stellabella

i saw the mag in the check-out line and then got a chance to browse through my neighbor's free copy--it came to anyone who subscribes to her other mags, i think. yeah, blahblahblah, the same old anti-martha rant. as if martha lent any more than her name to this project. i thought the little mag was quite fabulous, myself. as klc said, very nice lay-out, lots of good photography and chock-ful of recipes, not too ad-driven. i was particularly pleased with the little piece on "whipping up a quick vinaigrette"--keep in mind this is on the stand in the check-out line at kroger's--if it inspires people to do things a little differently, it's a good thing. shaking together a simple vinaigrette is one of those tasks that can make a timid cook feel like a million bucks--and vinaigrette is one of those looks- easy-but-ain't tasks--and the mag totally demystifies the process.

i bet you guys had a great time!! simon, did you get your head kissed? wish i could have been there.

Atlantans--I'm gonna start a thread on dining in Atlanta. Would ya'll get yer hind ends on over thar and post to it? Thaaanks, S

oh, same here. so i have decided to splurge and buy on-line--the best site i've found and one recommended by several here is www.chocosphere.com. and i still use ghirardelli, if it's the best i can find--it's not the worst chocolate in the world, amen! but once you've had the other.....

any others? i'm way ready for an atlanta get-together. dlc--know how you feel about the commute

s'kat, sandy levine's recipe is very good. you can't go wrong with the recipe from a box of baker's or from the ghirardelli wrapper--follow it but SUBSTITUTE the best quality chocolate you can find. i felt very inferior early on because i had never baked with vahlrona or scharffen berger--but when i was able to get them, i immediately knew the difference. spend some time searching the chocolate threads here--i have learned a lot from them.

my husband just planted purple garlic from mexico. he also propagated some clippings from our prize climbing rose tree [we've never id'd it--it came with the house--beautiful lush showy pale pink blossoms climbing up the side of our shed] and has the tray in his office windowsill. it's been an unusually cold winter in GA. if all goes well, we will START the summer garden mid to late april. note: dr. science ordered more seeds from seeds of change catalog--they have great products but he says that once again he's experienced very poor service. he ordered hops and checked a box designating that they hold delivery--which they didn't--and he says they've done this to him before.

hi, david! [hallelujah chorus thumping in background] don't be shy. while certainly competent, at least one of us is lazy, and it's a tall order for me and dave to represent this city of 4mil. you're in tucker so of course you go to dekalb. this is our major shopping hub, too--we live 50 mis east so pick up "extras" at the convington kroger, but try to stock up at the DFM at least twice a month. i've been using the DFM religiously since I was a poor college kid on a mountain bike in 1987. in the last 15 years my lifestyle, tastes and bank account have changed dramatically. i used to be able to get a huge amount of food for $20--i could live a week off the bagels, produce, cheese & milk and occasional treats. these days we spend anywhere from $50-$120 when we go to stock up. my husband buys most of our wine [a large selection of affordable wines] here--we gets cases, which are discounted 10%. the beer selection is also really good. i first suspected a problem with DFM last feb when i brought home some french cheeses for my birthday--one guest sniffed and proclaimed it rancid. last fall i bought some cod--when i got it home and opened it it was a stink bomb--like, WAY past bad. the cheeses: they slice cheeses and wrap them, and the date of packaging is always on the label. i look for something packaged THAT DAY if possible--otherwise, forget it--i have brought home cheeses a couple times that had a slimy coating. it looks to me like the selections have expanded recently--esp on the packaged food aisles, crackers, etc. i have never had a problem with dairy, besides cheese. we try to eat as much organic as possible--the selection of milk, yogurt, european style butter, etc is very good. in general, my complaint is that it's not consistent. the prices and selections are always good, but why would a place like this be selling rancid cheese and meat? if you've shopped there you know that this place does huge volumes of business. a couple times we went to the whole foods on briarcliff instead--but we balked at the prices--we can afford to shop there, but we are politically opposed to their open highway robbery. so, what i'm left with is a sort of confusion about where to get food. i feel like a city the size of atlanta should have more options--but maybe i just don't know what they are. i'd say a field trip is in order. dave, would you be willing to take me to my local publix and show me how to befriend the catfish behind the counter ? sorry to preempt this thread, but i've tried how many times? to start conversations about atlanta to no avail!

