Katie Meadow

I like the cardboard once a year. After all, you wouldn't want to eat charoset and horseradish on a rice cracker, would you? Our friend who hosts the seder always sends us home with xtra matzoh and I make matzoh brei which I do like. Best if it uses egg and onion matzoh, though.

I was never a huge fan of downstairs at Chez P but always had great celebrations upstairs in the cafe. Lunch pizzas are great, and one of my favorite desserts in summer is the fruit sorbets. .Also the seating is so sweet. My most memorable downstairs dinner (not in a good way) was one where the soup course, served in a large graceful bowl, was about 1/8 inch deep. One of those occasions where you say "it wasn't very good and there wasn't enough of it."

No idea why I never went to Brandy Ho's. Did you ever eat at Barbara Tropp's China Moon? That was lovely. I went to camp with her when we were teenagers, and she was always kind and generous.

When the original Hunan opened in SF in 1974 I was living a few blocks up the hill on the edge of Chinatown on Powell St. This little hole in the wall was magical. We just couldn't believe how good it was.

Classic Easter dinner? Uh, no. We hit the highway this morning on our road trip to Texas. Easter mid-day meal was PB & Raspberry jam sandwiches on homemade bread. Downhill from there with misc fridge cleaning items. This was at a godforsaken rest area in the middle of nowhere under storm clouds. Now ensconced in a generic Holiday Inn Express, also in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow will be sunny and we'll be in Palm Springs by afternoon!

It's pretty unlikely the chile rellenos were made using Hatch chiles. They don't have the structure necessary for stuffing and deep frying. They would just end up in shreds. Best to use poblanos for that dish; pick the flattest most straight peppers in the bunch.

When I lived in NM hot poblanos were a given. You bought them anywhere. I can't tell you how much I miss good chile rellenos. I don't know where the supermarket poblanos are coming from in northern CA, but they are almost always bland. For a while I had two good sources for hot ones, but those days are gone. Very sad for me. I'll be in NM for several days in mid-April and fingers crossed for good green chile dishes at hole-in-the wall kitchens.

@Shel_B Options above are worth trying, since we're talking little money and an easy experiment. But have you tried Berkeley Bowl for fresh corn? They have had fresh corn, presumably from Mexico, all winter, and usually it's been decent. We bought some just two weeks ago to make corn and mushroom quesadillas. Not as sweet as local summer corn, but worth using in various dishes.

You're a woman of catholic tastes. Mostly I'm not fond of chile in chocolate, brownies or cookies. The exception for me would be pan forte, the sweetish concoction of fruit and nuts and cocoa with a hint of pepper. But just a hint. Peanuts and chile, by all means. Ice cream sundae with both, well, I might not even taste it.

Looks yummy, but the recipe sounds more like a cross between a coffee cake and a crumble. I'm not really sure what defines a quick bread either. I know it doesn't involve yeast or rising time. I guess it can be sweet, like many loaf tea cakes and breads, or not sweet, as in some brown breads and soda breads. Maybe someone has clearer parameters?

Yes, date and nut bread with a swipe of cream cheese! I'm fond of the KA recipe; the dates get soaked in hot coffee. Another current favorite is Yossy Arefi's Simple Sesame Cake, which I don't consider a cake, as it isn't terribly sweet and gets cooked in a loaf pan. Another favorite is Doris Greenspan's Poppy Seed Tea Cake, which is really a quick sweet bread, also baked in a loaf pan. All three of these are delicious toasted and buttered for breakfast. As you probably figured out from my lack of posts in the breakfast thread, most of my morning meals are toast. I only cook once a day. Not that anyone asked, but my least favorite sweet breads on Earth are banana bread and pumpkin bread. And by least favorite I mean really hate.

Checking out some menus for restaurants along our route to south Texas I came across one that offered two fruit options: fresh and canned! There must be plenty of people who grew up on canned fruit cocktail, but I wasn't one of them.

Me neither. If I had any sense I would make them this week to take on my road trip to see the eclipse. We leave on Easter Sunday for south Texas. Packing alone is a chore, given my limited mobility healing from a hip fracture. But it does seem like a good idea for a car snack.

@Shelby send Ronnie fishing and you can use your Bass-o-Matic!

SO sorry @Shelby, that sounds miserable. Besides the usual blended soups and smoothies, what do you think of RG beans, refried a bit soupy, topped with hot sauce and creme fraiche? Will cold feel good? Vichyssoise! Root beer float! Panna Cotta! @blue_dolphin popsicle hotline!

Where are you buying these Italian oreganos? At an East Bay spice store or on line? I've had Greek oregano, which usually does not seem special to mel, but not those. For general purposes I use Mexican oregano, which I get at Oaktown Spice. For special things I love Rancho Gordo's Indio Oregano. It's one-of-a-kind.

Right you are. Buckwheat seems to be classified as a seed, neither grain nor grass. One of my favorite stores in Berkeley sells an enormous range of dried Japanese noodles. If you look closely, you can find one or two packets that are 100% buckwheat. so they do exist. I tried them once and they were pretty bad.

I like buckwheat when mixed into wheat for pancakes and such for added rustic flavor. When it is on its own though, it isn't always easy to work with or to enjoy. I'm glad you mentioned that buckwheat noodles, or soba, usually have wheat as a good percentage, because it helps with structure. 100% buckwheat soba lacks toothiness and flavor. Buckwheat groats, which I believe are coarse cut and perhaps toasted, are awful. My opinion, but I am not alone! But yeah, buckwheat is a grass and is gluten-free.

You're funny! Our main shopping trip is always at Berkeley Bowl, not that everything there is perfect. Sadly a few products I have relied on for years are no longer in stock. Their fish dept is good, but in the East Bay the best fish is at Tokyo Market.

To be honest I have no idea. Some sources say never to eat raw mushrooms, period. I just don't. I find them creepy. YMMV.

Just a guess, but perhaps The Local Butcher Shop in Berkeley offers beef cheeks. It's an amazing place, if you want meat. Maybe Berkeley Bowl has them? I've never looked for them.

I had never heard of peposo so I googled it. From a brief survey it appears that most people use chuck. Like you, @Shel_B, I rarely eat beef any more so no expert. I don't see why short ribs wouldn't be very nice.

Okay, a stock question for you: sometimes I see recipes identified as Chinese chicken stock. They often contain ginger, but some of them specify using some kind of pork, not typically smoked, like maybe a pork neck bone or something. Is this common?

Lotta work for a muffin.

For a decade I was a member of the SF Mycological Society. When you hang out with those nerds you learn a lot! I picked only what I was sure of. If unknown, I would take a sample and do spore prints when I got home. They were lovely and fun to do, and were a good way to i.d. suspects. I'm still alive for two reasons. One, I was very careful and a good student. Two, at a certain point I became so allergic to poison oak that I just couldn't deal with it any more. Too bad. Nothing quite like Chanterelles cooked in butter on toast.