Katie Meadow

I'll be curious to hear the answer. I've always tossed the peppercorns in a grinder, coarsely ground them, and used them that way, to taste.

It would be interesting to research the relationship between the Caribbean and the Ozark cakes. Just a very brief search for the Caribbean cake brought up a Food 52 essay: https://food52.com/blog/23572-caribbean-christmas-black-cake-recipe The Jamaican and Trinidad versions of Black Cake are more like an English pudding than a straight out fruit cake, but they have in common the use of dark dried fruits (rather than a reliance on candied fruits), grape juice or wine and some type of dark sugar. In the case of the Caribbean cakes the signature is a burnt sugar as opposed to molasses and the use of prunes rather than fig. I noticed that some recipes figured out how to get the wine and the grape juice all in one by using Manischewitz, which I find hilarious. On another day I could see hanging out in bed and reading about this stuff for hours, but this morning I have got to get moving, as I am hosting a birthday party tonight. Strangely, the meal is very southern, including meatloaf and long cooked stringbeans and Vivian Howard's pickled beets and the dessert is pineapple upside down cake--with a bit of rum in the batter--and buttermilk ice cream. There's no Manischewitz wine in my upside down cake. I had enough of that as a kid to drown a horse.

I would drink a black salt mocha in a hot New York minute. That sounds so good. That's very interesting about the black cake. I have an ancient recipe called Old Kentucky Black Fruit Cake. It is labor intensive and has a zillion ingredients. I made it twice, but that was a very long time ago. No idea where it came from. It uses mostly dried figs, several kinds of nuts, and candied orange peel, among other things, including grape juice. The final ingredient, added just before baking, is a glug of melted bitter chocolate mixed in. The recipe calls for periodically pouring wine over the finished cakes to preserve them, but my notes indicate that I used whiskey or rum. And they also indicate that whiskey was used in the actual cake as well, along with the fruit juice. The quantities specified in my recipe are also generous, although not quite as ambitious, calling for 12 eggs and 8 cups of flour, a total of 4 pounds of black and white figs and dates, several more pounds of nuts, currents, etc. These people were baking for an event or for gift giving. I remember it being an awfully good awfully extravagant cake, and unlike any other fruit cake. It was indeed a very dark cake, probably due to the amount of black mission figs, the grape juice, and a substantial quantity of dark molasses.

I've been saving Vivian's recipe for Crispy Ginger Rice with Leeks for a rainy day when I only had one leek languishing in the crisper. All you need for this recipe is a leek, ginger, garlic and rice. If you already have the rice cooked and chilled it's a snap. Her suggestion for additions are great. Sliced sautéed shitakes would have been perfect. Next time. I assume the recipe is from the book, but I can't guarantee that, since I don't have the book now. Another variation would be to treat the crispy rice like sizzling rice and throw it into hot chicken broth if that was on hand. It almost makes me wish I was sick. And of course that someone else would make it. '

Nothing says football like quinoa.

Yeah, neck bones are tasty. Whenever I cook them in stock I gnaw off the meat for myself. I don't think I've ever made a meal of them, but I can see the fun there. Acadiana Table has a recipe for a pork neck bone fricassee, basically a gumbo, to which is added andouille and the usual suspects.

Wracked with guilt I did clean out my freezer, but there was a lot more throwing out stuff (method like the one in the cartoon in Food Funnies) than there was eating stuff. I have an awful confession to make: some of the containers were so mysterious and/or unappetizing that I needed help from my husband to disappear it, despite his disapproval. In the end he agreed and I left the kitchen while the operation was in progress. I admit that I am squeamish about the freezer contents, but this is a great improvement and I actually have room for more stock. Anything with icicles in it was tossed without question. There were some identified containers of soup that were probably less than a few months old which we ate. And there were some pork neck bones that I defrosted and tossed into a stock pot with some chicken parts. There were also lot of roasted green chile packages in various bags stuck in all sorts of nooks and crannies. I threw out the ones with old dates and put all the rest in one large freezer bag. I definitely have enough to last until next fall's crop at the farmers' market. And surprise surprise, I unearthed a lamb shank, so I bought another one and made Scotch Broth. I'm sure it was older than 6 months, but I'm alive to tell the tale.

I don't know if some of the TJ's products are limited to certain areas, but here are the few things we routinely buy and find to be good quality and a reasonable price. It would be very unusual for us to come out of TJ's with more than 2 or 3 things. VALRHONA 71 % Le Noir chocolate bar. You cannot beat the price for this quality plain dark chocolate, although I do know how personal chocolate tastes can be. This one is great for nibbling and for using in some baked goods. I'm super picky about my chocolate, so that might help or not. EMPIRE KOSHER ORGANIC CHICKEN. Has to be both kosher and organic to be best. TJ's HOME MADE (OR HAND MADE?) FLOUR TORTILLAS. Excellent for a commercial product when you just don't have the energy to make your own. Best when fresh; they don't keep well beyond two or three days. TJ's MINI CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT BISCOTTI. The plastic box says "soft bite" but they are not soft at all. If you are a person who likes the flavor of the oreo chocolate discs or Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers these biscotti evoke something similar, at least for me. They are definitely not over-sweet. They are always in stock, they are cheap, and great if you suddenly have guests coming over for ice cream or whatever and don't have time to go cross town to your favorite bakery. There are a couple of products that I was addicted to that have gone the way of the dodo. Then there are the seasonal products like the recent depressing episode of the Butter Toffee Pretzels. It was totally embarrassing how much I loved them. I don't even like pretzels. I tried sleeping until next December, but I woke up this morning.

