Katie Meadow

I think you can make yourself sick with either coke or mentos, you don't even need to eat them together. But it probably helps.

In my experience Fiore Sardo is a very available cheese across the US. I buy it here in the East Bay and have bought it in Walla Walla, WA, New Mexico and New York. I've always found it to be a reliable cheese when traveling, not only because it is easy to find but also because it stands up well on car trips. If you can't buy it in NJ you can certainly order it from Murray's in NYC. I admit I've never paid any attention to the season but it seems like it is always around. Am I missing something?

Well, the eggs look good.....

Most stir-fry recipes for beef have always suggested using flank steak. Call me crazy, but in the past I cooked with flank steak, cut thin against the grain and it used to work well. But the last few years I've been unimpressed with what is being sold as flank steak. It doesn't have much flavor and it is tough. In my experience. As some have suggested above, marinating helps flavor but doesn't noticeably tenderize. I don't eat much beef, but on the rare occasions I crave beef for stir-fry, I now buy something a bit more pricy and marbled than flank with better results. Skirt steak has not impressed me either. It's a mystery whether the meat sold these days is poor quality or I just have become fussier.

North of Bend and Round the Bend This thread is toast, Long may it lie. From the ashes a ghost On white or rye, For what is dead may never die. My way north I make to see the eclipse What shall I take? Do you have any tips? Dragon glass for road rage and an ice chest of ale, a portable potty from an Amazon sale. A serrated bread knife of Valyrian steel, a home made loaf to keep it real. Tart raspberry jam and crunchy PB to spread, and maybe a little something to feed my head. Or not. I think I'm pretty much cooked already.

Only last week I said to the host of a cocktail party,"You call this ice?"

I've been craving grandchildren.

Plastic wrap remains one of the most useful, frustrating and wasteful of all inventions. Seventy five percent of it either clings only to itself, or it won't cut cleanly on the provided serrated edge, or it is too flimsy, etc. I have it, and try to use as little as possible. I also don't like putting mixing or utility or other types of bowls in the fridge w/leftovers, since they are inefficiently shaped for storage plus it is a guarantee that I will need the very one in use the next day for something. The Viancin covers are fabulous inventions, especially to impress your friends (look at this!) but they are designed to stick out over the edges of a bowl and take up space that wayI have a few of them too, and don't use them as often as I should for one reason or another. The most useful storage containers for me are rectangular plastic containers of varying depth with good fitting lids that can be stacked if necessary in the fridge. The greatest challenge in kitchen protection or transport: wooden salad bowls. Wooden bowls should come with some kind of snap-on top that includes a wooded serving utensil that clips on to the lid. Excellent solution for taking something to a pot-luck or as a contribution to a dinner. No one would accidentally take the lid and you have a fighting chance of keeping the serving spoon. That is, if the party guests notice just how clever by half it really is. Oh, I just finished reading a page-turner called The Marsh King's Daughter, which takes place partly in the area near the falls on the Upper Peninsula. Looking at the map I was surprised to see how close Manitoulin is to the UP. Good grief, there is no end to my geographic challenges as well.

Ordinarily I would have recommended pulling the covers up and staying in bed all day, but that corn soup sounds excellent. I'm off to the farmers' market this morning. What do I need besides corn and peppers? How long do you cook the cobs for the stock? The corn has been very good so far this year and today it is foggy and cool here in the East Bay. Cheers! I'm following your progress. Where does the smokiness come in?

Serves me right for looking. That crust-free flying saucer of molded white bread reminds me of watching nervous people play with Wonderbread, rolling it into little balls, etc. Toward the center there must be an ungodly amount of filling.

