fifi

This is a sapote that my sister and I found at a fruit stand in Kauai a couple of years ago. I had heard of it but that was about all. I kind of thought of it as a sweetish avocado. The seed is really beautiful. We used it in salads and on sandwiches.

If the gratin is one of these, grab it. (Not an eGullet friendly link.) This is the cast iron gratin pan. I got one on the recommendation of Jeffrey Steingarten in his dissertation on potatoes dauphinois. He is right. The cast iron gratins are superior. I also have four of the individual sizes. I use those a lot as well.

This Nielsen's talk is getting pretty interesting. I split off a new thread here. Now, you guys get out there and eat potato salad!

I have split this topic off from the Antone's thread because a little digression was getting really interesting. hazardnc started all of this earlier with this quote: Bwana64 added more intriguing information: FoodMan is going to explore and report. (Maybe it was the Beligian mayonaise that was getting to me. )

I have been lurking in this forum with some interest. Notice I said some... not a lot. It is just that this style of dining has never appealed to me. Just not my thing. I visit Chicago a couple of times a year and have never been interested in visiting Trio. I think I am changing my pre-conceptions. The sense of fun that some of the posts have described certainly appeal to me. The pictures of the serviceware is what caught me. Besides being beautiful, they look like fun. Hmmm... Who says art can't be fun? I am remembering seeing my first Salvador Dali paintings when I was young. I thought they were hilarious. Limp watches still make me giggle. Food and toys. God, I love toys. Now, I am interested.

Oh my! Those are absolutely lovely. Aunt Minnie would certainly approve.

I am moving this to Cooking from Texas because I sense a larger interest here. I am still going to pursue the "bathed in fat in the frying pan" version that seems to be Texas based. However, my first disasterous attempt will not stand. I will try again and report back on a comparison of "the Texas" version and the more conventional baking sheet version. Carry on.

Is this sort of like a pigs-in-blanket thingy? Do they really make industrial sized cans of Vienna Sausage or are they opening lots of little cans? Inquiring minds want to know.

Oh dear. That reminds me of a chicken dish that I haven't made in a while. It is pretty much cooked down salsa. Yes... for this I have been known to use the stuff in the jar. And I always dream of sausage gravy... the little brown specks that have broken off of the crispy sausage patties... lots of black pepper... SWOON! But, my mystery of the week is how in the heck to get a good brown gravy to serve with meatloaf. There is this commercial for some kind of antacid where the lady is serving a great looking meatloaf and this lovely brown gravy.

For minimum elbow grease, try the new Dawn Power Dissolver stuff. It is freakin' magic.

If it smells off after only two days in your fridge, I would take it back. Unless your fridge is running too warm, two days is certainly a reasonable amount of for it to keep. I have kept pork butt for more than that with no problem. But then, I keep my fridge pretty cold.

You ladies are a hoot. Dervish hat is in the closet. I think I will have a beer. And yes... those biscuits do resemble the gold medals. I think I will use them for seagull food and see if they explode. The seagulls, I mean.

This thread has developed more broad interest than Texas so I am going to move it to the General Topics forum. Carry on guys.

Ah... I think there are more than three of us. And a big welcome to eGullet!

Abra... Thank you for a wonderful blog. I have lurked with wonder. I have many friends in your part of the world and visit as often as I can. The PNW is just amazing. It seems that you have found a wonderful balance.

Jumping in late here... Fresh tomatoes... they make me gag. I have tried and I wish I could get into them. I even went into "tomato training" one time when my sister was growing several varieties, including heirlooms. I actually threw up twice. I gave up. Cooked, fine. Raw, no way. Truffles... Don't get it. I have tried truffle oil stuff (ghastly), fresh white sliced with scallops, black diced in eggs (all fresh truffles in France or the Netherlands) and many other preparations and they are all barely edible. Cilantro... I am one of those that thinks it tastes like nasty soap. I think on another thread we decided it is a genetic thing. Raw fish... Can't stand the texture and there isn't enough taste there to be worth it. Caviar... Icky bad texture fishy nonsense. Offal... I can't get past the ick factor. Liver is the exception, especially chicken livers. Any shellfish where you eat their insides. (I know too much about what is in there.) Anyway, I am not sure that this is valid for this thread since I am not embarrassed at all.

