maggiethecat

Chicago! Oh yeah, I'm in.

I know that the ancient Romans (and others) made cheesecake, but I think the USA really made it its own.

Trying to light a cigarette from an electric stove indicates that you're all outta matches, lighters, or so tiddley you don't care. Been there, done that. Back in the day my brother and his mates played Hot Knives. Place a cheap stainless dinner knife on the coil and heat until red. Drop a hunk of hash on the blade. Inhale.

Chinese food = shiny boots

I was an early food processor adopter and love that chunk of steel and plastic. But never, and I mean never have I found it useful for chopping meat, and Lord knows I've tried, since the time that ABBA ruled the waves. The retro grinder did a fine job, especially when the meat was well-chilled, but the retro clamp never gripped our kitchen table worth diddley, and it took two people to grind a pound of chuck -- one gripping the grinder, one forcing down the meat with the especially retro wooden rod. We wised up: get the grinder attachment for the Kitchen Aid. It becomes a one-person job. That said, we use it for grinding pork and veal for forcemeat now and then, for ground beef once in a zillion weeks. We can buy a reliable 70/30 ground chuck from our local market or from the supermercado down the road.

I loved Linda, though I'll always think of her as fifi -- such a frivolous moniker for such a brilliant woman! Fifi was a charter member of the exclusive, insufferable elite we called SSBs -- Smug Scientific Bastards. (You know who you are.) She was an SSB with a killer sense of humor, a way with a word, and the subtle scent of a lady you'd want to party with. To her family and the lucky who were her friends, my deepest sympathy. Oh, how I wish I'd met her.

I'm bookmarking this for my next visit to the laft coast, which can't come too soon. I got through the Cs and I think Gold's take the two I've actually visited was on the money. And he is so much fun to read.

I remember Fife Brooth. I ate it as a child and loved it -- why don't I get more barley in my life? Great recipes or whatever, I'm gonna pass on Mrs Langland’s Faggots, Grey Squirrel Casserole and Rook Pie. Anything that features lungs (lights) is off my persnickity 21st century list of what's edible.

Two very important points, and ones I live by. I used to do a kind of coddled egg in the microwave: Butter ramekin, add egg, pierce yolk, sprinkle with herbs, top with a tablespoon of cream. Cover with wrap, nuke. They were just amazingly good.

OK, I think I once knew what Toast Dope is, but it has slipped my memory in a big way. Please enlighten me. If it involves actual dope, so much the better. No Buttered Toast Party tonight, which makes me sad -- she was up the Stair Glide early. Maybe I can make a huge stack of buttered toast to accompany her breakfast Super Ensure. Maybe I'll throw myself my own Buttered Toast Party! (And I can't thank you enough for your kind good wishes.)

My mother finished a course of radiation a couple of weeks ago -- the Sharpie marks on her chest and neck are a thing of the past. Maybe crying myself to sleep every night because her tongue and throat are too sore for her to eat will become a thing of the past too. Hey, she ate a quarter of a cup of soup, two Ensures and a martini today, along with four tablespoons of yoghurt! If she lived in Spain she'd be too thin to be a runway model. But things may be looking up. I ventured upstairs with a load of laundry in my arms at about ten pm, and swooned at the simple nursery food aroma wafting from the kitchen table. My mother looked up from Law and Order and said: "I'm having a Buttered Toast Party. Want some?" Oh yeah. My father had toasted something the grocery store calls "Belgian Bread" -- a medium density crusty loaf. Daddy'd toasted in perfectly and slathered it with butter. At that time and in that place it was the most delicious snack I could imagine. And my mother was eating solid food -- her choice, her request. Toast: so simple and perfect -- we've decided to have a Buttered Toast Party every night. Toast tastes elegant and luxurious in the late evening. My English grandmother made it at teatime and I was a cinnamon toast addict in my teens (brown sugar please!) -- nothing better after a couple of strenuous hours editing the high school yearbook. Are you a toast fancier? Or is there another dish so simple that you can make it from two ingredients in two minutes and throw a party for?

