Katie Meadow

Wow - that's the dish that I most yearn for from San Francisco's Brandy Ho's. I am so there. Until I read this thread and did a little research I didn't even know about Brandy Ho's. Here's what I just learned: When Brandy Ho opened his restaurant in about 1980, I was already living in the East Bay. Brandy was an original cook at The Hunan Restaurant, located on Kearny, between Washington and Jackson. The Hunan, owned by Henry Chung, existed in that incarnation from about 1974 to 1989; Brandy must have been cooking there when I lived in Chinatown, in the mid to late 70's. After '89 Henry started a mini-empire called Henry's Hunan and now has, I believe, three locations, none in the original space. We used to walk down to The Hunan and eat there a couple times a week. It was an addiction. The place was a steaming smokey hole in the wall; you could feel the chillies in your throat the moment you walked through the door, which, I remember, was usually kept open, due to the combustible nature of the food. I don't even remember tables, but I remember sitting at the counter and watching them cook. I'd never tasted food like that before, and haven't since. When I went back to the first new location I was utterly depressed. It was not the same. Perhaps it never recovered from the loss of Brandy. The first time I had twice-cooked pork at The Hunan and one of those scallion pancakes I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Maybe I should make a trip over to SF to try Brandy Ho's. It's definitely still a going concern.

Exactly. The recipe is designed to form a cake and a thick sauce. A very popular homemaker cake. Agree. The lemon pudding cakes I have made have nothing to do with a two-step process or with pudding mix. It's a one-batter mix that performs a magic trick in the oven, separating into two somewhat distinct layers. I've never made a molten chocolate cake. I thought the molten chocolate was a pool in the middle and not exactly a layer. It's possible that the description of "pudding cake" is somewhat corrupted; many people often refer to semi puddingy cakes like clafouti as a pudding cakes, but these are more a description of a baked good that's fairly eggy and is somewhere in between pudding and cake--not the same as the cakes that form a pudding layer on the bottom and a light cakey layer on the top. The one I've made is very tart and very lemony.

This is a great thread! Barbara, the Chron has a library, and, last I knew, a librarian. You might try calling the Chron library and see if anyone can help you. Or you might try going to sfgate and see if there are accessible archives that way. The librarians at the Chron used to field all kinds of calls from the public, but my husband (who used to work at the Chron) says that may not be the case any more.

Didn't this topic used to be called: If you were on a desert island and you could only have one type of food what would it be? Most people used to say Italian, right? Perhaps we now just think of Italian American food as American food--spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, etc. If you look at the variety of real Italian food, much of it isn't a pantry staple or a household word. So, do we not even think of Italian food as ethnic? Interesting. That said, I would probably choose Vietnamese or Thai. I would have to think long and hard if I had to choose between them. It strikes me that if you had access to any Thai ingredients you wanted you could make almost any Viet dish. You think? Is the reverse true?

On average we spend about $15 per day for two of us. That includes some but not all wine, but not beer or hard liquor. That figure is pretty much based on cooking at home 24/7. We rarely eat out, and when we do it's frugal. I'm guessing the weekly bill edges up in the warmer months because, god help me, I can't resist the Berkeley Farmers Market. Most of the fruit and veggies sold there are mighty pricey compared to Berkeley Bowl. For the price of six servings of red beans and rice you can buy two or three peaches.

Mitch, you had me at nutella, but you lost me at pizza. I can't get my mind around nutella pizza. I've been known in desperation to just have a spoonful of nutella out of the jar when I needed something chocolate after dinner.

I'm enjoying this blog very much, swimming as it is in testosterone. Points have to be subtracted from Johnder because he didn't crispy-up any artichokes and because making a beautiful suck-up dessert was unfair. Also, and this isn't his fault, I just don't want a pair of yolks staring at me during dinner. The picture of his brothy stew looks fabulous and I would eat that in a New York minute. Although I couldn't identify some of the ingredients. You either cheated or have an awfully well-stocked pantry. The risotto looked perfect and to me was the most appetizing of all the dishes. Many points for that one dish, especially because I don't actually like scallops and the chokes look especially crispy. I would be happy to have that along with Sam's simple kale for a meal, if Johnder would make me a cocktail. Many points for Sam's kale, since homey is good. Points also for starting to cook at 8pm. I would just have made a bowl of popcorn, at that point. As for cocktails, I'm impressed by anything more complicated than a glass of rye, neat. Points to all for braving the weather to shop. I don't think my 93 yr old mother, who lives in midtown, has been out of her apt in the last three weeks. She orders take-out using her iPad. If I was tiger mother I might vote, but you are all deserving of praise. Oh, and I just noticed Johnder's recent post. I grew up two blocks from Barney Greengrass, so of course I have great and tender feelings for it. But yeah, Russ and Daughters is amazing.

