ruthcooks

I wish I'd said that. Hey, Carolyn, welcome back! I was about to add your name to my "whatever happened to" list.

Potted Shrimp for an appetizer. It always impresses the heck out of anyone I've served it to, and is so very easy.

With similar symptoms, I've had at least 3 different culprits: ...a short that would not let the freezer light or fan go off ...dirty coils (what an embarrassing service call that was) ...someone leaving the door ajar overnight and not admitting it

I made these years ago for a French cooking class. It was called Gnocchi Parisienne, and the little dumplings plumped up like soft cream puffs when baked in a rich cream sauce. Oh so wonderful. A much easier gnocchi is a type of Russian cheese dumpling. Throw everything in the food processor, chill, then poach gently in the shape of eggs. Serve with fresh dill and butter or Parmesan and butter. Everything BUT Italian here.

My potato salad(s) have no eggs, just potatoes, onions and dressing. Devil those eggs and serve them alongside...a good thing.

Best frittata I ever had: the usual herbs, green onions with the additions of corn kernels, shrimp and cubes of cream cheese, topped with Parmesan. Pureed corn soup, delicate and wonderful. A few weeks ago I tried a casserole of broken spaghetti, corn kernels, mushrooms, and cheese. Not bad, but needs work.

An aquaintance swears by an Italian Chop Salad recipe she got out of one of those Betty Crocker booklets at the grocery. The salad is stuffed into large pasta shells, and includes romaine, tomatoes, basil, cucumber, chicken and salami in an Italian vinaigrette. All the ingredients are chopped medium. I think you might be able to play on this theme, substituting olives and cheese(s) for the meats for a vegetarian version. They look beautiful in the picture, but I've never made it. Recipe says you can refrigerate for up to 2 hours, but you could do all the prep ahead and toss and stuff right before eating with a little help in the kitchen.

Oh, my! Having my taste in food and my culinary knowledge disparaged in one posting deserves a reply. Although I don't eat there, ironically Taco Bell is one place you can get (so-called) Mexican Food without rice and beans. These are instances of my experience with Mexican Food: 1. I've been to Mexico twice. While it's true that not all food is hot, you can never trust that some sneaky hot food won't be lurking among the tame ones. I'm very sensitive to spicy heat, so what seems bland to others can be painful to me. Come to think of it, I object to the flavor of chilies as well as the heat. Pick up any Mexican cookbook, Rick Bayless or whomever, and just count the recipes that include chilies. The majority, I'll bet. 2. My daughter's MIL cooks a lot of Mexican food. She once had a job as a cook for Mexican ranch hands, and presumably cooked to suit them. Rice with chiles and tomatoes, refried beans, enchiladas feature largely. My daughter cooks Mexican food almost weekly. Just this week she made a Mexican beef dish with Mexican spices she bought at a Mexican grocery in Arizona, and had first eaten at the home of native Mexicans. (This was a special celebratory dish the family made in honor of my daughter's visiting family and her in-laws.) They all loved it, I hated it. 3. I've eaten at many Mexican restaurants, from chains to tiny holes-in-the-wall where "everyone who eats there is Mexican" and "it's run by Mexicans who don't speak English". Same old, same old. (I have not been the person who picked the restaurant, ever.) The only upscale Mexican restaurants I've eaten at were in Mexico. The two recipes I brought back with me from there are: Caesar salad, made at tableside, back before it became ubiquitos, and a dessert of ice cream and fruit covered with a sugary meringue and baked in a metal champagne saucer. I'm sure there are some other Mexican dishes I would like, but finding them no longer appeals to me. On the other hand, if you want to persuade me, I'll gladly accept an invitation to dinner.

I got a real kick out of this one. My objection to Mexican food (second to the hotness) is that they serve not TWO starches but THREE at a time: beans, rice and tortillas. But perhaps they don't do this so much in Mexico?

I make a plain vanilla pudding (or cornstarch custard or pastry cream) that doesn't have much sugar in it, or only sugar substitute. Sometimes it's tapioca or rice pudding. First I chill, and then top a small bowl of it with a spoonful of jam and heavy cream. Raspberry is my favorite. I've heard Brits refer to pudding with jam and cream, and if this is it, it's wonderful.

My favorite is corn dogs, but I have to "uptown" them a bit. I take 2 frozen or refrigerated corn dogs, brand of no consequence, plus two of my favorite kind of all beef hot dogs, 8 to the pound size, and heat all on a piece of foil in the toaster oven. When hot--and the hot dogs have browned--remove from oven and place on paper plate. Remove sticks from corn dogs, slit lengthwise and take out those weasley weenies and throw them away or give them to the dog. Insert big juicy hot dogs into corn bread and squirt on some yellow mustard. When they're cool enough to eat, pick up and enjoy. I suppose you could try to get the sticks back in, but I never did like eating off wood and take the sticks out of ice cream bars, also. For an emergency sweet tooth or blood sugar low, mix soft butter with brown sugar and spread on bread.

To solve the container dilemma, find a restaurant supply house and buy a quantity of plastic "souffle cups" and a package of matching lids. Plastic spoons are available in quantity for a penny or pennies each. There are tiny containers for salad dressings and dips, and cups the right size for a serving of fruit. For bigger sizes there are also Chinese takeaway containers to recycle. The kids thrown it all away and no worry of rotting food or lost Tupperware. If you're worried about landfills filled with plastic, well, you have to choose your poison. It would probably take a lifetime of lunches to do the damage of one days trash from a McDonalds.

