Katie Meadow

Wasn't there a thread once about three ingredients that were horrible together? Peanut butter, celery and raisins belongs there. Throw it into the compost pile and you will get ants on a log.

That's the one. It's a little fussbudget, but that's GH for you. And I don't know what planet her cambazola comes from, but mine isn't easily "sliced." And she is also a fanatic about Pepperidge farm white bread, which must have been a staple when she was young. I'm less attached, and just use a any pullman like bread.

Another excellent winter salad, slightly Waldorfian, is simply apples, celery and walnuts. But no mayo, just a tangy dressing of olive oil, lemon, dijon mustard, a very cautious smidge of honey, and a little salt to taste. Ordinarily I stay clear of honey in dressing, but this works.

I'm in! Is there a recipe handy? I know there are people who hate celery, and I'm always amazed. It isn't like they have an allergy, they just claim to hate it. My fridge is never without it. Potato salad and tuna salad and shrimp salad depend on it. How could you make red beans and rice without the trinity? And you would miss out on Gabrielle Hamilton's celery toast with cambazola. So harmless, yet so essential. Of course I have no medical reason to hate broccoli, and yet I hate it.

When my daughter was little there was a great place in Berkeley called Le Cafe Crayon (pronounced the French way for extra credit, please.) They had a room full of wooden trains and toys for your kids. Moms or dads could order a latte or cap or macchiato and you could buy, for pennies, a bowl of goldfish for your kid. A brilliant idea! Play dates for everyone.

Another vote for cold beets with creme fraiche. Borsht minus time. I like the idea or serving beets with smoked fish. And I like the idea of adding a dab of horseradish to the creme fraiche.

Or they could go the extra mile and serve oyster crackers.

One of my most memorable meals ever happened in a bar/restaurant in Waitsburg WA (that's the next town over from Walla Walla.) The cook was working with a portable stove. She had just returned from a visit to her father. who grew lots of lovage. She managed to pan fry a fantastic steak and served it with a lovage pesto. It seemed otherworldly to me, never having had lovage before. I think it was just crushed lovage and oil and garlic, but in truth I have forgotten. Anyway her husband and co-owner was the mixologist. After dinner the adjacent space turned into a music venue. Topping off the evening was a gorgeous French woman who was part of a cheesemaking collective nearby. She played the saw... No hecklers there (that would be dangerous) just rapt locals. The cheese people had a great tasting room and you could play with baby goats. It was late spring.

I know I'm not. Yes, those red yolks are fabulous. @liamsauntyou must have boundless energy. I am endlessly envious of all the east coast seafood. We have an ocean over here but clam varieties are limited. What I wouldn't give for a bowl of steamers.

And you must not forget the original Owl Cafe in San Antonio, famous for its green chile burger. Equally important reason to go that part of NM is the Bosque del Apache wildlife reserve. Fabulous birding

I have a vague memory of pix of @andiesenji's pantry but I have no idea what thread it was in. But she is the queen of space. The pantry looked brilliant. There was another shot of some secret torture chamber of hanging skillets though, that did call into question her ability to get rid of stuff. Oh yeah, and a separate museum room for every toaster I've ever wanted to own.

Anyone but you and I would say no wonder you don't eat corn. So, that must not be corn. But what is it?

I'm lucky to have a large kitchen with lots of cabinets. Some of the cabinets are very deep, which is great for large pots and pans, but not so convenient for smaller pantry items, which are stored ten deep and gets dark toward the back, so it is really hard to find what I need sometimes. The trade off is that I can store a lot of stuff and keep it out of view. However, I can't find most of the smaller stuff without an archeological excavation. Ideally there would be some deep cabinets for cook and bakeware, and a large wall of shallower storage for other items. Color is the fun part!

https://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-NS-ZCC10-Uncooked-Premium-1-0-Liter/dp/B00007J5U7/ref=sr_1_4?crid=22C6RVIEDL1AG&keywords=zojirushi%2Brice%2Bcooker&qid=1660261392&sprefix=zo%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-4&th= I have the 5.5 / 1 liter made in Japan. For the two of us I usually measure 1.5 go cups of rice. If I want enough leftover rice for fried rice I double that. That would be ample rice for 4.

