mrsadm

No. 4: Thai!!! Did I win?

I am not much of a saver but this thread sure has given me some new ideas! A few years ago I dutifully saved chicken carcases and other chicken parts (like the neck) in the freezer, for future stock making. A year later I could not figure out what was what in my freezer so I tossed it all. Yesterday for lunch I had "mystery stew" - another freezer item that I neglected to label. I have since learned to label my freezer stuff! Oh, and I enjoyed reading that others here remember the bacon grease container that my mother always kept. How things come around again!

"Turkey and Gravy" soda? Blech!

Fascinating article and topic. Both men and women I work with get to work at 7 or 8 am and work until 5 or 6 or later. We have conference calls scheduled hour after hour all day, and there is no respect for the old-fashioned "lunch hour". If I don't pack a lunch from home, I go hungry. After the 10-11 hour day, I just don't want to cook. Fast food or take-out sound pretty good. It's easy to fall into bad habits. Recently I have lost some weight, and I think it is due to better eating of whole foods. I am making a lot of casseroles and good-food dishes and freezing them in individual portions. I also make a quiche on Sunday that lasts me the week so I can avoid the Burger King "croissanwich". You really have to plan and make the effort on the weekends to achieve this, however. Thanks for posting this very interesting article. I am thinking of buying the book - or at least perusing it at the local bookstore!

<snip> Just about all of the French women in my entourage (I eat and discuss food with various members of a regular group daily) are continually obscessed with their weight and constantly share methods to keep it under control amongst themselves - they consider it a symptom of their species, and accept this openly behind closed doors. Add a man to the group and all discussion of the topic stops. French society puts strict moral codes around a woman's size, as a definition of her self control. <snip> How fascinating, thank you for posting this! I have wondered often about this when I travel to Paris. The women seem so incredibly thin. I remember one woman whose knees I swear had a diameter of 2 inches or less! Do the French women have eating disorders like we do here in America?

thanks for the link. The egullet search engine sure didn't find that thread!

I didn't see this topic posted so I thought I'd post my thoughts about this documentary. The producer/director/lead character is a healthy young guy who is normally on a vegan diet (clue 1: he's on a mission!). He gets a health checkup and blood work and several doctors and nutritionists tell him he's in great shape, low cholesterol, low body fat, etc. OK, now you the audience are set up. Then he goes on a 30-day all-McDonald's diet. He does not allow himself even to drink water or take an aspirin. If it isn't sold there, he won't ingest it. He eats 3 meals a day and films himself eating, driving around, getting woozy and even vomiting (OK we got the point already). His girlfriend says he's tired and just can't get it up like he used to (tee hee). Point is, he doesn't eat at McDonald's the way normal people do, meaning occasionally. Not only does every meal come from there, he eats the BIGGEST meals, the supersized sandwiches, fried, and sodas. I don't think I ever saw him order a salad. No wonder he's throwing up. He does intersperse his eating scenes with observations and interviews that make interesting points. One is about the snack food and sodas available in schools. I did not realize (having myself gone to school many eons ago) how much candy, chips, and sugar-filled drings are available to the kids in vending machines and in school cafeterias. (In my day we had milk and meatloaf - yuck!). Other points he makes are about the huge portion sizes, and the amount of advertising directly to kids. In one scene he shows kids pictures of various figures (like George Washington) and the only figure they all recognize immediately is Ronald McDonald. (OK, advertising to kids is evil). At the end, he's gained 25-30 pounds, the doctor tells him his liver is sick ("it's like pate!"), and he proves his point that fast food is bad for you. Vegan chef girlfriend prepares him some "cleansing" meals. All in all, it's what you'd expect, with some interesting facts thrown in that you may not know. 2.5 stars

I love most cooking shows because I learn techniques and what the finished dishes are supposed to like. Something that I read in a recipe might not sound so good to me but when I see it on TV it can look pretty tasty. I'm also really proud now to see something done by a TV chef that I now, know all about, and I realize I've learned a lot in the last two years. Pretty cool!

I have a single piece of LC (it is VERY expensive) which is a fairly large oval dutch oven. It is a wonderful piece, right now I am cooking a stew with tomatoes in the sauce in the oven. I found it at a housewares store called "Homeworks" which carries overstock items and 2nd's. Mine has a flaw which is a small chip in the handle. No big deal and a price about 1/2 off regular retail.

Marathon cooking this weekend --- Comfort food! I work a lot of hours during the week and lately have started putting up various cooked dishes in my freezer. Now that the weather has become cold, I am getting turned off by cold meals (e.g. salad and cold cuts). So last weekend I made two dishes from "Linda's Low Carb" recipe site. http://users3.ev1.net/~fontlady/ Her recipes are not at all difficult and they use economical ingredients. One was the "White Castle Hamburger Pie". This is kinda like a cheeseburger casserole. It was kinda greasy so next time I'll drain the fat from the meat before assembling the dish. http://users3.ev1.net/~fontlady/white_cast...burger_pie.html The other dish I made was really delicious. "Sausage, Mushroom and cream cheese casserole". Highly recommend it. http://users3.ev1.net/~fontlady/sausage_mu..._casserole.html This weekend I have planned a 3-meat casserole (with beef stew meat, baby back ribs, and Italian sausage); a minestrone (without pasta), and a southwestern pork stew with lots of chiles - each froma different cookbook. Needless to say with all these meals you need to balance them with salad or veggies! For breakfast I make an onion and cheddar crustless quiche - 1 pie plate full lasts the week. Make it on Sunday and nuke 1 piece in the morning during the usual rush hour to work. http://users3.ev1.net/~fontlady/cheddar_onion_quiche.html

Howard Stern?

