Katie Meadow

Frankly I've never understood the Kale commotion. Lacinato kale I like in some soups, but generally I find Chard to be the best tasting and most versatile of all the greens. It holds up in soups better than spinach, and tastes good. It can be subbed for collards in a saute and flavored with bacon or ham stock, etc. like collards, but takes way less time to cook. Parboiled and then squeezed out it makes a more substantial and flavorful lasagne layer than spinach. I know there are folks that eat kale raw in salads, but it doesn't appeal to me that way in either texture or flavor. And if the marketing has convinced you that kale is a super food, you should check out kale vs all the other dark leafy greens. Most of them are very similar in nutrients or antioxidents or whatever; kale isn't any better or worse if you look at all the vitamin and mineral contents in comparison. If you are not wild about kale you should consider yourself guilt free.

The above sounds good, but you could simplify things if you are lacking fish sauce or tamarind. Just saute the chicken to brown and remove. Add some ginger and garlic to saute briefly, then some chicken broth and the cilantro, minus the stems, chopped.. Add back chicken, braise half an hour or so and add sriracha or whatever hot sauce you have to taste. Serve over rice with a squirt of lime juice, or, if really soupy, maybe with rice noodles. That's what I would probably do if I didn't want to leave the house or think about it too much.

Most people who cook in the nude must have certain requirements. If you don't live in the middle of nowhere or in a designated nudist colony, you must have to pull down shades to avoid rubberneckers. My requirements for cooking include lots of light. In my kitchen that means daylight, which means windows in the kitchen and shades up. Cooking naked would make me a nervous wreck. Hot spatter is not a calming thought. Cooking in a beautiful cashmere sweater would also make me a basket case. When it comes to cooking I need protection; an old flannel shirt works and so does an apron. It's a toss-up as to what is worse: burning the top of your foot or ruining a pair of expensive shoes. My feet are too narrow for crocs, but cheap Keds work very well. If I had an isolated house in a tropical location I would consider making a gin and tonic when wearing nothing. But then, to really enjoy it, I would need to put on a beautiful kimono and fry up some shrimp chips in a hot wok.

What is the black bean that's so lovely that came in the bean club order?

The only reason I can think of to use Skippy or Jiff style pb is if the recipe calls for less sugar than it would if natural pb was used. Is there another reason? I've made pb cookies for years using only natural product and they work out really well. Could an "unnatural" recipe be altered to use natural pb with more sugar to compensate? Several years ago I tried tasting one of those two supermarket brands after decades of using the natural kind. It was really peculiar. Like peanut butter flavored toothpaste. Don't mean to insult any diehard Jiff fans!

Confession: in 72 years I have never watched a football game from start to finish. And no matter how many times my husband explains the basics, it goes right through me like a bullet hitting no organs. For spectator sports I am dedicated to baseball, tennis and ice skating. Football just makes no sense to me and I am at a loss to understand how so many people are so fanatic and energized by it. To me football players might as well be WWI soldiers fumbling around in a fog of mustard gas. The coverage of those partisan football bar events makes me happy to be anywhere else. In the past we have traditionally gone to popular movies during the stupor bowl, but this year we were home. I watched more ads than total game time. But we did have special food. I made the Roast Chinese Pork on Garlic Bread sandwich recently featured by the NYT. The history of this sandwich is quite amazing, a mash up of Italian and Chinese, and for some reason a big hit in the Catskills in days of yore. Or maybe still, I have no idea. Growing up in NY I never heard of it; you went to a deli (no pork to be had) or out for Chinese (lots of pork.) There was a chunk of pork belly in the freezer, so I used that. A really good sandwich, accompanied by a slaw mashup: sort of Asian, sort of pickleback, for a worthy side. Coleman's mustard was used to make a facsimile of the stuff that comes in a little packet, and, as suggested, apricot jam and vinegar was combined to make a pretend duck sauce, It worked.

Speaking of Lamingtons, a sixty year old woman died a few days ago after a seizure brought on by choking during a Lamington eating contest on Australia Day. Maybe they were overbaked and dry. Otherwise I don't see how eating 40 lbs of cake as fast as possible could possibly hurt anyone. As for potato chips I am eternally amazed at what bizarre flavors people will eat. Not me, I'm very conservative when it comes to chips.

Amazing story!

