maggiethecat

Ronnie and chefg: Has this ever been done before? This is exciting, provocative and instructional -- I'll be waiting eargerly for the progress reports. Thank you both.

I'm in.

I'm shamefully late to this thread, and other people have said it better. Fact is, as a twenty-year old bride I had three cookbooks: "Joy" and "Mastering the Art," both volumes. The Rombauers were there for biscuits and Country Captain and such. Otherwise, Julia Child literally taught me how to cook. I'd plan dinner from her cookbooks, read them in bed, make stock and duxelles and puff pastry. My teacher taught me to fear nothing in the kitchem. What an amazingly powerful gift.

When I eventually grow up, I want to be exactly like JoAnn -- what a cool lady. And every bite I ate at Upperline was sensational. So was the service and the sisterhood in the Ladies Room. And I snatched a piece of duck from my companion's plate ---yes, Rachel, pulled duck. A dish whose time has come.

Because it's useless to try to plant basil until the soil is nicely warmed, I'm harvesting basil in late September in this Zone Five Garden. And I have a whole lotta basil to deal with. (Yes, I have a little pot of nursery basil on the patio for midsummer snipping.) The spinach sounds like a good idea, likewise parsley if you want to fluff up the green leafy proportion in your pesto. Basil is great because even a little of its flavour goes a long way. Making pesto purely with pignoli would involve pawning the family silver, given the volume of my late September basil harvest. I add walnuts, almonds or filberts. It's all good. And I freeze the pesto in big lumps in small freezer baggies. I know that following the stern Italian dictum of To every thing there is a season, (etc.) I shouldn't be dressing pasta with pesto in February. To that I give a very expressive Florentine hand signal-- it's so wonderful to taste summer in the dreary Midwesten midwinter.

I'm going to have to call in sick, take a day off , raise my baking bar and make this object of desire . Thank you for the recipe, and the photo; I might even dream about it tonight.

Misery loves company. Four healthy tomato plants, about five tomatoes. It's gonna hit the fifties tonight , so the Love Apples and the basil I always plant (hardcore, in a row, from seed) aren't going anywhere. But my, I've had lovely hollyhocks. Hollyhocks are the new delphiums around here. A hardy, tall, reliable biennial that reseeds itself, and bears blossoms that look like upside-down tutus.

Todd: Pick up that gaunlet flung your way! Everyone else, too. Wow, my favourite writing , golf-playing, cookin' and eatin' Canadian minister --- you rock.

I didn't eat enough corn, dammit. You did better. Tell us about it.

Some poor kids have to go back to school tomorrow, in their baggy cargo shorts and the boring relentless August heat. (There should be a law: School starts after Labor Day and ends after Memorial Day. But I digress.) Pull out your Sparkle Gel Pen, your cool Trapper Keeper and write the obligatory essay, with a twist. Tell us about What You Ate this Summer. Write long and detailed. Let us sniff the lighter fluid, pick blueberries, skin and bone whitefish. Break my heart with pictures of your heirloom tomatoes --mine plain suck. Smoke butt, grill brats, put up strawberry jam. Or tell us how you flit from Korean BBQ joints in LA to Per Se in Manhatten. Post pix. The Smackdown will soon be revamped and rethought, all for the greater glory of you, my dear writers, and eGullet. In honor of the last Smackdown of old times I'm sweetening the purse. Steven has shipped me a huge savoury box of virgin review-copy cookbooks. It gets better. First Prize: Three books. Second Prize: Two Books Third Prize: One book. And, the glory, of course. Deadline: September 23rd. Tell me about your blueberry picking Here

All my men cook.

What a great thread, especially as I'm making meatballs tonight, in a formula similar to Carrot Top's. After an embarrassingly long life loving and making meatballs, I've come around to the "Bake on a Sheetpan" method. Just toss them around with a spatula occasionally, and make a whole bunch. Drop them into the sauce for that underappreciated staple of my girlhood suppers -- Spaghetti and Meatball Night was as bliss to me and my siblings-- then freeze the remainder for whatever clever purposes you can conjure. Meatball sandwiches? A simmer in sweet and sour sauce, with the obligatory toothpick garnish? Or lovely meaty orbs ready to plunk into your next batch of sauce. And of course, fat splattering in a self-cleaning oven is preferable to fat splattering all over the cooktop.