Melissa, there is something you can do with your stove to prevent the slanting. Most stoves have self-leveling devices on the bottom. If yours is too old for that, you can use thin strips of wood--or cardboard or whatever--under the front or back and use a level to tell when the oven shelf is even. Set the level right on the cool oven shelf itself to be sure. As a temporary means, I bought a 30-inch, 4 burner stove for under $200 because it was a floor model and dented. Surely it's worth the cost of a cheap stove to spare you grief and cost of ruined ingredients until your kitchen is remodeled. You can probably sell it used for about the same as you pay, if you buy it right. Or do you need more material for your book?

Whatever the drink contains, it ought to have the word "swill" in the name, and if it contains a pun, so much the better. For example, if this group was honoring baseball, the drink might be a Harmon Swill-a-brew. I'm working on it.

Marsh?????

gee... i don't know.. use judgement--if it's available to you? if you've eaten any of the dish, it's useless to them... so, I would pay for the whole item. ← It doesn't matter if you've taken two bites or twenty bites or none at all. Once the food has been placed on your table it cannot be served to anyone else. This is why, when the server forgets to sub a baked potato for your fries, he will leave or offer to leave the fries on the table at no charge. He's not doing you a favor, the fries are absolutely useless to anyone else.

As long as someone else has to catch the lizard...

CI had a different raspberry bar/square in the current issue, Sept-Oct 2005. This one consists of a shortbread base, raspberry jam filling and streusel topping. The difference which makes it so appealing is 3/4 cup fresh raspberries added to the jam.

My ex (I miss my handyman, if nothing else) built a custom set of bookshelves to house my cookbooks. The exact measurements were taken from the size of the binders which hold my Gourmet magazines from back in the 40s, so many binders per shelf. This was great, but I forgot that I have to stop buying books for them all to fit. Have started passing on hardback and paperback fiction to my niece, but not the cookbooks yet.

Fresh peach dumplings for breakfast. Sort of a top-of-stove cobbler with nutmeg and brown sugar. Cream optional.

When my son married, he had everything for the kitchen. His wife, who did not cook, loved the idea of entertaining and had everything for the dining room. She is now very interested in cooking and calls me for ideas. When I give her a recipe she usually makes it right away. It's fun to be a mentor. (My daughter, on the other hand, would rather starve than take my advice.) When someone took me to Olive Garden, I had the salad, bread and mussels. No problem. I am a fan of neither pasta nor red sauce, so there's usually only one or maybe two options for me on anybody's low to mid range Italian menu. I like plenty of Italian dishes, but they're usually only available in high end Italian restaurants.

Due to the extreme cooperation of Amazon, bookcloseouts, and Powell's, I find my self owning/waiting for delivery of 13 new cookbooks. Averaging about $8 each, plus a $2 grocery aisle find, they are: The Jewish Holiday Kitchen by Nathan Beard on Birds Katish: Our Russian Cook Mrs Witty's Home-Style Menu CB The Good Stuff CB (also by Witty) The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass CB James McNair's Favorites Jim Coleman's Flavors Damon Lee Flowler's New Southern Kitchen Being Dead is No Excuse The Cake Club Pickled Monday to Friday Chicken Will check in with reports after they're all in.

Wonder if there are any references to "beaten biscuits"? TeeHee

Seems pretty obvious to me that peach cobbler is "from" the places where the peaches grow. Right, y'all? ← Right on. Peaches grow in Illinois. We ate peach pie, peach cobbler and Mom canned dozens of quarts for winter use. I got sick to death of asking what's for dessert and being told, "There's always peaches." Peaches are a Yankee food, y'all.

Loved your post, Ingrid...and your signature line quote. ## Now did you ever notice this about eGullet: the people whose writings are attacked most vociferously are usually the ones who are perceived as not having paid their dues? (Shades of an Amanda Hesser stone throwing.) Certainly, Julie's article would not have been printed had she not had a book coming out. I'm sure she would be the first to say that she's been very lucky. I enjoyed this article for the humor, although it did not contain quite enough humor for the length of the piece. So maybe she didn't do all the research you might have done, or you might disagree with some points she makes, but seriously, who reads humor for the facts? Did Robert Benchley write "The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, etc." as an indictment of dentists? And since when does anyone rely on newspaper articles for impeccable research? Perhaps newspapers used to take pride in their fact finding, but today most reporting is colored by opinions, sensationalism and "making" the news. I consider it a real bonus when I am amused. On the other hand, I have never quite figured out whether I am amused or irritated by today's seasonal foods advocates. Having grown up on a mid-20th-century family farm, I literally ate seasonally for my first 18 years. No one applauded seasonality then, when the burgeoning food world was off in search of rich and complicated recipes and throwing yet another stick of butter in the pot. Once upon a time heirloom vegetables and free range chickens and pork which actually had some fat in it were all you could get. Now that one has to seek them out and pay a premium price for them, seasonality is "in". Just as lobster and chicken reversed places in the "in" list when lobster became expensive and chicken cheap. Julie is right about this: what's expensive and what's not readily available to the masses automatically rises to the top of the food desirability list. P. S. Do pick out the ugly tomatoes, because they're usually the best tasting. The worst ones are all uniform, raised for looks, and tough skinned, raised for shipping.