maggiethecat

Those Apple Charlottes look just beautiful, Marlene. (Well, everything does.) And I agree-- save the cheese course for another night. That dinner was one powerful blast of heavenly protein and starch! (Gotta ask: the sauce looked good. Did it taste good? Only so much culinary help is available via AIM!)

I always think of "Chef" the way I would a military rank: NCO or Field Marshall, the chef is the "Chief" and the person to whom the others look for leadership inspiration and a Plan. The person to whom one says"Oui, Chef" or "Yes, Sir" or "Yes, Ma'am." In my kitchen you may certain Kiss the Cook. But I wouldn't kiss the Chef during the Saturday night rush any more than I'd kiss Sarge while we're guarding the Green Zone. I'm a cook.

Recent chat at home and at eGullet about Limoncello, to say nothing of the fact that Walgreen's is all decked out in fake Yuletide drek, made me decide to give this thread its annual bump. I have about eighty pounds of Asian pears on my counter and my back lawn. Pearcello? Chutney? Exotic compost content? I've read back a bit, and I'd forgotten how many wonderful ideas this thread contains. What is your guest list receiving from your hard-working loving hands this year?

Mr. Ruhlman (my food-writing hero) and the many revered pros (Mr. Parsons, Ms. Wolfert, Ms. Chesterman, St. Anthony of Manhattan) amd others too numerous to mention have good reason to use their real names on this site: In the words of Bourdain: "Fame maintenance." And that's all good! I use my name here because 1) I am on staff and I must 2) I want some agent to see me and say: "My God! she's a cross between Colette and Erma Bombeck and she needs a huge advance!" (Hasn't happened.) Those of us who have a good reason to post under our real names have a wonderful opportunity to advance our careers and our opinions here. That's as much of a privilege as the cloak of anonymity is for others. Because someone called MethMommy wants to call us out about a sticky subject because we say who we are, and we suspect her of being a stalker/professional enemy/Mom doesn't take away her privilege of anonymity. Let's talk about the advantages of using our professional names, and how this works for us on the internet. To dismiss it is coy.

The ownership of an electric kettle is just a tell about how many generations you are removed from and Ango/Indian/Scots/Chinese/Irish tea-drinking family. -- Emphasis on tea-drinking. As we residents of the US know, tea is usually produced with a trollop of a teabag lolling over the side of a mug waiting for her closeup in a microwave. My Anglo/Scots Canadian parents insist on a real cuppa, brewed in a real teapot (Georgian sterling in their case, but they have a Brown Betty for breakfast.) Hampered as they are by Ottawa's mostly electric stoves, a good plug-in kettle does the trick. But I must say again: Occasional tea drinkers like me have a pretty pot and a Michael Graves kettle from Target. But the hard-core tea drinkers own electric kettles.

Babas au Rhum. Plum Pudding fits all your requirements -- brought to the table flaming and served with hard sauce and/or cinnamon ice cream it's festive, (sadly) now unusual and easy to prepare ahead of time. For a flamefest, make individual puds in ramequins. I like the Linzertorte idea too.

Long sear mark on left forearm -- dropped the dacquoise and my arm hit the rack. Two years ago, but still there. My hands are a mess, not from knife wounds but from oven scars. You may protect your palms by using potholders, but if the tops of your hands brush the rack you understand how that steak feels when it hits the grill! I'm trying to avoid perfect quadrillage.

Off the top of my head: Lemonade, Aviation cocktails, Lemon Drop cocktails, Sidecar cocktails, marinades, salad dressing, tabouleh... -Erik ← Defy tradition and add the juice of one lemon to your 'cello. It doesn't make it too tart, but it adds lovely lemoniness. Without the juice I find 'cello too sweet. We're picking the last of the Asian Pears from the tree in the back yard and are considering a maceration in brandy. That's the great thing about these infusions -- it's All Good. Did mandarin orange 'cello last year. Yum.

Me too! Deep fried duck..... But I suggest that you click on the links in Brooks's post. That is some fine food writing, (Cue commercial music)courtesy of The Daily Gullet.

Somewhere , I remember Bourdain saying that if he has a fault, he undersalts, because he knows that his smoker's palate might be suspect. Can fifty million fumeur Frenchmen be wrong? Sure. And I remember my mother saying that after she quit, her tastebuds were all of a twitter. But cooking professionally is a stressful job, and like cops and air traffic controllers. the narcotic effects of nicotine , and its memory-enhancing properties fit the drug profiles of the ladies and gents that do the real hustle in the real restaurants.

Kathleen: I'm a "bit of this, dash of that, cook until done" offender, but you make a great point. How many of us cooks in the infant stage were maddened by our mother's or grandmother's "Just look at it" or "Just poke it with your finger" cooking school? Thank goodness for your Auntie. But as you gain cooking experience and many pots of soup and braises under your belt, you'll click as we all have: it's all about the aroma, the consistency, the flavor. Even in the anal-retentive world of baking, experience is key. So, although it's relaxing and rewarding on the home front to let the tenor do all the cooking: Ascolta, cara: All those exercises you do for your diaphram, all that bel canto warming up --you're the mistress because of experience and repitition. Like singing, cooking isn't a twice a month passtime, it's daily practice. Maybe you could start as Sam's commis, responsible for a course a night, every night. Soup, veg, brownies... How do you get to the Met? Practice practice practice.

The magic of eGullet: I thought I had the chili dinner nailed, but I'm excited by the ideas here beyond cornbread and rice. I know Wendy's does it, but I love the baked potatos/topping thing. And cinnamon ice cream (Hot chocalate sauce!) and S'Mores are just brilliant, as is the flan -- a lime-flavored flan, perhaps, with chocalate-dipped lime icebox cookies?

