mskerr

I meant to buy issue 1 used on Amazon a few months but was short on disposable income. Just now I went to put all four issues in my cart, only to find that the first issue is now worth $88 minimum used, and $200 new. Any ideas on how to get my hands on a cheaper volume 1? Edited to add: it was $8 last time I looked! Could kick myself.

I too use heaps of paper towels, but I often use them to start the fireplace, or the campfire - all that bacon grease is useful! Edited to add: ditto with laundry lint.

Nice! I happen to have tons of time to listen to stuff as well, so that works great. will check it out.

So almost a year has passed since I started this thread, and I have yet to take a cooking class nor find one that teaches what I'm looking for at an affordable price for me. Funny enough, I could take an entire yearlong non-degree program for aspiring culinary professionals at the City College San Fran for free ($500 for supplies) if I could handle living in the city for a year (not gonna happen), but the three- or five- day classes that interest me run $600-$2000 - usually $1000+ for three days, without accommodation. I have found plenty of three-hour classes that I'd take if traveling (on knife skills, for ex) but as far as just getting a bit of basic instruction on proper roasting, braising, sauté etc, or baking artisanal bread, the multiple-day courses I've looked at (Zingerman's Bake-cations, CIA bootcamp, Santa Fe Cooking School bootcamp, San Fran Baking Institute, to name a few) are just shockingly expensive to me. (As an aside, I sometimes wonder if these classes are geared toward the sort of home cook who has a Viking Range and copper pans and a primo stand mixer with all the attachments, but hardly cooks, to paraphrase another thread on here... you know, someone with money to burn who would be thrilled to spend $85 on a class to learn what Harissa is). I could take some community college classes, but for one thing, I'm not sure how good the local school is. Also, my schedule and my partner's are both totally erratic and we share a vehicle and the school is an hour away, and we are hoping to take off for a few months, etc, etc, so I can't really commit to regular attendance for a 4 month class. Any more leads for me? Or can someone lend me their Italian grand mom for some cooking lessons? In the meanwhile, I have just used my latest paycheck to order some James Peterson's books (Sauces, Soups, and Cooking), the Zwilling (sp?) knife skills book, Taste What You're Missing, Ideas in Food: Why Great Recipes Work, and some new kitchen equipment, so that should keep my self-education truckin' for a while, plus the constant stacks of cookbooks from the library, America's Test Kitchen and Ripert videos, McGee books, not to mention eG.

All these ideas are great and are getting the old brain wheels spinning for me... cheers, and keep them coming!

Agreed! And anyway, there's a difference between being a drunk on your free time/ while closing up at the end of the night, vs. being too drunk to work the line or function at work. ...Time for another homemade watermelon whiskey shot, followed by PBR.

I also remembered that I like making King Cake for Mardi Gras - one of the few sweets I really like. I do like to make some jambalaya or another NOLA dish (total amateur attempts), though I haven't yet experienced much true Mardi Gras spirit, being so far removed from the action and not knowing any native Louisianians for inspiration. It is a goal though, and probably one of the easiest holidays to convince people to celebrate! I also liked an idea I read on another thread, where the author had started a tradition of fondue for Christmas. (Yes, I am craving fondue like crazy so forgive its continually popping up. Only have had it once, need to make up for lost time.) I like the idea of a nice, simple holiday tradition. Spending two days or so preparing for a big holiday feast takes away from the simple pleasure of a holiday in my mind. Especially being an amateur cook prone to overambition and then confusion. But, a nice Christmas fondue with wine and a few simple vegetable side dishes, and maybe some meat and oil in another pot, sounds like a great way to really enjoy a holiday. (I should note, this would be for me and my mate, and possibly some friends, but not a huge family gathering or anything - I like to keep it simple.) Please, keep the ideas coming!

I do make my mate one of his favorites for his bday, and am happy to take requests. This usually means a ground beef, cheese, and onion pie, maybe some potatoes and peas and carrots. Nothing out of the ordinary, but always appreciated. Good ideas, cheers. I'm a bit too shy to directly ask what people enjoy of mine, but from their compliments, my mate and our friends seem to especially enjoy my lamb and bean soup (big meaty fatty chunks left on the bone, and lots of marrow for body... Guys especially love it), burgers, amateur tacos, and chocolate whiskey cake. But I'm not quite seeing any traditions starting from this... Other than a good Mexican holiday party with lots of cheap beer and not-so-cheap tequila. I live in California, so this is not such a stretch from a lot of everyday meals or casual get-togethers. And I am totally intrigued by the Day of the Dead. Sports are great for traditions too, huh? I don't have anything too set yet, but during rugby games, we do like mimosas, or else beer and "rugby toast" (open-faced broiled sandwiches with butter, vegemite, tomatoes, onions, and cheddar), and antipodean dishes. Simple things! I've been fantasizing about winter cooking, anticipating hot, comforting meals on cold days. I would like to start doing fondue and hot pots, so maybe I will make that into a semi-regular tradition. Hot pot's probably good for the odds and ends in the fridge, huh? And leftovers from Sunday roasts could be made into pasties or meat pies for the week a my favorites. This is a very small start, but a start at least.

