laurenmilan

You know, I was just reading the "what the..." thread about the unneccessary prepped foods out there (boiled eggs, frozen PB&J, readymade texas toast, you name it). From the looks of things, people are so inundated with readymade/convenient/preserved out the wazoo products that they are increasingly unaware of the simplicity of basic preparation, much less the difference between fresh and preserved foods.

It's her overpronounciation that gets to me. Even "spaaa-gay-teeee" has to be pronounced in precsiely that way. It just feels a little forced. Occasionally, Mario gets into the "lookit me, I can pronounce things in a sophisticated Italian way!" mode. Mario, you're from Jersey. You went to Rutgers. You and Martha Stewart sure seem to forget you're New Jerseyans.

Reminds me of her Outrageous Brownie recipe, my most popular party food. 1 lb butter, 2 1/2 lbs dark chocolate, 1 c. sugar, 6 eggs, among the other ingredients (oh and 1/4 c. of flour to bind things together somehow.) They're a terrific indulgence, but like sausage, you don't wanna see Outrageous Brownies being made, or you would never eat them Ina's been a caterer for 20 years, she knows how to make overboard-type cuisine with a decadent, almost addictive effect. "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful" kind of mentality. God knows when I cook Ina food for my guests, they feel very pampered, and very full. Problem is, you can't live in constant party mode - you can't dine on Penne w/Five Cheeses or Corn Cheddar Chowder on a daily basis, any more than you can top off each workday with a nice pitcher of her (admittedly terrific) margaritas, without having some seriously negative effects.

It's an extremely complicated issue, and I can't wait to hear from a lot of the pro bakers on EGullet. Unfortunately, it still feels like a lot of the blame is on folks like myself, the buyer. We're the ones not actively seeking out and patronizing the indie bakery, and then lament that commercial baked goods generally stink. Why? Because we Americans often grow up without much of a standard in baking quality? Quite a few folks I've served are taken aback at the concept and results of baking from scratch at all. And that's just a rank amateur putting together a few real ingredients and tossing em in an oven! Presenting them with masterful Austrian pastries might knock them on their kiesters. Because while practices and materials used in independent baking degrade, at the same time that chain supermarket's standard upgrade, ironically filling in the "upscale bakery" niche? I sometimes stop at Wegmans' Pierre Herme bakery counter for a banana chocolate tarter or linzer torte for company or a special occasion, because the indie bakeries near me are just useless. Because baked goods are considered evil? As fake as so much of our commercial baking can be, it is still sufficiently tempting to pose a threat to our gastronomically Puritanical outlook. We save desserts for festive occasions, and make a big act of avoiding their consumption in an attempt to impress one another. They're treated like some addictive substance, to be left to the weak minded. Because food production is so corporate-minded, so heavily branded? Bread is Wonder, Pastries are Entenmanns, cakes are Sara Lee and Betty Crocker. Anything more can be written off as an absurd waste of money, or culinary snobbery.

Much to the chagrin of the folks in Coffee forum, I too love the hazelnut syrup... or a liberal shot o' Frangelico after hours

Hazelnuts, any form. Macadamia, particularly homemade macadamia butter. No fillers, no thickeners, no other nut butters mixed in, just macadamia. Finger, spoon, bowl, counter-lickin good. Add 1/2 c. of that in with even a modest white chocolate mousse, and you've got a dessert that'll curl your toes.

13 more.... - some "I always wanted to buy..." ones: Foster's Market Cookbook, Loaves and Fishes, Country Weekend Entertaining, and Al Forno. I feel like I'm getting ready to open a B&B or something, lots of farmer's market type recipes - Patricia Wells' "Bistro Cooking" and Breads from La Brea Bakery, just because - Finally broke down and invested in some classics - Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Cake Bible, King Arthur Flour - received 3 as gifts from Mom - Aquavit, Simply Ming, and Better Homes and Gardens "red checkered classic" The BH&G one damn near made me cry (my mom's was the first cookbook I ever read) and it is in preparation for my marriage. Mom and I sat side by side and compared the two, which was hilarious. In the new versions, they have charts for pastas, tropical fruits, grains... in the 1972 version, it was more like egg noodles, canned pineapple, and white flour. Judging from my recent choices, I guess I'm returning to the classics myself...

That's definitely one of those "once you've made ******, you never go back" items. If you're at the point where you're making your own cakes, you're definitely noticing the difference in those, and you'll probably find the storebought frosting similarly lacking.

