Norm Matthews

I have a white porcelain sink and I have to use Soft Scrub on it every day to get rid of the staining and there is nothing to do about the black dots that appear with it gets chipped. There are white resin sinks that look like enameled porcelain. I'd suggest you take a look at those for your next kitchen.

My ex and I owned a Korean restaurant for about 9 years and all the food was cooked from scratch. But food was chopped, ahead of time- up to a hour ahead. The "sous chef" ( me often times) would keep the various vegetable trays filled so the chef (MIL) could just get what she needed for the dish and add the meat, fowl or fish which was also prepared ahead of time, weighed and portioned and refrigerated earlier that same day or frozen as was the case with the egg rolls, squid, etc. I would not say it was harder, just different, fresher and efficient. I know and am friends with a few Chinese restaurant owners and have been in their kitchens. The chef can make a big difference in how one dish or the next tastes and one thing that they have that you don't find in any other restaurants is a special stove for woks that put out a tremendous amount of BTUs. I think that is one of the things that make authentic Chinese food taste the way is does. BTW there is a Chinese restaurant in town that has a lot of Chinese exchange students coming from the next town over to order "real Chinese food" and it is nothing like you see in Chinese restaurants that cater mostly to non Chinese patrons. Up until a few years ago I think most locally owned, ethnic restaurants worked pretty much like that but recently I have seen huge refrigerated trucks delivering pre made Chinese food to one of the buffet places near-by. So with that development, some of them may become a lot like the truck stops along the highway where a chicken fried steak tastes the same no matter where you go.

The best service/food (and it was consistently great) was at the Kona Kai in Kansas City. It isn't there any more though. The best Mahi Mahi was at a restaurant on the pier close by Pike's Market in Seattle. The best Cioppino was at a restaurant in Pismo on the beach. The scenery may have been part of that though. We had a corner table by the window and watched the sunset over the Pacific and I was dining with Joanie Sommers.

In my opinion, weighing ingredients only assures relative consistency. It doe not assure that the recipe will be reliable or turn out better than if you measure by volume. It only assures that you will get the same results the next time as you did this time. edited to correct typo

The thing I was trying to get across is that perhaps they are vague on purpose. Cooks have measured by instinct and approximation since forever. Maybe a few fractions of an inch or a mm or two doesn't really matter.

OMG I am so embarrassed. I am 67 years old and never ONCE got out a ruler and measured my matchstick cuts. I must have been doing it wrong for decades. Shame on me for being so sloppy.

I made Italian sausage with the trimmings from the spare ribs and added it to other ingredients to make lasagna today.

Smoked BBQ Spare Ribs I got some spare ribs and trimmed them St. Louis. St. Louis isn't a special kind of rib or recipe, it means that regular spare ribs have been trimmer of the flap, the boneless part at the top of the ribs and the membrane plus have had the last couple of small ribs removed and extra fat trimmed away. I had almost three pounds of trimmings which I ground up and will use part of it in a lasagna in the next few days and froze the rest, possibly to end up in a meatloaf at some future date. I liberally rubbed the cut ribs with The Squeal Hog Rub from Oklahoma Joe's in Kansas City. After marinating them in the rub wrapped in plastic and foil in the refrigerator over night, I fired up the smoker. It has seen better days but never was much compared to ones I've had before. I am looking forward to having a decent one again. I use charcoal and hickory chunks, not chips. I do not soak the wood in water because I want it to smoke, not steam. Blue smoke is good. If you can't see smoke but smell it, that is OK too. You don't want billowing gray smoke. That means the wood is burning, not smoking. That is not good tasting or good for you. White smoke isn't smoke. It is steam and while steam is going to keep your meat moist, it also makes it difficult to control the heat in the smoke chamber and it does not add very much smoke flavor. You get white smoke from water evaporating from water soaked wood chips. After 4 1/2 hours in the smoker, part of the time in foil, and then basted with a sauce over direct heat for a few minutes while the sauce cooked in.

