Katie Meadow

I'm relatively new to rye, but I too felt the Russells Reserve was a waste of money. So far Old Overholt is my favorite, but it appears that the range of ryes is limited here. Rittenhouse isn't stocked by my local stores and I've never tasted it. How many different kinds of Rittenhouse are there? I will be back east next month, staying in midtown. What should I look for and do you know of a liquor store midtown with a good selection of rye? My mother is 92 and slowing down, so cocktail hour is now more than just an hour. Usually it involves lots of snacking on goat cheese or goldfish, and sometimes it just fades into ice cream hour. She routinely keeps scotch and vodka on hand, but never rye.

Thanks to all for excellent suggestions. The dispenser idea is great, but the keep warm function worries me. It would be perfect for an office situation, or a home where multiple numbers are drinking hot tea or coffee all day. My experience staying in my daughter's place this spring is that that these kids are never home; they are out all day and half the night. They study in the library, eat on the fly. They just need a dependable sturdy way to heat water fast. As for large quantities, it seems pretty rare that more than three roomies are ever in the same place at the same time, so the 1.7 litres should be fine. I think I am going with the Breville Ikon. The price is lowest on Amazon--$63 and ships free--and I can order it and clean it with vinegar before I take it up there to make sure it's all good.

My daughter needs an electric tea kettle for the place she will be sharing with four room mates. It will get heavy use and need to be medium to large size, easy to clean if possible, inside and out. These college kids are HARD on their appliances. I am hoping to keep the price under $80. I'm hoping to satisfy as many of these criteria as possible: Stainless steel exterior for durability. These kids are strong but not always careful, so no glass body. Also there will be no small children living there, so if the pot gets hot they can deal with it. Some of the kids may object to plastic parts touching the water, or just plastic, generally. I guess I feel the same. No weird smell! This seems to be the major complaint about many electric kettles; either the whole contraption smells while the water is heating or the boiled water itself tastes funny. Some type of readable window to show water level. Easy to maintain. Wide lid is good, so big hands can get inside for scrubbing. Cordless pot of course. Cord retractable and adjustable into the base would be nice, but not essential. Automatic shut-off goes without saying. Don't need a lot of bells and whistles. I assume most of the new kettles all heat the water pretty fast. So...if anyone has purchased a new electric kettle in the last couple of years I would love to hear what worked for you and what didn't, and what might be a good one for this situation. Russell Hobbs, btw, has been bought out and currently there is only one kettle on the market with the Hobbs name--and it gets mixed reviews. The Breville stainless model seems to get high marks for everything but nasty smell, which I would say is a deal-breaker.

Bread, ice cream and marmalade are probably our most cost effective home-made foods. My favorite jam-maker at the farmers' market sells her stuff for $8.50 for an 8 oz jar. Figuring in the cost of Seville oranges and sugar, we spend less than that per batch, which is five or six PINTS. The least cost effective stuff we make is probably ketchup, tomato sauce and, believe it or not, beans. Using high quality Italian tomatoes for ketchup and sauces definitely costs more than Heinz or most jarred sauces. And my pot of beans, using home-made stock from ham shanks and Rancho Gordo beans, can't possibly cost less than canned beans or bargain dried beans. I don't think making our own pizzas is much of a savings either, when you factor in cost of sauce, and ingredients like radicchio and artichokes and buffalo mozz.

Anyone care to update this thread? I would much appreciate it. We will be driving from the Bay Area to Walla Walla, passing through the Ashland / Jacksonville area for one night toward the end of May. I'm not sure I am up for a splurge, but I am thinking of New Sammy's, which might be poetic justice of some perverse kind. Way back when my husband and I spent a memorable afternoon at the New Booneville Hotel, where these same folks garnered a reputation. It was memorable in that it was lovely hot summer day, we waited three hours for our table, including one hour spent in the garden chatting away with either his or her father, and finally left in disgust. Without eating. Perhaps this was toward the demise of that paradise, and their suppliers were refusing to deliver and there was crisis in the kitchen. To my knowledge the Rollins are still cooking at Sammy's; how is it? Any other suggestions are welcome. The Jacksonville Hotel is out, since I learned that W ate there. And I'm certainly not wedded to upscale atmosphere--if you have ideas for funky but special, lemme hear 'em.