Is it possible that this is an age issue for the most part? I know no millennials who object to noisy restaurants. I am guessing that most of the people who eat out at popular noisy restaurants eat out often and are used to the often cramped and noisy conditions, are perfectly able to up their own volume in order to be heard, and are indeed having fun. I don't know how old Pete Wells is but if he is eating out every night and getting paid for it he has to be able to maintain his ability to tolerate the commotion. I like to eavesdrop too, although sometimes I just can't help it if the closest diner is practically in my lap. Me? I'm older than that, and my husband and I don't eat out very often. So I'm used to quiet dinners at home. My hearing is fine, but too much ambient noise can be an impediment . I might hear and feel that elbowing and sloshing person adjacent to my table easier than I am able to hear the person just across from me--the person whose sentences I can often finish anyway. Quiet restaurants have great appeal for me, but newer restaurants are not designed for quiet. Some try harder than others to compromise or mitigate a din or an echo, but I don't think many care, and some believe that a din equals a buzz. And indeed, a crowded tight space means not going out of business. Those of us who require a less combustible atmosphere are outnumbered. And if you and your dining partner really want an intimate and unhurried experience, you do have choices. Find a restaurant that serves food all day and go at odd hours. Find a quirky old Italian place that is no longer popular with young people. When they were both alive, my mother and her Italian boyfriend, while in their eighties, used to frequent a lot of those place in midtown Manhattan. He was known and welcomed at all of them, as he spent his entire life living there and never cooked a single meal himself!

I typically use 1 lb of feet to 4 lbs of everything else. I like using a lb of wings along with backs and a carcass if available. If I'm planning on making wonton soup or some other Chinese soup I toss in some pork neck bones. Chicken feet may not be so readily available if you live outside a big city or near an Asian supermarket. Where we shop in Berkeley they are reliably available along with all other parts. Must be a healthy community of people making chicken soup around here.

I use at least half of the green part, tossing the tough ends. I also toss two or three of the outer sheaves of each leek as they are also not tender. I chop them and saute them slowly as you did. Always great as a basis for a totally green soup or a potato leek soup, to be blended up along with all the other ingredients. Sorry to hear they are pricey up north; I would have thought they could grow in relatively cool climates. Braised leeks as a side dish are a treat, but you do need a fair number of them. For just an ordinary stock of any kind I usually use an onion, but for a vegetable stock leeks are very helpful. I usually use stocks made from chicken, turkey and pork, but half my in-laws are vegetarians, and I find that using a strong vegetable stock for veg soups really is far better than just water. What you created sounds almost like a spread. Sounds yummy. Probably Jacques' annoying daughter Claudine insisted he remove the green parts.

Yes, that's what I've done. If you are willing to graduate to a fresh noodle or some udon you can make the flavor-pack last for several meals, as long as you have some stock on hand. The you can take the packaged noodles and break them up and use them in a retro sixties or seventies nostalgia salad or slaw type thing. I know all these revisions eventually result in something less easy and slower than just using the whole original package as intended.

I don't mean to be nitpicky but could someone enlighten me on the definition of a flavor? At least half of the items on the lists submitted are what I call foods or dishes---in other words, simply favorite things to eat. Clearly not flavors: sushi, toast with butter, soups, bread pudding, shellfish, cream puffs, pulled pork, cheese, These are things I consider flavors: blueberry, vanilla, candied ginger, corn, coffee, lychee, chocolate, maple, pineapple. cantaloupe, etc. Tomato in general may be a flavor, or maybe not. Different tomatoes have different flavors, at least to me. Plum is similar. Santa Rosa plum is a distinct flavor, plum is more of a general flavor. It's complicated, no?

French Press is my favorite, and it seems like a sort of brainless method, like Cowboy coffee as cowboys only wished it could be. I believe that since it doesn't use a filter it is a little more acidic than methods using a paper filter, but it has a deeper flavor, at least to me, and doesn't get bitter. But I like Chemex too. For a while I was on a low-acid diet and found that the Chemex was a good alternative. We have an Aeropress as well, and that's good too, but we rarely use it, for reasons that are unclear. Maybe it just doesn't make much quantity, and maybe because I don't know how to use it, but it does make a strong brew. I'm no coffee expert, that's for sure, just for the record. Before investing perhaps you can find a cafe that serves French Press coffee and try it that way.

That egg's been on a journey, alright.

Me too, it's one of my favorites. Have you tried La Tur? It is Italian, also gets very runny, a little bit barnyard (or sometimes more), a blended goat, cow and sheep cheese. Not a washed rind like Epoisses, so different.

If I were sick and lucky enough to have some broth in the freezer I would ask my husband to defrost it, make some rice, and then figure out how to combine the two.

Now that I have been glued to these videos for the past hour I need to get up and start making a linner that at this point seems utterly pathetic: stir fry chicken with choi sum, cabbage and Chinese chives. Where is this filmed? Totally amazing. Every leaf, every bowl, every cut. Thank you @liuzhou I love her desperately.