Blue m & m's are excellent. I don't think they taste any different, but I like the look of them. Okay, let's leave candy out of the mix, since there's not much that is natural about drug store candy. And junk foods like cheetos are so artificial (good though!) that the color is probably the least worrisome thing about them. So in the case of food coloring, the color of cheetos doesn't bother me, since they look just like what they are, essentially a novelty and no pretentions to being real food. Old fashioned Maraschino cherries are borderline. They are not pretending to be anything BUT food coloring, but they are so toxic looking they might as well be radioactive. What I object to about food coloring is when it is used to fool you into thinking something is real. Yellow cheddar boxed mac & cheese looks awful to me. And white cheddar boxed same may look more real but doesn't taste any more real. Love beets (in all colors.) I haven't used jarred borsht in many years. Does it have food coloring in it? I guess it must. Home made doesn't have quite that magenta look. I do agree that the jarred stuff looks pretty sick when the sour cream gets mixed in. I prefer leaving the sour cream in a lump rather than mixing it in. Partly because I like the taste/texture contrast, but also because I do agree, that pepto pink color doesn't always work for me. The deep red of real beets is a beautiful thing. What's really creepy are foods that are not only colored, but shaped to look like something they are not. Take marzipan, for instance. Really good marzipan is dreamy. Humble little marzipan potato with a dusting of cocoa, yeah! But once, when I was in the hospital, someone brought me marzipan that was made to look like a salami sandwich. I couldn't get myself to take even one bite. Just looking at it was enough to make my tastebuds go haywire. If that green bagel was an onion bagel and smelled like onions I would eat it. If I was hungry. I think the onion would win out over the green.

I rarely plate the whole entree, for ourselves or for company, but it depends on what is easiest or makes sense; so, mostly family style. Composed salads or apps get plated. If the main is something awkward or messy I might be inclined to plate (in other words, to be crass, if I can see a great potential for accidents.) Mostly I find that my family or guests are picky-ish, and don't want someone else determining what's on their plate. But then most of my friends are not frequent restaurant patrons and are used to the same haphazard style at home.

For violence there's always a Black and Blue Shooter. But nothing says no romance like Mezcal with a worm.

The Eva Zeisel is a knockout. During the sixties I spent a lot of time at Flea markets and collected Harlequin, multicolor. Very festive for a party, but the the plates are on the small side, and by the time I realized how nice it would be to have soup plates there wasn't much Harlequin around and the price was too high. From my MIL I inherited a set of very simple Limoges, plain white with a thin gold line and then another half-collection of Wedgewood that is also very plain with gold rim, plus beautiful simple gold-rim glassware that matches. I like to use the gold-rim stuff for small dinners, since it can't be put in the dishwasher; it's too lovely not to use once in a while. When I put out the Wedgewood I feel like I'm on the Titanic. In a good way. For every day--and for serving more that six--I use plain white restaurant supply china, since I have 12 of everything and it can go in the dishwasher; not romantic, unless you are eating off it at Le Bernardin (actually I haven't a clue what they use but it's probably better than mine.) Nevertheless it's well-proportioned, stacks fabulously and is indestructable. We eloped, so too bad for us, no registry. By the time we could afford to buy a nice set of dishes I realized that the money for a set of whatever probably should be put toward college tuition. A wise decision, it turned out.

Lark & Termite isn't a cookbook, in case anyone is wondering.

That's a very odd contraption for a number of reasons. The two that strike me at once are that 1) the design is most appropriate for boiling eggs in a rectangular pan, which no one has and 2) in order to set or adjust the time or kill the alarm one must reach directly across the steam from the boiling water, no easy trick without getting a bit of a burn.

I do need to eat something in the morning, but it is typically a small thing, a neutral carb, such as half a bagel or, most likely, a piece of buttered toast with a minimal amount of marmalade. Protein such as meat or eggs doesn't appeal, nor does a heavy dose of acid, like orange juice or grapefruit. And I don't much care for sweet pastry or coffee cake, either. I like steel cut oats maybe once or twice a week, and every so often I get a hankering for popovers, but that's about as much cooking as I can tolerate in the a.m. I'm not wild about pancakes, but I eat them if someone else is willing to stand over a hot stove flipping and fussing. No one in my house is. Truthfully, the only reason I eat apple pie for breakfast on the day after Thanksgiving is because I'm afraid if I don't there won't be any left by lunchtime. Pathetic.