Oh, if only I hadn't eloped 30 years ago! But I was so young (40) and didn't weigh in the registry factor as part of the deal and we just couldn't handle the idea of planning a wedding. My mother never even offered me her wedding china, which was Spode and rather sweet. I think she assumed it wasn't my taste (maybe true, but really mom, adjustments can be made and you could have asked) but she got rid of it when her marriage went south and she moved into a small apartment. I collected a strange assortment of Harlequin pieces at flea markets during my twenties and thirties, so I used those for a while, but they weren't very coherent. We used a mishmash of stuff for years. Then we acquired my MIL's cache of family dinnerware: a motherlode really, one incomplete set of Limoges, that was then added to by her mother with a set of Wedgwood which clearly was meant to match but didn't, plus a load of assorted Irish crystal glasses, dessert cups etc. All of it very minimalist and lovely and barely used, all with modest gold rims that necessitated hand washing. I use them for special occasions and it is rare that anyone notices how different the two sets really are. The Limoges is delicate and lightweight, the Wedgwood has an ivory rim and is built clearly to survive the Titanic. Since we really do eat just about every meal at home, our dishes take a lot of abuse. Several years ago we sprang for a set of restaurant supply, a dozen of everything. It is plain white, heavy, seems practically unbreakable. We bought it because we were actually buying a large number of sets for the family beach house and the price was great. And now I know that if I break one of ours I can just steal one from the beach house and no one will be the wiser. If the kitchen floor was wood instead of ceramic perhaps that would give it a fighting chance when dropped from counter height. I'm hoping this stuff lasts the rest of our lives, but in my next life I am going to register at Heath Ceramics.

I thought about the Instant Pot for a few instants, but then my husband got excited about the Cuisinart Ice-70 2 qt ice cream maker, so we got that Prime deal. We have an old model that takes up more space and is kinda slow, plus this one has 3 speed buttons for different treats. The only negative comments about it are about the noise, but it can't possibly be noisier than our old one. I also scored big on something else, but it isn't kitchen related. What a racket, engineered to hook you.

In the words of Marian Burros: Because of reader demand, this recipe was published in one form or another in The New York Times almost every year between 1983 and 1995, when the then editor of the food section told me to tell my readers it was the last year it would be published, and if they lost it, it was too bad. She suggested they cut it out, laminate it, and put it on the refrigerator door. My coauthor of the first Elegant but Easy Cookbook brought this recipe to the book. Its appeal comes from its lovely old-fashioned flavor and its speed of preparation. It was originally called Fruit Torte. I have made this many times and it is always good with just about any plums. This is the easiest baked dessert to locate on line. The operative words are "famous" or "original" and "plum," but tart, torte and cake will all get you there. I don't think of it as a true tart either, since my idea of a tart is something with a pastry crust, but I'm not a very accomplished baker. That's why I always liked this recipe.

Okay, I must have missed that part. Yes, I agree that shelling and deveining shrimp is an icky chore.

Cashew and Almond butter are usually too sweet to pair with jam. Nancy in Patz: You couldn't resist, could you? Yes, my husband's mother packed him a pb & mayo sandwich in elementary school--that was like 60 years ago and he hasn't forgotten or forgiven her. It is debatable as to whether or not it was an absent-minded mistake, a passive aggressive dig or an optimistic inspiration. PB&M is a creation of El Diablito. Or someone who has the munchies and a nearly bare cupboard. If your jelly or jam squirts out it means you have too much of it in there. Or you have white bread so plasticky that nothing sticks to it, or, as noted by someone above, you have sandwiched the jam between two layers of pb, in which case you have too much pb.

Weinoo, the fact that you are asking for help making a PB&J sandwich is touching and probably a joke on eG, but it not it leads me to believe you sprang fully grown from the head of Zeus in the doorway of Russ and Daughters. I went to school when lunch was provided and never had to make my own lunches, and I don't remember my parents eating peanut butter. But I suppose at camp and at college I learned to make my own sandwiches the way I preferred them: peanut butter on one side, jam on the other, white or wheat bread. During the hippy years of the late sixties and seventies I learned to love homemade or natural salted chunky pb minus the sugar. I also discovered that a good multi-grain seedy bread (but never rye bread) makes an excellent sandwich, especially for hiking. My jam of choice is always raspberry if available. Although I can see how concord grape preserves, if not too sweet, would be a peak experience. I like my jam to bite me back. I owe a great debt to the fact that while my daughter was in school peanut butter sandwiches were still allowed; I wasn't the kind of mother who made bento boxes with Hello Kitty shaped eggs, although I'm sure that is commendable and fun for kids. If desperate I certainly wouldn't refuse to eat Jif, but I tasted it about 20 years ago and indeed it resembles real peanut butter the way Hersheys resembles Valrhona. But if a banana even so much as looked at my sandwich I would put a dish towel over its prying eyes.

