stellabella

Me, too! Thanks for adding that! I used always to chop by hand but now I lazily use a food processor--nonetheless texture is still good.

The figs are rolling in, by the bushel. Have just canned several pints, but I want to use them another way. They're lovely fresh with cheese. But....how else can I take advantage of these fragile delicious delicacies? I want to try to make fig bars, but havn't found any recipes. Ideas would be greatly appreciated.

August is gazpacho month [unofficially], and last night I made the first batch from our backyard 'maters. I never follow a recipe but I follow certain basic steps. I would REALLY love to hear how others make it--I keep thinking my gazpacho can be improved/adapted in some way. Mine is chopped fresh tomatoes [i should add I NEVER make gazpacho any other time of year], sweet & hot peppers, sweet onion and seeded cukes added to tomato juice, preferably pure organic juice--the very best being left over after I can, but I am not canning this summer so I am buying it. I add coarse salt and chopped fresh herbs-- ususually basil, thyme, oregano. If I HAVE cilantro I use ONLY cilantro. Splashes of sauces from the fridge: Tait Farm spicy cherry chipotle marinade, Worcestershire, homemade BBQ sauce, and any bottle of hot sauce--usually several. A splash of EVOO and a dash of vinegar or fresh lime/lemon juice. The crown--handfuls of chopped freshly roasted assorted peppers: sweet bananas & anaheims, cayenne and this summer's mystery pepper, looks like a mirasol but hot as a habanero. I always turn up the heat. I eat it as is but offer guests sour cream or, if I have it, guacamole. A vitamin pill in a bowl, and mighty tasty, too.

Tony, hubbie and I are still beaming from the visit from the Finches. You are wonderful and I hope we see you again soon.....thanks for putting The Rut on the map where it belongs .... ...as Tony says, queue up--meeting eGullet folks has been one of the highlights of my summer, and I'm always happy to meet more.

jaybee, i have a fantasy of buying a house in ecuador, so that i can run away from home when i can no longer stand living in the states. my husband quashed the idea immediately, saying we'd never really own the home. we'd show up one day and be told they'd never heard of us down there. i know your story is true. nonetheless, i love mexico. you probably have no interest in it, but i recommend a book by sam quinones called true tales from another mexico. in short, mexicans are screwed by their paternalistic kleptocratic government. it's the people i love, their food, music, crafts. too bad about all the corruption.

Are you LOCAL?

C, do you think Jane got rich off her salt? Haven't thought about it since I was a kid and we put it on deviled eggs. My mom used to put it in everything, but those were the 70s....

cabrales, the two most memorable foods were the bone marrow and the eccles cakes, with macrosan's chips & aioli coming in a close third. miss j's middlewhite was tasty, but i didn't think my husband's fish [plaice on the bone] was anything to write home about, nor my jellied rabbit--as my mother said, rabbit should be fried up in a pan and served with brown gravy, and i think she's right. by the time we arrived at st. john i had had several pints at the wenlock and therefore didn't care to drink much more. if i go back i'll look for this cider you mention. i'm gonna come right out and say it. while very honored to have shared a bite of jon's tripe, i didn't love it. i didn't hate it, but i didn't love it. but i will try tripe again, prepared another way. as for good value, guys, who knows? i try not to think about the dollar-pound conversion--i live on X number of pounds per day, and if i spend them all on one meal, and the meal was good, then fine, so be it. while in GB i never allow myself to think, Oh, that cost £10, but it REALLY cost $16--because it didn't really cost $16--, it REALLY cost £10. that said, i know very well how far a dollar should go, and i always assume a pound should go as far, but perhaps i am wrong. in any case, i didn't think st. john's was terribly expensive at all. i gotta go get some eccles cakes.

after experiencing the raw peas first-hand, i have to say i rather enjoyed them and consider them to be a nice side addition to the other foods on the menu--a little crunch, a little sweet freshness--a palate cleanser if you will. and the bowl is heaping full. london is expensive, but st john is not unreasonable. it's possible for two people to fill their bellies for £40. i am intrigued by st john. i want to go back. the eccles cakes were among the most delicious food i have ever eaten. i like the idea of dining on appetizers in the bar.

i leave august 5. i did catch the festival in 1996, though. great fun. i'll be on the look-out for the landlord.

no one mentioned tea. steeping fresh herbs in hot water creates a very pleasant and soothing tonic.. in ecuador i have been served tea made from fresh oregano and [separately, not combined] fresh rosemary for "stomach upset"--rosemary tea is simply refreshing, even if you feel fine i am sure there are loads of other known medicinal uses for thyme, oregano, rosemary, marjoram, etc, teas.

toby, i'm having trouble with the computer i am using and when i get home next month, if you'd like, i can email you or even send you some figs and instructions on how to make them. i should warn you they are not gourmet, just honest and i like them that way. pm me if you'd like some.

seasoned cast iron skillet, get it medium hot and melt buter in it to coat well, but not burn, then break in as many eggs as you like, preferably fresh eggs from neighbor's hens, and cook very slowly, stirring here and there to "scramble" i like eggs with biscuits or good buttered toast & coarse-ground grits, but sometimes with tortillas and tasty hot sauce. i always put ketchup on as a kid, never jelly.

