Katie Meadow

Okay, I'm working on a theory for large kitchen appliances. Here's my theory: purchased appliances seem to last about half as long as the the previous one you bought. When we bought our house it came with a 30 yr old Kitchen Aid dishwasher that was still limping along, but pretty grody. It soon broke and we replaced it with another KA. That one lasted 15 years. The next one lasted about 10 years. Now we have an Asko and it is still going strong after about 5 years, but it gets lighter use since it is now the two of us only and I don't use it for large pots and pans. Aside from the mechanics, the Asko is incredibly smart in design; that may be just a lucky coincidence due to the size/shape of our dishes, but it holds a lot of dishes. The GE dishwasher at my in-laws' beach house is about the same size, and holds a third less dishes due to really poor design. So bad design in this case means having to use a third more cycles in the same time period reducing its life by the same. Taking a sample of your dishes when checking out dishwashers is very helpful. We settled on the Asko rather than the Bosch simple because its dimensions fit our space better. Both European models were well designed. I have had similar experiences with washing machines and dryers. Each generation seems to be half as good as the previous one. The one exception was a Maytag washer that was bought 30 yrs ago and is still working, although not very energy efficient. If my theory has any validity, soon appliances will last about 5 years, tops, and that will be considered good.

I don't hate fruitcake, but I come from a long line of non-bakers and don't remember EVER eating fruitcake or being gifted with one. About thirty or forty years ago I baked my first and only fruit cake from a recipe in an old tattered book of uncertain provenance called Party Foods Book; I no longer have the book, just the page with the cake recipe. It calls for "butter or margarine" and "sour milk or buttermilk," so I'm thinking it comes from that transitional time when processed foods started appearing. The cake was called Old Kentucky Black Fruit Cake and contained no neon fruit at all, just real dried fruits and candied orange peel. The recipe says the cake keeps indefinitely and suggests periodic soaking with wine, but I don't see why Kentucky bourbon wouldn't be nice. Whatever dried fruits (black and white figs are the main ones suggested) the baker had available and whatever nuts were also at hand seem to be the way to go. It does not specify any soaking of the fruit before using. Actually it was very good; dense and healthy. I never made it again but I have no idea why.

Popover batter takes 3 minutes to make, so why bother?

What a nice gift, the Willett. We were invited to cocktail hour on xmas eve at some friends where the food and drink is always fabulous. We finished off a bottle of Van Winkle Family Rye--I didn't look very hard at the label, but it just said Van Winkle, not Pappy Van Winkle. Apparently when the bottle was getting low our friend checked in with his favorite liquor guy, who just started laughing. Anyway, it was smooth and very delicious. I'm sure I've never had it before. I love rye! (Not relevant, but just singing his praises, he also gifted me with a bottle of Nocino, which I also swoon over.) [Host's note: To avoid an excessive load on our servers this topic has been split. The discussion continues here]

Having a modest Boxing Day cocktail hour with some very old friends and feel compelled to experiment with that signature dish. This is the first time in forever that I have actually gone out to buy triscuits on purpose. My last encounter with a triscuit was in circa 1960 when I nearly choked to death on one. They're good though, at least I remember it that way. Happy Boxing Day to all. A toast to the fox that got away!

Prune was a gift this xmas morning. It's hilarious! I have no trepidation about getting it stained or putting my own notes in it, despite the fact that it is a high-end production on expensive stock and weighs as much as a brick and the chicken that's under it. Only Gabrielle Hamilton could make me want to run to the cupboard for sardines on triscuits. So fun!

Yep, that's it. So now you know who Frank Bruni is. He is still a regular at the NYT, only not food critic. When the Times originally published the recipe it was attributed to his mother, Leslie, I think. Anyway, it's a keeper. I don't do the eggplant exactly like she does. I do it the way I learned to make eggplant parm, which is to mix the eggs and flour and make a dipping batter: approx 1 egg for every 2 T flour. And I use about half as much hard cheese, but that's just me. Now I'm off to the beach for xmas eve with my husband's family. Tomorrow I celebrate xmas by starting the day with bagels and lox, then going to a movie, then maybe eating out Chinese. No cooking!

Thanks for the quick responses. I'm gonna bake it once, before dinner tomorrow. And yes, it satisfies my desire for eggplant parm without the layers of mozz, which I need to avoid. Frank Bruni says it's his mother's go-to recipe for family gatherings. And it works for mine, since half my husband's relatives are strictly veg. Travel safe the next two days!

Because it is labor intensive to put together there's no way I can wait until tomorrow to construct this casserole We have a long travel day and then early dinner. Here's what it is: Frank Bruni's mother's baked penne with eggplant and tomato sauce. It has alternate layers of sliced eggplant that has been sautéed with a light batter as for eggplant parm, then layers of red-sauced pre-cooked penne. There is a minimal amount of grated pecorino in it. I guess what worries me about assembling it this evening and then waiting to cook it until tomorrow afternoon is that the eggplant slices might suffer, get soggy, whatever. You think? If I cook it ahead tonight then I would just reheat it in the oven before dinner; it is large, and will probably take half or more than half the time to reheat as it will to cook. It gets baked with foil for about 45 minutes. I haven't made it in a year, but it's a very good dish. I've already assembled it, so the question is do I just throw it in the fridge and bake it before dinner on xmas eve or do I bake it tonight and reheat it tomorrow. Eek!