Chris, I love it. Of course it looks somewhat like mine. Are the cabinets birch? They look exactly like mine--same style, yellowed varnish. My kitchen is also quite spacious; we moved to our 1911 Craftsman in 1986. The kitchen was completely remodeled in 1962 with birch cabinetry. The hardware was copper--but actually I like your pulls better, with that jaunty swoosh. My kitchen wasn't in quite as good condition as your pix indicate. The counters and backsplash were formica, but a hideous color and worn out, and the floor was linoleum in woeful condition. We eventually remodeled, but kept all the original cabinetry, and tried to clean it up as best we could. We spent our money on a new tile floor and tile backsplash, but ultimately it still has a mid-century look. We replaced the counter formica with new formica (blue boomerang pattern--like my memory of an old NYC bus) since we didn't have the $$$ for any other type of counter at that point. I'm not sorry; the formica counters are easy to maintain (FYI a great trick: use Johnson and Johnson spray wax periodically on glossy formica to keep it protected.) It's amazing your sellers were able to keep the formica in good condition--and luckily it's a lovely robin's egg color. All our appliances, including a beautiful but dysfunctional turquiose electric oven and range needed to be replaced as well, ultimately. We had a nasty time with the refrigerator when it finally gave out. The space allotted was very narrow, since older fridges were not as well insulated as they are today, and it was exhausting trying to find something that fit. We have a counter extension (not like that one!) that we had built to match, and that is the divider between the main kitchen and what is now a sort of eat-in solarium and used to be a screened in porch. I will keep my fingers crossed your deal goes through as planned. Looks fantastic.

I don't load up my cart like some shoppers, but I regularly buy the Empire Kosher Chicken, the "home-made" flour tortillas, the frozen edamame (as good or better than any I've tasted from Japanese markets) and now I am unfortunately addicted to the Pita Puffs snack. I hope I get over that soon.

I like this (tweaked, from a recipe by Bittman): 2 cups drained well-cooked or jarred chickpeas, liquid reserved 1/3 to 1/2 c tahini, or to taste 1/4 c xtra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling 2 cloves garlic, peeled, roughly chopped, or to taste salt to taste 2 tsp ground cumin or to taste 1/2 tsp paprika, more to finish juice of one lemon, plus more as needed chopped fresh parsley to garnish Put everything except the parsley in the processor, adding chickpea liquid or water as needed to produce a smooth paste. Adjust for seasoning, lemon, etc. Serve drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with paprika and some parsley. I find that the next best thing to cooking your own chickpeas is using Italian jarred ones, rather than canned. To me the canned ones taste tinny, and the liquid is definitely more metallic. If I think the chickpeas tastes tinny, I rinse them and drain them, and I am more inclined to add water as needed instead of the the chickpea broth. The tahini makes a difference, too. The stuff in the can seems often very hard to mix. I now buy it in jars from any large middle-eastern specialty grocery. It doesn't take Atlas to mix it--in fact it is often still well mixed in the jar when I get it, keeps for a long time in the fridge, and does not separate into a hockey puck and a pool of oil.

I've never tried these, but why do you say they're grease-bombs? Aren't they just regular pancake batter cooked in a different pan? They seem to need a little puddle of oil in the bottom of each half-sphere before each one gets cooked. Pancakes only need a quick swipe with a greased paper towel, or not at all. Dunno why Aebelskivers need more oil; maybe it isn't necessarily so? Just my experience, even with a very well-seasoned pan.