I grew up in NY and my family never had a dishwasher. That was the 50's and 60's. In order to clean up a meal for four we had to wash as we cooked, and then when dinner was over, it was a 2-person job to wash and dry. Drying by hand was essential, because the dish drain filled up pretty quick. I don't think I had the use of a dishwashing machine until I was 30 and my husband and I bought our second house, here in CA. Wow, I thought that was the coolest thing ever! As you know, Californians have lived with on and off drought for a long time. We have always been conscientious (well, many of us, hopefully) about conserving water. Dishwashers use a lot of water, and putting giant serving bowls or pots and pans in takes up a lot of space. I now cook for only two, but we never use the dishwasher on a daily basis. I know enough about my own style to know that I need to hand wash all measuring and cooking utensils or they won't be clean when I need them the next time. I fill up my space in the dishwasher with plates, bowls, glasses, and that can take 2 days or sometimes even more if we have no guests. We rarely go out to eat, and I cook one dinner-type meal per day. I don't call making toast and coffee in the morning cooking, so there's a presspot to wash and the rest is just plates and cups that go into the washer. If you are conserving water, the organizational part sort of takes care of itself. Another helpful resource: having a dishwasher that can accommodate your stuff in an economical way. Take a sampling of your dishes when you go to buy a new dishwasher to make sure they can pack in efficiently. My husband's family has a beach house, and when we all get together we can be 12 or 15 people. The dishwasher was a cheap model, doesn't take up more space than ours at home, and fits in about half as many dishes because of poor design. Super annoying during holiday dinners and a good reason to buy a dishwasher that really meets your needs. Another useful tip, which seems so elementary to me and escapes some folks (like my husband) is when you are done with a grimy pan, get it into the sink and fill it with hot soapy water right away so it isn't twice as awful to clean up later. Another way to dirty lots of dishes is to do everything mise en place. Sometimes you do need to have things ready to go, but most cooking is done in stages and you can often reuse prep bowls without washing them. I do get that beginning cooks probably use more dishes, and it's really a matter of experience to become more efficient. There really aren't a lot of tricks. Who throws a stirring spoon into the sink if you know you will need to stir again in ten minutes? Put it down on a plate near the stove and keep your counter clean at the same time. And if you can afford to put all your pots and pans and spatulas in the dishwasher maybe you have too many of them. Okay, sorry if I am being preachy! But this happens to be a pet peeve of mine! If I can't begin cooking in a clean environment I just don't want to cook as all. I agree with many of Scott123's suggestions, although using paper plates and paper towels doesn't make much sense to me and doesn't seem necessary if you are engineering your tasks as he suggests. Wow, I guess this was a rant. Ordinarily I would think twice about submitting this kind of post, but well, what the hell. I'm in a mood. I'll get over it.

As far as I know (and I haven't made shrimp étouffée in a zillion years) the shrimp get peeled before cooking. That means you will have the shells to make stock. This would result in the best flavor for this dish. I always feel virtuous using the shells like this rather than just tossing them. Use all shells, tails, etc. Add some celery leaves and a little onion, a couple of thyme sprigs, but don't overpower the shrimp flavor. Simmer 30 minutes, strain. Making seafood stock is a lot faster than meat or chicken stock. If you have nice fresh shrimp your stock will taste fresh too.

No better advice was ever given than W.C. Fields prescription for healing: "Rest and exercise, rest and exercise!" Of course it goes without saying, that was in addition to copious amounts of alcohol.

