fresco

My son and I are dining alone this week, so there is pizza in our very immediate future--say in about two hours' time. The dough is ready. A tin of tomatos laced with olive oil and topped with onions and garlic is roasting in the Weber outside, to be turned into sauce. I have a fairly extensive list of ingredients available. If you want to help design a pizza or pizzas (our tastes are sufficiently different that two is a possibility) chime in now--and quickly. Ingredients include Olives Smoked Mennonite sausage Smoked mennonite bacon A chunk of mozza A chunk of feta Two peppers, one yellow, one orange The remnants of spinach from last night, cooked. Potato Leftover grilled chicken (although I've never found it worked well on pizza) Fresh and dried oregano Fresh basil Onion Garlic There is also most of a fresh pineapple, which my son would probably want on a pizza, but I loathe. He would prefer the mozza, I'm happy with either feta or. I like fewer rather than more ingredients. Ideas?

Isn't the problem with using detergent that the stone is porous and will suck it up and exude it?

It's a quarterly. The new issue should be out soon. Why not call back & ask them to hold a copy when the next shipment comes in? It may be easier to just subscribe.

Hmm--eGullet meals conceived in moments of quiet desperation seem to be worlds better than meals conceived by a lot of other people at the height of their creative powers.

Do you have a local bookstore that specializes in cookbooks? If so, they might carry it. In NY, you can pick up single issues at Kitchen Arts & Letters. I think they also carry back issues. They take phone orders, so I'm sure you can order a copy from them -- 212/876-5550. Good suggestion--we do have one, called, amazingly enough, The Cookbook Store: http://www.cook-book.com/ I phoned to inquire if they carried Gastronomica, and the reply was, "Occasionally, when we can get ahold of it. But it's not in right now." Not encouraging.

There was a much earlier eGullet thread on bad meals suffered as a guest, which deserves to be revived: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...l=worst+meal+at

It's amazing how some people will confer spiritual qualities on food so long as it is sufficiently different from what they experienced growing up.

It's a shame to refer to that thing as cannabis. If you wanna see some real buds, put up the Dudley Perkins album & check out the gatefold. (CD gatefold has it, too.) The only bud worth consuming.

I've heard of--but never tried--an Italian version that is apparently available in Montreal, involving some spiced up tomato sauce concoction. Is it at all edible?

A question: what is "diet Cheerwine"?

Gourmet should fire the Sterns and hire Varmint.

Try leaving it in the oven longer and letting the grease burn off.

I wonder what it would take to link one or more specials from on-line flyers to the eGullet recipe data base--and do it by region? I would think that supermarkets--and consumers--would kill to have something like that.

or worse still -- people EATING other people's lunches! This happens regularly in my office. Perhaps you should post a memo with directions to the nearest food bank.

The other really bad food thing that happens at work is people leaving lunches, or remnants of lunches, to rot in the fridge, prompting indignant memos to be posted every month or so.

"They then salvaged a grill to hold the meat several feet from the smoking fire. Robert even salvaged an old Wolf range burner with its own gas jet to help start the fire. He had a lid for the pit made at an ironworks, then added a hoisting system from a block and tackle (found in a marine store) because the lid would become too hot during cooking to lift with pot holders." One of the reasons that I remain on the sidelines of serious barbecue is a reluctance (okay, inability) to first become a journeyman machinist.

I wish more of these publications were available on the newsstand. The best way for me to find out whether a magazine is worth a subscription is to keep track of how many times I fork out to buy individual issues over a year.

Don't think I want to pay money to get more of that.

How would you rate it for entertainment value?

The ability and willingness to consume leftovers sounds like an excellent quality for a roommate.

Has anyone read this magazine over the past couple of years--I never see it on news stands. Is it worth subscribing?

It is quite sad that we have such a poor opinion of the dining habits of people in our own country, and such an exalted notion of standards in other countries, Japan included. Kristin's experience, wretched as it was, does a lot to correct the balance.

Market research for a major Canadian coffeehouse chain indicates that their customers believe people who go to Starbucks are pretentious, stuck-up, etc. etc. In your experience, do people choose or avoid a coffee place based on their personality type?

Instant coffee is unconscionable.

After this experience, do you think it's worse to be the guest of people with no taste in food or to be the host of same? I'm thinking that if one is a guest, at least there is the possibility of escape.