I second that! I have hardly used the convection feature of my oven. Probably afraid to use it and burn something!

I would recommend Labrot & Graham's Woodford Reserve - best bourbon I've ever tasted. Husband loves it.

Thank you, Suzanne, and Dr. Funk, for your feedback on my question. After reading the opinions on this thread I am not so sure I would like it. But your comments are encouraging. Question, what do you mean by "the application of Chef's signature style" - do you mean his editorial comments, some of which have been quoted here? Thanks agin!

ANTHONY BOURDAIN'S LES HALLES COOKBOOK by Anthony Bourdain with Jose de Meirelles and Philippe Lajaunie is shipping from my cookbook club on 10/15. Has anyone seen it yet? Opinions? I'm afraid it might be a bit too sophisticated for me. I avoid restaurant cookbooks because they usually involve complicated techniques or rare ingredients. And yes, I have cut myself from a dull knife! http://www.thegoodcook.com/doc/browse/deta...ryId=292277B109

I'll be a little bit of a contrarian here. What's the big deal about Saveur??? I've bought several copies over the last two years and nothing in there appeals to me. Seems to be focused on recipes and ingredients that are way too exotic for me. Maybe I am a neophyte, but... I have subscribed to Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Cook's Illustrated, Fine Cooking, Cuisine at Home, and many others. My husband got fed up with all the magazines in the house and asked me to cut back. Now I only receive Fine Cooking, although I am waiting to try the new CIA magazine. So what have you all found so interesting in Saveur?

Haven't seen it yet. I received a brochure in the mail and sent in a subscription card. Brochure looked nice. We'll see...

Perhaps there'll be a "French Laundry" set of cookware out soon .....

Rocco DiSpirito Is Out at Union Pacific By FLORENCE FABRICANT and MARIAN BURROS Published: September 29, 2004 ROCCO DiSPIRITO famously opened his namesake restaurant in a reality show last summer and was famously thrown out by his partners in July. Now he has been removed from a second restaurant, Union Pacific, once the jewel in his crown, which will close at the end of the year. Starting next week Mr. DiSpirito will no longer be the executive chef at Union Pacific, where he first made his mark when the restaurant opened in 1997. Main Street Restaurant Partners, his partners in Union Pacific, said yesterday that it would close on Christmas Eve, and until then Laurent Tourondel, the chef at BLT Steak, would act as a consultant. That leaves Mr. DiSpirito without a kitchen to cook in. Rocco's on 22nd closed last week. In July, Jeffrey Chodorow and China Grill Management, its owner, were granted a court order barring Mr. DiSpirito from the kitchen, even though his mother, Nicolina, remained and made meatballs. Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/dining/29ROCC.html?8hpib

I like large portions because having somebody else cook for me is a big reason to go out. Then the next day at lunch I have that benefit again. When I was last in Kansas City I had SUCH GOOD ribs that I took the leftovers back with me to my hotel, and asked the kitchen staff to freeze it overnight for me. They were kind enough to do so. Then I packed it in my checked luggage. Wonderful the 2nd time around! Granted, the portion of the original meal was probably enough to feed a large dinosaur!

I was a bit taken aback at their demeanor when I first visited Paris. But then I am used to the American painfully cheerful greeting, "Hello, I'm Amy, I'll be your server today!"

Recipes for me - because I am pretty inexperienced and have a complete and total lack of imagination. Also the kinds of recipes I like are ones that suggest substitutions or variations so that I can learn more about what foods go with what other foods. I also like to get several different recipes for the same dish and try to understand why the differences.

Quote from the article: Jumping on the low-carb bandwagon, McDonald's, Burger King, Arby's, Taco Bell and Wendy's have introduced new salads in the last couple of years. "And people are eating the salads because they sound healthy, but they're getting something that's not healthy at all," says Simon Chaitowitz, who helped put together the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's survey on fast-food salads. "A lot of the salads start off healthy with the greens, but then they start adding on the cheese, croutons, fried noodles and battered fried chicken. Things just kept adding up and up." This is insulting to anyone who has carefully looked at their diet and the nutritional content of food. Of course the green stuff is low fat and the cheese is high fat. The croutons are high carb and the cheese is low carb. DUH! I eat these salads all the time but pick out the parts that I don't want. Fast salads are a great invention! They allow me to work many longer hours at the office ...

The weather here in upstate NY just turned into fall. Yesterday 4 inches of rain fell from hurricane Ivan and roads were very flooded when I went to Wegman's this morning. Now it's turned sunny, windy, and quite chilly. Quilt on the bed tonight! I see many folks make onion soup in the fall. I like to make mine in the spring with vidalia onions and I put up a big patch in the freezer for the winter. Just my taste. I use Julia Child's recipe. This season's Wegman's magazine has a lot of ideas of ways to cook various squashes which I plan to try. I love fall vegetables (except those smelly brussel sprouts!) :-) I love to use pumpkin but our local farmstand was flooded this morning - so sad to see the field of pumpkin stems sticking up out of the water ...

Hmmmm, we don't have Taco trucks in upstate NY. I hope to find one someday. I gave up on food trucks when I lived in Philly. Got really sick from a cheesesteak truck. Then I picked up my brother's habit of calling them "roach coaches"