I realized the other day that I don't have any food traditions. I can't really think of any family traditions either, aside from the usual Thanksgiving meal - though it was usually only semi-homemade, and a couple of years came from Boston Market. (No complaints, I loved it at the time.) And it was usually just my immediate family at holiday meals, big family dinners were rarer, and never at our house. Granted, my extended family probably has some traditions (especially the full on Irish-Americans) but I don't know the really extended family all that well and I live across the country. In any event, my upbringing was very "white bread" - mostly a blur of spaghetti, jarred marinara, frozen veggie mix, boxed taco mix, Campbell's tomato soup... You get the idea. My family, god bless 'em, always put a square meal on the table, but I am interested in more advanced and varied cooking from scratch now that I'm older... and, not having kids, I have all day to fiddle around in the kitchen. I've been on a bit of a binge reading about all sorts of traditions from all over the world, and I am especially interested in how they travel to America. Pig roasts, harvests, Maori hangis, Swiss fondue, feijoada on the weekends, traditional Chinese holiday meals, Mardi Gras spreads - they all interest me! Any tips on how to start some traditions? For reference, again, I live across the country from my family, and at least a couple hours away from most of my friends -for now - so it's not as easy as just making Sunday a big social feasting day, and such. Most of my friends are 30-or-40 -something dudes whose idea of a tradition is a bunch of beers and a big piece of meat on the grill at the end of the night (though they love a good Sunday roast, from growing up). Some of my friends are definitely up for more adventurous/ethnic/more modern fare, but I tend to see them irregularly. I myself am way more interested in different sorts of ethnic traditions, and their Americanized forms after being brought here by immigrants, than in the usual turkey for Thanksgiving, ham on Christmas, lamb on Easter, unless these had some sort of interesting new twist on them. I'm also more interested in making a few really tasty, intriguing dishes than just getting stuffed silly on a massive feast. Others might disagree with me on that though! When this hot weather breaks, Sunday roasts sound like a great way to start - but then what? I'm open to weekly traditions, seasonal ones, holiday ones, just-for-the-hell-of-it ones.

Yeah, I've been getting this too lately, usually with the occasional nostalgic super-processed thing I buy, like Velveeta Shells and Cheese. I used to think it was amazing as a teen on the rare occasion my friends' parents made. Now, it tastes bland and congeals if you don't gulp it down right away - probably why we did gulp it down as kids. But, we never ate the old-school "cream of whatever"-type casseroles, for better or worse. And I must say they intrigue me. I wouldn't turn down an invite to a potluck in North Dakota. Mostly, I feel nostalgic for the food other people ate. I'm a sucker for cookbooks that wax on about older, simpler times in Georgia or New Orleans or Montana, catching fish with brothers and then frying it up in Grandma's cast-iron pan with some salt pork and gravy. So the old-school stuff really intrigues me.

Totally. I have a secret love for those church-supper casseroles that involve canned cream of mushroom soup and cornflakes on the top. I'd never make one (in this house nobody but me would eat it) so potlucks are my only source. I think it might be time to start a new thread on old-school and/or lovable lowbrow casseroles. I don't think I ever ate a casserole in my childhood. My parents had probably been ruined on them by their parents in the 60s. But, I must confess, I love reading about broccoli-cheese casserole, or hash brown casserole, or anything involving potatoes, bacon, sour cream and/or cheese and some sort of crunch topping. (Jello and marshmallows aren't my thing, but I do think it's cool that people harbor nostalgia for those sorts of dishes.)

Great ideas! I am obsessed with onions and try to add them to just about everything. Thanks!

It would probably work to save the fat from, say, browning ground beef which usually gets discarded, huh? (Frozen bacon fat would work great too, but Kenji's idea was to get beef flavor throughout the whole burger.) Or, if I'm trimming off strips of fat from hunks of beef, could I render the fat and then freeze that? Hmm, I was gonna say the same thing would work with lamb (and I always have lots of lamb fat around), but I read recently that lamb fat is indigestible? Cheers for everyone else's ideas! Keep 'em coming.

These both sound delicious, cheers!

Looks great, thanks! I happen to have more Swiss chard than I know what to do with this summer, so that's an extra plus.

