Katie Meadow

You're 80, right?

Early Vermont Mac apple. In Vermont, freshly harvested. Apricots from a friend's family property in Los Alamos NM. The size of a peach and dripping with juice. Not this planet ever again. Dried peaches that were dried on the roof of an adobe house in NM. Croissant from a town near Avignon from a bakery advertising "feu de bois" breads and pastry. Still warm, never tasted anything like it, probably never will again. Espresso ice cream shake in Ashland, OR. This one is a stretch, but it was very hot day, I was really thirsty and we had been driving for hours. Can't remember the name of the place but it's on the main drag, easy to find. Okay, I'm making myself sick here.

I live in the East Bay and don't get over to the city often, so I wouldn't have a clue about recommendation for places to buy cheese there. I do have occasion to go through Pt Reyes, the original home of Cowgirl Creamery and of course can buy their cheeses at other places. I do have a personal opinion about them, but have not been there for several years and have never been to their Ferry Bldg outlet. I am not a huge fan of their own cheeses. Also I think the prices are very high. And, at least at the Pt Reyes shop, they are not terribly helpful or generous in my experience. It feels like it's set up take advantage of tourists. As for supermarket cheese depts they seem woefully inadequate. If I know exactly what I want sometimes Whole Foods has it, but their selection is small and the people behind the counter are not very knowledgeable. The Fairway cheese dept in NY seems one of the better "supermarket" cheese sources, if you call Fairway a supermarket. In the East Bay I usually shop at The Pasta Shop for cheese if I am looking for something new, want to taste a variety of things and want to talk to someone who knows something. Also the Cheese Board in Berkeley has a big selection, good prices and some interesting cheeses and the people behind the counter will happily talk with you and give you many tastes. Janet Fletcher has a weekly cheese column in the SF Chron. Since she appears to love every cheese she reviews, I assume she has no interest in commenting on ones that are lacking. She does provide info on where to find the cheeses she profiles in the Bay Area. I checked her website and unfortunately she doesn't have a list of good cheese stores on the site. But I would suggest contacting her and seeing if she would give you a list of her faves. On her website she encourages readers to email her, so it might be a way to come up with destinations. Hi Dave! Yes, nothing quite compares to some of the great cheeses I tasted at village markets in the south of France. Often small producers and very specialized, but really amazing.

Okay, one question. I like all kinds of potato salads and I pretty much wing it at this point according to ingredients and my mood. Potato salad I don't like is what is usually served as a side to BBQ: the potatoes are overcooked russets and there is ten times too much mayo and often a high sweetness factor from god knows what. I mean they might as well be putting marshmallows in there. But my question is really about mayo. I find that almost all published recipes for a mayo based dressing calls for about 2 to 4 times as much mayo and/or dressing as is either prudent or appealing. And I am not talking about 50's magazine recipes, either; I'm finding this to be the case in upscale current recipes as well. When using a new recipe for potato salad I routinely cut the dressing ingredients in half and then don't end up using it all anyway. Many traditional American potato salads seem to be designed to hide lousy potatoes or else they are shilling for the mayo industry. Please tell me I'm not alone.

Hi, a green papaya salad isn't just made from unripe papaya. It is a special kind of papaya, and should be labeled as such. They are definitely different looking from the typical Hawaiian or Mexican papayas, which are eaten ripe. Sometimes I have gotten them at Berkeley Bowl. Another option would be to search out the Asian veg markets such as the ones around 12th Ave and 12th st in Oakland where a lot of Vietnamese shop and eat. I have made green papaya salad a few times, sometimes very simple ones, and sometimes Kasma's recipe, which I got from her class. If you don't know about her (she lives and teaches near Piedmont Ave in Oakand) check out her web site. Maybe her recipe is on it, dunno.

My philosophy is the opposite. Eat the best things first for maximum appreciation. Then you can let your dog eat the broken bits of whatever on the bottom, because you are already deeply satisfied.

I DO trust you. How do you marinate sardines? Are you talking about the Italian sarde in saor? I love them, but have never had the nerve or the energy to try and turn fresh sardines into saor ones myself. Can you buy them already marinated?

In the same vein, I served my sliced pickled beets with a little bowl of creme fraiche and mini silver spoons. Borscht on steroids! Agree that it verges on guilty pleasure.

