Katie Meadow

Tillandsia can be quite small and used in all kinds of extremely silly decorative ways. Someone gave my MIL one that was perched on a ceramic head to look like hair. She had no idea it was supposed to be watered or that it was even alive. Not that I blame her. She's 93. Even I didn't know what it was until I saw instructions underneath. Not a very good gift. Who wants to be responsible for keeping something else alive when you are 93? @liuzhou as you no doubt know, bergamot citrus fruit flavors Earl Grey tea. I don't know where it is grown, but it has a very short season here in CA. That season is congruent (shorter, though) with Seville orange season here. That season is now, which is why we are making marmalade in March for the rest of the year. When available, we juice and zest a few bergamots along with the bitter oranges and it adds a very exotic taste. A little goes a long way, so I can't imagine wanting a marmalade that was primarily bergamot. Plus it would cost an arm and a leg....or a HAND. Frankly that copy about a "bergamot holder" in the Amazon listing must have been translated by someone from Jupiter. Bergamot is dear, but it ain't THAT special that you would want display just one. And I don't see wanting what you can't have as a strange character trait. I thought that was the point! Was I mistaken? Besides, if I had to name a strange character trait of yours it would be your corn phobia!

@Ann_T Best to Moe. And I hope there's some decent restaurant take-out near the hospital!

THE HAND! So I had to see what the Amazon listing was like. They're going begging, not a single review. Hilarious that it is marketed as a Tillandsia holder, but then in the small print tells you it's really a rest for your bergamot. My bergamots don't need much rest, they usually just sit around and do nothing. Besides, I usually have more than one at a time. But the funniest thing is the suggested list of "typical" questions (just in case you can't think of any), one being "Is it easy to use?" Well, that all depends....

Oh, @Shelby your cats must be hard to scare. And to the OP, @mome23, you must think we are insane.

Since I started cooking with a wok forty years ago I have developed a technique and a familiarity based on trial and error such that I can make a simple stir fry practically in my sleep. Most of my stir-fries are fairly similar. I'm very lazy, and for the two of us I am not going to make more than one dish, so the basic dish typically involves a modest amount of shrimp, chicken or whatever protein, plus a variety of vegetables, usually cabbage, choi sum and Chinese chives. For a beginner I suggest reading and trying various recipes or taking a class, although I kind of agree that timing and experience and technique are also a matter of practice, practice, practice. I wouldn't have assumed this, but lately I am trying to teach my husband how to make our basic stir fry and it's trickier than I thought. The things my husband is good at, like baking bread, give you time to think and plan in a way that is very different from the speed of a stir fry. Remember that stir-fry came about because there wasn't a lot of fuel--a short burst of high energy was the best you could get from a small bundle of sticks. Okay, I don't know if this is totally true, but it must be a factor. A decent round-bottom wok is a necessity. My preference is carbon steel. So is the ability of your stove to produce a high flame as needed. So is making sure your wok is sitting in a stable fashion and at a distance from the burner that works well for you. After years of cooking on an under-powered gas stove we finally put in a small-size Viking range that can generate some real heat. I bought an interchangeable cast iron wok burner as part of the original purchase. If you cook with a wok once or twice a week like I do, that was worth the upgrade. I've never done a stir-fry outdoors, so I'm ignorant about that. I've never heard of a sauce packet, but it sounds like you can't get much variety that way. The basic ingredients for marinades and sauces are easy to work with and mostly cheap and will allow for creativity and different flavors. Books can help there, both with suggestions for purchases and ways to combine ingredients. Eventually you will find your favorites, and hopefully you have access to Chinese ingredients, although the basics such as various soy sauces, vinegars, rice wine, peanut oil, chiles etc are pretty available. For me this has become the most efficient dependable meal that I can put together without thinking, and it never gets old.

I'm very squeamish about seafood. And I have a very sensitive nose, which is often a liability, but nothing I can ignore. My strict rule about shrimp and all seafood is that I eat it the day of purchase. We buy wild gulf shrimp here in the Bay Area and I assume it has been frozen once; the price is embarrassing but the farmed shrimp that's available isn't appealing. It would be very exciting to live somewhere with shrimp day boats!

