Katie Meadow

Last I heard, several months ago, was that she does indeed plan to reopen Prune. Things do change, though.

Yes, the book is gimmicky and over-designed, but some of the recipes are really good. GH is a crank and a fussbudget but I love her anyway. Maybe you would like her memoir "Blood Bones and Butter." It's entertaining and well written. And as a lover of saltines you really should try her fried saltines; they are a gateway drug, although I'm not sure into what! You can find Fried Saltines with Cheddar and Onion on line in a flash. Saltines morph in 30 seconds into flaky pastry. It's a miracle!

My husband just came back with the most expensive eggs he ever bought: Petaliuma, pasture raised, cage free, organic. $9.99 a dozen. The price jumped $1.50 in the last two weeks. He does almost all the shopping these days so I just go along with his choices. Unfortunately we are eating more eggs than in previous years and baking more cakes. A correction may be due.

No expertise here, but my favorite chocolate for many years has been Neuhaus. They must have stores in various locations all over Belgium.. I'm not typically a fan of filled chocolates, preferring dark bars, but their filled ones are fantastic.

My two favorite snacking cakes these days are Yossy Arefi's Simple Sesame Cake and Dorie Greenspan's Poppy Seed Tea Cake. The first is found on line and in her Snacking Cakes book and includes a generous amount of tahini and lots of sesame seeds in the batter and on the top. The Dorie cake can be found on the NYT site and elsewhere as well, I think. It has a modest lemon flavor and an amazing amount of poppy seeds. Both are excellent sliced and toasted. Both are for people who love crunchy seeds.

Jalapeños were more reliably hot when I lived in NM. Here in CA they are rarely hot. If I want to make pickled Jalapeños I usually add some serranos so that the brine gets hotter. Of course sometimes they are blah too. I've never really cared for them raw and they are too small to roast and peel, so not terribly useful.

Do you find the dried facing heaven chiles mild? I do. I like the flavor but I need to use several to infuse a small amount of oil. For more heat in a stir-fry I often use chiles de arbol. They are easy to come by and cheap. But you can't beat the name Facing Heaven and they have a lovely color and shape.

So" Two Phils" (no apostrophe) was already taken? I still find this hilarious!

I confess to watching the derby every year, and also to my ambivalence about the whole event. I also confess to disliking most of the food considered derby worthy, especially pimento cheese and bourbon, and probably I wouldn't like hot browns, either, given the combination of turkey, gravy and cheese. However we did make pie. It wasn't a traditional derby pie, as I'm also not wild about pecans; it was a chicken pot pie, and very good. One thing that always fascinates me is the names of race horses. There seems to be no rhyme or reason and no grammatical consistency. The names have some kind of peculiarity in common that I can't quite grasp and that I find endlessly entertaining. And yes, the race was exciting.

Yes, I keep those in stock. Very nice for a single portion, the tin being a little bit smaller than most regular sized sardines. They are mild and delicate. I wish they would sneak in just a bit more of those peppers, they have nice flavor, not at all hot. For general use I like the regular size Matiz. More sardines for the money, not quite as cute, though and not quite as mild as the small ones.

Some peppers have better flavor than others, so you're not just eating them for the heat. In the old days, in NM, real Hatch chiles were often so hot you really did need to remove some seeds, but the flavor was the best.

Hail to the King! The real king, King Bolete

What you are describing sounds an awful lot like an Italian Panforte. I'm sure there are countless versions, some a bit spicy, but the common ingredients are hazelnuts, almonds, figs, a bit of cocoa and a minimal amount of flour. I've made a wonderful one called Panforte Nero which I believe came from Alice Medrich.

I'm going to try the vinegar next time around and see what happens. I did not grow up eating mac n cheese. Once in a while there was noodle kugel at someone else's house, which was typically made far too sweet and, god forbid, often contained raisins. But I discovered mac n cheese when I moved to New Mexico where it was impossible not to garnish it with roasted hatch chiles. Now that's one of my top five comfort foods. When my daughter was young she had no problem letting me know that the boxed stuff was superior to my homemade. She's changed her tune now. There's a BBQ place near her in Atlanta that makes a sinful swoon worthy version that is rigatoni in, essentially, cream. It's unlike most all unappetizing mac n cheese you find served in a rib joint.

If you look at the word macaroni, or really "maccheroni" in Italian history it does indeed refer to a generalized collection of dry pasta shapes and does not refer only to what we call elbow macaroni, which is just a shape of pasta. And yes elbows are frequently used for mac n cheese, but other shapes you favor don't make the baked pasta dish any less an official mac n cheese. To complicate matters, let's talk about Yankee Doodle. The "macaroni" in the song actually refers to a European style of dressing popularized by the aristocracy in the 1700's; maccheroni meant a dandyish outfit. In other words, if you put a feather in your cap and called it "macaroni" you were an American yankee making fun of Europeans, and probably of Italians in specific. Racism, baked in.

