Katie Meadow

Greetings from Oakland, Scotty. I was away for a few days and have now caught up to your blog. Glad it's you and not me, but so fun to see pix of my neighborhood. Sounds like you prefer Monterey Market to Berkeley Bowl for major shopping. I like it too, but it's a bit farther to go (and I shop on four wheels, not two!) For seafood I agree, there's no place like Tokyo Market; the only fish counter I know that will clean fresh sardines for me without making me feel like a crank. Ah, Market Hall and the Pasta Shop. Spoiled we are. When I lived in that neighborhood (probably before you were born) Market Hall was just a weedy empty lot. Most of the year my neighbor was allowed to park his overflow Cortinas there. In Nov and Dec it was a Christmas tree lot. Now you can't turn around in that space without knocking over a hunk of $30 lb cheese. Good, though! No wonder my daughter had to work her way through college. I've never been to Brown Sugar Kitchen, but it sounds like fun. What do you like there besides the chicken and waffles? I'm not a chicken and waffles kind of gal, but any place with shrimp 'n' grits works for me. I took a look at their menu. Interesting. The menu changes somewhat day to day and on the weekends; certain days are grits days, and others not. Lovely blog, lovely food.

Daisy's sofrito includes a mix of cubanelles, ajices dulces and one red bell. Finding specifically PR peppers and other ingredients is not easy around here; even the giant Mi Pueblo market, which carries many different kinds of fresh and dried peppers, carries mainly Mexican staples. So I used the best available peppers that I could find without going far from my usual haunts. I'm sure that growing up on the upper west side in NY I could have easily found PR foods, but that was long before I was interested in cooking. My mother pretty much shopped in a triangle that included Barney Greengrass, Lichtman's bakery (gone) and Williams bbq (still there, dunno?) There were loads of little Latin groceries all around us, but you can believe that my mother never bought anything she didn't easily recognize. She has lived most of her 93 years in NY and has still never eaten anything from a truck, didn't know what a tuna melt is until I made one for her last year, and has never eaten a falafel. This time of year the quality and variety of peppers at the farmers' market is fantastic, but they are often unmarked, beyond "sweet" or "gypsy." There are all colors and shapes, and mostly delicious. Probably they grow different types of seeds near to each other and they cross pollinate, I have no idea really. I simply bought a variety of sweet peppers (not bells) from two different vendors, and since they seemed so mild once I got them home, I added a couple of jalapenos that were already in the fridge. When I say they were hot, that would be only in relation to what a jalapeno is usually around here, which is mild verging on tasteless. Nothing like the heat of a habanero or a Hatch New Mexican or what used to be available in NM and sold as jalapenos, which had some kick.

I like Sifton's writing, but I think I prefer his food writing to his restaurant reviewing. The weekly reviews don't seem very interesting or lively these days. Major Pete Wells fan here; dunno how he would be as a restaurant reviewer, but I'd be happy to find out. Especially if Dexter goes along for the ride. He could do a tandem review for each of his dad's and zero in on the more critical issues.

When I was a 20-something I couldn't have defended making high-end dining and having a social conscience exist in the same reality either. I find it touching, to tell you the truth. And as a poor grad student it is an attitude that serves her well. Right now she needs some help to replace her bike and is no doubt not in the mood for upscale dining. She bought a new road bike when she got to Atlanta last month and it was stolen on campus while she attended a talk by Jimmy Carter. Someone must be stalking the Emory campus with a heavy duty bolt cutter. After Atlanta we head on to NY for a few days, and she won't be there to adjust my moral compass. I'll be sure to let her know about the Ethiopian places, she's very fond of injera and likes eating without utensils!

When I was nursing of course I tasted it. Once, and that was enough. Yes, it's weirder than cow or goat or sheep. About as far back into childhood memory that I want my ice cream to go is Cereal Milk Ice Cream.

