Katie Meadow

Continuing my fascination with recommendations for TJ's products we bought a Kringle a few days ago. I'd never heard of it before I read about it here. I can only conclude that @Dr. Teeth must be a dentist with excellent brushing habits, because the amount of sugar in every bite is enough to make your choppers fly out of your head. Or as my dear departed Dad would say, "That'll put hair on your teeth!" My TJ's only had pecan. I had a sixteenth of it and my husband, trooper that he is, ate the rest because he hates to see food wasted. I have to say my track record with TJ's is dismal. They have about five items we rely on and swear by,. Sadly, several of my favorites have disappeared forever.

Nope, no cayenne. In fact the box says "Mild." Unfortunately they were worse than mild. They tasted like cardboard married sawdust. In fact although the box says "cheese straws" they were not straws, but rather crackers. But three for four ain't bad. I still have half a jar of that peach-bourbon jam, and I could eat that plus Beemster on Effie's Oatcakes as a main meal any day of the week.

My daughter sent us a box of southern goodies from Atlanta, all of which were surprisingly excellent. Often she picks out some weird stuff, but this time she hit the jackpot. First opened was a small pack of artisan peanut brittle. It was thin and crispy and delicate, far more interesting than most of the thick brittle that usually gets sticky in a hurry. That lasted all of an afternoon. Next opened was a jar of pickled okra which I served with cocktails to a friend I never thought would like it but she did. It was crunchy with just the right amount of heat--really good. Then something which I thought wouldn't be to my taste but which I actually find to be great: some artisan local brand of "Peach Bourbon Cardamom Fruit Preserves," which as it turns out is excellent with sharp salty hard cheese and oat crackers and surprising yummy as jam on rye toast. Lastly, if I'm not forgetting anything, there is one package of cheese straws which I plan to open tomorrow for a small party we are having. This will be the first time six masked, or in this case unmasked, people will be in my house at the same time opening and closing their mouths and breathing. It's sort of terrifying and I'm pretty sure I have forgotten everything I ever knew about being a host plus a last minute non-dairy request came in today! The birthday cake is going to be changed and needs to be shopped for again!

I've never figured out the genetic difference between a Minneola Tangelo and a Honeybell, except that minneolas are grown in CA and Honeybells are from Florida. But I am convinced that when both are at peak, the Honeybells from Florida are way better; of course they are impossible to get here in CA. Some sites say that the the difference is in the kind of grapefruit that the tangerine is crossed with. Growing up in NY my mother just swooned over the Florida ones, which have a very short season. We also favored the Florida white grapefruits, which were more common. Here in CA and Texas most of the grapefruits are pink. I don't know why you can't grow a good white grapefruit in CA. It has been a very strange citrus season so far. Satsumas have been scarce. Sevilles are behind schedule or non-existent, at least so far. I've had some good but not great super-sloppy minneolas and very good cara caras. Both have made very tasty juice. And there have been some little Tangos, whatever they are, that have been nice and tart, if you like that (I do.) But @SmithyI hear you. The standard navels have been boring. Blood oranges have been puny and not juicy. Where were you when you took that moonrise picture? Lovely.

Ah, the aptly named Welsh Rabbit. Neither Welsh nor rabbit.

Amazing pix, @liuzhou. They must be tasty to warrant the time it takes to suck them out of their shells. It's reassuring to know that snails are doing well somewhere in the world. They have disappeared from my small neck of the woods in the Bay Area. Lack of rain must be somewhat responsible. For some reason they liked clinging to the plastic wrapper of the NYT when it was delivered on wet mornings.

I want to put in a good word for Gabrielle Hamilton's White Borscht, which is easily located on the NYT site. Apparently it was a great comfort and a reasonably priced winter soup for her when she was an impoverished chef-to-be living on the lower east side, where Polish food had a foothold. I grew up on the upper west side, and we didn't know from white borscht, only red. Anyway, I made the recipe almost to the letter, although I halved it. It's a soup that makes its own gravy so to speak, so you don't have to start with labor-intensive stock or remember to unfreeze any. The stock itself is simply made with smoked kielbasa and cooks for only half an hour. I know kielbasa is ubiquitous but I've never eaten it before, and it's good! I had to buy the kielbasa and some russets, but I already had some leeks and creme fraiche. The only change I would make next time is to add more potatoes and not use so much of the cooked sausage in the final soup. Her version is meatier than I like. Also she adds more salt than is necessary, but for me that's almost always true. Yes, russets do need salt, but the kielbasa broth has plenty; salt is so personal. It was just as good the next day leftover. Really nice to have a new kind of soup!