I've never cooked anything with pomegranate concentrate or molasses. I do have a lot of fatty odd-sized lamb chunks here, as well as some hand-chopped beef, and roasted chicken breasts. How would you recommend cooking with pom. concentrate to a newbie? For reference, the brand I have is Carl'o, from Glendale, CA.

Kind of like crap, actually; I've listened to people talk about this sort of thing many times. Eeeh... somehow, it's being 'just conversation' doesn't quite cut it. I can recall sitting with an older woman (who was in no way in denial or unhappy generally with being older), who sobbed for quite a while over hearing some younger colleagues playfully refer to her and her reproductive organs as dried up, among other choice things. It wasn't meant to be hostile, the girls were just trying to sound clever to each other, but it hurt this other woman like hell. I can remember my horrified shock at hearing a friend casually mention that someone 'tried to Jew me out of [something or other]', at hearing a colleague dismissively ascribe several workers' on-the-dot clocking-out as being due to their being 'lazy ni--ers'. It just sits wrong. Besides, that sort of label is pretty lazy, surely we can do better than that! I certainly wouldn't be overjoyed at hearing cruel jokes about an older colleagues' "dried-up reproductive organs" either, or racist remarks. I don't think that casually remarking that alcoholic cooks aren't exactly unknown, is akin to racism or overtly being an a-hole. I happen to think that the drinking habits of many of my colleagues has way more to do with the circumstances of the job, the working hours, the pressure, the aforementioned fact that food and drink tend to go well together, etc. This isn't anything about someone's race, age, gender, etc. Thank you. I am not at all into political correctness for the sake of political correctness rather than more-or-less informed conversation, and yes, this has nothing to do with cooking or the gist of my post. May I refer you to the comment in question? : Alcoholic, yes, but that's pretty normal for us cooks right? I think there's a difference between joking that a liking for the booze is pretty normal for us cooks, based on my own empirical experience (at least, most of the cooks I know would have no problem owning up to it, nor would the motley crüe of random cooks you can usually meet at a dive bar in a city pounding whiskey well before noon), vs. making a blanket statement 'tarring' all cooks 'with the same brush'... as if any blanket statement I make on an Internet forum is going to have much bearing on the larger world, anyway. I don't see the word "all" in the comment you originally took issue with. And really, if you're taking a joke made by some Argentinian gauchos to Mr. bourdain, while they drink wine and cook their steaks, that seriously- I guess we just have differences of opinion! Edited again for spelling, grammar, etc.

^^^ This. I know I'm a very good cook, and most stuff I make is very yummy, but after being immersed in the sight and smell of the raw and cooked ingredients, I lose all of my appetite. Yes, exactly. Very strange isn't it? For me, I think I start to approach it almost like work instead of pleasure (even while cooking at home) because I want to always be learning, improving, etc. I think you pinpointed it with "tasting all the time." When a friend is cooking, or I'm at a restaurant, I get so intrigued wondering and anticipating how the food will taste. Who knows, it could be the best burger/ soup/ chili, etc, of my life. But when I'm cooking, I'm focusing more on continuously tweaking the dish to try to get the flavors I want, without going too far. A pinch of salt, some more herbs, turn up the heat a wee bit, turn it back down, try to figure out how much acid it needs at the end... It's always a learning experience, but usually not the most enjoyable gastronomic experience of my life. By the time I sit down to a bowl of whatever I'm cooking I know exactly how it's gonna taste, and the whole process leading up to that flavor. There's no mystique. And the 100+ heat for hours has usually dissipated my appetite. Don't get me wrong, I quite like my own cooking ( just as well). I suppose the best analogy I can give is this: when I was first working as a cook, I used to go grab lunch or dinner with the head cook/ my good friend every now and then. Because I didn't know anything about cooking back then, any meal I ate at a cafe or restaurant was usually great to me. My cook friend, however, would analyze even the simplest of sandwiches - "it's good, but it would be better with a bit of aioli and if the bread were toasted a bit more and the onions were caramelized", and such. I used to think it was such a drag to analyze meals like that, but now I am exactly the same. At the taco truck it's, "Well, it's pretty tasty but the tortilla could've been heated up a bit longer, the meat is ever-so-slightly overdone, and the sour cream should be more evenly distributed." And while this pickiness about taste has definitely improved my palate and cooking skills, it has not, unfortunately, made it easier to enjoy most of the meals I eat - quite the opposite. I'm glad to know I'm in good company with this though! And I should add that when winter comes, I will be at my happiest standing over a simmering pot for hours and hours.

