better after a day of hot, muggy sunburn. The stands for Honey-maids are at the Iowa State Fair but I don't remember seeing them at other fairs.

I have never tried chapatis but my tortillas always turn out lopsided and too thick! From seeing my friend Shalini make chapatis, isn't it a similar process? I have made Aloo Gobi. I liked it but my fellow diners did not. Mine was roasted in the oven and asked for a dash of mint extract. Mine came out way too minty but with a satisfying dry roasted texture. Next time it is fresh mint all the way.

I enjoy blue cheese, smoked salmon, thinly sliced steak, candied walnuts.... but not all of them at the same time. I had a really great salad the other day with asparagus, bacon, and blue cheese. I think it is a new fave.

A lot of type II diabetics do try an Atkin's style low-carb diet although many dietitians don't support it. I think it is a combination of a diabetic's susceptibility to ketoacidosis, hypoglycemia, and similar conditions and the lack of medical research on very low/no-carb diets. There are some diabetics that really succeed and live very healthy on a low-carb diet... some could even say it saved their lives.