Yup, that's it. And to give it even more cred: ronnie_suburban, cook and host extraordinaire, Honcho of the Heartland and my cherished macho buddy, is likewise a fan of this book.

It is to laugh! Bananas? Yoghurt? Even Doritos and brownies.. Pfui! Your instinct for the Whopper Jr. was excellent -- all the satisfaction of the burger thing, but almost a Health Burger in fast-food terms because of the medium meat patty and all the lettuce. A well-balanced PMS meal. I am a BK girl, so I'm sorry you had to visit McD's, but I'm glad it made you happy. My Boss announced her Time of the Month today and her lunch was: an Italian Beef sandwich from Portillos, double-dipped, a chocolate malt. onion rings, fries. She inhaled it. Hey, a lady has to keep up her strength, and makerel , blueberries and yoghurt just don't make it.

I don't have time to be more specific, but I can offer you this solid piece of advice if you're in the Nibbles Business: get a copy of Martha Stewart's "Hors d"Oeuvres Cookbook." For me it's the Bible: a huge variety of lovely bites, beautiful presentation, and great-tasting food. Sure, there are the usual number of Martha labor-intensive fiddley recipes, but it's still, for me, the last word on the subject. She started her career (well, after the modelling and the seat on the Stock Exchange) as a caterer. This is a Pro book, and everything looks gorgeous.

Brilliant. Twinkie Tiramisu. Post the recipe in eGRA, please!

Bubble tea. The horror! Blizzards: Bliss.

I'm interested to see a few references to desserts featuring pears, because I think that pears are a vastly underrated dessert fruit, and deserve a special place in fruit and dessert heaven. Like apples, they can be baked, poached, caramelized. Unlike apples, they take well to chocalate. And unlike almost every other fruit save bananas they can be bought green and ripen on the shelf. The shelf --that's where they were perched in the bars and trattorias in Tuscany in late February --giant, wide-hipped big-assed pears, pre- poached. The bartender would pull one down and smother it with dark chocolate sauce and conversation would cease while we really savored the pear and chocolate tastes and textures. Throw on some ice cream and would it be Poires Belle Helene? But these didn't need ice cream. Tuscany isn't exactly the beating heart of patisserie, but my second favorite dessert is also a Tuscan thang: bongo bongos. Available, again at every bar, restaurant and cafe: profiteroles in chocolate sauce, served in a wide bowl with a big spoon. The absolutely most beautiful and delicious sweets I've ever eaten in my life (and I consider myself so lucky!) were from the hands of out own nightscotsman. But the clean plain luxury of a big pear in hot chocolate sauce... almighty good.

97,270. (I really must order Paula Wolfert's SW France book!) And Bombdog, Steven's book -- or any book about food or the business of food -- does count.)

Ada: Thanks for the heads up: I might check for the issues (a couple) I'm missing. Some smart publisher should reissue them in one form or another. Are you enjoying your copies?

Did she have aspirations for sainthood? The saints who died of self-induced starvation are an interesting topic to consider (Catherine of Siena is the one that comes to my mind). ← Molly was a sweet, devout, poor hardworking woman who didn't have to fast herself to starvation to achieve sainthood. But you nailed it, Pan: she had a holy card of Catherine of Sienna tucked into the mirror in her hallway.

What a wonderful sister you are, Janet -- you had the foresight to have the good stuff available, and didn't have to cobble something from a can! But you're right: apart from that frivolous little cup of chicken broth, gratis at the Zodiac Room at Neiman Marcus, I like my consomme garnished and loaded with tasty bits. But, come to think of it, broth (or Beef Tea) has been an invalid staple much longer than Jell-O. I just wish that toast points had been an oprion.

When life hands you a lede like that, what's a writer gonna do? Thanks all for your comments, and yes, Dear Sue, ain't too much wrong with my guts except stress and copious quantities of green leafies. You've mentioned Ramadan and Yom Kippur. My Nonna-in-law was an observant Catholic, but her friend Molly Manna took Lentan fasting to painful extremes. She was a tiny black-shawled Sicilian lady who decided that she'd give up all food and drink for the season. When she hit sixty pounds her priest ordered her to eat-- Day Twenty. Has anyone heard David Rakoff's description of his self-imposed fast on This American Life?" or read it in his new book, Don't Get Too Comfortable? Riveting stuff, and scary as hell. Starvation is not a good idea, and a first world person deliberately setting about it disgusts me. But, yeah, I guess that was my point!

A work buddy's brother has a henhouse and she gave me a dozen of the freshest and finest. I decided to give poached eggs a shot, remembering all those pronouncements about how using new eggs is essential to success. It's true. Oh My God. I slipped the egg into gently simmering acidulated water, waited a little, and watched it shimmy to the suface, perfectly oval, no scraggly bits of albumen. Just amazing to someone who's poached a lotta eggs in her lifetime, with a mere 70 per cent success ratio. Served on butter toast, of course.

The die was cast last night, long before I'd had a chance tp profit from the fabulous advice here, We rubbed the lean thing with Hungarian paprika, cumin, Vietnamese chili paste and thyme, then enclosed it tightly in a foil package. When I came home for lunch I took the silver packet from the fridge and stuck it in a 200 degree oven, very, very dubious. At seven I upwrapped it. Holy, um, Cow. Fork tender, easily sliced and running with jus. (Very spicy, too!) We'll serve it up shortly on mini-baguettes, coleslaw on the side. And if it's on sale at Boback's again for 1.49 a pound, we'll snap up its skinny ass and try out one of your alternative recipes.