LBNoble

Sorry, I won't be able to attend on the 7th-out of town guests & a root canal, could I get any luckier?

fish or shrimp, please...

I'd love to join in-we've just moved back & I'm so happy to be here-thanks to chef Gillian for taking us on (I hope she's in on this!) Barring anything unusual, we should (myself & partner) be available on Tuesday evenings in Sept., I look forward to finding a babysitter & escaping suburbia...Linda

No, but he can reheat w/ a microwave & make coffee. He also never complains about my cooking, which is generally good, but occasionally uninspired. My only wish is that he could be trained to put his dishes in the dishwasher instead of the sink... My son, who is 9, makes great scrambled eggs & can fix sandwiches, do some vegetable prep, & DOES put his dishes in the dishwasher. He also likes to watch 'Iron Chef' with me.

yes

Classic Red Tomato Rice (Arroz a la Mexicana) in Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen is great, a bit labor intensive, because the tomato, garlic , & onion are roasted/grilled, the rice is precooked a bit in oil as someone mentioned earlier. There's more kick than most restaurant rice, because of the jalapenos-it is wonderful...

Well, this is not a J & J recipe, but today I made soup-made stock from smoked turkey & duck carcasses overnight, added wild rice dressing, corn, pickled onions, shredded dark meat-turkey & duck, & to pick it up a bit, a couple of shakes of Sriracha chili sauce-it was pretty good, even my son, who ate next to nothing at dinner yesterday, downed 2 bowls. A large piece of beef sounds good right about now, though, & maybe a cauliflower gratin (wanted to make it for T-day, but knew noone else would eat it-ha, when they have no alternatives...)

well, the smoked duck was less than wonderful-my husband said the duck skin was thick & rubbery, he was wrestling with it to get a pitifully small bit of meat off the carcass. The duck meat tasted fine, dark meat, not greasy, just not very special. I will have to find a better way to cook a duck or give it a pass for awhile. Highlights of the meal (for the first time in a while, it was only my husband & I, 2 kids, ages 8 & 4, & 1 guest,a visiting Polish officer) for me- the turkey-fresh, 13 lbs, brined & smoked-Marian, our Polish friend, seemed amazed at the size of the bird(although it was one of the smallest ones I could get) & said they don't eat much turkey in Poland sauteed cabbage, sauerkraut, shallots, mushrooms, bacon yeast rolls (almost a major goof, found I didn't have yeast that morning, but my neighbor did) eggroll cups w/ chive cream cheese & smoked salmon (based on a Michel Richard recipe, was supposed to be goat cheese, but whatdayaknow, the commissary didn't have goat cheese)-these make a great post-Thanksgiving breakfast cheesecake -I was going to make a pumpkin cheesecake, but thanks to Heather for a post on a different thread, I realized I just don't like pumpkin & why mess up a perfectly good cheesecake, made my standard Frog Commissary recipe, threw in a handful of dried cranberries & some orange oil-it was wonderful, it's almost all gone... Rest of the meal was standards-m.Potatoes/gravy,2 dressings-cornbread & wild rice, greenbean casserole (yuck!), corn, 2 cranberry relishes (canned & w/maple syrup & ginger), pickled onions, pumpkin pie, apple cake, pound cake, assorted appetizers (my dog ate the remains of the cheese tray when we moved in for dinner, probably ate a pound of cheese, also ate a small fresh apple cake when we went to the neighbors for dessert-we waited all night to see if he would get sick) Hope everyone had a peaceful Thanksgiving, I'm looking forward to the next cooking project, I may jump in...

You guys seem to have done duck lately, I picked up the last wretched frozen duck at the commissary when I got my turkey the other day. I'm thinking about throwing it in the smoker with the turkey, but have some questions. Should I brine it (turkey already being brined)? Should I put it on the top rack of the smoker, over the turkey & let the duck fat sort of baste the turkey? or should I put a pan underneath it to catch the fat? I'm thinking that lots of duck fat in my water pan might not be a good thing. I know I need to poke it all over to let the fat escape, but do I need to attempt subcutaneous fat removal? It came with a packet of orange sauce (which will be tossed) & wild rice stuffing (after looking at the ingredients, this may be salvageable). Any & all advice welcomed...

Sam Adams Weiss

I'll babysit for you-we're not quite in DC, about 20-30 minutes (non peak hours) down the GW Parkway at Ft. Belvoir, the army post south of town. I've got a 4 yr. old & a 7 yr old., live next to 2 hoppin' playgrounds, & come summer, the ice cream truck comes through almost every night...

Come on, go ahead & do both & then do a comparison for us (I'd love to live vicariously). Space the dinners one night apart & then do a critique.

