mrbigjas

jadrool, your recipe bears a striking resemblance to martha stewart's (click here to see it on food network's site), which is the same one i use. i like it--it's very strongly flavored and really a salad that feels like a meal.

you know, i've seen various forms of fizzy lemonade in trader joe's. maybe i'll stop in there today and try some of them.

I haven't had that problem. Was this a once-only occurence or has it happened frequently? i think it was a one-time thing. or at least i gotta assume so. it was just kinda striking--the difference, i mean--at the time.

buttercup, the answer you are looking for is yes, you absolutely should take a trip up to philly and get some olives and eat a bunch. btw, the difference between claudios and dibrunos for me today: claudios: five people in the store, four behind the counter, and 20 minutes later i bailed without buying anything because i got bored waiting dibrunos: 20 people in the store, four behind the counter, and five minutes later i left with what i wanted. just sayin.

nitrogen, eh? i'll give it a shot--i have fertilizer. the pots are the biggest that will fit on my deck, so if they're too small, i'm screwed. i tested the soil before planting this year, and it tested fine..... ah well.

report: my tomatoes are being attacked by some kind of fungus. the leaves are turning black in between the veins. some of the fruit is still suffering from blossom end rot; the rest of it appears to be OK, but the tomatoes themselves are big and kind of dry, even for romas. this is very sad; it was the first year since i've moved into this house that things grew as expected. as it turns out, growing tomatoes in pots on a deck in the city isn't that easy. especially since a lot of the remedies for funguses or cankers or whatnot is "destroy the plants and get them away from all the other ones" which isn't really an option when you're pressed for space--especially since everyone around here has gardens and we're all right up next to each other. hang on i'll post some pics and maybe y'all can advise me if there's anything else to do about it? so very sad.

i'm not sad at all. she had a long and great life, and did as much as anyone can be expected to do. i'm not mourning in the least; rather just taking a minute to say, damn, nice job. so in her honor tonight I roasted a chicken even though it's august. and i made potato leek soup too, because what the hell, why not. peace out, julia. your books are still my bibles.

busboy, i wish i had had your guidance when i went to athens six years ago! this is great stuff.

You can make your own if you like. The quick and dirty method I use to make tonic water when catering is 9 parts club soda, 1 part 7up. Try that way and see how you like it. Wow, talk about being on the sweet side! That IS quick and dirty. Where's the bitterness that tonic has?

almonds. because they are the way they are, they make for a really creamy pesto, no matter what herb you use. blanch or toast in a pan first. i mean, i know it's heresy to some, but i make pesto with just about any nut/herb combo i have around. cilantro/almond is great on fish, with a little habanero maybe. arugula or watercress is also good.

Yep. This site says they turn into a moth with a wingspan of 4-5 inches. damn that's big. my tomatoes have some sort of fungus that is turning the leaves all black between the veins. some of the fruit is rotted too. might be spotted wilt, i'm not sure. either way it's depressing, because this is the first time in like four years that i've gotten tomatoes to grow decently. i think i'm gonna give up on gardening tomatoes in pots. they never work right, and now even the whole foods is carrying several styles of heirloom tomatoes.

so wait, china works midnight to eight, then sometime in the morning till 3, then plays shows with you guys on the weekend, and volunteers at various things as well? does she ever sleep? i mean my god. p.s. i'm interested in your bao dough recipe as well.

well, they WERE two large crabcakes made of huge lumps of crabmeat with nothing that i could actually see holding them together.' i mean, not that that justifies it, really. but it was a ton of solid crab. and i was dressed appropriately, wearing a dress shirt untucked with nice pants. the new york times informed me that i am the height of fashion just two weeks ago with this look.

not anymore, for a good long while now. the point is to make a fashion statement. baseball players wear hats to protect their eyes. non-players wear them because they like the way they look. ditto cowboy hats, boots... hell, chaps, if you want to take it a step further. people who ride motorcycles wear heavy boots to help prevent burns and injury--the rest of us wear them for fashion. basketball players wear high tops to help protect their ankles--the rest of us wear them for fashion. time to get over the whole utility concept when it comes to clothes. i should clarify: i don't wear hats indoors. i don't wear tanktops at all, and i only wear shorts at home. i generally don't wear sandals anywhere in public either, and i only own one pair of sneakers, which i bought in a moment of madness related to a failed attempt to exercise more. so i'm not trying to defend myself here. i'm just saying i don't care. people are gonna do and wear what they want when they go out; what am i gonna do, get all worked up about it? it doesn't help anyone, in any remotely conceivable way whatsoever, for me to sit around stewing over some dingus wearing his dorkalicious upside-down-backwards visor with a tank top in a restaurant. kinda related: i went to houston's in dc for sunday brunch. had delicious crabcakes. they cost $27. i wasn't paying.

ah, i don't know. the basil will come up faster than the thyme, in my experience. and it'll probably win out at first. the first cold day, though, the basil will die, and the thyme will merely pause until the next warm day, at which point it will come back in spades. or at least that's how it's happened at my house. mongo, don't worry about the italian vs. thai in the same pot, definitely. they'll do just fine together--i have them in the same pot out back and they're both fine.

thoughts on bartram's: 1. it's one of my favorite places in the city. 2. they do weddings there. 3. depending on your crowd, where they're from and what type of environment they're used to, getting there might be kind of off-putting for them. you go through kind of a rough neighborhood getting there. but overall it's a great idea. you could look into awbury or curtis aboretums as well, for a lesser-known but still very pleasant arboretum/garden (i.e. not morris). i've been to a wedding at curtis, and it was really nice.

word

Me. Raspberry coulis is an abomination on the face of decent desserts. Me. A "decent dessert" would be cheese. me four. a 'decent dessert' can be cheese, or liquor. or both.

i just did an extensive (by which i mean i paged through to the third page of a google search) search for either schweppes or whites lemonade in the US, and my conclusion is that you just plain can't get it here.

aaaaaaw yeah.

exactly. like, that flavor? it's definitely not lemon-lime, and it's not really lemon either. but it's so good. it's like yellow trix in soda form.

let's talk about where we might find that stuff in the US to go with our pimm's.

What he said. Minus the "my woman cooks. a little" part. But other than that, yeah, what Andrew said.

p.s. here's something i made last week: --char the skins of the tomatoes under a broiler/on a grill --do the same thing with some corn on the cob, but brown, not char --do the same thing with some serrano peppers cut the corn off the cob, cut up the tomatoes and peppers, put in some onion (I guess you could char the onion too, but I thought fresh onion kind of brightened up the thing. put them all together with some lime juice and cilantro (once it cools). oddly enough (or not) this is really amazingly good on good hot dogs--maybe not the all-beef kosher kind that the NY crew reviewed, but definitely on the pork-based kind the Amish make.

I can tell you what NOT to do with the cherry tomatoes: put them whole in a quiche. When I was in Toronto I had that dish for an appetizer at Osgoode Hall, and while it was delicious and well-made, the cherry tomatoes were like little firebombs--you know how when you bite into a cherry tomato it kind of explodes? imagine that at 375 degrees. ouch.