Before @liuzhoustarted posting about "snail noodles" I would have guessed that Luosifen was the latest drug for Rheumatoid Arthritis. Now I am guessing if you eat the soup you will likely cure yourself of RA and many other conditions as well. Here's how I break down the various factoids here. 1) "Unpeeled" snails is a very poor translation for "in the shell." 2) "Unpeed" snails is most likely a typo, but if not, it means a raw snail you haven't yet irritated enough to pee in your hand. It does make sense in that you would want to get the pee out of the snail before it pees in the stockpot before it dies. 3) There are now lots of shortcuts for the broth, available on line if not at Piggly Wiggly. However, a true stock is made with pork bones and initially live snails. If the broth cooks for several hours to achieve maximum flavor, those snails wouldn't be very good eating; i.e. rubbery instead of just chewy like good escargots. 4) Escargots are land snails, no? Luosifen is made with river snails. Nothing has been said about whether or not people eat river snails in other ways, but I'm sure any snail worth its salt would be tough to swallow after eight hours on the stove. Unless you are very entrepreneurial, you are making escargots by stuffing the dead canned ones into pre-washed shells with a ton of garlic and butter, in which case you would use a tiny fork (or a toothpick if it was an impromptu picnic) to extract them and carry them from shell to mouth. There would be no struggle in extracting them of course unless you were eating them raw. Question: is this type of river snail eaten in other ways besides to make Luosifen broth? And if a restaurant serves Luosifen with snails in it, which I gather is not typical, should you assume those same snails were used to make the broth or are they fresh snails dropped in shortly before eating, the way you would do for most seafood soups? Oh, and are these snails, being harvested from the river very muddy? Even if you try and wash them there must be some crud that falls to the bottom of the pot, just the way sand does when you steam clams. I'm sure my summation only skims the surface, and I could go on and dip deeper, but even my curiosity has its limits. Clearly Luosifen has not given up all its secrets yet.

So....in other words Guinness Inc has figured out the link between "Guinness milk" for babies and making loyal customers for life. Clever!

When nursing my daughter 33 years ago I didn't need to be told twice that beer, and specifically Guinness, were good for milk production. I'm sure that's why my daughter likes beer so much. However she was very skeptical when nursing her newborn twins last summer, so despite her envy when anyone within hearing cracked open a beer she wouldn't take her mother's advice and indulge just a little.

Wow, a lively thread. I guess wings have legs! Even I'm contemplating the idea, although I rarely eat them (except when we roast a whole chicken) and I've certainly never made them. In my youth my mother and I had a silent agreement: we each grabbed one wing before anyone else got the idea. We also had to negotiate for the Pope's nose. I don't see anyone serving up a plate of noses. I suspect my mother was a stealth eater and went for both oysters before I even had a clue. Edited because I put this in the dinner thread instead of the wings thread and don't know how to move it.

@chromedome if you like celery with blue cheese you will love Gabrielle Hamilton's Celery Toast, which includes a layer of cambozola. Gabriella is super fussy about her ingredients, but I am guessing there are other blues that can be subbed.

I love bulgur and have been eating it for years in tabbouli and other salads, in some soups, as an alternative to rice with saucy chicken dishes, etc. We usually buy it in bulk, as it is relatively cheap and most sources seem about the same to me. But the other day my husband came home with Bob's Red Mill Red Bulgur. Outstanding and different! It is cut from softer wheat than the typical bulgur, which is yellow or hard wheat. It is just a little bit finer, so cooks up just a little quicker, but still has a satisfying toothyness. I imagine if you are just soaking it for tabbouli it would also take a little less time. Anyway, it's really delicious; more delicate flavor, more delicate texture. For those who like bulgur it is totally worth trying.

In my dotage I am getting not only lazy, but also averse to handling raw chicken. A whole bird is more than I can tolerate, but lucky for me my husband loves roast chicken and for some reason he is up to the task. He likes the Nosrat buttermilk brine mentioned above, and I am smart enough not to make a peep if someone wants to put a wing-flat or a crispy skin thigh on my plate while I do something else. I have no idea if it's the buttermilk overnight or the fact that he starts the bird upside down and then turns it breast side up for half the cooking time, but the dark meat is cooked through, the breast does not dry out and it is all around tender. If the buttermilk brine is simply a placebo then he won't hear it from me.

