CompassRose

But apparently to provide excellent servings of it on demand to others. Preferably wearing something revealing, uncomfortable and impractical. I think that's a whole other issue, though, and not really applicable to Our Case Study, Francine.

I finally read the article -- and like everyone else, my reaction is "wha?" Who cares? This wouldn't even be news if she had a twig and berries. Stupid. It's because she's a woman and can't cook -- and pardon me, perhaps it's my generation (and I'm not really that young any more) but this truly is not notable in the 21st century.

I'd rather have two pickles than a pickle and a sandwich. I adore pickled anything. The tartness! the sparkly excitement on the tongue! the slightly decadent deliberate offness of naturally pickled things like kraut and kimchi! that wonderful crunchy yet not raw texture!

They do have to be food-grade. One excellent source of ingestion-quality essential oils that I know of is Robert et Fils; unfortunately, you need to dig out somebody medically qualified to actually place the order, they do not sell their fine products to the common people. Their cinnamon oil lends a whole new dimension to baking.

Get a sous-chef/chief bottlewasher to dedicate the weekend with you. My first experiences cooking Indian food used up pretty much every pot, dish and receptacle I owned and covered them with turmeric. Indian food absolutely forces you to understand the concept of mise en place.

Woo! another one of my very, very favourites! If you've made any Indian food, this isn't any more complicated really. This is both A.'s and my most beloved Indian cookbook. Delicious! And the toasted dals used as a seasoning are really interesting and unusual (if you're used to "regular" restaurant Indian fare).

Two of my very favourites mentioned in this list! Hot Sour Salty Sweet, as others have said, has some really tasty items, which aren't even that terribly complicated. And The Passionate Vegetarian is one of my favourite cookbooks ever for both readability and recipes! Ah, well. I loved reading Cookwise, but the only thing I've made from it is the Real N'awlins Pralines -- which, however, are now a requisite during the holiday season. (There's a candy store in Stratford which makes them -- and they won't make them during the winter, claiming they don't turn out! Funny, that!) Granted, I probably don't need the book for them any more, as I know the recipe (and the half or the quarter (a.k.a. single serving ) recipe... I'm something of a praline addict... by heart now. I don't much care for the Vegetarian Times cookbook (it mostly exemplifies the boringly righteous side of veg. cooking), but A. likes it. I have a lot of cookbooks I've never used. Some of them were worth it from a literary standpoint (I doubt I'll ever make anything from, for example, MFK Fisher's cookbook (what's it called) or Yankee Hill Country Cooking) and some of them, not so much.

Hm, Coconut Lagoon sounds delightful -- I'll have to try that next time I'm there. After discussion, we actually ended up getting takeout from the Pearl of India in Orleans, since my family wanted some too, and my mother didn't think it would be worth it to get "all dressed up" and make a big trip for Ceylonta (you'd have to know my mother! ). It was about what you'd expect from Indian in Orleans -- but not the worst Indian I've had, at any rate. A bit on the oily side. The saag panir was very good, and so was their dal; the samosas and onion bhaji were passable (but I didn't like the weird, yogourty dipping sauce they had at all -- much prefer a nice tamarind chutney); the naan was nice even taken out. Let's see, what else was there? Cauliflower (what's the word for cauliflower) aloo which my husband and I really liked, but my mother thought was "too spicy" (it wasn't); an eggplant bharta which was extremely bland; and my dad and I shared rogan josh and quite liked it (though again, my mother, who "didn't want any meat" when we ordered, tried this, made a big fuss about how overspicy it was, then tried some more so she could complain some more ). I thought the portions were rather smallish. All of that and a rice pilaf (which I didn't try) was entirely eaten up by five people in one meal -- each of the main dishes was in a little 250g takeout container.

thanks for the review sites! It's been twenty years since I actually lived in Ottawa, so I'm out of the loop... I can suggest Ethiopian (we're very fond of that too) but I was told that East Indian was the Constant Craving as he moped around the mess hall.

