maggiethecat

Carrots. Boiled /roasted /steamed /raw/ cake. Closely followed by Swiss Chard. I am declaring potatoes and onions hors de concours. Beets are always a royal PIA to prepare, any way you prepare them. Oh, the ruined aprons and tea towels! I buy a jar of pickled beets once a year , Christmas Eve, to accompany my tourtiere. I like them in a good vinegary salad. Otherwise, too bland and sweet. But not dirt tasting. BTW, we stopped growing and cooking beets after we read...somewhere, wish I could give the attribution, that beets have fewer nutrients of any kind of any vegetable. Even celery. The nutrients are in the greens, which I do like. Kim: Good for you anyway!

Simon: This is the first topic I read this morning, and it was if you were reading my (not that well-furnished)! mind. It's taken me all day to semi sort it out. Lord, the wonderful/terrible food waves I have lived through. Remember Adele Davis...all that wheat germ and blackstrap molasses? Blech. Then old style Cantonese, decidedly "non-Northern" or even close to authentic Italian. Steak houses. Bistro French and trattoria Italian, and yes! English food during the Grand Tour. Still love Scotch Eggs and Bangers and Mash. Marriage to a man even more food-obsessed than I. Making sausage and gallantines. Truite au bleu and Pithiviers. Ravioli without a pasta machine. Then, as my cookbook shelf attests: Cuisine Minceur. Books without number on Chinese and Japanese food. Charlie Trotter. Eric Ripert. Thomas Kellar. I can no longer eat Asian food..(except maybe an eggroll.) Those decades where we made it four times a week, and practically learned Mandarin from our conversations with the greengrocer! Bok choy makes me gag, as does the scent of sauteeing ginger...or even soy sauce! Tragic, and I mean it. I want a hanger steak and frites and a good salad. Potatoes in any of their delightful guises. Vegetables that are actually cooked. A duxelles omelette a la Elizabeth David. Montreal smoked meat. Oysters. Pea soup. Roast chicken. Rhubarb pie. I don't feel good about this. In our cooking prime my husband would arrive from the shops with a mystery basket and announce, beaming: "This week we will sample the foods of Upper Volta!" Or Albania. Or Lappland. Or B through C in Escoffier. And I would be terribly happy and excited. He is still that way, God love him. But for me, for awhile...just fresh, plain and lovely

This sounds relly good. Will give it a try at earliest possibilty. A question as to shape. Biscotti-like? Or would cutting them in petticoat-tail style wedges work?

Got that right! I probably won't get to it tonight, but if you should....you do know that your first duty is to document your experience here immediately!

It sure does. She's gorgeous. I printed out the article to show to His Handsomeness, the perpetual sceptic. And, in another life, a tech writer for Underwriters Laboratories. Reaction: "No duh! Pastrychefs are weird, man. The chemistry says it all." From him, a huge accolade.

Really Nice: Your post was more than really nice. It was a handbook for baking. Wow. Excellent and thank you. I'm gonna print it out and save it.

I've been meaning to post here for awhile, but it took me a few days to locate "Amish Cooking" from Pathway books. The inscription on the flyleaf reminds me that my daughter bought it on a field trip to an Amish settlement in 1991. Talk about no detail! In its entirety: Dried Beef for 20 pounds 4 1/2 gal. water salt enough to carry an egg 1 oz. saltpetre 20 lbs. beef 2 lbs. brown sugar Put weight on top to keep meat in brine. For larger pieces, soak 60 hours, small pieces for 48 hours. Smoke. Very typical of the style. But it has a great bean soup recipe or two. Plus:How to make cheese. Or Bronchial Salve. Or , a favorite, hints like: "Have your pins good and warm before hanging out wash in the winter. It keeps the hands warm." No pictures, no real directions. Not a learn-to-cook-from book. But charm. Even Child Care Hints. "To save time, sprinkle powder on the baby's diapers when you fold them"

If she isn't ,I'm sure that you will find many eager substitutes here at eGullet!

But at least, he was a saint once, and had an actual saint's day! Not like...(struggle to overcome urge to use foul language) Sweetest Day! That really is a created-by-the greeting card/floral/chocolate industry holiday. That said, we never go out on Valentine's Day. A card, a nice meal chez nous, a little prezzie. Flowers, maybe.