I've been away from home for a couple of months: miss my Peeps, my cats, my rose garden, my gas stove -- but I'm thinking now about my three jars of macerating vanilla beans and vodka I started when this topic was young. So, for you folks who put up some beans in booze a few months ago: how's it going? Will it be ready to roll in a month or so when I'm back in Sweet Home Chicago?

My mother used to do foil packages on the grill that featured butter, potatoes, onions, and if I remember correctly (it was the 60's folks) a sprinkling of dried onion soup mix. We adored them, especially the burnt bits. A couple of weeks ago I did Saumon en Papilotte from an ancient Martha Stewart recipe. First, you have all the fun of Valentine's Day in June, cutting parchment paper into heart shapes. It was hilariously simple and old school: place salmon steak on one half of the heart, previously spread with a gram of olive oil. Salt, pepper, a tiny splash of white wine, a couple of sprigs from the herb garden (thyme and lemon verbena in my case) crimp, place on cookie sheet. Twenty minutes in a 350 oven. Unwrap, sniff the glorious steam: perfect poached salmon with a little dinnertable drama as each diner unwrapped his own. If you have some fish, a rainy day at the cabin and can't grill, I think all your sous chefs could have fun with this. (Thanks all, for the terrific ideas, people. )

Steven, I love it when you show off your writing chops. Thanks. I don't have a lot useful to add -- Chinese takeout is rotten where I live and a Scots/Canadian WASP and an Italian/American make better Chinese at home than we can order in. But: Hello? No fortune in the fortune cookie? What the heck is up with that? That's almost the end of civilization as I know it. Lots of folks here at work get Chinese takeout at lunch, with the free fortune cookies, and we all intone "in bed," of course. Not to derail your fabulous topic and writing project, but someone say this isn't so. Good Lord, have we become such a litigeous society that restaurants are afraid of being sued if the fortunes in the cookies don't come true? Gee, I believed the last fortune I read about being creative, artistic and soon to be rich. I don't think you've mentioned Vietnamese, which seems to be (to my untutored eyes) the fastest growing Asian restaurant cuisine -- kind of like Thai five years ago. Which brings up Asian food fashion: Korean is huge right now in LA and Chicago. Is Cambodian the next big thing?

Amen. Seriously. My father recently had a big blast for his 80th and was saying tonight that he regretted buying a bunch of champagne flutes, (cloth) napkins, plates, etc. Next time my parents have a big party they'll rent more stuff. Not having to hand wash and dry 75 fragile flutes at 3 am makes the modest rental price seem even more modest. If the cloth napkins came from a linen rental place maybe your mother would cotton to them? ( )

They hit the markets in Ottawa too --they're American cherries, and as Pam said, not as good a local cherries, but they'll do. I was washing a couple of pounds and putting them in a bowl when my mother, who's very sick, said: "What is life?" Well, heck. I think I said something clueless, like:"All we've got, who we are, the people we love," and she bust a gut laughing. She pointed to my hands. Suckered again: Yes, life's a bowl of cherries. I'm going to make a cherry clafouti with the other half of the bag. If I'm here for a little longer the stunning Montmorency cherries will appear, stoned, in huge buckets in the humblest groceterias. Then it's serious cherry canning, pies, liquer making... yum.

You guys are great. Thanks for your suggestions. We found a parking place near St. Vincent's, strolled down Somerset, and found lovely ducks hanging in the window of a grocery store (the first of two who do duck.) A rediculously cheap 13.50 apiece (CDN) glossy, crispy, redolent of lovely Chinese scent. Got the pancakes, hoisin and honey for the suace, and the scallions which we cut into little brooms with which to spread the sauce. The skin was amazing. That was Thursday. We had leftovers today, and I heated the skin in a 350 oven and it was, if possible, even better than it was on Thursday. Crazy great. I've said that Ottawa may be a little dreary restaurant-wise, but it's an amazing place to buy ingredients if you're a home cook. Please tell me the name of the great Asian market a little further west on Somerset, over the bridge -- I've forgotten the name. I'll be back soon -- their fish and meat looks great -- gorgeous porkbelly @ 2.49 a pound.

