maggiethecat

And I suppose you stir the other way in the Southern Hemisphere? SB (or if you're left-handed?) ← I thought of the Antipodean anti-clockwise thing too. Really, it just seems so whack and arbitrary. Does not reversing directions break down the starch in a a better way? Shall we live on the edge and change directions next time we stir a batter? Hmmm. Biodynamics.

Hang head. Figure eight makes some sense, and I've never consciously F8ed. But this lady sticks, buckle and thong, to clockwise.

I've been reading a late 20's cookbook for research purposes. Thrice, the authoress exhorts us to stir bechamel, cake batter etc. in one direction only. What is up with that? Can reversing directions with the wooden spoon damage anything? The usual one- direction- only advice is applied to filing ones nails. Is there any science going on here?

My husband has been making sausage since Michael Ruhlman was knee high to a grasshopper. I think this is his Creole version. I'm excited to try Michel Richard's recipe for Chix sausage which includes gelatin (melts away in cooking) to prevent chicken sausage from being either 1) dry, healthful and grainy or 2) enriched with adequate quadroped fat to be juicy and fattening.

Potato and escarole soup, garnished with slices of sizzled home made chicken sausage. Baby, it really is cold outside.

I use all 300-some of them, some more actively than others. Marcella Hazan, with her first book, taught me how to make a killer Bolgnese. Elizabeth David taught me how to make a mushroon omelet (duxelles with flour thickened cream.) I owe all of them enormously, but Hazan and Kennedy made me feel so Not Worthy, with my inability to procure the freshest and finest and most obscure and authentic. There are many fine sources for Italian cooking these days, but for Mexican, for me, Rick Bayless is the upside of Kennedy: he is encouraging and practical. Go Chicago boy. But, back to the question: for. Christmas, Delia Smith. For pancakes and popovers, "Joy." Scott Peacock's "Taste of Southerm Cooking" for everynight meals. The Time-Life "China" volume got used twice this week, as any volume in the series might on any given night. "Potsticker Chronicles" by Stuart Chang Berman for American Chinese. Julia for Jalousies. Martha for cool cupcakes... I guess I'm going back to my lede sentence: one way or another I use 90% of them, for guidance, inspiration, or -- Lor' lumme! -- something to make for dinner.

All of the above, and Advil. Seriously -- it's pain specific.

When I was a little girl my father didn't cook much, but he did make a mean Western Omelet, the WASP version of salami and eggs -- ham is an important ingredient. He will be eighty at his next birthday, and my mother -- a fabulous cook, as I've mentioned many times -- is ailing. When I talked to her last Sunday she said: "I can't get over your father's learning curve. Not only is he my personal shopper (picked out two pairs of Ralph Lauren trousers that fit her diminished frame perfectly) he's my personal chef too! This week he made oyster stew, poached lobsters and Beef Wellington." And she's not making this up. Nothing like wanting to fatten up the love of your life to apply the mind to the task.

I'm enjoying the cooking, the kids, the dogs... but a shout out for the Slice of Life dinnerware. I hog the surgery plate, myself.

OK, like some women want a thousand buck Chanel bag, I now want a beehive. Bad. Not that I lack bees -- my tiny garden, mostly flowers with a couple of fruit trees, was created to be bee-friendly. They loll laciviously from my bee balm, penstemon, Asian pear and roses. After reading Shaun's piece, I want to be Queen of my own bee means of production: I don't like honey much, but the greater environmental story is chilling. Any beekeepers here, who can share their expertise about starting a hive?

Quelle coincidence. I was looking through Marcia Adams's terrific Heartland tonight and read about Indianapolis's native Bard, James Whitcomb Riley -- Mr. "Frost is on the Pumpkin." Snickerdoodles were his favorite cookie, and to this day on his birthday (October 7th) they are served to visitors at his house on Lockerbie Street in Indianapolis. Maybe this makes it Indy food , maybe not, but Snickerdoodles are an Indiana Amish specialty.

My infant daughter needed precisely five and a half hours of sleep a day, between 3 am and 8:30 am. (She gave up naps at two weeks.) Cooking and eating was never a problem because she was awake anyway, cheerfully watching and listening through dinner prep, dinner, clean up, the 10:00 o'clock news... She would scream without cease -- for hours if that's what it took -- until I removed her from her crib. We lived in a small apartment and our nearest neighbor was the only person around more exhausted than I; a first year resident at Pres-St. Lukes hospital. I really couldn't in good conscience, send him back to the ER more sleep-deprived than he was already. Balzac and Trollope were my companions of the wee hours. I'd sit in the kitchen rocking chair with my daughter on my knees -- alert and cheerful she was, always! -- reading 19th century literary epics. She'd eventually drift off, I'd hurl myself into bed and wake up to her cries at 8:30. She was rested and refreshed, I was a zombie. This went on for a year.

