Katie Meadow

Basically I hate the cooking channel and I hate reality shows, but this show is hilarious! I'm a little confused about the weather around the tent, although it only adds to the mystique and otherworldliness of the whole thing: sometimes the contestants are wearing summery clothes and wiping their brows, then you see Paul and Mary in down jackets, all interspersed with idyllic bees in the flowers and lovely black lambs eating their way through the perfect blooming countryside. You never see Paul and Mary in the rain outside the tent, but often it's pouring rain while the bakers are working. It's all good!

My experience is the same as Munchymom's, but it has been a long time since I had a toaster with that automatic mechanism or a toaster with those instructions. This should be an easy one to prove or disprove. Does anyone have a toaster without the auto feature that says "one slice"? If so, some brain cells will be toast by the time this mystery is solved. Toasters. I worship at the altar of their imperfections. Rebellion is admirable.

The potato salad least likely to win my heart is the one where you can't locate the potatoes; and that's the most common kind in delis, BBQ shops, and potlucks. I love potato salad, but it should be all about the potatoes! I can't think of another dish that lends itself to so many variations, except maybe slaw. In summer, when good yukon golds or fingerlings are abundant I make a lot of potato salad, and I rarely make it exactly the same way twice. When I look at recipes for potato salad my main criteria are as follows: 1) Russets are best in latkes, not potato salad 2) If the recipe says it feeds 6 it shouldn't require a cup of mayo. I swear by this: potato salads benefit from the following step: when the potatoes are still very warm, cut them up and sprinkle generously with salt and vinegar. Let them sit at least 10 minutes before adding the rest of your ingredients, and then don't forget you already put in some vinegar. Lately I am liking various types of pickles in my potato salad, not just standard bread and butter types. Japanese style pickles can work great. I added some pickled kohlrabi to a potato salad recently--also yummy.

Go for it, Darienne! About the mango pickle: I have now tried a couple of others, but I am liking the Pakistani one best. I found an Israeli one that is soupy and salty and another one I didn't care for either. I'm now pretty attached to the National brand peeled mango pickled in oil. Some of the jars say Kasundi, which means peeled mango as far as I can tell. I found mine in a dusty middle eastern grocery store. Amazon does sell it as well, but it's cheaper if you can find a local source or even a different on line source. I find that the flavor is good, it isn't too salty, has a medium hot factor that works well. The chunks of mango are a bit big and sometimes I just chop them up a bit. Of course the mango pickle is only one of many elements in the sandwich but the flavor is pretty forward, so it's a personal choice. I think my jar cost about $2.99. Making my own mango pickle would be nice, but that's the price of a couple of mangos right there! And I suspect it would take a lot of trial and error to come up with one that I really like. I'll wait until eG is clamoring for a mango pickle cook-off.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a mango tree in the back yard here in Oakland? I'm open to making my own Amba but haven't investigated sources for green mangoes. Nor have I tried yet to find a bakery that turns out good pita bread that's local; my experience of pita bread in restaurants isn't encouraging. Perhaps the toasting of pita bread is most useful for mediocre product. Love the idea of turning the ingredients into a salad--warm eggplant with cool salads and various pickles and a drizzle of tahini dressing. So looking forward to real tomatoes this summer!

I'm in love! This is my new favorite sandwich. And to think that I could have been eating this for the past six decades, if only I had heard of it. Does anyone else adore this? It is cooked or fried eggplant in a pita pocket along with the usual falafel suspects and some of the not so usual. Word has it that Iraqi Jews who emigrated to Israel brought some of the stuffing ingredients and adopted the pita to put them in and it evolved as a street food alternative to falafel. But I like it better, and cooking the eggplant is easier than making your own falafel. Additions to the eggplant include an Israeli-type tomato and cucumber salad, tahini sauce, hard boiled egg slices, Israeli pickles, hummus and most interesting of all an Israeli version of mango chutney or mango pickle called Amba. And to top it off, zhoug or schug, a fiery green sauce made from cilantro, parsley, chiles, etc. We used to have a great falafel place that served zhoug on the side, but alas, no more. For lack of options I have made my own zhoug (easy and messy) but finding the Amba has been a challenge. I found a mango pickle imported from Pakistan that's pretty tasty, and I've been using that. For the record, I can live without the egg slices but my husband liked them. And I don't see the need for hummus if you have a nice tahini dressing to slather in. The extra step to grill or heat the pita is worth it. I used my comal and treated my pita like a tortilla. For the eggplant several recipes just call for frying or sautéing it without any coating, but I found the best way is how you would do it for eggplant parmesan: a dip in egg and then a light coating of seasoned flour. That way you really don't need a lot oil. Anyway, this is about the most exciting and exotic sandwich; the mango pickle just knocks it out of the park.

