Katie Meadow

Thanks to @andiesenji I ordered the Tellicherry peppercorns from Sir Spice. Best moment was opening the bag under my nose. They are fresh and tasty, so no complaints. I have two pepper mills.One is a Unicorn that I found in my mother's kitchen when she died and seems a very adequate work horse and I appreciate how easy it is to refill. However if the refill sleeve accidentally gets shifted, which has happened twice, the result can be pretty annoying, and since the whole thing is black it's easy to miss that the hole is exposed. The other is an upside-down style from Cole and Mason. It's very solid and the five grind selections actually are pretty effective, which is not true of most grinders in my experience. I had one of those standard Danish teak grinders from the fifties, and that lasted sixty years. It wasn't very precise, but I always liked the mid-century look of it, and the feel of the wood. None of my pepper mills ever housed a black widow.

Never one to miss an opportunity to say I hate something. Miracle Whip belongs in the Museum of Inexplicably bad American Foods. I grew up on Hellman's, switched to Best Foods when I moved to CA and then discovered Duke's and never looked back. Yes, Heinz Ketchup was ubiquitous when I grew up. I find it nearly inedible now, and that's why it is the only condiment I am willing to make from scratch--and I do, although I am not a heavy user anyway. On my plate eggs and ketchup will never meet. But eggs with red chile New Mexico style? Now that's heaven. When I have fries I really want aioli with them. I never even heard of putting ketchup on a grilled cheese sandwich. Who does that?

I am loving this. More please is right. I can get behind the Guinness in a New York minute. I'll have the neeps and tatties, hold the haggis. My spellcheck really doesn't cotton to those foods. I had to spend a fair amount of time correcting "needs" and "tattoos." Drink enough Guinness and you might stumble out of a tattoo parlor with a poorly drawn haggis on your......well, where would you want that?

Forgive me if I wasn't clear. I'm not worried about your finances, although no opportunity for kindness to you would be missed, I hope. I just want you to spend your dollars on anything that doesn't enrich Chris Kimball. I can go lower, but I'm not sure how. Okay, that's not strictly true.

It's hard not to like Dorie, but I have to admit that I own French Table and rarely consult it. I don't think I've opened it in two years. But she's a generous spirit and there are a couple of her simpler recipes that I have made many times. As for Chris Kimball, he's never been a conundrum to me. I just plain hate him. Beyond the fact that he is a pompous phony, he seems determined not to give even one recipe for free. All the sites associated with him do that blurry thing which infuriates me no end. So stingy! If had a copy of that Milk St book I would send it to you for free. Maybe someone out there has one.....

My husband claimed he would prefer a graham cracker crust. I can certainly see that. It's just that saltines are so funny.

Yep, it's his recipe.

I'm not much of a baker. And I especially don't do pie dough, although my husband can. I make great brownies and a couple of good apple cakes and two dependable types of cookie . But I've had this cartoonish recipe floating around for years and I realized the other day that if I don't hurry up and just get it over with I'll be dead before ever tasting it. Some of you have no doubt made it or heard of it: Atlantic Beach Pie, from North Carolina. The pictures always look fabulous and the ingredients are downright silly. The crust is made with saltines, sugar and butter. The filling is made with egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk and lots of lemon juice. And that's it. I can't remember the last time I bought saltines; it must have been forty years ago....or more. My mother used to buy them to eat alongside chocolate ice cream. Yes, she was strange. As for condensed milk I went through a phase of making Viet iced coffee years ago, so I do remember what that's like. And I remember having it in tea in Mexico; always fun along with fresh made Mexican pastries. The recipe suggests topping the pie with whipped cream, a sprinkle of sea salt (it's Atlantic Beach Pie, after all) and lemon zest. I didn't have any whipped cream, so I simply salted and zested the top of the custard. Okay, this pie is addictive. It gets served cold, from the fridge and it so easy it's embarrassing. Also the recipe leaves you with bit less than half of a sleeve of saltines. They're really good. It's like discovering a new exotic cracker. I had no idea.

A quick survey of various sources yields the following: Most sources attribute the invention of the fork as a dinner utensil to 4th century Byzantium. Supposedly it morphed from Greek and Roman two-pronged tools that migrated to the tables of Byzantine nobles. It is also the most common theory that the fork then traveled to Italy before the rest of Europe during the Middle Ages. Apparently the Medici's were early adopters. I'm sure they found them to be very useful for stabbing each other. With the pointy end, of course. Oh, and my vote goes to fork twirling as the main reason to avoid breaking long pasta. You break it for kids who haven't acquired that dexterity yet. It was invented by the Phillistines.

That would be Serengeti spaghettis.

