JAZ

Over on the WikiGullet project we've been working on the entry for "simmer." Like most of the seemingly easy entries, it's turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected. My question is this: is simmering a term that refers to the temperature of a cooking liquid, or is it an actual cooking method? My first inclination was to define "simmer" as cooking food in very hot but not boiling water. But then, I thought that a better description of "simmer" was what you do with liquid, or mostly liquid dishes like soups or stews. So you poach foods in a simmering liquid, but, for instance, you don't simmer fish -- you poach it. Of course, since I'm asking here, I have no idea what's right. What do you think?

I've found a surprising number of Mexican or Mexican-inspired dishes that are point-friendly without too much tweaking. I'm not sure how authentic they are, but so far I've made red chicken enchiladas that are pretty low, snapper Vera Cruz, a Mexican style shrimp cocktail and arroz verde. I'm eager to hear what you come up with.

I use a spice mixture called Cavender's All Purpose Greek Seasoning. I doubt there's anything Greek about it -- it's mostly salt and glutamates in various forms, but it's an easy way to season all kinds of fish and poultry. I use it in tuna salad too.

We are considering building the menu around a traditional meal, but due to a nightmarish private class last year, I doubt we'll ever teach a Thanksgiving menu again. One thing we're thinking of is traditional Southern foods with a modernist twist -- for instance, the MC version of fried chicken and something with pimento cheese. But at this point we're open to just about anything, so keep the ideas coming.

Robert Wolke wrote about this in What Einstein Told his Cook -- his conclusion was that if you have to squeeze your citrus fruit by hand, then the microwave plus rolling (in that order, I believe) helps in getting more juice out. But if you have a juicer, the mechanical pressure of the juicer will get as much juice out of the fruit without the microwaving or rolling. Edit to correct the order Wolke specifies -- it's microwaving, then rolling that allows more juice to be extracted.

Pasta and poached eggs. Pasta because it seemed like such a huge project; poached eggs because they seemed impossible.

When you're going to make a batch of stock, save up your older ice in ziplock bags (assuming you have room in your freezer). When you need to cool your stock, put a couple of the bags into the stock, and fill your sink with the rest of the ice and water. You can chill down a gallon of stock really fast that way, and get rid of your old ice.

I think there used to be an Edible Atlanta, which now has apparently been replaced by Edible Metro and Mountains. I found Edible Atlanta to be preachy and one-dimensional; this one seems a little better balanced. Mostly, though, I just find the whole concept tiresome.

This topic got me thinking about how I decide on side dishes to match mains, or vice versa. In some cases I always have the same combinations -- for instance, when I have macaroni and cheese (which I eat as a main dish), I always have broccoli florets in a mustard vinaigrette with it. I make a Normandy style pork dish with apples and a cider cream sauce that I almost always pair with sweet and sour braised cabbage. But with other dishes, I change the accompaniments. I have some side dishes that I think of as "universal donors" because they go with a lot of different proteins, and there are some main dishes that can go with a wide variety of side dishes. So do you have combinations you won't change? How do you decide what goes with what?

I really like this celery root salad, but I can rarely find decent celery root around here, so tonight I tried it with julienned broccoli stems. Definitely a keeper.

Can she have any acid at all? If something mildly acidic is okay, maybe she could try tomato juice, or even tomato water.

I like peas and mushrooms together -- maybe in a cream sauce over pasta?

I found this guide to Mexican cheeses to be very helpful. I can never keep straight which cheeses are good for which uses.

Now, there's an official kitchen cover for the ipad: the Chef Sleeve.

One thing that's common to a lot of restaurant books is that any given recipe actually has two or more sub-recipes. Sometimes they're with the main recipe but often you just get a page number. It's not a big problem, but it can mean a lot more work that you expect at first glance.

A while ago, I had a chicken salad sandwich that was garnished with celery leaves instead of lettuce. It was great, and it occurred to me that I don't use celery leaves much. Aside from throwing them in soups, I don't really know what else to do with them. Do you use the leaves, and if so, how?

While Goo-Gone will remove most adhesives, I've never found it very effective at actually removing the label itself. Back when I worked at Sur La Table, we used Un-du.

Here's a recipe I've used for beets (and the greens) with horseradish cream sauce. It's great: Beets with horseradish sauce.

When I first went to college, my parents drove me and my sister (who went to the same school) from Seattle to Pullman (across the state). Pretty much everyone who made that drive stopped halfway in a town called Vantage and ate at the A&W there. We were no exception. I don't remember if they had tables, but in any case, we ate in the car (parked in the lot). My mother was in the front passenger seat but had the door open and was sitting with her feet out on the pavement; my dad was standing outside the car to stretch his legs while he finished his root beer float, which he had on the roof of the car. Yes! You guessed it! He tipped the float over so that it spilled all over my mom's head. The amazing thing was that she just sat there instead of pulling her head back into the car to avoid the rest of the float because she didn't want to get the inside of the car dirty.

For asparagus, yes. But I use mine for beets and sweet potatoes all the time.

I like WW for the same reason; I love to cook and didn't want to have to alter my cooking a lot. There are a few recipes that I've changed a bit to make them more "point friendly" -- for instance, I devised a pretty decent "faux" remoulade made with yogurt in place of most (not all) of the mayonnaise -- but mostly, I just make what I want but watch portion size, and I eat a lot more vegetables. I have become more aware of the fat I eat, but I too have not cut back all that much. I've found that I can use much less oil for things like roasting vegetables, but if a dish needs fat, I use it. I think a reasonable amount of fat in my diet keeps me fuller longer and more satisfied with the food that I eat. The few times I tried to cut way back on fat I felt hungry all the time. After years of not eating breakfast, I've found that eating it has made a big difference for me too. On the other hand, I haven't really found that snacking works for me, but I know it does for many others.

How about pastrami hash?

I've heard about that kale "chip" recipe but haven't tried it. Another great non-leafy-green salad is this one for Thai green bean and tomato salad (in fact, I made it tonight). The only thing I do differently from the way the recipe is written is to blanch the green beans for a couple of minutes. (I just don't care for raw green beans.) And since I'm blanching them, I usually don't take the time to julienne them. It makes a nice starter for Asian-style dinners.

If you're investing in that style of juicer, get one made from stainless -- like this one from RSVP Endurance. The enameled ones chip and break easily. I've had my stainless one for years, after having been through 4 or 5 of the cheaper aluminum/enamel ones. Andie, I agree that they're easy to use and get a lot of juice out, but they're not always perfect. If your lemon is not round on the ends, it can easily be pushed off center, which can cause juice to fly everywhere. And as Mitch said, if your fruit is too large, you'll have problems as well.

Pam, I understand that "kosher for Passover" is more strict than regular kosher rules, but that's as far as my knowledge goes. Could you explain the difference?