Katie Meadow

I can't believe how many responses actually include a PB and mayo combo. Of course the onion really must kick it up a notch. What kind of bread do you use for that? My husband won't believe this. He claims his mother used to give him PB and Mayo (on wonderbread, I have no doubt) in his lunchbox when he was little. He uses it as an example of the most awful sandwich he has ever eaten. Maybe his mother was ahead of the curve (WAY ahead). That was before he met a nice Jewish girl like me. I thought PB & mayo wasn't any weirder than the fact that he thought nothing of eating ham & cream cheese on a raisin bagel. Good luck with that onion thing. I admit I'm tempted. I don't think I'll try the duck confit/pepper jelly thing, though. That sounds like a recipe straight out of Edward Lear: catch a duck, cook it in fat for 3 days, take the meat of the bones and pack it in a jar for two years. Grow some peanuts and hot peppers. Harvest and roast them. Make a sandwich with everything. Toss out the window at once. If I didn't like the PB M & O sandwich at least I wouldn't feel too bad about throwing it out. But I couldn't waste all that duck confit. On second thought, my husband will take it for lunch.

Nutella, baby! Are you in the East Bay? PB & N on Arizmendi Wednesday loaf. And it travels very well.

Okay, before the hangover crowd stumbles over to check their thread mail....I don't want to veer off topic, but, what would anyone prefer in a Bloody Mary if you don't like Tabasco? For that I can't help but go with Tabasco; maybe it's a nostalgia thing. Tapatio is good for a quick ratchet-up of a red chile sauce, but I think it tastes distinctly of American-style enchiladas, so it has limited use for me. Oysters, well, if I had only six I would just stick to a squirt of lemon. If I had a dozen, I might have a few with Tabasco or Pickapeppa. Here's my list, in alphabetical order: Chinese Black Bean hot sauce (Pot-stickers w/out that hot red oil: sad.) Chipotle in Adobo (Thank god the cans are small.) Harissa (A paste in a tube--does it count? But what a tube! I'm a huge fan.) Pickapeppa (Tastes like nothing else.) Tabasco (Because it's there, and it's always been there.)

For a cooked sauce I have found Mario Batali's sauce recipe to be extremely versatile. I originally found it in a magazine featuring his recipe for meatballs and spaghetti. The sauce uses onion, garlic, several sprigs worth of fresh thyme, a half a finely grated carrot and canned San Marz. tomatoes, cut up or squeezed, and all the juices that come with. That's it. He doesn't use dry oregano. This sauce is so basic you could add whatever flavors you wanted, I guess. I make a big batch--usually with three or four 28 oz cans. The pasta sauce cooks in half an hour. I add salt and remove however much of the sauce I want to save out for various pasta dishes or lasagne. Then I add a bit of hot red pepper flakes to the remainder in the pot and continue to cook it down til pretty thick. That's my pizza sauce. Thick is good: the flavor gets concentrated and all you need is a very modest coating. If the sauce is too thin (watery) it will prevent the crust from being nice and crispy. I agree with some poster below who likes to see the layers and doesn't pile on the ingredients too thick. I don't like pizza that has a solid thick barge of cheese, just a good scattering. I think of this style of pizza, with tomato sauce, in the New York mode too. Of course the modifications since those days are legion, given that it's hard to imagine a pizza without sauteed radicchio, carmelized onions, etc.

What my mother called the oysters were the two succulent bits of meat in the oval shaped concave bones on either side of the back bone. I rarely disjoint a chicken, so it's hard for me to picture clearly the Julia Child procedure described above, but whenever given the opportunity, I do dig out the oysters of a roasted chicken or turkey. In order to do so, of course, it's necessary to flip the bird, so to speak. I am not fond of handling raw chicken, but I don't mind fish heads; grilled whole fish often just look wrong without their heads. I also like the way the picked-clean bones look when still attached to their two original ends. I admit that I typically don't dig around in fish heads. However, now that I hear there is an "oyster" in the head as well as cheeks, I may be more adventurous.

Diggingoutedness is a fabulous word. Chicken oysters are way up there on the morsel pantheon. Of course turkeys have oysters too. My husband's relatives are either vegetarians or trepidatious white meat eaters, so they never notice when I turn that Thanksgiving bird over and dig them out.

