ruthcooks

My ex-MIL always cooked according to whose diet she was trying to control: low cholesterol for her husband (who rebelled by only eating steak when he ate out) and portion controlling the entire family when her youngest daughter tended to gain weight. Margaret loved mashed potatoes, so there were hardly enough to go round; that way Margaret couldn't have seconds. For years, I cooked wonderful meals when my in-laws visited. They would come in the door, get out their bourbon and peanuts and crackers and munch away. When the food went on the table, it was, "Oh, that's so rich" and "How many calories?" and "You DO use fat-free sour cream, don't you?" Evidently their empty calories didn't count. I got sick of being told I went to too much trouble, so one time I cooked nothing at all. Nada. You should have seen the shocked looks, but I never heard those comments again.

I laughed and laughed at the weight watchers cards. Add to these offerings their first prize winning recipe called something like "Tropical Treasure" shown on the cover of Weight Watchers magazine inside a tiny treasure chest. It consisted of French-style frozen green beans cooked to a mush and mixed with artificial sweetener and tropical fruit extracts. A dessert, mind you. The worst meals I have had come as a result of someone knowing my reputation as a cook and trying something different to try to impress/please me. One particular horror was a pork mystery dish in grey sauce. It tasted of raw flour and raw wine. And here is my guess at a recipe for a chicken soup once served to me: Roast 6-8 chicken breasts for an hour and reserve 1/2 cup meat. Make some chewy chicken salad of the rest. Take the measly pile of bones and add to a stock pot with about 5 gallons of water. Boil for 3 hours. Replace water as necessary. Do not add seasonings or aromatics. Throw in about 2 tablespoons of chopped onion, a few carrot slices, reserved chicken and a pound of noodles. Cook until noodles are soft. Add a little salt, if needed. Not too much, God forbid it should have any flavor. Leave in refrigerator for 5 days. Freeze. Six months later, bring to a boil and serve with squishy fake French bread. See the guests cry.

I like a bit of sweetness added to many tomato dishes, so I make a Gazpacho with fresh orange sections, juice and zest, and sweeten it further to taste with concentrated frozen orange juice. Half pureed and half diced vine-ripe tomatoes, shallots or scallions, garlic, oil, vinegar, lots of diced cucumber and salt, only a whisper of cayenne. The cucumber-tomato-orange combination is so refreshing.

Absolute best for me is roasting turkey. Once I catered a Thanksgiving dinner twenty miles away and the smell of the turkey emanating from the trunk of the car drove me wild. Worst is roasting garlic. It makes me sick, although cooking one or two cloves doesn't bother me. Absolute worst would be cilantro, except I don't allow it in my kitchen.

Here are a few of the things I don't get: Apple Pie with Cinnamon Ice Cream...the ice cream is supposed to contrast Lemon and sugar in Iced Tea...if I wanted lemonade, I would have ordered it. And don't even think about mint. Serving broiled fish, steamed veggies and rice pilaf, a popular menu suggestion. Dry and boring. Where's the sauce? Food that hurts...hot chili peppers, especially when there's no warning Cilantro...smells like unwashed underarms Garlic powder...nasty, nasty. How difficult is it to use the real thing?

Ideas for using vine-ripe tomatoes happens to be the subject of both my August newsletter and the August 6 feature of my website. Here is one of them: Mary Linda’s Tomato-Bread Cocktail As a first course, salad or light meal: About 2 hours before serving, peel, seed and dice one large tomato per serving. Dice one medium sweet (or red) onion for every four servings. Put these in a glass or china bowl. Add vegetable oil and red wine vinegar in a proportion of one part oil to two or three parts vinegar, freshly ground pepper and a generous quantity of salt. Chill. Just before serving, taste. You may have to add more salt. Add finely chopped parsley, if desired, or some basil chiffonade—I like it without. When ready to serve, heat a crusty loaf of French or Italian bread or sourdough. Tear the bread into small pieces and place in serving bowls. Spoon the chilled tomatoes and their juices over, and serve immediately. Unbelievably good for such little effort. Note: Olive oil is not used, because the chilling would solidify it. This dish bears some resemblance to panzanella, an Italian bread salad, although in the Italian version the bread is usually either soaked and squeezed or fried, then chilled with the tomatoes. It’s the combination of cold tomatoes and hot bread that make this dish so special. www.ruthcooks.com

Let us not forget that a government big enough to give us all (the bacon) we want is also big enough to take all (the bacon) we have. Dwight David Eisenbacon

Just one question...why on earth would anyone want to go to this party?

"1 cup chopped hazelnuts, ground" means you measure and then grind. Otherwise, it would read "1 cup ground hazelnuts" It's like "1 cup cream, whipped" vs. "1 cup whipped cream". When the modifier comes before the ingredient, then you take the measurement after taking the action.

And what do you suppose the "herb-based potato" might be?

Here's why I will never "do" weight watchers. Many years ago, their magazine featured on its cover the grand prize winner of a recipe contest. The recipe consisted of: frozen French cut green beans cooked until mushy saccharin extracts of pineapple, coconut and other tropical flavors This was chilled and called a DESSERT. Now if this was the best they had to offer, what discriminating palate could ever trust them? Bleccchh!

1. The most widely used in the world: with au jus (with with juice) 2. Healthy food? As opposed to sick, I guess. Food is healthful, all of it. 3. My particular pet peeve: tender crisp, as referring to vegetables. If it's tender, it cannot be crisp, and vice versa. Usually refers to warmed raw vegetables--they're certainly not cooked, as cooking results in a change in texture and flavor.