Daisy Cooks is, I believe an early book, tied to her original PBS series. I haven't seen her on TV since that series, which was really fun to watch. I used her recipe for sofrito and then proceded to make her Yellow Rice, subbing a little knob of the achiote paste for oil. Her ratio for making the oil is 1 c olive oil to 2 Tbsp seeds. I definitely will keep looking for annatto seeds, and try making my own oil. Although the paste did the job and imparted great color and earthy flavor to the rice, as far as I could tell it contained more salt than annatto. Luckily I tasted it first, so I didn't add more salt to the rice. The end result was very good. My sofrito was pretty spicy, due to a couple of jalapenos that were actually quite hot (mostly they are so bland around here!). Once I figured out that the achiote paste needs to be mixed with something acidic in order to dissolve it everything worked fine. At first I tried just melting it into the olive oil in the pan, and that didn't work at all; it turned the paste rather stubborn and rubbery. I then mixed some with a small amount of lime juice and added it to the oil and the sofrito already in the pan--and that was magic. Love the flavor of annatto; it's very different from saffron or paprika. And I'm not sure why this is called Yellow Rice, since the color is more brick. Thanks to all for the help.

Okay, not exactly an oddity, but I have found it's pretty hard to get a great HALF-SOUR pickle outside of NY. When I was pregnant here in CA I would have killed for one; instead I had to content myself with Japanese pickles and those peculiar sour gummy candies. Yes, I was a walking cliche. Also, and less typical I suppose, I craved BBQ pork in my middle trimester. If I had been living in NY, and if it had existed then (which it didn't) I would have been a regular on the line at Momofuku for one of those pork belly bun thingies. For what its worth, my daughter doesn't like sour pickles, nor does she like animal fat. She must have had more than enough her first few months of life. Just curious, but what exactly qualifies as odd? To me, odd is when out-of-towners want to go to Gray's Papaya. The papaya drink is okay, but I think the hot dogs are terrible. Apologies all round in advance to the many fans of Gray's; I don't mean to be incendiary. In its favor is price.

A friend loaned me Daisy Martinez Cooks and I'm trying out a few recipes. Daisy uses achiote oil in lots of dishes, which sounds easy to make: soak annatto seeds in oil. My local Latin grocery seems not to have annatto seeds, but does sell achiote paste, so I grabbed some. My understanding is that achiote paste has other spices in it besides the annatto seeds. How do I use the paste instead? And how much paste would be the rough equivalent of oil?

Thanks, Blether. According to Wiki, Bonito is typically smaller than Albacore by about three or four feet. So true Bonito (aka Katsuo or Skipjack) is a smaller type of tuna than Albacore, but Albacore is smaller than the big three, which must have the most mercury. Little did I know that I've eaten fresh bonito; I caught a Skipjack in Hawaii a lifetime ago.

I buy canned Ortiz Bonito del Norte from Spain. Don't know where I picked up this notion, but I hope it is true: Bonito is either a small fish like tuna or it is a small type of tuna, I'm not sure which (anyone clear on that?) but the operative word here is small. In other words, less mercury than most canned tuna. And I think it tastes better than most other canned tuna I've tried. Packed in olive oil only, and not cheap. For less mercury I will pay. Tell me its true. In addition to tuna salad and tuna melts, I like tuna in a warm or room temp rice salad. I mix it with cooked long-grain white rice, celery, roasted red peppers (usually I roast them myself or I buy Spanish piquillos in the jar) a little red onion, sherry wine vinegar, olive oil, parsley and a garnish of toasted pine nuts and a dusting of paprika, smoked or not. Sometimes I add some leftover cooked beans or even edamame. Would be good with favas too. In warm weather it makes a great meal served with gazpacho. I've done this with fresh tuna, but that negates the idea of making a meal from pantry stock, which is what canned tuna is all about.

I wouldn't say that exactly. Gnocchi, to the best of my ability (no expert here) are typically made with potato and flour as the base, with variations on that theme. Malfatti are mostly a leafy green (blanched, drained, dried and chopped) plus ricotta. There is some flour added, but not a lot. Many recipes use spinach, but I prefer the flavor and texture of chard.

Olive oil, butter, bacon fat, duck fat, lard, walnut oil, peanut oil: all great in their own way. Even Mazzola has its uses (I like it to pop corn.) But when it comes to plain yummy bread on the table before dinner, sweet butter (cooler than room temp) is my favorite. And I don't believe I would want plain white rice with olive oil and salt, but rice with butter and salt is deeply satisfying. I also have a soft spot for poultry fat on rice. As for pie crust, I've had great pie crust made from all butter, part butter and crisco and part butter and lard. As far as I know I've never had a lard-only pie crust, but I'm sure spectacular ones have been made. I like fruit pies to have at least some non-butter shortening, but I like chicken pot pie crust to be mostly butter. Go figure. I never use soybean, canola, safflower or sunflower oil. They taste a little like cotton to me. What are they used for?

