maggiethecat

Two peeps, one big-ass brisket and a mess of "Berghoff" fried potatoes.

My first response to this list was to pre-order Darina Allen's book "Forgotten Skills of Cooking." I want to learn how to smoke stuff in a cookie tin. This is certainly an Anglo-Centric list, and apart from McGee, "Kitchen Confidential" is my nomination for the most important food book of the oughts. It's a Ripping Yarn about being a journeyman cook, a comfort and joy to those in the biz and probably has the dubious distinction of producing too many middle-aged career changers. It's a classic. The "pink" Thompson Thai book inspired an endless topic in the early days of eGullet. For the rest: "The Gift of Southern Cooking" Scott Peacock and Edna Lewis "Fast Food My Way" and "More Fast Food My Way." Jacques Pepin "Cooking" James Peterson "The Paris Cookbook" Patricia Wells (worth it for the Parmesan bread alone.) "Baking from My Home to Yours" Dorie Greespan "Garlic and Sapphires" Ruth Reichl "It's All American Food" David Rosengarten I'm laughing about how this is such a dude-centered, SSB topic. Edited to add: "Charcuterie." An important, joy-giving, "let's put on a show!" cookbook.

I'm so touched by the recent replies. Thanks, all. The very best part of Christmas Eve this year was (again) coaching my daughter through her Los Angeles Tourtiere. She called so often I answered the phone "Tourtiere Hotline!" and I don't have caller ID. I'm delighted to report that this year's LA tourtiere was spectacular -- we shared a peek via video chat. In fact, it looked better than mine. (She had three guests for dinner and the whole thing went. Her sweet but picky six year old niece ate two pieces.) So the Tourtiere heritage continues... I love hearing about all the variations!

I agree. I pull out my 'Scoff once a week, minimum. But I think he needs another decade of cooking experience to appreciate it -- I'll wait till he's forty.

Ok, we plugged in the Presto and marked off the calibration for 130 with a Sharpie. Perfect. There are a couple of sous vide topics here: please feel free to comment on them, if you haven't already done so.

This is just amazingly cool! Thanks, charalito -- his birthday, (and mine)is in July. It's great to have an idea in the bag.

IndyRob, you are the Man! We own the very Presto (a genius and cheap article), the Sharpies and I can get the bags.Sous vide City coming up.

I will make more meat pies -- more English food. I will make marmalade this winter. I will become comfortable with hot sugar.

Ding! Ding! We have a winner -- it's winging it's way to LA as I type this. Shhhhhh....

Mini quiches = nightmare. I feel for you. My best advice is annoying, but you have to follow it. Cut squares of foil the size of your mini Qs. Press them into the mini cups, and follow Lisa's advice about weights. (I use old pennies -- they conduct heat.)

Psst. This is incorrect. Check the link:"Do microwaves cook food from the inside out?" I hang my head. But I'm still a dedicated parboiler, for reasons stated above.

The parboil process isn't about speeding along the cooking process, it's about ever-so-slightly "fraying" the outside of the potato so that the weakened fibers can better absorb the fat, producing a thicker, crispier crust. Because a microwave cooks from the inside out pre-cooking them in the nuke doesn't give the same result.

Susan, sometimes your ESP is scary. John loves fishing, and he's been hunting -- he calls himself "A Vietnamese Good Old Boy from Kentucky." The propane torch suggestion made me smile: they live in an apartment, so the propane torch wouldn't be used for home improvement. But awhile ago we tried to discourage him from buying a tiny culinary blow torch at W-S, suggesting a real blowtorch. He ignored us, and that's OK. But we had an idea tonight, and I need input bad. Home brewing peeps: what's the basic kit?

On re-reading this excellent topic and thinking about the responses, I'd have to say"All of the above" and "None of the above." I've never been to a crawfish boil, and sure, that would be on my list. This event is neither rare nor expensive but it's something that's never come my way. As my Grandmother would have said:"It just depends, doesn't it, Love?" I'm not about notoriety or bragging rights, but cost, rarity, curiosity and pure culinary yearning -- sure.

Yup, bring on Percy.

I've got a skillet full of fingerlings in the oven now - can't wait! P.S. I'm having this with Marcella Hazan's Fricasseed Chicken Abruzzi-Style and some baby lima beans. I die, I faint, I fail.

Chris H.: I'm with you. Floury potato, animal fat.

One word: rutabagas.

I'm liking the edible plant idea.

eGullet member and "Guardian" blogger Tim Hayward gets it right in his Christmas dinner story. "I turn the oven back up to full, whip out the potato tray and put it across the two biggest rings on the top of the oven. I have a deal with my local restaurant that means I never run out of beef dripping so I melt a huge, artery compromising slab of it in the searing hot pan, toss the parboiled potatoes into it and turn them over and over with a spatula until they are coated, and lets face it, half soaked in it. A heavy drift of salt, just to really annoy my doctor and then back into the hot oven." Read the whole terrific story here. For me "roast potatoes" are parboiled floury potatoes cooked in animal fat. Light interior, not creamy, and thick with crust. But of course we cook small waxy potatoes in the oven, and love them, but I dunno, they're maybe "Fingerlings Tossed in Olive Oil and Herbs Cooked it the Oven." And yes! Don't turn them too soon! Edited to add: I realize that perhaps I'm hung up on semantics and cultural differences. This granddaughter may never have set foot in Lancashire, but you can't take the Lancs out of the granddaughter!

Smoked oysters/chicken livers/water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and baked until crispy were items my mother made for tree-trimming, which, hmmmm, always coincided with my parents' cocktail hour. We kids were in charge of securing the bacon with toothpicks.

You've given me some terrific ideas, and not just for my son-in-law! Keep 'em coming. There are a couple more things that you should know about John. He's 100% ethnically Vietnamese, tho' born in the USA, so Asian tools and Vietnamese coffee essentials are in situ. And because of what he calls "The Asian/Alcohol Thing" he rarely imbibes more than a couple of beers -- I don't think he's ever going to be a serious mixologist. (My daughter, now....) But your terrific feedback is sending me scampering to the internet.

Yes, David, you read him right. I'll check with my daughter, but I'm pretty sure he got that stone or one like it when he was last in Japan. If he didn't, that's a swell idea.

Hmm. Great idea, Ray. Keep'em coming, Lads. It can be your fifty buck (give or take) fantasy item. (And low-tech's fine too.)

I'm blessed to have the World's Best Son-in-Law. He's good at giving me great presents, like the brand new laptop I'm typing this from. He is generous and thoughtful to a fault. If John has one bad quality it's that no one can figure out what to gift him with. Here's why. The stuff he yearns for only he knows about -- all those lens specs for one of his ten or twelve cameras, for example. Anything techie, and he's a huge techie. He's a sharp dresser, and yes, picky. He's cutting edge everything visual, cultural, musical -- you get the idea. My daughter and I were just grumbling about this on AIM, and after many "No, I don't think so, Moms," she had an Aha! Moment. Of course! D'oh! "Something to do with food. Not a cookbook." John's a Food Guy, widely traveled, eats out a lot in Los Angeles (or anywhere)and is an adventurous cook. Of course they have a full set of Globals, a set of All-Clad, and the usual high-end wedding registry stuff. So, my eGullet Guys, is there some cool thing you'd like under your tree this Christmas? We're not in the Thermomix price range: more like fifty bucks. Help!