NeroW

It's a little bit like a Quiche Lorraine . . . but sounds way better. Great idea.

I showed my friend (at whose house we will be having the luau) the eGCI thread on roasting a pig. She freaked out when she saw its face. Her big worry is finding a place to purchase a pig, and then transporting it in her car. Say we were to get a 70 - 80 pounder--that's still the size of a pretty big dog. Do you put it in a styrofoam ice chest, or what?

It's a depressing life. I need my official transcripts for a James Beard scholarship I'm applying for, and they cost $5. I don't have $5! I need that $5 for the train. But I do have some leftover Goya rice in my backpack, to eat before my next class.

Neil operates on the Awesome Plane, and I operate on the . . . Not Awesome Plane . . . and I've always been scared to try the grabbing thing. I just use a thermometer

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Thanks, slkinsey. If this is a go, I plan to line the pit with rocks, and then build a huge-ass fire and let it burn completely down before proceeding. I know I will need to work quickly to complete the pit once I rake the fire out.

I have glazed 10" cakes and the like with jam (between the layers) and then ganache, but Sinclair is right, this would be wild-sweet for a wedding cake.

DON'T test it with your bare hands. Don't listen to NSM. He operates on a different plane than most of the rest of us do And like kthull says, make sure to carefully pour the syrup between the beater and the side of the bowl (closer to the side than the beater).

I don't read magazines. I just like the pretty pictures.

It's a luau, so we are thinking of doing the hot-rocks method. "Joy of Cooking" actually describes this in some detail. I think it's a go, I just have to figure out where to get the pig. This is in the Ann Arbor area, and damn if I can find somewhere to order a suckling pig from.

The weird thing is, I'm in college again right now, but it's culinary college, and the College Food Rules still apply. I thought I would be eating relatively well: either I thought I'd have more money than I do or I thought the school would feed me more or I thought that my "heightened sensibilities about food" would mean I'd eat better, through . . . osmosis, I guess. During the semester I eat: Ramen (bought the last 7 chicken-flavored Ramen from the neighborhood store last night), sometimes Ramen with Crema Mexicana because it really cuts the salty mouth-stinging taste, that Goya rice mix, Kraft Mac and Cheese, bizarre salads my roommate concocts of tunafish and cannellini beans and cabbage, just because my body cries for the cabbage, RED BEANS AND RICE with lots of vinegar, tamales from the man on the street who sells them for $1, grilled cheese and tomato soup (can), vending machine food from school (current favorite: turkey and cheese sandwich on white, Doritos, Mountain Dew), and beer. Not as much beer as I'd like, but still: I'd be lying if I said it weren't a food group. How's this for depressing? I just looked in my cupboards, and here's what's in there: cookie sprinkles (green and multi-colored) Sugar In The Raw an old, old, old jar of honey that was here when we moved in Saltines Wondra A.P. flour dried peaches cornstarch Thai bird chilies dried mangoes teas 7 chicken-flavored Ramen Goya "Primavera" rice dinner And the refrigerator: mayonnaise milk half a head of green cabbage green olives leftover Goya "Broccoli and Cheese" rice dinner And the freezer: ice Also, I drink instant coffee. I'm drinking it right now.

No. It's really easy, even with wet hands.

Hey everyone. We are thinking about pit-roasting a pig for the Luau we have every Memorial Day. Questions: do you really roast the whole thing? With its head and all? Any experiences?

That happens to me a lot. I never know if I should say anything, or keep my mouth shut. I've even started a thread on it here before, but I can't find it.

I have the 37000 series with the black handle. I have only ever used one screen

I enjoy this topic and there have been a lot of threads on this already. I wish they could all be merged.

All I EVER think about is food. Sometimes sex, but almost always food. I don't think about money, or politics, or how my hair looks. Just food.