I just reread this thread and It's very funny. Amazing how polarizing the subject is. I really HATE a lot of candy out there. But that doesn't always stop me from nibbling on it. I'm not sure I ever actually ate a peep. They weren't a part of my childhood, I know that, and they just look so toxic. That said, you would have to pay me a substantial sum to eat raisinettes, which combine two things I loathe: raisins and milk chocolate. Plus they look like something a deer left behind. All Hershey products: just plastic. All white chocolate: just soap with sugar. Mounds and Almond Joy: for lunatics. Candy hearts: sidewalk chalk is cheaper, comes in more colors and has less sugar. The single strangest candy is licorice. The salted types are simply hunks of ammonium chloride, which is used as an expectorant, and also in the production of manure, and probably is the reason why roads in the east need to be resurfaced constantly. Some is waaay too sweet, but every so often I find some I really like, like scandinavian black ropes and tire treads. Sadly, my favorite licorice candy of all time seems to have become extinct: Lakrits Lentils: a dark chocolate m & m shape candy with a thin hard black licorice shell. The ones that came in the lovely little folding box were the best, and they disappeared years ago. The bulk ones, not as good, you had to buy in 5lb bags, which was really a major headache. Now those are unavailable as well, or were last time I checked. A 5lb bag is really a disaster for me, anyway. Okay, so love this thread.

When I hear "shepherd's pie" I think UK. I'm not a huge fan of the dish, but then I don't much like ground meat in casserole dishes. And when I think UK I don't think "corn." However, if you emigrated from Europe to the American midwest and you became a farmer, you would no doubt throw in fresh corn if you had a stray ear, wouldn't you? And if you had fresh peas and fresh corn, making a succotash shepherd's pie isn't such a stretch. Liuzhou, you must get really lousy starchy corn in China to hate it so much. I admit that lentils and celeriac topped with mashed potatoes does not sound very appetizing, and in that case, if you also happen to have some lousy corn, well, no help there.

Not for the best. My husband came back empty handed as well the other day and I had a breakdown. I really hate the concept of "seasonal." A candy cane, maybe, but a goofed up pretzel? It isn't red or green for god's sake.

Just a shout out for Gabrielle Hamilton's recipes. Her apps are always knock outs. I've made the sardines on triscuits and the garrotxa on buttered brown bread that are from the book as well as many others. In the last week I made two of her recipes not in the book but both available on the NYT site: One is the recent recipe in the magazine section for caviar sandwiches--yep, it was a New Year's splurge. The only changes I made were to use a home made white bread instead of the one she suggests, and I made them open face. I forgive her for her attachment to the commercial white breads of her childhood in several of her recipes; I just don't see going out of my way for Wonderbread or Pepperidge Farm when my husband can bake a simple white bread that's delicious. The other one is her recipe for celery toasts with Cambazola from several years ago. It sounds a bit strange at first, but it is great. Again, use a white pullman style bread, good butter, a generous swipe of cambazola (weirdly Hamilton says to slice the cheese--who can slice room temp cambazola?) and then top with finely shaved celery lightly dressed with salt and pepper, lemon juice and olive oil. The toasts disappeared as fast as I could make them. A couple of slices would be a meal, as far as I'm concerned. After all, you've got your carbs, protein and salad all in one.

Be super cautious. I think the best way to learn about mushrooms in your area is to hook up with the closest mycological society. They have guided trips and local fairs. I have not been active for many years, but In my area (SF/Bay Area) the society hosts an annual fair, usually in December, after it has started raining (well it used to rain in December here) and there would be at least 100 tables displaying mushrooms that had been picked the day before by members, all labeled, and all questions answered. The variety was astounding. Get a good book. David Aurora's Mushrooms Demystified is great. He is a Northern CA person, but still very thorough. Learn how to take spore prints. It's fun, and they are beautiful. And sometimes they can determine a mushroom's identity when pictures are ambiguous. But the very best way to start is to go out with an expert.

I'm not a big snacker and we rarely buy packaged snack foods other than the occasional Kettle potato chips. But these things are frighteningly addictive. They are too sweet, too salty and really good. They pair well with a glass of whisky for a nightcap. Also they might be good for breakfast with strong black coffee. Or for high tea. Think lapsang souchong. Russian Caravan. Or go straight for the Scotch.