Well, Duh! Of course you're right --- free will and free choice everywhere. With some sentimental favorites allowed, please don't show me a matched set of knives -- some manufacturers do one blade better than another. Store bought chili powder or masala just means you haven't had gastronomic experience or are a teeny tad lazy.(Thasso K) Veg medleys -- well, the succotash can be good -- the broccoflower crinkle carrot stuff just doesn't taste like much. I don't think I own two pans from the same maker, except for a ton of gorgeous Mauviel copper purchased when I was twenty and given a nice employee discount from Crate and Barrel. I don't use it much anymore because most of it needs to be retinned at vast cost. I blame wedding registries for the young -- they are encouraged to ask for matchy stuff. (Mind you, it's a pleasure to cook with my son-in-law's complete set of virgin Globals.) For the mature I blame the siren call of complete sets of shit at Costco or Williams Sonoma. If you can afford it, it must be a rush to buy 500 bucks of All Clad on sale and toss the old, perfectly good stuff. Or go on a Le Creuset binge because the little pumpkin shaped casseroles are so damn cute. But in the end, people who cook every day know what they need. A cast iron frying pan. a stockpot and saucepans from Target (or inherited from your mother-in law) a swell high-end sautoir. These orphan pot and pans become your old friends. I wouldn't pick my friends from a matched set on My Space, and I'd be even less likely to pick my cookwear that way. Geez, I couldn't buy my twice-annual Stekka non- stick omelet pan from Ikea (2.99) if i had to buy a set... of what?

I have maybe a thousand bucks worth of expensive knives, many going back twenty years. The low carbon Sabatier I bought on my honeymoon sharpens easily -- all that pricey Teutonic steel has been dull as a butterknife for ten years. We have whetstones, Japanese waterstones, diamond edged steel, strops and the concrete front stoop. Nothing, and I mean nothing we've tried, ever got the edge back. Until I bought one of these heat producing gnashing monsters.They work. We had a happy afternoon restoring the blades of Wusthoffs that caused us to cuss every night for, well, forever, when we stroked them across assorted surfaces, under water, at altitude, in prayer sessions. The damned thing works. It was our last resort -- give it a try or throw out some serious knives. Hey, if it grinds the edge a little ambitiously, I don't care. The knives are sharp for the first time since Reagan's second term.

More in the frigo category: that miserable frozen block of chopped spinach. Fresh spinach is a gritty PIA, and we've learned this year about the perils of bagged washed comely spinach. Frozen spinach is an easy addition to a pot of minestrone , or with ricotta to a stuffed pasta recipe. Squeezed seasoned and sauted, it's not a bad veg side.

Josh, That would be homemade wagyu pastrami...that Ronnie S. may joke, but he does not play. Have you tried his Lox? Molto E ← I've tried both. Ronnie's charcuiterie is high on my Best of 2006 Chicago list.

Wondra rocks in many ways, including beurres maniees, crepes etc. It's also fab for sprinkling into a greased cake pan when the instructions read "buttered, floured." On the subject of cardboard cylinders, let's give it up for iodized salt. So cheap, so useful, so untrendy so good for us. Was it in the Times recently, that article about how iodine doesn't prevent just goitre, but birth defects, arrested mental development and other bad things? So much value for, like, fifty cents.

Canned beans -- navy, garbanzo, pinto, black -- dead cheap at my supermercado, perfect texture every time. This is seriously underrated food.

Good Lord, you pantywaist! Yes. It. Will. ← It won't, not a tiny splash -- to me it adds to the the traditional flavor. I wear pantywaists all the time, and I have zero objection to fruit on a toothpick. It's pretty and fun and fruity and just might add to the flavor. Vodka just ain't right.

That name bothered me too. I just learned to ignore the phonetics and read it in my mind as "Charles". (It's a handy trick I picked up when reading Russian novelists. ) So, if MFKF did intend the name to cause consternation among her readers, (an interesting and totally believable theory), the score is SRHCB 1 - MFKF 0! ← I think it's Basque for goat (if this was mentioned upthread I apologize. I'm medicated these days. ) So I just call him Goat man, or Dill. Old money, good family and all, but something in common with Jerry Lee Lewis. But from now on, dear Jess, he will be ever Chexmix to me.

Hoooray! now that you, the respected Maggie, have said that......I can come out of the closet ! I hate undercooked green beans, and LOVE cooked one, esp almondine "Course, I really like almost ANYTHING with brown butter......... Thank you, Maggie. ← You're welcome, Girlfriend. Oh, the ghastly 90s and early oughts when all veg and fish were undercooked

I prefer TJ's haricots verts (from France, no less!) to fresh. So shoot me. I like a classic almondine -- boil or steam the beans until they're done, dammit, then toss with the lightly browned butter and toasted almonds. I've never had a lot of luck nuking frozen veg.

I loved your list too, ronnie. I also trust you. I've eaten out exactly twice this year -- Nuevo Leon and Custom House, and I echo your sentiments on both. If you recommend Vie, that will be my big dinner out in 2007. I hope.

That's my fave mushroom soup recipe -- no chopping of shrooms at all! I'd straddle the fence and leave the top on, with a small crack open to let some of the steam escape.

I thought that salmon patties/croquettes were the property of Northern WASPS -- both my Ontarian grandmothers and my mother, for three. Fascinating how that tall tin of salmon got around. I've made salmon patties recently when canned salmon got ridiculously cheap, and they were good. I sauced them with some parsleyed bechemel (AKA White Sauce) because, well, that's what Mummy did.