Shamanjoe

Good Housekeeping was always on my grandmother's kitchen counter. I always saw it there, but it was years before I ever actually opened it. I'm not sure if she ever did, but it was ALWAYS around. Still is, only on my bookshelf now

Dinner tomorrow night is going to be a nice asian inspired soup. I'm finally breaking out the dashi and bonito flakes that have been in my pantry for what seems like months now, to make a nice broth, then adding some of the onions, chinese broccoli and scallions that have been hanging around my kitchen and garden. And some of the noodles that I have all around the house. edited to fix my horrible typing.

When I was on vacation in the Phillipines, I was a great locavore. Everything we ate was grown locally, except the crocodile (it came from a different island, but it was raised in the Phillipines). Usually when I'm on holiday, I go for whatever looks good, and if that happens to be local, so much the better. But to be honest, I can't say I thought about it very much at all until recently. I'll definitely be looking/asking about the sourcing of ingredients on my next vacation.

That's an amazing feat, I wish I could do that here. In the summer at least, most of my produce comes from within 15ft

I think that's a post for the thread about which cookbooks influenced us most. But I have to say, five or six was my first inclination here as well . Maybe just as an addendum to my original post?

What ONE cookbook could you not do without? You may have 1,000+ cookbooks, but what is the one volume you keep going back to again and again. For me, it's the Joy of Cooking. There's just something about it that keeps me coming back. I know it's pretty standard, but that's just me. So what about you? What's your one book? (Oh, and if that book changes from time to time, feel free to update)

The two that I guess influenced me thoe most when I was growing up were The Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that was always sitting on my grandmother's kitchen counter (between the coffee maker and the sugar) and the original Joy of Cooking that my other grandmother recieved as a wedding (or was it anniversary) gift. There was a handwritten date on the inside cover that said '62 I think? it was always kept in the bottom drawer of the kitchen, with the rolling pin. Whenever I was at either of their houses, I would look through them, and ask to start cooking things. My mom wasn't much on cooking, so I got most of my cooking experience (not to mention the freedom to make a mess) at their houses.

That might be an interesting discussion to start as a new thread. If you could only have ONE cookbook, what would it be? I agree though, you only need one, but I'll qualify that by ending it with "at a time!" Meaning, in your hand, with 200 others on your shelf, waiting to be in your hand.

I just bought a couple books from Amazon, "It must have been something I ate" and "The man who ate everything." Not sure what I'm expecting from them exactly, but I'm hoping there's at least a few recipes in there (or enough process descritpion that I can get started). That being said, I'm a book junky in general, and have to keep building bookshelves to accommodate my purchases. More recently I've been eyeing more and more cookbooks. How I read it depends on the type of cookbook. I recently bought one on Indian cooking, and it has a fabulous section on all of the different spices and herbs used. Each spice/herb has a whole page, and at the end of each section are recipes. That one I like to just sit and read. Others, like my new cocktail book (i know it's not technically a "cookbook" but it is full of recipes ) I just glance at the pictures and maybe try one or two things rather than sitting down and reading it all at once.

Why is it that malt vinegar goes so well with seafood? It doesn't seem to be that popular here in the states. I see it in every grocery store, but most people I know (of every different race) have some type of chinese or SE Asian vinegar in their kitchen rather than the malt stuff. That, or something like a cider vinegar.

What office parties are you going to David? All of mine have been dry, at least the ones actually hosted in the office.

She is rather pretentious, isn't she? I'd never go to a party and expect the wine I brought to be opened and drank, unless it had been specifically requested. And I certainly would never try and force my choice on someone else, even if they acted as badly as some of the people in her article. Hopefully their other writers are a litte more down to earth.

As far as high-heat cooking goes, the only thing I use a rubber or silicone spatula for is occassionally making slow cooked scrambled eggs. And even then, it's only if I can't find my Rachel Ray plastic spatulas (they're a godawful orange, but boy do they work great). Other than that, I agree with GlorifiedRice, silicone spatulas like that are for scraping bowls and folding together light and airy things with more dense things.

I guess i'm the only one who doesn't really use wooden spoons here. I've always only had the cheap pine ones, and they always looked positively scary after more than a few uses and washes. Would some made out of hardwood (like the very attractive olivewood ones I keep seeing in this thread) hold up better? I'll have to give those or the bamboo ones a try, since everybody here is gushing over them. I have to see what all the fuss is about! edited to correct punctuation.