Surfas took my breath away, as I've mentioned elsewhere on these forums. I've been to more restaurant supply stores than you can shake a whisk at, and, Baby, it's the best. I live in Chicago but hit LA a couple of times a year because my daughter lives there. Versailles, Zankou, oh yes! Likewise Ranch 99 and the Hollywood farmers market. Pho Cafe in Silverlake. Korea Town. With a car, you can source food as well or better in LA as anywhere in the country. Stan's right about the growing season. You're gonna love it.

My mother has defied expectations and, after six weeks is home from palliative care at Elisabeth Bruyere. She has a hankering for Peking Duck, and it's my job to handle her hankerings. Problem is, she can't quite remember where she last bought said duck. Are there still places on Somerset who hang them in their windows? Is there another source here in Ottawa? Many thanks in advance.

Gee, how did this get past me? What a terrific way to raise some money for the Society. You'll be receiving a box from me!

It makes sense that a plactic bowl wouldn't be a great vessel in which to whip egg whites. It also makes sense that the higher-powered modern stand mixer might be able to overcome a tainted white where a whisk and a wrist -- or my grandmother's Mixmaster -- couldn't. I promise that when I next beat egg whites I'll deliberately leave some yellow stuff in a couple, then whip two virgin beauties. This might be in a few days: if any of you have cause to beat egg whites in the near future and don't mind a walk on the wild side (eggs are cheap, right?) please keep us posted.

I'd forget the bicarb. In my experience thin, golden crunchy batter is best achieved with flour and liquid only. (I prefer soda water to beer in this situation only!)

It's all a Big Lie, sisters and brothers. You know how cookbook writers since Mrs Beeton (or Mrs. Attila, or Xanthippe or Eve) have scared us witless about having a single blot of egg yolk, fat or other detritis in egg whites if we want to beat them into "fluffy but dry" or "glossy peaks?" In my long cooking life I've dumped at least ten dozen egg whites because I absentmindedly dropped a whole yolk in the wrong bowl, or dribbled a tiny yellow scrap into six pristine egg whites. We've been told that we're doomed to culinary failure if those egg whites aren't purer than the driven snow north of Frobisher Bay, more virgin than your great-aunt Gertie on her wedding night. Not so. A few days ago I decided to make mini Pavlovas (blood orange curd and blackberry filling) for my mother's first meal home after six weeks in Hospice. (She gets to leave the premises but has to be back before nine o'clock curfew.) I can't remember the crazed cooking circumstances that led me to a)grate the peel of a lemon and an orange into the white rather than the yolk bowl b)dump a whole yolk into said bowl of whites. It was meltdown time. I removed 90% of the egg yolk and all but a quarter teaspoon of the peel, though I couldn't do much about the citrus oil. I fired up the KitchenAid and expected watery disaster. It didn't happen! Those whites and sugar rose to brilliant glossy peaks. In retrospect I'm glad I was so tapped out and stressed -- I wouldn't have dared attempt something I've been told was doomed to failure since I opened my first cookbook with my sticky eight-year-old finger. Am I the only cook who's had this experience? (Gee, maybe Anna Wintour will give me a pass on wearing white shoes before Memorial Day, and a glandular problem might be causing my mailman's hairy palms.)

Charity and Ashley: I appreciate your feedback. I drive the length of Bank Street every day and will check out 1 plus 1, Mangos and Schwarma King this week. (Love the idea of Lebanese cocktails!)

Suzy: WhooHoo, you apron-enabler you! When my life returns to anything approaching real life I'm ordering that pattern, and watch out Christmas list. I've admitted to being an apron nerd, so let me tell you about a two buck apron --olive drab-- I bought at an Army Surplus place and copied in frivolous fabrics. It's a rectangle of cotton a yard long, full width of the bolt. Topstiched to the front, about four inches down, (waist level) a few feet apart are two long ties of twill tape -- plenty to wrap around even the portliest cook and tie in the front to accomodate a side towel. It's related to a bistro apron, but because the ties are lower than the top hem it protects the four inches above the waist that pick up all the flour when you're rolling out a pie crust. You can make one in ten minutes if you skip the embroidery and rickrack.