Bumping in the hopes of getting a few more Ottawa East Indian recs, besides Ceylonta and Curry Village (which by the mere mention of "another in Kingston" makes me go ) I've tried a search, but somebody who is a mod on the India and Indian Cuisine boards keeps posting to the Ottawa threads, and, well, 27 pages! Good vegetarian options are a must -- this is for my poor husband, who has been suffering nobly through Basic Training and living on overcooked broccoli and grey hardboiled eggs for nearly three months. (Apparently the Canadian Forces, despite lip service, are still weak on vegetarian accommodation.) Our original plans for a Montreal meetup got canned, so now it's Easter in Ottawa. Or, alternatively, can anybody comment on the following, which I got off the Ottawa Restaurant review site -- each one, however, has a negative review or two thrown in among the positive ones... Light of India on Bank; Pearl of India in Orleans (I'm finding it somewhat difficult to get round the concept of a decent Indian restaurant in Orleans, but am willing to be surprised); Taj Mahal on Bank?

I love that too. But then, I like hot pepper with almost anything. (There's a store in Stratford that sells cayenne peanut brittle. Also very tasty.) My favourite regular everyday disgusting combination is salsa stirred into cottage cheese. Looks like cat barf from a particularly unhappy animal, tastes yummy.

I'm one of the habitually tardy, and I have missed flights and other important life events because of it. I don't like time; I don't like being pinned to it; I don't think of time except when forced. I don't think I'm being hostile, even subconsciously -- but maybe I am... Over the years, I've managed to mostly pare my tardiness down from twenty-forty minutes to ten or fifteen (largely by setting my clocks fifteen minutes fast, and refusing to think that it means I "really" have fifteen extra minutes). But I can wait for other late people, or in lines forever, if I have to, and rarely notice how long I wait.

I'm another one who mostly doesn't care. Things I don't want to see: like JennotJenn, any racist tattoos. Or hair that looks like it's going to end up in my food -- crazy dreads or giant Goth teases. But I feel the same way about girly girl big hair, poufed and sprayed. Rather see it tied back. And long painted nails? Blech.

Ever heard of a small snack? ← Like I said, eating first so I can go out and spend a bunch of cash to eat? Right. The point, please? How 'bout I stay home, and cook my own food, and restaurateurs can just do without my particular segment of revenue?

What annoys you about the wait? Honestly, the fact that I'm hypoglycemic. If I wait thirty or forty unplanned minutes for a table, then another thirty minutes (at least) for my order to be taken, and to return from the kitchen, then I am usually no longer in a state to enjoy the food; I'm bitchy, headachey, so hungry I can't taste it, and generally no longer fun. How long is reasonable to wait for your table? Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Same amount of time you'd give a friend who was late, yo. Does the order in which people are seated seem unfair to you? No. It's usually pretty clear when someone's called ahead or got a reservation; they give their names at the door. Ever decide to try to call ahead? Sometimes, sure. At what point do you simply leave and go somewhere else to eat? At the fifteen-twenty minute point, usually. The entire ruining of the rest of my day/night after a blood sugar crash isn't worth it, and I truly resent the idea of eating first in order to go out to eat.

Oh, there's tons of menstrual ones. None that I've been personally told, but recorded in folklore studies? Oh yes. Menstruating women can't make cheese, or butter, successfully; can't beat egg whites; will make milk spoil instead of turning into yogourt or whatever; cakes will fall; shouldn't touch all sorts of foods or they'll spoil faster... It is a carryover from menstrual taboos, but it's interesting that a lot of them are of the "food magic" variety -- things like thickening sauces or making butter where the mechanism of how it happens isn't clear.

My favourite moist bran muffin recipes are the ones including various sorts of fruit puree (such as pumpkin or applesauce) or crushed pineapple, oil or not. That tends to hold the moisture better than a lot of oil in my experience. I've also tried a few in which one soaks the bran first in hot boiling water; that also tends to keep it from sucking up all the liquid in the recipe later in the baking process.

Ah! Raw dough! If you eat it, it will blow up in your stomach and you'll die! (which if it was true, would have me in my grave hundreds of times over).

I've never had the Sara Lee banana cake (or anything Sara Lee for that matter) but the icing looks just like an icing my mother used to make for her quick scratch cakes, which started with brown sugar and butter cooked together. I can't help thinking that actual banana in a "buttercream" sounds sort of eugh. Especially in a cake that's meant to sit around on a shelf for a while. While a brown sugar/banana combination would be yummy!

