rhomp2002

Sent this posting to a friend of mine who grew up in Fort Washington area and this was her reeply: knew the place well - it was located just off the NE corner of W 181 and St Nicolas Ave. The bus stop were I waited for the bus to go up to George Washington HS was in front of the bakery I along with many others would stop in there before getting on the bus to buy a Black and White cookie; it was a really big cookie for 25 cents. Next store to them was a Baraccini's Chocolate store where we purchased a good bar of chocolate for 10 cents. Gruenbaum's on St Nich closed down many years ago. They had a second bakery on Ft Washington and West 187th St but that also closed down. Blame in on changing demographics. Where you had a big pocket of German Jews (many Holocaust survivors) has now become a Dominican enclave. BTW Gruenbaum's had delicious fresh rye bread and rugulah.

I ran into the type of thing that really frosts me at the Supermarket here in Queens. I was going to buy some berries and there was a woman there who was picking the berries out of one container and putting them into another that she was going to buy. The ones she didn't want she put back into one to put on the counter. Then she did the same to bunches of grapes, taking them from one bag and putting the ones from another she did not want into one to go to the shelf. She worked her way all through the produce department doing this so she had all the perfect fruit and veggies. She was using her bare hands to do all this stuff. Really disgusted me to see her doing this - and she thought it was perfectly fine to do so.

I have Paula's old cookbook of Moroccan cooking from the 1970's and bought a tagine pot from tagines.com. I made the tagines just the way she had in the recipe and they all turned out wonderful. Then I decided to get adventurous and just started winging it with all kinds of veggies and combinations and have yet to find something that does not taste fantastic. Only miss I had was one time I cooked the chicken way too long when I got stuck in a long work-related phone call and it got a little dry and one time I added too much liquid and it overflowed onto the cooktop. Taught me that I only needed about 1/2 cup or so of liquid when I use the tagine. I have just ordered the new cookbook so I can try more of her wonderful recipes. The ones so far have all been wonderful. I have even gotten into making my own preserved lemons. I went to the Asian market here in Queens and bought preserved lemons and found that 3 lemons cost me almost $5 whereas I could make my own for about a buck for 3 lemons. Did not realize it would be so easy to do so I now have a jar in my fridge of preserved lemons home made at all times.

That looks fantastic but I am deathly allergic to mushrooms. The rest of it looks fine for me though. Any suggestions for something that can be substituted for mushrooms that will allow this to be made?

Problem is that I love to read the books of cuisine I know nothing about and that leads to my buying more pots and pans (think tagine, wok, paella pan, etc) which leads to my reading more of that cuisine which leads to more cookbooks which leads to more pots and pans and other equipment which leads to my being broke.

I have around 150 and still look through the church group cookbooks at the yard sales for more. Lately I have been going for bread books as I recently started making my own bread again for the first time since I was a kid and that is a LONG time ago.