maggiethecat

That sounds just right, but you're gonna have to fiddle your pan, your pastry and your filling to give us just right. Keller's custard fest is great, except it takes too long to cook and the pastry deteriorates. The Julia version I made in my French tart pan as a newlywed were awesome, but maybe too much crust in the ratio to custard. This is a worthy topic to explore.

A friend of the family worked for Vachon - we used to get boxes of the stuff occasionally. Can't bring myself to try them again - rather live with the memory of how good they were - cause I'm sure they suck now! When I was twelve, heaven was a Joe Louis washed down with Grape Crush. Yeah, I'd rather have the experience just live on in memory...

Bebe is the coolest kitty in her class. Sanrio sticks it to us pricewise here in the USA, but as a Hello Kitty fan I can't think it costs too much. If I didn't eat every lunch at home, I'd be doing the 2-Day 1 click. Deeply cool.

Until I was forty, I could jump out of bed, grab a cookie and a coffee and live my life. Whether it was incipient menopause or my body telling me "Girl, get real!" I began to feel dizzy, stupid and sick if I didn't have serious protein with a side of carbs for breakfast.When I had a job the solution was simple: when I packed my lunch I made a sandwich and a half -- tuna salad, egg salad, meatloaf, Italian beef -- whatever was on offer. I'd snarf that half breakfast sandwich in the car, with coffee, on the way to work and my whole day was improved. When I wasn't organized I bought a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from the drive through at the handy McDonalds. Eat hearty in the am, and you won't be hitting the snack machine at work before ten.

Way to go! 172,835.

There was no pepper other than a green pepper in the town in which I grew up. My mother used them extravagantly in Country Captains and curries. I adore them sauteed in a pepper and egg sandwich, and I agree that they're superior as a case for a stuffed pepper. Bottom line: cook 'em. They suck raw.

The smell of bacon and onions could be proof of a kind Greater Power. I bet She'd like the scent of Cinnamon rolls in the morning.

The Appletini -- or any martini not made with gin and vermouth

Fist bump! A man who gets it. *What cookies?

In baking, the roles and flavor of the fats is Turn Turn Turn. Butter in a carrot cake doesn't add flavor and ruins texture. Use the canola oil. Shortening makes for the tenderest oatmeal cookie, and butter is overwhelmed by the spices. And, when making shortbread or puff pastry or any number of other desserts:accept no substitutes; butter is essential. Margarine is the lipid of Satan.

Sorry! Hoover Doover is my friend Clive's semi-ironic pronunciation of hors d'ouevres. It has entered the family lexicon.

I'm the Hoover Lady, because I'm always asked to take a tray of dang hoover doovers to any potluck I attend. Once, just once I'd live to take any other course.

Hands down my favorite! Lucky, ungrateful Ed.

I can still produce the YSL jacket I sewed from Vogue Pattern Originals thirty years ago. Still fits, still awesome. And lest peeps think that the discussion of VPOs is off-topic, you're wrong.Women of my generation learned about the real thing, about learning the real deal technically about cooking and sewing. When we weren't sewing a designer original we were reading Simone Beck and James Beard. BTW, P, I am so with you about the next day puree and the dash of cream. Fresh herbs ....yum!

Priscilla: What a delight to see you back again at Daily Gullet, and writing inimitably about one of my favorite topics. I don't make vegetable soup as often as I should, and there's no excuse -- I love soup and I own vegetables.Your story reminds me of a dish Jacques Pepin and his wife call "Refrigerator Soup." They pull out every vegetable in the fridge and make a soup exactly to your specs. It's one of their favorite things. Hmmm. I have some cabbage...

I'm with baroness: I've never had a decent cuppa tea, let alone a great one, in a restaurant.And like goldie, I'll put up any double crust fruit pie coming from my kitchen against that of any professional baker's. (And I'm, at best, a journeywoman pastry chef.)

Rotting citrus. Strident, pungent, beyond nasty.

Use the Lady Tools: Tweezers, hairpins . Or the multisexual paper clips.

If I don't own at least two peelers I get a tad panicky. I've found that peelers get lost faster than anything else I use in the kitchen.

I'm reading Marcia Adams's "More Recipes From Quilt Country" a further examination of Amish/Mennonite cooking. (If you don't own it, or the original "Cooking from Quilt Country" race to amazon.com and buy them now.) I was struck at how much vinegar was used in these recipes: meats, salads, vegetables, even desserts.

Wanting to spend huge amounts on oil. Delighting in ways to dispose of it. Deep frying for more than twenty people. If these reasons don't resonate, spend 30 bucks on our beloved Presto Multicooker. I've owned deep fryers that cost 100X as much, and this baby works. best.Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's bad. Not that a commercial fryer wouldn't be cool. Especially if you wanted to set up that masterpiece of French Canadian commercialism, the frite wagon. Or a pop up corn dog place.

I'm seriously befuddled. I've never had a soggy bottom crust result from making a double crust fruit pie with raw fruit, sugar and cornstarch. A big ole pyrex pie plate and a tour in the oven is all I use. All raw pastry all the way. Just remember to sprinkle the bottom crust with flour before you add the fruit.

Leek and Potato Soup. It's good hot, good chilled in its Vichyssoise manifestation, but the flavors are fuller at room temp.

Tell us why you're pre-baking pie shells and then perhaps I can help.

Tomatoes aren't overrepresented -- they're the victims of their success. Peppers, eggplants, all those moles are not necessarily tomato based. Tomatoes are easy to work into sauces of many countries and regions -- stuffed cabbage rolls from Eastern Europe, for example. I take your interesting point, but the bounty of international tomato sauces (tomato chutney) might just be because tomatoes rule.