Katie Meadow

This afternoon I cooked RG Moro beans for the first time. Surprisingly, especially for such a small size bean, they took considerably longer to cook than many other beans. I've used a variety of RG beans over the past few years as well as two types of beans from Purcell Mountain Farms, and I cook them all pretty much the same basic method, so I'm thinking it's the Moro that's responsible. Anyone else have experience with this bean? I had to keep adding liquid and they just kept on drinking it up. Taste was very nice, bean liquor was super rich, but I had the feeling I could have cooked them 4 hours (and that's after a 6 hour presoak) before they would have been melting and creamy. Or maybe they just don't get that way? We were hungry, so after almost 3 hours we ate 'em. Typically I cook my beans 2 to 2 1/4 hours after soaking 5-6 hours.

Okay, I'll bite. I notice a thread titled "Lasagna Wars." If we are being correct, the spelling of the dish that involves multiple layers of pasta is in fact spelled Lasagne. Lasagna is the singular, and means ONE NOODLE: specifically referring to one noodle of the style of the broad flat pasta shape used for the casserole dish called Lasagne, which is plural and denotes layers of Lasagna noodles. It isn't really different than calling a dish of long noodles "Spaghetty." Only in America has the name of the dish become, by some sad corruption, "Lasagna." In Europe it is called Lasagne. End of whine.

Step up to the whine bar! I can't think of a worse topic for me, so I'm just saying Hi!

I swear it wasn't me!

Yes, we do have good oysters. My favorite local oyster is the Hog Island Sweet, and Hog Island's farm is about half an hour from the beach house. But I also love the briny east coast oysters that just can't be had on the west coast, although Hog Island also farms a smaller crop of what they call "Hog Island Atlantics," which are a little brinier than the Sweetwaters and have more of that eastern shape, but they are not quite the same as a European Flat. Rarely Hog Island gets some of those tiny Olympias from Puget Sound and that is a rare treat. My thanksgiving relatives are not oyster people for the most part. That's "day after" food for when the crowds have departed.

Turkey neck. This morning I made some stock for use in Thanksgiving gravy. Turkey neck is one of those things that I eat alone, partly because I'm sure that a person gnawing on neck bones isn't a lovely sight, and partly because I eat more than my fair share.

One of my favorite spinach recipes comes from Martha Rose Schulman via the NYT. It's called Provencal Spinach Gratin, and involves neither cheese nor eggs, but just a lot of spinach with a minimalist crunchy breadcrumb topping. There was a time in my life as a student when I was hooked on Stouffers Spinach Souffle. Remember that? It was basically a nice green salt lick and I wouldn't call it a scuffle. This recipe is what that should have been. Julia Child has several takes on real spinach souffle, and those are also very nice. I am not a fan of raw spinach, nor do I like spinach leaves in soup; I think they just dissolve and have an unappealing texture. For toothsome greens in soup I prefer chard or Tuscan kale. For green blended soups I like a mix of spinach and other greens. Spinach and dandelion greens are a nice mix.

Thanksgiving happens for my husband's family at their beach house north of Tomales Bay. There are deer and wild turkeys wandering about town all the time. The turkeys display like giant decks of cards in the middle of the road and have been known to block cars from driving down the narrow streets until the turkeys feel like they have done their job and move on. It's pretty funny. But it is weird to see one right out the window when we are passing around a plate sliced turkey.

If I wanted some type of fish at Thanksgiving I might opt for a smoked one. You could do it as an app; for instance a smoked trout spread or some type of smoked salmon on toasts. Personally I would be awfully happy about that. Although it does seem unusual to have trout on the table next to a turkey, if a grilled trout happened to appear before me I might just say the hell with the turkey. Of course if you really wanted fish as an option you would have to provide a challenging amount, no? So apps might be more realistic. But Thanksgiving is all about the bounty, right? And good suggestion on the veg dressing. I'm pondering the whole thing; the truth is my relatives seem far more attached to the idea of dressing than to the actual thing. Typically very few of them ate it, but they just wanted it to be there. I'm getting sleeeepy....

I agree that the NYT recent Thanksgiving suggestions have been blah. And that includes the fat section that came with today's Sunday Times. It put me to sleep. But truly I am starting to believe it isn't just the uninspired suggestions from all quarters, it's me, feeling there's nothing new under the sun at my in-laws' Thanksgiving; truly, I just don't find this kind of food very exciting any more. Bread does seem redundant if there is some type of stuffing or dressing. I used to make a good stuffing cooked in the turkey but I got tired of it and my husband likes doing the turkey unstuffed, and I agree that it cooks better that way. Any dressing I made would have to be vegetarian for half this crowd, and I've never found that to be very tasty. Honesty, a plain biscuit sounds good! If anyone here has a great vegetarian dressing recipe I would be happy to hear about it. One of my SILs might be willing to make it, since some of them seem to miss it, at least in theory.

