snowangel

Geez. Peter and Diana learned to skin, bone and fillet fish (walleye or sunfish) -- cooked or raw -- by the time they were five. Call it a pre-requistie in our family to going to kindergarten. Along with that lesson comes how to hone the filet knife. Diana would call you a lightweight, grin, and give you a lesson.

My kids will be adults and cooking in their own kitchens before they know that chickens have hearts. They never make it to the table. My favorite!

I picked up this book at the library just after having read another autobiographical book -- The Apprentice by St. Jacques. After reading The Apprentice, I couldn't make it through Amanda's book.

I have this gizmo that was a gift. It's a plastic jug that has a felt pad on the bottom on the inside, and a hold under the felt pad with a plug under it. Just put ground coffee into it with a mess of cold water and let it sit overnight. Next morning, pull the plug and put the plastic jug over the glass carafe that comes with it. Cold press iced coffee is The Best. I'll have to see if I can find which box it is in (we just moved) and see who makes it. Cold press is good. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned.

A couple of decades ago, my father gave me a little Rival timer that can stand on the counter or go on the fridge (with a magnet). It can also be a clock. What I really love about it is that if I miss the timer noise, it counts backwards so I know how long I've been overlooking whatever I'm timing. I wouldn't really want one that I can hang around my neck. When the mid-40's hit, so did the reader glasses, so they are on a chain around my neck Edited to add: one of the other things I really like about my timer is that the batteries are common and still readily available. Unlike all of the cordless phones I've ever owned.

Bacon. Yes, it can be a condiment. At least by my rules.

Having some sad moments lately. We moved recently, after 18 years in the old place. Full of perennials, herbs, nice veggie garden. ALmost two decades of collecting and growing and figuring out what was best where. New place is gardening hell. The previous owners never even raked the yard; the lawn is full of piles of leaves blown last fall and never removed. But, what is so sad is that at this time of the year, I used to leap out of bed, grab that first cup of coffee and head to the gardens to do the finger poke to see what was coming up, and what wasn't coming up. Blank slate does not begin to describe this yard. Yank this spring, spend a year watching the light, and figuring out what should go where more accurately describes it. So, I will take one of the places that we need to remove a tree (many, never tended, suckering, diseased and in need of removal) and heel in some plants from the old place (included in purchase agreement) and find a place for a few tomato plants). And, hope that the buyers of our former domicile know not to cut down the wisteria that so wonderfully covered the pergola (the greatest gift I ever received). Sigh. I wondered this am as I made omelets where my chive plant will go. Edited to add: manure/compost tea rules.

Pho Tau Bay is at 2837 Nicollet (on the east side of Nicollet past where they want you to turn to get around that shopping complex on Lake that prevents Nicollet from going through) and Quang is at 2719 Nicollet. All in that same area. Just head a bit south from Pho 79. I would swear that there is also a Pho 79 on the corner of Raymond and Energy Park Drive (just east of 280) in St. Paul. Assume (perhaps mistakenly) that they are owned by the same people. Do your pho-down quickly and report, please!

I haven't tried Pho 79. Where was it located? There's one over in St. Paul; maybe they have several restaurants? Your next mission, should you choose to accept it, would be to compare the pho at Pho Tau Bay and Quang's. I'd be curious to hear what you have to say after you've sampled at all of them. And, I always intend to try a different kind of pho, but the same words come out of my mouth, too. I really like tripe. And, I could have told you, without having tried it, to avoid pho in Duluth. When we get up to Duluth to visit a good friend, and we want a great meal, we cook in his spectacular kitchen.

I grow more than weak at the knees at the sight of a tomato not looking like styrofoam, and looking like the kind of tomatoes we won't see until August. We won't even talk about that color green. The only green here is on my oh-so-ugly walls. Be still my beating heart.

Second question about the artichokes. If they are so popular, why only throw in a couple of them?

Back to the fat issue. If you have a local Asian market, get ground pork there. In my experience, far more fat (about 70/30) and a courser grind. FAT IS GOOD.

Bacon. But that same food goes for lunch and dinner. It is the food of choice for me. Second is really strong coffee. Made from freshly ground dark greasy beans. Realistically, weekdays it's toast with Hope butter (preferably toasted Acme levain). Weekends when the kids and husband are around it's bacon; eggs; and blueberry muffins (frozen blueberries collected from places near The Cabin) or waffles or blueberry pancakes or buttermilk pancakes. Something to stoke the kids up for work and to keep them from wanting a Real Lunch. Rule of thumb here for kids is don't feed them as soon as they get up. Wait a bit, or their tummies and minds will think that waking = eating breakfast. I need at least two cups of coffee on the deck (no matter the season) before I can even see the stove.

First "real" meal in our new house was a roasted chicken (ala Hazan) with your green beans, Fifi. It was a Sunday night. Best part of all was Monday morning. Kids off to school. Warmed up the leftover beans, put them on a slice of Acme levain toasted, topped off with a poached egg. Eaten while wandering around this big house, surveying the stacks of boxes. I swear it was the beans that gave me the energy to tackle the Job At Hand. (I must add that I ate a mess of them cold while waiting for water to boil and toast to toast. With fingers right out of that Glad container.)

Larb.

But, when one has leapt out into one's own garden, and picked a handful of mixed very baby greens, variety can be a good thing. That may have to do more with the emotions than anything else. If it's not out of my own garden, I'm more apt to use only one kind of green.

In small northern MN diners, "fresh vegetable medley" is inevitably frozen peas and carrot cubes, sometimes with some frozen broccoli stems tossed in for good measure. Spongey, to say the least. Oh, I almost forgot, sometimes some frozen corn! Worst is when one gets it in August, when sweet corn and fresh tomatoes are at their prime.

Sort of reminds me of the "Get Your Own D@amned Coffee Cafe" in northern MN.

Glad to hear that you are in Mix every issue now. Does Mix have a web site? Can you copy your Mix reviews and post here?

You hit it Trillium. Everything I've tried has been better than the sum of the parts. For us, the braised bacon never made it to the "dish." Nibbled from the pan. As soon as I'm moved (6 days and counting and stressed), salt cod is on my docket.

Bruce, want me to post your 3/3 review? And, anything lately in MIX?

I always make burgers (slider-style or on the Weber) with a little hole in the middle to prevent the puff factor. I do believe that one difference between belly bombs and White Castle sliders is that the latter are steamed. But, I could be wrong. Gives me a hankering for sliders. Often, if we leave for The Cabin in the morning, we stop at the White Castle in Hinkley for sliders for breakfast. YUM!

Scroll down this thread Pork Shoulder to Huevos's post about Posole. It is limp and weak when freshly made, but when given a day to sit in the fridge (or back stoop in the winter), is abosolutely divine. My go to meal when I can plan a day ahead. Everyone in the family, from those with adventurous tastebuds to those more shy, love it.

Report of experiment: hard cooked eggs do not make a good larb. Way too pasty (like larb glue; not good). Three hard cooked eggs trashed in the name of SCIENCE and TASTE and LARB and all to save you the pain. Long live larb (but not of the hard-cooked egg, tofu or tempeh varieties). Edit: stupid larb induced typo

So, by the time you do all of this adulteration, how much more work is it to make the real thing with pronouncable ingredients?