lullyloo

I guess not! With all the intestines and offal and stomachs and tongues people eat around here, I thought, bones would be a given.

Yes, wings! I had almost forgotten them. If they're cooked well, the very tips of the wings are crispy/crunchy and quite edible.

Mmmm, fat. Or from a pork chop. (Most people cut it off and leave it in a little pile, but I like to eat a piece or two.) Or a pork roast or ham right out of the oven, crisp on the edges. How about the Pope's hat (is that what it's called?) from the chicken. Crispy skin and fat with just a little meat. Delish.

I like it too, mhadam. And the skin at the bottom of the leg bone for that matter.

I'm curious how serious people here are with their bones (chicken, lamb, pork, beef, fish - if it once breathed, I want to know!) I learned from my father who was very serious about stripping them bare, and then some. He sat at the table long after the rest of us were finished and (when possible) broke down the bones into manageable pieces, put the whole piece in his mouth and did his work. When he was finished, the bones on his plate were as clean as if they'd been sitting in the desert for a week. When he could, he ate them or sucked the marrow out. This was actually a very dainty, tidy process; he wasn't a "picker"; didn't get gunk all over his hands or fingernails or become savage. In the privacy of my own home, I get pretty serious about cleaning my bones. Probably not as delicate as my father or as thorough, but he did teach me that often the bones are the best part. There is always a lot more meat there than you think (and some other interesting things, too), and I think it goes with my preoccupation with not wasting anything. My boyfriend was not a good bone cleaner, and it killed me to see perfectly good tidbits getting thrown in the trash, so I often cleaned his bones too. What are your habits, methods, grievances, etc?

I read once that in Spain it is common to coat the greens with oil first, then add salt (the oil helps the salt to spread more evenly) and then sprinkle with vinegar to taste. I have experienced doing vinegar first and sometimes it can wilt the leaves a bit

Frittata with sauteed bacon and yellow-green speckled zucchini, goat cheese and basil leaves added at last minute and put under broiler. However, the result was not so great. the goat cheese got zapped by the heat and turned into hard yuck. Tomato salad with toasted pine nuts, chopped basil, kalamatas, roasted yellow peppers marinated in roasted garlic and olive oil, and anchovy vinagrette. That was so good I finished the dressing off with a spoon!

Oh I'm so glad someone started this thread. I've been meaning to for a long time. Everyday for lunch I take a big salad of either red leaf lettuce or romaine (also went through a spinach phase), vidalia onion, sometimes also scallion, always radish, pickling cukes, sometimes tomato or avocado or red pepper, and albacore tuna. Had the tuna once in Spain just flaked into a simple salad with a lettuce, tomato, cuke and onion, OO and vinegar and it was delish. The mama tossed it with her hands. yummm. I am not opposed to iceberg at all. In big cold chunks it is sweet and refreshing. I especially like it the way they serve it in old-school steakhouses in a big wedge with roquefort or blue cheese dressing. At home I always make my own vinegrette with a smidge over one half EVOO and one half red wine or cider vinegar, sometimes a drop of cheap balsamic to add a little sweet, sometimes lemon, dijon mustard. Always dried oregano, salt, pepper. And my favorite - SPIKE! (a spice mix far superior to Mrs. Dash) Anyone else a closet spike fan? Lately I've been experimenting with anchovy vinagrette in my mini-chopper. But really if I didn't have budgetary restrictions I'd always eat arugula with toasted pine nuts and some sort of cheese - hard, soft, stinky, creamy, whatever. All summer long I've been keeping a big container of pickled beets with vidalias in the refrigerator. Very refreshing. Went through a chopped red cabbage with vinagrett phase (gasp! no not the requisite strands you find in midwestern mixed salad but larger crunchy pieces) which I picked up from an Israeli friend. Also go in big for adding apple or pear (usually in the winter, though) and cilantro and making a dressing with sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, vietnamese chili sauce and rice vinegar.

When I read Chicago style dog, I assumed the 2.50 included tomato, onion, pickle relish, and a cucumber spear with celery seed sprinkled on top. That's a Chicago style dog and worth the extra buck, IMO. Did those condiments not come with it, Billy D?

Margaret, I just ate brunch at Elephant and Castle last weekend. It was on Greenwich Ave. I assume it's the same place. Their signature at breakfast seemed to be a spinach puree served with almost every dish. The beet-cucumber puree sounds very nice. I'll have to try that. Maybe with a little mint. Blue Heron, I didn't realize that cold borscht was specifically Lithuanian. Makes sense seeing as my grandparents are of Lithuanian descent. Nouvelle Ashkenazy . . . that could be a funny thread, Steve. I think Shaw had some good ideas with his Ashkenazy (and Sephardic) versions of potato pancakes last December.

Steve, that sounds delish, too! Would you pour the borscht over the smashed potatoes still hot or say room temp?

Jaymes, I am not exactly sure (maybe someone else can tell us), but I always thought my grandmother's recipe for cold borscht was a standard Russian and/or Russian-Jewish recipe.

Now that sounds very interesting. Is it really thick, tomato-heavy like gazpacho or is the borscht the main liquid?

Cold borscht is one of my favorite dishes to eat in the summer - the color (ZOW!), flavor (how can three mundane ingredients make a flavor so compelling?), creamy coolth, and simplicity are so refreshing!!! so transporting!! Made it the other night based on my grandmother's recipe. Beet juice (from a can, but when I have more time, I want try again with fresh beets) whisked with yoghurt and a generous squirt of lemon juice until bright fuschia (can also use sour cream or half yog - half sour cream). Poured over very thinly sliced cucumber and hard boiled egg, and of course you can add some chopped beets, too, if you like, and a dash of pepper. In my opinion the additions should be kept small in size and not too many should be floating in the divine borscht, so as not to mar its lovely minimalness (a word?). Any thoughts, recipe variations, poetic musings? (Perhaps a separate thread would be) tributes to the beet?

Okay, at first I thought you all were crazy. Tomatoes, water chestnuts, melon, fennel?! And I racked my brain trying to come up with something that truly made me shudder. Then I remembered . . . raw garlic. Can cook with it, love the smell of it. But the slight possibility of it raw in a dish - say in salsa - or in large, chunky quantities (like on pizza) - or a whole raw clove??? gag!! Can do creamy roasted cloves but no, cannot do raw or undercooked. Will I be lambasted for this? E-gulleteers do not seem to have jumped on the everything tastes better with loads of garlic bandwagon, but who knows?