In the past few months I've allowed myself more eggs. I like a small omelet with a little Oaxaca melting cheese and it gives me the chance to use an old well seasoned carbon steel omelet pan. Another new dish (to me) is the simple Chinese staple of wok fried egg and tomato that @heidih mentions above. In a pinch it even satisfies when the tomatoes are less than perfect, like now, during the winter. Over rice it proves just about the easiest two-ingredient meal, not including condiments. And since the revelation of the Kenji hard boiled egg steaming routine we eat more whole peeled eggs. The steaming method not only allows the eggs to be smoothly peeled, but I also find it easier to control how the yolk is cooked. Finally, if you have a few left over shreds of lox (happens rarely), there's always a lox omelet to look forward to. I too love a little egg drop soup, especially if I am sick. Good chicken stock and rice or noodles and a drizzle of egg is makes me feel a little less sorry for myself. I feel a lot less sorry for myself if I can get my husband to make it under those circumstances. I am not one of those people who swoon over runny yolk egg porn. Forget fried, poached or anything with a giant wobbly yellow globe. I don't even look at the breakfast thread here until later in the day. Oozing on my plate makes we woozy.

@rotuts, I've seen every episode of The Wire and although I don't remember it, I can't imagine five seasons WITHOUT a crab in there somewhere, so you are probably right. Bunk I can picture tackling a blue crab. McNulty...mmm... not so much.

Remember that before The Wire David Simon created the TV show Homicide, Life on the Streets, all about Baltimore. The police dept colleagues were regulars at a local bar/restaurant and were always eating crab with their little wooden mallets. I grew up eating those blue-claw crabs. In the summers we used to catch them with a treat secured to a butterfly net. The water was clear and the depth wasn't more than the length of the pole on the net. We were young and totally unsupervised during the day, and I am amazed we didn't drown. Unfortunately this thread is giving me crab on the brain, and I may have to splurge. Mmm, crab cakes.

Forgive me for straying from the crab topic. This is from the pages of USA today: Shirley Temple 3 oz. lemon lime soda 3 oz. gingerale 1 dash grenadine maraschino cherry for garnish An older recipe is said to have a splash of orange juice and orange or lemon slice for garnish. Roy Rogers 6 oz of cola 1 dash grenadine maraschino cherry for garnish Young ladies who prefer this version can order a "Shirley Temple Black." Bartenders sometimes put cherries in the bottom of the drink too.

As an east coast child I never heard of Dungeness crab until I moved to the Bay Area a million years ago. When I had my first one at a Chinese restaurant in SF I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Fifteen years ago or before in Oakland Chinatown I could buy live ones for a couple of dollars per pound right out of the tank In those days I was willing to throw a live crab into a pot of boiling water, but I'm far too squeamish now. And the price of a whole garlic roast crab or black bean sauce crab in a restaurant is just daunting. And now the crab catch is usually slim and so are the crabs, at least in CA, for obvous reasons. Am I correct in guessing that the main ingredient in a Roy Rogers is Coke?

So, I never heard of this sauce and didn't encounter it when I was in London, but I was just a tourist. I looked it up on Amazon to get an idea of the ingredients and read a few reviews. Here are two of them: ONE REVIEW: "I saw a Canadian streamer put this on his french fries and I was dedicated to try some. I was super pumped of this mystery sauce and I ordered a batch. As a true american I thought it was crap and it tasted like thick A1 sauce but by god was the adventure worth it. I enjoyed the experience" AND ANOTHER:: H P Sauce is an iconic condiment in England. It is by far the best “brown sauce” in the world and has been granted a “By Appointment of her Majesty the Queen” designation. Needless to say, Her Majesty knows her sauces so this product is highly recommended to any “Colonial” who wishes to “up their game”. Perfectly packaged and competitively priced, I can vouch for this seller wholeheartedly and look forward to further interactions at our mutual convenience." The first one is just plain hilarious. And btw, what is a Canadian streamer? @Anna, weigh in. The second one is just plain scary, in a variety of ways. Many revolutionary textbooks have been written on "colonials upping their game" so I won't even go there. However I would indeed agree that the queen knows her sauces, and on which side of the bread to put them.

Oh, that would be me. I do all the cooking, except for bread baking, and my husband does basically all the shopping. I plan several days ahead, and give him a very carefully composed list. We have a standard pre-printed list that includes most of what we typically buy plus blanks for additions. The printed list is designed by him (always helpful to have a graphic designer around the house!) which is organized by how he moves through the store. Shopping didn't use to bother me, but in the last few years I've come to dread supermarket shopping. In theory I think Berkeley Bowl is one of the best food markets ever, but in reality I find it claustrophobic. In the summer we both go to the farmers' market; how to gauge the ripeness of tomatoes and stone fruit is his achilles heel. This division of labor would be more problematic without cell phones of course--for all the inane decision-making when something is out of stock or I'm requesting a mysterious or unusual ingredient.