It wasn't clear in your original post whether or not you are home while you are doing all this research, or whether your kitchen time at home is limited. I find the best ways to eat for cheap AND save a little time are as follows: Cook large vats of soup or stew once or twice a week. That way you have lots of leftovers. Use meat as an accent rather than a main course. Good quality meat simply costs more than good quality vegetables, grains and legumes. We eat meat about twice a week or maybe three times--not to save money but just because we prefer eating less of it--but it definitely saves money unless you are buying bulk meats from dubious sources. Make food that can be easily adapted for a different meal the second time around. For instance if you have beans over rice one night, buy some flour tortillas and lettuce and make burritos the next night, with maybe a small amount of meat. One trick I use with soups is to make the starch separately and then combine it w/ the soup at the last minute instead of putting it directly into the soup pot. The main reason is that rice or pasta in soup gets overcooked in the pot and tastes much better if put together at the end, portion by portion. Another advantage is that this allows you to add rice to the soup one night and noodles or barley or whatever the next night. Minestrone lends itself to endless varieties, vegetarian or with some type of meat, and is great with additions such as a little grated cheese or pesto. I don't own a pressure cooker or even a crock-pot. When I lived in New Mexico many kitchens had a simple cheap electric crock pot that was used while people were at work and could change a cheap cut of pork into a tender basis for beans or pozole or by extension any soup. Soups are very forgiving and a great way to use inexpensive vegetables such as carrots, onions, cabbage, greens, etc. If you have a few hours once every other week you can easily make your own stock, freezing some, and then making soups is a breeze. A few novel ways to use eggs: spaghetti frittata (uses less eggs), egg drop soup, chopped hard boiled egg as an addition to potato salad along with a variety of crunchy veggies. Cheapest, fastest, easiest salad: apple, celery and walnuts with a mustard vinaigrette. Hope there is something helpful here! Warm potato salad is another good meal. Try a Spanish style salad of room temp rice with roasted red peppers and tuna, celery and peas. Make hash with leftover potatoes and leftover meat.

The recipe I have indicates that it was originally from Gourmet Magazine Bring the following ingredients to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Then cover and simmer 30 min: 2 c cider vinegar,1 c water, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp or more pickling spice, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 med onion, quartered, small bay leaf, 1 tsp black peppercorns, stalks of fresh dill. Cool. I might cut back just a little on the sugar next time. Meanwhile roast about 6 med beets in the oven with skins on, rubbed with olive oil and salt, in a roasting pan covered with a foil top. Okay, confession: I don't like messing with red beets. My roasted beets are typically either chiogga or golden. The chioggas look beautiful in this recipe. I roasted mine at about 385 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until tender but still firm. I like to keep them covered and let them sit another 15 or 20 minutes, then uncover and cool until you can easily peel off the skin. I quartered them and then sliced them in 1/4 inch pieces. The original recipe suggested straining the pickling mixture and then pouring it only the beets packed in jars. I didn't bother to strain, but I held out the onions. They made a packed quart with one or two small servings left over. They were great after just 24 hours. So far I have added them to a potato salad, along with some of their pickling juice. My only advice would be to go easy on the pickling juice. The beets themselves are pretty distinctive tasting, and I used a bit too much juice, so the whole salad had a slightly pickled quality. Which you may or may not like. I've made red flannel hash in the past with roasted beets, but never pickled. I've had Israeli style beets that were finely diced and then drizzled with olive oil and parsley. Can't remember if they were pickled or not, but that could be good. They were served on the side in a mezze plate along with hummus, babaganouj, a tomato-cuke salad and a cabbage slaw. A hot green sauce was served with. Good with all the sides, including the beets. A beet spread sounds yummy. And I can imagine beets and cukes would be good with a yogurt dressing.

I just made pickled beets. First time ever! And they are really good. I suppose you would call it a quick pickle, as they were not heat sealed in any way and tasted just right the next two days. I've been eating them out of the jar by themselves, or on a plate with simple raw vegetables like kohlrabi. In North Carolina they were often served as a side in a little dish. I started craving them, and every time they were offered I thought, "I can do this." Turns out I can do them better. But what else should I do with them? Matchstick them and add to coleslaw? Add them to a potato salad? What do you like to pair them with?

Totally agree about library and used book stores. One of the saddest things about the death of bookstores is how I used to buy cookbooks. More than any other type of book I might want to own, I need to peruse a cookbook thoroughly before plunking down money. My worst wastes of money on cookbooks have happened because I got excited about one and ordering it without seeing it first. My most successful purchases have been books I have looked at carefully and then found a cheap source on line (like Bookfinders.com) or used on eBay. If a cookbook is well-bound a lightly used one shouldn't be a problem.