I could no more "make" breakfast than I could put together an IKEA object before eating one (breakfast, that is.). I'm with you, @Smithy. Cutting down on wheat has put a painful crimp in breakfasts for me, since I do need some grain and it has to be simple. It kills me that my husband bakes great bread and I just can't eat as much of it as I like--or as I used to eat. Toast and a few strawberries would be my every day choice for breakfast. Or a bagel with cream cheese and lox if I was lucky, feeling flush or able to think ahead. For grain I've switched to a mainly rice diet from a mainly wheat diet. I will often heat up left-over short grain rice with butter and add a little smoked salmon for breakfast. It works, but chopsticks are essential. And since this is the India cooking thread, if I have made a vegetable curry the night before I'm pretty happy with leftover rice sauced with a modest amount of curry. Before noon I'm no way ready for anything that oozes or comes from a pig. The breakfast thread never ceases to amaze me. It makes me feel like I'm from Jupiter. But not in a bad way.

If you want to up your tamale pie game, Rick Bayless has a recipe on line. He uses Masa Harina para Tamales, the nixtamalized corn flour that comes in a bag. If you make a sauce using dried red chiles, or in a pinch ground chile powder, it really takes off. Rather than ground beef I like to use shredded pork from a roasted shoulder (like Pernil, the Puerto Rican version) or shredded chicken, even from a rotisserie bird. This is more like the Tamale Pie home made in the southwest. Very satisfying and of course easier than making your own tamales.

From the scary to the hilarious. Scary: the fact that this is even a thread. Hilarious: that I own one of those letter openers. It was some promotional item I was given years ago, and I have to say that it's worth its weight in plastic for actually opening letters. But I am not going to use it to open a cucumber. I never thought of an English cucumber as a puzzle in need of a solution, so I will just struggle along with a knife and brute force for that .00001 mil shrink-wrap. Be careful getting slippery cucumber juice on that doohickey. The blade is sharp. @Darienne I will watch for you on the "I will never again...." thread.

I never heard of fried pickles until I was in Atlanta several years ago, celebrating my daughter's getting her masters degree in Public Health. The entrance to the bar was a giant skull. We were there with a bunch of her friends and a few other parents. I've never though of fried pickles as toppers, but more of a meal in themselves. I had a large basket of them along with a fantastic coffee-tasting beer. We were at a large table on an upstairs open air porch. It was lovely. Public health all the way around. My ideal would be a half sour pickle with an ethereal tempura-like batter. The fried pickles I've tried since are nothing to write home about and would sink like a stone if you tried to skip them in a pond. Good ones are scarce as hen's teeth. @weinoo let me know if the Pickle Guys come up with something enlightened and I'll note it for a destination the next time I am in NY. Every once in a while I think about making them myself, but I don't. I haven't personally deep fried anything in my life, so there's that.

There are discussions in other threads about the difference between polenta and grits. Both are cornmeal, which can be ground coarse, medium or fine for a different texture. In my experience the Italians usually prefer polenta ground more finely than Southerners like their grits, which is often toothier. The main difference though is that grits and polenta have traditionally been made from different types of corn: dent corn vs flint corn. To further complicate the issue is nixtamalization, a process used in the Americas. Grits can be made from hominy, which is nixtamalized corn, but I have no idea how common that is. There is so much conflicting information and misinformation about the various types of corn, their origins and how they are used that it makes your head spin. Anyone wishing to learn more should do the research themselves. There are six types of corn and the things that can be done with them is, to put it mildly, complicated. When it comes to color, as far as I can determine both dent and flint corn can be white or yellow. I buy my grits from Geechie Boy Mill on Edisto Island. I prefer white, and my husband prefers yellow. They do taste a little different, but they are the same type of corn, and both make me happy. They now sell specialty color grits--red and blue. I've never tried them because they cost substantially more. During the late sixties and early seventies I lived in New Mexico and blue corn was commonly used for griddle cakes, tortillas and other things. My memory is that it was typically ground finer than you might want for grits. Personally I prefer grits to polenta; most grits sold by artisanal operations in the south are on the coarser side and, to me, have a more "corny" taste. When you buy stone ground grits grown from local corn it will probably be fresher than any boxed Italian sourced polenta, but it's been so long since I actually bought polenta I could be off base here. For cornbread I like a medium grind corn, so it has a bit of a bite to it. Bob's Red Mill medium grind cornmeal is my go-to for breads and pancakes. I love cakes that have cornmeal as a percentage of the flour. If a recipe calls something Polenta Cake I just use that same Bob's medium grind cornmeal, but that toothy quality might not be to everyone's taste. However, if you like the taste of a certain coarse ground cornmeal but want it finer you can always grind it down a bit yourself. Not to disparage anyone here on eG, where help is so readily and generously given, but again, when it comes to corn be suspicious of all information. Mine included!