Last year at the end of August we drove from Glacier National Park in Montana to Walla Walla, WA via northern Idaho; places I'd never been before. It was high season for Hucks, and all along the roads were stands and stalls featuring Huck this and Huck that. We were warned that besides the human competition, bears could be a serious danger to unsuspecting pickers off the beaten track. We didn't pick, but we learned to look out for signs, since Huck products depend upon local pickers for supply. "We have Hucks" meant a fresh supply had just come in. Our first taste was, I believe, in Libby Montana, and I hope I am not wrong in saying it was the Libby Cafe. This place was out of a 1950s dream. Gleaming stainless and glass cases with picture perfect pies and pastries. A U-shape counter filled with local folks all chatting away, memorabilia on the walls, etc. We sat at the window overlooking the street. My husband had coffee and a slice of Huck pie, which was pretty good, and I had a Huck milkshake, which was truly out of this world. We stopped at several places along the road and bought bags of berries which we devoured. In case the town of Libby sounds familiar, I didn't realize until a recent article in the NYTimes that it was the site of an infamous cover-up by the WR Grace & Co which owned and ran the vermiculite mines for the last 50 years. Approximately 1,500 cases of asbestos related illness have been documented and a movie about it has been circulating on PBS stations.

Here in the Bay Area several vendors at the Farmers' Markets sell what they label as Walla Wallas. The are fresh and delicious. However, the Walla Walla Sweets that I received from Walla Walla as a gift were from another planet: they were huge, and the sweetest most delicious onions I ever tasted; when carmelized slowly they were like an exotic candy. Are my local growers getting real Walla Walla seeds or are they mislabeling? If they are actually getting seeds from WA onions why don't they taste the same? Soil?

I wish I had had more time in Portland. Lauro was highly recommended but I didn't get there. We also ate at a sweet little French place called Le Bouchon, recommended by the same person. My husband and my nephew declared the snails very good--for American snails--and I had a very good steak/frites. The waiter was adorable and flirtatious, the room was full of charm. The kind of meal that makes you feel your money is well spent, because the experience is so all-around nice. Neither pretentious or too pricey. Besides Lauro and Bouchon my source recommended Sungari Pearl and two bbq places: Clays on SE Division and the Delta Cafe, for low-country soul. We didn't have time to visit them. We ate at Jakes with a big party; my salmon was first-rate and the sampler of northwest oysters was good as well. Most everything else at the table was mediocre. We had breakfast at Bijou, downtown and thought it was great. It was crowded, but we were seated quickly. Two blocks away is Mother's bistro, also an oft-mentioned breakfast place, raved about by a friend of mine. There was a long line, so we went on to Bijou. Big portions, homey food, clearly a place for oyster hash, if you go for that sort of thing. This is the kind of place I wish I had in my neighborhood; the kind of place that's perfect if I am going hiking for the day. Delicious fresh squeezed juice. Both these places are on all the local "best breakfast" lists. Alberta Oyster bar sounds great and has an interesting website. We stayed overnight in Newport. The old part of town along the water is corny and lovely at night. Our meal overlooking the water was awful. We passed through Ashland on our way home to the Bay Area. It was very hot, we had been on the road for hours (plus ten days) and I needed something restorative and COLD. We stopped on the main drag at a big crowded ice-cream place. They served an espresso shake that made me weep it was so fabulous. Can't remember the name of the place, but it gave off an aura of being, well, the place to go. Not to be missed in Portland: the Japanese Garden. It's simply spectacular. Not huge, just perfect. it was amazing in rain/shine in spring, and would be incredible in the fall.

Is the flipping technique (i.e. partial bake crust) a way to make pizza if you don't have a stone? If you have a pizza stone, is there a reason not to use it the same way as you would in an oven? We make pizza all the time in our oven using a basic round pizza stone. The oven gets preheated with the stone in as hot as possible--we get close to 500 degrees. The dough is rolled out and turned onto the wooden peel, then on goes the tomato sauce, cheese and prepared toppings (usually raw sliced tomato, pre-cooked veggies, pre-carmelized onions, whatever) and then the pizza is slid quickly onto the stone and cooked til done. If the dough is rolled out nice and thin it gets fairly crispy, altho not cracker-crisp. Our pizza cooks in about 10 minutes this way. I always thought those wonderful cracker-crisp pizzas were only achievable with a wood-fired oven that got closer to 700 degrees. Our gas grill does get up to 500 degrees, and since cooking is done w/lid closed, why couldn't you just preheat the stone in the grill and build the pizzas and omit the flipping step? I've noticed that William-Sonoma markets a pricey rectangular stone designed for gas grills, so I assume a simply old-fashioned stone would work as well. Maybe most gas grills just can't maintain the high heat well enough, so you need to compensate for the slower cooking time? Maybe the pre-cooking, flipping and then adding toppings makes for a super crispy crust? I'm thinkin' we'll do our next pizza in the grill and see what happens.

