laurenmilan

Have you ever had someone "push aside" a dollop of real freshly whipped cream and say "this is gross, I like Cool Whip better." If that was a kid, maybe it wouldn't be so shocking. It was a woman in her 50s. Also had another person on another occasion go "I only eat cool whip, it's much better for you" and had yet another accuse me of "nouveau cuisine yuppie crap" and why couldn't I just use Reddi Whip like a normal person (whipped cream on strawberries - real nouvelle cuisine there.) LOL, I'm thinking America has about as much idea what whipped cream is, as they do maple syrup.

Moopheus turned "righteous culinary indignation" into an art form with: Okay that does it, I'm changing my sig...

You REALLY thought I was bringing that? Oh man that'd be a doozie!

Very sorry, but I found out that I will not be able to attend after all. I'll sure miss all that fun, and I do look forward to the next Burger Club meetup, wherever that may be!

Wicked pissa! Then again, Red Lobster is a sacrilege in any state. Life is too short for frozen seafood.

I still use the cookbook that first got me excited about cooking: "Cakes and Pastries" from the California Culinary Academy. I marveled at the magnificent works of edible art, chocolate mousse cakes with huge chocolate ruffles, perfectly piped whipped cream on Gateau St. Honore, the 1980s-style sleek glamour of the glossy Strawberry Mirror Cake, and wondered if I would ever be able to make anything that magnificent. It's a masterpiece of 1980s extravagance, and really fired up my imagination. I've done a lot of the simpler recipes in there, but have never tried any of the recipes that made me go "wow". Either I'm afraid of screwing them up if I'm not "ready", or I always need to keep a few challenges ahead of me...

I'm betting one of these days we'll find out she's 175 years old...

Good god, I grew up in a Country Crock household myself... my father used butter however, and over time I came over to my father's side of thinking. Can't get into Country Crock again ever since "Discovering" butter.

I'm a huge Star Trek fan and a member of a Trek fan club, and we run an Intergalactic Food Festival every February. People create foods patterned after stuff seen on the series, or stuff made to be just plain WIERD. I've gotten involved in it over the past 2 years, and it's been a lot of fun, especially considering the amount of culinary reverse-engineering involved in the process. Strangely enough, e-gullet has been kind enough to help me out with a few of these (like how they got the gorgeous blue swirls on a humongous cake - marbleized rolled fondant) I'm also using edible foams (beets, squid ink and basil should make a great garnish) and looking into ways of creating an algae effect. I've utilized a lot of global ingredients and techniques to make my dishes as diverse and unique in their taste as well as their presentation (I don't want folks to chomp into a dish and go "that's pumpkin!", so a lot of blending is involved.) The difference is, on the show, they don't always have to make the food props edible. I do. This should be... interesting this year, I'm getting more creative than usual, as this is the first year I'm actually running it. I've found great servingware at IKEA and my local Asian market that gives the right look (including truly bizarre paper plates and napkins with wacky patterns on them - IKEA's great for "cheap and wierd") Please forgive my geekiness... remember, I'm doing it for culinary science!

To get her in the mood, he fakes a heart attack. *spews coffee* Damn you, Comfort Me. Damn you.

You know, the first few times I tried Godiva, I was wondering if I was "missing something". Italian bar chocolate like Perugina had much more flavor, and that was just $3! Not to mention 1/2 the time I had it, it was sitting forever and had some "bloom" on it. I thought "well this is supposed to be the best, right?" When I was out on my own and trying all sorts of brands of chocolate, I found so many better things and realized it wasn't *just me*.

Nothing to fear... your first trip or two should probably be mostly casual browsing. If you note some items that intrigue you but you have no clue what to do with them, make a note and research at home. Also chat up the staff working the counters, far friendlier than at regular American supermarkets. You'll be very comfortable after a few visits.

Oh hell, Sandy, you're a trophy wife. Just lay there and earn your next TV series.

I normally stock up on their Double Bergamot Earl Grey and their Double Spice Chai, so I just took advantage of their clearance sale to get a good supply of their Holiday Chai as well. I also wrote to Stash complimenting the tea, hopefully it will become a perennial favorite from all its popularity.

For me it would have to be Harry's Bar Cookbook, Lidia's Italian-American Cooking, and Barefoot Contessa. I'm hoping to cook my way through Union Square Cafe Cookbook in the next 6 months, and I've got to get my mitts on Bistro Cooking at Home.