I rinse my short grain Japanese Sushi rice thoroughly. I don't rinse carnaroli, and perhaps I should pick through it more carefully than I do. I also don't wash basmati, but I use local CA Lundgren basmati and it always seems very clean. I don't know if my reasoning is sound but I would be pretty surprised to learn that Lundgren uses night soil or keeps their rice in anything but clean facilities. As for RG beans, never have I seen such pristine beans. I do pick through them, not terribly carefully at this point since I never find any stones or dirt in them. They do get a rinse before soaking.

A teaching moment for sure. The next time I take out the trash at night in my underwear I'll be sure I have some liquifying reeking onions in hand in case I need to throw them at a midsize predator. Coyotes very rarely are seen in my suburban Oakland neighborhood. Most likely, at night, it would just be a black and white cat, which is rarely a cat, but in fact, a skunk. It's a toss-up whether or not I could hurl an onion in time. Which reminds me I should stock up on ketchup. I take so many valuable lessons away from eG. You don't have to tell me twice not to keep onions under the bed. I'd never remember where I put them.

Maybe your husband could do the celery prep, Mine won't do it, claiming that he just can't find the strings! Since I'm the one who cares, I do it.

Sometimes the inner stalks are tender enough and don't need stringing. For tougher stalks I find breaking a stalk gently in half gets exposes a lot of strings you can simply pull, so some of the work is done for you. I've always used a paring knife. It never occurred to me to use a peeler, but it's an interesting idea for outer stalks.

Sounds like a great trip, @KennethT. You could have bought langoustines and cooked them on hot lava just a stone's throw from the volcano.

At the top of my list of the dangers that face @JoNorvelleWalker I would put: 1) Apricot kernels in daily doses of orgeat (cyanide) 2) Racoons getting into the bedroom, fighting over food and then making a nest out of dry goods 3) Tripping over a duplicate appliance in the dark (also bedroom) 4) Concussion as a result of a bag of limes falling from an upper cabinet 5) Plastic wrap (a distant 5) 6) Very unlikely but not good, a cryogenic accident caused by getting trapped in one of two blast freezers Love you Jo be careful!

Everything except "Squid Game."

Yes, yellow watermelon, when it's good is fantastic. It has a very subtle vegetal taste that red doesn't have.

Due to perhaps faulty information, I've long thought that vintage pyrex was safer to use at high temps than newer Pyrex. Maybe that's just a myth? I have only one glass square baker and one old pyrex 10 inch deep dish pie plate. I've been making my cornbread in the pie dish for many years, in the oven at 400 degrees. So far so good. The square one, which I believe is not so old, I don't bake higher than 350 degrees. I will say I'm a little nervous about both now.

I lived in NM from the mid sixties to the early seventies. In those days Hatch chiles came from the Hatch area and they were reliably vey hot. Terroir plays a part, I'm sure, but the seeds have to be a certain variety. If you lived in Albuquerque and grew the seeds from Hatch chiles they would be hot, but you couldn't really call them Hatch. At some point after I left to live in CA a variety of chile called Big Jim was developed and some were grown in Hatch. They were big, varied a bit in heat, but were generally considered mild. If you see a sign that says "Mild Hatch Chiles" you are most likely buying Big Jims. They could be grown around Hatch or they could be from somewhere else. Since I have not been back to NM in quite a while I don't know what the situation is there now and my information may not be current. The first years I lived in CA I missed real Hatch chiles terribly, and spent the dollars to have them shipped fresh in season. My friend Elaine, also a NM transplant, would also spend hours roasting a giant box of them to freeze for as long as they lasted. After several years of the extravagant purchase the chiles started to taste suspiciously unlike true Hatch chiles I remembered. I'm pretty sure they were mixing in Big Jims in haphazard quantities or they had grown a hybrid. Clearly growers were hip to the value of calling something "Hatch."

I'm assuming all the flavors are artificial. I agree that banana would rank high on the disgusting scale, but memory tells me most of the flavors were equally horrid. Like licorice.