And same here. Chum must have been exhausted. A lot of teal needed for an entree of hearts.

Recently the NYT featured a Tejal Rao recipe called Citrus Salad with Peanuts and Avocado. What was unusual about the recipe was that it included fish sauce, in fact a fairly substantial quantity of it. Another unusual thing was that in the body copy this salad is referred to as "Sicilian." Well, maybe without the fish sauce it could be. The comments on the Times site are all over the map, from "disgusting" to "in permanent rotation." I love citrus salads, but just the thought of fish sauce with either blood oranges or avocado makes me wobbly. I think of grapefruit and avocado salads as being a very Sunset Magazine kind of thing. Nice served cold with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper on a hot day. Mint, absolutely. Fish sauce, I don't think so.

My mold just arrived! Timely, too, considering it ships from Japan. Very cute, but the push-out flap doesn't look like it will last forever. I ordered it before I discovered the Italian Ashtray technique; area in two dimensions is almost identical. Of course I have already noticed a design flaw: the press-top is fitted, so you can't really adjust the thickness of the rice if you happen to want your rice squares a bit thinner. C'est la vie. On the other hand the life expectancy of an ashtray that routinely gets slammed on a wooden board may not be so great either. Next up is probably a Lox Omelet Onigirazu.

I was given a copy last xmas. Not enamored. Maybe I cooked one thing, but I can't even remember what. My most useful cook books are ones that I borrowed from the library and liked so much I had to purchase them. If there are only a handful of recipes in a library book that interest me I just make a copy of the page. My books could really stand a thinning; there's quite a few that get little or no attention. I am thinking that perhaps as I get older I tend to rely on tried-and-true favorites or I improvise rather than actively searching for new recipes.

My last tea order included a sample size packet of Black Dragon Pearls, which had a lot of rave reviews. I've had it twice now and I'm not impressed. It's very pricey and you need at least three pearls (they are large, and Adagio says to use 2-3 per cup) to make a small cup of tea with some body. Otherwise It is pleasant enough but pretty wimpy. For a straight ahead black tea I'm liking Irish Breakfast these days.

I grew up in NY, on the upper west side of Manhattan. When we went out we had Chinese, or deli, or Italian, or my father's obsession, Armenian. He was not Armenian. I don't remember ever being in a Mexican or south of the border style joint in NY. Until I moved to New Mexico in the late 60's I had never eaten an avocado. Guacamole and chips were around every corner and at every potluck. One favorite way to eat it was to scramble cubes of it into eggs with some green chiles and jack cheese. Now I'm very happy to have a really good avocado plain: sliced, with salt and pepper and a little olive oil and a squeeze of lemon or lime. Alternate slices of juicy ripe tomatoes when in season. A good Hass is always good, and so is a Gwen. And there's another variety I love that is large, creamy, very pricey, with a long crook and whose name escapes me just now. Reed avocados can be good. Bacon avocados never seem quite ripe. Many varieties seem a little watery to me. There is an excellent vendor at the Berkeley farmers' market. I have never eaten avocado toast. It just doesn't appeal. It seems, for lack of another word, stupid. The other way I don't like avocado is in Japanese sushi or rolls. Both treatments are ubiquitous here in CA. As for prices generally, it is amazing how, at least here, they have exploded in the last five years. Probably partly the fault of avocado toast mania.

My meatloaf is labor intensive. The "night of" I don't appreciate it nearly as much as my husband and guests. I don't even care about it.. But the next day and the next after that is an unadulterated--and adulterated-- thrill. That's when dijon mustard comes a knockin'.

Although the discussion started in the breakfast thread with @Anna N and @Shelby, I finally got around to making onigirazu, but it was for a late lunch. I call my first try a major success. It was very simple: for the filling just an omelet with salmon eggs folded into it. For a rice mold I improvised and used what was once probably purposed as an ashtray, stolen by my mother from a hotel in Italy a zillion years ago. Perfect size: square 4 x 4 inch. A hard knock onto a wooden board was all it took to release the rice. Excellent. Making it for breakfast would be a great thing, but I am guessing that won't happen. It takes a lot more brain cells to make onigirazu than it does toast.