When my daughter was little she adored that TJ's cinnamon roll bread toasted with butter. Very rich! I prefer my cinnamon toast to be just plain toast with a dusting of cinnamon sugar, but for those craving something a bit more sinful this bread does the job and then some.

Life is short and getting shorter! Find another use for it or give it to the Goodwill or toss it. A free dangerous $13 cutting board isn't worth what's left of your precious brain cells.

Hi Anna, I soak bulgur when making tabouli or when adding a bit of grain to a meat loaf (no one would ever guess it was in there). But most other times I treat bulgur much the way I do rice, and precook it like so: toast in saucepan with a little butter and salt. When it smells toasty good (really only a few minutes) I add the water, let it come to a boil, turn it way down to a low simmer and cover for about 15 minutes or until it just starts sticking to the bottom. Then I let it sit for five minutes covered to de-stick itself. If I plan to use it room temp or baked in the oven with other ingredients then I take the cover off, let it cool a bit, fluff it with a fork and maybe put it on a larger surface to cool faster. When cooking, I use 1 cup of bulgur to 2 cups of water, or a bit less water if I want a lot of bite or if I am going to bake it in a casserole. Although I've never noticed that a casserole cooked with minimal liquid softens the texture of the bulgur. Whichever I do I try not to use any more water than necessary. Trying to drain bulgur or other grain is a pain, and using soggy wet bulgur doesn't do it justice. I can't imagine what an hour and a half do to bulgur. That just seems bizarre. My two current favorite recipes for bulgur are a room temp salad with wilted chard, green olives and pine nuts, and a casserole that is baked with roasted or sautéed cauliflower and sautéed chard, a little tomato and optional modest amount of cheese, as desired. I like less cheese, my husband likes more, so usually it's with....less. Super low tech, super comforting and just as good the next day reheated. Always part of the plan. Hope this helps some!

Also worth considering are the thin flat lasagne noodles ( no ripply edges) that you DO boil, but which take about a quarter of the time to cook and are relatively easy to handle. Not typically a super market item, but they are often very high quality. Found in Italian delis or specialty stores that stock a lot of imported pasta.

I just chalk it up to the category I call "Recipes with Lobster." In that dump go all recipes with truffles, more than a pint of whipping cream or anything using ramps, which don't live in these parts. I grew up on the upper west side and I never once saw an outdoor grill until I moved to New Mexico for college. Okay I will admit to a high level of crankiness when it comes to the Times food section. I used to enjoy it, but these days I find it out to lunch most weeks. Am I deluded or are there fewer useful recipes? Where's Dexter Wells when you need him? Please don't tell me he's closed his bedroom door and plays video games all day. A column by Dexter would be most appreciated! In the interest of full disclosure, our (very basic) Weber gas grill succumbed to old age and we have been without a grill for two years. The prices are so scary! Plus we recently had to choose between a lobster and a replacement for our leaky roof. Hence the crankiness. High five, Jo!

Shain, thanks so much, planning to make them soon!

Looks lovely. I'm into making biscotti lately, especially made with olive oil. Can you post the recipe?

When a recipe calls for cooked or barely tender cauliflower I find that sautéing florets in butter or olive oil is always superior to microwaving or boiling or steaming. Add salt and pepper halfway through, add minced garlic toward the end. If you set heat at medium or medium low you can get golden cauliflower that is still has some bite and rich flavor. The recipe for the kugel above sounds like you are almost making cauliflower rice, so the pieces are very small, but I think you could still sauté them and get better flavor.

At this point Korean tacos are probably considered traditional, but I still love them and they are what I usually do with gochujang. There are many recipes on line, most derived from Roy Choi's celebrated LA taco truck. They are infinitely adaptable and you can use the hot paste straight or mixed into a "BBQ" sauce. I've made them with beef, pulled pork and chicken. Equally good toppings include kimchi, kimchee slaw or a quick cucumber pickle. Actually I am partial to a Korean burrito, which adds rice to the mix and wraps up with a flour tortilla rather than corn.