@Margaret Pilgrim Thanks, I'm looking forward to the info, whenever you get around to it. I don't think I have ever had a Salvadoran Tamale. I used to be wild for loroco pupusas. In case that is unknown to anyone reading this, loroco is a vine. It is a little bitter, the way artichoke is, but impossible to describe the taste. I used to be able to buy it fresh at Mi Pueblo, that large Latinx chain which went under a year or two ago. I haven't found any substitute as good as Mi Pueblo in the East Bay.

Thanks for posting these. The Seafood Watch is a great resource. I think you can bet on the fact that the place you buy tilapia from will not know where it was farmed or what type it is. I don't eat tilapia, partly because of these recommendations but also because it is about the most tasteless fish ever. I rarely eat fish tacos out because when not specified it is most likely tilapia. Several years ago when all the data was released about the mis-labeling of fish and seafood, whether retail or restaurant, I just about gave up on variety and stuck to the same identifiable few critters that are sustainably fished or farmed in the US and Canada. I almost never eat red meat any more, so my sources of protein keep shrinking. And getting pricey. I can't remember if it was here or in the NYT that someone noted the price of this year's haul of Copper River Salmon was selling for around $47 dollars per lb. Not that I'm buying that. Poor planet, you will be better off when we are gone.

Margaret, who is the vendor for the Salvadoran tamales?

A good recipe is one that doesn't assume the reader is stupid, but also one that can head off ambiguities at the pass. Those directions should have been a red flag to the editor, if one existed. If not specifying the weight, then at least the volume measurement should be according to sliced strawberries, which would likely be accurate enough for the dessert in question. @pastrygirl your first job must have been writing SAT math questions. If a strawberry leaves the station at......

I've never added mustard seeds to cole slaw but it sounds brilliant. Okay, a question, peripheral to cole slaw. My mother's favorite sandwich was this: rye bread, very thin sliced ham and turkey and a generous layer of cole slaw with Russian dressing. What is the origin of that sandwich? If it helps, she grew up in Cincinnati in a household that, if not strictly kosher, didn't eat pork or shellfish. Then she moved to New York and became a devotee of that sandwich. (Not to mention Italian sausages and raw clams.)

When I first learned of Kewpie mayonnaise I got so excited I went and bought a big squeeze bottle. I was into making okonomiyaki at the time. I tasted it and threw it out. Possibly I should have given it more of a chance, but I'm sticking with Duke's, which is not what I grew up on but I find far better than Hellman's or Best Foods.

I don't think salting makes the cabbage less crisp, exactly--it still retains a pleasing bite --but it makes it less raw and absorbs some flavor as well. And with respect to onion, I totally agree: none is just right. When other people tell me I'm too opinionated I don't really agree, but in fact I am.

What I love about cole slaw is that if you have a good variety of condiments on hand all you really need is cabbage. I don't have a favorite cole slaw; Asian style, simple vinaigrette, slaws with mayo, all good and all useful. Two things I find wrong with many recipes for creamy slaws is the heavy handed use of mayo. Not only is the ratio of mayo to the rest of the ingredients often way too high, but most recipes make a quantity of dressing that would overwhelm one head of cabbage. And the instructions would make you believe you are supposed to use it all. Well, maybe we Americans just can't get enough mayo. The fact is that once you dress shredded cabbage the quantity tends to shrink, especially if you let it sit for any length of time before eating.The second thing that is so wrong is the addition of raisins. I am confident I don't need to elaborate on that. Salting the shredded cabbage at least an hour or two ahead really improves the final result. I layer cabbage and liberal shakes of salt in a colander, then put a bowl of water on top to weight it down a bit. Before assembly I press out excess moisture in a towel. Enough of the salt dilutes or drains out but usually enough remains so I don't need to add more salt. Remember that 70's recipe (at least I remember it that way) for Asian style slaw with broken ramen noodles? Still sort of fun, but only if you don't add the noodles more than ten minutes ahead of time, unless of course you prefer them soggy. Oh yeah, slivered almonds, etc. Potluck staple. I meant to say something about cowboy candy. I often make either candied jalapeños or just regular pickled ones. I like either of them in some slaws and also in potato salad. Cowboy candy is especially fun in a mustardy slaw along with a spicy sausage or hot dog.

Two years ago in the North Carolina Smokies we stopped for lunch at a busy place that had tables outside on a bridge that spanned a babbling brook. It was lovely. I had pan fried catfish for the first and only time and it seemed super fresh and delicious. I pretended it came out the creek, and didn't ask any questions. I see farmed catfish for sale, but never buy it. One thing I would do is ask for the source. My understanding is that catfish farmed in the US are a small percentage of the catfish sold here, and that most of it comes from Asia, which usually means China.

And we haven't even mentioned gin and tonics. Maybe necessary if watching the Warriors.