Geeeeez, I go away for a week and you guys cook your asses off. Here was my week: Friday night (April 23): "Family meal" at school. Wasn't too great as I was working FOH and of course the BOH ate most of everything good before they told us we could come eat, too. I think I snatched some rice pilaf and a coconut cupcake. But that's OK, spring break was just beginning. Drank a lot of Pabst. Saturday night: at my dad's house, who is on Atkins, so . . . big-ass porterhouses, charcoal grilled, with much lemon juice squeezed over the top. Red bell peppers stuffed with grilled corn, cherry tomatoes, sauteed onion, basil, and Parmigiano. Served the steaks on a bed of arugula and shaved Parm. More grilled corn, on the cob. My dad said he'd make a dietary exception for the grilled corn. Sunday: helped my boyfriend move into our new place, but I won't be there for another few months yet. Ate at a local restaurant. Starving. Ate an entire bacon cheeseburger, 4 potato skins, and half his fajitas. Monday: first night in the new place and without most of my gear. Made an 8 or 10 egg fritatta in his lone pan--sauteed red bells, shallots, garlic, basil, and creminis. Grilled baguette. Chopped romaine with very basic vinaigrette. Tuesday: dressed-up Muir Glen pasta sauce by slow-cooking it for hours with bacon fat, caramelized onion, and garlic. Served over cavatappi, and sided with roasted red bell and Asiago crostini (topped with chiffonade of basil), and more romaine with a roasted garlic vin. Mixed some good tuna into the pasta and topped with lardons. Wednesday: Honey-Nut Cheerios. And Pabst. Then late at night I made scrambled eggs with sharp cheddar, potato-bread toast with butter, and bacon. And a few more Pabst. Thursday: family meal at the country club where I will be doing my internship. I've been volunteering there over my spring break. It was so awesome, I completely forget what the hell it was. No, wait! It was chicken strips and curly fries. Aaaah. Chicken strips. I had one in each pocket, munching them whilst working the line. Friday: made the family meal at the club, the chef gave me about 15 minutes to do it. "Surprise!" he said. I made a chopped salad with bleu cheese and apple, grilled bread with tomato/mozz, scallion, and angel hair with a mushroom-marsala-garlic sauce. My favorite smell in the world may well be a pan of mushrooms that has just been deglazed with marsala. Then for dinner we ate at a local restaurant. I had a fully unsatisfactory steak sandwich and a measly-ass amount of fries. But that's OK. I was eating largely so I could drink more alcohol. Saturday: a Kentucky Derby party at my mom's friends' house. Shitloads of apps. I made phyllo "flags"--one with sauteed leeks, chevre, and bacon, and another with sauteed red bells, shiitakes, Asiago, and onion. All veg sauteed in bacon fat, naturally. Among other things, there were miniature reubens (I ate like 10 of those), several salmon mousses, a cheese platter with a loverly derby sage, Camembert, and smoked cheddar, chicken pizzas in a Thai peanut sauce, dessert platters (with nice mini cheesecakes, and not-so-nice baklava ), pork tenderloin and pesto roulades with a mayonnaise-ish sauce, a kick-ass tomatillo salsa, olives, nuts, etc., etc. And Jell-O shots. Holy shit. A LOT of Jell-O shots. My boyfriend and I ended up taking home a casserole dish full of the leftover shots, lying on the living room floor at 2 AM, trying to eat the shots without using our hands. Like a couple of dogs. Tonight: had to tone it down, man. Only did one leftover Jell-O shot. Grilled 2 sides of salmon on my mom's convection grill, brushed with garlic butter. Also grilled (each skewered separately): cherry tomatoes, parboiled fingerling potatoes, shrimps, cremini mushrooms, and Vidalia onions. Cooked off some nice scallops in a cast-iron with a quick sauce of brandy, butter, and brown sugar. Very nice caramel. Now spring break is over and I'm back to Chicago, where I will once again subsist on beer and whatever I can steal from the walk-ins at school.

I can't say I run into this problem on a day-to-day basis, but good luck with it, man.

Yes, and yes!

Lookin' good, folks. Tonight for dinner I made Kraft Mac and Cheese. Now I am going to eat a Russel Stover Vanilla Cream Egg.

PBR, Old Style, Negro Modelo, MGD, Warsteiner, Grolsch.

I don't like it when people talk about leprosy.

One time we had a dinner party for 20 or 25 people and it was a "Risk!" party, so everyone sat around and had a good time playing Risk while my sister and I busted our asses off for the 2nd day in a row to serve all this food from many different countries. Anyway, all the knife/hot oil/hard work was done, so I got stoned, and then I put the super-delicious triple-cheese macaroni in the oven to bake (this was the American dish). Well, I forgot to take the Saran Wrap off the top. It baked right into the macaroni, and you couldn't tell it was there, and God help us, we served it anyway. I've done a lot of dumb shit here and there. I always manage to start kitchen towels on fire in front of other people--which is not a head-turner in a professional kitchen, but when you do it in someone's house, they have a cow about it.

That's odd. The only time I've ever been inside a WalMart, it was in Billings. Montana.