stellabella

priscilla--sounds gorgeous! i have one fiesta rose plate--my favorites are cobalt, persimmon and chartreuse, and my least favorite the black. i'd have to say if there's one color i do not want to eat from it's black. b edulis, i am about to faint trying to imagine the bathroom tiled with plates--if at all possible, someday please post a photo of it for me. i'm plotzing help me

i have two or three patterns of vintage handed-down scavenged rummage sale silver plate, with lots of odd teaspoons, for every day. because i have no money invested in it i don't care what happens to it and i dishwash it which is not good for it at all, makes it look flat and whitish my silver pattern is old maryland engraved which i suspect many eGulletarians would find too frilly, but i love the way it has at once simple sexy lines as well as gorgeous floral embossing--i am about two/thirds of the way towrds service for twelve, and i am not sending it ot the engraver til my set is complete. i like to use it but keep it put up most of the time, which actually goes against my belief that the best dishes and flatware should nevr be saved fpr sepcal occasions. but since i don't have enough for all my guests i don't use it--it also wouldn't do to mix it with the everyday worn plate when i got married i registered for silver, the ONLY thing i cared to hope for. people told me i was crazy and wouldn't get any, and i got a lot, and now my mom continues to add steadily to my set it's not unaffordable and it is truly beautiful. i know people who use ONLY sterling, and one woman has pieces from at least fifty different patterns. it should always be handwashed and immediately rubbed dry briskly with a soft cloth--and NEVER use a scouring pad on it. the truth about silver is that the more it's used, the shinier it will be. forget polishing.

shrimp with julienned red & green bell peppers & swiss chard over cheese grits broiled tomatoes a tangy crispy green salad and since it's six women, chocolate mousse, definately, and make sure you thwop some whipped heavy cream on top. knews9-trust me, this is not hard the motto in our house--food made from scratch from all fresh ingredients can't go wrong-- knock wood! have fun!

On Friday night my friend and I tried to duplicate the Indian meal we'd learned to prepare in our Indian Cooking class. I won't bore you with too many details but want to share one revelation and make one plea for help. 1] we tried making pakoras from thinly sliced vegs [potatoes, eggplant, squash]. i thought the pakora batter looked wrong but wasn't sure why or how, being a total novice to Indian cooking. we coated the slices and dropped them in the heated oil [@ 4 inches] and all the batter came off. so then jennifer got the idea to make fritters--she added about a cupful or chickpea flour to the batter, we diced the vegs and mied them together in the batter, then i dropped them by the tablespoonful into the oil, reduced to about an inch in the bottom of a wok--they cooked nicely, crispy, just a little greasy but otherwise flavorful. i asked jennifer if this was another traditional way of making pakoras and she said she'd never heard of them done this way, and that maybe she had made it up. did she? does anyone know? this method works splendidly, in any case. 2] i think but dare not voice my suspicion to my friend, who seems commited to her belief that Nirav gram flour is the correct flour, that we used the wrong flour. help me, someone. the recipe, and our teacher, told us to use "besan [Nirav brand,chickpea flour, gram flour]"--the instructions ahveme confused. okay, so at the indian grocery we get a bad marked Nirav besan gram flour. it looks courser and darker than the chickpea flour she added later to the batter--and no where on the bag does it say chickpea flour, just gram flour. what IS besan? is there more than one type? do pakoras require a blend of gram and chickpea or are these the same thing? i have no idea and would appreciate any advice. [the rest of the meal, stuffed parathas, kadhi, kichadi, green chutney--all good tho salty [we followed the recipes to a T, something I normally don't do]. the besan burphi turned out the best, tho it was a little stiff]

oh, robert--cloth napkins--ALWAYS--paper--NEVER and it kills me how my guests will sometimes refuse to USE them, like they don't want to MESS THEM UP :confused:

