Katie Meadow

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.

Once I discovered stone-ground grits that could be ordered by mail I've been pretty loyal to them. I like the coarser grind as well. I tried a bulk product labeled "coarse ground polenta" (only yellow corn was available) and didn't think it was as fresh or tasty as the white grits I get from hoppinjohns.com. So whenever I'm making an Italian meal that calls for polenta, I simply use my white grits. The polenta that's sold in boxes is also not terribly fresh, and lacks flavor, but I would guess any packaged grits that have been sitting on the shelf will also taste dull. In the end it's all about the corn, so the original source, how it's ground--and how recently--makes a difference.

Two years ago we wanted to take our daughter out for a splurge restaurant during family weekend in Walla Walla. Reservations were hard to get, but we snagged one at a new and trendy place. We walked in and sat down and the din was unbelievable. When I commented to the waitress, as politely as I could, that it was pretty loud, she simply said, "We like it that way." Clearly there are lots of new hip restaurants that are not designed for quiet conversation. They are designed for buzz, and to send the message, "YOU WERE LUCKY TO GET A RESERVATION EVERYONE'S HAVING A GREAT TIME IN OUR FANTASTIC RESTAURANT!!!!!" Just a wild guess, but it seems these places are often skewed to a young crowd who: A) generally type with their thumbs; B) haven't yet blown out their eardrums but are working on it; C) are used to yelling into their cellphones while walking on a crowded street. At my daughter's suggestion, we left the restaurant so we could talk to her. We had enough of not talking to her when she lived at home before college.

My husband continues on a Manhattan kick, and has been making textbook drinks with Rye, sweet vermouth and Angostura Bitters. We ran out of sweet vermouth and he used the only other vermouth we had, NP dry. He's very frugal, so he would rather drink medicine--which this drink resembled--than toss it, but I can't believe how long it took him to get one drink down. It was amazingly bad.

I know the topic is grits, but don't most grains benefit from salt during cooking? I salt rice, bulgar, barley, steel-cut oats, couscous, polenta and grits at the beginning of the cooking process.

I didn't have a mini-prep of any kind, nor a nut-grinding attachment for any appliance, so I broke down and purchased the Cuisinart Spice and Nut Grinder (about $30 plus shipping from Amazon.) It's great--it can grind really hard spices and, once you master how fast it is, can do nuts from chunky to flour-like. My husband uses it to grind small amounts of whole grains for multi-grain breads. The size is a good compromise--bigger than a coffee grinder, but small enough for spices. Bowl detaches from motor and is easy to wash. Until last year I was using an antique: hand-powered spring-loaded blades that screw onto a straight-sided canning jar with a funky wooden round that sort of fit the bottom as a chopping surface. Just about the most labor-intensive and inadequate gadget I ever owned and possibly slower than just using a knife.

Although I am not on a low-iodine diet, I have some awful diet restrictions right now that coincide with some of yours. I do not use iodized salt for the most part, and although I can eat seafood, I don't eat much of it, so I sympathize. I easily go a week or two without eggs, and eat very little dairy. If you make your own stock, there are endless soups you can make in large quantities. Soups with barley are really satisfying. How about rice 'n' beans? (Dried beans of course, not canned.) If you can find edible fresh tomatoes that would be great, but I make a sort of simple Southwestern style pot of beans without any tomato products. You can use lime juice to brighten it up. I like the skin on regular potatoes, but not particularly on yams. Baked yams with butter and salt? Since I can't eat tomatoes right now (fresh or canned), I've learned to eat pasta without it. Saute radicchio or fennel or chard (or any greens) in ample amounts of olive oil and garlic, then toss with the pasta. Toast some pine nuts and throw them on. Your bread looks good!

Kale: lots of soups lend themselves to an addition of Kale. I like to add it about 20 minutes before the soup is done. I especially like barley soups with kale. Chard: favorite way to eat chard is on pizza, sauteed lightly with garlic first, then add as a topping. Great combined with radicchio (also sauteed first) or carmelized onions. Collards: love them traditional, cooked with vinegar, honey and smoky ham broth. Mustard greens: the only way I found them appealing is on pasta, with some chopped walnuts or pine nuts, and a blizzard of pecorino. They are bitter, no? Watercress: yum. Sadly, I have to stay away from vinegar lately, but I've discovered that simmering watercress in ham stock for 10 minutes is delicious, and I don't feel the need for the sweet-sour component. I got that idea from Peacock and Lewis, Gift of Southern Cooking. Recently a holiday issue of Fine Cooking had an excellent recipe for potato-watercress cakes. I loved them, my husband was less enthusiastic. His favorite use of watercress: rinse, dry and trim a couple of batches and arrange on a serving platter. Take a roast chicken out of the oven (there's always one in there, right?) and put it directly on the watercress. Let it sit on the cress ten minutes before carving, then carve and distribute over the greens. They get warm and juicy, and don't need anything else.

What is a natsumikan? Your marmalade looks yummy.

