Katie Meadow

Just a very quick google search reveals that there isn't a lot of mystery or confusion about what is a currant, dried or otherwise. The dried currants we typically see in this country are known as zante currants. They are in fact grapes, very small grapes, aka champagne grapes (not to be confused with the grapes used to make sparkling wine in the Champagne region of France.) They were originally known as Corinth grapes, as noted above, but no one seems to call them that any more. In season we get fresh champagne grapes which are adorable and very sweet. When you buy dried currants to put in scones or granola they are really just tiny raisins make from these grapes. Years ago when I was in New Mexico I lived in a house that had real currant bushes, both red and black. Both were delicious, but they are definitely a berry and grow on a bush rather than a vine. I can't remember the last time I saw them sold fresh or dried around here Perhaps the plant is more common in the UK, but they do grow here and they didn't seem to need any special attention. They were so so good. It could be they thrive with a lot of water. My bushes were right near an irrigation ditch which was regularly flooded during the growing season.

On the bottle I have now the name Lion & Globe is in tiny print running vertically. Look for the cartoon lion, then check the label.

Lion and Globe is also my preferred peanut oil for stir fry. It has a very pure peanut taste, so I don't consider it a neutral oil either. Given that I use my wok at least twice a week, buying a large bottle in Chinatown is the most efficient way to go. I do use Rice Bran oil, but mostly for certain Asian style salad dressings and slaws.

I love my Nutri Ninja Pro. It works far better for most drinks than my blender, which is a modest priced NOT high powered blender. It is smaller and so much easier to clean. And it effectively deals with ice. My standard blender gets dragged out very rarely these days, mostly for soups. Sometimes I wish I had a high power blender, but that's mostly if I ever watch Rick Bayless cooking on TV. I use the Ninja enough to justify its place on the counter. When I bought it I considered the Magic Bullet, but research seemed to favor the Ninja when I checked them both out.

Making your own ingredients, whether for alcoholic drinks or any foods or sauces, really depends upon the availability of time, dissatisfaction with or difficulty of obtaining commercial products, price differential, and fun. Two of the "from scratch" cocktail ingredients I find pleasurable to make and worth the time are flavored simple syrups and homemade shrubs. You can't beat shrubs you make from high quality fresh fruit when available. Both have uses in non-alcoholic drinks as well. Lavender simple syrup is a great addition to fresh lemonade and for baking. I've used flavored simple syrups and shrubs as additions to home-made applesauce and rhubarb. As for infusing tobacco, peyote or lamb chops in alcohol, I can't think of a more unappealing way to poison yourself. I know people do make bacon infused drinks, but you can also use smoky tea and it's far easier to make a cuppa than smoke a pig. If I went to the effort of making my own bacon (not gonna, but admire others who do) dropping it in a glass of vodka would be at the bottom of a long list of fun ways to eat consume it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_breakfast_cereals This is a pretty comprehensive list of cereals. The article notes which cereals changed names but don't note the date of that change, which is too bad. For instance Corn Pops are listed as 1951 and it is noted they were originally called Sugar Pops. They don't say when the name was changed. I must have eaten a lot of Sugar Pops and Rice Krispies. My parents ate a lot of toasted English muffins and never made a hot breakfast except on weekends. One of the most interesting aspects of cereal consumption was that the boxes provided reading material and business opportunities, so reading and math skills became an integral part of breakfast. Sending box-tops in for a toy became a way of negotiating and parents were not any part of it. Wasn't that the first time you ever put a stamp on an envelope and wrote an address on it without being prompted or cajoled? My husband goes a step further. He claims he learned his first lesson in cheating: that if you sent the box-bottom in for another toy it always worked. Too bad my brain has deteriorated. I remember the cereals I ate, but not the ones my daughter, 28, had when she was little. I do know that whatever she was eating my husband was eating as well. He remembers mini-wheats (sometimes frosted) and cheerios (regular) as part of their regular breakfast in the 90's. If my husband (the shopper) brought home Shredded Wheat or Chex I would eat that once in a while, but I was already married to toast. I think it's funny how much nostalgia there is over cold cereal for boomers and gen x-ers. My only real nostalgic moment over cereal now comes if I open a fresh box of cheerios. That heady smell doesn't last long; by evening the thrill is gone. But I haven't done that for years.