I have a few meals that resonate in my memory but they all go back to the original. Perhaps I have been trying to recapture that original experience all these years. About 35 years ago, I went to Cozumel with some friends. This was when Cozumel was one of those "Lonely Planet" type places. We stopped at San Francisco beach, a beautiful beach with the crystal clear and astonishingly turquoise water and blinding white coral sand. There was this "restaurant" under a big palapa. They had this huge griddle thing going on. We ordered the grilled dorado (mahi-mahi). Three filets came on a pedestrian white porcelain platter with refried black beans on one side and a seasoned rice on the other. Ho-Hum you say. Not so. The cook had a big oil can that he sloshed onto the griddle before putting on the filets. They were cooked to perfection. The surface had this lovely brown and crispy texture while the insides were moist and perfectly cooked. The oil from the griddle was taken up to the plate and oozed toward the rice and beans. It was the oil. It was lightly fragrant with the sweetest toasted garlic. I have been searching for that experience ever since. Many meals have come close. One was at the El Presidente in Cozumel where the chef cooked our catch. We kept ordering more fish... and more fish... and more fish. He came close. Another was the griddled wahoo at Hotel Cabo San Lucas some years later. But, all of these later experiences were grounded in that humble meal on San Francisco beach many years before.

I have not seen the "let it sit" deal in any recipe I have read. (And that is a lot.) It makes ultimate sense. Thank you, browniebaker. As I think about it, Aunt Minnie probably "let it sit" because she would be arguing... er... discussing with Grandma the rest of the meal. The concept makes sense. I have to say that there was no "sit" time as I was working like a dervish. OK... Time to get into a typical southern chill out mode. I will repeat the recipe and "let it sit".

OMG... I had forgotten about that. It was some years ago that I heard that story and I don't remember where. I thought to myself... "What a good idea!" Well, I used it. There are to this day some muck-a-mucks in mega-corp that still live in fear of my writings. Some of my colleagues insist that I need to tell this story in honor of Julia since we still talk about it to this day. And we credit Julia for the original thought. It was some time after the '89 freeze and I had assembled a report on our shortcomings in preparation for such an event on the Gulf Coast. The report was about 30 pages and was assembled in little 3-ring binders for the audience of about 20 high muck-a-mucks. The leader of this meeting was a Senior VP that I knew pretty well. He was a great guy and had heard about my previous attempts at this trick. I agreed with him that I would include something appropriate for my report out. Well, I was reporting to this august body in the big board room, every one with a copy of the bound report in front of them. On page 15 was a paragraph giving instructions on removing page 15 and how to fold into a paper airplane. Then there were instructions to launch that airplane at an "appropriate target". I proceeded with my report with the attendant viewgraphs then opened the floor for questions. There was this one recalcitrant old fart that was blustering about how this could not be true and that his location was well prepared... blah blah blah. Then there was this young pompous ass that started trying to deconstruct the statistics. As I was fielding the questions, really more like attacks, I heard numerous snaps of the three ring binders. Some time passed as I continued to defend the report to these two dorks. Then, all of a sudden, there was this flurry of paper airplanes hurled towards these two idiots. My final viewgraph: This demonstration brought to you by Julia Child, OSS and French Chef Our SrVP was a great fan of Julia and had known her during the war.

