maggiethecat

Pots or pot? One burns easier than the other. This would be a better question, though easier to answer. . ← If we're doing pot in the singular --- no worries. My brother, the extremely, um, laid back caterer can always oblige. I'm lobbying for spatulas and sifters. I repeat: the knife/pot dichotomy doesn't hold.

With due respect, I think Thorne's premise is piffle. But hewing to the topic rules,I'd grab a couple of pots that remind me of good times.

Because I've known brilliant pastry chefs (sigh, nightscotsman!) I'm all for perfect. If someone is willing to put in the effort to make Things of Beauty, I feel I can trust them to make them taste good. But sure, I'll buy "rustic" if it looks tasty.

All your ideas are excellent, Linda, but these three resonated with me. A pot, some dirt, a few seeds or a cheap plant and you'll keep yourself in fresh herbs. Trader Joe's is my current wine merchant of choice, and not for Three Buck Chuck, though I buy that too. TJ's has an interesting list under ten bucks, or even five. Potlucks are the new black, the new community, and Big Fun. Are rent parties far behind? You can drink, smoke, eat and misbehave in my house -- cue up the vinyl B52s and leave five bucks in the basket by the front door.

I can say that in both the Midwest and Eastern Canada taking food to the bereaved is common practice.

I'm giving Deep Thought to Pop Rocks, but I can't secure a Position. Yum.

"Cooking" is the best all-purpose, educational, beautiful cookbook around. I can't recommend it too highly. In my bridal shower-attending years I've given "Joy" then Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" to cooking illiterate brides. Now, no contest. "Cooking" is brilliant and belongs on the shelves of experienced cooks as well as novices. If there's a cookbook I'd holler "Buy!" about these days, this would be it. I trust I made my enthusiasm clear.

I pick theory Number 2. (And I smell a bacon-scented screenplay!)

That's really lovely, Peter, and your words are part of my personal manifesto. But I'm going to push the what-we-do-at dinnertime ethos further. It's not simply about good grub, therapy and hunger. It's about civilization. We may not want or need to read Milton, but when we ignore the beauty of cooking and eating real food, Paradise is Lost.

Experience is everything. My mother taught me how to make a great pie crust when I was twelve. After that lesson, I was in charge of the Sunday dinner pie. When I was a newlywed I was the original Maggie/Julia. I cooked through "Mastering the Art" when I was a twenty-year- old newlywed. Every night, a different dinner. Great Home Cook is a medal won through walking the walk, cooking dinner day after day with love and curiosity-- for your entire life. Cookbooks and classes and places like eGullet are great resources, but the Great Home Cook medallion is won like any other honor: never, ever give up. Experience.

My rampages through the cheese case at Traders Joe's are infrequent now. Otherwise I haven't given up much, because I don't have much to give up. I haven't eaten out since a year ago November, and even then kind friends paid.

Check this out! The pages I read were pretty inspiring. And don't diss Martha Stewart's Healthy Recipes or Cooking Light .

Sam Kass is a University of Chicago grad and an ex line-cook at Avec. That's some Chicago cred. Here's a snippet from the "Sun Times." And how Windy City is this? From the article:

I agree. I recommend Adams's "Cooking from Quilt Country," that explores the cuisine of the Indiana Amish. It's in my Top Ten cookbook recommendations, and we use it all the time, despite being neither Hoosier nor Amish.

I have the set too, and use them all the time. A masterpiece of a series. 160,410.

My luv is like a red, red rose for Tim Hayward's article on making haggis in the "Guardian" And Peter, I'll be raising my glass. Scots wae hae and all that!

Nuff said, indeed. I have a long list, but these are close to the top.

Ms. Shirley knows a tonne, but I dislike her cookbooks with a passion, for reasons others have elucidated so eloquently before me. Confusing, badly laid out, a waste of time, special ingredients and flours. (I have to rely on the faulty memory of a dear Southern friend to get a bag of White Lily. )Faugh. There are many, many fine baking books out there-- this isn't one of them. There, I said it. Chris, I adore popovers and direct you to Peterson's "Cooking." I'd cooked mine from "Joy" for years, with good results, but his recipe and method are amazing.

... a tall class of milk was the beverage served to children at mealtime?

And it can also be a weapon in the hands of an angry grandmother. ← Or in my case, an angry driven nuts-mother. (The flyswatter was worse. Ow.) I'm glad I forked over a buck for an olive wood spoon lo these many years ago when I was assembling my cooking trousseau at Crate and Barrel, because it's still around and better than ever. I'm almost as fond, in my power-to-the-people persona of every cheesy, almost unsanded dollar store wooden spoon and spatula I own. And Peter, as a Scots Canadian, I'm so with you about wooden spoons and porridge.

It is! Not a big food group and not too filling, though. I'm loving the chorizo, cheese and crema combo.

Helen; I love pastry and I love spuds. Care to share your recipe?

Filet straight from the fridge. Chicken and dumplings -- who hoo! That's classic. Alhto I've passed over the ovulum divide since I started this topic, your choices make my loins ache. (Except for peanut butter -- to me disgusting . Yeah, I was a PIA as a kid but I get salt nuts and sugar.) You were moderate.

I enjoy. I salivate. And Mary Todd Lincoln had great taste in china. (Ah, that gorgeous heavy engraved invitation. Be still my heart -- so elegant and craftsmanlike. My parents once received an invitation for lunch with Charles de Gaulle, and I remember the creamy heft of the paper and the for real raised copperplate type. I'll ask my father to look around for the invite, but I remember the menu as longer, more elaborate and just as locovore as Obama's. The wine was French, of course.)

glad you found the saranac... try their sasparilla if you can find it. ← Potato pancakes and applesauce are always just the thing. I salute your 5:00 am vision and action.