JAZ

I've been working on a recipe for a class on "cooking for one" for an individual quiche. I'm making it in a 4-inch springform pan and have the amount of pastry dough down, but I'm having some problems baking the crust off. Ordinarily with a full-sized quiche I roll the pastry, put it in the pan, line the pan with buttered foil and put in pie weights (I use pennies). Then after 15 minutes or so I remove the foil and weights and finish baking. When I tried to do that with the small sized pan, I ended up tearing holes in the sides of the crust with the foil. The second time, I skipped the pie weights entirely, but then (of course) the crust sides slid down. I was able to remove the crust from the oven and push them back up, which was mostly successful, but kind of a pain. I think I must be missing an obvious solution, but I'm stumped. Any ideas?

I wouldn't say that I have "great" stuff available all the time. I do live right next to a grocery store which is pretty well stocked with typical ingredients. That is, lots of beef, pork and chicken; some lamb -- but no veal, quail, or duck. There's a small fish and seafood counter, but I can almost never get whole fish, and nothing exotic. The produce is also pretty mainstream. And because I don't have a car, that's really my only option; nothing else is within easy walking distance. (I can take a bus to a Whole Foods market, but that's pretty time consuming for "spontaneous" trips.) So (like you, it seems) if my market is out of something I'd planned on, I have to change plans. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at that.

I make a tuna tapenade for classes and parties, which is always well received. It makes a great sandwich too. Tuna and Olive Tapenade 1 cup pitted kalamata olives, drained 1/3 cup sliced green olives with pimento, drained ½ cup very coarsely chopped roasted red peppers 2 large cloves garlic, minced or smashed Juice of half a lemon 1 tablespoon capers 1 tablespoon minced shallot 1 pinch red pepper flakes 1 can light Italian tuna packed in olive oil (do not drain) Place the olives, red peppers and garlic in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to chop the olives roughly and mix the ingredients. (Or chop roughly by hand). Transfer to a medium mixing bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir to combine and adjust seasoning if necessary. (Can be made a day or two in advance. Refrigerate, but bring back to room temperature for serving.) For an appetizer, I serve this on crostini topped with a parsley leaf. (My usual tuna is Genova brand -- light, not white)

I think this is a false dichotomy. First of all, even if you look to the market as your inspiration and buy what looks best, you have to plan at some point. Otherwise you end up at home with, for instance, a beautiful piece of sole and nothing else. Plus, you can only shop this way if you can go to one or more markets every day or two. Most people don't have that luxury. On the other side, I'd guess that most people who shop with a weekly menu in mind are flexible enough to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the market(s) where they shop; that is, they can make substitutions or figure out alternatives if necessary. Finally, in my experience, most people have a combination of the two styles. I certainly do.

Having a somewhat limited stock of ingredients for a while, I stumbled across this drink -- Bronx Terrace -- which is also in Harington's Cocktail book. It was actually quite good, kind of a cross between a martini and a gimlet, if that makes sense. It's made it into my rotation in those instances when I want a martini-like drink but not quite a martini.

Nicoise salad, I also make a warm salad of red potatoes, blanched green beans and tuna with pesto.

Public Radio's Marketplace talks about the purchase.

This baked version, non-traditional but much less last minute work, is pretty good, although it's a little too sweet for my taste.

Another easy recipe for salsa at home: 1 14-oz. can tomatoes (I use Hunt's "fire roasted" tomatoes, but mostly because I like the flecks of blackened skin) 1 pepper from a jar of roasted red peppers (if they're not whole, wing it -- you want about a third of a cup) 1 very small onion (like 2" in diameter), cut into chunks 1-2 chipotle peppers in adobo (if you use dried, reconstitute in boiling water for 5-10 mintues) Put all of that into a blender and pulse until pureed. A few chunks are okay, but you want a pretty smooth product. Heat a couple tablespoons of olive, grapeseed, or vegetable oil in a saute pan. Carefully pour in the salsa (it will splatter) and simmer for 5 minutes or so. Turn the heat off and add: 1 tablespoon cider vinegar 2 teaspoons ground cumin 1 teaspoon kosher salt Stir and let cool. I used to roast tomatoes and peppers for this, and, depending on the tomatoes, it can be great. But overall, the canned ingredients work just as well and are so much easier I never make it the original way anymore. Also, it freezes fine, if you don't eat salsa as fast as I do.

At my neighborhood taqueria in San Francisco, they'd throw a handful of chips in with all the orders (it was counter service only) and you could get several little salsa containers along with your order (I don't know if there was a limit, but if so it was more than three), all for free. If you ordered "chips and salsa" or "chips and guacamole" you got a whole bag of chips with a small deli container of the salsa of your choice (in the case of guacamole, it was a smaller container). I can't remember what they charged for either, but I think it was pretty reasonable.

