Katie Meadow

The current issue has a contribution by David Tanis singing the praises of parsnips. Always on the lookout for something that isn't pumpkin pie (irrational, but yes I just can't stand pumpkin pie, bread, pancakes or god forbid, pumpkin creme brulee), I made the parsnip buttermilk pie. I cut back on the spices (again, because I don't want anything tasting like pumpkin pie), and instead of the pie crust the recipe suggested, my husband provided his no-fail Julia crust. Anyway it was lovely and delicious. Tangy, so a bit different than you expect when you bite into a pie that looks like pumpkin or sweet potato. The shell gets pre-baked and I was worried that my edges would burn to a crisp during the hour-long cooking time specified. I started it with foil protection on the crimps, and that was a good idea. It was done in 50 minutes. Now I'm considering adding some mashed parsnip to my sweet-potato pie, which is, as you would think, more rich, but still vegetal. I can't remember the last time I tasted a parsnip. I had a little extra plain mashed vegetable before assembling the filling, so we scarfed that down with butter and salt, and it was just yummy. Mashed plain parsnip has about the same structure and stiffness as mashed sweet potato, which surprised me. So, next up: the potato-parsnip pancakes and then...maybe the lamb casserole. Those lemon cheesecake squares above look dreamy, by the way.

Hest88, I notice you are from the Bay Area too. Although I found the markets in France and Venice mind-boggling when it came to different types of sea critters, I think the East Coast has a far greater variety than we do on the West Coast. Whenever I visit NY I remember that even Berkeley Bowl and Tokyo Fish are limited in comparison. Local west coast mussels are starting to be farmed, and they aren't bad, but they aren't usually as good as PEI mussels. The only local hardshell clams are those tiny manila ones, and I don't think they have the taste of real east coast hardshells. And you sure can't use 'em for chowder. At Citarella there are about ten times as many types of fish as I've seen sold here.

There's a snail thread (!) somewhere that discusses the difference between bulots, or various types of sea snail, and land snails, which is what I have always taken to be escargots. When I was little my father was able to gross me out totally by eating live whelks out of the waters of Long Island. He referred to them by the Italian name, Scungilli. Who taught him this is a mystery that's gone to the grave with him, as we certainly aren't Italian and I certainly never saw him eat whelk anywhere else or cooked, for that matter. I'm sure he only did it to make me scream. What a dedicated Dad! When escargots are good, they're really good, but mostly they don't seem fresh or tender when ordered here in the states. Although I did have some that were very nice in a little bistro in Portland. Had some really yummy ones in the south of France. I love raw oysters, but not cooked oysters, steamed mussels, most any kind of east coast clam--steamers, razors, hard shells. For some reason I can't stand scallops. I'm in 100 percent agreement with a poster above who much prefers watching and thinking about the living octopus than actually eating one. Squid, meh. Deep-fried tentacles from little ones can be fun, if not overcooked or too greasy.

I've used CA bay leaves and they are very potent. Last time I bought bay leaves I bought Morton and Bassett. They are indeed very large, and very strong tasting, and I just assumed they were CA bay leaves, although I don't really know. My bottle of M & B lasted an awfully long time; I use a half a leaf for one pot of beans, or a pot of anything, for that matter. They do seem to be less strong now that I'm practically at the end of the bottle, but no surprise there.

Just goes to show that curiosity can lead you places you never wanted to be. I looked up Candlestick Salad. Supposedly it had its origins in the depression, although it smacks of post-war "creativity" to me. The height of something, but I'm not sure what. Definitely the thing for retro 50's party and a perfect accompaniment to pigs-in-a-blanket. Options make it the most versatile of side-dishes: dripping with whipped cream it's a dessert, dripping with mayo it's considered more of...a salad.

Spanikopita is a great idea: easy to cut in small portable squares, sinfully yummy and something most of us don't bother to make. FYI, shark bites, or serving ANY fish generally known to be high in mercury would be a no-no for a pregnant woman, and possibly for her friends, some of whom may be pregnant as well, and not telling yet. Shark is one of the fish highest in mercury, along with most tuna and swordfish. Pregnant women and children are strongly cautioned against these fish.

