CompassRose

Mennonite cook cheese. It's like a whole potful of stinky runny "inside bits".

Fiddleheads, persimmons, Russet apples (mmm!), the New Orleans-style pralines they make in the candy shop of the next town over only in the summer months, dark fruitcake, blood oranges, Ontario blueberries, wild garlic, daylily buds and nasturtium flowers, fresh chives from the pot outside my door.

That's why I don't really like peanut butter cookies. Even the ones one buys have that taste, at least to me. The Reese's peanut-butter chips make a nice peanut-butter-ish oatmeal cookie...

Out of the jar... with pretty squirts of "real whipped cream" from a pressurized container added on top. I am a simple soul.

The best bit is the bits still in the pot or dish in the kitchen, after supper, when you're cleaning up to put away. They're at that perfect temperature, just a little warm still, the flavours all mellowed, but without the hung-over aspect of reheated "leftovers". A little slice off the edge before you cover it up with foil... rather a lot "stuck" to the pot when you put the rest in a plastic sealer dish, which of course you must nibble to make the dishes easier...

If you can have even a little bit of sugar, the combination of sugar and Splenda is acres better than Splenda alone. Even adding a small amount of a low-glycemic "real" sweetener such as brown rice syrup helps. Splenda by itself is an acquired taste, and the only reason to acquire it is desperation... (although I am that desperate just at present! Even so, I've discovered that a little drop of stevia sweetener in with my Splenda still cuts that sucralose aftertaste.) Oh, and Splenda will "meringue" with egg whites. If you need it to.

Mint, of course, tons of mint. And I know a hillside that is entirely covered with low-growing thyme. Angelica, if you are in for old-fashioned fun and very careful not to get water hemlock. Sorrel will go wild if left; I've found patches of it in overgrown former houselots. Wintergreen.

White, for safety. I'm one of those poor unfortunates who reacts to some reds with the instant splitting headache ("What, is that my brains spilling out onto the table?"). It is better so. Honestly, though, I rarely drink wine.

That is the icing I grew up with, custard buttercream. A common German thing, I believe; at least, it's in my solitary German cookbook and my Oetker Book of Baking (calling, of course, for Oetker pudding rather than Bird's). My mother made it with a cornstarch pudding (for a typical cake, 2 cups milk, 4T starch, 2T sugar, flavouring to taste). Let the pudding cool to room temperature (stirring occasionally to keep a skin from forming), and a full brick of butter warm likewise; it is important that both be the same temperature AND not too cold, or the icing will curdle. Beat butter till creamy, then gradually beat in spoonfuls of pudding, adding a bit more sugar as necessary to taste. If the temperature is not quite right, it may still curdle a bit, but though it won't be perfectly smooth to look at, it will still taste good. In the fridge, it always firmed up a little, and I thought (and still do) that it actually tasted good, and real. While most icings and frostings, commercial or standard, are simply "sweet" if not oversweet.

Nor is there any rule that says she has to do the double cooking... True enough. My (vegetarian) husband is certainly not sharing my current All-Lean-Protein'n'Fibrous-Carbs cycled cutting diet. (He just worries about me on low-carb days.) I make my solitary chicken salads or whatever, and if I have time I do him up some Korean tofu for his salad. Although it is nice to eat at the same table where possible.

Well, sounds to me like there is a certain amount of pouty stubbornness on both sides here. "Tofu nasty! Won't try it!" It's an ingredient. Sounds like she is using it as an ingredient, rather than for the most part presenting it to him bare... just what I would do (and did). Sometimes it adds something, sometimes it's a mistake, sometimes it's just there, but I think that can be said of any ingredient and I do mean any ingredient. And yes, vegan is a lot harder than ovo-lacto (one reason I spent a bare two years as a vegan, but more than ten lacto-ovo), but not necessarily less tasty. What's she doing eating soy, anyway, if her thyroid condition is such that she avoids grains? My understanding was that soy products were worse. Give 'em separate sets of pots for a wedding gift.

As a former veg*n (who fell back into the carnivorous gutter, but that's another story) who dated, during vegan days, a fellow who was not only carnivorous, but "hated" everything not in the Suburban Canadian Food Groups (hamburger, other meats as long as recognizable, frozen peas or corn, potatoes and rice), lemme tell you, either tofu or tempeh is NOT the way to go. Generally speaking. And "simple dishes that allow the flavour of tofu to shine" are not usually howling successes even with vegetarians or semi-veges who haven't tried it before. That is for the adventurous, the bold, the daring. To lure a meat-eater into vegetarianism, the pasta, the casseroles, the comfort food are your best bet. The tofu heavily disguised, marinated, crumbled. The tofu quiche, perhaps, if you are lucky. Once you have your blood-stained friend lured into eating the occasional meatless dinner WITHOUT bothering to get up and throw a steak into the Foreman, then comes the time to get experimental. Start small... perhaps with some of the more "ethnic" main dishes from your favourite Moosewood or Anna Thomas cookbook or Bryanna Clark Grogan cookbook. An exotic spice here, an unfamiliar vegetable there. He'll try it. He'll like it. Get bolder with the tofu. Careful with tempeh; if your target hates mushrooms, chances are s/he will never like tempeh, no matter what you do to it. Then you can slide into the simple grilled tofu topped with miso. Hey, the Ex-Boyfriend said of me after we'd parted, "You know what I really miss about you? Your cooking." I would've preferred he mentioned something else, I suppose... but coming from a guy who formerly thought a President's Choice meat lasagna was the pinnacle of gour-may, it was a compliment.

"Foam" is not a good word. It suggests "inedible skimmed-off discard" to my mind. Or dishwater. Not something I would order off a menu, no matter how fashionable.

