CDRFloppingham

Yeah, the RB and swiss with tartar sounds not so great but it comes from a little sandwich shop that I used to frequent maybe 25 years ago. It's not so much tartar sauce...more like a 1000 Island Dressing. Maybe I should go more conventional...consider horseradish. Durn, it's not letting me edit the original post. I want to do some crudites too. Any ideas for a vegetarian dip (besides hummus)?

My wife and I are hosting a coed baby shower this Sunday. The weather is marginal; it is supposed to rain Friday and maybe Saturday and Sunday will be partly cloudy and ~65 degrees. There are about 30 people coming. We cannot seat that many so I'm planning a standup menu although at least 20 people will have some kind of seat and we have seating and a table for at least 15 if the patio is available. There will be a few ovo-lacto vegetarians there. There are a few kids (like 4 or 5)coming and I haven't specifically addressed that so I would really appreciate advice in that regard. Gazpacho (vegetarian) to be served in plastic cups Pan bagnat (vegetarian) Roast beef and swiss with tartar sauce sandwich Turkey club sandwiches Chicken satay with peanut sauce Pesto pasta salad (vegetarian) Chinese chicken salad (a cabbagy slaw) Whole Foods cake Gelato Fruit Chocolate

I do not want to deprive future generations from what I have been able to try myself. However, as someone who enjoys good food and who is also a full grown adult, I object to your preachy tone.

Over the weekend I'll make cheeseburgers on foccacia, mushroom risotto, chicken cutlet schnitzel, pasta carbonara and I'm not sure what else but the fridge is stocked.

For those of you in the mid-Atlatnic, we're expecting a major snowstorm this weekend. I'm going grocery shopping tonight. Any ideas? I'm thinking about making some burgers...maybe something braised...maybe some risotto (I have some great chicken broth).

We're having a simple NYE in tonight but tomorrow, I'm making the traditional turkey dinner for NYD. I've never made it before. This time it's just for two of us so I bought a turkey breast and will roast that. Fixings will include: cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied yams, green bean casserole. Since I don't have a full carcass, I bought wings, roasted the, and am making turkey stock now. I'm not doing dessert...probably left over panna cotta or some sugar cookies my fiance made.

It will just be the two of us and I'm keeping it simple. French 75s Wedge salad Crabcakes Panna cotta with orange/ginger reduction

Just don't eat too much.

An update. I braised the thighs, bone-in, in beer and some BBQ sauce (BIG MISTAKE). After about a 50 minute braise, they were very tender but not quite falling off the bone. I stopped the cooking, boned, and cooled in the cooking liquid. Yesterday (day of dinner), I wiped the thighs dry and put in a dry, non-stick pain, initially flesh side down. Went fine. Then I wanted to crisp the skin so I flipped to the skin side. Not much happened...skin still flabby. Floppy turns up the heat. The skin blackened instead of crisping due to the sugar in the BBQ sauce. Bottom line...it was meh. Here's the rest of the menu. Amuse: Cucumber/mango/aromatics from Alinea cookbook Crab/tomato: Crab salad of jumbo lump, a little lime, cucumber bruinoise, a little mayo, and little sriracha + strained gazpacho (French Laundry version) Squash three-ways: Shredded zucchini sauteed slow in butter with finish of Parmesan, spaghetti squash s/ Marcella Hazan's butter tomato sauce, and baked butternut - - - I served a small piece of the meh chicken here Campari-Grapefruit granita Braised short ribs/lentils (a la Fat Guy), slightly candied carrots, sugar snaps Panna cotta (Gale Gand's great vanilla version), orange-ginger reduction, orange supremes

Very interesting idea braising, then grilling. Should I brown the skin in the dry part of the braise or should I brown the bare side?

eGulleteers, We're hosting a formal dinner party for my wife's colleagues this Sunday and I'm thinking about doing a squash three ways for a first course. I would like to accent the dish with a small piece of grilled chicken. I really want the chicken to have a wonderful, crispy skin and I would like to grill it at the last minute. However, I don't want to do a lot of a la mintue cooking...I want to be able to relax as much as possible. So, I'm thinking I can brine and season, then cook maybe 3/4 of the way earlier in the day probably in a saute pan. Maybe about 5 minutes prior to service, I throw skin side down on a hot grill to heat, finish cooking, and crisp the skin. Since I've brined and I'm using thighs, I figure it's OK if it overcooks a little so the pre-cooking can err on the done side. Will this work? I'm also considering cooking on the grill basically all the way and reheating and crisping in a hot oven prior to service. HELP!