That settles it. I'm moving back to that garden-spot Burnley, home of my maternal grandparents. We don't have caller ID so we can't screen. Last Wednesday I received...I kid you not...fourteen telemarketing calls. We have begun to receive them on Sunday Morning! If this activity is not yet prevalent in the UK, it is the clincher. And those calls that are actually taped messages?

Scotsdude: What a wonderful can of...er..beans...you have opened. Discussing the menu for an upcoming dinner party at our house can be the major topic of conversation for weeks. To consider: 1)Who's coming? We don't have any veggie friends, say, but we have discovered through experience, that a)One of our friends hates blue cheese b)One hates lamb c)Several who think that anything other than meat, starch and two veg is weird and exotic. You get the idea. d)Also, amazingly, some don't drink. At all. (Note to self: These are fine and interesting people whom we're proud to have as friends. Whassup with that? ) 2)What's fresh, seasonal and/or on sale. 3)What would the correct balance be...light/heavy, rich/slim, meat/veggie, etc. Probably would not choose a rich dessert if we had cheese sooffle as a starter. 4)What do we do consistently well, so that we can take a Big Chance on another dish. One we've wanted to make for a long time, but is too expensive or time-consuming for just two of us. I know that this goes against all Received Wisdom, but there should be one adreline rush per event. 5)Your point about cooking what people enjoy most and what you cook well should not be ignored. 6)Entertain more, and sharpen those meal-planning skills! Heck, you can cook! That puts you ahead of most of the population. 7)Have no fear. P.S. Have you recovered from that rude customer?

Dave: Thanks for your detective fine work, Sweetie( ) and the usual excellent writing. I've used all three of the brands you tested, and found no discernable difference. I'm not, of course, a professional pastry chef who has to tame sugar for a living! And that lego injury brought it all back. Yow!

I think this would be great. Apart for my own garden (Mostly useless beauy type flowers) I have been very disappointed with "Local produce," Same old hard tasteless stuff sold in the supermarkets. I would love to have a guide to what's out there within a hundred miles radius. Anything for a good peach!

No nothing is sacred. Trist those Frenchies! St. Jacques has a recipe for individual Yorkshire Puddings in the J and J "Cooking at Home" book. Like their humble twin/separated at birth sibling, the popover, they are greeted with shouts of joy. Nursery food all grown up and wonderful little bowls for sauce.

That's it! We use a scale for pastry excursions, but otherwise we eyeball it. And we did exactly as Dave suggests. We took out our measuring cups and threw various quantities into various pans. Actually, it was so long ago I had fogotten we did it. But it all comes with experience. Cook day in, day out, year after year, and the confidence level builds. And so your reduction is one tablespoon off? Rarely makes a big difference for the home cook.

Snowangel: It's a good time for me to mention how your daughter Diana has charmed me in many of your posts. What a totally swell, intelligent and helpful young woman. It would be a pleasure to divide labor with her.

As Jinmyo mentioned, daubes rule. Case in point: Our guests tonight were my sister and brother-in-law, and (I'd forgottenshe was coming) their two year old grandaughter, in the full trauma of potty training. Mary Cate is cute, and didn't torment the cat too much. Only one crisis when she started to wail because she hadn't hit the potty soon enough. As my mother used to say: "No one goes to college in Pampers. Not to worry." Lou's sister and husband are..how to put it?...conservative in their food tastes. We had TJ's ass't snackies. His sister 's aperitif is Sprite. We served a beef stew...basically Judy Rodger's daube, pigfoot and all (removed before Lou's sister saw it and fainted) but in large cube form. Roast carrots, onions, mush and parsnips. Sauce in the sauceboat. Fennel, orange and chickory salad. St. Jacques's individual Yorkshire puds. Aforementioned apple tart. It was all good. But I knew that God was in his world when a very tired two year old kept saying: "More meat, please!" And sopped up the sauce with her pud. We both did a whole LOT of dishes. Heck: The tummy is full, we had fun, and the house is clean(ish.) The baby daffodils are sweet. Labor was shared and all's well .

