maggiethecat

65,972. 12.49 miles. (Reading of your finds, I am so jealous I could spit.)

America’s Second Harvest is the biggest hunger-relief organization in the United States, a food-rescue SWAT team that collects the food we waste, from huge corporate donors like General Foods to the neighborhood pizza joint that tosses the leftover pies Second Harvest’s way. Thanks to Second Harvest, poor kids in after-school programs can eat something fresh, hot and tasty. The other day, they knocked on eGullet’s door. To mark National Hunger Day, June 3rd, Second Harvest is inviting Americans to a nationwide potluck called “One Big Table, ” a fundraiser that encourages us to host a meal, collect the recipes for the dishes we take, and pass the hat around. The unique attitudes and interests of the eGullet membership put us in a special position to promote and particpate in this event; a coincidence that is not lost on Second Harvest. Between now and the weekend of the Fourth, eGulls will be hosting Memorial Day cookouts, Father’s Day fish fries, graduation galas, bachelorette bashes, Canada Day celebrations. Please consider making these festivities part of Second Harvests’ One Big Table. If your social calendar looks skimpy, Second Harvest also sponsors a Virtual Potluck: send them a recipe and a donation. One buck from you will get a meal to fifteen hungry people. Invitations and recipe cards can be downloaded from their website, www.secondharvest.org The Second Harvest folks are very serious about collecting recipes, and they're expecting great things from eGullet, so let's not let them down. The incentive: Molly O’Neill will be testing the best for inclusion in an upcoming “One Big Table” cookbook – wouldn’t that be a nice notch on your knife? At eGullet, we are serious about recipes too, so we’re kicking incentive up another notch with the eGRA/Second Harvest Recipe Smackdown. The Rules and Regs: 1)Host your potluck on your patio, or in eGullet Potluck cyberspace. Feel free to make arrangements right on this thread. 2)Teams must have a minimum of four people, maximum of ten. 3)One person acts as Host. 4)All your recipes must be posted into RecipeGullet to be eligible. 5)Only one existing recipe from eGRA may be used, the rest must be new to RecipeGullet. 6)After cleaning the kitchen and rubbing the wine stains from the carpet, the Host will forward the recipe links to the judges, and send the donations to Second Harvest. eGullet will forward the recipes to Second Harvest. 7)The Host will post here about the potluck. Lots of pix of the dishes and of Egulls at their most, um, festive would be well received. 8)One recipe and one Host will be selected for special recognition. Panel of Judges: Marlene, Jonathan Day, Dave the Cook and me. Timeframe: Now through the Fifth of July. Prizes: For the eGull with the winning recipe, a gift certificate to the eGullet store. To the Host, a swell cookbook.

Gagging with a geoduck? Eat the evidence.

At eGullet, we pen paeans to the life-affirming qualities of food, family and flan. We are serious about self-improvement through smoking, the art of tourne, love via larb. We reach for all things bright and beautiful; we braise all creatures great and small. That we frequently use the f word doesn't detract from the fact that we're passionate idealists, a foodloving band of brothers and saucy sisters. Maybe it's time to work a stage on the dark side. Write a short-short or a snippet of a screenplay where food is the murder weapon. You pick your genre. Eggs in a hard-boiled, crumpets in a cosy, poutine in a police procedural... Forty lashes with a wet noodle is a slow, agonizing way to go. He had it coming. Your slot on the docket: Slay us here.

Marcella has a recipe that involves stuffing the bottoms, or hearts if you prefer, with their (peeled) chopped stems, parsley, parm, s&p and butter. Set them on their little, well, bottoms in a covered pan containing a half inch of water and a nice dab of butter. She says they cook in 10-30 minutes (keep testing, and check that the pan doesn't dry out.) Reduce the liquid to a couple of tablespoons, anoint the chokes, and serve lukewarm.

I do this too, but unlike you, I didn't invent it myself. Delia Smith showed me how in her Christmas cookbook --her dynamite sausage roll recipe. It's a truly grate (er, sorry,) trick.

Me too. And dumplin, this thread isn't a contest; if it were, I would be nowhere near the front of the pack! (Keep working on the MIL.) 65,553.

Heck no! A Golden Gully is much more prestigious, the acceptance speeches are shorter and better written, and the prize is a cookbook, not some silly doorstop in the form of a naked dude.

Sorry, Seth, wrong crowd here! 65,127.