I finally took the plunge and made my first batch. I used the recipe for swiss chard malfatti in Amanda Hesser's NYT book, but, being me, I couldn't help tinkering with it. Frankly the specified amounts of butter and eggs were frightening. I used the basic ingredients and technique. My first problem was that the chard purveyer at the farmers' market didn't have a scale, and the recipe specified 4 lbs. I went away with two enormous bunches, which I figured might weight close to 3 lbs. I don't have a scale at home either, so I just winged it and used it all; when it was well drained and chopped it seemed like a fair amount. I used almost the amount of ricotta and flour specified, but literally half the butter and half the egg yolks. The end result was far better than I expected for a first try. They were not stiff but rather delicate, but they did just hold their shape sitting on a board for a couple of hours before cooking. They were very chardy, which I liked, light and tasty. I served them as suggested, with a brown butter sage drizzle. Next time I might try them with a fresh tomato butter sauce, or a cooked tomato sauce in the winter. I checked a few other recipes and it seems that they all are wildly different. Some use bread instead of flour, some use no eggs, some use lots of whole eggs, others mostly yolks. And they also differ as to cooking time, even allowing for the fact that the size of the dumplings varies somewhat. Most all recipes say they are done when they float; some recipes say that will take about 3 minutes. Amanda says 8-10 minutes. Mine floated at about 2 minutes, so I left them in to simmer another 5 minutes, which seemed fine. What's your experience making malfatti? Are the quantities of ingredients as flexible as they seem or was I just lucky? Gnocchi seem much less forgiving.

Serious planner. This is probably easier to accomplish (or necessary) if you don't often eat out. And I happen to be in the camp that loves to have leftovers, not only because I have no objection to eating the same entree two days in a row, but because I have an anxiety attack when I look at wasted food and because leftovers is, well, a free lunch. This does not mean that I only shop once a week. We do one main grocery shopping and one supplemental farmers' market trip each week, but I often make some stops on other days for things that need to be fresh, such as meat and seafood or baguettes, etc. And I've developed some quirky attachments to certain edibles and ingredients that I can only get at specialty shops or ethnic markets and that my regular stops don't carry. This doesn't mean that if I see something unexpected that looks great or that I can't resist I don't go for it and figure out how or when to use it later.

I have my share of hardware store Pyrex: pie dish, standard 8 x 8 and 9 x 12, a loaf pan, measuring cups etc. Everything is at least 15 to possibly 40 years old. Two weeks ago we were having dinner and heard a scary noise. My trusty 2-qt pyrex measuring cup that was sitting quietly on its shelf simply cracked into three pieces with no help from anyone. There were no previously visible cracks or flaws in it that I'd noticed. This got heavy use, primarily as a mixing bowl. It was typically hand washed, drain dried and put away. I certainly hadn't used it any differently recently than I have in the last two decades. Poltergeists? I bought a new one; we'll see how long it lasts.

I used to like making a dish called "Cauliflower Pizza Flavor." It consisted of roasting large florets under a layer of pizza sauce and then a topping of grated mozz. It was easy, especially if you had some leftover home-made pizza sauce. And it was a good way to dispense with a lot of cauliflower. And of course it eliminated having to make a pizza dough, so it's questionable that it can be called a true non-pizza pizza, but it satisfied the pizza urge, included a healthy serving of cruciferous vegetable, tasted good and was relatively fast to produce. Chez moi, BYOR.

My best guess is that this is pretty close to the truth. When wings became popular as pub food and were served with blue cheese or ranchy type dressing perhaps the beer soaked people at the table who were having pizza instead of wings saw their opportunity with all those dips at the table. Then maybe it became a requested thing, and pizza joints started to offer dips even if they weren't offering wings. I'm winging it here, and haven't done a stitch of research; clearly I don't care enough to do so, since I wouldn't dip pizza in any kind of dressing unless I was paid. Okay, it must be my age that is the reason I never heard of this. During the nineties I was busy shuttling my kid back and forth from school and after-school activities while happy hour at the pubs was in full swing. By the time I got home I was wasted and needed something stronger than beer. Plus I had to make something for dinner. Somehow I don't see pizza dipped in ranch as the ideal foil for a martini or a straight shot of scotch, do you?