Hey, I HAD that cake two years running for my birthday as a kid! Moms musta loved that cake design... don't even need a special pan and she gets an extra slice...

Tried out the Holiday Chai from the Stash Tea catalog, and it became addictive. Looks like it had a rather hesitant introduction... only sold in bags inside boxes of 20, in retail and the catalog. This stuff is really strong and of a good quality, with rum and gingerbread flavors, and really goes well with traditional milk & honey (& some ginger biscotti!) I highly recommend picking up some from the catalog (it sold out in stores well before Xmas, which is something that Stash Xmas eve and Xmas day blends cannot boast.) There's a lot of terrible chai out there, either powdered or boxed, and I really think this one's a great one to have around during the winter...

LOL, in New Jersey, going to Olive Garden is considered as sacrilege as going to a Sizzler in Texas. WHY? Look around you. WHY? Oh, and by the way, Waffle House rocks my world.

Good point, I'd usually make two meals of the burritos...

So funny you should ask... I made my first souffle today! Procedure went pretty smoothly, I've made custards and meringues before, this is just folding the 2 together. It came out all right for a first try, classic chocolate souffle. COulda been more chocolatey, and I'm sure I still didn't cook it long enough. But not bad for a first try...

Over the past few weeks, I've started working with prefab rolled fondant and making batches of my own. Getting results surprisingly similar to the cake I'm trying to reproduce. The streaks come naturally when you drop a teaspoon of the coloring in the fondant and knead it in long braiding strokes. Beautiful! I'm also using the sample batches to learn simple shapes... ribbons, roses, braids. I'll be posting the results of the Big Fat Geek Foodfest and all its spacey goodness in Mid-February! Thanks everyone!

I'm bringing a chai spice apple pie with 5-spice whipped cream, a white chocolate mousse/pumpkin spice mousse pie in gingersnap crust, and if my stomach permits it, a durian meringue pie.

Yes, yes, yes! My grandfather would send me out as a kid to go pick them, and I'd come back with a purple face and very few blackberries to show for my labor. THe folks in NC have no idea how good they've got it! I picked up 4 1-lb containers at a farmers market near Greensboro last summer, and devoured probably 1 lb's worth myself, and was good enough to share the rest with those at the conference. So large, so sweet, so juicy, I wish I had a kitchen in my hotel room... Up north we get a paltry crop of them, small, underripe, bitter. Down south they're so cheap you can make huge cobblers & pies out of them the way we do with peaches in NJ.

Real hot chocolate has me in its grasp too. I either use Droste, Ghirardelli (sp.?) or a nice Mexican bar or dark chocolate (or a nice white chocolate) with whole milk. An affordable luxury. Maple syrup. You'd think more people would prefer it, but there are so many that only know the taste of Log Cabin. Peanut Butter. You know... peanuts and salt. I was brought up with Smuckers 100%, and when we lived in a neighborhood that sold it, the fresh-ground hippie stuff. Couldn't get into Jif after that. Homemade brownies. Using Ina Garten's recipe - 1 lb of butter, 2 1/2 lbs of chocolate, and only 1/2 c of flour included in the recipe. I love brownies, but anyone else's after those, even $5 ones in upscale bakeries, are just "eh". Whipped cream. Not from a can, but the thick, smooth, goes-flat-after-a-half-hour stuff. Too easy to make, too cheap, to wonderful, to have anything else. Cheesecake. My aunt gave me her wonderful recipe. So long as you don't freeze it or keep it in the fridge too long, it's a truly great cheesecake. Only better one I had was at the original Lindy's, and I'd had my doubts that it was better than my aunt's until I tasted it. Freshness and perfect ingredients. That's all it's about. Chocolate mousse. SOmehow, the only good ones I've had are in the home. At restaurants, it's just not as good (hey, usually it's a starchy mix anyhow.) Pizza. I live in northern NJ, and the pizza in most of the rest of the country is just so bad by comparison. No wonder people go to chains for pizza, it's still head & shoulders above most local restauranteurs! With me, the "standard" isn't so much about paying top dollar as getting it real, real fresh (and not getting TOO cheap) and from competent cooks.

Just read through (and am currently cooking through) the Union Square Cafe Cookbook. Also reading China the Beautiful.