SylviaLovegren

I don't bake much anymore being mostly lo-carb but we're going to a potluck Saturday and I have been asked to bring cookies. Since I'm out of practice making my old standbys I thought a simple bar cookie would be safest and picked "Magic Bars" as virtually foolproof and always popular. Ingredients: coconut, graham crackers, choocolate chips, nuts, condensed milk. Sounds amazingly easy, right? In Toronto? No problem, right? Had to go to 3 stores before I found graham crackers (the first supermarket in my neighborhood the clerks had never HEARD of them) and I still haven't found any place that has condensed milk. By the time I assemble all these "exotic" ingredients I would have been able to do 6 dozen hand decorated fancy pants cookies including the burned and misshapen rejects. The strange thing about moving from the States to Canada (and probably vice versa) is that things look very much alike...but they're not.

I guess for diabetics it makes some sense but otherwise the idea of making a cake with PORK RINDS and fake sugar just seems...bizarre. Gluten free and diabetic! ETA: Also, what kind of brain would look at a bag of PORK RINDS (!!!!) and think, "hmmm, I could grind these up and make flour out of 'em and then bake a cake..." Who would think that?

Survey says: wrong! Then you couldn't have the singing ad, "Bring out the Best Foods and bring out the best". My east coast hubby sings it as "Bring out the Hellmans and bring out the best" but when I point out that version doesn't have the same echo effect and pleasing symmetry it falls on deaf ears. I just don't understand people who can be good and decent yet so in error...

Made broiled chicken with za'atar last night. Delicious. I can't believe people who don't do broiled chicken -- it is one of the easiest and tastiest ways of cooking chicken known to man. Even plain chicken with just a bit of salt and pepper comes out full of flavor. Seriously -- try it!

That's what my mom always used for making gravies and cream sauces. The best way to get flour lumps out of anything. I still have hers and pick them up when I find them at garage sales. Haven't ever seen one in a store.

Chicken, absolutely. Also tuna melts. Lamb chops. Charring pepper skins. "Toasting" multiple English muffins at one time. I think the broiler makes more flavorful steaks than my stove-top grill pan but I'm not as good at timing it. We don't have an outdoor grill, so the broiler substitutes for quite a bit.

"Small" ale or "small" beer is low-alcohol, made at home, the normal beverage is the home and suitable for small children when water was is suspect. ETA: And I see towerpine beat me to the small beer!

OK, I haven't made this but I had to share. A 1930s Canadian charity cookbook has a sandwich filling recipe that is: 2 bananas mashed, 3 strips cooked bacon, crumbled, 3 hardboiled egg yolks mashed, mayo to moisten, paprika. My husband wants to try it. The thought of it just makes me gag. What say you?

Would this be similar to the Greek stew recipe you mentioned? http://sweetalmondtr...-polita-la.html Thanks, Kay Yes, very similar! Constantinople Artichokes. My recipe is from Vilma Chantiles "The Foods of Greece" and is a little simpler. No celery, plain water rather than chicken stock, no peas, but otherwise pretty much the same. I'd be curious to do a side-by-side to see which I liked better. The chicken stock one might be richer but Chantiles' recipe has an intense purity of flavor that I love. Incidentally, peas and artichokes stewed together is a very Greek thing to do. ETA: And, I missed it, the Cantiles' recipe has potatoes. They come up deliciously, infused with lemon and artichoke flavor. Yum.

What you said. We had some in the market here (first time I've seen them in a year of living here) and I did exactly what you said except I put a bay leaf and some peppercorns in instead of your herbs. Delicious. There's also a Greek stew recipe that I love that cooks the artichoke hearts with small potatoes, carrots and onions in a garlic/lemon broth. Sensational. You can do it with frozen artichoke hearts (the TJ ones work especially well), but otherwise just reduce regular artichokes to their tender inner leaves and scoop out the furry bits in the middle and toss 'em in. Artichokes may be the most delicious vegetable in the world. Or avocados. One or the other.

