s'kat

Wish I had seen your request earlier- I live in Newport News. Where did you end up eating?

Dude.

As much as I love good olives, from time to time, I succumb to an almost overwhelming urge for cheap, pre-sliced canned black olives. Last night, they found their way onto my pizza. My husband throws a mortified look my way everytime he sees the dreaded can emerge from the cupboard.

When I was extremely poor, my weekly staples were based around bread, eggs, noodles, and frozen spinach. It was years before I could eat eggs again, as I was eating them twice a day. $10? Good luck.

Great advice, everyone! My Dad actually tried to instill the clean-as-you-go rule years ago, but it didn't stick. It's something I've been trying to improve upon lately, as the kitchen tends to look like a hurricane just swept through by the time I've finished. My husband says he's never seen anyone destroy a kitchen the way that I can. I'm thinking it's not really a compliment, either. Knife skills would be a great place to begin working on improvements. The only thing that I can do reasonably well and quickly is the onion-dicing trick. Also, all of our recently sharp new Global knives seem to have gone rather dull, so it might not hurt to take them some place and get a good edge put back on. I'll look at the course to see how to keep it there. Multi-tasking is another impediment, but it sounds like that's just part of getting used to the flow of the kitchen. In my little segmented, Virgoan-world view, it hadn't occured to me to prep the chicken while the onions were going. Good point. Tonight is grilled pizza night, a team effort that will definately get us at the table in an hour. Familiarity indeed breeds comfortable ease. "mice in place." Sounds like newest tagline.

I made a new recipe last night (Bittman's Chicken Thighs with Tomatoes and Olives). He suggested it would take about 45 minutes to complete the recipe. It was an hour and twenty minutes before I had dinner on the table. Still being a relative newbie to the cooking game (maybe 3-4 years of actively doing so), it seems to take me such a long time to make a meal. My husband can walk into a kitchen, chop his veg, prepare the meats, throw everything together, and have the table set, wine poured, and dinner coming out in just over 30 minutes. I read the recipes thoroughly before I begin. While I'm doing my afternoon run, I plot out the order in which I"m going to accomplish the meal's tasks. When I get home, I lay out the ingredients in the order in which they'll be used. To no avail. It still takes for-effin'-ever to do it all. How does one get faster in the kitchen?

Bravo! You're a woman after my own heart. Those biscuits look quite nice. I'm still fairly new to the biscuit-making process, and mine look nothing at all like that.

Tinned meats. My mother was a huge fan of Spam, as well as those tiny hot dog-like things (the name is escaping me)... the memory of that putrid scent wafting out of a freshly opened can makes my stomach tighten to this day. We had a hurricane last year, and my husband tried to get me to eat dried beef. Disguisting.

Actually, I'd forgotten that we stopped there. Yes, as I passed by, the name struck a bell, and I dragged my husband in. We'd already purchased our breads, etc at Oakville, so we picked up a couple of croissants for the next morning. Buttery goodness when warmed the next morning. Later in the week, we found another bakery in Cloverdale called Schatt's, much closer to where we were staying. Very decent pastries, and friendly, enthusiastic people. I didn't see the dog, but we actually asked if there were any cats around. The woman swooped up Gypsy from somewhere in the back, and brought her to us. As very dedicated cat-owners who were missing our babies, it was a great opportunity for much needed fuzz therapy.

That was one of the coolest things about going out there. Actually coming across these items I had only seen as internet icons (you mean Rancho Gordo isn't just some dude who hangs out on eGullet?), or coming to the wineries that my husband has spent years collecting. On the reverse, it was interesting coming back home, and ordering a bottle of wine that I'd tasted at the actual winery just a few days earlier. Hmm.. cheeses. We got so many, that it was difficult to keep track. That first day at the Oakville Grocery, we definately picked up Humboldt Fog, English Huntsmen, and some kind of cheddar. Additionally, we picked a couple of buckets from the olive bar, and grabbed a loaf of bread on the way out. Later in the week, some friends and family met up with us, and we did our shopping at Sunshine Foods in Napa. Compared to the Healdsburg Oakville, this place was huge, and the cheese selection dizzying. While everyone else split up and went shopping, I was trapped in the cheese corner, looking at wonderful little wedges of bliss with strange names that I had never heard of. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture here, nor of the cheese tray we made later that night. To the best of my recollection, we got Affidelice Berthaut (this is the only one I did take an actual picture of), Castelmagno, Tomme de Savoie, Shropshrie Blue, and drunken goat. Actually, there was some sort of soft chevre as well. While I was stuck in the world o'cheese, my husband was over at the meat counter, drooling over organic, free-range, grass fed "xxx", the likes of which are impossible to find in this little area of suburban sprawl. What a real treat to be able to walk into a store like that, and have at your hand such a wonderful and awesome selection. It won't be soon enough!