Well, my response is going to make you gag, B Edulis. I love dishes as much as I love food, for reasons entirely different from those which make me food obsessive--I don't think about food and dishes together, in other words. When I'm eating I want to enjoy both the food and the plate, but not necessarily the relationship between. As for the inexplicably popular blue willow, first introduced to the Western table by Joseph Spode, I have a set of cheap Willoware from perhaps the 30s or 40s and I love them --i think combinations of blue and white set the prettiest table I have three different patterns of ironstone--my favorite being my Spode Chinese Rose--and I have a gorgeous Spode Bermuda turkey platter--hauled home from the UK in my lap. I have twelve place settings of Portmeirion botanical garden, which I know to be held in utter contempt by most people but j'adore. For everyday i ahve fourteen place settings of contemprary Fiesta ware [and they keep coming out with more groovy colors!]--these plates I have collected over the last fifteen years, often pcikin gthem up from seconds binds for a couple bucks apeice--not a one of them has a nick--I can't imagine a more durable dish. I have six fabulous pottery plates, brown with pale blue hand-glazed birds in the center, from Mexico--great for intimate dinner parties. My dessert/breakfast/bread plates are all mismatched--this gives mt the opportuntiy to have pieces I like of many different patterns. Ditto my coffee-tea cups and mugs--I drink from simple 25 cent Syracuse china seconds or ancient chipped Johnson Bros mugs--depends onmy mood & the season. Dishes dishes dishes. Rarely meet one I don't like

Steven, I hope you're planning to submit this emerging travel book for publication. And was that Betty in the photo, bravely trying to quell the bubbling furies atop that mammoth stove? [Great photos, Ellen!]

John, nice photo! Maybe it was the water coming out of our tap, but I have noticed that London water is greasy--is it just me? In fact, I am bringing my own mini Brita with me to London this summer to use in my flat. Bringing it simply cuz doing so saves me the trouble of having to go get one there. At home we have a chilled water dispenser on our fridge--the water is filtered, but we don't drink it--still it's a feature of the fridge and guests ofen use it. My husband buys the bottled barrels of mountain spring water and has the dispenser that goes with them. I use our Brita--I think it produces the best-tasting water. I also buy cases of Coralba sparkling water and drink this when I want something more refreshing than flat water.

Simon, is Robin married? I know you aren't, but you claim to be a misanthrope. Mamster, I agree that though cooking may look simple it often isn't and there's one of the catches [ I commented to you in another thread about the trickiness of hashbrowns]. Cabrales, in my experience, the "simple/basic" foods from my childhood are the ones I have the most trouble with--pie crusts, biscuits, etc--and meat, any kind of meat--I have no idea what to do with meat to this day though I can grill a nice piece of salmon. I didn't like using recipes at first because I was stubborn and foolhardy :confused: --that's the truth and I now humbly admit it. I felt that I should be able to cook effortlessly, like it was my due as a result of having good intentions and being descended from a long line of very capable cooks. But now that I have been cooking in earnest for going on two decades I am becoming what some people call an intuitive cook--I often try building a dish around a certain type of food--two years ago I got on a tofu cook--last year it was quinoa [the best thing I did with it was add some of the cooked grain to a hearty yeasted bread--it was awesome]. I go through phases with foods. I also am a gardener and therefore into seasonal cooking. Summers I have lots of free time and do more experimenting. In the last eight years since I have been with my husband I have gotten to know the wives of his best friends really well and they are the most accomplished creative intuitive cooks I know. They all live in other states so we visit annually--and during the 3-4 days we spend in each pothers' homes we have food orgies--I literally shadow these women in the kitchen and at one point one of themn even got nervous--she couldn't understadn my enthusiasm--she is pretty modest. I have learned more from these women than from any other cooks I ahve known. Recipes and books are great, but there's nothing like observation--it's a great joy to be able to observe a good cook in action.

i'm with you, tommy. i love clothes as much as anyone i know, which is a bit ironic since i hate getting dressed up--i am a teacher and get up each morning and carefully choose something fabulous--by the time i get home end of the day i feel like i've been run through a steam press--time for the jeans and Ts , or Old Navy JUST BOTTOMS. so more often than not i'm gonna choose a casual restaurant. on the other hand, i think the idea of getting smashingly dressed for a really special meal is nice--it would be something i'd do very rarely, though. which is kinda the point, right, that there should be really special restaurants for really special meals and really special occasions [tho it's fine if people like to have a really special meal once a week!!! or every night!!!!]. nina, i'm not going to visit that other site, but i take liza's word for it and i agree, how dare they be mean to you. seems like anyone who dares suggest that looking nice and neat and appropriate is some horrible unPC elitist--when in fact all over the world even people very poor by our western standards are very clean and neat and dress far more formally than we do. REVERSE LOOK-ISM!