Dinner last night was a bowl of homemade slow-cooker beef stew and some fresh sourdough toast. Yumm! Didn't have the camera with me, but there's more stew, so I'll try and take a picture later tonight. Slow-Cooker Beef Stew 4 Medium size Beef Shortribs (long bone cut, about 4-6" long and a good 2" thick) 4-5 turnips 1 large (or two small) onions Most of a bunch of celery 3-4 carrots (if you like, didn't add them this time) 2 14.5oz cans of Italian-seasoned canned tomatoes 1 small can of tomato paste 2 Tbs flour 2 Tbs ground dried chilies (I use ancho chilies) Mix the flour and ground chilies together and coat the short ribs in it. In a heavy skillet (cast iron is best) brown the short ribs on all sides, then drain off excess fat. Add the tomato paste to the slow cooker, as well as the cans of tomatos. Stir until the paste is incorporated (or at least evenly distributed, it'll cook down anyway). Peel and chop the turnips, onions, celery and carrots into large chunks. Toss everything in the slow cooker and add water until almost covered (filling up the tomato cans a couple times usually does the trick). Stir it up as well as you can, then cook on high for one hour. Then drop the heat to low and let go overnight (about 12 hours for me). Serve and enjoy with some toasted or good crusty (and slightly stale) bread. edited to add "dried" chilies

I went to the store the other day, and lo and behold, the strawberries, blueberries and blackberries all said "Grown in California". Even this late in the season, the blackberries were delicious, though the strawberries didn't look worth buying. I guess it'll be December before we go back to our "local" (rolls eyes) South American berries..

My only problem so far is that, even with almost nothing left in the fridge, I forget it's there for a couple days. At least I can see ALL my pantry items, as I'm redoing the kitchen, so they are all spread out in the living room (on tables, book shelves, etc.)..

It would be hugely impractical to do, but I bet it would be amazing to see how many calories are contained in a typical american house, each state, the country, etc. Maybe eventually we'll end up like the book "The Future War" where currency is calories, and you buy everything with a book of what are basically food stamps.

I've been working at this thread for a few months now, and i'm only to page 450 or so! I'll post dinner later on tonight, when I decide what it will be.

Do we need to maintain the core ingredients in the variation, or can we use most of them but drop one or two? Variation on Tomato & L'escarole Soup Using thickly chunked bacon, thicken up your tomato soup until it gets to more of a sauce consistency, layer it in a baking dish in alternating layers with some thickly sliced and toasted stale bread. Serve over a rough chop of iceberg/romaine lettuce and top with some herbed goat cheese. edited to reflect the fact that I meant use the thickly chunked bacon as an ingredient, not as the actual thickening agent..

What kind of sanitizing solution do you suggest?

Yes, it generally is not good. In winter, I might be better off buying one of the better brands of frozen berries than what passes for fresh. Part of the problem is that the shops around here only stock berries from one or two producers, who send unripe fruit that tastes like packing material; you see the same packages everywhere. What's really bad is that even in the summer the regular supermarkets often have only the stuff from California, you have to go to a good produce market to get the local fresh stuff. There are no "warmer parts" of New England in winter. Wow, that's just fascinating to me. In winter, when I see berries in the local supers in my part of SoCal (not that far from Shamanjoe), they're all from South America, as are the stone fruits and melons. I won't buy them. They're truly hideous...no fruit flavor whatsoever, no matter how long you let them sit on the counter. They will dissolve into a pool of ooze before they'd ever ripen. I never, ever see berries, stone fruit and melons labeled as being from California out of our growing season in my local stores. I've noticed that too. I rarely buy berries, but when I do, it's always at the farmer's market. On the off-chance that I buy them at the store, they almost never get eaten, as they're usually out of season. I don't even bother looking at the stone fruits in the winter, the memory of white peaches falling off my tree in summer is just too much to overcome.

I caved in and bought a cocktail one, 1001 Cocktails or something like that. The photos are fabulous, but most of the cocktails are miserable. I mostly just use it for inspiration, as most of the classic base cocktails are in there in one form or another.

I understand the bourbon (I forgot to add that I add a little myself, though on a glass-by-glass basis), but I never really thought about the aging part. Does three days really make that much of a difference?

Is our stuff really that bad when it gets to you? I would think things like blackberries and rasberries would do well in some of the warmer parts of New England (in winter), or at least do well in an area closer to you than California.