At the risk of repeating myself after posting in the Pistachio ice cream thread, I highly recommend the Sicilian Villa Reale paste. I ended up eating it out of the jar and I won't say how long that jar lasted, so I can't attest to how it bakes or what ice cream made with it is like. Would love recipes for shortbread or cake etc. using this stuff!

I ordered a Sicilian product, Villa Reale Pistachio spread, from Amazon. It comes in a trendy thick glass square jar. For approx $15 you get 7.5 oz. I did not make ice cream with it, although I had every intention of baking with it. In fact, I didn't make anything at all, because by the time I was ready to make something I had eaten up most of it by the spoonful. It was delicious. If anyone has a good recipe for cookies or shortbread or cake I would be into that, but until I have a recommended recipe I think it unwise to order more and see it disappear the same way. I'm tempted, though.

Raspberry sauce is my favorite dress-up for lots of fruits and cakes and sorbets. No cooking, so easy and so just raspberry: 1 1/2 cup fresh raspberries, 1/4 cup sugar, (or to taste) ,1 T framboise. Dump into the processor and...process. Then use a coarse strainer to strain out the seeds. The original recipe came from a simple fruit dessert in which fresh pineapple rings were laid to rest in a puddle of sauce. I love it with lemon or buttermilk sorbet and plain or lemony cakes or drizzled over fresh peaches. I imagine it would be nice with cheesecake, too. Or with biscuits or on pancakes...

We're drinking Green Hornets! That's 2 parts rye, 1/2 part Fernet and 1/2 part Chartreuse. Our house rye is Bulleit, and the Fernet I like best is Jelinek, so that's what we used, along with green Chartreuse. Anything made with Fernet isn't timid, but that's okay by me. Best go-with so far: La Panzanella crackers with a modest smear of TJ's Hot & Sweet Chile Jam topped with a thin slice of young Manchego. Yummy.

Seeing as you are in NM the obvious suggestion is fish tacos! When I lived in NM (60's and early 70's) we never ate fish; it was rarely if ever fresh, if sold at all. Back then no one ever heard of Baja tacos, but I'm sure you have the rest of the fixins close at hand. Cod is just right for fish tacos, whether you bbq it or batter it first.

Seeing this thread I too was made seriously nostalgic about rice pudding, and I made the simplest version possible the other day using arborio rice, two percent milk, sugar and vanilla bean seeds. Very plain but very satisfying. I'm after a creamy textured rice pudding, but one that doesn't use gobs of butter or multiple egg yolks or heavy cream. I'm definitely a fan of using arborio rice. Then I came across a risotto rice pudding recipe, for which incremental amounts of milk are added during cooking until mostly absorbed, as for risotto. Does anyone here use this method?

Oh yeah, hot dogs in cassoulet. Doesn't everyone do that? Duck confit is so yesterday. Jaymes, I totally agree with everything you said. Life is short, indeed, and in the end a hot dog in Sunday gravy is something we can all live with.

Let's face it: Americans have some weird ideas about food. Personally the thought of dropping a hot dog into a glamorous and lovingly tended Sunday Gravy is sort of wicked, or at the very least passive aggressive, but stranger things have definitely been done. Especially to hot dogs. And especially for children with limited eating habits. The same people who would like that probably put ketchup on their hot dogs too.

You can easily put together a sauce using the following: oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, a little broth or water, a little sesame oil if you think that flavor complements the dish or reminds you of the one you had. See how that goes and then start messing with the ingredients or the ratio of ingredients to make adjustments. That's just a very basic non-bean based sauce. If oyster sauce doesn't seem right, you might try hoisin sauce instead, but--just a guess here--it is more likely oyster sauce was used. For a basic beef stir-fry I would probably use oyster sauce for a bit of body. If the dish was simply called sizzling beef you might look up other sizzling recipes and get ideas for the technique as well.

I wait all year for rhubarb, which has a relatively short season in the stores here in the Bay Area. Not only does it not look that great, but it has become very pricey over the last few years. I'm so envious of you with your wild patches! Once in a while I see it at the Farmers' Market, but last spring I bought some and was disappointed, as it had little color and less flavor, despite being organic, semi-local and expensive. I guess it doesn't grow very well where winters are warm (and getting warmer.)