My newest favorite splurge is Poco Dolce, made in San Francisco. They make what they call chocolate tiles in a variety of flavors. I tend to like my chocolate unfussy, without additional flavorings, so I go for the plain dark chocolate tiles with sea salt. I can't recall offhand the percentage of cocoa, but it's somewhere around 70 I think. I have no idea what kind of distribution they have outside of the bay area. Really delicious.

Shel, I know you shop Trader Joe's in Berkeley. They sell Bulleit Rye and Bulleit Bourbon for a very good price. In our house the sipping whiskey of choice is Bulleit Rye, so it's always on my TJ list. I'm not a bourbon drinker but my guess is that the Bulleit bourbon would be a perfectly adequate choice for a mid-price whiskey, and maybe you will get into sipping it as well. Thanks to whomever for posting info about the difference between sweet potatoes and yams. I've had an idiotic running discussion with my husband trying to explain this confusing mess created probably by the USDA to distinguish the hard sweet potatoes (golden to white) from the softer sweet potatoes (deeper orange) which are labeled as yams, often garnet or jewel. They are both delicious varieties of sweet potato, and they taste a little different. I think the deeper colored so-called "yams" taste a little more squash-like, but I love them both roasted with brown butter and sage. When I first started making "sweet potato pie" I bought the harder lighter variety as labeled and I couldn't understand why most pictures of sweet potato pie looked so orangey, like pumpkin. That's because people often make sweet potato pie with the darker "yams," but no one calls it yam pie. A true yam looks different and probably tastes different, and as you will discover if you try to research them it is very unlikely you will see a true yam for sale at most grocery stores. It is a tropical tuber, often much larger than a sweet potato and often with a rougher black skin. I've only seen pictures.

There's always noodle kugel! Tart cherries (yes, this time of year canned or frozen) look festive and make for a very nice kugel. Children will eat it, and so will teenagers and vegetarians. And it can be eaten room temp. Unlike dishes with melty cheeses, the cheeses in a kugel do fine as they cool. Also I don't see why it can't be assembled ahead and then just popped in the oven as needed. There are savory versions of kugel as well as sweet, so you have a lot of options. Far from kosher but probably delicious along side a slice of pork tenderloin.

Recently discovered a wonderful vegetable: the market calls it choi sum, and after a little research (correct me if I am wrong) I learned that there are dozens of varieties. The variety Berkeley Bowl market sells seems to be either dwarf white choi sum, or baby white stalk choi sum. The shape is similar to baby bok choi but the leafy part is a darker green and crinkly and the stalks are whiter. I love it in stir fry--the taste is sweeter and more intense than bok choi and it's more tender.

It seems to me that the only way a slow cooker would be an advantage is when using a "not quite simmering" setting or a very slow simmer, so you could either keep food hot for a crowd or be confident you could go away for a few hours while your posole or green chile stew was cooking. Most criticism of various crockpots is that the controls aren't accurate enough, and they are especially inadequate in the very low simmer stages. Thank you Anna, you have succeeded in making me feel way better--and I mean that! Good riddance to a space hog.

I am not a gadget freak. Mostly I think I am just lazy when it comes to washing objects. I would rather wash one knife than take apart an appliance, wash the separate pieces, and then put it back together again. So, lazy in a certain way. Also I think I have pretty good knife skills and can chop and slice pretty efficiently. And routinely I am cooking for two, not a crowd. This is sort of a boring story, but I'm in the mood to whine and get some sympathy. A few months ago I was rummaging about in the basement and discovered a Rival Crockpot, circa 1960's or 70's. Very iconic design! I have no memory of buying or using it, such are the benefits of a swiss-cheese memory. It looked spanking new, but without a box. I got totally excited, because it seemed like something for free. I love posole, and when I lived in NM that's the one thing that everyone used a crock pot for. I took it upstairs and promptly dropped it, breaking the ceramic insert. Clearly I was destined never to use that sucker. I've made posole numerous times by the long slow stovetop method and I am never in this lifetime going to buy a slow cooker after that goof. But it irritates the living hell out of me. And it is quite possible that if I acquired another one somehow I would never use it, but I'll never know.

This year we took away a full jar of extra gravy. I froze most of it, but the other night I made a yummy mashed potato and cauliflower dish. I had 5 med yukon golds and a large cauliflower and used it all, based loosely on a recipe I had kicking around. This recipe (and I've seen others like it) calls for boiling the cauliflower as well as the potatoes. Instead, I cut it into florets and sautéed it in olive oil, s & p and garlic, finally braising it with a little broth to get it nice and soft before mashing it with the potatoes. This mix required only a minimal splash of 1/2 and 1/2 to become creamy, and very little extra butter or oil. With gravy, excellent. Upthread someone says the yellow variety tastes different. I agree! I think it has more flavor. One thing I have noticed though is that finding organic yellow cauliflower is a challenge.