I used to have thought like that when I lived and shopped in the New Brunswick, NJ area (central NJ residents, testify!). Good lord, I saw kids (both college kids and the actual juveniles) pulling that crap and a lot worse, nonstop. The grocery stores were so filthy and chaotic from the abuse and neglect that I'd often drive 20-30 minutes to get to a real store... got sick of being smacked with carts, walking around abandoned spills & glass, or listening to kids trying to kill each other.... Well now that I live in a somewhat quieter corner, my big pet peeve are the Egg Nazis. I've never once brought home a dozen eggs with a broken shell, aside from the time something landed on them in the trunk. What these folks are doing with the checking every flippin dozen eggs as if there's something inherently wrong with each one, is just taking it into the temperature "danger zone" repeatedly. Uh, that's a MUCH bigger risk to the eggs.

Sandra's just overcompensating for the craptacular nature of her cooking And yes, although Ina Garten is my cooking idol these days, I gotta admit the laugh is kinda forced. Although, compared to Martha's "clenched-law politesse" she has a very engaging and comfortable nature to her.

"You can get the recipe on that food - tv-network-dot-com thing." I can understand him not getting it right when he started "essence" back in '94, but NOW? Hey, I'm a professional webmaster, I get very miffed when people don't get a URL right. On the other hand, one of my favorite TVFN quotes was from Emeril's first year. He was grilling a chicken greast, did the usual 45 degree turn deal, and turned it over to reveal the traditional crisscrossed grill marks. Emeril yelled "Lookit that! That is perfect! See, that's why I got a cookin' show, and you DON'T!"

Yay! Bingo, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks very much!

I've got a few of those too... "Rise and Dine" is one of my favorites, because it's a national compilation, with 1-2 recipes from any given B&B, so the unique-to-mundane ratio is far better than a single/regional publication (although, trying out some of the more traditional recipes in the book is recommended for us novices.)

These are excellent too, but these are not the same ones. The cream filling is a custard, much like the vanilla sauce served with Scanian apple cake. It's shaped like a brioche, but has the custard piped into the cake.

I fell utterly in love with the "vanilla buns" made in bakeries across Sweden, I recently returned from a trip where I visited Bastad, Kristianstad, and Stockholm, and I would love to learn how to make these Stateside. They're a delicate sweet yeast bread baked in a muffinlike shape, with vanilla sugar on top, and vanilla custard piped into the bottom. Can anyone give me some pointers please?

I was just in Stockholm's Arlanda airport yesterday AM; the coffee/pastry joints in there beat most of the coffeehouses I've ever been in Stateside. Coffee was thick and full-bodied, and the pastry I had (vanilla bun) was damned good. The tiny bakery in Bastad made a far better one, of course... When a modest coffee joint in a captive-audience public space beats out 95% of the coffee you've ever tasted in the US, then you know something is wrong with the way we're doing things

What was your family food culture when you were growing up? When I was little, we made do with our kitchen table, and dinnertime was observed regularly. When I turned 8, we got a new, larger house with a dining room, and it became the focal point of the home. We ate in the dining room every chance we had (it didn't hurt that our kitchen was so painfully small that sitting in the chair meant someone couldn't pass behind you, open the fridge, cook, without bumping into you, depending on your location.) Conversation was and is loud, controversial, and often interrupting one another, but usually ended on a good note. Was meal time important? Dinner was something we made time for. No TV, no distractions, if you were home, you should be eating dinner. In later years we'd end up listening to musical soundtracks by meal's end, and it was not uncommon for dinner to take 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Was cooking important? Cooking, dining out, and wine were topics of high importance in my family. There was a time when it was usually the only thing my father and I could have a civil conversation about. Cooking is something many members of my family take a lot of pleasure in, and it never really seemed like a drudgery. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? You've gotta be kidding me... I think feet on the table would only score ya a raised eyebrow Who cooked in the family? My mom almost always. My dad did a lot of the seafood and all the grilling. I started to help out in the kitchen at 6 years old, but didn't do entire meals till I was in my late 20s and visiting the parents.... Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? Restaurant meals were fairly common, for just about any occasion you could imagine. It amazes me how many parents' kids seem to have no clue how to behave in restaurants, and I wonder "where did my parents go RIGHT, and how can I replicate it when it's my turn?" When did you get that first sip of wine? Oh good lord, who knows... I'd say five or six, same as first sip of beer. Whisky was at St. Pat's at 8, vodka was at 9 with I absentmindedly grabbed what I thought was my glass of 7-up. Was there a pre-meal prayer? Closest we got was my dad's toast of "Rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub, YAAAAAAAAAY GOD!" Christmas eve, Thanksgiving, and Easter, we did toasts. No prayers. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? Rotating menus are for fascists. And organized people. Closest we came was my dad bringing home a BBQ chicken from the A&P every Wed. night when my mom was taking night classes for her Masters degree. We had a bunch of those damn things at her graduation party for ol' times sake as a joke... I swear I'll never touch one again. For many years, Saturday night was "antipasto, red wine, Italian entrees & pastries, and Star Trek" night. we'd either start dindin early, or tape the show while we ate.. Yes, even Captains Picard and Sisko did not dare mess with dinner! (Then again, one's French and the other's the son of a Creole chef, so their mommas brought 'em up RIGHT!) How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Replicator? Replicator? Now listen here, it may be the 24th century and all, but I'll be damned if my son's gonna spend his one week on Earth eating replicated SLOP... oh wait, I'm channeling the spirit of "Pappa Sisko" from "Deep Space Nine". Well I'm 4 months from my wedding day, but when my fiancee and I eat together, it's an event. I love to cook, he loves to help, and it's wonderful to spend the time together. I sure as hell hope it will endure when we're married, it's what makes life worth living...