What would I do without eG? I inverted one cookie sheet inside of a slightly larger one. Cake came out easily and is not overly brown on the bottom. Thank you! As you probably know from my lack of posts in the baking threads I am really not much of a baker, but since the lockdown of two years ago I have been craving cake. My husband and I have developed what seems to a peculiar schedule. We eat breakfast late and make our main meal "linner," which can happen any time between 3 and 5pm. Then in the evening we snack on something. Could be popcorn, but if we plan ahead, more likely it's a simple cake of some kind. And of course there are no rules! If there is cake cooling on a rack.....

Here are instructions in Dorie's recipe for Poppy Seed Cake from Sunday's NYT magazine: after buttering and flouring a loaf pan you are to "place the pan on two stacked baking sheets or an insulated baking sheet." W hat is an insulated baking sheet? Is the idea here to add extra heat to the bottom of the pan? What else can be subbed for 2 stacked baking sheets? Thanks for the help! I've never had a recipe specify such a thing for what appears to be a rather simple quick tea loaf.

I much prefer the flats too.

As @weinoo suggests, a good oyster knife is important. A wimpy oyster knife is an accident waiting to happen. And of course there are probably a million how-to videos out there, so watch at least a few. I will add one more piece of advice: start small. That is, small oysters are easier to open. Big ones work out in the gym and can have very strong muscles. Don't rush. Make sure you have an absorbent bar mop to wrap the oyster and prevent sliding and slipping. So delicious!

Me too, a Cochon fan, but the last time I was there was about nine years ago, so no recent experience. Fresh wild caught fish was the deal. Delicious. When I go South I always go for fish I can't get in CA.

Red Boat is the fish sauce I buy. Yes, it is pricier than most others, but for me it is worth it for the more delicate flavor. I am not a heavy user, so I feel like I get my money's worth.

Speaking of Boxing Day, @Kim Shook, we had a couple of friends over for lunch that skewed southern. My daughter sent me a made-in-Georgia care package, including some kind of spicy beer pretzels and pickled okra, so that became apps. We had tomato soup with chives, creamy mac n cheese and a green salad for a main meal and gingerbread with hot orange sauce and vanilla ice cream for dessert. Also in the care package: seeded cheese straws and peanut brittle, both of which I'm looking forward to tonight. P.S. The gingerbread, as always, was Laurie Colwin's Damp Gingerbread, which is no-fail.

I grew up in a pre-war apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. We had no dishwasher. My brother and I were the assigned dish dryers. In fact we didn't have a dryer for clothes. My mother used to rig some laundry lines in the kitchen so she could dry our clothes. Doing the dishes sometimes meant having damp laundry flapping around your head. Now I love my dishwasher. The kitchen tasks I don't like are mostly prep work for cooking. The worst ones involve raw protein. I simply detest touching raw chicken. I can't stand cleaning and deveining shrimp. The act of mincing onions is so horrid I have my husband do it. I'm a very good mincer, but my eyes suffer greatly. I also don't like making green leafy salads, especially washing and drying lettuce. There are numerous other jobs that are simply boring, but I don't even want to think about them. Some vegetable prep I find pleasant and meditative: cutting cauliflower into florets. Shelling walnuts. Fine slicing cabbage for slaw. Shaving hard cheese into paper thin curls. Peeling and chopping roasted green chiles. Mincing green herbs. Slicing mushrooms. Cutting corn off the cob with a sharp knife. I can do it now without having stray kernels flying off to the far corners.

Now that's a thing of beauty. We've often had bagels and lox on xmas morning but sturgeon and caviar is just plain heaven.

Zojirushi Fuzzy Logic rice cooker: use it all the time Thermapen: Husband loves it Pizza steel: invaluable Tamaki Gold sushi rice: delicious Mala Market: pricey, but a great resource for some hard-to-find products I can't find (or I'm to lazy to look for) in Oakland Chinatown No doubt there's more, but I can't think of anything right now Oh just thought of another: Bamix immersion blender. Don't know how I lived without it. Not an unqualified success: Trader Joe's recommendations. I'm somewhere about 50/50. There have been a few good recs, but TJ's is only useful for a few things in MHO. I don't buy a lot of appliances at this point, so no Instant Pot or CSO or SV or blast chillers, etc.

Vaxxed, boosted and sozzled! You deserve a nice treat, @blue_dolphin. Happy holidays!