Jaymes, I'll take that casserole recipe & save the traditional ones for trips to my favorite Mexican restaurant. Now if I could just figure out the sauce they use, reddish-brown, a little sweet, different from what they use on enchiladas, I guess I could just ask? Linda

Worldknives.com has a small selection of Laguiole knives. I'm waiting for the Camarguais olivewood sommelier knife to be back in stock, might be a few months I've been told. Not a Laguiole, but today I received a #5 drop point hunter, D2 steel, with a bone handle from Gene Ingram. This is a lovely knife, I like having a magnetic knife rack (need more)in the kitchen, so I can look at my favorites. I got a 8" Kai Shun chefs knife for Valentines Day & find that I'm using it alot, it's heavier than my 9" Spyderco...Linda

I'm doing the same thing & have acquired both of these in the last month, as well as World Food Thailand, It Rains Fishes, Dancing Shrimp, Cracking the Coconut, & Asian Grilling (hey, my birthday's coming up!). I vote for HSSS over Thai Food (can't think how I resisted buying it when it first came out & was marked 40% off at Jessicas Biscuit, after keeping it checked out from the library constantly, I finally broke down & bought it.) Also, check out your public library & browse or do an interlibrary loan for titles they don't have to preview them. I'm also lucky that a large oriental market opened right next to my library branch in the last month. Today I got black & white sticky rice, the pot & bamboo steamer, preserved vegetable, dried shrimp, & best of all, a large ceramic mortar w/ wooden (looks like palm, a tiger-striped wood) pestle for $4.99. I wanted stone & the lady said to check back next week. I love this place, I'm just sad we're moving in 2 months...

I did not appreciate coleslaw when I was younger, found most of them too sweet (& as a transplant to the South, did not 'get' coleslaw on top of bbq on a hamburger bun). I like mine w/ handchopped cabbage, green onions, grated carrot (that's enough sweetness for me), dressed w/ mayo, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, & Pickapeppa sauce, heavy on the vinegar (I like it very tangy). It's usually got a lot of liquid after a while, but I just drain some off. Now I just love coleslaw, epecially with cold salmon dressed with lots of lime.

I have a Brinkmann Smoke n' Grill, an electric smoker (a heresy, I know). It's 9 years old, we've moved 6 times, sometimes it's in the shed, sometimes we leave it out & have to dump out the water when it rains. I think we paid about $45 for it & it's definitely been worth it. It doesn't have the 'fiddle' factor of the natural charcoal ones, adjust the vents & the temp, all you have to do is throw in the chips, make sure the water pan doesn't run dry, plug it in & forget it. A few weeks ago, I smoked a turkey breast in an absolute DOWNPOUR, with an umbrella propped over it (I don't recommend this, but it survived & noone was electrocuted). I'd love to have a high-tech smoker, but something like this will get you started & keep you going for awhile. Getting ready to throw on a big Boston butt, to celebrate my DH's homecoming... Linda

thanks for all the great suggestions, I'm going out to pop the turkey in the smoker right now... Linda

Ok, how many of you that eat placenta also change diapers? On a regular basis?

That's just what I was thinking, that after everyone left was going to be the crucial time. I remember after I had my last child, we left the hospital on Wed. & my husband had a jump that weekend(he was gone) & it snowed (we were in CO), it was so peaceful. We live in the DC area & while I haven't found tons of amazing places to shop, the commissary always has very fresh fruit & veg (highest volume of any of the stateside commissaries), & I love the Swiss Bakery in Burke-my kids & I went there on Sunday & got lots of stuff-I thought I had enough pretzel rolls, but my son found them & devoured them, my daughter said, "Mom, why can't we have a bakery in our house?" & I thought, 'why not?' I do less baking now then before I had kids, but surely I can change that, for a while, nobody really wanted to eat bread, so I stopped baking. I need to gear up again...Linda

ok, that's pretty gross-I've heard of asking for your placenta to plant with a tree or something (not that I was thinking about this while giving birth), but roasting it-Yuck! While i was in the midst of labor, all I thought about was when I was going to get my next good Mexican meal (I ate out the night before my scheduled C-section & had my husband bring me some in the hospital) & how soon I could go home...Linda

I live on a military post, a small close-knit community with a high birth rate . We generally do meals for a family that's just had a baby, for a few weeks- my standard offering is a smoked turkey breast, rolls, pasta salad, poundcake, & sparkling cider. I'm altering my usual menu a bit-my neighbor, whose husband works with my husband, will have visitors (family & friends)in for a week or so, along with her husband, who will leave to go back TDY until April. So, I don't think the usual pattern of meals for a few weeks will work for her, since after this week, it will be just her & the baby till next month. I'll try to see if people will do meals next month. I'm going to add some good cheese (Cabot cheddar), some fruit- grapes, strawberries, smoked salmon, a Greek veggie salad-tomatoes, cukes, gr. onions, feta, lemon & olive oil (I'm not happy with the pasta salad, it seems flabby), a fruit tart, & a nice Australian (my neighbor is from Australia) wine, maybe a Riesling (along with the n/a sparkling cider). Does anyone have any suggestions-if you were going to be cooped up with loved ones for a week (with a new baby) what would you like to have on hand?

Mexican food, which was not unusual, since I crave it all the time-but a major pregnancy aversion-microwave popcorn, which my coworkers seemed to make endlessly, causing me to hit the stall. To this day, almost 8 years later, I cannot smell microwave popcorn without starting to gag (my kids eat air-popped)... Linda

233, I also have a modest collection at my mother's house, that I visit. I'm not supposed to be adding another bookshelf, we will be moving in the summer, so for the last year, it's been-'one in, one out', donations to the local library, probably around 20-odd books (& that is really hard to do, the Bernachon chocolate book, well-aged vegetarian tomes, etc.)... Linda

I'll post on this when I receive it & give it a shot, since I'm a total sharpening newbie (it comes with a video). From what I've heard, it's best to maintain knives that are still in pretty decent shape, you need to get the diamond rods for reprofiling. I've also heard it's best to practice with your 'crappy ' knives, I have a long-abused Farberware block-full that's begging to be whipped into shape. After a while I'll try it on my relatively new, should still be sharp, Spydercos...Linda