Darienne

First time DH and I ever ate Taco Bell food was in Balboa Park in San Diego in 1984. We'd never even eaten Mexican food at the time and we had the Taco Salads being on a somewhat restricted eating regime. They were enormous, and little like today's standardized output. We enjoyed them immensely. That was then...and this is now. We still eat at Taco Bell's on the way to Utah each year. Taco salads. Nothing to talk about, but we do get to sit down somewhere else than in the van and we've not been poisoned yet. And they are near the freeway in our mad dash to Moab. I have to ask tho...what on earth are those horrible little pink strips that come with the salads? And if you think Taco Bells are dreadful in the USA, you should try them in Ontario.

Ditto what Kim says. Kim, you never quit. You never sleep. You just bake cupcakes and cakes for others 24/7. I know it. Lovely cake.

Thank you EN for those posted and those to be posted. I have been following Pati's Mexican Table for some time but didn't realize that there had been videos in the past. That soup looked good. Could you tell me please what are the accompaniments in the various dishes? No rush.

Was this restaurant in Toronto? It's not quite clear to me although I may well have missed something. I also have to say that your Value Village is so much better than the one in Peterborough. Haven't found any goodies in it for months and the cookbook section is so poor that I look at it with little hope of ever finding anything more than recipes for the microwave or diet recipes. So sad. Nothing like the joy of finding some treasure in amongst the dross.

Too late to fix my obvious error: I don't speak Spanish.

Dear EN, A small minority of Canadians speak fluent Spanish and I am foremost among them. I would be grateful if you could also post some videos in English language or perhaps with English subtitles. Thanks.

We made a decision not to eat any pre-ground hamburger after all the articles I have read in the last year. So, for a large gathering we had this summer where Saturday night is traditionally corn and hamburgers, I asked my wonderful butcher to grind up a roast...can't recall if it was inside round or sirloin...inside round I think...and the resulting hamburger was not to my taste. What should we have ground up for hamburgers? We are planning to buy a meat grinder...just can't wrap my mind around it yet.

Thank you for setting up this very useful topic, EN. is a favorite in our house. I have never eaten it anywhere but in my own house, cooked by my very inexpert hands, with no on-site mentors, following this video made by Robert Rodriguez director of "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" starring Johnny Depp and countless others.The movie is pretty awful, IMO, and the video contains language early on which might make a maiden lady blush but probably no eGers, but it did it for me as far as the Pibil was concerned. Any comments from the resident experts?

gfweb mentioned corned beef and now I gotta get me some. I forget all about it, thank heavens, for great stretches at a time.

Really interesting posts. Popcorn. DH eats it with butter and salt. I prefer olive oil, salt and pepper. Pure taste preference here. Our regular salad dressing is how my husband likes it. Olive oil and lemon juice 1:1. I would for myself go to 2:1 or even 3:1, but then we don't use very good quality olive oil. Have to pick your snack brackets.

My cookbook allowance must be carefully spent and I've decided not to buy the Jenni Bauer book. I already own DL's The Perfect Scoop and Gail Damerow. Ice Cream: The Whole Scoop. The reviews on Amazon.com state that Bauer uses pretty much the same base for all her ice creams and adds specific ingredients for individual recipes. I downloaded about 8 different recipes from the net and found that to be true. I wanted to find Bauer's chocolate and salty caramel recipes and both are online. For a first ice cream book I would recommend DL's The Perfect Scoop. More importantly, for me at least, I would recommend reading Mark Bittman's posts on making ice cream using cornstarch instead of eggs, and then looking up the eG posts by paulraphael for further tweaking information.

Never seen this program before. Apparently it's on the Canadian Food Channel at 9pm and features Dallas, TX.

We live in the middle of nowhere, east central Ontario, and it's always a production of some sort to go to town. We try to do it as little as possible. To that end, I have a computer-generated grocery list (with a modified one for Utah), hangs on the fridge in 6 or so layers, with a red marker and things to be purchased get circled in red. Oh yes, it's a huge list. Five columns, 8 point, broken down into main food groups and also specialty stores. Changes are made quite regularly to the saved list and extra bits are written in for the week. He who lives by the list... That's me. Works tho... Hmmm...could add that Peterpatch has mostly chain grocery stores with very few and very small specialty stores. Nothing like Philadelphia or Chicago or Toronto.

