Katie Meadow

I'll check tomorrow.

Check out the Nigel Slater recipe @JoNorvelleWalkerreferences above. I have that one too.

For a while several years ago it seemed like beets were all the rage in cakes, mostly chocolate cakes. There were several recipes I found for baking Red Velvet cake using beets instead of food coloring. I never tried, because in order to get the color you have to use a LOT of beets. I did find one keeper, but it wasn't chocolate. It was a cake that used grated carrots, beets and sweet potatoes, all raw. Two cups of mixed vegetables for one modest cake. Good and moist.

Me too. A few months ago in Asheville we frequented two restaurants that featured soup dumplings, both with different strong points. But we learned our lesson: soup dumplings don"t like to travel. So, both of us with lousy colds, we dragged ourselves a few blocks for dinner. No walkable Chinese restaurants where we live. Well, that's not really true. There is one up and down a steep hill, but it is pretty bad. @liuzhou, I want to live in your apartment building.

My cast iron diffuser is great. And it was cheap.

My mother loved tongue. So I grew up eating it without having any idea what it was. I can't really remember when the revelation came about, but I'm pretty sure it gave me pause. How long did I hear the word Tongue and just let it fly over my brain?

All that comes to mind is fried cinnamon doorknobs, bedsheet lasagne, wall scones.

Okay then! Coming soon to a table near me.

So @Shelbywhere's the recipe for those otherworldly potatoes?

Good, because raisin shame is beneath you. You're far too tough of a cookie.

Maybe the fig-wasp thing is a halloween prank? More than creepy, I'll say. Thank god for short term memory loss. The next time I have some fresh figs I won't remember having read that. At least I hope not.

Also very moving: the June 6 New Yorker article about Schjeldahl's daughter, Ada Calhoun, and her struggle coming to terms with her childhood and her recent memoir. Talk about a long and winding path that loops around Frank O'Hara and returns over and over again to her father. I haven't read the memoir. Yet. Maybe I'll make the fig bars and dig up my dog-eared copy of Lunch Poems.

I'm on team @liamsaunt. Rum Raisin ice cream is a punishable offense. Prune Armagnac is also terrible. Cloying and gummy. In my 70+ years I've never known anyone who orders Rum Raisin or keeps it in their freezer. And while we're at it raisins have no place in rice pudding, but everyone know that.

No, we do not. You are correct that technically all the things labeled yams are in fact an orange variety of sweet potato, to distinguish them from the less sweet white fleshed sweet potato. Real yams are indeed a different animal and rarely seen in markets in the US. If you want to make a sweet potato pie you learn to buy the orange fleshed sweet potato labeled as yams. The clue is they have a redder skin and the varieties are typically Garnet, Jewel or Beauregard. Around here in Northern CA the Beauregards don't show up often but they are really good. Maybe they are grown more in the south? I just stab them and bake loose on a cookie sheet lined with foil. Yes they do seep a little but not enough to make a difference as far as I can tell.

@blue_dolphinPotato and Cauliflower mash is a favorite. I add garlic, butter of course, sometimes creme fraiche or a little bit of chèvre. .. And although I don't often venture far from toast for breakfast, leftover mash is always a treat. I never thought of making pancakes with it, probably because there isn't usually enough left over, but that sounds excellent. Added flour? Egg? what else? A generous handful of chopped chives would be nice. What do you do for pancakes?

Since you are laughing I assume there's no truth to it, right?

Where did you ever get such a thing? And does it have a name? Just curious. I really don't want one.

I got it in my head at a young age that water makes eggs tough and cream makes them tender. Not only do I not know where I got that idea, but I've never added water to my eggs so I don't even know if it's true.

I don't bake russets, but once a year I stab the living daylights out of a bunch of yams. It's my way of coming to terms with the fact that only about three people out of a crowded tableful even eat them. One of those three is my husband, who would consider it a crime if they didn't make an appearance. The worst part of it was the fight for oven space. Now many of my husband's family are scattered to the winds and, thank the gods, the group is becoming more intimate and less chaotic. Speaking of Thanksgiving, which isn't really the topic of this thread at all, I hear that fresh turkeys have doubled in price as a result of avian flu. How many more pandemics are gunning for the holiday? My husband says that if a fresh farm turkey costs more than $150 this year he might think twice. Needless to say, our Thanksgiving has always been three turkey eaters and a blizzard of vegetarians. Strangely the turkey eaters are the same three people who eat the yams.

@weinooThe very few times I have had a bouilliabaisse the rouille was served on the side. My mother's way of eating it was to spread the rouille on a piece of toast and float it. I always thought a bouillabaisse was defined especially by the use of saffron, so the flavor was different than Zuppa di Pesce or Cioppino, but that you could enjoy it sans rouille if you chose. Whatever, it looks scrumptious.

That's a pretty high number for 30 days in essentially the area of one state. There is no verified mention of what mushrooms were eaten But it stands to reason that if there's been rain lately during the late summer and fall months, there will be a variety of fruiting shrooms that may not be easily identified by amateur foragers.

No one has mentioned "The Taste of Mexico" by Patricia Quintana. I've had this book many years and have no memory of how or when I got it. It's lovely. A large elegant book organized by region, it has expensive paper and beautiful photography. Curous, I checked Amazon and it sells for a whopping $65. However it appears there are lots of used copies floating around at very reasonable prices on eBay, Abe's, etc., many hovering at $10 or so.

The Chinese idea of American fast food looks as unappealing as American fast food in America. Though I admit I am not a fan of Kewpie mayo on anything, so maybe I'm a poor judge.

@BetDI love that the cards and hand-written recipes have illustrations. The book's illustrations, at least the few I can see, also are wonderful. Fantastic archive.

To be fair, fast food fries may once have been potatoes, but most of them have been processed to the point of "what is this?"