We get a lot of useless food-related gifts. Cos, like, we like food, and nobody in our families has a clue about what else we might like. (It could be worse. We like books, too, and there is no thought more horrifying than that of unsolicited gift books!) Let's see... there was the year that was all "tea" -- lots of pretty individual teacups, which are granted very decorative (though I am not big on dust collectors mostly) and many boxes of mostly cheap and nasty flavoured teabags... there was the curliqued "kuntry" aged-metal carousel full of quaint stopper bottles of overaged herbs and spices... the giant alligator-shaped bottle with a weensy bottle of Tabasco in its jaws, full of multi-bean soup mix in layers (now that was just weird)... and this year, a very expensive stainless-steel "oil well" and dripless oil bottle -- for me, who adds barely any fat other than EFAs to my cooking, and hasn't for years. (Fortunately, that one came from a mail-order catalogue from a company of which I am very fond, and I returned it and got something I'd been wanting for months.) And let us not disregard the gigantic boxes of Quality Street filled chocolates that we receive every Yuletide, despite my repeated, and quite blunt, pleas for "no junk food". I don't waste calories on chocolate unless it's worthwhile, and these boxes, along with other odds and sods of cheap sugary treats (being as we always receive them halfway through the two-week holiday off work) go straight into the trash, since I can't pawn them off at the office and don't need clutter round the house.

Cheese or no cheese, speaking as one who grew up eating the baking of a German mother, most Europeans find American baking and dessert recipes far, far, far, far too sweet, even without the cheese. (I'm kind of puzzled by that. There are certainly plenty of European recipes for cheesy sweets -- many of them far odder than a cheesecake brownie. Maybe it was the specific combo of cheese and chocolate.) As do I. I don't like most purchased cakes and desserts for just that reason (although it's a good way to encourage portion control!) and usually cut sugar by half automatically in any American or Canadian recipe, without ever trying it "as written" (blech!). I've never thought to myself "hm, this could've used a bit more sugar" either.

Being that I have blithely substituted all sorts of sugars in my (admittedly weird) baking experiments, and never run into anything like what you've described (I've had other unexpected results), I'd be more likely to suspect that the problem lies with either the flour, or the butter. Both of which may well be substantially different from what you're used to.

You can't find KinderEggs, yt? In Canada (or at least Ontario) they're in every single grocery store. All the time, changing seasonally. (I remember when they were Very Very Special, only appearing at Easter.) Freak, you want freak? My mother. My mother has hoarded, in the cupboard under one of the bookshelves in the living-room, every single KinderEgg toy we have ever got. All of them, I'm not kidding. Why? I don't know. You have to open that particular cupboard door with great, great caution... I keep having this strange feeling, deep in the back of my head, that some day, one of these days, she is going to make a huge killing on EBay with that bizarre collection.

There's something --weird-- about Hershey's, I agree. I mean, despite my slight choccy snobbery, I do eat Cadbury (mmm, Mini Eggs!) and other -- ahem -- chocolate of the common people occasionally (or more, when the $7 bar of Cluizel is not an option!) -- but Hershey's is odd. That bizarre grainy texture... that peculiar almost-burnt flavour, the sweetness simultaneously lacking in chocolatiness. Yeck. I'm conjuring it in my mouth now, and my tongue is not thanking me. I've heard a lot about Slitti. I wish I could find a bar to try.

I'm such a freak. I don't actually like Valrhona. It has an "acrid" aftertaste to me, and I've even tried the fancy single-bean ones. I prefer Callebaut, and Michel Cluizel, and Scharffenberger.

I'm on a cutting diet right now... and carb cycling. No added salt. No sugar. Fibrous carbs, lean protein, lots of the latter. However, I made a promise to myself, a few years back, that I would never eat anything merely because I "had to eat" (six times a day, no less) and I'd never choke down anything that didn't taste at least moderately pleasing. Well, I am amazing myself with the kind of creativity I can dredge out to liven up those skinless, boneless chickie breasts and egg whites! So much so that my co-workers actually envy me my Spartan food, and lean over my desk at Feeding Time to ask what I'm eating "that smells so good." I can't help but feel a modest sense of accomplishment in that.

Is it chocolate? I'll take it. I like it at 99% cocoa solids, black enough to curl the tastebuds -- "just one square will do", the single malt of chocolate. I like it somewhat less black, a cultivated bittersweet. I like a smooth Belgian milk. I like crisp, subtle white chocolate (with of course real cocoa butter) -- never mind that I'm told it isn't chocolate at all. Just don't give me cheap brown waxy stuff masquerading as chocolate, that's all.

I think I probably would take a pass on most organs and eyeball-type things. In any case, I don't feel it's a good idea to eat organs, in this country at least; they tend to stockpile any toxins to which a given beast is exposed. Mmm! I'll have extra pesticides with that kidney! Insects I'm okay with. Not that I'd seek them out, mind you. I rather liked durian. I don't normally care for octopus or squid, but I think that's cos I'm not rich enough to get it consistently prepared properly. I liked it -- in one dish, once. Other than that -- gloing! gloing! The one everyday thing that I won't eat is anything visibly, or perceptibly, greasy or oily. The feel of oil or grease sliding down my throat is one of the most hideous eating experiences I can think of.

Somewhere between 363 (which is what it was when I reorganised the kitchen shelves last spring) and four hundred. I've bought a few more since the reorg, and there are also some oddities (historical and/or literary cookbooks) that don't live in the kitchen.

When I (some day!) finally get the cash and time to start renovating the kitchen (we assure each other it will be any day now) I'm planning a deep drawer for plastic containers, with a wide slot down one side for lids. These things are such a nightmare! Right now they're in one of the side cupboards of the sideboard, and the cats happen to get fed under the sideboard. Open the door too rashly, and at least two or three of the little plastic pests leap down into a food dish or into the water bowl... then one has to wash it. Blah.