Probably no sushi, either. I don't see why you can't have a nice variety of beers and/or wines or even champagne. I wouldn't want to deprive my friends of alcohol just because I wasn't haven't any. And some pregnant women make exceptions for special events; I'm pretty sure I had a glass of bubbly at my baby shower. As for smoked meats, all I can say is that my middle trimester I ate an unprecedented amount of spare ribs (and pickles of all kinds.) But it is messy. Do you like to make pizza? Home-made thin crust pizzas with a variety of toppings, especially veggies, are easy to eat in slender wedges, and they don't have to be ready at the same time. Unless you are having a real sit-down meal, soup might be awkward. Middle-eastern apps work well, like hummus and babaganouj with pita. A plate of really nice cheeses and fruit is never unwelcome. I don't know why a tomato and sweet onion tart comes to mind, maybe I'm just hungry now. How did the champagne and spare ribs affect my daughter? She prefers beer to any other alcoholic drink and hates fatty meat.

I think perhaps cookies and candy should be separate categories. The only commercial cookies I buy are Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. They resemble oreos in flavor, but without the white goop. When I eat oreos I scrape away the filling and toss it or give it to the nearest small person who wants it. LuckyGirl notes that Famous Wafers are now made with hydrogenated oil, but I can't say I noticed a difference in taste. Actually for a commercial cookie Walker's Shortbread is pretty good. Candy: Violet crumble, any M&Ms except minis, sour skittles.

There is still a dedicated and vocal percentage of family members who are veg at our T-giving, and every year a veg entree is made by someone. (I'm excused because we do the turkey.) A veg pot pie sounds delish, but remember, there will be pies for dessert (right?), and not everyone wants to eat pie-crust, then pie crust again. Spinach and artichoke lasagne, eggplant parmesan or rolled cheese enchiladas in blue corn tortillas with red or green chile have always been happily received. I always make a meat-free dressing, and some goes in the turkey, but the rest gets baked in a casserole with a little extra vegetarian broth for a veg side-dish. Your sides sound great. And chipotle cranberries would be nice with enchiladas. So would simple baked yams.

I don't mind a waiter asking if everything is okay, as long as they are neutral about it and give the diner an opportunity to make any comment they might feel compelled to make. If the waiter is attentive and only does it once it's reasonable, but if the waiter is already stepping away before they even get the sentence out, it's intrusive and meaningless. Anything obviously scripted by the restaurant irritates me no end. It's not hard to tell if someone is being genuine. The other night we were a party of six and two different servers asked at different times, "Are you still enjoying that?" My SIL responded, "No, but I'm still eating it." I don't think the waiter was even paying enough attention to hear her, but I thought it was funny and so did my nephews. I HATE being called "Ma'am." I don't need to be called anything. Just talk to me, and look at me when you ask me a question. When a waiter tells me his or her name, sometimes it sounds silly, sometimes it sounds okay. I might remember it, I might not, but I most likely will not call that person by name. As for the touching, I know some people just can't stand to be touched by strangers, but for me it's on a case by case basis. If the wrong person touches me it will backfire, but sometimes I don't mind at all. A waiter should always know that touching a customer is a risk. Flirting? Again, it's awfully subjective. If can be fun, or not.

Andrea has a no-fail recipe for pickled daikon and carrots in her book Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. I've made it many times. She even has some comments about that smell which might develop after a few days and how to get it to go away. I never had a problem with it, and was able to make a couple of large jars that keep for at least a week or more. I never had any left after that, so don't know its limits. It's definitely more than a one-day pickle, though. It looks like a lot more than it is, once you start making sandwiches. I started making Banh Mi using Andrea's recipe, then branched out with various types of grilled meats. The easiest and tastiest way to obtain the pate was to simply buy a smooth French-style liver pate at my deli, since I'm not ambitious enough to make my own. If someone made me a Momofuku pate I'd be thrilled, I'm sure. I did learn to cook the Char Siu (bbq pork) from Andrea's book, and that was well worth it. However if you want to spare yourself the time and have a convenient Ranch 99 or Chinatown nearby, it's easy enough to buy a variety of grilled pork, sausages, etc. I found that spicy grilled or flash-fried shrimp make a great banh mi without the pate, and so does any simple form of Asian-flavored grilled chicken. I'm far too lazy to search out Vietnamese bread, so I just use my favorite sweet or rustic baguette. After all, this kind of sandwich thrives on improv. To me, what makes it taste distinctive is a little maggi in the mayo, the daikon-carrot pickle, the fresh cilantro and sliced cukes.