Le bistrot de paradou is a favorite of mine ,well described by Margarete. Last oct i spent 10 days around avignon and Languedoc.Nothing to recommend, Tourists everywhere and ordinary restaurants ,despite the hooplah. ← Bistrot de Paradou sounds amazing. Perhaps we should book for Friday lunch, which would be on our way to Aix. The website says that's Aioli day w/local snails and more. My husband loves a good snail! Perfect. Thank you both!

My first post! I've done my homework by reading many threads, but now I'll get specific. We are traveling the first week of Oct in Provence and the Cote d'Azur. Our towns are as follows: Roussillon, L'isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Aix, Bormes-les-Mimosas, and one night in Nice to catch the train to Venice. Sounds like every restaurant in Nice is shut on Sunday except for the Bar Socca: fun but not relaxing. By that time I will be cooked, and any suggestions for a modest friendly bistro/brasserie in the old town would be appreciated. IF they are open Sunday evening. We would like to eat mostly at cafes and bistros, with a few splurges thrown in. I prefer fresh ingredients without a lot of pretense or architectural construction. A great steak frites can make me happy or a plate of beautiful vegetables or a perfectly grilled trout just pulled from the river. I'm fussy, but I don't like fussy food, if you know what I mean. I would like bourride and bouillabaisse, but I'm not going to dine chez Bacon; the Brangelina crowd and the prices are not in this life (or the next) for me. Roussillon: anyone eaten at Brasserie L'ocrier or Le Bistro de Roussillon? What about side trips (lunch) in nearby towns? Cucuron, Gordes, Goult? I've heard raves about Cafe de la Fontaine in Lourmarin. The town of Cucuron is calling to me; I know it's very small. Ideas there? L'isle-sur-la-Sorgue: L'oustau de L'isle sounds appealing for a splurge dinner. Le Jardin du Quai? Any other ideas? Also we will take a day to see the Pont du Gard, and Pope's Palace in Avignon. Any suggestions for lunch near those two famous sites? Two places suggested near the aqueduct are La Begude Poulon in Vers Pont du Gard and Amphitryon in Castillon du Gard, both of course not in Avignon. Anyone know those? Or a nice bistrot near the Popes Palace? Aix: Just our luck: the weekend we are there is the International Rugby Quarterfinals. My daughter plays rugby at college and would be thrilled, but I am not. Many teams have filled up the hotels and I am guessing the Cours Mirabeau will be full of either depressed or ectstatic young celebrants, doing what you would expect all evening long. Chez Feraud sounds very appealing and is off the beaten track a bit--anyone love that? I've also heard good things about La Chimere Cafe, La Madeleine (good for bouillabaise?), Le Verdun, Cote Coeur (one blogger swooned over their black chocolate mousse, which is just up my mother's alley.) Any thoughts? Le Clos de la Violette is on everyone's list, but sounds pricier than the rest; ma mere et mon mari will balk. We will be staying on the Mirabeau (many affordable hotels were already booked.) I'm told a good alternative to the Deux Garcons is the Bastide du Cours if we want a brasserie in the middle of the action, of the brasserie of the hotel Saint Christophe. Cote d'Azur. Some bloggers on various sites have raved about La Bonaparte in Cassis for true Bouillabaisse sans the glitz, but I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the soupe posts on this site. Just curious. We will spend the night after Aix in Bormes-les-Mimosas. Any suggestions there? At that point I would probably be ecstatic if I had a lovely bowl of super-fresh moules on the beach. Any ideas for that town? Then there's that Sunday night in Nice, when all the chefs are eating chez grandmere. Thanks in advance for all suggestions. KM