maggiethecat

Good lord, signed dated food that's only a couple of months old? You're a male Martha Stewart! My frosty hinterlands have unlabeled stuff way older than that, and when I find them I use them. Freezing is a terrific food preservation method. (I heated black bean soup last night made in the waning days of the Bush administration. It was good.)

I'm confused. Wasn't the point to make one soup and leave with six different ones, or twelve, or however many were made? Why didn't everyone just get one of each? (Or, given allergies and dislikes, do some swapping.) Yeah, I thought about that too. Seems as if there would be some scope for hurt feelings -- I'd be devastated if my soup was chosen last! That said, this as a food swap I could go for. Glorious soup!

Of course there's always the Five Minute Brownie in a Mug.It works, but the texture screams for whipped cream or ice cream.

Nigella Lawson's 24 hour pork shoulder/butt is my favorite low and slow. Put said shoulder in a pan, covered, into a 200 oven as you finish the dishes from tonight's dinner. You'll wake up to an intoxicatingly porky scented house. Raise the foil, check it out, re-cover. Go about your business. Check at the 20 hour mark -- it may be done. If so, uncover it and turn the heat up to 400 hundred for half an hour. Remove from oven. Swoon.

Parenthetical pensee: I wonder if it's possible to deep fry in a microwave? Has anyone tried it?

Erin, I recommend Barbara Kafka's "Microwave Gourmet" written way back when she was "Vogue'"s food critic I believe. Micros were newish back then, and it's a very intensive look at the cooking possibilities of the new gizmo. About the fish: fillets or small whole fish work, tho of course the timing will vary. A dish, covered with plastic wrap works fine, and papilottes would be fine too. A tip I got from Kafka's book was Fast Stock. Put your water,bones, veg trimmings etc. in a roomy bowl, leaving lots of room on top. Cover, then nuke for, oh, a half hour. Strange benefit of this method: no scum. It's not as good as a long cooked lovingly skimmed stock, but the flavor is excellent and it's fast.

St. Anthony of Manhattan made the point in "KC." Something like "Restrooms are easy to clean. Kitchens are hard to clean. If the restroom is dirty you don't wanna think about what the kitchen's like."

I have a binder with plastic sleeves in which I've stored the clippings and printouts of the last four years, many of them from Receipe Gullet (Nero W.'s One of Each Soup and Jaymes's Caramel Corn are classics.) I can understand why I clipped or printed them, but I admit that I use maybe 5% of the recipes. Edited to add: A keeper is a lemon bar recipe from an early "Martha Stewart Living."

1)Heidi, that series is a masterpiece, and I still cook from the books on a regular basis. I encourage all eGulls to look for them in second hand bookshops. 2) The old "Joy." Until I was nine I'd devoted myself to baking, and I made my first savory dish from "Joy" when I was eleven -- Country Captain. It gave me huge confidence to know I could make family dinner from a book. 3) "Mastering the Art," both volumes. Oddly, what I took away from them first and foremost was baking: Dacquoise, Paris-Brest, puff pastry, brioche, baguettes. The recipes work. 4) Madhur Jaffrey's "World of the East Vegetarian Cooking." This choice may be a surprise to people who know my carnivorous nature, but this book rocks because it introduces the reader to cooking from Asia, India and the Middle East. 5)Francoise Bernard's "Les Recettes Faciles." Bourgeois French cooking from a bourgeiose Frencwoman.

I'm still using the original vanilla beans from the beginning of this experiment. This vanilla just rocks. As the level in the jar goes down I top it up with some vodka or bourbon and the "mother" vanilla does its magic. Absolutely one of many amazing things I've learned here.

Amen. There is not a state in the country where fish is safe. I've been doing some research and I want to weep.

A lunch counter with a milkshake machine. Getting that milkshake in a tall metal can, big enough to yield that extra half cup when the glass was empty. A hot roast beef or turkey sandwich and mashed potatoes to go with the meat and gravy. I don't regret the passing of the canned peas.

My average is about 89%, but I have almost 500 cookbooks, a hundred of which are in the garage and don't count in this sample. I've never cooked from "Demolition Desserts" (terrific book!) "Cooking from Northern Spain." (eh) and the various tiny cupcake or tapas books with which I've been gifted. But so what? I haven't read "Connecticut Yankee" or dipped into Piston's "Harmony" for eons. That doesn't mean I'm gonna stack them in a box for a Purple Heart pick up.

I need serious protein in the morning or my metabolism crashes by 10:00 am. When I had a place in the workplace my breakfasts horrified and grossed out my co-workers: "Gack! You're eating a chicken leg? A meatloaf sandwich?" They'd avert their eyes and have another Krispy Kreme. That said, I love the weekend breakfast trilogy of pancakes, french toast and waffles with the reqiured side of bacon.

Yup, it's situational. They're all great, but it's easier to soak bread in egg and cook er up than to be mixing batter and firing up a waffle iron.

O.M.G. Diana is 19? How's about some terrific cheese and crackers?

I love them all and I refuse to choose one. But I remember being a sleep-deprived parent back in the sleepover days, and French Toast is the clear winner for ease of preparation on a bleary Sunday morning.

No, Steven, it's not messed up. Crimminy. You pay more for good stuff prepicked for you at a Farmer's Market, and most folks don't blink an eye about it. At a U-Pick, you can, well, pick: what variety of apple, the week you want to do it, and the folks you want to do it with. What, you're pissed because U-Pick is more expensive than Red Delicious at the supermarket?

Welcome, Kifkin, and thanks for reminding me about the limoncello schedule.

I found a new application for my kitchen shears last night -- wiggling off that annoying metal band that closes a bag of ice.

Could you please explain how to make ratafia? As someone who's read Geogette Heyer to ragged shreds, I've always wanted to know how to make it.

I will remember to make sure that I'm filling the pepper grinder with peppercorns, not juniper berries. (Well, a couple of lights were out in the kitchen.)

This rocked my world: Michael Ruhlman's recipe for Baked Buttered Corn. Only four ingredients, including salt and pepper.As he says, it's a great way to use starchy late-season corn. I used three cobs, plenty for two people, but I was grouchy about sharing. It's that good.

Just brilliant. I have leaves, I have garbage bags and I'll be doing this next week. Thanks!

Take the polenta idea , but turn it into Gnocchi ala Romana.