I never saw the previous post mentioning Taste of Home, JAZ. Thanks for posting this info. It doesn't surprise me. One of my great aunts subscribes my older sister to this magazine, and she sent me a complimentary copy. My sister cooks out of it all the time, and most of the dishes I tasted were fine, and they sure looked better on the table than they do in the photos. I made a sour cream chocolate cake from it that was okay. I also clipped a coupe recipes for my book--it's a good source for those lardy down-home favorites that you occasionally crave--ie, comfort food. I would describe this as "home" or "kuntry" cooking. My primary objection to the magazine is aesthetic--the photography is really horrible. I thought at first that it was simply a budgetary constraint, but now I think it's just what people will settle for. My mom gave me their annual "cookbook" for Xmas and I had to stifle my laughter--my mom means well . I know I come off sounding elitist about it, but again, the photos of the food are just awful. But what I do like about it is that is contains no ads, and it features real "cooks"--and here the distinction between cook and chef is important. There's also a bizarre section in each issue--how to feed a family of four for $1.97--or something along those lines. From a sociological perspective, it's really depressing, especially because the people who use this mag are probably not truly poor--the "cheap" menus feature lots of fatty ground beef, processed cheese and macaroni.

thank you, everyone. i found project's post, too, and with your blessing i'm gonna copy your tips into my egullet recipe and technique archive. now, if i may [mis]quote maggiehtecat: Pies are about to happen!

yes, it is. atlanta is so badly unrepresented on these boards, and i don't know why. as others have noted, it's possible to have some very fine fish in restaurants, but the retail selection can be tricky. i know folks who buy huge salmon filets at Sam's and find the quality to be consistently good. but i don't belong to sam's. and i know that harry's offers very good quality in just about everything--but that's a long haul for me. i also hear the whole foods in atlanta has good seafood. thanks, dave--next time i'm getting my hair cut [near pharr rd] i'll stop into the fish market to get fish for supper. i haven't eaten there in YEARS.

gracias, scoats. ttattas sound like a good way to get more protein in the diet, too. what did you serve with them? and the possibilities for combinations are endless.

I did a search and saw some threads that dealt with aspects of making crusts, but I have far more serious problems, folks. Once or twice I've baked The Bread of Affliction, but I've lost count of the times I've baked The Pie Crust of Embarrassment. I cannot make tender crust, and I have tried everything. So I was wondering if we could start a thread in which people who are able to do it well every time walk us [me ] through it? Be specific. I have tried butter, shortening, butter and shortening, chilling everything, pastry blenders, the food processor, etc. If there are certain products--brands of flour, for example--that work best for you , could you share those, too?

you must have had a bad one. i love my yuengling. did anyone every drink mickey's big mouths? EDIT oops, yes, of course, tommy remembers--BUT, did you drink them in 8th grade, my friends? [i already know the answer]

has anyone made black rice pudding? a friend sent the recipe and some black rice for my b-day one year. i haven't been able to find black rice since then. the recipe was pretty basic, make the rice in the rice cooker as you normally would, using coconut milk instead of water, a little sugar and a pinch of salt. to make the pudding pudding-y, increase the proportion of coco milk. i had this for dessert at a malaysian restaurant. i posted last summer about a gal with a PUDDING stall in borough market, london, who sold it, too. i live for pudding. it's great for dessert and then again the next morning for breakfast.

the student book club that i sponsor just met to discusss the lovely bones. there were a lot of mixed feelings about it and some surprising insight into the characters coming from 18-yr-olds. our next book is dress codes by noelle howie. i am finishing up nickel and dimed by barbara eihrenreich. as far as food-related, her accounts of the dietary habits of the working poor are about as unsettling as anything i've read lately. i mean, i almost feel guilty when i open my fridge.