This Splendid Table show featured Jeni and her book; I think there are a couple of recipes included. When we were in Cleveland last month, we tried out several flavors of ice cream and sorbet at her store and were very favorably impressed.

I'd give Taqueria del Sol a pass -- the food is average at best. I've only been to Fat Matt's once, but wasn't particularly impressed with the food there, either. In Decatur you might try Farm Burger or Cakes and Ale. Finally, Zucca has pretty decent pizza and a good beer selection.

I must be the only person in America who (until this topic began) had never heard of Pioneer Woman -- I'd never seen the blog, didn't know who she was or that she has some books out, and certainly didn't know there was a TV show. When I read this topic, I looked at her blog and checked out the trailer for the TV show. Both the blog and the show are very well produced, but not to my taste. I don't care for her voice on the blog and am not interested in her life so the show doesn't appeal to me, but I can certainly understand why she's popular. That to me is the crux of the matter -- do you expect shows on The Food Network to teach you how to cook, or are they designed for entertainment? It seems clear that TFN has given up on the educational shows, so it's not surprising that shows like Pioneer Woman are on the air. Granted, I only watched a short trailer from the show, but I would not say she has anything like "good technique." Which is not a big deal if you don't expect to learn technique -- many of the people with shows on The Food Network don't have impressive cooking techniques. Right. I found the little that I watched incredibly boring, but I'm not the target market for shows like this. As popular as she is, it's natural (these days) that she'd get a TV show. If the show is billed as a cooking show, then in my opinion it's very disappointing, but it doesn't appear to be billed that way.

S'mores are a great idea, but you don't need a broiler to toast the marshmallows. We grew up toasting marshmallows on forks over the burners on the stove.

I think there's a big difference between rice and these items: none of them freeze well, whereas rice does.

Do you have a slow cooker? If so, you might want to check out this recipe for "pulled pork" from the Splendid Table. I've never tried it but know several people who rave about it.

Or there's this older article -- The taste of Coke is all in your head (which I posted about last December) -- that says essentially the same thing.

Caravelle. I used to love those.

Thanks for all the comments. I bought one and have been very pleased with the results so far. It preheats very quickly, and although I haven't been able to check the actual temperature (my oven thermometer died and haven't replaced it), it seems to be pretty accurate. I even used it for toast once just to see, and it did an adequate job.

Then why not just order a big pile of meat?

I might be alone in this, but I found the sandwiches at Katz's (I had pastrami, which looked much like Mitch's sandwich picture above) to be very disappointing. Yes, the pastrami was excellent, but a giant pile of meat on sliced bread is not my idea of a great sandwich. I prefer sandwiches with some nuance and balance.

Frank Bruni weighs in. I'm generally not a fan of Frank Bruni's writing, but he makes some interesting points here.

I just read about this new book by James Peterson, Kitchen Simple, the subtitle of which is "essential recipes for everyday cooking." He starts the introduction saying that most of the recipes can be made in a half hour, although in some cases that's for the prep, and there's additional cooking time. He also includes a list for stocking a pantry, which might not be something that most of us need, but it's great for a cook who's just starting out. In general, I've found Peterson's books to be solid, so I imagine this is no exception.

I was being facetious about its suitability for a cleaner, but the effect of the coffee on stainless steel was unmistakable. And keep in mind that it was not brewed coffee; it was coffee grounds. When I moved into this apartment, it had been a long while since I'd had a disposal, and I specifically asked about coffee. The maintenance crew said it was fine to dump the grounds in the disposal. I'm sure it's possible that they were wrong, but I'm rather surprised.

Yesterday evening, as I was cleaning up the kitchen so I could make a new mess for dinner, my disposal died and that side of the sink, filled with a few inches of water and the coffee grounds I was trying to dispose of, backed up. I couldn't get it fixed (not that I tried very hard; I rent, so I can call maintenance for that sort of thing) but I managed to get through clean-up and dinner prep and more clean-up using the other side of the sink only. When I went to bed, there was still an inch or two of coffee grounds and water in the sink. This morning, the water had drained, leaving behind coffee sludge coating the bottom of the sink. By some plumbing miracle, the disposal had healed itself so I rinsed out the sink. I expected to have to scrub it, because not only was there dried coffee sludge left, but it hadn't been clean even before the mishap. Imagine my surprise when, after a quick rinse, the bottom of the sink was sparkling clean -- the kind of clean you get after a round with Barkeeper's Friend. So, what's with coffee? Is it the acid? Has anyone else noticed this? Did I just discover the most expensive stainless steel cleaner in the world?