franklanguage, you could probably tell us a thing or two about modern medicine and so-called pedagogy cabrales, my mom and grandmother cooked really well [my mom's still living but she's gotten kinda lazy--no kids around anymore?]and it would be understating to say they made it look easy--food appeared on the table, it was always good, they never fretted or sweated or paced, muttering, omigod, what if my pie crust isn't tender. it always was. and instead of awakening in me a natural desire to follow along, it made me feel very inept in the kitchen. for one thing we [i have four sisters] were never asked to help, told to help, forced to help, nada. but i also felt this deep envy and it was what finally pushed me to want to learn. to this day one sister doesn't boil water, the other three like to cook some and are sometimes very good cooks, but i turned out to be the food obsessive and maybe most accomplished in the kitchen--not that i am accomplished, but RELATIVELY speaking. i just had this innate understanding that food rocks the world, it brings people together in the most basic wasy--it holds families [i'm using the term loosely] together, if you will. so in my early twenties as soon as i got my own place i started trying to cook. i never wanted to use recipes and got frustrated a lot. i cooked with friends sometimes, great fun, but these days i don't have time like i'd like to, and my freinds sure don't. my husband is a pretty good cook, but like my mom i think he tends to be lazy. but he taught me how to can and how to bake with yeast, and how to grow my own organic food. my mom and grandmother canned everything [grandparents lived on a farm] and i never learned from them--i learned from my husband when i was 27! is that weird? again, it was the intimidation thing--i think i felt i could never do what my mom and grandmother did--again, it wasn't that they made it look easy--it was like magic. in addition i have always been a bookworm. my first love was higglety pigglety pop by sendak--it's about a dog named jennie who can't stop eating--she eats buttermilk pancakes so delicious she swoons--i think that might be me. my second love was the little princess by frances hodgson burnett. there's a scullery maid who shares the attic room next to sara's, and when the mysterious man next door discovers the two hapless little girls living next door, he sends his servant over in the night to furnish their rooms and leave them food, so in the morning they wake to these sumptuous hot steaming breakfasts, aromatic teas, flaky buttery scones and pastries. i think it was reading that first made me realize the POSSIBILITIES for food. and now i find that being in the kitchen is very therapeutic.

Tony, We'll be in touch when I arrive--the other thing you can do for me while I'm in London is direct me to a couple of really top-notch restaurants. I'm getting tired of eating jacket potatoes in pubs--and my husband wants to eat at Waggamammas every night but COME ON, already. We have a per diem that we end up frittering away while I'd rather cook simple meals in the flat and then have a couple of amazing & perhaps pricey meals out each week. So I'm also interested in finding some good markets [like the Borough Market but that's a bit of a haul from UCL] for picking up easy to prepare foods in a very poorly equipped kitchen. As much time as I've already spent in London when I read the UK threads I am clueless. Thanks to Simon I found my way to the Wenlock, at least. Sorry if I am getting off topic. I'm getting EX-CI-TED. More on this later. stellab

I have one question for you people: where do you find the time to prepare these incredible meals? Or are you such old hands that you just throw them together willy-nilly? As for me, cooking is a respite from normal daily activity, and part of the contract I've been forced to make with my wardrobe is that I skip supper some nights during the week--BUT I always eat a sensible breakfast and lunch. Monday I passed on the slop served by the dining hall and had a small salad during an awards banquet at the college--those poor students--no wonder they love fast food. I came home and ate a Kit Kat Chunky bar and drank a decaf cappucino on my porch as the sun set. Tuesday I went to bed at 9, no supper. Tonight I'm making a light supper, couscous salad with some vine-ripened tomatoes and sweet corn brought back by hubbie form Fla., as wel as steamed broccoli and snap peas, spinahc, green bell peppers and red onion--I'll dress the whole thing with extra virgin olive oil and fresh lemon juice. Stellabouli. I'm hoping to graze off it the rest of the week. Tomorrow night my husband wants to cook pasta--he sautees veggies and adds oragnic sauce--he's not a particularly inspired cook, but he taught me how to bake with yeast and can tomatoes, so he has his strengths. Friday my yoga teacher and I are duplicating the Indian meal we learned in our Indian cooking class Sunday: pakoras, green chutney, moong dahl and broken wheat kichadi, kadhi, and besan burphi. Can't wait! Priscilla, I run my sponges and the sink stopper through the sink at least once a week or whenever I think it needs done.