I like this book too, a lot, and should I see a decent pint of oystrers in oysterless Illinois, I'm going to give this recipe a shot. (Doesn't Adams explain somewhere that because so many Amish and Mennonites were Pennsylvania transplants they took the fondness for seafood with them to Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Southwestern Ontario?) There has to be some deep affinity between oysters and saltines. Heck, packets of Lance's finest came with my dozen on the half shell at Felix's Oyster Bar in New Orleans. (We had oyster stew Christmas Eve too, but there was never enough left to serve en casserole. Dammit.)

Brooks: Since visiting New Orleans I read your digest semi-religiously, while trying to conquer a few of the Deadly Sins--Envy and Gluttony spring to mind immediately. But what caught my eye especially in the last few entries was the mention of blueberries! I had no idea they grew that far south, picking them as I did as a little girl the woods behind my subdivision in the Great White North. Bluberries on the bayou: who woulda thunk?

Exactly right. I suppose that I might not be anyone's idea of an ideal tenent on paper: I smoke, cook "weird smelling" food and tend to play tango a little too loud on Friday nights. But I'm as mild and lawabiding as any vegan!

Ms. Jude, you are example to us all! Never let mere convenience and common sense prevent you from acquiring a new cookbook. 69, 311.

Quantity. That's all it is.

No, it's comforting to know that I'm relatively small-time on this thread. I means I have Licence to Buy! Welcome to eGullet, mefestus and other newcomers. 69,018. Whohoo! I'm just over the 13 mile mark.

Are you sure you don't mean "soda crackers"? Soda biscuits are something you bake yourself, aren't they? Thinking back, my aforementioned Lancashire Granny called them soda biscuits, although I've certainly heard them called soda crackers. My fellow eGulls, thanks for your generosity here. How could I have forgotten the Kraft Single folded into quarters? I'll take one for the Team and embark on what I suspect will be a fruitless endeavor to improve perfection: I'm going to make Saltines (or soda crackers) from scratch. Marian Cunningham has a recipe on-line somewhere.

Care to expound? Any recipe of heyjude's is golden.

You totally rock. Indulge, relax, who cares?

Saltines with Cheese Whiz was the junk food of my youth, and God, I loved it. Today, Saltines seem to function mostly as a Distant Early Warning in a cubicle: if you see a woman with a sleeve of Saltines on her desk, she's pregnant and ain't sayin' yet. The guys have a bag of Cheetos for their midmorning snack. Full disclosure: For reasons I can't fully comprehend, I'm writing a piece about Saltines. Damn , I should be typing away about Molecular Gastronomy or something sexy, but I'm stuck on Saltines. Help a girl out: Saltines were used in escallopes, as breading, as filler for a meat loaf. I'm trolling for further adventures with Saltines, like their place on a platter of of oysters in New Orleans (Lance's) or the mattress for a canned sardine at one of my Grandmother's Liverpudlian girlfriends at High Tea---Toronto, circa 1963. Any salty reminiscences or cool recipes?

I think these have sat in the meat drawer of my fridge for ( ) almost a year, been pressed into service, and yes...I'm still alive! The money I spent on the KA meat grinder/sausage-stuffer attachment was one of the two or three best investments I've ever made in kitchen equipment. Seriously.

Oh my gosh: This brought a reminiscent giggle, to say nothing of head-scratching in disbelief that I'd forgotten Laurentide. Dude, if you'd ordered an O'Keefe in Montreal we would have stuck a big "I'm a loser" sign on your back. Regional, indeed! Gee, I'd love an O'Keefe right now--way better than Bud or Miller. Where was the original brewery?

I'm with you here, on both counts. Good craft beers flourish on either side of the border. And I don't think it's just expat nostalgia that makes me agree with you about the superiority of many Canadian mass-produced brewskis. They have more flavour and character than their American counterparts. I started drinking pitchers of Ex at The Swiss Hut on Sherbrooke when I was at McGill -- still love the stuff. But how could I have forgotten Cinquante, my brother's beer of choice back in the day? I've been away too long.