fifi

Jin... great idea. I never thought of that. Maybe that is the answer to the monster chickens. mpav... Welcome. The reason I call them monster chickens... It seems that it is very hard to find chickens these days that aren't 4 pounds are more. 2 1/2 to 3 lbs used to be considered a "fryer" I think. At that size, the pieces aren't so big that they get too brown before cooking through. And I will swear that the breasts and thighs that come in packs are from even bigger chickens. Take a look at this thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...n+fried+chicken OH... Buy a thermometer.

From one science geek to another... Absolutely excellent job! I thoroughy enjoyed this. Just another interesting tidbit... My first really good heavy pot a few years ago was the Calphalon anodized 8 1/2 quart saucier. The size of the pot (12" dia x 4 1/2" high) looked very versatile to me (and it proved to be so) and is still one of my favorite pots. In the literature that came with the pot was some blurb on how they use a high purity aluminum and have a special method of spin casting that gives them exceptional thermal conductivity. Well, being the cynic that I am, I consulted my heat transfer and metallurgy geek friends and they confirmed that high purity aluminum can have as much as 30% better tc that an aluminum alloy. That is because of the grain boundaries in the alloy are much more extensive than in a higher purity metal and grain boundaries are a hurdle for heat. That is what makes stainless a poorer conductor. The final test was making a dark roux in a pot of this diameter on a dinky gas range (read... dinky diameter flame). The bubbling of the roux in the bottom of the pot was ABSOLUTELY EVEN across the diameter of the pot. I fell in love. That became my gumbo pot until I got my big LeCreuset and fell in love with thermal capacity.

I am so awfully sorry vengroff. (Wiping the tears from my eyes... from laughing, I am afraid. Number 7 did me in.) This has the makings of a great thread. Hell... This has the makings of a great movie script. Sign up Chevy Chase and you will be rolling in dough.

When I have people over it is usually family and/or cooking friends. We enjoy experimenting together and that is part of the fun. Some of our disasters are still a source of great amusement. I have a hard time thinking about cooking for folks that I have to "put on a show". But, the few times I have been in that position, I stayed with my tried and true recipes. I do have a friend that, along with some of his cooking buddies, cooks a really nice Sunday dinner for the Ronald McDonald House every few months. What a production! The most fun is that they always have a practice session and I get invited to the critique.

I am getting the 48" GE Monogram and had the option of having 4 burners, grill and griddle. I just can't see grilling indoors. It just somehow seems "wrong". I also can't imagine the mess with an indoor grill. So I am going with 6 burners and the griddle. I am really looking forward to that griddle. I haven't had one for several years. They can't be beat for pancakes, corn cakes, quesadillas, grilled cheese (griddled cheese?), warming a bunch of tortillas, those crispy and lacey thingies where you sprinkle grated parmesan, and on and on. You can just do a whole bunch more of those things than I can in my beloved cast iron skillet.

You are being too kind. It is just plain stupid.

I gotta tell you guys, I have been making stock for a lot of years but my stock is just about to get better! I think I have learned a much better way to do the chicken stock. I never thought of using whole chickens before, then swiping the breast meat. That is brilliant! I also think that I haven't been using enough mirepoix. And who knew about saving the fat? Well... This has been a couple of days of DUH! I do have a question? Have any of you ever run into "polyunsaturated" chicken? I sometimes get chicken carcasses at the Asian grocery. They package them up for stock making and they are really cheap. The only thing is, the fat doesn't harden in the fridge, and I keep my fridge COLD. When I use grocery store chicken, this never happens. What's up with that?

BACON

Soooo Jason... What kind of mint? The picture has me drooling BTW.

tanabutler... We cross-posted. I have never seen anything around here (Gulf Coast) called "English mint". And that comes from haunting herb nurseries for years. I wonder what English mint is? The picture pretty much looks like some of (but not all) of the varieties that we have grown. I have grown varieties that I can't tell the difference by sight but must taste to tell which one I am picking. This is a most difficult issue.

I agree Dave. We also have Apple Mint (a pernicious and not so tasty weed), chocolate mint, spearmint, pineapple mint, peppermint... Well, you get the idea. They are very different.

After a discussion with my sister, who grows several types of mint... What kind of mint did you use? This is a critical question since I can't imagine how this would taste and I want to get it right the first time.