That sounds really good. PB -- natural style with salt -- is a "depends on the mood" food. Some days on hearty whole wheat toast all by itself, or sometimes with raisins on top. As a snack on Triscuits. On crusty bread thickly spread with butter, then top with pb, especially if it's chunky style. For PBJ a soft sandwich style bread, untoasted, with both sides spread with pb, then thick layer of Welch's grape jelly in the middle. Since the jelly can't soak into the bread with the layers of pb, it's a very slippery eat, almost guaranteed to result in glops of purple jelly somewhere on the person. I used to like pb and honey mixed on toast, but now I don't. There used to be a peanut butter restaurant in the Village in NYC -- don't know if it's still there. Their butter grilled pb and banana sandwich was real good.

I always thought that Miracle Whip was a commercial version of old-fashioned "Boiled Dressing" -- which was a way of making a mayonnaise type dressing by cooks who didn't have access to oil. It's basically a thick flour based sauce with butter and cream -- and plenty of sugar and vinegar. My mid-western and northwestern great-aunts all used it when I was a kid and it was a must for coleslaw. Mayonnaise was exotic for them since olive oil was rare as hen's teeth on farms in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Here's a recipe: http://southernfood.about.com/cs/saladdressings/a/boileddressing.htm

Nanaimo Bars with cake crumbs in the bottom layer. Any excuse to make Nanaimo Bars is a good one... Your customers may not be familiar with N.B.s but there's always room for new fans!

See, there's your problem right there -- no such thing as a good umeboshi plum.

Lebovitz's blog has a whole page of recommendations for Paris dining, with prices and reviews. A great place to start.

It couldn't be BAD. At worst you'd have a sort of delicious panna cotta instead of an amazingly delicious one. I'm picturing it with a puddle of meyer lemon sauce.

My experience with southern cooks is that they also put chopped sweet pickle (one Georgia woman I know called them "salad chunks") in mayo-based salads, so God knows what they use for mayo.

Don't have personal restaurant experience but a friend bought a space that had an existing restaurant, hoping to pretty much use what they had. Turned out the Health Dept rules had changed completely since the previous restaurant got certified and she had to do all new venting systems and refrigeration systems, adding a huge unexpected bulge to her budget. Check out all bureaucratic details before embarking!

Ice cream? Or a nice old-fashioned Bavarian cream?

Our local liquor store was featuring Cupcake Vodka, Vanilla Vodka, and some other "cake-flavored" vodkas the other day. When I made some comment about gag-inducing, the clerk said "oh no, they're fabulous, lots of fun at parties and they really do taste like cake!" Oy.

Been reading and reading and enjoying and enjoying. Also totally envious. Except for the sweet omelet -- my mom would make them occasionally and while they looked yummy, there was something about the puffiness that made my head ache. Sounds stupid, but it's true. What I did love that she made that was similar but didn't have the headache making puffiness was the Dutch Baby, which is kind of an eggy popover, also baked in the skillet, and served with powdered sugar and lemon juice. Or jam. So glad you're going to be extended!

Grilled or broiled with salt, garlic and either rosemary or oregano (I prefer rosemary), then finished like the Greeks do it (or at least my Greeks) with lemon wedges for each eater to add as much lemon as wanted. The lemon really counteracts the heavy flavor of lamb and makes eating all that crispy delicious fat guilt free (the calories vanish!).

You might look for Ed Behr's long articles on bread in France in the Art of Eating archives. He spent a lot of time looking for good bread and talking to bakers -- the results were a bit depressing but he did find some who still made real bread. Here's a link: http://www.artofeating.com/breadcoll.htm

Since it is in a loaf pan it is described, at least in the U.S., as a "quick bread" (meaning a bread raised with chemical leavens like baking powder or soda rather than slow yeast). If you baked it in a cake pan, you could call it a coffee cake or the new (and annoying, to me) "snacking cake." These are casual cakes not as fine, rich or carefully crafted as a classic "cake". I've heard British folks refer to northern American muffins (such as bran, blueberry, etc.) as "cupcakes" -- although in North America those muffins are too coarse to be considered cupcakes, but are instead another type of quick bread. Confusing, isn't it?

One of my favorite polenta toppers comes out of Cooks Magazine from the 1980s (very different than the current Cooks) -- it's basically bacon, sausages and mushrooms cooked together, pan deglazed with some wine, then topped with a gremolata (finely minced parsley, lemon and garlic) and served over polenta, either soft or fried. The earthiness of the meats/mushrooms is great with the dull sweet taste of the corn, all brightened by the gremolata. Wow, wish I had some right now!