I'll be in London July 3-27, then in Ireland July 27-August 3. We might be able to make this work. If I cook for you this summer, I won't make meatloaf--you'll get summer southern grub, backyard tomatoes and squash casserole, cornbread, maybe fried tomatoes & eggplant....I'll come up with something!

Tony, also read my post on Selma [sorry about the typos]. If you want some history [and BARBECUE! Man-o-man!]--whoa. And it would be really funky and freaky for you to see Madison, GA, and then see Selma, AL. It's hard to get your mind around this place we call "The South." Like it's HOMOGENOUS or something. Uh-uh!

In one regard I am definately totally intimidated on this web-site--recommending upscale restaurants. The reason? I never eat in them. Really. But I can show you some soul food. I live in Rutledge, which is 50 miles east of Atlanta. If I am not in the UK while you are in the US, I think it is possible I could cook for ya'll. I can think f another really good reason for you to make the detour--I live about 8 mis. from Madison, an intact antebellum town with gorgeous restored architecture. Madison is rather snooty [Rutledge is the bastard stepdaughter] but well worth a look. And i recommend Ol' Murray's, a soul food diner on the first floor of the black funeral home. Nicest people run it. I always get the fried fish [whiting]-they don't cook it til you order it. Collard greens, field peas, rice--and blue pressed glass bowlsful of jalapeno and onion slices in vinegar on each table. Let me know when you all are a 'comin.

Miss J-- Have been waiting to hear about it. I am glad you disregraded my advice. While in Panama I ate buckets of ceviche, with no ill effects--I think the lime takes care of a lot of organisms. I want to hear more about the pastries for sale in the bakery, and any accounts of shopping in other markets. Did you ever try any refrescas from sidewalk vendors? If so, please give a detailed account of how delishus they were.

ya'll/yins/you'uns are so supportive--I feel like I've been bathed in honey and treated to an all-over chocolate massage.. jhlurie, cabrales, andy, everyone-- yeah, perhaps my expectations are a bit high, and isn't that SAD? i think of myself as a helpless hapless cynic but in truth i still tend to be pretty idealistic and have unreasonably high expectations for social conventions, i fear. i was a server for five years at a place that might also be described as an upscale diner--the owner was/is an evil man, but in spite of the cruelty he visited upon his employees, he treated every paying customer who walked through the door like his/her you-know-what didn't you-know-what and to his credit, he's going on 21 years in business and getting ready to expand again, i hear--i guess i was well-trained there, that service is almost everything. [good food matters as much as service, of course] tony, two and a half months and counting--i'll be sitting in the pub, enjoying my ales. *sigh*

my gut response is both/and ruby told me not to take it personally, and i don't [thanks darlink] , but EGADS i feel my feminist rage bubbling up to the surface i think that had my husband been sitting there with me, a bit older, very tall, she'd not have asked us to leave. i also know that had my husband been sitting there and she had asked us to leave, he'd have told her to kiss off i am a wimp, i freely admit it BUT andy i think the reason i posted this is because i myself have put in considerable years in food service and NEVER heard of such a thing, never, not in this type of restaurant, a trendy diner serving mostly hip cool yuppie local types [which i am not necessarily but it was close to where my sis was staying]. i do think it is rude, but also wonder if this is becoming more and more common.

i guess you can call it an "eat it and beat it" place--it's been around for many many years but not in this location. i hadn't been in years til two weeks ago when i went there with a girlfriend who lives very close to it in atlanta--we met for lunch and this was her choice--we had great food and great service and sat for well over an hour, just the two of us, talking as girls do, ya know. and no one gave us a sideways glance. hm.