Everyone must figure out their own way toward a healthy diet, or at least a diet that works well for them. I have a couple of annoying health issues that have required me to cut back on all kinds of food that I love. I rarely eat chips any more, but when I do, I want really good ones, not a substitute. As long as I know I can have anything on the planet if only as a rare treat, I'm okay with not eating anything that tries to be something better. I would rather have my favorite chips once a month than have something not as good more often. When it comes to salty snacking (and I have cut back on salt in the last few years as well) I like organic popcorn popped on the stove, then sprinkled with a moderate amount of good quality salt. I've now discovered smoked maldon salt (super strong), so I'm using just a little bit of that with my other salt to make "campfire" popcorn. Maybe that would go partway toward a BBQ flavor. Smoked paprika on fries (chips to the op) or on potato salad also makes its own party. Before I had to cut back on cheese I liked to put a little grated parm or pecorino on my popcorn and that was pretty fun. I found salt to be the easiest thing to cut back; it's very common to develop a lower tolerance for salt over a relatively short period of time. The down side is that you become so sensitized that it's hard to eat out. Forget processed or fast foods--some really pricey restaurants use a ton of salt.

World Wide Organization of Organic Farms. I think. The organization hooks up young people wanting to work on a farm with farm owners who need some help. The Wwoofers get free food and board in exchange for working on the farm. These particular kids were terrific; smart and really entertaining. They cooked the lunches and helped with dinners as well. Seems like win-win for all involved as long as they like each other. My daughter had a friend from CA who worked on a farm in NZ last year, same program I believe.

On our recent travels in North Carolina we discovered that it seems more common than it used to for smaller low-key places, especially if they are out of the way, to offer dinner for a fee. We stayed at two places in the mountains that offered this; in neither would it have been very convenient to drag ourselves out for dinner after we finally located them. The first place turned out to be owned by a retired engineer and his wife, who was younger and French. She cooked us an astounding dinner for a very low price--one of the best meals I've had in years. Her breakfast was just as great. The second place was really in the middle of nowhere with a farm attached. We had a lunch and two dinners as well as included breakfasts, all using locally sourced or homegrown foods. (These people had start-of-season asparagus growing out of their ears.) They charged us almost nothing, considering the bounty. This second place happened to have three WWOOFers staying with them, and these 20-somethings cooked up a storm. In both places we ate with our hosts and it was very fun.

Shel, you and I have many of the same sources here in the east bay. My favorite potato for salad is the French fingerling, a red skin variety. Very available at the Berkeley farmers market all summer. The rest of the year I alternate between red or white waxy and YG for salads. I agree that the YG's hold up a bit less well, but I like the flavor; it's imortant not to overcook them for salads.YG's work well for hash too as long as you parboil and then chill them, so they can be cut into tiny cubes and they will then retain the shape. I've tasted almost all varieties of potatoes that are available at the farmers markets here in the east bay. Red Rose are good too. The variety I like least is the Russian Banana. The blue ones don't do much for me either. And I agree that dressing them when warm or hot is beneficial, although my method is to just dress them with vinegar and a little salt, then let them cool before putting on the oil or other dressing components. Not sure whose direx I followed for that, but I've been doing it for years.

I just got back from North Carolina and lots of people we stayed with have chickens. Chickens are a laugh a minute, and seem able to live up to just about any name you can think of. Our friend's heart belongs to a chicken named Fiona. All names for chickens seem equally inappropriate and excellent. My first red hen is going to be named Paprika. Or Pippi Longstocking.

When is rhubarb not beautiful? Right now I can't think of any pink food that is without visual appeal, actually. Strawberry milkshake. cotton candy. taramosalata, peppermint ice cream, salmon, borsht with creme fraiche.

Two beers I've never heard of or tasted before and they were both really good. (Not that it's unusual for a beer to be new to me, since I'm not really much of a beer drinker, except in very hot weather.) One was Crown Valley Black Cabin Smoked Ale. As soon as you taste it you remember what it smelled like around a campfire. So yummy. The other was a draft Boulevard Coffee Ale from MO. Serious coffee flavor, loved it. Excellent with deep fried pickles. Some experiences you just can't replicate. Or explain!

