Darienne

I don't really like chicken. It has those little rubbery chewy bits in it. However, when certain friends come, they often bring a grocery broiled bird. The husband takes it apart. And I'll eat my fair share. I'll cook chicken for soups and mafé (when I'm out of beef and pork) and this coming week I'll poach chicken breasts for a friend with Crohn's who is coming. Otherwise....

It's not a new book, 2015, and I'm on only page 27, but already I'm stunned by what I'm reading: Mark Schatzer's The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor. Where have I been? I knew that food had changed...but stupid me I just repeated that phrase without really thinking about it seriously. I didn't fathom the depths of the changes, that they had been so orchestrated, so deliberate. (I think I've been too busy in the medical and pharmaceutical world where the situation has a similar pattern with terrible effects and family concerns made this necessary.) Because Ed and I are war babies we can remember food as it was to some extent. One of my clearest memories was eating chunks of pumpernickel bread in sour cream and cottage cheese with Papa, my Mother's Father. You can't get any of these ingredients today which taste the way they used to. Fascinating book in a horrible way. Added: on page 50 now...no changes in the way I feel...

My carousel has no brand name. I turned it upside down to see if it did and was so surprised to find that it was made in West Germany. Now that goes back a while. The story of my carousel is shameful. It was a piece in a second hand charity shop which was full of the pieces you could buy. Of course, you cannot buy the store's display pieces. However, the store manager was off on break and this dear old man (I was then not old) was left in charge and I bamboozled him into selling it to me. I love it. Oh it has almost no pieces in the outside round because Ed, with whom I share the kitchen, doesn't want it filled that way. You win some...you lose some...

My all-time favorite Mexican cookbook, not by Bayless or Kennedy, is The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, 1967 and I've owned it and used it since that date.

Sometimes I really wonder....

A carousal. That's what I have. Perfect.

How I missed this thread is beyond me. Ed and I love avocados. Alas we also live outside a small city in Ontario and purchasing avocados most of the time means either eating avocados or selling the family jewels. When they are on sale ...I mean no selling of the family jewels to pay for them...I will buy a bunch, make a guacamole, bag it and freeze it and then so often lose it somewhere in the bottom of the freezer. Ah the vicissitudes of life...

Okanagancook has it in my books.

I have no recipe either, but could you not make a vanilla custard base and also a butterscotch sauce? Churn the vanilla, turn it into your storage container and then swirl the butterscotch through it? OTOH, I'm sure you have already tried that one...

Welcome to the forum. Your name is intriguing. Care to add a country or ethnic background, please.

Then eat it with joy in your heart.

Alas, as a non-subscriber I had no access to one story because my monthly limit of free access was over and the other because I would not pay from the get go. But enough of the flavor came across to give me a sense of the articles. Thanks blue dolphin. If I worked at it, I'd be able to figure out the first time we stopped at a Punjabi truck stop. Whistle stop, San Jon, New Mexico just a very few miles from the Texas border. And I do know it hadn't been there the passage by that stop before that year. We were, of course, stunned and stopped and ate Samosas at 9:30am on our way back to Ontario from our home away from home, Moab Utah, probably after a stop at our suppliers in Gallup, New Mexico. In Canada Indian food of all kinds and the ingredients to make it are everywhere, even in our little nearby city in East Central Ontario. Three restaurants in the city, and these go back almost 50 years for us anyway.

I make a large batch of brown rice and freeze it in a large and flat bag. When it's frozen, it can be easily 'bashed' into much smaller chunks and pieces. Then I dip into that bag, now rolled up in the freezer, for quick rice accompaniments to our non meal of whatever goes with rice.

No suggestions. Just best wishes to all.

Thanks to all the responders above. I've simply sent our son all the information received. No names attached for those with concerns. Thanks again.

Thanks CD. I passed that on to Ken. As I have told you, he lives in Halifax.

I don't know either...but I'll pass it on. Thanks, Shelby.

Thanks Okanagancook, pastrygirl and CD. I should have mentioned that he knows about cottage cheese but probably isn't ready to season it yet. He does most of the cooking in his house. Yoghurt cheese I don't know about. And he knows about making cottage cheese also. I said I would ask and I'll pass on the answers but I think we all knew the answers ahead of time. He's amassed a collection of "Heart Smart" cookbooks in second hand stores, but well...time will tell. It's an incredible shock to go from OK to 90% blockage in your aorta in one quick step. I'll quit there. Thanks again.

Our dear son has just had two stents put into his aorta. He's only 53 and although he says he's OK, I don't believe him. Nor do I say that. OK. He's asked me if I know of a tasty low-fat, low-sodium cheese and I said I would ask on my cooking forum. (Please don't bother with any information about the low-fat situation. I already have not talked to him about it to any extent, nor am I going to. His wife is a nurse. His cardiologist insists upon this diet. I don't agree with it at all. End of discussion please.) If you know of such a cheese, please let me know.

We live in East Central Ontario, Canada, in the middle of basically nowhere on a dead end road. We call our farm "Road's End Farm". Our nearest tiny town does not carry a lot of foods we eat, for instance eggplant, Brussels Sprouts, Poblanos, because they can't sell them locally. Plus they are short-changed regularly, being at the end of the distribution line. We live outside of a small Ontario city. Only one grocery store carries Poblanos. And they are mislabeled as 'hot'. You cannot buy fresh tomatillos anywhere. The small city is short-changed regularly by distribution in Toronto, because its small and, well, not Toronto. In Toronto you can buy, as Anna notes, just about anything. OTOH, I wouldn't live there for love nor money. I was born and raised in an apartment in Montreal and I love where I live now. It's my home and whatever I can't get...well, I don't really care much.

I'll add my welcomes to the ones already received. And then I'll Google a map of Madagascar to reacquaint my self with exactly where you are. And I'm sorry, but fresh eel is not one of my specialities...nor it is ever likely to be. And tempering chocolate is not hard...you simply need some workshop type help. all best, Darienne Even did the pronunciation of your city. Terrific.

Our local and very small regional library has some kind of delivery service for folks who find it hard to get out. Perhaps your local library at home has a similar service.

Oh blue.dolphin...that is stupendous.

You have the mixers and the non-mixers. Ed is a mixer and I am not. Still we've managed together almost 60 years. Not saying there haven't been words on the subject from time to time.

And here's a fascinating website. http://www.foodtimeline.org/