True enough, all of it. Especially the MFKF collected correspondence. Does raise an interesting question, though. The alternative being unthinkable around here, are you suggesting that Ray Sokolov and Tony Bourdain (to name onlly two out of a good-sized field of candidates) wear pantihose? Funny, somehow I hadn't figured either of them as the type. Giggle. Check out the edit line on my original post!

Great question, Art, and I've been cogitating for a couple of days. I think my simple-mided answer is this: the writing must be so good that it screams "Read me!" from two rooms away, and insists that I drop the laundry, the rake or the mouse. I'm old enough to resent the time obligation spent reading "Great Writing" if it doesn't turn me on. I want plot, snappy dialogue, a distinct voice, cheap thrills, and information. Oh! Sex and violence are fine too. As I get older I'm glad I read the great feminine triumverate -- David, Fisher, Grigson-- in my youth, when I lapped up scenery and self-examination. They are all great writers --Grigson being my favourite, because she always writes about something. "Food With the Famous " is a flat-out great book. At forty- mumble I find MFK unbearably sad now, a melancholy bedside companion. (I am aware that this says more about me than it does about the work of writers whose pantihose I'm unworthy to wash.) Edited to undo some sloppy cutting and pasting.

Well, duh, Liz, your hair always looks great! I was wallowing in the burst of blossom in my part of the world today --the crabapples, the redbuds, all those trees clad in bridal white or prom pink. Then I thought about honeysuckle, what an erotic name it is, its divine fragrance, and how i'd like to encapsulate in on a plate. Serious sicko.

Oh Brooks, I'm having a hard time picturing you on the banks of the Red and the Assiniboine --that's about as far from NO as I can imagine on this continent. Have a wonderful time. I know there are Manitobans out here who can give you the skinnyand I promise to quiz my neighbours, whose son went to the University of Manitoba, and hopefully return with something reputable. (If this is your first visit to Canada, you have to stop into a Tim Hortons, kind of the Canadian version of Waffle House) Let's hear it from the Peg.

andie: What a trip down Memory Lane; my mother used that exact recipe in , oh, 1966? I can hear the Tijuana Brass ! I'm going to try it again, and use it for the base for a dynamite Shepherd's Pie. (I swiped her copy of the "I Hate to Cook Book.")

Ruth, I snorted half a martini onto my screen. You are indeed a bad, bad girl. 65, 0889. (Lisa...lovely!)

What do you think of Turner's assertion that

Across the street from these establishments I had a very decent home-style pork chop dinner at a place I want to call the Hollywood Diner -- someone will correct me if I'm wrong about the name.

And the days dwindle down to a precious few... Oops! Wrong month. I'm closing this contest at midnight, May 1, in a time zone of your choice.

Mine too! 63,581.

Well, it doesn't get used that often, but when there is a need I feel terribly smug that I bought it at Crate and Barrel twenty-mumble years ago; it probably cost three bucks back then. A cherry/olive pitter. Works like a dream, looks like a medieval instrument of torture -- (ideal for popping the eyeballs of saints.)

Now, talk about Pizza Poetry (and History and Engineering) -- Dear ronnie, this is a great post! Thank you-- I guess!. (I am starving, waiting for dinner and live an hour away from Marisa's, you fiend!) Mike may have achieved great things in his former career, but apparently he's found his Bliss (and yours) in the pizza biz. Now if he'd only consider opening a joint in the Western burbs... Note to self: Check out American Pie.

Have another count, verjuice -- books about food count! And bloviatrix, dear, thanks for the address; I'll shoot it to my newlt minted egull daughter in LA, should she miss it here. Oh dear yes, Heather.63,564.

I can attest to this, and yes, the wait is enlivened by the people-watching. The problem was resisting the urge to grab the sammies from the hands of the folks who passed me on the way out. Welcome, dear woncarway! Let's hear lots from you.

heyjude, what a lovely excursion. This cookbook thread can always count on you! 63,462.

I'll say! What a haul, my Friend. I agree with you about the Time- Life cookbooks of that era; those folks really did it right. I pulled out the "Preserving" volume of the Good Cook series a few weeks ago, in search of a marmelade recipe. It was right there, and I'd spent a couple of hours looking through the rest of my shelves for a recipe that called for 100% Seville oranges. It was a reminder: Always check out the T-L series, even if I hadn't looked at them for a couple of years. 63, 454. Laurie, that's 12.01 miles, within striking distance of Trio for say, ronnie_suburban, but only about a third of the way for me!