Another three days in Atlanta and Decatur, so I thought it worth updating. This time we were there for Rollins School of Public Health graduation. Originally I thought to repeat my good experience at Miller Union, but my nephew, who is in the restaurant business, just came back from Atlanta raving about a new place called The Optimist, so we opted for that. The space is pretty great, although the whole ambiance is too hip by half. There were highs and lows. There are a lot of drinks based on sour and salty, and wow, they were salty. The bread was delicious, and there was lots of it. My husband had the green curry mussels (super generous portion for an app) and declared them very good. I started with a knockout she-crab soup. Really really great, not too heavy or creamy, also a good size portion, swoon-worth and served with an over-the-top sinfully greasy piece of shrimp toast--sort of fabulous and frightening at the same time. The Optimist is mainly a fish place, which might seem unusual for Atlanta, but it's welcome. They make a very big deal about the menu changing every night depending what seafood they can get that's freshest, which all sounds very politically correct, but they also were serving swordfish and some not very sustainably fished critters. I had grouper served in a tomato broth and it was excellent. Never had grouper before, and my husband had cobia, also a first. Good too. The fish is served pretty much on its own, so if you want a veggie you have to order a side. The sides were mostly excellent. We all scarfed down the bok choy and the grilled baby vidalia onions. Desserts were a bit of a let down. The cuteness factor got out of control and the dessert menu was complicated and way too "ironic." All in all though, if you want fresh fish in Atlanta and a noisy young crowd, this is a good place to go. Raw bar too, with a selection of east coast and west coast oysters. The next day, day of graduation, was complicated and we ended up starving for most of the day, then overeating for the rest of it. We spent the mid-to-late afternoon celebrating with some of my daughter's friends and their families at, of all places, a bar in Little Five Points called The Vortex, which is basically decked out like a friendly colorful goth funhouse, inside and out: Haight Ashbury meets Nascar meets Halloween. The main menu, which we didn't go for as we had plans for an early dinner, was proud-of-it heart attack food worthy of Paula Deen, burgers mainly with as much added fried and fatty things you could imagine. I had a wonderful classic bar experience with a new-to-me drink and snack: I had a draft beer called Boulevard Coffee Ale and a plate of deep fried pickles. Loved them both. Dinner was a radical switch. To meet the boyfriend's parents for some reason my daughter wanted the opposite of party atmosphere, and she seemed very concerned that the place not be expensive. I was a bit wary when I learned the place didn't serve any alcohol, so her choice we thought was pretty strange, until we saw the menu and realized this was not an ordinary hole in the wall. She chose a place called Nam Phuong, a Viet restaurant in Druid Hills among the string of ethnic restaurants on Buford Hway. Apparently the boyfriend was sick recently and my daughter brought him some take-out pho from this place. Now growing up in the east bay she's very familiar with Viet food, since it is always our go-to for inexpensive nourishing fare, but this was the boyfriend's first pho and apparently he loved it. Turns out the parents had never eaten Viet food before. The upshot is that this is a gem, so if you live in Atlanta and like Viet food it is outstanding. Best papaya salad I have ever eaten; and happily the boyfriend's mom thought it was terrific. The menu had a category called "street food" so my daughter and I shared a small plate of lemongrass quail. Amazing! After all those fried pickles and beer I didn't need much more food, so she and I also shared an order of lemongrass chicken bun, also very good. There were sauces for everything, and some new ones to me. The quail came with an excellent spicy light sauce which I have no idea what was in it, and my husband ordered a version of grilled beef on watercress which, instead of being served as a room temp salad, was served hot, over rice, with a dipping mix of salt and pepper and lemon. If I lived in Atlanta I would live at this place. I wish I had a chance to try the pho, but don't know the boyfrlend well enough to ask him to pass along his bowl. His parents seemed pretty happy, and no one but me was concerned there wasn't even a beer to be had. Dinner was split and I think it came to around $110 for the six of us. I'd kill for this place in Oakland. And amazingly, the portions were enormous. The kids were thrilled to take home the leftovers. The next moring we met my daughter and a girlfriend for breakfast at Cakes & Ale, which I didn't get to my first trip. Coffee was lovely and expertly baristed (is that a word?) and I had the plain croissant, which was really good. I almost never eat this type of breakfast pastry, and there are only two croissants I've ever had that were better: one was from a wood-fired oven in France and the other was at Tartine in the Mission. I try to limit wheat and butter, so having a croissant is a really special treat--so it better be good, is how I look at it. This was a sweet place with very relaxed vibe. The breads came out of the oven and looked delicious just as we were leaving. Just a cranky aside, but the ATL airport is hands-down the worst place for airport food in the US. Basically the concourse consisted of vending machines and chain fast food counters with little seating. Not that I would tout any airport for its food. Here's an unsubstantiated fact told to me by the person next to me in the endless cattle shute of a security line: twice as many people go through ATL on a daily basis as through JFK.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away the best tasting fish was Chilean sea bass. Once upon a time the best tasting fish was bluefin tuna. Two weeks ago the best tasting fish was skate, especially because it was the first time I ever cooked it. And yesterday, in the chilly drizzly mountains of NC at a very modest roadside restaurant with outdoor tables on a stream the best tasting fish was a thick fresh slab of lightly breaded catfish that was served piping hot on a puddle of grits.