Making your own napkins seems like a great way to go. I've always made my own tablecloths, but never napkins. My napkin preference is always for 100 percent cotton, a medium to heavy weight. I had one lovely linen tablecloth and it drove me nuts, with its wrinkling and shape-shifting and slipperiness. I f you make your own napkins you would pre-wash and pre-shrink the fabric first, no? Napkins take a real beating, so, at least for me, the fabric needs to stand up to very warm water and a warm drier. I like prints for tablecloths and napkins; prints hide a myriad of sins. I have an old set of those classic red check Italian bistro napkins that are perfect if you eat a lot of pasta with red sauce. I have neither the budget nor the temperament for expensive table linens, especially not white ones. Most good quality cotton gets soft quickly and drapes well. I've been using fabric tablecloths and napkins for as long as I've owned a washing machine, which is about 40 years. Confession: not once have I ever ironed them.

Yep. I've only had the one from The Jasmine Pearl in Portland. Not to be confused with Jasmine Pearl teas. It is delicious and not priced into the stratosphere. Love to attend a tasting of Taiwan oolongs and get some idea of the range. There is an online purveyor called Eto En that has a creative description for the flavor notes of various oolongs broken down by taste, aroma and mouthfeel. Interesting and amusing.

In warm weather I drink mostly black tea, iced. In winter I drink a lot of green tea--jasmine pearl and my new favorite, emerald oolong. Tastes like buttah.

I loved "Blood, Bones and Butter." Just a great read. Hamilton's childhood and teen years were an astonishing mix of magical and scary. I don't buy many cookbooks for myself, but I'm going to ask for Prune this holiday season.

I am pretty sure you can get good Italian sweet sausages at Piedmont Grocery and absolutely sure you can get them at the Pasta Shop or maybe even the meat market in Market Hall. That should be close enough to Berkeley for you. For that matter I think there are charcuterie people who sell at the Berkeley Farmers Market who may have them. Contact Fifth Quarter and see if they make a fennel sausage--they are at the Saturday Berkeley Market on Center St. Maybe even Whole Foods on Ashby/Tel. I don't shop much in Berkeley, but there's gotta be something besides Molinari at a variety of places.

Right, I don't think I expressed myself very clearly. My reason for making stock is solely to make soups, not to use up leftovers; I go out and buy what I need because byproduct chicken feet is simply not what happens in my life. I guess all I meant was that in the days before prepackaged chicken pieces you did whatever you could not to waste any foodstuffs. Clearly old vegetable peelings don't make the purest chicken stock, but if flavor and nutrition is in short supply you will use whatever you can.

I make a pretty traditional bread and chestnut stuffing (no eggs) and I always add a couple of apples, cubed small. I stuff the turkey and also cook a casserole dish full of the same mix for the vegetarians in the family, so that should give you an idea of quantity or ratio of apples to the rest of ingredients. I am insanely fastidious about closing up the body after stuffing, so the apples are all that is needed for moisture. The dressing that cooks outside the turkey of course needs a healthy dose of liquid to keep it from drying out. This year I am only going to stuff the turkey and not do the extra side dish, so I think one apple will be plenty. I used to use granny smiths but now I use whatever tart apples I have on hand.

Since the reason for making stock lies in what's left over or what can be bought for cheap there must be many ways to make a good one. I like stock made from roasted carcass, but I rarely roast whole chickens, so I usually make chicken stock with raw parts. When I have nothing on hand, I buy two lbs backs, 1 lb wings and 1 lb feet. Often, if I am planning to make some variation of soup with chicken meat, I will buy one breast and/or a leg-thigh combo. I put everything in to start with, then take out the breast after half an hour and the dark meat out after 45 minutes. When cool enough, I strip off the meat and set it aside, then throw the bones and skin back in the pot to continue simmering. I do cook an onion stuck with cloves, a carrot and some celery tops along with the parts. I've never understood how you can cook chicken long enough to make stock--like two or three hours--and still want to eat any of that chicken meat; it seems flavorless and worn out. So with fresh raw pieces like breasts or thighs, rescuing the meat before it overcooks seems like the best solution.

From that sublime tart tatin to the ridiculously simple: Dorie's "back-pocket" Custardy Apple Cake from Baking Chez Moi--on her website and various other places. You can practically make it with your eyes closed (well, if you are using a mandoline--which I don't--maybe that isn't so smart.) I got it here: http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/custardy-apple-squares The apples are almost everything in this recipe. I used a couple of pink ladies and some other unidentified apple in the bowl, but I imagine any firm flavorful apple will work. The apple slices on the top get appealingly crispy and toasty edged, and it cuts easily into pretty squares. We had some leftover Bourbon Vanilla ice cream from the local Tara's Organic Creamery and it was a perfect go-with.