My MIL's family had a famous old cast iron aebelskiver pan that's been passed down to her. At one point all my husband's siblings have acquired one. Ours came from eBay and is pretty old and in good condition. You might be able to find a good cast-iron one on eBay or Craig's list for way less than $40. It took me a little while to master the technique of turning the little suckers; give the gift of wooden chopsticks along with the pan! That said, we rarely if ever make them any more. Kids love them, because they are cute, you can put a surprise berry in the middle, and it's just another excuse for pouring on the maple syrup. But they are grease-bombs, so a little goes a long way as far as I'm concerned. The romance of aebelskivers may outpace the reality. And whoever is standing over the stove fussing with them doesn't get much rest; the saving grace to cooking them may be that you don't eat so many of them. If you buy a seasoned good-quality pan, it will last forever and eventually pay for itself down the line. Or you can always sell it on eBay to a collector. Seasoned properly, simple cast-iron is non-stick, and when you have a pan dedicated to something like aebelskivers it isn't hard to keep it in good condition. I don't really know if cast aluminum is so great at even heat distribution, so you might want to research that. And don't fall for those "turners." Chopsticks or wooden knitting needles do a good job.

I assume that high turnover and large soup-making clientele or serious homecooks means the likelihood of fresher bones, and not frozen. Berkeley Bowl seems to handle the marrow bone situation in a smart fashion: they will sell you a whole fresh femur, then cut it for you into about five or six pieces, so you get the two bony ends and several middle chunks full of marrow. All are useful. It's fair this way, and you don't have to pick through a bunch of hard-to-see frozen pieces or try to determine whether or not you are getting more ends or more middles; the ratio is always the same, and the whole bone is weighed before cutting. I've never even seen packs of frozen marrow bones at the Bowl; they typically sell out of femurs before the next shipment. Perhaps if you shop at a butcher's you could order fresh marrow bones ahead?

I guess I wouldn't buy an induction cook-top unless I was able to find one I could practice on to make sure I would like cooking with it. I could see myself being frustrated by it, but then some people are more adaptable than I am. We remodeled our 60's style kitchen about 20 years ago. The cabinets were well-constructed and the surface height was good, so we kept them (and built some more to match) and needed to replace the appliances in the spaces they originally occupied. The existing range was a 30" GE electric, in fabulous turquoise, but that was the only fabulous thing about it. My priority was to get high BTU's for wok cooking and good control to a low simmer for soups, which I make all the time, AND enough oven depth for a large pizza stone. We put in a gas line. My choices among the lower priced commercial type ranges were very limited because of the 30" width. At the time, the only 30" combined free-standing oven/range with any power and with a reasonable sized oven was the lowest-end Viking. The grates are heavy duty cast iron, which I like, and there is a separate wok grate (same heavy cast iron) that can be switched for the regular grate for use with a round-bottom wok. It gets smoking hot. The oven gets almost to 500 degrees (cooks a pretty good pizza) and is reliable for whatever baking we do. My husband wishes he had an oven that went up to 700 degrees, but I think that's unlikely in a residential appliance. I can get a pot of pasta water boiling faster than any stove I have ever used and am totally spoiled that way. I get a pretty low, consistent simmer. Not perfect, but pretty good. The Viking is quirky, and I agree about the ignition issues mentioned above. We had to have service for that, and for some failure of the oven once, but the repairs were not major. I would have loved to have the space for a 36" range, but basically I'm crazy about this Viking.

Jalapenos for the last ten years at least in northern CA have been insipid. Even Serranos at the markets are lackluster. At the Berkeley Farmers market for the last few years I have been buying Pimiento de Padron peppers, which are becoming more common, at least around here. The heat typically varies wildly, with most individual peppers being on the sweet side, but about 10 or 20% in each bunch having a swift kick. There is also one Latino vendor with great Poblanos. In June and July they are flavorful but pretty mild, then they get hotter into late September. We're not talking Hatch NM hot, but definitely not bland. Most grocery-store poblanos seem to remain mild all season long. You can still get scorchingly hot chile in New Mexico; friends of mind brought back, roasted and froze, a large quantity of Hatch peppers and, to my now subdued CA palate, any more than a teaspoon would render a large pot of beans inedible. I don't even remember the typical Hatch chile when I lived in NM being as hot as this batch. I must be turning into a wimp.

I usually combine the crema and the slaw, and make a creamy slaw. It's very forgiving. I start with a simple favorite slaw using lime juice instead of lemon or vinegar, and then add a mixture of mayo and Fage full-fat yogurt or mayo with mostly creme fraiche, or whatever I have on hand to approximate the crema. I've used sour cream thinned with half & half with a little mayo for extra tang. Fish sticks? That's a bit sad. The simplest batter using fresh fish would be so much better. Beer batter is good, but even just a modest dip in egg and then seasoned flour works, as long as the fish is good. Black Cod (aka sablefish or butterfish) is my favorite fish for tacos, or Ling cod, but I'm sure whatever is local and fresh caught would be the way to go. My preference is for pan-fried and lightly battered, rather than deep-fried, but then I'm not very expert at deep-fry.