Ok... confession time, here. This evening I made my first attempt. A disaster is the only way to describe it. I am a stickler for doing a recipe "by the book" the first time around. I am using James Villas's recipe. I am very precise in my measurements and what is called for in the recipe. He calls for 1 cup of buttermilk for the 2 cups of flour, then says "more if needed". So here we go. I dump in the carefully measured cup of buttermilk. I would have normally added some, stirred, then added more. But, because of that more-if-needed thing, I dumped it in. Well... That is the wettest biscuit dough that I have ever seen. I mean, SOUPY! I knew I was in trouble. It was a mess. After folding in more flour on the board, I eventually got to the point that I could cut out something that sort of looked like biscuits. Not pretty, but biscuits nonetheless. I did four in the frying pan with the lard, separated like Aunt Minnie liked to do in the big pan, and four on the baking sheet. I have to say that the ones from the frying pan had a better crust. The ones from the baking sheet were prettier... well, that is relative. The crust and crumb of these biscuits was excellent. I did take some of the cut-out remnants, knead in a bunch more flour and cut out a couple of what I would have thought would be dogs. These were put on the baking sheet. Those actually sort of looked like a biscuit. The rest of the specimens were a sort of pathetic puddle. No, I did not take pictures. The images might have broken my camera. There is something seriously wrong with this recipe. I am thinking that maybe 3/4 cup of buttermilk would be pushing it for a dough that you could actually handle. Sooo... First try... by the book... big bust. Back to the drawing boards. I do know what dough should feel like. After all, I have mastered Mayhaw Man's cobbler crust and chicken pie crust dough with no problem. This one baffles me. I will concede that this is my first time working with soft wheat flour. But that is what is in the recipe. Oh well. Stay tuned for the next trial. I haven't decided yet if I am going to look for a new recipe and blow off James Villas or continue with it and change one thing at a time.

I just stumbled onto this schedule for Food Network. It does say that the schedule is subject to change. They are probably scrambling around seeing how much they can assemble and maybe get the rights to so it will probably be worthwhile to check back. Thank you, russ... well done.

What a good topic... I moved about two years ago, going from a house with a walk-in pantry, freezer, etc. to an apartment. That was a logistical nightmare. The freezer... We ate out of it for about a month before. It was down to some stuff I probably would have tossed anyway when the move occurred and I gave it to my housekeeper. (It was an upright that I hated. The house will go back to my beloved chest style.) The refrigerator... This wasn't too much of a problem. My refrigerator is mostly a storage device for condiments and such. I am the condiment queen. Fresh food cycles in and out pretty fast. Leftovers are either eaten or tossed. The only advance planning I did was to bite the bullet and throw out all of those partial jars of stuff and stuff that I had to admit that I would probably never use. On moving day, I only had an Igloo cooler of stuff to move. (Granted, it was a big Igloo. ) Eating... Moving day was McD's breakfast and pizza delivery. (About the only delivery option around here.) Little did I know how good a sausage and biscuit is when washed down with a cold beer. The day before and after was chicken and salads and stuff from the grocery deli. I really don't know when I would have had time to go out to eat. I had other things to do so my housekeeper of many years had my kitchen unpacked by the end of the day of the move. That woman has a special place in heaven.

Yes... the chemist in me is wondering about that. I am not sure that a refrigerator freezer can bring the temperature down fast enough to stop the reaction. If I had my regular freezer that I kept below zero, I would have a little more confidence. And I would freeze them well separated on a sheet pan then package. There may also be some tricks like adjusting the recipe to add some more baking powder (there is probably plenty of acid in the buttermilk) but too much and the taste will go off. Unless someone has a better idea, this kind of rig is what he is going to get.

Yep... That is what he is off to procure. Maybe we could do some tests using our regular charcoal. Then I could use the remote probe thermometer just to see what is happening. Whee! Playing with toys!

OMG... I had forgotten about that. It was some years ago that I heard that story and I don't remember where. I thought to myself... "What a good idea!" Well, I used it. There are to this day some muck-a-mucks in mega-corp that still live in fear of my writings. Thanks for posting that. I needed a laugh. And thank you, Julia. Your effect on me went way beyond the kitchen.