Two early dinners, two days: New Years Eve was scrambled badly when my husband had to rush the hospital in Sacramento to stay the night with his mother, so when he got back the next afternoon we had our little party: There aren't too many classic rich foods that I crave, but the single favorite splurge food from my childhood is......caviar. My parents would often go out on NYE and then come back home just before midnight to ring in the year with me and my brother when we were too young to go out partying. They would break out champagne or iced vodka and a teeny bit of caviar and we would have a midnight celebration. I made Gabrielle Hamilton's caviar sandwiches from the NYT, just as written, except we did them open face. We had toasted white bread my husband had baked a couple of days before and a tin of Tsar Nikolai CA white sturgeon caviar, which is farmed and local and pretty good. GH recommends wonder bread or some such, but she does have some childhood hangups. Accompanied by prosecco. And basically that was a meal. Tonight, unplanned, but everything was southern: Vivian Howard's oven fried okra. Fresh home made cornbread with sorghum butter. Leftover long cooked green beans, simmered in tomato, white wine and ham stock served with white rice. Leftover BBQ ribs for my husband. That's the very last of the gift ribs. They are still tasty, but I've had enough meat, thanks.

I very much want that fish cup for my green tea.

Not to be a total downer, but the only real improvement in plastic wrap would be to seriously limit its use. Instead of covering a bowl with cling wrap to store in the fridge, it takes about the same amount of time to put food in reusable containers with lids. Or try those great plastic suction lids by Charles Viancin if you must use a bowl for storage. Yes, I know plastic wrap can be really useful. I've heard there is some kind of biodegradable wrap though I've never seen it. But if we don't do something about plastics in the environment the world will be nothing but nurdles, all the way down. 2018 wasn't good for much, but I did learn a new word. By the way, the Oxford Dictionary chose "Toxic" as its word of the year. A bit broader in scope than "nurdle." Ah, New Years Eve. I'm going to turn on my electric fireplace and have that drink now. Here's hoping 2019 will be an improvement. Cheers!

It wasn't meant as an insult. It's their nature to be ingrates, and part of their charm. Clearly your cats are not New Mexico cats. When I lived in NM I did in fact have a cat. She could eat the chicken and cheese out of a rolled enchilada. After she died I became mostly a dog person. For a couple of years a large male cat invited himself to live with us even though we had a German shepherd. That cat mercilessly teased the dog by hanging his tale over the edge of the table, waving his paw down, and then whipping all limbs out of reach when the dog wanted to play. Not really very nice, considering he was an interloper, but there was no denying he had personality to burn. He was a California cat, and frankly, kind of a bum.

Am I the only one who wonders what Moe does for lunch?

I would be thrilled to have enchiladas for a holiday dinner. Maybe I'll make them for New Years Day. Turkey is so yesterday. Your cats, like all cats, are a bunch of ingrates.

And I carry a little container of sea salt every where I go. Here's how that started: I saw fresh corn ice cream on a menu board at an artisan ice cream shop and ordered it at once, since corn is one my very favorite foods. Then I noticed an "extras" sign which included salt for 50 cents. Absurd! Just ten flakes would have been enough. So I vowed to plan ahead from that moment on.

Lunch / dinner / linner will be as repurposed as possible. For xmas eve I made a big lasagne with fresh sheets of noodles. I bought two too many sheets, so I'm going to cut the remaining sheets is wide slices, cook them, and add them to leftover turkey vegetable soup from two days ago. There will be far too much for the soup, so at least half the noodles will be made into something tomorrow. Misc. items will include egg salad made from a couple of hard-boiled eggs that never got deviled with their siblings. Also included will be leftover smoked spare ribs that were gifted to me the other day and which should take us through another couple of days. Apps will be leftovers as well: a small hunk of very good runny washed rind cheese left over from cocktail hour yesterday and some pickled carrots that have a story to go with them: I got a copy of McFadden's Six Seasons for my SIL this xmas eve, and it arrived two days before. So I looked through hastily and realized I had all the makings for his roasted brussels sprouts with pickled carrots. So that day I used up a bunch of carrots that were languishing in the fridge and made the pickles, to be combined with the sprouts the next day. I completely forgot the plan and wrapped up the gift. It wasn't until we were in the car on our way to said SIL's house for xmas eve dinner that it even occurred to me that pickled carrots and fresh brussels sprouts were still waiting to be roasted as per the recipe, which of course was no longer available.

I grew up eating raw kohlrabi. When it is tender and fresh it's delicious sliced thin with good flaky salt; good with a bloody mary! Also useful cut into sticks and used on a raw veg platter with a dip. I like it shredded and mixed into a slaw. But old tough kohlrabi, that's not really fun. Unfortunately there's a lot of it sold and it isn't easy to tell how woody it is just from looking. There's always kohlrabi sold in the markets in Chinatown here in Oakland, and getting it fresh and young is also a crapshoot. I assume the Chinese cook it, but I have never asked.

I was just gifted two racks of home-smoked ribs! I've had this friend's ribs before and they are spectacular. Good ribs are one of my favorite treats, and something I will probably never make for myself.

Experimenting with social norms can be dangerous, neh?