I'm very fond of Jean Anderson's "A Love Affair with Southern Cooking." She has a nice intimate style and includes back stories that are informative and always generous toward others. There's a mix of old stand-bys that I am likely never to make (but are fun to read) and traditional recipes that use more cheese, butter and processed ingredients than I am inclined to use, but I've been surprised at how many of her dishes I have tweaked a bit (or maybe a lot) and have been put into my rotation. Not even Jean Anderson will ever get me the least bit interested in Pimento Cheese, but I now love shrimp cakes and cymlings, soup with beans, greens and (less) ham, and my version of spinach madeleine, which is faithful in spirit to hers. A sweet cookbook that you will consult for one thing and discover something entirely different.

I must be in the minority. I don't want a little help from my friends in the kitchen, although I don't mind participating when I get invited out. The only exception I can think of is opening oysters; some of the people I know who like raw oysters as much as I do are pretty good with a knife, and I'm not the fastest shucker, so help is appreciated. Anyone who isn't careful to preserve all the juice is excommunicated at once. Also I have to watch to make sure no shuckers are slurping on the sly. My BIL was a very fast shucker, but I noticed that he was giving out samples to his kids, and by the time the oysters reached the table, four dozen oysters had become three dozen. I won't let my husband help because I'm too afraid he'll hurt himself. No more late nights in the ER. Been there, done that. There are only two dishes that my husband and I really collaborate on. One is pizza--he does fantastic crust, I make the sauce and prep the veggies and toppings, we both build the pies, and he does the peel-to stone and back again work. The other is our once-a-year New Years Day party with traditional Coq au Vin. He seems to like the chicken prep/browning part of the operation, and that's my least favorite task on the planet and we both prep veggies. He is also my go-to guy for any mincing of parsley, etc. He's very slow but very fastidious and makes a beautiful cone-shaped pile (always too much) of evenly minced herbs.

Since it's so easy to get Fage here I haven't even tried any other Greek-style brands, although there seem to be more than ever on the shelves. Do you like Chobani as much as Fage? What about any other brands? The 2% Fage tastes like a whole-fat product to me, and I find it can work well as a sub for sour cream in many dishes. I don't find regular yogurts very appealing, expecially not ones with lots of jammy fruit in them. My mother used to put sour cream and brown sugar on grapes and my brother and I were addicted to it. Try any seedless grapes with a dollop of low-fat Fage and a sprinkling of dark brown sugar. It may sound strange, but it's compelling, and works well even if you have grapes that are less than perfect. My daughter loved it as an after-school homework boost.

When I make any type of Asian food--Chinese, Viet or Japanese--I like beer or tea. Well, more likely beer in hot weather. But one of my favorite meals is home-made potstickers and a pot of tea. Until recently, when caffeine as well as acid content was not an issue for me, I liked Genmai Cha or Chinese Jasmine Green tea, a particular brand that's cheap and delicious that I buy in Chinatown here. Lately I've been drinking White Peony Jasmine tea, which is typically brewed weak and seems to have minimal caffeine. If money was no object I would be drinking Jasmine buds or pearls. A friend received a lavish gift of just pearls and it was heavenly. I went through a phase two years ago where I became addicted to this meal for lunch during the fall and holiday months: pear or apple, Stilton on buttered crackers (talk about rich) and Earl Grey. I switched every few months or so between Earl G with lavender, and Earl G with bergamot, always with milk. Other nice pairings: Rice pudding and Keemun. Steel cut oatmeal and English Breakfast tea. As for chamomile, well, I have a hard time with that one. It seems like something a goat or sheep would graze on. Maybe with buttered wheat toast, a jar of apricot baby food and a couple of Advil?