This is really a question for fast food history buffs out there. Not that I can imagine devoting a career to such a thing if it means eating fast food every day, but yeah, I will try to keep my own prejudices at bay. I often see Taco Bell as referred to as Tex-Mex food. Why? Taco Bell was created in Irvine CA in approx 1950 by a man named Glen Bell. I don't think of Southern CA as the home of anything Texan. The genesis of Taco Bell is that in the fifties most Americans were not very adventurous about their food; Italian, Mexican and other so called "ethnic foods" went downscale to appeal to a broad market of people who were used to bland commercially packaged foods. I'm sure there was plenty of great home cooked Mexican food in SoCal, but not too many abuelas were opening restaurants. When I moved to New Mexico in the late sixties I believe there was a Taco Bell in Albuquerque by that time. With the unbelievable choices and fabulous hole-in-the-wall joints serving up bowls of red and green, chunks of pork with hatch chiles, chile rellenos and so forth,Taco Bell was never a draw for me or my friends, so I can't really say who patronized it. White people? Locals who found it novel? It was very rare to see any ground beef in any home-cooking or restaurant food. It was also rare to see a hard-shell taco where we ate. Never having spent time in Texas and only small amounts of time in the south, I only know from my interest in food (and from the Homesick Texan cookbook!) what characterizes Tex-Mex cooking. Chili, not Chile. Ro-tel tomatoes. Ground beef.Texas has a lot more cows than New Mexico, so ground beef chili became an American staple. Ground beef doesn't involve as long a cooking time as chunks of meat, especially tough less expensive cuts. So, you Taco Bell devotees, ring in. What's so Tex-Mex about it? Does it just come down to ground beef and Velveeta?

I'm not fond of most quick breads; often they are too sweet. But I do like this chocolate loaf. It uses olive oil and not butter, and is not as sweet as chocolate cake (and I cut back on sugar routinely), with a more bread-like crumb and gets baked in a loaf pan. So I'm thinking' it qualifies as a quick bread. In my mind a quick bread should be excellent toasted with a swipe of butter, and this one is. I have no idea where it originated; it came to me at a time when I was first looking for baked goods that used olive oil. Nigella has a loaf she calls Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake (uses butter), and that one is all over the place on line. I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect it is richer than this one. PERFECT CHOCOLATE LOAF CAKE 1/2 cup sugar 3/4 cup cocoa powder 3/4 cup light brown sugar 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1/2 tsp baking powder 2 eggs 1-2 tsp espresso powder 1 cup buttermilk 1 tsp sea salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 cup chopped chocolate 1 3/4 cup flour or nuts or chocolate nibs Preheat oven to 325. Grease a 1-lb loaf pan. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugars and oil; mix to combine. Beat in 1 egg at a time until well blended. Add in buttermilk and vanilla extract. Mix. Add in all remaining ingredients except chopped chocolate. Beat to combine with a wooden spoon. If a few lumps remain, that's OK. Don't overmix. Fold in chocolate and immediately pour batter into loaf pan. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool completely before running a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen. Then, turn cake out onto a large plate. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired. Slice and serve. —MAY NEED LESS TIME IN THE OVEN

The Collins St Bakery did themselves some great PR with those tins. I have them in two sizes. I've never been in Texas and no one from Texas has ever sent me a fruitcake. I use mine all the time. I think I must have picked them up at a flea market or Goodwill a million years ago; mine are not shiny and don't say "deluxe." You can order the fruitcake from Amazon and the tin come with. The entire country must be lousy with 'em.

@kayb Envious I am! Black Arks are about my favorite apple in the world when they are good. The last few years here in CA they have been scarce and not as crispy as in the past. The season for them is like 2 weeks if we are lucky.

We have several old martini glasses. A few have broken over time, and I've discovered that large martini glasses are the current standard. I prefer the smaller size. Yep, I'm a cheap date; one is usually enough for a pre-dinner drink. And for those who wish to have a second one, it isn't overwhelming if the glass size is on the smaller side. I too like a little head room in my drink. I don't want to bend over and drink like a cat before I can reliably pick up my glass. And that goes especially for a second drink, when my sense of balance is already out of whack.