I wasn't aware there was much crossover. Several places I shop always stock KA large-size unbleached AP, bread flour and ww flour. I've never seen any comparably large size bags of Bob's, and assume if they exist they are probably more pricey than KA. I think of Bob's for hard-to-find or specialty flours. We always have on hand Bob's pumpernickel/rye, graham flour, and medium grind corn meal. When I make corn bread (1 to 1 AP to corn) I can really tell the difference; Bob's is far better than any other organic corn meal I've used, bulk or otherwise.

Not that I consider myself a senior yet (unless I go to a movie at night and there's a low discount age) but I recently had a sobering experience when a tea-kettle burned out because I forgot about it. Remind your students to all purchase a small, portable easy to operate timer, and encourage them to take it with them if they move out of the kitchen while something is simmering or baking. Some of the new timers are not very loud, and if I go away and start reading I need that buzzer to be within hearing range. My mother is 92, and she eats a lot of soup. She doesn't bother much with cooking and has a couple of soup take-out places within a couple of blocks of her apt. She seems impervious to the high quantities of salt in prepared foods, but many of us, including myself, can't handle all that salt, so learning to make a few very simple soups with low-fat low-salt broth is an asset. It's easy to freeze in portions. And ingredients can be cooked til soft without losing flavor or nutrients. Another useful thing to know how to do well: poach chicken breasts. If they are boiled or overcooked that pricey white breast meat turns tough and stringy. Poached and shredding tender chicken stored in broth has many, many uses, and also freezes well in portions. Sounds like a good thing you are doing.

Cloth almost exclusively. I don't eat a lot of ribs or bbq, but if I did, I would probably be eating outside in the summer and I might just grab some big paper Ikea napkins for that. I don't find 100% cotton napkins difficult to keep clean, but that said, I don't use expensive white ones, either. I tend to buy relatively cheap patterned napkins, in a mid-range of color. Much more forgiving. For company I use my newest set, the one that works with my big tablecloth. The rest of the time I use a hodge-podge of different sets from past lives. They don't get washed after every use unless they get dirty. I've got a couple of sets that have lasted close to 20 years--you know, those stripey Guatemalan ones from some vacation or other or the ones that matched the red-check tablecloth that got used back when there was a chianti bottle with candle wax dripping all over it. Now that was way more than 20 years ago. I too am a big fan of Zout, although it is rarely needed for napkins--more often for cooking stains when I'm too lazy to put on my apron. Oh, if they start to look dull or I suspect the stains won't wash out, I use hot water and just the teensiest bit of bleach.

Grazie, Sam.

My preference is for a dried pasta, very thin. For the life of me I can't figure out what this shape would be called. Only one place I know of sells it. The sheets are far thinner than most commercial lasagna ruffle-edge types and does not have the ruffle. These sheets measure approx 3.5 inches by 7 inches. They cook quickly because they are thin and don't tear, and it is easy to cook them al dente. When cooked, they measure about 9 inches, which is perfect for laying them parallel to the short side of any 9 x 12 lasagna dish. I do them in two or three batches, and use a spider to remove them, then lay them flat on a wooden board to cool and dry. I double-layer them, staggered. Far easier to manipulate than the longer bulkier noodles that are sold as lasagna noodles. Does anyone know the proper Italian term for this pasta shape? The package is no help. They are made in Gragnano, Italy, by Pastai Gragnanesi, and imported by AG Ferrari foods here in Northern CA. I make a simple vegetarian tomato sauce from a Batali recipe, and my lasagna is vegetarian as well. No bechamel. Just modest amount of tomato sauce, three cooked pasta layers (each a double layer), the best ricotta I can buy, mozz, a little parmesan or pecorino, and one layer of spinach in the middle. If I'm feeling flush and have an extra hour to spare, I will saute fresh artichoke hearts, quartered, and then add them as well. Crunchy top layer of pasta is mandatory.