Lexington on a Sunday evening--no BBQ joint was open except for Smileys. Totally loved the waitress!

Turned out we had very little time in Asheville, so we needed to find something open mid-afternoon near downtown. We had a very good lunch at Tupelo Honey cafe. Unpretentions but very friendly. Very good biscuits, knockout grits w/feta (gettin' a bit sick of cheddar grits) good quick saute greens and excellent house made pickled beets. Highlights of the trip have been at places we stayed. Fantastic meal at a B&B cooked by a French woman near the Blue Ridge Hway, and I mean like four stars provencal meal: salad with home made canned pickled beets, fresh spinach from her garden and chevre, local rabbit with shitakes grown on her own log, home grown radishes, roast potatoes. For dessert she served a pear almond tarte tatin, ice cream and espresso. Next morning for breakfast she baked orange glazed brioche, served fresh strawbs and granola with Greek yogurt, toasted nuts and a little topping of whipped cream. I'm not ordinarily a granola person, but this was outstanding; looked like an ice cream sunday. Then there were the best smoked salmon and local eggs I ever tasted, and I've had a lot of that. It was totally amazing. Oh, I don't know what white wine she served at dinner, but it was great too. Next highlights were two days of farm food in a very remote area near the Appalachian border. We had dessert the first night, which was home grown rhubarb and strawberry tart. The next morning was an enormous spread of johnny cakes with warm sorghum and honey mixed,biscuits just out of the oven, a fabulous fruit salad made from their apples and other fruits, and of all things, roast asparagus from their farm. Asparagus appeared the next morning as well, along with cheesy heirloom grits and delicious baked apple slices. Dinner was local farmed trout and a delicious pasta dish with carrots and guess what, more asparagus. Best asparagus I ever tasted. Wow, stay on a farm! We are working our way down to Atlanta, where I am guessing we will be mostly eating in restaurants. It seems that B&B's (been awhile since we did this kind of trip) that are in out of the way places routinely offer dinner, for an additional charge. At the farm we would have had to drive on gravel roads and windy dark paved roads for almost an hour to get to a restaurant, so who wants to do that? We got lost going to three of the places we have stayed, even with GPS, which is often wrong when it comes to country roads, so once we found these places I would have rather starved than get in the car again. But as you can see, starving was not in the cards. We had some North Carolina BBQ at a well known place in Lexington, chunks of pork with a vinegar tang that needed hot sauce, which we spritzed on, and hush puppies and some not very distinctive sides. Never had hush puppies before, but these tasted like a corn dog without the dog, not that that is necessarily a bad thing. Jury is out, not enough info. We also stopped for lunch today at an old historic inn with a restaurant where I had country ham for the first time. It was good, strong flavored, but again nothing to compare it too. Best thing about it was that it was served with more baked apples. I've had warm applesauce, but the baked sliced apple thing that seems to be a common side in several parts of NC is really yummy (I can do that at home, right? Well not the ham.) You got your salt, you got your sugar. My husband and I have gotten into the habit of ordering one sweet tea and one unsweetened, then mixing them for a not so sweet drink. Good, but the waiters usually look at as funny when we do it.

After a very long day and only one pour of this stuff I'm not about to scroll through this thread to see what anyone has to say. We are in North Carolina and stopped at a pub in Highlands. The bartender recommended the Thomas Handy Sazerac 120 or 128 proof, can'ty remember. It was delicious and very strong. One drink neat was relatively inexpensive--at least according to the bartender-- compared to some of the other ryes they had: about $10 or $11. I never drink 120 proof anything, I don't think.

No one plays with ice tea here in the south. Sweet tea is like a religion married to a survival technique. I'm in North Carolina this week, where sweet tea rules. It is often just sitting around in a giant pitcher at room temp, and some people add ice and it seems some don't. If you are lucky you get some mint in it. And I think it is usually Liptons. However we stayed at a B & B last night owned by a transplant from the south of France and her sweet tea was just perfect: at least half the sugar that is typical for the area. Delicious. She also made us local rabbit for dinner, and a pear almond tarte tatin. Knockout.