kayb

We had a Hep A outbreak here in NE Arkansas earlier this year, mostly restaurant and fast-food outlet based. I got a shot, just as a precaution. It did hurt, but not as much as my flu shot, which I got at the same time in the other arm.

I boil the quail eggs about three minutes, which I figure ought to be close to medium for the little things. Chill and peel, cut up the sausage, put garlic, a bay leaf, some red pepper flackes and some dill in the jars, and pour hot brine over. Then water-bath process for 10 minutes. If you were just going to keep them in the fridge, I'd boil them a bit longer.

I might make Eudora Welty's White Fruitcake, which is pretty awful as a fruitcake but, sliced and baked again, makes really nice biscotti/crackers.

Yes, please do. Let us know if we need to dispatch a relief column.

What was your take on the Arkansas Blacks? I dearly love them.

It's that different. Astounding regard for the law and convention. I would note that regard lapses somewhat when they relocate here, if the number of speeding tickets I had to get fixed for a Japanese plant manager who bought a Porsche was any indication.

Liquor law reflections...Tennessee lowered its drinking age to 18 the year I turned 18 (1973), in light of the fact it didn't seem right that you could not buy a beer although you were old enough to go to Vietnam and get shot at. It stayed that way for several years, and the was raised back to 21. In all practicality, it did not matter, as anyone with access to a vehicle could drive around back at the Oasis juke joint, where beer was sold out the back door on the premise that if you were old enough to drive, you could buy beer, the Oasis being owned by the sheriff's brother. I was intrigued when I visited Japan to find beer for sale in vending machines at hotels and on streetcorners. We wondered if there was a minimum drinking age. There was, our hosts assured us: it was 20. Then how, we wondered, did they keep teens from buying beer? Shocked looks ensued. "It's against the law." Oh. OK. Well, all righty, then. Re: drive-through liquor store: We have drive-up windows, as well as "beer barns," where you drive through and pop your trunk if you're buying in case quantities. However, Louisiana has us beat, with drive-up daquiri stands.

I'm not sure if it used to be better, or I used to be less discriminating.

Cheese blintzes used to be the one thing that was fit to eat at IHOP. I'm not sure they're even on the menu any more.

I could deal with losing hummus, though I do like it. I am not sure I could deal with losing falafel.

I guess you could set it out on a stump and blast it with a 12-gauge.... Seriously, the hacksaw should work fine. If you don't have one, a big cleaver might do it.

I was completely surprised at the Nigerian component; there is certainly no hint of it in my appearance. I was kinda excited about it, too. Always nice to find a dimension to yourself you didn't know you had! I pretty much knew the rest of it from having done a fair amount of genealogy.

I'm intrigued by this. I always, always use apple cider in the first step of cooking apples for my apple butter, and have never noticed a ketchupy taste to the finished product. To the best of my recollection, it's 5 pounds of apples, quartered (unpeeled, uncored), 1/3 cup cider vinegar, 3 cups sugar. Cook until apples are falling apart. Run through food mill to remove skins, seeds. Cook resultant puree with more sugar, and spices. The vinegar seems to give it a depth of flavor I've not achieved any other way.

I am (or was, when I could eat them) adamantly opposed to any Twinkies other than the traditional ones, and DingDongs overall. I don't care for a chocolate-mint combo except in Andes mints, and ice cream.

I would note it doesn't really make a congealed salad; the Jello sort of makes a syrupy dressing. While I still have the old sausage grinder, I have graduated to using the food processor.

Damn. Reckon I'm going to have to try this stuff.

In the opening post in this topic, I noted Food 52 had contacted me and planned to write about my family's cranberry salad in one of their pre-Thanksgiving stories. They have done so, here. It really is good stuff. I encourage you to try it.

Nope. Plain vanilla Scots-Irish and Western European, with some Balkan Peninsula thrown in and, according to Ancestry.com, 1.5 percent Nigerian, which set me to wondering which of my slave-holding forebears had a liaison in the slave quarters... After I discovered that, I went out and hunted down a Nigerian cookbook, because, well, that's what you do, right? And soon decided that was NOT the branch of the family from whence my cooking gene sprang. The "excess" gene is American South, and being raised to be prepared to whip out a full company dinner whenever anyone dropped by. When I had my foster son, I used to impress him into kitchen service to stir up heavy, thick things, like fudge and so on. Maybe Cat Son can become your designated RK Treat blender?

Glad we're on the road again. I always enjoy the travels.

Thank God. I read it four times, certain I was looking right past it. Thanks. Amended version saved.

What I know of logistics (admittedly, only enough to be dangerous) tells me the volume of food flown is is relatively small, so wouldn't have a huge impact on the overall suppy chain picture. Commodities shipped overseas go by sea; the advent of refrigerated containers that go in freighters, on rail and on trucks has revolutionized that aspect of the industry. Specialty stuff -- fresh seafood, etc., -- is the majority of what's flown, and advances in flash-freezing means that's limited to high-end restaurant and grocery usage. Rail is another story, particularly from South to North America, and other tropical regions to their more temperate neighbors.

I've canned tomato soup, back when all I canned was water-bath. I also canned chili base -- tomatoes, peppers, onions, spices; add ground beef, a bottle of beer, and there's chili. (The IP is great for this, because you can thaw/cook a lump of frozen beef, then break it up and brown it off before you add the chili fixin's.) In inherited a pressure canner, so may branch out into lower-acid soups. I recently tried a carrot-sweet potato soup that was really excellent, and might can well.

@Kerry Beal --- that DOES sound marvelous. Saving it. @David Ross -- The notion of smoked cheddar custard is fascinating me. Would you share details, or a recipe?

In all fairness, isn't going out to dinner anywhere (at least, that you choose the destination) all about you? *I* choose to eat out in X restaurant because, often, it has something *I* know I enjoy, or is known for something I want to try. If I want a burger and don't want blue cheese, I'll ask, "Can I just have a plain burger?" If that's not an option, I'll choose something else, or scrape the blue cheese off when it gets there. On the other hand, if *I* am going to a given highly rated restaurant, *I* am going to order what *I* want, or in the alternative, choose a tasting menu because I want to experience that. But it's *my* choice. Because at the end of the evening, I am picking up the tab.

I am somewhat fascinated that Memphis/Shelby County TN is a "core county" for food supply. Granted, it's a distribution hub, and granted, it's in the middle of the breadbasket that is the American South, but I would have expected Chicago and Atlanta to join it in the east-of-the-Mississippi region. Yes, Memphis is big in ag distribution, but it's mostly cotton and other commodities destined for animal feed. Intriguing. I've saved this to go back to it and chase some links. But then, logistics are a core part of my business.