The foam is coagulated gunky bits of protein. If you don't skim it, your are likely to have cloudy stock as the clumps of foam break up into tiny particles dispersed throughout the liquid. I have a tiny (about 2-inch diameter), flat strainer on a long handle that is great for skimming -- I can gently push the solid stuff out of the way and scoop out the crud. (It looks like a miniature version of a strainer for cleaning out a deep-fryer.) Before I got that, I used a very fine small strainer; the only problem with it was having to keep my hand directly over the steaming liquid to dip it in. I don't put parsley or other small particles of stuff in the stock (or salt) until after I have skimmed the foam. I use a fat separator to scoop up the foam then pour the broth back in the pot and discard the foam. Then I add the other "floaty" ingredients and seasonings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071900347.html Unripened tomatoes continue to ripen off the vine if not held at temperatures below 50 degrees. Fully ripened tomatoes don't suffer from chilling injury as much and it does no harm to them unless held for more than a few days, then the texture can turn mealy. In the meantime, it is perfectly OK to refrigerate tomatoes to slow the over ripening process. Also cut tomatoes should be refrigerated. They stop maturing too and keep longer as well. Green tomatoes picked to prevent frost damage will continue to ripen slowly at cool, not cold temperatures. They should be kept out of sunlight but warmer storage speeds the ripening.

Its true that once a tomato is refrigerated, it stops ripening but a ripe tomato will last longer in the refrigerator than one left out after it has reached its peak and I can't tell any difference between a perfectly ripe cold tomato and a perfectly ripe room temp. tomato except that one is cold.

I meant for this thread to be taken lightly and I am glad to see some are responding in that spirit, but at the same time it seems some chain restaurants must think that the elderly are inferior or at least seem to treat them that way. I once was in a chain place and ordered a BLT. It was more than I cared to eat but who is going to ask for a take out bag for the remnants of a soggy sandwich? So next time I ordered the same sandwich from the senior menu. What arrived was less bread, less bacon, the tomato was nearly non-existant and i could swear the bread had been toasted a couple days ago. There were no sides and the price was only a dollar less. Of course higher end places don't offer discounts. What elderly person who wants or needs to save money would even think about going to Chez Coyteux and expect to get a couple dollars off?

The first time I got one, the girl gave it to me and I had not asked for it- I didn't think I was old enough. I asked how old do you have to be? She shrugged and said "I don't know, you just look old" LOL I was always carded in bars long after I was plenty old enough so I thought I'd have to start showing my ID again to prove i was old enough. I have noticed some places have a seniors menu section with skimpy meals that are over priced for the value and sometimes are made like my taste buds are as gone as my memory. Other places have only one or two regular items discounted for seniors. The best ones give an across the board discount if you are old enough and ask for it. I suspect most of you are not that old yet. Just letting you know what to expect in the future.

A cookbook was given me for my birthday and son gave me some recipes from on line to try so I picked two from the cookbook and one from son and went shopping for meals for this week. i got some beef, pork ribs and chicken. The chicken is one my son wanted me to make called Fricase de Pollo. I also made a cheese sauce and steamed asparagus. We had it for lunch. The recipe is at http://normmatthews.blogspot.com/ I made a broth with the skin, bones and back and used it for the cooking liquid instead of the water from the can of peas in the recipe. I used frozen peas. Son thinks I should have made it with whole chicken pieces on the bone with skin and served it over rice. He may be right but I knew Cassie does not like meat in the bone and I though rice and potatoes would be a bit much. Cassie said her dad made something like this with left overs and they had it wrapped in tortillas.

They are both hearty entrees. One is more than just a soup, the other almost a stew. I think either would be quite filling by itself and kind of boring, textrually, to serve both back to back.

Tilapia with red cherry salsa, rice, peas and cucumber salad

Sanituff rubber cutting boards are USDA approved, NSF listed and "Manufactured with MicroStop™ anti-microbial rubber compound."