It goes great with a bowl of Total cereal, that has the fiber & vitamins refined out of the original wheat, then poured back onto the processed flakes!

Yup, my mistake misspelling lutfisk. It was good, I'm not saying it's my favorite food ever, though... (it really needs some color/texture interest). And yep, since you were wondering, I was trying out foods over the course of a few days at Christmas... I unfortunately had to forgo the traditional Swedish meatballs on Xmas eve though (Catholic, so no meat for me on Xmas eve). I did dig into some shortly after midnight, though

Yes, yes, it's true! I have my own personal definition of shame! I tried it at an Xmas celebration with my Swedish fiancee, where resolved to try at least a little of everything. I winced then I scooped into the lutefisk, then tasted it and through it was wonderful. Despite how wierd it looks, feels, and sounds (glop!) Yes, even the hosts thought eating more than the mimimum required was I'm in love with the Janssen's temptation (anchovy puddin'!) too, so there's no accounting for taste is there.

Wow, some raw-cilantro devotees after all... my goodness, I sure did hit a nerve with the pro-cilantro crowd, my sincere apologies. Well, you can have the last laugh... here's my list: Raw onions Anchovies Very, very rare steaks Lutefisk (Tried it out of politeness, found out I loved it, gooey texture and all) Hmm, if Marcus Samuelsson can turn Swedish meatballs and beet salads into haute cuisine, and Mario Batali can bring baccala into America's living rooms, could a golden age of lutefisk be far behind?

I'm sorry it came off as such an extreme viewpoint... I would never go so far as to attribute a food's success ENTIRELY to good marketing and trendiness (although I suspect Starbucks Frappuccino comes darned close!) FWIW, in reference to your Hong Kong experience, I definitely think that foods like cilantro are far better handled in other cultures' cuisines - simmered, mixed in with other flavors, allowed to mellow in the cooking process and blend in. Not the overwhelming shock of the raw herb in very large quantities, which is so strong as to warrant a "love it or hate it" reaction. Then again, I'm STILL convinced that there's a decent chunk of coffee-haters out there that might convert if they'd had *one really good cup*. Not that coffee is is some must-love food... it's just that so much of it is prepared so poorly that enough weak cups could potentially turn someone off it for life. But .... I don't think I'll ever be convinced that a turkey burger is eaten because it tastes as good as beef, any more than people eat Snackwell because they taste as good as Pepperidge Farms.

OK... You got me there, my apologies! I'm not referring to cilantro's proper place in the cuisines of regional Mexico and India. I can dig that, after all, those cuisines use the stuff in moderation, and often cooked to some degree of mellowness. But unfortunately, there's just way too much "cilantro abuse" in American restaurant cooking. "A little cilantro is good.... so a 1/4 - 1/2 cup, raw and coarsely chopped, must be better! " Throwing big handfuls of the raw stuff can get overpowering, like raw onions can. And this is why it gets joked about in cooking magazines and web sites... it just gets to be a cliche, like mango-habanero mojo.

Durgin Park's recipe for Indian Pudding. Not much labor, but the 5 1/2 hr baking time means an all-day committment (but then again, so does a drive to Boston.)

Wow, reading this thread really gets one's brain going... Hmm... I guess #1 would be cilantro. It's one of those things that people eat because it's trendyand they don't want to look unhip. It's detergent. And it's not like Bobby Flay is gonna kick down your door and backhand you if you omit it from a recipe. Turkey Burgers... one of those foods that lil ladies like to live on and brag about how healthy and allegedly delicious they are. That's ground turkey meat, dark, light, whatever. If it's dark, you're getting scummy runoff and would be better off with good beef in the end. If it's breast meat, the burger is nearly inedible. Get over yourselves and have some real food. Green tea ice cream - I love ice cream. I love green tea. Somehow together, it's just way too bitter (had it w/honey once, and that WAS terrific however) There aren't really a whole lot of foods I genuinely hate (there's a lot of stuff I just never get to have well-prepared, though.) I guess the pet peeve for me is foods that people like, and think you should too, because they're told they should like them, and if you don't, you're unhip, unsophisticated, unhealthy, etc. Get a life, folks, it's just a burger.