I spent a confusing hour yesterday trying to get some clarification and came on that same website as mizducky, plus numerous others which made less and less sense the more I read. The use of the term Butterfish further muddies the water, since it appears to be a misnomer in this case for Oilfish and Escolar instead of the way I've seen it used on the west coast as one more name for Black Cod or Sablefish. I've never had any digestive issues from that fish, whatever it's called, and I eat more of that in a serving than I do when I eat a few pieces of "white tuna" as sushi. I am assuming that the use of butterfish is a red herring here. Well, you know what I mean. My most reliable source of fish info is usually the Monterey Bay Aquarium website. Escolar doesn't come up on any search there, which is amazing to me. Sablefish/Black Cod/Butterfish is high on their list of sustainable healthy fish, and they note that served raw as sushi it would be listed as gindara, which is something I have never seen on a menu, although perhaps I just dismissed it.

In my family skills seem to skip a generation. My mother was a lousy cook and could sew up a storm. I can't stand sewing, but I'm a pretty decent home cook. My daughter, a college senior, on the other hand, has great appreciation for good food and makes excellent food choices, but is temperamentally unsuited to cooking. She doesn't find it interesting and hasn't the patience for it. But my husband and I never ate junk nor did we have sweet tooths, and we totally abandoned his family tradition of dessert with every meal. We were very lucky that our daughter never had a serious sweet tooth either and didn't whine about stuff like that. (Don't worry, she whined about plenty of other things.) She hoarded Halloween candy instead of eating it (and yes, she's frugal beyond belief) and by the time she was over the early childhood fixation on "white foods"--white bread, noodles and white rice--she became a good eater. She still doesn't favor large hunks of meat, but likes modest amounts of protein added to her veggies, such as in stir-fry. She loves all types of Asian food, and spent a semester in Athens and loved Greek food. Four days in Florence made her gag; she couldn't abide all that red meat. But, although she can quickly evaluate whether food is well-prepared or not, she doesn't actually care that much and gets annoyed with me for making food important. And she often makes judgments based on price. She's a very cheap date, but isn't any fun if the food is too "high end" for her politics. My husband and I have never been to McDonalds in our lives. My daughter has only been once, with a friend's family, and she couldn't get herself to order a burger, since it would break a family record, so she had ice cream only. I don't mean to make her sound so reasonable around food. She isn't exactly.

I've reached the same conclusion about ceramic knives as you but my solution is less devil-may-care to the point of annoying obsession. I agree that it isn't worth trying to get them resharpened. I've never had one that got seriously dull before it broke, but I do try to keep them from breaking as long as possible. The risk of breaking a ceramic knife seems to increase with the number of people handling it. I find that if I allow no one in my house to use the ceramic knife but me, and allow no one else to wash it, the chances of long life are increased. I wash and dry my ceramic knife right after use, and stow it quickly in the wooden knife holder so my husband or daughter (if she is home from college) have no reason to touch it. Ever. And if it breaks I have only myself to blame. One great advance by Kyocera was the production of the curved tip, making them less likely to chip. As for testing the limits of a dishwasher, I never put knives in the dishwasher, except for regular stainless flatware. My MIL has the bad habit of throwing wood-handled knives and other utensils into the dishwasher, and it drives my husband wild.

Now you've got me worried. I've been ordering white tuna for years here on the West Coast; sometimes I have actually seen it translated on the menu as albacore, and I always assumed that was the case. It is often served here (unlike other tuna) with a small dollop of garlic paste, which makes it taste even more delicious. I try not to eat any tuna on a regular basis, but next time I'm out for sushi I will ask a few questions.

I still have the gingerbread article I clipped a zillion years ago. Every time I make her recipe for Damp Gingerbread I read the whole article. She's got rhythm. And it's the absolute best gingerbread on earth: no molasses, just Lyle's Golden Syrup. Damp it is. Her words and the experience of this cake are a perfect package. Love you, Laurie Colwin.

Not homemade but this turned out to be a big hit my daughter's first year of college: dark chocolate covered espresso beans. A novel way to get caffeine, especially if you are living in the dorm, it's 11pm and you have a paper to write.

