JAZ

Maggie, it's refreshing to read something about the other side of eating. When my sister went though the same procedure, I tried to help by making her the best broths I could -- chicken and beef. As broths go, they were fabulous, and I know she appreciated them; she told me so. But still, I so wanted to add stuff to them. From a cook's perspective, it was tough. I imagine it was much worse from the other side.

I did, once, buy a jar of green olives stuffed with a small piece of lemon zest. Those were nice in a martini, but not as nice as a plain twist.

A few ideas occur to me that might work for you. The first is to begin with "long" drinks -- that is, drinks that are served in tall glasses over ice -- rather than cocktails (relatively stronger drinks served up in smaller glasses). The burn you feel might be cut by the extra dilution of the alcohol. Also, many of these drinks are topped with something carbonated: soda, ginger beer or ale, tonic, or even champagne. Although carbonation has its own sort of "bite," it definitely mitigates the burning sensation from the alcohol. That might be why you like champagne better than still wine, and why you liked the mojito you tried. Third, as you noticed, enough sweetness can lessen the burn too. As I mentioned in the course, I'm not crazy about sweet cocktails, but I do like many that have a sweet and sour profile -- Margaritas, Daiquiris, Sidecars, for example. You might want to try some sweeter or sweet and sour cocktails and see if those are easier on your palate. I'll think about some specific drink recipes and post them for you later.

Pamela Sheldon Johns has a wild mushroom lasagne recipe in her book Parmigiano! I haven't made it, but I had it ages ago at a class she taught, and it was great. Essentially, you layer a bechamel sauce with sauteed wild mushrooms (she sautes them with garlic and some sliced yellow bell peppers and seasons with parsley and thyme) and the cooked lasagne noodles. Top with a lot of fresh parmesan cheese and bake. (Sorry, I couldn't find a link to the actual recipe.)

I've noticed a different viscosity between the syrups I make with white sugar and with demerara; the latter seems much thicker. I haven't been really careful measuring -- that is, I make a 2-1 syrup, but I don't weigh my ingredients, I measure them. So I'm not sure whether the difference is due to something in the different sugars, or the way they measure out. When I get some spare time, I hope to do some more experimentation, weighing ingredients and being more careful in general. When I get around to that, I'll post my results.

When I went to the DFM during a recent visit to Atlanta, what impressed me the most was the sheer volume and variety under one roof. I'm from San Francisco, and we have some great markets, but they tend to be either smaller or more specialized, or both. I love our farmers' markets, but there's something to be said for being able to cruise through one market with a great selection and high quality, get everything (or nearly everything) in one place and pay for it all at one time.

Chris, if you're interested, check out The Recipe Writer's Handbook, which is just what it claims to be. When I had to start writing down recipes for my classes, it helped me a lot. I have an old edition, but I believe it's been updated.

One question to ask yourself in determining whether a stand mixer is a good investment is how often do you use a hand mixer (not an immersion blender, not a food processor, not a blender, but a hand mixer)? If the answer is often, then I'd say the stand mixer is an excellent investment. I had a food processor and a blender but didn't have a stand mixer for quite a while. When I found myself using my hand mixer more and more, I broke down and got a Kitchenaid and found that having it really made a difference. It's not that I use it very often, but when I do, it's so much better than the old hand mixer. The reasons I love it? You can add ingredients so much more easily. You don't have to stand there with mixer in hand -- you can whip cream or egg whites while you're doing something else. You don't have to worry about your bowl moving around. You don't have to keep clearing out the beaters so they'll still mix stuff. But if those aren't things you need to do, then it might just end up being another expensive item that sits in the cabinet.

I made a lot of ice cream for my sister when she needed the calories -- it seemed to be something that was easy to eat and that she liked.

I don't think the point of the story is to teach you how to cook, but to me, it illustrates really well how one person started to learn to cook. I read this as a description of an epiphany: the moment in this cook's life when it struck him just how much dedication it would take to turn his casual summer job into a career. More important, he realized that he wanted to take that step. Such moments can seem pretty minor (a cut hand) from the outside, but they're earth-shaking from the inside, because they really do change your life. I've never cooked professionally, but I remember a similar moment in graduate school when I realized the difference between me and a few of my fellow grad students. We were having an ordinary conversation; one minute I felt like one of the gang, and the next minute someone said something that made me realize that the others were dedicated to the subject in a way that I would never be. I guess it was a negative epiphany for me, but it was no less earth-shaking for that. So I completely understand that moment in the author's life, even though I've never worked as a cook, and, in fact, have never even shucked an oyster.

I wouldn't give any of them, but of the four, I think the martini one is the best choice, primarily because it (by necessity) contains no premade mixes. If someone gave it to me, at least I'd have a jar of onions and olives (although I don't use either in my martinis) and a CD that might have some decent music. If someone gave me a kit containing any kind of premade mix, I'd smile politely and toss it the minute the guest left. I agree with Sam that making a "kit" from ingredients and equipment you choose yourself can be fun.

Another place to try (but call first to see what they have in stock) is PlumpJack on 24th (there are two locations, but this one has the better liquor selection).

So, with several offers for potato salad, it occurs to me that maybe we should talk about doing a couple of variations. My typical version of potato salad is not very traditional (red potatoes, shallots, capers and chives) -- maybe someone else wants to do a more traditional type? And if it's possible to find cardoons in Raleigh, I could make a good, but very different salad with potatoes and cardoons in a vinaigrette. (Artichoke hearts make an acceptable substitute, if there are no cardoons.) Or maybe I could make that for Saturday, to go with the fried chicken. Marlene or Rachel (or anyone else), would you be interested in doing a more traditional version?

