Katie Meadow

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.

Sometimes I throw away food that isn't yet spoiled because I just know nobody will eat it and it pains me (and makes me nauseous) to see moldy food. In my mind I am preventing it from rotting by throwing it out while it's still edible. Broccoli Rabe wastes away in the crisper more than half the time we buy it. When I cook it I love it, but somehow I have a hard time dealing with it, especially once I see any yellow on the leaves. I don't like tasting cinnamon in apple pie, but I do like it on applesauce when served with latkes. Watching people eat chicken with their fingers is gross, but I've done it in private. I love fresh pineapple on pizza, especially without ham.

I too recently acquired this book. Less daunting for me than the Cake Bible, but then I'm not too interested in cake. My first foray (before I actually owned the book) was the result of Chris Hennes raving about her open-face blueberry pie last summer. The filling was outstanding. This New Year's Day we made the "Best All American" apple pie, using three different types of apple. Again, the filling was fabulous--and, I am seriously picky about apple pie. My daughter made the currant scones (her first time ever making scones) and they were very good. I should say that my husband is the flour guy; I do the pizza toppings, he does the dough, I do the pie fillings, he does the crust. He prefers a Julia Child crust to the one he tried from the RLB book, so we are using her pie fillings but not her crust. At least for now. Doesn't that picture of the honeycomb pie with the little bees just kill you?

An Amazon email came this morning highlighting Valentines Day related kitchen gifts. Okay, a red Kitchen Aid mixer is fine, if red appliances appeal. But a heart-shaped 2 qt Le Creuset Dutch oven? A heart-shaped cake or tart pan I can maybe see (although it isn't my style exactly) or even heart-shaped ramekins for the custard fanatic who already has everything, but a Dutch oven? What can you do with heart-shaped soup?

I don't have a purple color issue. Yes, the chicken does darken a bit, but there are enough other ingredients in the mix I suppose--and perhaps the use of less grapey wine--to make the color unremarkable, and not unappetizing in any way. I make a large amount, using approx 3 modest sized birds. I often use extra thighs, so maybe the dark meats tends to look less stained. After browning, the chicken pieces get layered in a deep pot with about a half can of chopped San Marzano tomatoes (I would use fresh if they were in season), garlic, crumbled bacon, herbs and spices. We do use cognac; 6 T only, flamed in a ladle and poured over the layers. Then goes one bottle of wine, a quart of rich chicken stock, and water if necessary to just cover the ingredients. The veggies don't get put in right away. We use a decent wine, one that would certainly be the equivalent of a $15 bottle; recently it's been a relatively light cab blend made by my BIL. It isn't very purple to begin with, and I guess the sauce picks up some color from the tomatoes, and perhaps too the color is softened by the chicken stock. To avoid overcooked or tough chicken, the overall cooking time is not that long--around 45 min. I suppose a really old rooster would require a lot more time. Then some of the juices are removed and reduced down, which also probably helps the color.

This week we made a large pot of posole verde and a big batch of calabacitas with queso fresco. I used Rancho Gordo posole and Hatch green chile that friends had brought back from NM and frozen. This was my first time using the RG posole. Delicious.

This topic is a wee bit silly. Really, all we are talking about is cooking: how much we like to do it, and what foods matter to us enough to make them a labor of love. Someone who eats a can of spaghettios (sp?) might find a good quality jarred sauce and de Ceccho dried pasta a revelation. To someone else for whom pasta is a staple and a great love, only home-made pasta and sauces will do. People who don't cook at all usually think making a simple tomato sauce is time-consuming. People who do a lot of cooking know that a decent sauce can be made blindfolded with a can of San Marzano tomatoes, an onion, some butter, and half an hour. Things are a snap only if you are comfortable doing them and have a pantry full of staples. Just imagine making salsa if you had never done it before; how many questions you would have. Fresh or cooked salsa? Fresh tomato or canned? Canned green chile? Chile powder? Where can you buy fresh chile? What type of fresh chile should I buy? How hot is it? What's the difference between red chile and green? How do you roast chile? What is cilantro and where do I get it? Lemon or lime juice? Some of us have the advantage of being born into a family that passes down recipes and traditions, or have parents that were adventurous, talented cooks. It may rub off, and it may not. Others don't have any home-cooking traditions, and buy the same canned and prepared foods their parents bought. Some take the leap and experiment on their own using cook books, some take cooking classes as a way to start. Every cook makes a dozen decisions about what's important every day. I don't care enough about mayo to make my own, so Best Foods tastes fine. I do care about salsa, so I find home-made makes a big enough difference to be worth the effort. But on the other hand, in summer, I always have plenty of fresh good tomatoes and cilantro and limes in the house, so I don't have to shop for ingredients. I love soups, so I care about stock, and make my own. To me, it tastes astronomically better than any type of broth I can buy. I don't like pate enough to make my own. I don't like gardening enough to grow my own produce. I don't want to kill my own chickens (or keep them, for that matter.) What you end up cooking and eating is a complex inter-relationship of what you enjoy doing, what foods matter to you, and how much time and money is available, no?

The apps have grown to include pumpernickel slices with smoked salmon, cucumber and an approximation of creme fraiche, since my husband baked two killer loaves of pumpernickel yesterday. We usually make a tarte tatin to go with Coq au Vin, but my husband is pretty enamored of our new version of apple pie, and when someone volunteers to make a pie, I don't object. He is doing a Julia Child double crust, and the filling is RLB, which so far is my favorite. Shamanjoe, there will not be blood. No rooster, either. My life is complicated enough. There will be plenty of good wine in it and home-made stock and flaming cognac is involved at some point. It is an old recipe (we can't remember where it came from) and pretty labor-intensive. But worth it.

Three friends coming for dinner, one says she's bringing caviar, another's bringing champagne My husband's on a Manhattan kick, so there's that... Clarine or Brebiou cheese, olives Spinach, fennel and leek soup for a starter Coq au Vin (rice and green salad) Apple pie, choice of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream

I'm a little late to the party, but my daughter and I spotted BWJ and impulsively bought it for her dad for xmas; he's the one in the family who has a way with flour, and he's devoted to an earlier version of Julia's pie crust. So far my daughter made the buttermilk scones (she added currents), which were excellent. My husband made the very plain White Loaves and I thought they were the best white loaves I ever tasted. We had slices still warm with soup the first night. It makes spectacular toast and sandwiches and, if we can save enough until tomorrow morning, I am guessing it will be great French toast. I can't get over how good this bread is, and how picture perfect the loaves. Has anyone made the pumpernickel? The addition of prune lekvar in this recipe is sort of surprising. That's the only ingredient not in the house. In fact it's been a gazillion years since I tasted that.