There's only one part of Thanksgiving dinner that I really like. That is the 15 minutes after the turkey comes out of the oven when I pick away at the crispy skin. Since the bird gets carved before anyone really looks at it, no harm done. Because my husband and I cook the turkey, I have no trepidation about this practice. After that the rest of the meal just bores me, food wise, including the turkey. I suffer through this because the one thing I want out of a roast turkey is the carcass. I am hopelessly addicted to turkey soup. My husband's family is very attached to their traditions, and for the thirty years since I married in, most of the dishes are pretty much the same. There is always a vegetarian entree as well as all the standards, but typically it is full of gloppy cheesy things and not very appealing to me. The pies, however, are very good, all baked by my SIL, so basically I don't eat much dinner; I save room for apple pie, which is my favorite. This year the crowd will be big, and there will be five pies! We have a standing dinner engagement with friends the following night and it's agreed by all: no leftovers and no Thanksgiving type foods allowed. Last year we had Coppa with mostarda, Lobster BLT's and a spectacular coconut cream pie (and I'm not big on cream pies ordinarily.) So the day after Thanksgiving is always a high point.

I noticed the same thing right away. There was absolutely no mention of the fact that the amanita muscaria is not edible--hardly a harmless mistake and very surprising for the NYT. Faeries love those cute red mushrooms with the white polka dots. And that's why faeries are now extinct.

This is one of those times I wish I had never opened my mouth. As I said above, I have nothing against using fresh tomatoes and roasted green chiles to make a salsa. I simply meant that I tend not to mix green chiles into a sauce that is made with dried red chiles or red chile powder. And if I am having a "verde" dish, be it enchiladas or posole or whatever, if I wanted more heat I would chose to add roasted green chiles over any type of hot red salsa, bottled or otherwise. Thanks @Lisa Shock for clarifying the "Christmas" concept. Now I sort of remember those combo plates: basically if you can't decide if you want red enchiladas or green enchiladas you can get both kinds next to each other on the same plate. And of course the truth is that you use what you have to make something you like to eat. That's the nature or regional cooking. As for Hatch Chiles, the story is long and twisty, and anyone confused about the type of chile pepper that is grown in the Hatch NM area can join the crowd. There is something called the New Mexico Chile pepper, and it is grown widely. And, as you would expect, it's all about terroir. The area around Hatch just seems to produce a heat and flavor that's very appealing. In the sixties and seventies when I lived there, the heat (Scoville type) was reliably consistent: Everyone seemed to be in agreement that Hatch chiles were very hot. Obviously they were using seeds that produced a distinctive chile. Now I think Hatch growers are producing milder chiles called "Big Jim" and others, and the last time I tasted so called Hatch chiles they were not as hot as I remember, and individuals varied within batches. I believe most of the crop is picked green for the markets and for roasting, but I'm sure some make it to a ripe red color if they get picked later and could be dried if so desired. Again, I don't pretend to be an expert; a NM botanist or Ag Sci from UNM might be a good source. Or some very dutiful research on the net, being careful to sift for misinformation. Mine included.

My desire for a simple hot dog grips me about twice a year. In other words, I don't eat a lot of hot dogs. My standard is one particular truck that parks on Central Park West near the Museum of Natural History, so that's kind of obscure and I don't know if the dog has anything to do with it or just the fact that he has a great topping. The dogs do seem to be grilled. I've tasted the NYT winner Wellshire Farms. Indeed it is juicy and the texture is pretty good. However, it is so salty it would choke a Central Park horse. I guess one could check the salt content compared to the other favored dogs, but after eating an average hot dog I'm ready to move on and not think about a hot dog for another six months. And why not grill a hot dog if you have a gas grill? It heats up very fast and you don't end up with a pan to wash. Of course maybe you really have a thing for a dirty water dog.

I don't remember any "Christmas" option. Maybe it is more popular now than back then? I lived mostly in Albuquerque, with occasional time in Santa Fe and Taos. Not saying Christmas chile didn't exist! Since 1974 my trips back to NM have been brief, way too brief. I miss it. One of my closest friends was from a multi-generational Taos family and much of what I learned was from her father, who was a great cook. At her family's house you could always count on a pot of long simmered posole and an addictive bowl or red chile, which could be added to the posole to taste. The rest I gleaned from eating at various tried and true dives and cafes over a period of six or seven years. Not an expert, but I ate a lot of New Mexican food.

Okay, I have a question, or really a thought. I lived in New Mexico during the late sixties and early seventies. If memory serves, mixing red and green chile was not common. You got a bowl of red or a bowl of green. You had enchiladas verde or enchiladas rojas. For chile dishes using red chile you used dried red chiles, rehydrated them and made a slurry that could be added to taste or used in a sauce. Or you used dried red chile powders instead. For dishes verde you used fresh green chiles that were roasted, peeled and chopped. Sometimes a sauce was made using tomatillos with green chiles, as in a typical green enchilada sauce. Not one to object to experimentation or necessity or just using whatever is on hand, I get that flexibility is a good thing. However, out of habit I tend not to use green chiles in a cooked red chile/tomato based sauce. The flavors are very different. Perhaps my feelings about chile are simply regional. I suspect that Texas-style, which I really don't know much about, don't follow those formulas. Of course my concept of anything Texan is often hazy. I have this idea that in Texas they just throw chopped fresh jalapeños into everything. Of course if you are making squirrel stew I can't see how a can of Ro-tel and some jalapeños could possibly be a bad thing. (Apologies to Homesick Texan--I am devoted to your recipes for escabeche and queso!) I do love fresh tomatoes and fresh green chiles together, such as in the basic summer salsa that mixes roasted green chiles, diced tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice and garlic. But when it comes to cooked sauces or pots of chile/chili I tend to keep them apart.