These are my rubber cutting boards. One is on top of the other separated by some rubber shelf liner so air can circulate under both of them. I don't use one over the sink but rather let one overlap the sink so when I have scraps, I just push them off into the sink or a trash bowl in the sink under the cutting board. Likewise the stuff that gets cut is pulled off into a pot or basket either in front or into one in the sink. For me it is fast and efficient. No slippage at all and no serious warpage problems since both are stored flat. They stand up after cleaning on both sides to dry but spend most of the time laying down like you see here. As said before they win no prized for aesthetics but the function far outweighs that issue for me and I am a retired art teacher. LOL

I am a firm fan of rubber cutting boards. I have had some in the kitchen for everyday use for 30 years. They don't smell after a fairly short time and I use an electric sander on them about once a year. They have the density of wood and are not bouncy or squishy like you think when someone mentions rubber. They are dishwasher safe, far outlast wood. They are NSF approved. Here are some links I have heard that the glue used to laminate bamboo is hard on knives and one I have split not long after I got it. I have an Epicurian cutting board but only bring it out when extra space is needed for cutting as when there are three people working at the same time. I don't especially think too highly of it, especially not fond of the price. http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/foodservice/handling/cutting-boards/sani-tuff-all-rubber-cutting-board-12-x-18-x-three-quarter-inch-thick?utm_source=amaz_shop&utm_medium=shp&utm_campaign=Cutting-Boards-amaz_shop&infoParam.campaignId=T9I http://www.centralrestaurant.com/search.aspx?page=1&keywords=rubber%20cutting%20boards&sort_by_field=Sortrank:DESC&cid=WSPCGOPVVFPR25224&ctt_id=56235332&ctt_adnw=Google&ctt_ch=ps&ctt_entity=kw&ctt_cli=8x19305x340052x2030816&ctt_kw=rubber%20cutting%20board&ctt_adid=6798850936&ctt_nwtype=search&gclid=CPCf8ejYiKoCFcHs7Qod_RCw2A http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=safari&rls=en&q=rubber+cutting+boards&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=3555528056430935512&sa=X&ei=fP4iTq2pJqi20AHOnJ2mAw&ved=0CGUQ8wIwAA#ps-sellers

Today I made a New England boiled dinner. I know, I know it is much too hot to be doing that kind of meal but who knew two weeks ago that it would be so hot. That is when the kids asked me to make corned beef and it takes two weeks to cure brisket into corned beef. So it was ready today and got made. There is the corned beef plus carrots, potatoes, turnips, mushrooms, cabbage and couscous. Not shown are chilled beets and a three bean salad. Dessert was left over yesterday's birthday cake. Recipe for the corned beef at http://normmatthews.blogspot.com/

That may explain why some chain restaurants are successful despite the food being very mediocre or even poor. I ate at one such place last night. Had BBQ chicken. It was cooked dry and stringy, baked, not BBQ except for the sauce which was burnt. Corn on the cob water logged. Muffin must have been a couple days old. Yet people wait in line to get in.

I always thought aloof sarcasm was the result of smugness.

I have seen beautiful, amazingly appointed, very modern kitchens and the cooks speciality is making reservations. I have seen cooks whose only knife is a dime store paring knife which just came out of the dishwasher who turn out some very good meals. They usually take a little longer to do it though.

Yesterday while making the clams and mussels, I noticed an unopened stick of pepperoni so decided to make pizza today. I also saw some green and red peppers in the fridge yesterday and was going to use those too but I didn't see them today so left them out. I used some tomato sauce from a can with some basil from the garden, onion, garlic, sage and fennel for the sauce. Topped that with some parm. cheese, hamburger, pepperoni, Genoa salami, ham and black olives. Used mozzarella and some left over stick cheese on top.

I suppose it would help if they defined "chef" James Beard would bristle if someone called him a chef. At one time the only ones entitled to be called chef were graduates from the Cordon Bleu. It was the title bestowed by them upon graduation as I understand it. Now the term is applied to a head of a commercial kitchen. Even some graduates of any cooking school think of themselves as chefs even though they may not even have a job yet. I know some people who consider themselves as a chef if they teach cooking classes. I don't know what the state of some culinary institutions are today but I see some signs that make me wonder about the credentials of their graduates. I also wonder how many go to a cooking school thinking the job the get will be glamorous and make them wealthy. What are the motivations of those people? I know reality cooking shows are unreal but if some of those contestants are really chefs, I wonder at their level of training too. Perhaps totally unrelated but I was an art teacher. When I got my degree, I had to get a degree in art before I could get certification as a teacher. Now days teachers have to major in education and pick up art classes here and there. Have cooking schools watered down their cooking emphasis for classes in management and nutrition? I don't know.