There is something about bacon and eggs that satisfies, regardless of the circumstances. But bacon and eggs cooked by the love of your life is something else altogether. I don't know it there's anything better -- well, except for the toast, perhaps.

Dean, I can be in charge of potato salad, as long as I don't have to peel all the potatoes myself.

I can't believe I forgot about Aub Zam Zam. I went there a year ago or so, after a disappointing late lunch at Magnolia brew pub. It was great: serious cocktails (we had Boodles martinis), great bartender, quiet. A nice oasis.

This is from Gary Regan's newsletter:

I recently had an ethereal carrot soup with a hint of vanilla. It was fabulous -- the vanilla wasn't obtrusive at all. In fact, if I hadn't known what the flavoring was, I never would have guessed. That is, it added a depth of flavor, but wasn't identifiable as vanilla.

I've been experimenting with a few ideas involving sparkling wine, and ended up with something similar to a drink Audrey made at Bemmelmans, called (I think) The Old Cuban, a sort of mojito variation, but vastly more interesting. I wasn't trying to emulate her; I actually had an idea that a variation of a French 75 might work well with barbecue. However, after much experimentation (someone's got to do it), I ended up with rum instead of gin. My final recipe calls for anjeo rum, spiced demerarra simple syrup, lemon and lime juice, and bitters, shaken, poured over ice and topped with champagne. I haven't tried it with barbecue yet, but my instinct tells me it will work pretty well. The beauty of it, in my book, is that it's flexible. It's also very good with gin as the base, which gives it an entirely different character, of course. I'm thinking (although I haven't tried it) that it might be very good with bourbon as well, which would get me back in Varmint's good graces. In line with that, as a stand-alone drink, it's good with ginger beer instead of the champagne -- that was one of my first experiments, and it's great, but too spicy, I think, for barbecue. So that's my entry.

Shhh! It's my neighborhood favorite, and although I really want it to prosper, I also want to be able to drop in a find a seat whenever I want. One of the things I really like about Incanto is the way the wines are chosen to match the food. I almost always sit at the bar, and if the wine director is there, I always ask for a recommendation on which wine to get, because I'm not very familiar with Italian wines. Sometimes he has a definitive answer ("This is the wine to get") and sometimes he has a couple of ideas, but he's never steered me wrong. The other nice thing about the wines is that the glasses come with a sleeve around the base that has the wine info printed on it. So if you drink something you like, you can take the sleeve home instead of having to try to remember it or jot it down on the back of a napkin.

I've heard the argument that various religious food taboos have their roots in health measures (i.e., not eating dangerous or diseased food), but I've never read anything that provides much convincing evidence for the theory. The most plausible sociological reasoning I've read for such taboos comes from a book called How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker. He discusses food taboos as a mechanism for keeping a group together, by keeping younger members from forming alliances with "the enemy." He goes on to note that not only are children taught not to eat certain foods, they actually grow up to think of them as disgusting. I think that's why, even when kids from religious families with food taboos want to rebel by breaking those taboos, it can be harder than they expect to get over the first impulse of disgust. In my experience, having been raised Catholic, it seems to me that the Catholic dietary restrictions are somewhat different from other religions. That is, instead of forbidding some foods all the time, it simply required us to abstain from them some of the time. In other words, it wasn't that meat was bad, but that abstaining from it on certain days was a sacrifice that brought us closer to God. It was the same with the standard kid's Lenten practice of giving up candy. It wasn't that candy was a disgusting food (far from it!) but rather that it was so good that giving it up really meant something.

I'll help out however I can. I have a great recipe for pickled beets that can be made as little as a day in advance, if that fits in with the menu. I also have a lot of appetizer recipes, if we decide we need more than deviled eggs. And I have some great ice cream recipes, if anyone is interested in coffee, chocolate malt or cardamom-caramel flavors.

If you can find a bottle of citric acid ("sour salt"), you can add a grain or two per drink to increase the acid level. I don't know what kind of luck you'll have finding it, though. Absent citric acid, all I can suggest is cutting back on the sweet ingredients to compensate (which I'm sure is what you did for the second batch). For the tequila: you can make a pretty good marinade for chicken or fish with tequila, orange and lime juice, garlic, cumin and ancho.

I saw this at Beverages and More, along with a number of other ginger beers and ginger ales. Seemed like a perfect opportunity to try some new ones (my usual is Reed's). I tried the Barritt's first, in a drink inspired by Dale DeGroff's Anejo Highball: 2 oz. anejo rum, 1/2 oz. Velvet Falernum, 1/2 oz. lime juice, dash of peach (or orange) bitters. Top with ginger beer. (DeGroff's version is about the same, but uses triple sec instead of Falernum and contains no bitters.) I also tried it with plain rum. It was great. I'm looking forward to trying the others.

I love composed salads. The last issue of Fine Cooking magazine had some great salad recipes that, although not composed, could be adapted. I made one with red pepper, carrots, and snow peas with a ginger garlic vinaigrette and topped it with grilled skirt steak (the first time) and sauteed shrimp (the second time). It was great both ways. My favorite salad cookbook is Lettuce In Your Kitchen by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby -- yes, the grill guys. You have to love a salad book with a recipe for a "salad" topped with grilled pork ribs. Seriously, there are some really great ideas in the book. I hardly ever follow any of them exactly, but always find inspiration within the pages.