laurenmilan

We do that too, as well as yelling "EEES A STEW!" whenever one of us mentions a stewy stype substance. Damn you Hank Azaria! This marriage is gonna be freaky-deaky, ain't it?

One word: "Snausages!" That dorky little commercial from the 80s warped my fragile little mind. I'm an adult and I still say it. Hell, my fiancee and I are both Italian-American, and we BOTH say it!

ooh, yeah, I'd been making that recipe over and over during the summer (on its own or as I pie filling) and it's my new standby. I had one recipe from a tattered french cookbook that I'd always used, but the 1/4 c. of grand marnier was very persuasive

I actually have seen a lot of women my age (& some baby boomers) who view my cooking skills, amateur though they may be, as a sort of sorcery. They are completely flabbergasted as to how food gets from shopping cart to serving platter, as if my hair should go white from my "life force" being drained out of me by the magic of cooking. I know that over a century ago, critics were lamenting that young women were getting their recipes from Fanny Farmer instead of their own mothers & grandmothers. So the disconnect from family tradition ain't exactly a new phenomenon. And it seems like with a lot of baby boomers, including my mother, there's a sort of defiance against time in the kitchen, like it's a form of slavery, or something they don't have time to "waste" on. And with my generation... a lot of us did not see our mothers cooking, and so for some, I can only guess that it appears to be a skill well beyond the scope of mere mortals! Because of this, I really can't be offended in the least by GR's accusation, it seems quite spot-on with what I see around me... namely, folks watching TV Food Network like it's the Discovery Channel: "Oooh, lookit that, how the hell did they do that?" as they just watched it BEING DONE for the past 20 minutes.

Well we'll probably want at least 1 splurge dinner, of course, but we're also interested in exploring the regional cuisine rather than Japanese or continental cuisines. I'd be very interested in at least one or two of the local lunch spots/trucks that you recommend, there are so many that I have no idea which ones I should try. My fiancee and I are both Egulleters and fans of regional US cuisine, and we're looking at this honeymoon as another learning experience I'm a big fan of Roy Yamaguchi's cookbooks, but have heard that i should avoid his restaurants, is this true?

My fiancee and I are planning a honeymoon on Oahu, and are looking for recommendations for terrific restaurants to visit while we're there. We're more interested in regional cuisine than flash (there's plenty of luau's out there for that!) and I'd love to visit at least one okazuya while I'm there. Any recommendations?

There's another modern-Thanksgiving cliche... the storebought pies/desserts! What the frackety-frack, people, dontcha know that Thanksgiving is National Pie Appreciation Day (well, at least in El Rancho Milan!) This is the one time of year that folks are supposed to treat their guests to some good, piping hot homemade pie (or pumpkin cheesecake, or at least a very GOOD bakery pie or two or eight.)

Oh, that's just the green beans sauteed with a whole head of roasted garlic talkin'.

Kinda reminds me of the "Matrix" takeoff on the Thansgiving episode of Good Eats: "Alton, do you want to know the REAL truth about the First Thanksgiving?" It's so very true though, so many of the craptacular canned/overprocessed foods my family insists on using for Thanksgiving make me wonder what the frak it has to do with our colonial beginnings. Interesting note: people served whatever they pleased for Thanksgiving, until Norman Rockwell painted a grandmother serving roast turkey on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, in his "Four Freedoms" series.

For years, our trips down to Florida to visit my aunt in Jacksonville, included a supply of MyTFine pudding. She ran a cake decorating business and loved that mix for her fillings. Of course nowadays, she can order it in bulk, but I was always wondering when we'd get held up in airport security for pudding smuggling.

Yep, I just saw this thread for the first time & these good people are giving me lots more yummy garlicky ideas. Garlicpalooza!

Who's their art director, Deter from SNL's "Sprockets"? "The food... its agony is GOOOORGEOUS! I am as happy as a little girl!"

Personally, I've come to see that over 99% of the desserts in this classification are the horrifying defeat of quality by quantity... an oversized, cloying, indistinct mass of chocolate-flavored products of mediocre or poor quality. Take for example, the abuse of Death By Chocolate.. what is actually a relatively sophisticated blending of harmonious flavors and layers of quality sub-recipes (mocha mousse, dark chocolate brownies, mocha rum sauce, meringue) with an interesting contrast of flavors, textures, colors and even temperatures. A fitting dessert... for an entire table, of course. This literally 3,000 calorie creation has been bastardized by chain restaurants and "Taste of Home" magazine devotees into slapped-together piles of processed subpar ingredients, including such crimes as chocolate cool whip, storebought chocolate cakes, jarred hot fudge, instant puddings, oreos, you name it. One bite, and it's easy to hate the phrase "Death by Chocolate" and its variants strictly by their association to these frightening takes on the pastry arts!

Huge portions are so common nowadays - and so much a part of the identity of bad chain restaurants like IHOP, Denny's, Red Lobster - that I've come to associate a large portion with poor quality, and small or tiny portion with good quality. If they can offer that much food, they're severely cutting corners somewhere. I guess if you're of the mindset that it ain't better unless it's bigger, you can taste the difference between egg product and fresh eggs anyhow...

Damn! And I was gonna host your birthday dinner there! Seriously, I am a "native of those parts" (northern NJ) and did the thirsty Moose thing a few times. It's considered a "big night out" meal for the good people of Jefferson, but then again for many folks, so is Outback Steakhouse. The place gave me the fantods each time I went there, but my dining companions, and many others at the restaurant, were cooing at the menu like they were at Aquavit. Hey, I guess a night away from the crockpot is a night away from the crockpot, right?