fifi

You dear sweet boy. I know it is older than 50 years. By first hand experience. My mother used to make it.

Coke glazed ham is an old southern classic. Beyond that, I would NOT go.

Jaymes... What will it cost us to get you to put that in RecipeGullet. I REALLY don't want to lose a Jaymes recipe for guacamole.

There is one just down the road from me but I haven't been in one since maybe back in the 60s, high school time. They were a new phenomenon in town and was the first time any of us had seen chile rellenos or sopapillas. And that cute little flag was a real innovation. I went there with my parents a few times and then we moved on and went back to Felix's when mom figured out how to do the rellenos and the fruit stand started getting poblanos. Then my sister figured out the sopapillas and that was the end of going to Pancho's. I also remember that my impression of Pancho's was that it was pretty grubby. Now, my curiosity is getting to me and I just might have to go in there for... um... for research... yeah... research. That's the ticket.

My dad was the champion pancake maker of all time. When my sister was in nursing school, often some of her room mates would show up on Sunday morning and dad would have to make stacks and stacks. His favorite recipes almost always contained buttermilk. He also favored a buckwheat variety. I don't have a recipe but I will bet they were just your basic stuff. Dad never got too "cute" with his pancakes... no whipped egg white or anything like that. I think his real secret was his griddle. It was a big electric griddle, made of heavy aluminum with a thermostat. It gave him even and controllable heat. (I wonder where that thing is?)

I have been told to check on the size of the gas line to the stove. I don't know if it needs to be larger than normal or not.

Which begs the question... How does an astronaut clean up his Pringles mess? A little bitty vacuum cleaner?

That is the one I go to when I am not at my office on the west side. I am in the Clear Lake area. It is pretty good but not nearly like the one on Bellaire and Boone. That one is like going to Disneyland.

Good call, Jay. Though I have to admit it has been a while since I have been there. I don't know about you guys, but I will be residing under my rock on Super Bowl weekend.

Well... That is where your analysis of what you really do comes in. I came to my solution by that kind of analysis. My solution would not necessarily fit how you work. The illustration here is the value of analysis of how you work in a kitchen.

I looked at those and didn't go that way. For one thing, in my configuration I will be putting the clean-up sink in the one corner that is there. That way I avoid the "lost corner" syndrome. The other corner is the walk-in pantry, the other is the dumb waiter. I just didn't see any advantage to the big commercial basin in my case. A nice big single sink will accommodate all of my grills, stock pots, etc.

Here is what I am doing. I will have the big single sink for clean-up with a disposal. Then there will be another single sink (in my case in the island) for prep work. It won't have a disposal because veggie scraps go to the compost heap. I invision most meat prep being done in the bigger clean-up sink. I separated the two sinks because my diary (there it is again) tells me that when I have friends and family cooking together, we are doing different things at the same time. Even clean-up occurs at the same time since I am a clean-as-you-go freak. Having the sinks in different places lets us do our thing without bumping butts. Oh yeah... there is a small sink in the beverage area with filtered water. Filtered water also goes to the ice maker in the same area.

I have both round and oval Le Creuset. I find that I use the round more for soups and stews and the oval for more "oval shaped" meats like chicken, pork, brisket, etc. I love my Le Creuset but the other enameled cast iron looks good, too. Shape should be determined by what you cook the most. The stuff is so heavy and heat retentive that small differences in heat transfer for cooking purposes are probably not significant.

My version(s) of Texas Caviar is frequently the "price of admission" to various gatherings. I have never made it the same way twice so take the recipe with a grain of salt. Lately, it has always included garbanzos and diced jicama.

I looked at warming drawers, again went back to my diary, and concluded that I wouldn't really use them. Then again, the GE range has that smaller oven that can run at low temperatures so that could be used for warming if I were ever so inclined. That is where my diary paid off. I ditched the warming drawers. Your answer may be entirely different.

This makes some sense to me since you are starting to analyse what you really do, like my cooking diary thingy.

The Houston Chronicle - Food Section Texas known for its red grapefruit This is a really interesting article on our red grapefruit. Janice Schindeler continues to show promise. Let Jalapeño Brownies pique your taste buds Actually, this recipe is somewhat intriguing.

*getting out wet blanket* I have to agree with you on Ragin' Cajun. Actually, I haven't found any really good Cajun food here. Acceptable, yes. Really good, no. I am not sure why that is. I think that it just doesn't translate well to a commercial kitchen. Or something. I haven't been to Thelma's but Alison Cook did a review a few weeks ago and, while she raved about the catfish, she said the brisket was tough. There is no excuse for tough brisket. *wet blanket going back into the cupboard* There is so much good food here that I would hate to see a visitor dissappointed.

Garlic that doesn't stick to the knife.

I live in the south - and a southern brisket is the worst thing I've ever encountered! Point cut - with every trace of fat cut off. You try to braise it - and it winds up tasting like old shoes. So I don't know what everyone is being snobby about . Robyn Then you haven't had Texas brisket. All the fat is left on. It goes for about 18 hours. It literally melts in your mouth. THAT is something to be snobby about. Damn. I tried being insensitive and regionally obnoxious back on page 4. I am beginning to think my Texas provinciality is slipping. Are you NYers so self absorbed that you didn't notice?

OK... I'll bite. What the heck do you do with barrels and barrels of Meyer lemons? And, where the heck did the truckload come from?

Flyover country? Whad'I ever say about flyover country. I don't live in flyover country. Houston is the center of the freakin' universe. You don't believe it? Well... We have this great big valve that we can turn to shut off all of your oil and gas and you will all freeze in the dark. BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Cool tip, ned. Thanks. Glad you are here.

Funny you should mention the Time-Life series on foods around the world. We think that the set my mother had is a complete one with all of the spiral bound recipe books. (Well, almost. We chan't find the one for Chinese.) I looked all over the place with google help to see if I could get a complete list of the series. No luck. Even the pamphlet like index is no help. We are not sure when it came out and if there were any additional books produced after that index. Those are really amazing books. Especially considering when they were written. The US hadn't gotten into the food thing yet. Well... except for mother and dad. That Chinese book caused my dad to buy us all woks. I still have mine... good practical steel that he got at the restaurant supply store. I now realize that was almost 30 years ago.

I had the big sink/little sink at the house. That worked well. The critical thing was that the smoker grates, refrigerator shelves, big pots, roasting pans, etc. would fit in the big side. This was a builder grade sink, elkay I think. I liked it.