The only one I can remember (and this is curious, because I was never really allowed to help in the kitchen) is my mother telling me that you always have to stir a cornstarch pudding (or anything thickened with starch) in one direction, or it won't set. I can't remember though whether the direction was sunwise or widdershins.

My favourite pancakes are those poofy Dutch Baby things, with a nice fruit compote on top (and whipped cream ). I'm also extremely fond of a cornmeal pancake, and even fonder of German potato pancakes (which I like best with sour cream and a sprinkle of garlic salt -- the only use I've ever found for garlic salt). However, the pancake I eat most often is the Body for Life-style oatmeal/cottage cheese pancake, as it is a nice complete meal of protein and carb, and very portable. These I usually bake as one big cake in the oven, swirled with some sugar-free jam. They're actually pretty good; when I'm eating "on plan" they're probably my favourite meal of the day.

Well. Don't feel bad. Even though I read this lo! not two days ago, I just did much the same thing. Only the pot had held the cheese sauce for my macaroni and cheese. Ouch. The sauce had blue cheese in it. Is that an excuse? I didn't think so.

Miracle Whip. Oh, shudder! I used to think I hated potato salad (me! A good mostly-German girl, who loves potato anything!) But no, what I hated was the (shudder) Miracle Sh!t that my mother and everyone else in my childhood circle used to glue together potato salad in a sickly sweetish glop. I like real mayonnaise a lot (my favourite purchased kind is a British thing called "salad cream") as long as it has not a trace of sweet in it. I've made real mayo a couple times (that belongs in the Kitchen Miracles thread -- so nifty!). However, my favourite mayo-like substance is in fact a tofu concoction based on Mollie Katzen's Tofu Aioili. Easy -- so easy! -- tasty, low in fat and calories so that it can be consumed in dollops guilt-free, plus without the nagging worry about raw egg things, or the PITA of gently-heating-without-scrambling your egg stuff to avoid that. I am one of those who dips her fries in her mayo. Yum!

Frankly, yes, I won't eat beef. I've added back chicken, fish, occasional other meats, but not beef, and mad cow is why. Why? Because I do think there's an effort to sweep the whole possibility of BSE right under the rug in order to preserve international trade, and I think it's going to backfire. And already is. "We have no BSE here in North America." "Oh, woop, we have some BSE in Canada. But only one or two little cases. And it's not in the US, nope, even though we're on the same continent." "Oh, woop, we have some in the US. But we can blame Canada. And that's all, that's it, and we're not going to test unless we have to, in case we find more that didn't come from up North." Yeah. Anyone Canadian remember the tainted blood scandal? "Our blood donations are clean, absolutely clean -- oh. You and dozens of your fellow transfusion recipients got hepatitis? Woop." I do think that the vast majority of herds and cattle are probably fine, at this point. But I don't think enough is being done to first, test on a broad scale, and second, get the recycled animal bits out of the feed supply. And until that happens, I am not gonna be adding steak to my menu.

I am a fanatic about food. I do spend a lot of time thinking about it, and thinking about exactly what key is gonna fit my craving slot at any particular moment. And you know what? Sometimes that key is a McDonalds eggamuffin and a greasy hash brown, and no two ways about it. I usually make everything I eat more or less from scratch, just because, well, I do -- a lot of times it isn't fancy (in fact, a lot of times it's very much less than fancy -- can you say cold unseasoned chickened breast and sweet potato, ditto?) and sometimes it's a day-long extravaganza of grinding my own spice blends. It's all fun -- whether plotting out the "perfect" clean fitness diet, or a nine-course Indian feast. As for apologising for my frozen vegetables -- well, melkor down in Sunny California can bite my butt. I live in Ontario, and lemme tell you, the "fresh" broccoli is looking-- and tasting-- mighty weary by the time it wends its way here from his homeland. Mebbe one day we will Live Off the Land as A. wants to do, and grow us organic greens four seasons round in cold frames like the Nearings (and no doubt become similarly offbeat in many other facets of our lives). At present, though, we're in a house in the urban core with barely enough yardspace for the dog to piss in, and it rained so much that even my piddly six heritage tomato plants got the rot and died last year. And fresh veggies are no way, no how a good enough reason for me to move to the land of the Shrub.