I made it back in one piece. So, thankfully, did my liver, but just barely. I guess I wasn't able to really conceptualise how the land was laid out until we arrived. Staying in the northern Alexander Valley was absolute perfection. A day's jaunt into St. Helena-Napa proved to be a bit busy for husband and I... And after all of the fabulous restaurant recommendations, not a single one fell into place! We lunched at Zin the first day, and had hopes of eating at Bistro Ralph and Charcuterie. Unfortunately, everytime we rolled back into town, it was in that grey hour between lunch and dinner. In desperate need of some good, alcohol-soaking food, we did it pub-style at both the Healdsburg Bar & Grill, and the Bear Republic. On the way out, we did cruise by Santa Rosa, and ate at the Girl & the Fig. It was okay for lunch, but I think having dinner there would much better represent their specialities. One night was spent at Santi in Geyserville (good osso bucco), but the rest were spent back at the rental home, dining on cheese courses. I thought that we would be eating out much more on the trip, but none of it worked out quite as planned. I wouldn't have had it any other way. If you are bored, you can flip through my trip diary and see some of the wineries that we hit. I now see why they say 3 should be the per-day-limit. Wine Country Again, thank you for your tips, comments, and suggestions. If anyone living in Wine Country would like to adopt me, may I just mention that my husband is a horticulturist, and I'm more than happy to go hard at work in the fields.

I'm not certain, but I'll take a wild guess that she does the same thing I do: digs out all or most of the squishy interior of the bagel, leaving the outer crust nice and intact. It's an easy way to downsize a bagel.

My mom got me with that little trick, too. Still dislike, and can't seem to get over, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and mayoinnaise. Although I'm considering sneaking a cauliflower into the house one night and roasting it, just out of curiosity.

Mulch? I keep throwing them out there in hopes that they'll sprout.

Cheese and crackers (a young-ish Reblochon); paella with sausage, chicken, shrimp & mussels; simple green salad. For desert, 3 mini cheesecakes, each one topped with lemon, lime or blood orange curds, and decorated with stripes of coconut-flecked white chocolate.

skyflyer, THANK YOU!!! I used to live in the Netherlands, and have tried every 'stroopwaffel' I've run into here, in hopes of the real deal. Until now, it's been a no-go. These seem to be the real deal. My package came last night, and in my excitement, I tried one right out of the box. Just a little crust around the edge. Sweet and perfect in the middle. While they weren't as good as the ones I used to get from the bakery by my house, these are the closest I have ever tasted to that esteemed sweet memory. I had my second one a few minutes ago, warmed up over a cup of coffee. I think this is as good as it gets in the States. What an excellent find!!!!

Pasta with smoked salmon, roasted red peppers, and a tidge of white truffle oil.

Pan- sorry if I wasn't clear. Indeed, it was a lime. fresco, I could almost agree with you (and I too, wasn't as shocked by the passionfruit questions), but how could you not know what a freakin' lime is?? Jake, I feel for ya. Grow your own.

Two recent encounters with grocery store workers over the weekend. #1: I asked an employee, "Excuse me, do you have any passion fruit available?" (worker goes off to find someone who actually works in produce section.) Produce guy arrives, and counters with a question. "What exactly do you mean by 'passion fruit'?" He looked a bit unnerved. #2: As I was having all of my groceries checked out, the cashier held up a small, bright green fruit, looking at it curiously. "Is this a lime?", she finally asked. It just amazes me sometimes.

My last day of school was today, and I look forward to perusing it next week. It's been a long winter.

*holding hat in hand* Good sir or madam, I beseech you to give it another try. 2 onions definately weren't enough.... when I made mine, they were practically touching the top. Go ahead.. it's worth it.

I'm a regular in Duck during the summers, but never got around to trying Meridian. I'll give it a shot this time around.

laurel, I always love seeing your dinner party menus! Last night, I yanked out a freezer-meal: baked ziti with tomato, mozzarella & sausage, and a big salad. Then, my husband decided that he needed some Coldstone love. We stood in a boisterous line for about 45 minutes, and he walked out with a waffle cone filled with chocolate & pb ice creams, heath bar, & hot fudge sauce. I tried a bite, but it didn't compare at all to the B&J I'd had last night.

Welcome, mhotchickenpaste, and what a lovely first post! If you want to point to an image on the net, as you are posting, look up and click the "IMG" button, and enter the URL of the image you are pointing at. For instance, to point at my little pint of ice cream, I hit "IMG", then entered: http://www.benjerry.com/assets/images/our_.../7684040023.gif