Sorry! Come to think of it, I may have posted.

We're having a small dinner party tonight, and in reviewing what's to be done with my husband I realized that I have 1)Cleaning duty )The individual Yorkshire puds 3) shop for flowers. Lou has commandeered the menu-planning and the rest of the cooking. I's been this way for awhile. When we were foodie newlyweds, cooking our happy way through Julia, I did 75% of the cooking. Now I'm basically Prep Drone and occasional pastrychef. But not tonight...he's making the rustic apple tart too. We are both good cooks. But somehow, I realize that I've been givien the ol' heave ho from my own kitchen. My friends say "Are you nuts? He's handsome and does all the cooking too? Are you complaing or something?" And I'm not complaining. Last year I had a job that involved getting home at midnight, and every single night: well conceived menu. Good cookin'. Plating, garnish etc. And a martini in the shaker. Was wondering how it works in your kitchens. Do you Do it All? Or does your spouse, SO, roomate, parent have his/her hand firmly on the chef's knife?

(Dope slap to forehead) Doh! What was I thinking!! So are you with Mr. P about tourists?

you tellum hon! Scones, blue cornbread, why not both? One of these days Ill actually get off my ass and do baklava!~ NYPC: Baklava is amazingly easy and fun to make. Seriously. And most recipes will feed your entire firehouse with stuff to take home.

As I've mentioned, we drove from Chicago to Ottawa to see my parents for Christmas. We pulled into a Speedway or Shell in Michigan for gas and a pee! Holio smolio. It was a regular sized service staion (not a truck stop) and it had everything. A hot line of "Italian" food. Beer and wine in the fridge. A cigar vendor was refilling the display. Behind the counter, an extensive supply of every well-known brand of hard liquor. It was some happenin' gas station. Canada has government liquor stores too. In Ontario, they are called the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, or LCBO. Although the folks are nice, it is rather like shopping in a post office. On Boxing Day, my father thought that we were running Dangerously Low. (Why, I wonder?) So we headed across the river to Hull, Quebec, the LCBO being closed. There, goverment run also. it is called La Societe des Alcools (or, in our house, the Alcohol Society .) They, the government-run store, were actually having a sale! Buy three, get one free. The parking lot was packed. Rule of thumb: Hang with the French people! But I feel for you guys. The first time my parents visited me in Chicago they were absolutely dazzled by the free enterprise liqour stores. They had never heard or thought of such a concept!

As I've mentioned, we drove from Chicago to Ottawa to see my parents for Christmas. We pulled into a Speedway or Shell in Michigan for gas and a pee! Holio smolio. It was a regular sized service staion (not a truck stop) and it had everything. A hot line of "Italian" food. Beer and wine in the fridge. A cigar vendor was refilling the display. Behind the counter, an extensive supply of every well-known brand of hard liquor. It was some happenin' gas station. Canada has government liquor stores too. In Ontario, they are called the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, or LCBO. Although the folks are nice, it is rather like shopping in a post office. On Boxing Day, my father thought that we were running Dangerously Low. (Why, I wonder?) So we headed across the river to Hull, Quebec, the LCBO being closed. There, goverment run also. it is called La Societe des Alcools (or, in our house, the Alcohol Society .) They, the government-run store, were actually having a sale! Buy three, get one free. The parking lot was packed. Rule of thumb: Hang with the French people! But I feel for you guys. The first time my parents visited me in Chicago they were absolutrly dazzled by the free enterprise liqour stores. They had never heard or thought of such a concept!

Concerning Awbrig: Just remember: he's your little (smart-aleck)brother! Works for me.

Yes. DOn't know where the recipe came from; it's been on a card in my recipe box for eons. Yes, Thomas does a good job, but the kids really like making them. And no, it is not spring like here today. But it was yesterday -- 55 degrees, so I took the opportunity to put screw hooks in my pergola and hang new lights. It looks wonderful. We want and need snow. None so far this season. Would it be possible for you to post the English muffin recipe or PM it to me? His Handsomeness has tried about ten recipes and hasn't been happy with any of them. When you have the time. Thanks.