As Liuzhou suggests, If indeed the source of the illness was a mushroom, it wasn't a true morel, but one of several varieties called "false morels." Restaurants that serve wild mushrooms often buy from local pickers. I am guessing regulations are spotty world-wide. If the picker or the buyer makes a mistake, well, the results may not be happy. If you are buying wild mushrooms from a grocery store and have doubts about the look of the morels, ask that one mushroom be cut open. A true morel is really hollow inside. Many of the false ones are not. Some have a kind of pale cottony interior. Having been a member of the SF Mycological Society, I might think twice before ordering wild mushrooms in any restaurant, star or not.

Mac and Cheese made with a bit of Mimolette is yummy.

Instead of Pig in a Blanket you would have Pig in a Futon.

@Anna N thanks for the tutorial. I'm planning a trip to my favorite Japanese everything store to pick up some supplies in the next few days. I didn't see anyone using a barely seared sesame-crusted ahi tuna as a filling, but that would be yummy. Also eggs with tobiko or salmon roe would be great. I also discovered that before onigirazo became popular, rectangular molds the size of a slice of spam became ubiquitous for making musubi, another serious addiction that must have originated in Hawaii. I believe that in the early days, the empty can of spam was used as the mold for that and the shape became standard. Not being a spam fan by any measure, I can skip that snack. I spent two mind numbing hours last night and put myself to sleep finally by looking at various videos, testimonials, etc. Indeed, most of the onigirazu enthusiasts seem to favor plain rice, not vinegared "sushi" rice. However, many of these folks are also using some very Western kinds of fillings like all the riffs on the BLT. I did find some videos in which more traditional ingredients, such as raw fish, roe, japanese pickles, tamago etc. were called for along with vinegared rice, so @Shelby, you can consider yourself an innovative subset.

Making potstickers from leftover filling and wrappers for breakfast is a total treat. It doesn't happen often. @Anna N The history of onigarazu...I had no idea. I buy onigiri frequently but have never seen these sandwiches for sale. Do you or @Shelby have good suggestions for a place to start if I want to make them? I've done very little Japanese cooking and even will need a refresher on making sushi rice it's been so long. Despite the fact that I am such a lazy breakfast cook and rely primarily on toast or fried grits, the idea of an omelet inside rice inside of nori is truly compelling.

It makes sense to me. Undercooked poultry--just the idea of it--makes me ill. But I don't think it being on the bone is the reason; grilled wings are rarely undercooked. And If you braise chicken pieces in a liquid base they tend to get well cooked and remain tender and juicy. I think the most common reason that chicken on the bone is undercooked is that when roasting a whole chicken people can be so worried that the breast will be dry they don't cook the bird long enough to thoroughly cook the dark meat.

I like it better too.

Haven't we beaten this subject to death? Check those lists of processed bad-for-you foods. Are any of them actually unqualifiedly good for you? Most likely none of them. Does anyone believe that eating fast food morning noon and night is without consequences to our health or our environment?. How many times do we need to be reminded that cutting back on sugar and some fats and chemical additives is a reasonable goal? To say those lists of unhealthy foods are bullshit is to disregard science and common sense. To never allow yourself to have ice cream or a truck stop burger or your favorite kind of potato chips is to punish yourself needlessly if you crave it once in a while, but as your main source of calories and nutrition? It depends on how much you want to gamble.

Lovely pandas; I like them as a group. Tomorrow, the 10th, is my daughter's birthday as well. I could bake something but since she's in Atlanta she won't be a beneficiary.

Real popcorn popped on the stove, yes. Movie and microwave, no. Maybe it's the fake butter, no idea. Love all kinds of long chile peppers, fresh green roasted or dried red. Bell peppers of any color, not so much. Buckwheat pancakes and soba, absolutely. Buckwheat groats, just no.

You're lucky, you get to visit NM! Have you been in the fall during roasting season? My daughter lives in Atlanta and I don't love visiting that city. BTW, your daughter will tell you: don't spell it with an "i"--in NM it is chile! Bowl of red, bowl of green, it's all good. Although I have to admit that I can't handle it as spicy as I used to.