mags

I'd vote for roasting'em on an open fire while, you know, Jack Frost nips at your nose.

Probably cause it takes place in Stockbridge, Mass.

Chestnut soup is wonderful, and you can do it with or without cream. Usually boozy, though. I've also been a fan of curried parsnip soup and soup made with jerusalem artichokes -- though both tend to be in the cream-of category -- ditto carrot soup. There's also a nice recipe in the Anthony Dias Blue Thanksgiving book for turkey consomme garnished with small almond dumplings.

Just wanted to be sure we were talking about Asian shrimp-paste, and not British-style potted shrimp or American Southern shrimp paste, made from shrimp and butter and spices. Either of the latter two make fab hors d'ouevres with crackers or veggie dippers, and they also make very tasty omelettes.

Really? I was a vegetarian for several years, and a "semi-vegetarian" -- meaning I based most of my meals around starch (rice, pasta), with veg and protein on top -- for most of my adult life. And what happened was that I got fat, my blood work was a disaster, and my menstrual cycle was wildly irregular -- not a good sign for a woman (though, I guess, rather a worse sign for a man ). On a low-carb regime, and without any medication, I have lowered my cholesterol and triglycerides, lost weight, and stabilized my menstrual cycle. Why are you so anxious to prescribe for others? If a vegetarian diet works for you, terrific. It's not what works for me.

FWIW, Varmint, I think the food looks great on the green plate. The color makes the red of the sauce really pop -- much more so than it would on white -- and the gold of the fish stands out as well. (humming) When the green of the plate meets the gold of the fish..... Okok, but I love plates. In fact, I think I'm gonna start a thread.

Good but not great dinner at Craft, celebrating mama's b'day: grilled scallops, lamb sampler for two (braised shank, roast loin and kidneys), roasted hen of the woods, roast cauliflower, and potato gratin for Mom. After which she had an extraordinary panna cotta and I had part of a small cheese plate. And that, thank God, is the last dinner-in-a-fancy-restaurant (bar Thanksgiving) I need to have for quite a while. My hips are very grateful.

Massively indulgent dinner at Strip House to celebrate staffer's b'day, viz: gorgously charred strips steaks on the bone with marrow, creamed spinach with truffle oil, and foie gras torchon, split three ways (thank God). Note to self: Get cholesterol checked.

But....then how will the whole world be watching? At any rate, this thread has proved Mao wrong: Revolution is SO a dinner party.

My take would be to steer away from the pumpkin, if you're also going to be serving pumpkin soup and sweet potato casserole. What about a ragout of wild mushrooms served, like shortcake, over cornbread? Hmmm...not a lot of protein there. Oooh....make the mushroom ragout, and add some sauteed seitan/wheat gluten? It will pick up the flavors of the mushrooms, and will in fact be almost identical in texture to the mushies, and would add a protein kick. I guess I like this idea because mushrooms and cornbread feel more Thanksgiving-y to me than stuff with cheese or polenta or pasta. Alternatively, you can make a genuinely delicious pate out of green beans and walnuts (vegetarian cookbooks call it fake chopped liver, and it is in fact a pretty good mimic), and it's dead easy. Grill a couple of big portobellos, spread the pate on top, and run it under the broiler to get crusty. The walnuts would add protein, and it would feel more like a central item on the plate -- like the turkey -- than a ragout would when surrounded by sides.

It's a damn shame they're illegal in the US. Maybe for you, my friend. One other way that I like to eat bureks is to skin them when they're young, then slowly smoke them over pecan wood, never getting over 225 degrees F. It takes awhile, particularly because you don't gut them first, but when they're done -- OH MY GAWD!!!! Take foie gras times 7 billion. It's that good. Plus, as we all know, burek is the only proven aphrodesiac for both men and women. Not this woman, buddy. You'd be surprised, Elyse. They're....LOL! they're pretty awesome, is all I can say. This being a family board and all.

Gollies, that's what I call a party-favor.

Ahhh, the dulcet rhythms of my misspent youth. That would be...what? The Port Huron Statement?

I had bought a chunk of "wild boar" at the Greenmarket from a nice Croatian lady who couldn't for the life of her tell me what cut it was, nor could I figure it out. Brought it home, scored the rind, and let it sit uncovered in the fridge for a couple of days to let the skin get as dry as possible. Cut a deep pocket in the meat, and stuffed it with mostly sauteed leeks, mixed with a little browned sausage and a handful of (low-carb -- so sue me) croutons, bound with an egg. Roasted that sucker and damned if it's not the best roast pork I've had in ages, with lovely crisp crackling and juicy meat. Et with some pureed brussels sprouts, it was just swell.

I'm wondering what one can do that might offend the parents as much as their unsupervised tykes offend us. Maybe a nice graphic discussion about oral sex....

A standing O for Busboy!

Thank you so much, Kristin -- and thanks for posting at this hour! I've never cooked lotus root before -- in fact, I never knew I liked it, having had only horrible slimy canned versions. But this I gobbled up, and I'm delighted to have a sense of how to make it myself.

Kristin, I have fallen in love with the braised lotus root with soy and sesame and red chili flakes at Matsuri. I know they don't serve anything approaching traditional Japanese food, but does this kind of preparation ring a bell for you at all? Thanks so much, Maggie

Actually, while the engineer was a colossal drag, I was pretty impressed with his solution to the problem. But good lord......steak and potatoes....LOL!

Flying from Beijing to HK in the mid-90s, I was seated next to a very unhappy engineer from Texas. He was going home after two months somewhere in inland China, and he had NOT had a good time. He had been in Wuhan for a week, and complained that the room-service cheeseburgers were terrible. (I refrained from asking him how good the Chinese food would be at a second-tier hotel in, say, Pittsburgh.) But then he had been sent away from the city, to a Place With No Forks. He didn't know how to use chopsticks, so he starved for a couple of days. But then his engineer's ingenuity reasserted itself, and he WHITTLED a couple of wooden chopsticks into tiny little spears, and fed himself that way.

Oh, that's tasteful. And fits right in with, you know, the family-friendly atomosphere.

I'm all for cats in the temple -- so long as they're not MY cats -- and I get a little squirmy at the notion of being hand-delivered to the potty. But Tony, you've had the full-on geisha treatment, complete with hand-delivered morsels of natto. That combo -- theatrically obsequious women and gooey weird shit -- would make many first-time diners dash for the nearest Burger King. Should ultra-high-end Japanese restaurants rework their notion of correct service, rework their menus, to make them more accessible to neophytes?

Eighty-seven points for being a good sport, Adam.

Suzanne, you freeze roast pork and ham? And it turns out well? I had always been told I couldn't but would love to know different.

THese stories are all great. Thanks to all.