i inquired several months ago about buying fish in atlanta. i find it to be very tricky and have come home more than once with rotten cod, shrimp, etc. rail paul, or anyone, do you have any ideas about the buckhead life restaurant group's wholesale business--do they sell to the public?

grape when we were kids we had kool-aid stands. back in the 70s koolaid had a competitor--wyler's--and we thought drinking wyler's was cooler than drinking koolaid. i think leif garrett used to drink wyler's.

my huband and i are feeling flu-y, so we didn't make a special breakfast this weekend. last week i baked muffins the mornings i had to go to work--mixed the dry stuff the night before. the best were corn and molasses muffins with raisins, craisins and walnuts. one morning i put tortillas in the bamboo steamer while i "poached" two organic eggs in butter in a cast-iron skillet, til the yokes were hard, then wrapped them in the tortillas and ate with ecuadorian aji. mmmm..... and i always drink a pot of black or green tea.

amen. my neighbors' 81-yr-old mother, having reached the age where she can happily tell everyone to sod off, drinks her gin on the rocks, as much as she likes. and we're all happy to have her pass out in our laz-e-boys. and she calls it a "crystal chandelier." and just you dare try telling her it's not a cocktail.

where are the photos of the good-looking people eating the food? sorry. i can't help it.

*sigh* i miss yins. no one here in gawga has the least appreciation for what i experienced at ali's. well, maybe someone like dave the cook. but other than that, it's pizzle.

jesus christos. someone asked me when i'm coming back to NYC and the answer is --next time you do THIS. ya'll, the breads look gorgeous--but EVERYTHING looks gorgeous. your sweaters and scarves look gorgeous. the wine looks gorgeous. egullet rules, yo!

i think it's about peaches.

There used to be an incredible bar near Little Five Points in Atlanta, GA, located on Austin Ave and aptly named the Austin Ave Buffet, know as the Buffet by those in the know. I lived across the street from it for about a year, in a mangy duplex, with a variety of roommates. The Buffet regular clientele lived about a mile away in an area of Atlanta known as Cabbage Town--one of those early 19thC mill towns that springs up around factories [in this case the old Atl Mattress Factory], rows of narrow crappy shacks, never having been inhabited by any other family--the great-great offspring of the first mill workers still live here. I had a boyfriend who rented the upstairs apt. in one of the shanties. We woke up one night to the sound of banging doors and the gravelly twangy voice of a teenage girl across the street leaving home--again. "It's my p****," she bellowed, "And I can do WHATEVER I want with it!" The neighborhood's name is synonymous with early urban poverty--cabbage eaters. Hip edgy people have always taken advantage of the low rents over there; hip edgy people have always liked to drink Pabst with Cabbage Town's broken poor. I was no exception. The scene in the Buffet was always unpredictably besotted. In the late 1980s the Buffet became a regular venue for Slim Chance and the Convicts, one of Atlanta's premier urban hillbilly acts. Part of their shtick was passing the mike to the audience. The regulars sang Haggard favorites, danced, played the guitar. This was a favorite spot for Cabbage Towners celebrating birthdays; the crowd was always all-ages, and I can't recall the APD ever showing up to break things up. One night I was there to hear the band with a guy I had dated in college. Someone was celebrating a birthday that night, and during the band's break, one of the waitresses brought out a giant sheet cake. There were several regular waitresses; some of them had obviously made a career out of opening long-necks. The woman working that night was well into her 70s, missing more than half of her front teeth, her hair lank and greasy, skinny and stringy as a piece of spaghetti. She placed the cake in front of the birthday boy. The crowd sang. He blew out the candles. And then the waitress, whom we all assumed to be his mother, lifetd up her sweatshirt and dangled her Well, I think I can't finish this story. But you get the idea. And this is a TRUE story. And afterwards my friend and I were forced to go elsewhere in search of a liquor drink.