About roasting poblanos: I spent my twenties living in New Mexico, and the plastic bag method was pretty common. But recently I've discovered that you don't need so much moisture to easily peel a chile. Now I just put the roasted blistered chiles on a cookie sheet and cover loosely with a damp towel. Within ten minutes they are a snap to peel and the final product has far more structure since there is far less "sweating" involved. And structure is the goal here, hence the wisdom of picking out chiles that are not twisted. My preferred method of roasting is the broiler, so I can do a large number at a time. I've never tried using my comal, but I should see what that's like. I do agree that the faster the roast the better, since overcooking the chiles makes them limp and harder to work with.

Liuzhou, I realized I didn't know where you are, so I looked it up. Pictures of Guangxi province look amazing, but given the sub-tropical climate it isn't surprising lamb is uncommon. I love that combo of lamb and cumin, but I assume that's part of a northwestern Chinese cuisine. Seems you are eating a lot of donkey these days! I had no idea.

Millennials are generally children of the baby boomers. They follow Generation X, so the oldest millennials were born in the early eighties. The exact definition is of course fluid, but it is generally considered about a twenty year span. Some define the cutoff as late as 2004, but I think it is easiest to use 9/11 as an approximate birth of the youngest millennials. If you are younger than 15 you've never known a world without camera phones.

I grew up eating english muffins or cold cereal: Sugar Pops, Frosted Flakes, Rice Crispies, Chex and Trix...that generation. And yes, I did order sea monkeys once. Those individual perforated boxes were definitely a highlight of childhood. I just eat toast with marmalade now. My husband is a treasure trove of cereal memorabilia, mostly stories that revolve around squabbling siblings or intense study of the back of the box. He still eats a bowl of cereal every morning after several slices of toast. And he still leaves 2 tablespoons of cereal in the box so no one can accuse him of finishing it off. This thread made me realize I haven't any idea what our millenial daughter does for breakfast, so I just quizzed her. She claims she actually eats cold cereal with milk and fruit once in a while, but typically she slaps together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and eats that when she gets to work. She says she ate a lot of oatmeal during her poverty stricken grad school years, since it was much cheaper than cold cereal. It really is amazing how much a box of cereal costs now.

What does the Dial-O-Matic do that the Benriner doesn't? I never heard of this contraption. Probably because in the 50's and 60's I wasn't doing any cooking, really, and my mother wasn't into kitchen gadgets or cooking much either. She did have a great passion for celery root remoulade, but I haven't a clue how she julienned anything. And when I was a teenager I didn't care what she was doing anyway. I did end up buying the Benriner wide body, and I love it. So simple! Great for citrus slices. That deBuyer mandoline is never going to see any action in my house. I'm completely intimidated by it.

One of my reliable and easy soups--one which I typically have all the ingredients for on hand--is a basic Italian tomato soup with rice. It is just onion, garlic, celery or fennel, half a can of good plum tomatoes, chicken or other broth and rice. I like to use arborio rice, and if I have some I will add swiss chard or Tuscan Kale or peas. But really it's a simple comfort soup that can be made when sick or when there is nothing but staples in the house. I also have a recipe kicking around that I've never made called "Smoky Tomato Soup" which is put together in a way that doesn't appeal to me, but which has one remarkable ingredient: lapsang souchong tea. Other recipes for smoky soups usually include the flavor of chipotles or smoked paprika, but I that's not what I wanted. So I decided to simply add some smoky tea to my regular recipe. The smoky soup recipe calls for steeping the tea in chicken broth, but that just seems totally weird. So instead I made a strong cup of the tea and tossed it in shortly after adding the broth to the mix. To my surprise it was really a great addition, and gave no extra flavor except the smokiness to the soup. The one cup of strong tea was pretty subtle and it would be interesting to see how it tastes with stronger brew.

This morning's NYT has a hilarious article about this. A snippet: An editorial in The Daily Telegraph, a conservative British newspaper, noted that the virtue of the traditional French croissant was its foreignness. “They must not be sliced in two, like buns to be buttered,” it observed. “They must be torn, and each morsel eaten with jam, even alien apricot jam, if wanted.” The editorial added: “Otherwise nature is outraged, floods will again sweep the land and murrains strike our cattle. Or we could just stick with toast.”

Never heard of Krion, but I went to the website. There isn't much emphasis on residential kitchens as far as I can tell, so perhaps it has been used mostly in commercial venues up to now? Caesarstone is the only composite countertop I have any experience with, but my counters are a dark shade and staining has not been an issue at all. I would expect seams to show more in lighter, uniform surfaces, Several years ago I saw a spectacular kitchen. The entire kitchen, and I mean ALL vertical surfaces --drawer and cabinets as well as countertops and molded sink-- were done in snow white corian. Never seen anything like it since, but it was very dramatic.