That sounds bang-on to me. When I'm done cooking and suddenly not hungry, I could still probably easily down an In-n-Out cheeseburger - probably because I don't have to think about it. I just order my usual. And when you think hard-out about 20 meals a week, one meal off is awesome. I do really care about how others perceive my cooking, and you know, a lot of people will tell you every time "Mmm it's really good" - but then again, that's pretty much the standard guest response right? Unless you are lucky enough to have friends who will ask you if you just picked the meat up off the highway and boiled it to death, I guess! It's funny too, cooking for people. I have friends who expect a feast every night, + friends who think a meal with more than a handful of ingredient (usually including white bread, American cheese, and processed meat) is too fancy, + friends who love ethnic peasant food(I'm in that group, I reckon), + friends who eat delivery Chinese and Pizza most nights, + friends who eat frozen pizza and ramen. Myself, I tend to mingle among all these groups. Different strokes on different days. So I think cooking for other people is often stressful (depending, of course, on lots of things like experience, the occasion, level of skill, personality, and on and on). But even so, when I'm cooking for myself, I'm probably more demanding than my friends and relatives - I want to achieve really specific flavors in my dishes, but I'm not a very experienced cook, and have bad genes in the matter, so I often don't manage to quite pull off the dish as I would like... though it's usually well above above "edible" in my opinion. I think I should go with more slow-cooked, hands-off, sorta-foolproof stuff though.

I'm in a quandrum. I love food, a bit obsessively. I also love cooking. It's consumes more of my time than anything else. I love making things from scratch, prepping everything myself, doing things the time-consuming-but-rewarding way (ex: when making burgers for my mate and his friend tonight, I hand-chopped three pounds of beef, plus spent a couple hours making beet chutney [their preferred burger condiment] from beets from our garden, etc etc. I enjoy grinding my own spices, chopping my own herbs, etc.) Yes, I could make things easier, but as you know, the extra effort is almost always rewarded by extra flavor, better texture, etc. So believe me, I'm not complaining about that aspect. It's just the bizarre side effect that, after spending an extended amt of time in the kitchen, I am rarely hungry for what I've made - a combination of standing over heat for hours and hours, as well as just being over a dish I've been looking at, stirring, tasting, and adjusting, for hours. (And I should add that I quite prefer the taste of my own cooking most of the time, aside from the time factor.) I do tend to make dishes that only improve as leftovers, so usually I am quite happy to eat the dish the next day for lunch. I'm just wondering if other people have this sort of situation, and how they cope. To be fair, it's been an unbelievably hot and dry summer, and we don't have A/C, and unfortunately for me, I am way more enticed by hot food than cold... but it's starting to get a bit much. Ayone else have the same problem?

I think Bourdain would be alot less interesting to most people if they didnt show crap like that, its just tv man. That would be an interesting idea to pitch - "Let's make a less interesting TV show!" Well, I & most people I know would probably agree that most cooks we know are either drunk, gay, or both, and food and drink are natural partners, aren't they? But we can put all this aside, I think. Note to self: do not attempt levity. Edited once again for spelling.

No harm meant. I've just been watching a bit of Bourdain while eating, and every cook is somewhere between tipsy and smashed, and the Argentinian gauchos are joking that there are two kinds of cooks - alcoholics and gays - and asking Tony which one he is. So pardon the booze joke! To be fair to the employer, the job was described during my interview as "a little bit of everything" but at the time I thought that meant around the cafe. I didn't know it involved the motel. And just before I started, the housekeeper came down with pneumonia. And they were still hiring. And it was only a small part of my job while I worked there. And in any event, I started cleaning businesses on the weekend with my mom as a kid, so it really doesn't bother me too much. As for spending "serious time digging up dirt"... sorry to disappoint you, but in a small town, "digging up dirt" involves mentioning someone's name in passing, to immediately find out whose cousin they married and what their daddy's like, etc. And, given the typos in my post, I obviously didn't take too long writing it. As for crazy employees/coworkers- well, that's a whole different thread, isn't it? Edited to add: I think it's pretty clear in my post that my main problems with the job have to do with the "it doesn't matter" approach to cooking, which is anathema to me, as well as a bigger emphasis on how I looked at work, and irrelevant things like the boss's facebook status, vs. the food I produced.

Hi there - My mom is turning 50 this weekend, and I want to buy her a nice bottle of champagne (esp. since I live across the country and can't make it back home). She drinks Peter Franzia with ice cubes, Miller Lite, and PBR, so I really don't need any obscure vintages. Just a nice $50-$100 bottle that will get her giddy. Cheers!

Alcoholic, yes, but that's pretty normal for us cooks right? Mentally ill, no. Just really unhappy I think. After quitting, I found out that a couple of my older friends have known her for decades, and one of them was closely related to her by marriage. They gave me the dirt. Too bad I hadn't found out earlier!

My line-cooking job I loved was also off Craigslist though, so you just never know do you?