Since Southerners call mashed potatoes "creamed potatoes" I've always wondered what in the hell they call creamed potatoes?

Food fried in lard does not absorb fat as much as if fried in vegetable fats. And it tastes better, like French fries. Lard in pie crusts, not in cookies, was the way my mother cooked. Catfish fried in lard, excellent. If it's good lard.

I saw key limes in a plain ole Giant supermarket last week in Royersford (30 mi. west of PHL). Most grocery stores carry bottled key lime juice.

I, too, got the set when originally published. The books are a little "shopworn" from being moved so many times and put into storage for periods up to two years. I don't have room for the beautiful books at present, but keep the spirals at hand. I think I have the Good Cook series, too, but have never used them much. I notice on the Janet Jarvits site that Vincent Price's "Treasury" is sold for as much as $100 and $200. What a book that one is.

In Nashville, most cornbread is made with white cornmeal, contains little or no sugar, and is usually baked as muffins. If you should happen to run across "corn light bread," however, it is baked in a loaf pan and contains more sugar than any Yankee would dream of using. It's served with pulled pork barbeque and there's nothing light about it. Someone told me that "light" refers to the cornbread being made with eggs and it's also called "egg bread." I've seen a recipe for "Creamed Chicken with Egg Bread." On the other hand, my Yankee grandmother made her cornbread from cornmeal, sour milk, drippings, salt and baking soda. She baked it thin in a large metal pan and my grandfather mushed the leftovers in a glass of milk. Of course, he was from Southern Illinois.

My three favorite ways with asparagus... Like my mother cooked it (but you have to have it growing in your yard to taste really good): cut into one inch pieces and cooked until tender in boiling salted water--not too much--then add cream and butter and serve in sauce dishes sorta like soup Pureed asparagus soup: cook one bunch of asparagus, cut up, with a few slices of onion in a quart of chicken broth until soft; puree and sieve, whisk in 8 oz. mascarpone and season with salt, pepper, lemon juice and a bit of sugar. My asparagus-hating grandchildren are mad for this For the first splurge of the season, for lunch or dinner, Dutch Asparagus: for each serving, cooked asparagus spears, one or two hot hard-cooked eggs, and softened butter. Each person finely mashes the eggs with a fork and incorporates as much butter as preferred, usually 1 to 2 tablespoons per egg. Season with salt and pepper, if desired (I use salted butter and it doesn't need salt). The butter melts into the egg, making a kind of thick sauce. Eat with fingers. Beats the heck out of asparagus with fried eggs. Other favorites: asparagus with brown butter or hollandaise.

Sweats, a barbeque joint in Nashville (may have two t's, but either way I could never bring myself to eat there). Flo's Kitchen and Discount Shoes somewhere in Florida, I kid you not.

Personally, I would call in a pledge if they promised to show slides of the offers while they play Sinatra music and cut the breaks to 5 minutes. The crockpot show they could have cut entirely...long ago I observed that anything cooked in a crockpot was roughly twice as good cooked any other way. Besides, even if you wanted to collect all of the "America's Home Cooking" books, do you realize how much it would cost for the pledges to get them? Might as well go to the Cordon Bleu for about the same money.

Every time I get to 400 I have a yard sale. But since most of them are in storage, I've probably added a hundred in the past year.

Ronfland is right on...some people write for effect, will say anything to get noticed. I read a bunch of Regina's website and found that she made me laugh about as often as she offended me. If I was in the habit of reading her, I would stop if the offences outnumbered the laughs. (If she is, as I seem to recall, the columnist who admitted to subscribing to Taste of Home she deserves some credit for bravery.) Steve Klc, I think your Shakespearean quote should be "Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much." Like Retired Chef, I have noticed a sharp edge to some of your comments. Also, I took offence to your remarks about his age...very close to dismissing his opinion because he is old/old fashioned. He could have been 40 and retired for all you knew. Or he could have been Julia Child! As for Bourdain, I hated his first book so much I threw it in the waste basket. I was expecting a "food" book and got "who did what to the bride over the trash can in the alley" instead. After seeing him on television and finding him appealing, however, I bought his second book. (Haven't read it yet.)

I have never been a fan of anything hot, but I read about Marie Sharp's on e-Gullet and tracked some down. Now I find myself putting it in things that I never would have dreamed before. My Tabasco sauce is out the door. By the way...those guys sweating and gasping from eating chiles? It's not a sign of being macho, poor things only have about 17 taste buds.

I'm afraid I have to come down on the other side of the Jacques Torres fans. He seems to have a sweet personality, but I want to scream when he says "I going to do this" one more time. Also, I've only seen one show where he actually cooked something that looked good to eat. Most of the shows I've seen have him painting with cocoa butter or making watermelon flavored suckers. And did you ever notice that his plates or display areas or whatever are never large enough? He just piles stuff in heaps for display. Still, he can be fascinating to watch, sorta like watching someone blow glass...and about the same degree of appetizing. Sign me...Not a Chocoholic

My complaint about recipe sites is that some of them make it impossible to copy the recipes...isn't that the point? Martha Stewart's site is near impossible, but Delia Smith takes the cake. Both print out boxes, pictures, etc. which result in a two page recipe with no way to edit. Food Network's is easy, but there are so many re-run shows that I find myself looking at the same recipes time after time in senior moments.