I just can't plan ahead on the menu. My taste for a particular day is just too fickle. If the plan called for me to have baked chicken on a Tuesday, when Tuesday came around I would develp a sudden aversion to chicken bordering on nausea. But then, I am also only cooking for me. I do plan to keep my "pantry" complete, however. I have lists for Sam's, the asian grocery, the latin grocery, etc. On a run to pick up coffee or whatever, I may cruise through the produce or meat section to see what looks good or is on sale that I might want to cook up on the weekend. I consider the freezer part of my "pantry"... it has packets of smoked chicken, pork invarious forms, cooked brisket, soups, stews, etc. Rice, pasta, tortillas, dairy products complete the picture. Now I can improvise and fix pretty much whatever strikes my fancy. You might say that I plan my pantry, not my menus. When the kids are going to be here for a few days or for other guests and cooking events, it is a different story. I plan and shop very carefully.

I looked for it and didn't find it. But then, my search skills aren't the best.

I went through something similar a few years ago. The real challenge was the savory food, especially since I am not big on sweets. I couldn't even chew noodles or rice. Swallowing them whole can be something of a challenge in that your swallowing reflexes might not be too good due to either the nature of the surgery or the pain medication. You need to be careful of choking. For a few days, I was basically in pate and mashed potato land, anything that I could just swallow, maybe pressing it against the roof of my mouth with my tongue. The blender got a work out. I just thought of everything as a pate or thick soup. For some reason, split pea soup was a favorite.

OK... I'll fess up. I keep a couple of bottles in the fridge. I actually like Hidden Valley Ranch. Some of the main brand vinegrettes aren't bad. I have tried some of the "upscale" brands and am usually dissappointed. Since I am cooking for one, making salad dressing all the time ain't happening. Sometmes, after a particularly intense work day, I just don't want to think or be creative. I am eating for survival and if I even had to think about a vinegrette, I would never eat salad. I will get creative if some of us are getting together for dinner. Then I make about twice as much as needed, mix it up in a Mason jar, then a quick shake of the leftovers and I am good to go. But, in the meantime, I have a couple of bottles. I just stay away from anything that says low fat, no fat whatever. The crap that they use to make that work seems to always come out sweet and slimy to me.

EEEEEWWWW!!!

Everyone salivates at sauteing onion and garlic. Roasting pork is another favorite. Don'ts? Brussel sprouts. (But I do them anyway when nobody is around and not likely to be for a couple of days.) Frying chicken or fish. (Better to do that outside on the propane burner.) I am looking forward to that big sucker of an exhaust hood.

This is very interesting. I am noting a lot of common themes. Here is my two cents. What was your family food culture when you were growing up? First I must put a time frame on our food culture as it changed over time. I was born in ’46 so I guess that makes me a leading edge boomer. When I was small, we had the typical meal around the table in the evening. We lived in a family “compound” in Houston and I had grandmother, great grandmother, a great aunt that visited and they were all known for some culinary specialty. My mother followed suit and was, at that time, a plain but good cook and very interested in nutrition for that time. She didn’t get nuts with it though. My dad’s culinary adventures were sporadic. For a time he kept bees. We also had a family compound down on the coast so seafood that we caught was a big part of the picture. Over the years my parents developed into adventurous and excellent cooks. We always had a garden either at home, at the requisite country place, or both. Was meal time important? Well, I am not sure important is the right word. It just “was”. It was just what we did. Was cooking important? I think it was. My parents used cooking for a lot of purposes. For my own part, my early and continuing interest in science was grounded in cooking. I started making all of the holiday cookies from about age 7 or 8 and I had to know why cookies did what they did. Cooking was often recreation. Dad had to try some new outrageous meat recipe. Mother was experimenting with herbs. We did a lot of special things together that were a lot of fun. Mother and I made violet jelly one time. Dad brought back a 50 pound bag of live crawfish from Louisiana (long before EVERYBODY ate them). That would have been a welcome gift if he hadn’t arrived home at midnight. I have a lot of memories like that. There are too many to post here. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? I don’t remember penalties. I suspect that manners were learned early and learned well. Mother had “that look” and any transgressions were soon corrected. And we did have to ask to be excused. We still do that. Who cooked in the family? Mother did almost all of the cooking until I was about 11 or 12. Then, as time went on, dad weighed in more often with recreational cooking. Then my mother went back to work and I was a latchkey kid. It was my responsibility to get dinner started. That was fun. I enjoyed the responsibility and the opportunity to experiment. When I hit on something particularly good, I reveled in my dad’s praise. He was a “no bullshit” kind of guy, so when he said something was good, you knew it was true. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? Restaurant meals were definitely not common. We would go out occasionally with an aunt and uncle. Special occasions were always celebrated at home with a cooking orgy. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? The only time this happened was at the family gatherings for the holidays. Then it was a matter of not enough room at one table, not a segregation of the kiddies. When did you get that first sip of wine? I don’t remember wine. We were a beer culture and in moderation only. I am told that my grandfather would give me sips of his beer when I was a toddler. It is a German thing. Was there a pre-meal prayer? Never. We weren’t a religious family. Somebody would usually find something to say for Thanksgiving, though. Odd. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? Good heavens, no. That would have cramped creativity. Mother did always have a baked ham in the fridge when I was little. Menu ”must haves” depended upon who was around. If Great Aunt Minnie showed up for one of her visits, the first things out of the kitchen were lemon meringue pie and chicken and dumplings. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Not much now on a daily basis. The two kids are grown and scattered. I have been divorced for many years. But when we do get together, cooking is a big part of the celebration. They are more into the restaurant scene than I am so when I visit them we do more of that than we did when they were younger. When we travel together, food is a big part of the experience and has been since they were young. They are adventurous eaters, learned their manners very young and have always been a delight to dine with. My son is quite a good cook. My daughter is starting to get interested (about time). I guess the tradition of food as fun and creativity is alive and well.

