maggiethecat

I do this all the time with no apparent ill effects.

Not original???? Are you nuts? Citrus habanero marmelade wrapped in embroidered tea towels -- that's just fabulous. And DG: Homemade apple pies -- what a delicious, holiday-feeling personal present. Festive, I tell you.

What a cool idea -- and welcome to eGullet!

It's the season, and I'm working on woodblock print/origami Christmas cards. (I'm a paper geek through and through, in each and every way.) I'm thinking about making those layered-in-jars, recipe card attached gifts, mainly because someone gave one to me a few years ago and it was excellent -- white chocolate chip macadamia brownies, as I recall. Does anyone have any bright ideas about updating the genre? Maybe something savoury? And I'll be making aprons and chef's pants -- people expect them from me. What homemade food and hearth related gifties are you talented peeps whipping up? Inspiration accepted with gratitude.

I love fruitcake, adore it, it was my wedding cake -- yeah, I'm second generation Brit. My mother's already baked them, shrouded them with cheesecloth and Amontillado, nestled them into tins. When I go to Ottawa for Christmas it will appear on teatrays, next to the sausage rolls and shortbread. I love mincemeat tarts, with hard sauce melting on their tiny pastry caps. But, oh, the plum pudding, which Mummy prepares, in sickness (sadly, this year) and health on Stir Up Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent. And sage stuffing, cooking in the Thanksgiving bird, not some Southern dressing in a casserole, although I love that too. My own cranberry chutney. Nonna's Nutty Crescents. Tourtiere. And sausage rolls.

You see, I love this! The cold hard sauce melting next to the plum pudding, the ice cream puddling next to the peach pie, the fresh ginger granita pooling around the gingerbread... But then, I don't take a long, ladylike approach to an excellent dessert -- I engulf it.

Here's the link to today's New York Times article.

I'm blessed, I know. My parents, daughter, best buddies and relations are all food people. I never worry about the food or drink when I visit them, or they me. I try to remember preferences, of course. The odd time a houseguest doesn't fit the mold, and I may have forgotten their disgusting instant oatmeal or diet soda preferences, I just chalk it up to character building. Theirs.

Shopping with Mom Grocery shopping is endlessly fascinating, in each and every permutation. If you've missed it on Daily Gullet, enjoy Dave the Cook's take.

I agree, and I think that The Dark Lady of the Smackdown should get to go first, just to check it out, and all! Last call, my Limericketeers. This competition ends tonight at midnight, in the time zone of your choice.

Slate Magazine ... ← Please, Lord, no! In the unlikely situation that I live to be 112, I don't want to be productive! I want a setup that includes lots of single malt, a cute gameskeeper and all the smoked salmon and trifle I can eat. Actually, sounds good right now!

OK. I know that I should have the grace, the sense and the common good manners to avoid saying this, but I can't: You people are crazy. While I prefer my salad on a separate plate from the sauce, I believe that food should touch and cuddle. Grillades and grits? Bacon and eggs? Chili on rice? Why would you segregate these gastronomical lovebirds? And I so disagree about Thanksgiving leftovers, and Thanksgiving dinner. The all-ingredient sandwich on Friday (yes, including the cranberry sauce and stuffing) is a wondrous melding of flavors and textures. And the gravy slipping over the cranberry relish, turkey, and mashed potaoes is the homey flavor of The Day. As to eating every dish in order and succession: um, anal? Not that I have a medical degree. Carry on

Be sure to check out this week's New York Times food section for more about Andrea's book.

Try a large Supermercado where they have on-site meat cutters. Ask what day the whole hogs arrive and place your order in advance.

Artisanal Christmas Prezzies I feel very, very old. I started this thread in 2002, when I had scarcely a grey hair or a heart murmer. People gave me terrific ideas.

Are we going to get all Gerard Manley Hopkins here? Fresh fired crackled things?

Oddly enough, Chinese is the one Asian cuisine I've never eaten in LA -- I'd better rectifiy this next time I'm there! I do remember my SIL saying, as we drove to the St. Gabriel Mission, that Alhambra and San Gabriel are their destination towns for Chinese.

Interesting and excellent advice, y'all. I prefer my steaks pan-cooked rather than grilled, every time, so I think that if I were you I'd simply lay out the (surely)<15 bucks on a second cast iron skillet.

When it comes to frozen, I'm Trader Joe's. Their petit pois are actually from France. Their frozen fish is excellent and relatively cheap. I make my own potstickers, but I always have a backup bag from TJs. Apart from these items and the occasional bag of frozen veg or berries, I don't ever buy frozen pre-prepared stuff. They are just too expensive, and not good enough to ratioanlize the expense.

Yes, I have a touch of Ausberger's when it comes to The Naming of Things -- ask anyone who knows me! If Gwyneth Paltrow can have a daughter who rejoices in the name of Apple (no cynicism here, by the way) why can't Bacon be the next hot eccentric name? Heck, one could always say, WASP style, "It was my mother's maiden name." Muffaletta is a lovely food word.

Schlagobers is my all time favorite food word -- not just a little whipped cream, but hills, mountains tributaries oceans of it. Cue a waltz. Edited to add personal info about Austro-Hungarian pastry and the naming of children. Our only child , a daughter, has one of those old -fashioned Quality names mentioned upthread: not Faith, Hope or Chastity but the Anglo/Irish Honor. Thank God we had a girl, because we couldn't agree on a boy's name. I like Scots names for boys: Murdo, Angus, Jock, Callum and especially Ian, because it's my father's name. Father- to -be would have nothing to do with it, and not because he liked Brian or Jason, the hottest boy names around. Nor did he wish to continue the alternate generation Joseph/Louis tradition in his family. We'd made, from the Time-Life Cooking of Vienna's Empire, that decadent chocolate/ganache confection Rigo Janczi, named after an Hungarian gypsy violinist. My husband said "Rigo. I want Rigo. I have no second choice." Cue Czardas. I don't know if a kid named Rigo would have a tougher time growing up with that name than Honor did with hers. She loves her name now, and perhaps Rigo would have too.

zabaglione

No can do, Love. Just because it appears that the Irish are over-endowed with wit and charm and the gift of the gab can't lead us down the road of National Sterotyping.

I love this guy! But when I think pastry wedding dresses, I think meringue would be lovely -- no sitting down, of course. Edited to add: chefpeon, I love your sig line!

I bid you to continue telling us about your early Hoosier culinary training -- just don't leave the state!