We have this wonderful dentist who has been babysitting my broken molar now for a few months as piece after piece breaks off and he smooths the jagged edges and will not accept any money at all. (Yes, it's slated to be pulled at the end of September now, but this is small town Canada.) The receptionist tells me his favorite of all time is anything with peanut butter and chocolate together, so today I made him (and his staff) Anita Chu's (aka eG's Pastry Girl) Peanut-Butter Balls from Field Guide to Candy. Easy to make. Delicious. I did make them smaller than the recipe called for and I feel that was a good decision. Means a bit more chocolate per portion of peanut butter filling. Could add that we are doing some serious house renovations (over my dead body...my body lost) and the permit issuers, the ones who were good to us ( as opposed to the others) and the drafts-person, will get Enstrom Copycat Chocolate Coated Toffee next. How to make and keep friends...

So glad to read a happy ending to your story, kayb. We are cooking this weekend for a couple...the wife is seriously gluten affected. I didn't ask for medical particulars as in whether it is an intolerance, an allergic reaction, etc. Her husband says gluten makes all her cells swell, including the ones in her brain and the result is terrible for a period. She is fine with bananas, raspberries, whipping cream, chocolate and Chambord (dessert), so not all is lost for her.

My usual, thrifty, but lazy, response to vegetable excesses is to peel, slice, roast in olive oil, and stick into the freezer for later use in stews, soups, enchiladas, casseroles, etc.

Interesting thought... I wonder if there's evidence to support that. I feel like the US has pretty diverse eating habits. We're a wealthy nation with much available in our markets and representation in our country from other cultures all over the world. To follow that up: When I was born some 70 years ago and then growing up, I do not recall any instances of children allergic to peanuts or much of anything else. And there was scarcely any asthma compared to our own children's generation...we had two asthmatic kids of three in a family which had never had any incidence of asthma ever...and then today's children who have many allergies and asthma and autism, etc. DH was a high school teacher who saw puffers galore in every class. Not drawing any conclusions...can't..just wonderin about it all. In light of dcarch's question about diversity and Jaymes response...my generation, war babies, grew up on a much more limited diet than today's children. What does that signify? If any?

Meat loaf. Not usually something to crow over. However, this recipe posted on EatNopales blog was, in the words of my DH, the very best meat loaf he had tasted in his entire life. Thank you, EN. Have to love a good meat loaf recipe. Recipe Here

We love a good Hot & Sour Soup...but only if it's good.

Interesting introduction, nolnacs. Why Italian when you get a chance. No rush. And as for Chinese food, it's no more difficult than any other cuisine and probably less than some. The secret is in the mises.

Hooray for EN!!! Loved every minute of it. :wub: And thanks again for the meat loaf recipe. I am going to post it in Recipes that Rock in 2011.

Very distressing. Gave me the early morning willies. I would assume that the new one will not have any useful qualities of the older ones. If you read the Consumer Report issues, this current one and the earlier one, Jan 2011, you will get quite an insight into the situation. Re-quoting from my earlier post from that Jan issue: 'Glass shards flew across the kitchen, including "multiple large glass fragments" and hundreds of "microscopic shards penetrated her face and eyes, causing serious injury and loss of vision"...'. p. 47 Aarrgghhh.

Any thoughts on the word 'tuna' for a cactus fruit? Took a while to even get 'tuna' out of the fish arena. Por favor.

A tasty lunch with companions RG and EN. That would be a treat like few others. And think how much I would learn.

October 2011 Consumer Reports update on glass measuring cups, bowls and baking dishes with the rather distressing title "Shattered Glass". It appears that the manufacturers, such as Pyrex and Anchor Hocking, are still blaming consumer misuse of the products upon all accidents.