Ummm... They don't make Mountain Dew out of sticks, silly. If the whole idea is creeping you out you are obviously an urban animal or, when you are outdoors, you just aren't noticing the critters around you.

My current Taco Bell addiction is the Steak Gordita.

Well, a snake stick is a long stout stick that you carry with you into dewberry country. That is because dewberry country is also a favorite hang out for the nastier species of our native reptiles. You try to avoid the whacking scenario -- think of the old fat broad in the B.C. comic strip that is always whacking the poor snake (hey, that is kind of like me!) -- by extending the stick ahead of you to warn any lurking reptiles that you are invading their territory. Copperheads are usually cooperative and will exit stage right. Water mocassins are a bit more problematic. They can be rather belligerent and you may have to resort to whacking. Rattlesnakes are pretty stubborn and may just sit there and rattle at you. If that occurs, the best course of action is to find another dewberry bramble. The snake stick is also handy for pushing the thorny canes out of the way. One of the rules of dewberry production is that the biggest and juiciest berries are always down under the thorniest canes. Of course, this does not work very well and, when you return home with your hoard of berries, the first course of action is to apply alcohol to all of your scratches and apply tweezers to imbedded thorns. You should do this before you get in the shower and scrub vigorously to remove any chiggers that got past the Deep Woods Off. Only now can you proceed to make that cobbler, jam, or jelly. When you have done that you conclude that it probably wasn't worth the trouble and you vow that you will never do this again. Then spring comes and you see the drifts of white blossoms and declare "Look! Dewberries! It's gonna be a good crop this year."

I hadn't thought of that since I was really after the offset drain for easier clean-up. But, you're right - so long as the plumbing is exiting from the same side as the drain. As in: if the drain is on the right and the waste pipe is headed to the right - it's all clear space under the sink. Why didn't I think of that? Good thread Fifi. We'll all be going "duh" before we're done. Hot damn! That is right! Given that my big sink is in the corner, that gives me one really nice cabinet space!

I noted in the Blanco catalog that they have the racks for the bottom of the sink. I have never had a rack in a sink and I have a hard time visualizing why I would want one? I'm not knocking them, I just don't get it. Looks like something else to wash to me. Enlightenment, please.

Horray for you, guajolote. Please keep being a hard-ass. I was a hard-ass mom. The result is that I have two delightful grown children (30 and 33) that are comfortable with their manners in any setting. They are also a delight to have around. While they sometimes griped about "the rules", they now acknowledge that "the rules" are what have made them comfortable and they really feel for some of their peers that don't really know how to act. In some cases, not knowing manners has been a career limiting failing. Too bad more parents don't realize this. Funny... When my son lived with me for a few years in his late 20's, we had a rule that we sat down to dinner, telephone went unanswered and the TV was off. I found myself asking my son if "I could be excused". We laughed a lot about that.