I always thought beans hated me too, but I discovered that if I eat them regularly, I don't have any unpleasant side-effects. I started making a pot of beans once a week last year (with at least one meal's worth of leftovers) and after a couple of months my body started to adjust. Now it's not an issue. Red beans and rice is current favorite way to cook 'em.

Let me second the suggestion to take some of your dishes with you and see how they fit into the various prongs, dividers, etc., looking not only for height or width but shape. We didn't do this, but we had very few choices, and we got lucky. Our basic wineglasses JUST fit in the upper rack--if they were 1/4 inch taller it would be hopeless. The dividers in our Asko are close together, for the most part, and luckily the shape of our bowls and plates allows us to maximize the number of dishes per load. The dishwasher that was installed in my in-laws' shared beach house looked like it would hold a million dishes, but in fact, when we have xmas eve dinner or T-giving there, and seat at least 15 people, it really doesn't hold nearly as much as it could. The soup-bowls flop all over the place and the prongs are at an awkward angle and too far apart for the dishes. Makes a big difference if your dishes are a "good match" for the design. It will be a source of major frustration on a daily basis if the ultimate capacity is compromised by either design or the shape of your particular dishes. My previous KA had good capacity, but only lasted half as many years as the KA before that one, which was in fact about 25 or 30 yrs old when it died. The next one lasted more than 15 yrs, but I was told not to expect more than 6 or 8 years from any new model, KA or otherwise. Especially with a household of 4 and heavy use. We were informed by the place we bought our dishwasher that some models are easier and some are quirkier to install. We also checked the price of our plumber against the price of the outlet's installation and removal. Much better deal to have the store do the installation, and I'm glad I talked my husband out of trying to install it himself. Some models have very specific recommendations for installation, and the Asko we put in was not a slam-dunk in the space set up for the KA.

I use them as little as possible, since a knife is always nearer and I have to cross the kitchen to get the shears. I do use them exclusively for two things: cutting off the vacuum sealed wrap on bacon, and snipping grapes into manageable small bunches. For cutting flower stems I use a dedicated Japanese floral scissors, which was one of best gifts anyone's ever given me. If you can't think what to get someone, that's it.

If I read it correctly, this morning's NYT characterized Gourmet as upper class and Bon Apetit as more middle class. I'm not sure that's how I would have described the difference. Over the years I have intermittently had subscriptions to both. At one point I was convinced that BA simply had more recipes, so I went back and counted recipes in both magazines from the same time period. I was correct, though the difference in no. of recipes per issue was not as much as I had thought. Then I went through the recipes that I had either clipped and saved from these two magazines, or flagged and saved. In the last 5-10 years, more recipes from BA have established themselves in my rotation than those from Gourmet. Some of those have come off Epicurious rather than print editions. Both magazines have changed in the last few years, but Gourmet has changed more. There is far more emphasis on travel than on home-cooking than that magazine used to have, and more generally than BA had or has now. If that difference reflects a difference in readers' income, so that Gourmet readers are more likely to eat out and spend money on travel than the readers of BA, who apparently do more home-cooking, then I suppose it's about the economy, and diversified readership. One example of the emphasis that for me has been a turn-off about Gourmet is the use in the last year or two of two-page photo spreads, in which each page is devoted only to one plate/dish looking huge and beautiful. I prefer smaller photos that illustrate more recipes. Personally, I don't buy a culinary magazine for fashion photography; good quality smaller pix are enough to make me want to tackle something, which is what it's about, at least for me. The amount of space devoted to huge photographs seemed wasted. The fact is, in these times I don't subscribe to either; I go on Epicurious and scan the recipes instead. I love getting a food rag in the mail, so my daughter gave me a subscription to Fine Cooking a couple of years ago, and that's the only one I get now. For some reason I'm in the habit of buying one or the other in the airport before I fly, but I usually base my purchase on a quick page-shuffle and buy whichever strikes my fancy. But I'm sad, since Gourmet has been an institution ever since I can remember. Ruth Reichl was my favorite restaurant critic of all time. I used to look forward to her reviews even though I lived 3,000 miles from the restaurants. She's always been a fun writer, but I agree with several posters above, that she didn't do much that I liked with Gourmet, and perhaps she'll be free to do more writing now and less editing.