Speaking of Greek lentils, a couple of years ago I purchased a jarred product from Greece in a specialty store. It was a lentil spread, although the lentils remained whole, with a bunch of other ingredients. I was unable to ever find it again, but I did manage to save the ingredients list and after several trials and errors, came up with something close to the original idea, but probably even better with fresh ingredients, salted and oiled to taste. It's great on a baguette or plain crackers, such as La Panzanella. The ingredients are: olive oil, French green lentils, onion, leeks, garlic, 1 finely diced tomato, 1 finely minced carrot, one minced roasted red pepper, one finely diced zucchini, olive oil, splash of vinegar. I'm not a major fan of lentils generally, but this appetizer, eaten slightly warm or at room temp, is really good. I had pretty much written off lentils completely until I started cooking with those little French ones. Would be nice served with other middle eastern apps like taramosalata or hummus, etc. I'd love to know if this spread has a name--I certainly don't remember the name on the jar. I never had it when I was in Greece, that's for sure, and I was not able to come up with anything like it in a google search.

Ah, Raul Julia, be still my heart! You mean Raul Jewlia? But keep in mind he wasn't Mexican, so maybe you should find a nice Puerto Rican rum for his drink? I mean, you don't want to spread misinformation and be caught with huevos on your face.

Her mother was Mexican and not Jewish, her father was a Hungarian Jew.

I'm not a tequila drinker, but if you called #3 a "Frida Kahlo" I might order it. I'm sure there are plenty of other famous Jewish Mexicans, but she's the first one that popped into my head because I'm reading her biography. Actually, there must already be several drinks named after her. But silver tequila just screams Frida. A few minutes later... I can't believe I just learned there's a drink called a Parrothead Martini that calls for tequila, triple sec and lime juice. There's no way I wouldn't order a "Kosher Parrothead" or a "Jewish Parrothead."

I agree that most of the foods noted above are canned or heavily processed foods. Many of them, like canned soups, oreos, fig newtons and saltines were products our parents relied on and that we took for granted and had some nostalgia for when we first left the nest. Many of them were excessively sweet or excessively salty, and had little subtlety. Most of them used cheap ingredients and depended upon some measure of rehydration when eaten. It doesn't strike me as strange in the least that a bunch of people on a food website who presumably enjoy food and cooking would find wanting many of the products of their childhood, which were in fact designed as fast food that you bought at a supermarket (rather than ordered at a restaurant.) If there is any group of people who have changed over time with respect to their attitudes about food, I would guess that's the definition of most people who are on eGullet. What's true for Chris about sugar is true for me as well; I don't mind the chocolate cookie part of oreos, but the paste in the middle has entirely lost its appeal. But I'm the same about salt. Since reducing my salt intake, most processed foods and even most restaurant meals are way too salty. I still love salt, but less tastes just as salty as more used to. I don't think many of the packaged processed foods have changed much, although some products now boast that they are low-salt or low-fat and come with other ridiculous claims for health benefits. They still contain plenty of poor quality ingredients, are too sweet and too salty. It is possible that some packaged foods used better ingredients in the past--more cane sugar, less refined flours, etc, but I would guess that since the mid-fifties, many of those products have not changed that much. Personally I think commercial Fig Newtons are about the same as they always were and that my standards have changed. A lot. When a Hershey bar with almonds is the only chocolate you know, it isn't much of a test, it just seems fine. If you are mass producing packaged foods, and selling it for prices that most people can swallow, you aren't going to use cane sugar, or Bob's Red Mill flour, or Valrhona chocolate, or freshly picked ears of heirloom corn. Not now, not then. If you grew up with parents who were adventurous or really knew their way around a kitchen and who cooked from scratch, without relying on mixes or canned foods (and had the time and motivation to do so), you were lucky, from my perspective, even if the ingredients you had were limited and you didn't have the options for ethnic variety where you grew up. I felt like I pretty much had to reinvent the wheel after I left home; I'd been exposed to all sorts of cuisines, but I didn't have a clue how to put together anything except Knorr soup, lox and bagels, or spaghetti with canned clam sauce. And how to make a lemon coke.

The recipe in Baking with Julia is Pumpernickel Loaves. If your head starts to spin looking at the list of ingredients, that's probably the one. The addition of prune lekvar to the bread dough astounded me. We had just been given some home-made fig goop by relatives for the holidays, so we subbed that. If lekvar is a new one for you (my husband was completely baffled) it's a thick fruit paste that's used as filling for pastries, cookies, etc. If you've eaten a prune danish, you've had it. I would guess that any thick fruit butter could be used if you don't want to take the trouble to make prune butter, which I didn't. However, it isn't difficult or expensive to make, but is pricey to buy or mail order. I imagine it's easier to buy a bag of pitted prunes in Hawaii than it is to buy a jar of lekvar. Apple or apricot butter might be good too in this bread. Actually the fig paste we were given was a bit bland and I was just as glad to use it up. We're only talking 1/2 cup for two VERY big loaves of bread. Given that this bread takes a certain commitment, I would consider making prune or apricot butter for next time.

Steve, have you ever made the pumpernickel in Baking with Julia? We made it recently and it was fantastic. Just curious to get a comparison. We don't have RLB's bread book.

There are many foods I once ate happily that I find horrid now. The last time I tried Spaghettios--maybe 20 years ago when I had a toddler and curiosity got the better of me--I was astounded at how terrible they are. The things I find most inedible now are packaged chocolate chip cookies, instant quaker oats, poptarts, Israeli chocolate coins and all poor quality milk chocolate, peanut butter that has anything besides peanuts and salt in it (that would be sugared stuff like Skippy), margarine, anything made with cream of mushroom soup, canned clams (and most other things from a can), Kraft grated parmesan, most sodas, and Philadelphia cream cheese. Sorry, I grew up on it but it tastes like plastic to me now.