Maybe a close second would be using ranch dressing instead of mayo on a BLT. That way you would get your cured pork, tomato and ranch in one bite.

Thanks to all for these ideas...keep 'em coming! I'm starting to regret we will only be there for two lunches and two dinners. Manuel's sounds like it may be right up my daughter's alley.

Personally I like a mix of approx 2 eggs to 3/4c milk, with a dash of vanilla or other extract. My experience is that the type of bread you use has a major impact on soaking time, so that is one of the variables that matters. I like to cut my bread about 3/4 inch to 1 inch thick. My current favorite bread to use is a sweet rustic batard-like bread. For some reason I find it crisps up on the exterior more readily than challah. The more you soak the bread, and the higher the heat, the more chance of sogginess I think. I saute my slices over a medium to medium-low flame in a modest amount of butter. For some reason I find that challah is prone to curling, thus creating areas that don't brown well. I don't seem to have that problem with a sweet batard, but I have no idea what really causes some breads to stay flat and get evenly crispy and other breads not. Using this type of bread I would say I get about 6 slices of french toast from the amount of custard above. Perhaps the sweet batards I buy don't require as much liquid for absorption as some other breads might.

You might ask your friend what dietary restrictions his surgeon has suggested, if any. You don't want to waste time cooking something your friend shouldn't be eating.

Right you are, and I apologize. I would still be curious to know where this pizza-dipping habit originated, as it's a new one on me. Clearly I don't hang out anywhere that it's practiced.

Is this still a pizza thread? Did I take a wrong turn down to Hades? Who dunks pizza in anything, let alone salad dressing? At first I thought the posters were kidding, but now I'm not so sure. Pizza with ranch, russian or any kind of dressing is one of the weirdest things I can imagine. I'm not a big fan of cold pizza (yes, there are those times in life when it is unavoidable or preferable to nothing at all) but even cold pizza deserves better than dunking. I grew up in New York. I lived in New Mexico for a few years, and then moved to CA. I have never seen or heard of anyone in these three places dunking a slice of pizza. If this means I've lived a sheltered existence I admit I'm glad. Where in America is this custom practiced? And as for eating the middle of the pizza but not the edges, eating only the middle of anything is kinda creepy, whether it be pizza or a sandwich. And wasteful. If you don't appreciate the crust, you must be eating lousy pizza. In which case I'm guessing it isn't so great in the middle, either.

About to make my first visit to Atlanta, and it will be a short one. (In fact it will be my first visit to the Southeast.) The only thing I'm sure of about Atlanta is that it's bigger than I think. We will rent a car for our two night stay, but I don't really want to spend all my time driving around and probably getting lost. I've read over some of the Atlanta threads and I'm guessing the food at Empire State South, JCT or Eugene would please me totally, but the three strikes against them are: price, location and my daughter's contempt for destination dining and consumer excess. We will be staying near Emory, about halfway between the school and downtown Decatur, and I would be fine with some places that are located in East Atlanta/Decatur area. I'm expecting a trip to the Brick Store, since my daughter has become a beer lover recently and has already checked that out, along with some other bars in Decatur. Some places that at least sound promising in the area are: Taqueria del Sol (not that I need to go to Atl for Mexican food), Leon's Full Service, Fox Bros BBQ, Fat Matt's. Any other suggestions for mid price dining or funky neighborhood joints that have good food and fun atmosphere? Local gems? Southern style? Fresh vegetables? Nor do I want to eat Vietnamese or Ethiopian food away from home, but my daughter might appreciate recommendations, as she is missing Berkeley a bit.

EN, fascinating blog, I'm really enjoying it. A question about Oliver's markets: do all three have grills and serve up cooked ribs and corn? I've never been. When we go to Dillon Beach (as we will be this month) we usually take our own food up but use Petaluma for supplemental shopping; by default that means Petaluma market, partly because we can pop in on my SIL, who works two doors down. But Oliver's sounds intriguing, and Cotati isn't too far out of the way. Could you elaborate on the elote preparado? Do you make your own with takeaway grilled corn or does Oliver's do the whole number to go? One more question: do you make your own cajeta or do you buy the stuff in the plastic bottle? If you can get your hands on fresh corn ice cream, cajeta and a bit of salt makes an amazing topping! And of course, happy anniv.