The Modern Language Association defines plagiarism as quoting another author word for word, or paraphrasing another author's ideas, without giving any credit to the original author. The Honor Council at my college will find a student guilty of plagairism if he cuts and pastes sentences or paragraphs from the original source into his own and tries to "disguise" the theft by inserting a few of his own words here and there--the MLA agrees that even copying the sentence structure can be defined as plagiarism. Before the use of the internet became so prevalent, students almost always got away with plagiarism, because it was time-consuming, if not downright impossible to locate plagiarized sources--though there have always been those professors who can nail 'em every time. Now it is easy to bust them. But that depends on whether the professor wants to be bothered to go to the trouble. So, some get severely punished for such transgressions, while others get a slap on the hand or no punishment at all. Enforcement of the rule is arbitrary, and that's unfair. I am not suggesting that the same standards that apply to the ownership of words should apply to the ownership of recipes-- but I personally think it is wrong to take another person's idea and pass it off as your own. If it's possible to out a thieving chef, I say do it. But I imagine it would be really hard to do.

Okay, I know everyone will not agree with me, and I would like to hear some thoughts on this one. I drove an hour this morning to meet two of my sisters for brunch in Atlanta at Thumbs Up Diner, one of these sorta funky heaps-on-the-food type places that serves coffee in big bowls, has been around forever, etc. My one sister is in town for business so I pick her up and we go to the restaurant--the third sister is a bit late so we wait--she arrives and we are seated at 9:30 am. It's a rainy dreary Saturday morning and this restaurant is busy but not full. The three of us order entrees and coffee. We eat. We have another cup of coffee. We finish. The server brings the check. We pay it [plus 20% tip]. The server starts clearing our table. All three of us have waited tables--we get the message, but we've been there, done that, and we aren't quite ready to leave. Another woman approaches our table and says, "Ladies, I don't mean to be rude, but if you aren't going to be spending any more money here this morning, then we need you to leave so that we can seat the people who are waiting." It's 10:25. I am not sure if this is one of those restuarants that prints a "rudeness" disclaimer on the back of the menu in fine print: "We reserve the right to refuse service to blahblahblah..." Call me old-fashioned, but I think that was rude as hell. There were a couple of parties waiting, but only a couple. It was a rainy morning--my sisters and I, stunned and not particularly confrontational people, got up and left and stood on the sidewalk in the rain saying good-bye to each other. Am I trying to elicit sympathy? Yes, I am ! In my waitressing days, I would have been fired on the spot in front of the offended customer if I had asked a party to leave. My question: What is the prevailing cultural norm--do managers regularly ask people to leave? Or is this rude? I am not talking about parties that tie up tables for hours and hours--we weren't even seated for a full hour!

love participating in your virtual vacation hope it keeps on being fun and i look forward to the next installment what are you & ellen reading while on the road? i am almost finished with holy days--great recommendation

what could be more fun than an eGullet tour of members' kitchens? anyone? after my grandmother died a year ago i helped my mom clean out her house and i ended up bringing home about half the contents of her kitchen. it really surprised me that no one wanted this stuff. i have a metal grater that is perhaps fifty years old and still dangerous--we don't make things like we used to. i got her colander, mixing bowls, paring knives, filleting knives, a plastic egg seperator from a Rehoboth Beach insurance company--you don't see those anymore--a knife sharpener. loads of great gadgets. i think i am like most of you in that i need more than one of most things, like colanders/strainers [and towels!]. i also got a small hand-held nutmeg grater which i use at least once a week--also for lemon zesting. these things are useful and sentimental--my grandmother was a reknowned farm cook and i like to think she lives on this way, tho i could never make her pie crust. i got a kitchen aid and a 14-cup cuisineart this year for xmas-birthday and i leave them on the counter --they have transformed my life.

unfortunately, ellen and steven won't be cutting through east tennessee, where the "mullet" is more appropriately referred to as the "dump" :p