oh, wait, simon, let me do that for you, hon thought i'd jump in here because the first full day in london my husband's program dragged us to old orleans restaurant and then the lion king and to say the least this is a night i wish to forget, and mostly have, but i still can't imagine a restaurant placing before anyone utterly inedibale food, which is what happened to me. and i was so hungry i cried, held captive by a pack of philistines who were ordering drinks with umbrellas and "ribs" and all other sorts of pretend foods. sniff

Who are the ale men? I think I know! They're commited elsewhere, though. Pity you can't drink with me at the Wenlock tonight. Adam, while having pints at the Wenlock the other night my husband stood up and gathered all the empty glasses from our table and returned them to the bar. Simon proclaimed him "A true Yorkshireman" and of course I'm sure this is probably true ancestrally, but we're certainly both dyed-in-the-wool Yanks, period. You've answered my question beautifully and now watch me go try to impress cute guys in pubs. [oops, don't tell my spouse ]

Discuss amongst yourselves. My husband and I savored a couple pints [st. Peters' Best Bitter and Honey Porter] in London's Jerusalem Tavern this evening and tried to answer the question ourselves. My spouse, considerably more knowledgeable than myself in all things beer, claims that bitters are real ales. Real ales are cask conditioned, bitters are especially well-hopped. It's all about the amount of time the yeast plays and farts and bubbles, etc. But I'd like to hear what the experts have to say. For the record so far I'm particularly enamored with Thwaite's Mile, Exmoor Stag, Cain's Formidable, and Young's Special. The Shepherd's Neame Spitfire promises goodness but I'm not so sure I had the best sampling of it. The St. Peters' ales are first rate.

hand-tooled leather cowboy boots embossed with mermaids jaymes, fageddaboutit--i am happy to send you figs--someday you will be able to fulfil one of my dreams, as well

i ate grilled and spicy sweetbreads at a turkish restaurant in london the other night. i kept spooning them into my mouth, in between bites of crunchy radish. the next morning i lay sodden against the pilllow, thinking about sweetbreads, wanting them again and again and again. sweeetbreads rule.

LesleyC and Sandra, thanks for the brownie recipes. Blue Heron, well, I am in London now anyway. I have been seeing brownies everywhere, Borough Market, Spitalfields, and none of them look that good, not nearly as good as the one I bought at the Union Square market in NYC in May. Nor as good as the ones I make myself of course. Which pale in comparison to yours, I bet. I have to say though that this little thread revival warms the cockles of my heart [as well as the heart of my cockles], as I am a true brownie freak. If I can't just drink my chocolate straight, I can think of no better way to get it than in a brownie. Well--perhaps a pot du creme.....

Jaymes, PM me your address and I'll send you fig preserves. When I get back from the UK it'll be time to strip the fig tree and I'll try to make you some both spicy and sweet. I love fig preserves--when I make them I use very little sugar--if they are perfectly cooked they are delicious eaten by the spoonful right from the jar. If they are heavily sweetened and spiced they are to-die-for on toasted crusty bread with butter. I love marmalade. I love strawberry jam on scones with clotted cream. I am a terrible failure at jam-making. It's tricky--so many variables--humidity, fruit sugar content, alignment of planets and so on. Those of you who make delicious jams are doubly blessed.

Remember the episode of Gilligan's Island when Mrs. Howell said, "Feed a fever and starve a cold...wait, or is that feed a cold and starve a fever?" I can never remember either. Cravings during sickness can only indicate the body's call for help--it's asking you to give it what it needs to get better. When sick I often crave greasy fries and burgers and mashed potatoes and meatloaf...though I may not eat them. Why starch and red meat? Maybe it's the calories, too, maybe the metabolism gets stoked? Dunno. I say, eat away, Simon. No sniffling at the Wenlock!

I'm just sayin'. Blue Heron, where are you? LesleyC, your post had me on my knees. Perhaps you'd share your recipe with us?

how about under size 12? i'm working on the second pan of brownies and i feel fine!

the 11th or 12th--either fine--whichever nite works best for the majority of us the more the merrier! miss j, thrilled to be able to meet you, too.

Revive, briefly: Did anyone see the Vogue issue from, what? April? With what's-her-name, Angelina on the cover? It's called the shape issue and it features, supposedly, beautiful famous women of all shapes and sizes. Well, for "curvy" [as close as they ever come to "plump"], we are offered Sophie Dahl and Catherine Zeta-Jones. I love it. The whole thing made me want to eat a pan of Ghirardelli double-chocolate brownies. BUT there was a feature article about Nigella, and she looks so physically normal and yet so incredibly attractive I felt like cheering. What if fashion mags were filled with pics of women like her? She's 42 and looks 32, and I daresay her beauty can be largely attributed to subcutaneous fat. Regardless of her questionable merit as a food writer, I give her a thumbs up for advocating eating in a culture of food-denying waifishness.