I say yes to anything called a Moroccan Quickie. They would be a terrific side in an Israeli salad plate or garnish in a falafel sandwich along with the cucumbers. My latest quick pickle was Watermelon radish. Excellent texture, most gorgeous deep pink color that bleeds to the edge of the slices and into the brine as well. Besides straight from jar to maw, I've discovered many uses for them. Shredded or julienned they give a kick to slaw and I also liked them as a sub for pickled red onion in tacos. I could see them in banh mi by themselves or perhaps as an addition to the usual daikon and carrot mix. The ones I used have a little more bite than daikon. Would make a striking combo with those bright orange carrots.

My marmalade is usually 90 to 100 percent Seville oranges. We will fill in as necessary if the oranges we get are not as juicy as they might be and we need more juice in order to make 6 full half pints per batch. The Sevilles we get are not especially juicy, compared to many other oranges or citrus fruits, so if we are short we will top off our juice with a grapefruit, lemons, a lime, a bergamot when available, various sweeter oranges. A couple of meyer lemons or half a grapefruit really doesn't make a lot of difference in the flavor; but a whole bergamot can. I've had terrific lemon-lime marmalade and grapefruit marmalade, but I haven't made them myself. I should try, because it would probably be cheaper than using the Sevilles that show up two months out of the year. I find the trickiest part when not using a juice mix with the approx bitter/sour taste of Sevilles is getting the amount of sugar right. I like my marmalade to be pretty bitter, but a "low sugar" marmalade implies one of two things: you are going to find it inedible or you may end up standing over the pot boiling it forever. When you say "low sugar" are you meaning you would use some type of sugar substitute? I wish I knew more about the science, but I believe the ratio of sugar to fruit to pips (or gelling ingredient) all has bearing on how long the marmalade takes to reach set up stage and whether it sets up the way you like it.

I have made two dishes in the book and eaten a third at a friend's. Most recently I made the Massaman curry, which was really good. My only complaint was that in order to braise the chicken with liquid that covers you need a lot of liquid and the dish ends up more like soup. Still very good. The next day I drained off some of the liquid and reduced it for a less soupy curry. Very very good. This is just the kind of dish that leftovers were made for. A great use for dark meat chicken. I chronicled my experience with the Beef Noodle Soup on the thread Beef Cuts for Soup. Fabulous flavorful stock, but the meat needed more cook time since it wasn't the tenderest cut. Totally worth tweaking. A friend served the Miso Glazed Eggplant and it was quite nice. Not my favorite way to eat eggplant, but good. He says he makes it frequently, and he also likes the recipe for Oshitashi. He is an enthusiastic reader of LP magazine, which I am not. He just returned from Japan and although he loves this book he used the term "dumbed down" for some of the recipes. I don't agree. I would say there are some short cuts, but they make sense and the results are quality. Plus I think the suggestions up front for pantry staples are well thought out. I'm not a stranger to Asian food, and have been cooking Viet dishes and various wontons and pot stickers and stir-fry for some time. I also have taken an intensive week-long class in Thai cooking. I see this book as a very useful basic resource. The recipes include lots of classics that you have probably eaten if you eat Asian food out and for the most part they are not tricky and are forgiving if you lack either time or esoteric ingredients. Unique to this book is that the range of recipes covers a wide swath of Asian foods, which is different than most specialized Asian cookbooks. The LP cuteness self-congratulatory factor is just short of annoying, but to make up for it the authors do seem genuinely friendly. I'm happy that there is a thread dedicated to this book and will continue to post in it as I work through the recipes. Don't expect a systematic Chris Hennes treatment! Right now I'm having a love affair with potato kugel.

Am I correct in assuming that whatever meat on the bones used to make a Pho broth is not worth eating after 12 hours? And by the way, thanks to all who made suggestions. I have a plan for next time I make the Lucky Peach beef soup, incorporating many of them.

I admit that it took me until now to be willing to even look at a thread called Pig Face. Being a big fan of the book "Childhood's End" I made the mistake of watching the recent television version, which was just dreadful. However, Cameron does bear a resemblance to Karellen. I don't know if I would eat her, but I am uncomfortably curious as to how she ends up.

Yeah, 'Snakes in a Pot! Tried and true, them rattlers.