Can you post the link to the print recipe?

First course: Thomas Keller's gazpacho (chinoised) and a jumbo lump crabmeat salad Second course: Tenderloin with chimichuri, sautee of zucchini and parmesan, orzo salad Dessert: Berry shortcakes

Isn't stroganoff properly made only with tenderloin? I would think what is described here is really braised oxtail in sour cream sauce.

I've lived in both Philly and DC. I must say I much prefer DC. Philly has some good reasonably priced places. As noted RTM is fun. And it's great for red sauce Italian. I haven't tried much high-end stuff although I heard that Morimoto is great. DC has great ethnic food, including Japanese, Thai, Korean, Ethopian. It's not superb for pizza or Chinese, IMO. There are a few exceptions, Joe's Noodle House in Rockville for Szechuan and 2Amys or Pardiso for pizza but you have to know where to go. On the high end, DC rocks and is only exclipsed by cities like NYC and Vegas. As Busboy noted, Komi is superb and very interesting and we have CitiZen, Restaurant Eve, and the minibar. I don't know much about Balto. We live in striking distance but never go so that must tell you something. Have a great visit!

I'm surprised that no one has said babaganoush yet.

This trend has already jumped the shark.

So, I had a total brain fart and I bought cooked, shelled 26/30 shrimp. What can I do with these? Shrimp salad sammies?

I wanna eat so I cook as fast as I can unless the meal is scheduled to be served at a certain time.

There are two statistical models that might appply here. The first is regression to the mean. How this works is that you have a basic level of doing a certain task, this could be cooking a steak or making a base hit three times out of every ten. Some times you will do much better than your "mean" level. This might mean cooking a truly perfect steak, or it might mean going three for four against (hopefully) the Yankees. The opposite could happen as well, and you could have an unusually bad performance -- burning the steaks or going zero for four against (hopefully) the Red Sox. These unusually good or bad performances relative to a mean skill level (or score or whatever) have a certain statistical probability which can be characterised by the normal distribution. They have low probability of happening, but not zero probability of happening. The laws of probability say that your next performance after a statistically improbable performance is likely to be a more statistically probable performance, because it is always true that the most likely performance is the most statistically probable one. What this means is that you are likely to follow a particularly good performance with one that was not quite as good, and you are likely to follow a particularly poor performance with one that is better -- this is because you are likely to give a performance that is closer to your statistical mean performance. The second contains most of the same principles. The normal distribution says that if you have a certain skill level (let's say Roger Maris' 27 home runs per year average) that there is a certain statistical probability, albeit very small, that you will have a season or a streak that exceeds that average performance by quite a lot (Maris' famous 61 HR season). You can actually do the statistical analysis to see how many seasons by how many players at various average levels would have to be played in order to produce one who had a statistically improbable 60+ home run season, which explains why it took so long to break Ruth's record. Of course, for the following seasons we normally see . . . regression to the mean. In culinary terms, this explains how someone whose steak-grilling skills are good enough to cook 4 out of 5 perfectly will sometimes cook 20 perfect steaks in a row, and sometimes 20 bad ones in a row. ← Apparently someone paid more attention in Stats than I. ← Google

Three of my cousins grow conventional and organic produce. They said the organic stuff is a joke. They know when the inspector is coming and can clean up the operation to meet the regulations.

Great post nargi. I've often wondered how some people here can do what they do and I figured it comes down to priorities and having a decent income. We have a very good household income but we try hard to balance savings and investment, fixing things in our home, and eating. Thus, our home cooking and restaurant forays are neither as extravagant nor as frequent as some of the great posters on eGullet. We have occasional meals at "expensive" places (Citronelle, 2941 here in DC) but for the most part, we eat like "normal" people although we do have a penchant for tenderloin. To each their own and I'm very happy to have eGullet as a fantastic resource. Cheers to Fat Guy and the members of the society.

Doesn't this unblind the sophisticated taster? If you were on the panel and you tasted an "extremely al dente" pasta, knowing what you know about Latini and that the pasta was supposed to be cooked to the manufacturer's preference, doesn't this start bias you?

I bought frozen bread dough. Will this work?

I bought one of those big boxes of organic spring mixes at Costco and have used none and it's getting a little old looking. Any ideas to use it up besides throwing some in soup?