What do you mean, "eating it alone?" And this topic is very confusing. Are we discussing only the ethics of eating baby animals vs adults? Or just baby cows vs baby other animals? Food Ethics is such an enormous topic. When it comes to cows alone you could fill a library. There are just too many cows on earth. And when it comes to food ethics in general, we all make our own personal deals with the devil.

No idea where I got this instruction but I always do it for potato salad: Cut the boiled potatoes while still very warm. Dress with just salt and vinegar and let sit fifteen minutes before adding everything else. whether it's no mayo or a lot of mayo. I have to say that most recipes for mayo-style potato salad call for.way more mayo than I could ever imagine using. I've seen recipes that suggest a cup of mayo for a potato salad that basically feeds three people. Now that's goopy.

Truth is I don't mind being the designated ladler. Falling in love with a funnel has been great for my marriage.

Aww, that's so sweet!

Yes, it's a wide ranging topic, especially for yakkety-yakkers like most of us here. I searched various topics and nothing quite fit. It's sort of about marmalade, sort of about canning, sort of about gadgets and hacks I didn't know existed; things I could have figured out myself but didn't, and things I could have invented if not for someone else getting there first. I considered naming the topic " @ShelbyStart Laughing Now," but that wasn't very inclusive. It is in fact about canning in general, but it's so much more. I could have posted in the marmalade thread, to which I have been a contributor. I've been making marmalade for about twenty years, ever since I discovered I was an addict. Also ever since I realized how expensive the habit could be if you purchased high end products. Also when I realized that I was really picky about the kind of marmalade I wanted. I share this addiction with my husband. So every Sevi(lle season (and in these parts that is typically mid January thru March) we collaborate on making enough jars to last for a year with extra to give away if possible. I am left-handed and many many years ago I purchased or was gifted a left handed ladle. We southpaws are flexible and have workarounds for almost every right handed gadget, but I though this was pretty great. The person who thought they were clever and about to cover a market by inventing a left handed ladle should have thought twice, really, twice. How about just adding one more spout to the right handed ladle? Of course a universal ladle exists now, but my right-handed husband is frugal and stubborn and believes in certain kinds of hardships. So he adapted. By which I mean he graciously let me do anything that involved ladling. As you probably know, marmalade is messy, sticky and very hot. Ladling the stuff into a canning jar with a tiny-spouted ladle is exacting work which needs to be done quickly and without drips or burning incidents. You have already guessed what this is about: the invention of the canning funnel, most likely centuries ago. Of course a typical little funnel isn't very effective for pouring marmalade into a jar, even a fairly fine peel marmalade. Had I ever imagined there was a canning funnel? No, not until two weeks ago. I discovered this life hack, and I'm probably the last person in the world to do so. There are plenty to chose from on Amazon. It came the next day and we made an extra batch just because we needed to prove to ourselves just how brilliant we are.

No one ever said eating scoops of raw cookie dough was good for you.

I made them because I always have saltines around and I had good chunk of sharp cheddar left over from making mac n cheese. Yes, GH always makes me laugh. I love her! Pre-pandemic I ate at her restaurant every time I was in NY. As far as I know her kitchen was all-women and the atmosphere of the place was always fun and cozy, The tables were very small and you were practically in your fellow diners' laps. But your fellow diners were always friendly and had good laps. In summer if you were lucky you could sit by a window that opened out onto the street and the village people would smile at you and even try to see what you were eating.

Whatever Gabrielle Hamilton puts on a cracker I'll try at least once. She has a knack. Recently I read her "recipe" if you can call it that for fried saltines with dijon mustard, cheddar and white onion. You briefly fry saltines in oil until golden, let them drain and cool, then spread a modest amount of mustard on, topped with a saltine sized slice of cheddar and a few wisps of thinly sliced white onion. Low-brow ingredients, high payoff! Of course she's absurdly fussy about all her combos, and in this case she instructs you how to cut the onion: in half-moons, not semi circles! We devoured them. Take note @Kim Shookand other saltine aficionados who never thought to fry them. Some of her other ideas for apps or snacks include sardines on Triskets (and Triskets only) also with mustard. Then there's her celery toasts with blue cheese (cambazola only, please) which are a little more elaborate, but very good.

Since mayo to me shouts "something quick" I don't make my own. Mayo is for BLT's, tuna salad, egg salad, deviled eggs and some potato saladsI 'm a dedicated user of Dukes. When dipping artichoke leaves we sometimes add a little squeezed garlic or smoked paprika, but just a touch. Homemade mayo is delicious, I admit.

I wish that were to case here. I don't know if most diners are embarrassed to ask for a "doggy bag" but just the fact that we call it that says something about how many Americans don't ask to take home their leftovers. I'm pretty sure it would be horrifying to see how much food gets tossed by a restaurant every day. Of course it isn't just food. The apparel industry has some really wasteful traditions.