I'm so impressed! I would have just headed out to the nursing home and played with the puppy all day. Cheers, Anna!

No, I do not think this an hour's work. In fact it is so ambitious it makes me tired. Of the five tasks I would winnow it down to three. First I would consider the sirloin. But I would dismiss it in favor of reading David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster." Then I would deal with the spinach and make a gratin, something that is even better heated up the next day and which you can then appreciate how little work it takes to reheat anything. Also I would try to squeeze in one load of laundry, just so Kerry doesn't think you are a slacker. So, advice you can really get behind, right? Have a nice day, and I really mean that!

Very happy you will be going home. I have to say, even if partially due to your excellent photo skills your hospital meals actually look far better than hospital meals I've ever encountered here in the States. I take your word for it they taste far worse than they look. It remains questionable whether being able to identify your protein is a good thing. May it always taste like chicken.

Cakewalk, I totally agree about the current incarnation of the Wednesday food section. Slowly over the last few years it seems to have gotten less interesting. I don't know if there are fewer recipes in each issue than there used to be or simply fewer that interest me. I'm with you about Melissa Clark; her recipes for some reason are usually not appealing to me and sometimes her techniques strike me as plain bizarre. Her dishes often seem like....well, concoctions. I have not lived in NY for 50 years, so I never read the restaurant reviews with the expectation of dining out, but I used to enjoy them a lot. I loved Pete Wells column "Cooking with Dexter" but his reviews, not so much. The featured pieces don't grab me; they are long on chatter and short on recipes. My friends and relatives in NY don't cook much, so maybe the Times has determined its readers don't really want lots of recipes. The weekly "Eat" page in the Sunday magazine sometimes has an appealing recipe and also text that is better written. I still find some good recipes on the Times website, but since we subscribe to the daily NYT I don't pay extra for access-- nor would I.

May you get well fast and get outta there. The rice and some of the veggies look okay. Frankly it looks better than most hospital food in the states. Although, If I couldn't tell one protein source from another I would be a wee bit careful. Anything served with a decorative fish bone on top, especially if it isn't fish, wouldn't give me a whole lot of confidence. I am making the assumption, hopefully correct, that if you are that focussed on taking good pictures of your meals you are more bored than anything else. Boredom in the hospital is usually a good sign. Take care, rice wine bottoms up!

I come to NY about once a year (I grew up on the upper west side.) Every time I visit I make a pilgrimage to Prune. I'm simply a Gabrielle Hamilton fan. I believe that her partner (in life and business) is now in charge of the kitchen, but I also trust that Hamilton is such a control freak that the food is still carefully curated as ever. Besides the food being delicious, the staff is gracious, the atmosphere casual and friendly and I always have a good time in every way when I go. This is my major splurge restaurant; I try to coincide it w/my oldest friend's birthday and my husband I take her out. My other extravagance is to buy macarons at a little French bakery/cafe in Chelsea called La Bergamote. Very nice coffee and the pistachio macarons are swoon worthy. I am also fond of Buvette, despite the fact that the tables are a tad small and wobbly. The back room is sweet, and sitting at the bar is nice too. I've only had the gin martini's there, because they are smashing, although after a few sips I wouldn't trust my judgement. Bonus points for the fact that there are plenty of small plates, and the fact that they are open all afternoon, so that's my way of having one meal to take the place of lunch and dinner. They are also open late at night. I try to avoid breaking the bank, so to balance my extravagances I am happy to go low-end. My vote for best hot dog is the cart on the southwest corner of the Museum of Natural History. They are grilled, not dirty water dogs, and for some reason his relishes and toppings are the best. Also good for a meal: if you go to MOMA get the chicken and rice from the Halal truck on the SW corner of 6th and 53rd. The white sauce is addictive, the red sauce is hellishly hot. Ask for both! Prepare to stand on line, but you can sit on the edge of the fountain which is a bit cooling. So you see, my routine is very limited, as I don't even live in NY. Have fun!