Agree. No reason to let it age on the shelf. Use it as finishing salt instead of using the kosher salt that way. We buy gray sea salt, which is also pretty coarse. I just break or flake it up with a small mortar and pestle in salt-cellar quantities as needed.

Chris Taylor, your link works. That's one gross snail. Is that a foot? Or something else? I googled Bailers since I've never heard of them before. No doubt it comes sans shell because it's the shell that everyone wants.

Don't know where I got the recipe, but a sweet noodle kugel that's been kicking around for at least 30 years specified Oregon brand canned tart cherries and they were pretty good. I'm not into sweet kugel now but when my daughter was young it was right up her alley.

That Adler fork in the middle....the hammered look...very nice.

There are lots and lots of things I hope never to eat again, most of them being in the junk or fast foods/highly processed categories. There are also plenty of foods, like natto, which I have never tasted but don't want to either. At the top of my list though are the foods that if made from scratch with lots of love I still wouldn't eat ever again. They include beef liver, tripe, tapioca or any kind of bubble tea, soft boiled eggs, turkish delight and Pernod.

I've never made a strictly fresh pork stock, but I do make a Chinese stock for wonton soup using a combo of chicken and pork neck bones, which seem to be very flavorful. Learned that on eGullet, thank you very much! Smoked pork (that would be ham, no?) makes a great stock for red beans & rice or many other bean dishes. For that I use ham shanks rather than hocks, since they are meatier and I like to have a little ham to add to the beans or make a hash or something. Around here the hocks and the shanks are often the same price per pound, and the shanks seem like a better deal.

I don't think I've bought wax paper in twenty years. What I used it for religiously was mushroom hunting, to line the basket and to store the shrooms in the frig. I no longer forage for mushrooms. Now I always have parchment paper on hand. Okay, please tell me I'm not the only person who butters a baking dish with my fingers.

Diamond Crystal for all cooking, but not for finishing or raw foods. No Mortons ever. Just a contrary habit. I grew up on Morton's iodized table salt, just don't want to go back.

Always butter, usually maple syrup. Occasionally molasses, or, if I have some on hand (which I don't often) shagbark hickory syrup. I noticed recently that Hickoryworks, the shagbark people, now sell a smoked hickory sea salt. Though I do salt the water just before adding my steel-cut oats, it never occurred to me to salt it at the finish. The hickory salt might be yummy that way. If you haven't ever had shagbark hickory syrup, it tastes like a campfire. Sometimes I add peaches in season or fresh berries, but just a few. I like to bury raspberries in the hot oatmeal so they get melty. Then I always top off with a little cold rich milk or half and half. I used to toast regular long-cooking rolled oats, and that really improved the flavor and the texture. But I'm very happy with the taste of untoasted pinhead oats. I'm sure they are fantastic toasted. Lazy, I guess.

Since cutting back on salt several years ago I too wonder about the most effective point/s at which to salt food. It would be great to know at what point in the cooking process the food makes best use of the salt. I usually follow a recipe and salt at the times specified during cooking, but I almost always use about half the amount called for in things like soups and stews. I do salt meat before grilling, but when Bobby Flay says 1 Tablespoon I use 1 tsp. Some chefs seem to salt several times during the cooking process, but I just don't find that necessary. I know one thing for sure. Anyone who cuts back on salt ends up complaining to their companions in a restaurant that the food is too salty. I don't go out much any more, because I just don't enjoy my meal if I find it too salty. Chefs who have restaurants almost always oversalt in their books, so I figure accordingly. I don't salt my stocks at all any more, assuming that whatever I'm going to make with them will get salt during and probably after cooking. When it comes to sauteeing veggies, I find that a little salt and pepper is helpful at about the midway point, or when the veggies have wilted or are thoroughly hot. I salt the water for regular pasta but never for Asian pasta, which already has a ton of salt in it. I've taken to using finishing salt since often my food is slightly undersalted, but at least I can control it that way, and it doesn't take much, as someone mentioned above. I use Diamond Kosher salt during cooking, and only use the gray salt as for raw foods or finishing. I'm typically cooking for two, not four, but my box of salt lasts at least six months. And that's cooking almost every night, plus bread baking.

Alice Medrich has some recipes like her whole wheat sables and buckwheat cookies with chocolate nibs that she notes are better a day or two later. Indeed, the buckwheat cookies were fantastic the next day and even better the day after. The fourth day I wouldn't know, since they were gone. Not generally a cookie person, it takes a lot to impress me. I don't know if my guests liked them as much as I did, but I liked them so much I didn't care. This is a great topic, since I am less sure of myself when it comes to flour and sugar, and always look for a dessert that can be made the day before a dinner party. So I can toss it out if it's horrid of course.