@andiesenji's beaters beat all. They are lovely. Andie, I have it in the fog of my memory you are a Hobart girl. That company invented the very first stand mixer in 1908. The first electric hand mixer was invented in 1922, but didn't become practical until Kitchen-Aid produced the bullet-shaped light weight prototype we use today. Not that anyone asked, but if you are going to talk about egg-beaters these are important facts bearing on the question of why Zyliss thinks this new style old-style object will be a big seller for them. My millennial nephew and millennial daughter would not be the target audience; they have the electric beaters their parents gave them when said parents upgraded. Top versus side handled: I have a very vague memory of the side handled version, but as a lefty I can't quite see what the problem would be...am I missing something? But of course us lefties are a clever and adaptable bunch.The gears on the top-handled ones work both directions, why not the side ones? I know I had a top-handled version when I moved into my first apartment during my college years, but that was fifty years ago. The hand mixer was the first appliance I bought for myself. Out of sentiment I held onto that egg-beater my mother gave me for about two days. Almost everything a person would have used an egg-beater for I use an electric hand mixer. Or, for appropriate short tasks, one of several whisks I have accumulated. Again, what am I missing here? For what reason would anyone go out and buy an egg-beater unless they live in a cabin without electricity? If my house loses power due to a hurricane, I won't need an egg-beater; I'll be in one. If I lose power due to an earthquake I may have a lot of broken eggs on my hands, but "Where's my husband?" will probably be closer to the top of my list of questions than, "Where's my whisk?" I'll need his stamina and optimism to whisk all those eggs. But back to the left-handed issue and the electric hand mixer, neither of which are actually the topic of this thread. The side-cord is always meant for right-handed people, and it isn't easy to find a mixer that has a back cord or a rotating cord. Just saying. OMG it's time to get a grip and get out of bed and eat some toast.Time's a wastin'. I think I'll light a fire in the grate and dig out my brass toasting fork. Then I'm going to take my old British toast rack, which is the greatest invention of all time for making sure that your toast is stone cold on the journey from the fire to the table.

To clarify: It was always called Williams BBQ, but it was no more Southern than Zabars, a few blocks down on Broadway.They never had any pretensions, nor did any of us upper west-side New Yorkers ever confuse what they made with traditional BBQ meats. It was a one-of-a-kind Jewish/Eastern European roast chicken / rotisserie take-out hole in the wall. It was a very long time ago. No spare-ribs, no Texas brisket, no smoke, no hot sauce. But renowned? Yep.

Hot topic! I used to be a member of the SF Mycological Society. So fun bringing home a basket of wild mushrooms. Lots of chanterelles close by in the east bay hills. The black ones were extra special. Morels less easy to come by. My enthusiasm waned somewhat when I become super sensitive to poison oak, which seems to grow everywhere Chanterelles do. Gets you out into the woods in lousy weather, that's for sure. Lately I have been enamored of Shitakes. Recently I made Vivian Howard's Crispy Rice w/Leeks and Shitakes. I typically use cremini's for the following: David Lebovitz's recipe for Farro with Mushrooms and Bacon. Save leftovers for breakfast and top it with an egg (I know you people are legion!) Mushrooms and eggs always seems like a good idea. As a kid I loved mushroom omelettes. Mushroom and barley--- soup or casseroles. I grew up a few blocks from the renown Williams BBQ on the upper west side of NY (sadly, it is no more) and they made the most outstanding mushroom barley casserole; I'm guessing it had chicken broth and chicken fat it. It was my family's first line of defense for take-out, along with their roasted chickens. I've tried for many years to duplicate that casserole. Always good, but never quite the same. Maybe something about the way they cooked their barley or the kind of barley they used. And unexpectedly addictive: Rick Bayless' Mushroom and Corn Quesadillas, which I think I adapted liberally, but you get the idea. Fresh sweet corn is a must, though, and it's even better with home-made corn tortillas. Out-of-the-park knockout if you saute the corn and the mushrooms in duck fat. This seems like a slam-dunk when you think about that yummy fungus that grows on corn. Not even gonna try to spell it just now, but I can hear that wonderful word in my head. @IowaDee that long underwear story is the stuff of legend. He must have been pretty chilly for a few minutes.

Anything tastes bad after 100 years. What they're selling now are the ones that never sold after the original batch in 1917.