From my own experience and from reading, I'm convinced that having a genetic propensity toward high cholesterol does not mean that you can't bring the numbers down with diet. In so many ways--both lucky and unlucky--I am my father's daughter, and that includes high blood pressure and high cholesterol. About two or three years ago my cholesterol was borderline high. My doctor thought I should give serious thought to reducing it. Since I was already on blood pressure med I decided to see if I could avoid another script, so I started paying better attention to my diet and made sacrifices that I could live with. In the two or three years since then, I managed to reduce my total cholesterol by 50 pts, which put me in a much healthier range. I didn't go cold turkey on all cholesterol; I'll give up butter on toast and in my oatmeal when hell freezes over, but I looked at everything I was eating and made adjustments. I pretty much stopped eating eggs except in baked goods once in a while. I cut down on red meat to maybe twice a month. I use small amounts of bacon for flavoring in soups, and once in a great while I will indulge in a BLT. I cook primarily with olive oil. Most of my animal protein comes from chicken, and usually I poach it and use it in soups or grill it and shred it in burritos, but I rarely roast a chicken or eat chicken with the skin. I make my own stocks with chicken parts and even ham shanks, but I de-grease the stock before using it. I cut way back on dairy. I stopped eating ice cream. We started making fruit sorbets and ices instead. My downfall was nibbling on cheese, or eating cheese for a meal. I stopped spreading cheese on crackers or bread. We make our own pizza, and my half usually has minimal amounts of mozz. Lasagne and mac 'n' cheese I consider treats, not staples. I stopped eating breakfast pastry altogether. I cut way back on all sweet baked goods, and don't bother eating them unless they are really fabulous. If they seem ho-hum I would just as soon pass and wait for something better to come along. I'm not sure I buy into the idea that eating certain "good" foods can lower cholesterol. I eat a lot of whole grains and beans and take my fish oil and flax seed caps, but I'm pretty convinced that I lowered my cholesterol by eliminating many of the usual suspects. Not everyone has success with diet, but it's worth finding out if it works for you before assuming you need meds.

Mmm. Pecorino reminds me that our default munchy at cocktail hour is often freshly made popcorn with finely grated pecorino mixed into it right away. I've used a variety of different pecorinos such as stagianata, antica, maturo. All good, with sea salt to taste if desired. I've never used the romano, but maybe that has enough salt all by itself. Pecorino Popcorn and a Bloody Mary is a meal in itself, what with the three important food groups: vitamins, protein and complex carbs/fibre.

Okay, it sounds promising. If a one-to-one substitution of paste for extract works, as one poster suggested above, what about subbing paste for a whole vanilla bean? Lots of recipes call for a split vanilla bean cooked in milk, then the seeds scraped out. What would an equivalent of paste be for one bean?

Vanilla extract and vanilla beans I always have on hand. I was just informed I am being sent some Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla bean paste as a freebie due to a mixed up order. Why would I use it instead of beans or extract? I don't recall ever seeing a recipe that specified paste...

I would be extremely wary of doing business with Half.com. They have dreadful customer service. My daughter lost some substantial dollars when the textbook she bought got lost in the ozone and they made themselves completely unavailable, never answered her queries, and ultimately we gave up trying to get any money back from them. Another operation worth checking out is Bookfinder.com. I'm not sure how it works, but it's an amazing service and always prompt, no errors. The descriptions of book condition seem very reliable. But I've only bought through them, not sold.

I'm assuming you want to buy it in the form of a paste, either in a tube or jar. Believe it or not, several types can be ordered through Amazon, including Le Cabanon and the Mustapha. Le Cabanon in the tube seems to be the most common; I've always loved that box. Supposedly the photographer Cartier-Bresson carried a tube of Le Cabanon wherever he went, in case his food was too bland, I guess. Probably great on frites! There are also places you can order various dry spice mixtures for making the paste yourself. My jaw dropped when I went to a French market in Provence and saw the spice-guy selling dozens of giant bags of spices for custom blends, as well as some of his own blends. Looked beautiful and smelled awesome.