I served the soup with fresh Chinese wheat noodles and Choi sum. There were four of us, and the consensus was that parts of the meat were tender and other parts were tough and unappealing; and that would be parts of the same slice. So my takeaway is to try beef shanks from another source and see if I can get better quality. The recipe said to simmer for 2 hrs, and I actually added an extra 15 or 20 minutes. I don't really think that the tough parts of the meat would have gotten any better for more cooking--there was a lot of gristle and fiber threaded through it. I would have been very happy just having the broth with the noodles and greens, but not all meat-eaters agree, especially not my husband and nephew. Franci, that photo looks scrumptious. And your treatment of the marrow is great. My mother used to pull the marrow out of the bone after it cooked for an hour or so and eat it spread on fresh rye bread with a sprinkle of salt. Sometimes she shared, sometimes not!

I make lots of stock and lots of soups, but rarely do they involve beef. So I'm cooking from my new xmas gift, the Lucky Peach 101 etc and the Beef Noodle soup looks awfully good. Yesterday I made the broth. The recipe calls for boneless beef shank. The only shank meat I could get was cut in 1 1/2 inch thick slices through the bone, but I figured, how could adding the bone with marrow not be a good thing? I cut the meat into a few pieces, as the recipe suggested and proceeded to make the soup base as directed. The broth is fantastic! Really rich, flavorful, perfect. However, the shank meat after 2 hours at a low simmer is nothing to write home about. Parts of it aren't bad, but parts of it are very tough and gristly. Not exactly fall off the bone tender and not what I would hope for since the recipe calls for the beef added to the soup along with noodles and greens. Notes with the recipe sing the praises of the meat for sandwiches, beef pancake, etc. so either David Chang gets some super special shanks when he goes to the butcher or I should try another source for shank meat. Berkeley Bowl is pretty good for most meats, so it isn't like I was buying some cheap off-cut. What cut of beef do you like for making broth and using in the soup? Perhaps short ribs would have been a good idea? Or a combination, using some bone-in shank for extra flavor, but counting on the short ribs for soup meat? What do you think, you habitual beef lovers?

Thanks!

I have a de Buyer mandoline. It comes in a case that looks to be made for a clarinet and is probably way more annoying to put together. I hate it. In the time it takes me to set it up I could have sliced by hand enough potatoes for Potatoes Anna and have no dishes to wash or jigsaw puzzle pieces to put in the case. I admit that I am pretty fast at slicing by hand, and also I really don't cut myself. But I am getting a bit bored with slicing, and seem to cry more than I used to when it comes to onions. Anna N (not potatoes): is the super benriner simply the wider one? On Amazon it looks to be about $30 compared with the regular width for closer to $20. How does it do with things like citrus (that still has the rind on), which I find trickier to slice evenly and thinly than most other veggies. Can it be used for ripe tomatoes? For large amounts of julienne produce I am okay with using the food processor, but for smaller amounts it would be nice not to have to drag it out. How does the Benriner do with celery root, which is one of the toughest to do by hand in my opinion? Ready to toss the de Buyer overboard.

When I first discovered I had high blood pressure I seriously worked to reduce my salt intake. It helped, but not enough to stave off use of a bp lowering med, which works very well. The result of my trials to reduce salt was that across the board my taste for salt became highly sensitized and I found that I needed very little salt for something to taste salty. I see that as one of the great benefits of reducing salt intake: that a very tiny percent of what used to be needed to salt food works exactly the same magic after you have adjusted to lower salt levels. Rarely do I use processed products and the food I make probably is considered under salted. You will know you have adjusted to new salt levels when restaurant food routinely starts to taste too salty. Often high end restaurants that use fresh healthy ingredients add an alarming amount of salt to everything. I don't avoid salt entirely, but I am positive that cutting back on processed foods and restaurant meals can really help wean one off a salty diet and when you reduce the amount of salt in your own cooking you won't notice it as much. My other weapon is to use good flaky salt. Gray salt, Maldon, etc. Just a tiny sprinkle adds lots of flavor when using them as finishing salts; they become a great thrill that way. A good emergency tactic for quick meals is to cook up your own pasta sauces using minimal salt as desired and freeze it in convenient batches. That way you won't have to reach for commercial sauce when you want a quick pasta fix. And of course I agree with anyone upthread who suggests using flavorful or strong ingredients like lemon and garlic. For potato salad be generous with dill or cilantro or smoked paprika. For dry rubs on meat compensate by adding coffee grounds, chile or paprika etc. I generally use far less salt than any given recipe suggests, and then allow myself the luxury of a little special salt after serving. Cheers!