stellabella

rogue is in oregon, sweetwater in atlanta. the brick house is just a pub, not a brew pub--nothing brewed on site. beerguyjim, i just don't know. i only know that the brutal bitter looked so promising, but the hops tasted wrong.

the snowangel family must be extraordinarily popular! my mom and grandmother always made boiled icing. these days everyone seems to be into the buttercreams. i've posted elsewhere that i learned very little about cooking from my matriarchs. i really blew it.

i use my "standard" skillets--they're 10" maggie, yes, wedges. suzanne--the dough is really stiff. spread it out on a piece of foil to about 10 inches then fold the foil up--this is just a suggestion--i think it would work--check them as they bake to see the sides aren't over-browning.

snowangel--i have your burnt sugar icing and cupcake recipe stored in my files--haven't made it yet but will--it's rare to find someone out there still baking and boiling the icing. you're right, there's no other way. bring on the layer cakes.

the problem this creates for me is that i want to invite you all over for dinner but....i'm scared.

i think i posted about this place in the southern board a while back www.ceciliavillavecescakes.com i have had her lemon cream and her coconut cake....incredible. last february i visited my friend in selma, AL, and her mother-in-law bought me a yellow b-day cake with boiled caramel icing from a local woman whose caramel cakes are famous in town--NO ONE makes boiled icing any more. i agree with you that the good old-fashioned layer cake seems to be a rarity. i love to make them but they are tricky--dry out easily, etc. maybe people would be willing to share some recipes for really good no-fail layer cakes? i haven't found one. i'm not talking about carrot or hummingbird cakes, which are pretty easy, but honest-to-god yellow or devil's food cakes.

i went to two pubs in atlanta the other night, the brick house in decatur and then the james joyce pub near agnes scott. i had rogue brutal bitter and sweetwater exodus porter. i love a pint of well-hopped real ale, but the pasteurization process seems to do something to the hops flavor that makes it too acrid for me--i readily accept that this is my own prejudice, but i wonder if anyone else notices a difference in the hops, and if it is real, what happens? my husband told me i was full of it--he said that we drink lots of really well-hoppped ales in england. i know what hops tastes like, though, and i like a well-hopped beer, but what i am complaining about is a really sharp acridness that seems to overpower the beer.

i have fun playing around with diffusions--or is it a concoction--by steeping herbs or zest or what-not in the wine or sherry for a day or so before using in the trifle. i don't know what i'd use with banana. when i made blueberry trifle i actually used rosemary.

it's been years since i had a really good watermelon--when they're good--firm, sweet, juicy--there's nothing better in the world--but the drought the last four years has really effected the quality of the melons in GA. same with strawberries and blueberries--when they're in season, i enjoy them most picking them and popping them straight into my mouth. i bring home bucketsful and make all sorts of yummy desserts, but the bottom line is that the sun-warmed, ripe juicy blueberry eaten while standing beside the bush is the QUINTESSENTIAL berry. of course, one can't enjoy the berries this way all the time--right? sure, cooking has allowed us to invent some really delicious foods--but a perfect piece of fruit? others may agree with me that it can satisfy one very deeply. my grandfather used to grow canteloupes, and i still remeber the way they tasted, when they were just picked and we cut them open in the back yard and ate the slices, letting that warm juice run down our chins--i have never enjoyed canteloupe as much since those days. of course it's about context, but it's also about the way that fruit tasted.

our kitchen is 12' by 24'--it was 2 rooms before we renovated. we wanted a kitchen where we could cook and entertain at the same time. the "kitchen" proper is separated from the eating area by a tile-topped counter, where i usually place appetizers, wine bottles & glasses, etc., for guests. it doesn't matter what we do or say--our guests are always going to be in the kitchen--we keep a couple Amish rockers in the dining area, as well. there have been evenings during which no one even left the kitchen [except to pee]. sometimes i cook the whole meal. occasionally i settle for pot luck. i have NEVER been disappointed. we have two sets of friends --our Atlanta friends, and our local Rutledge friends--among both groups are some extraordinary cooks. one woman always gets to make the borthday cakes, for example--because NO ONE can beat hers. my neighbor ed is the grill man--i defer to him in meat every time. yeah, there are always one or two people who show up with salad in a bag or a mrs. smith's pie, but, you know, after being pissed about it for so long, i've decided to be philosophical. if everything esle is really good, let's overlook the crappy pie. and considering that i have so many friends who cook really, really well, i think my glass is more than half full. the weird thhing is that NONE of these cooks posts at egullet. a good friend was visiting last feburary from PA--she insisted on making my b-day cake--bad luck to make one's own, she said--i wanted red velvet. i watched in amazement as, accompanied by many glasses of fine wines, she poured and whisked and dumped ingredients into my kitchenaid. the next day red batter was stuck to every surface in my kitchen, and i'd spilled molten chocolate all over my living room. one of the best nights of my life.

I love this cookie so much I want to share it with all yins out there in baking land. I had it at my neighbor Hilda's house last fall when she hosted the 2nd Annual Rutledge Oyster Roast. A friend had made it for her--I hastily scribbled the recipe in my drunken hand and proceeded to turn out about four batches during the holidays--I figured out how to get this very simple [though, of course, surreptitiously tricky, as recipes can be] cookie right. Hilda's Friend's Almond Shortbread 3/4 c melted butter 1 1/2 c sugar 1 1/2 c flour 2 beaten eggs pinch salt 1 t almond extract Mix butter and sugar til creamy; add aggs and mix well; add flour, salt and extract and mix well. Grease your standard cast-iron skillet and line completely with foil. Pour the stiff batter in and spread it to the sides. Sprinkle the top generously with slivered almonds and more sugar. Bake @ 350 30 mins. Cool completely before removing. Notes: this is so easy it's addictive. I use the Kitchenaid and pretty much just dump in the ingredients in the proper order and let the machine do all the work. I recommend taking the pan out after 25 min. and checking that your oven isn't cooking too fast. The top of the cookies will brown only VERY slightly. You might think they aren't done and want to stick them back in for 5-10 minutes--DON'T. Becasue I was making them during a cold spell, I took the skillet out on the porch and let them cool overnight. Once completely cool they set and firm up. Cut them into thin slivers and serve them with coffee or tea or alongside another dessert like chocolate mousse. These are the best cookies I've discovered in a LONG time. They are like a rich, soft chewy biscotti. Hope you like them, too.

ranitidine--i love it she and i have drunk many a pint together in london and in ireland. she will drink guinness in ireland, but she sips it, while i gulp it. i think she knows the difference between real ale and everything else, and appreciates it, but she probably feels a need to defend those who don't , since most people we know don't. i have freely admitted elsewhere that i'll drink an icy cold bottle of rolling rock or corona by the pool [my neighbor's ] on a hot summer afternoon. but if i have a choice of something else, i'll choose something esle. the sad quality of beer in the States, outside of the occasional really good microbrew, is an oft-lamented fact of living here. one can't really blame us for not knowing the difference, i suppose. but thank god all the same for yuengling and troeg's, etc.

fleur de sel [unopened as yet, a recent gift] pickling salt table salt, which isn't really used for anything fresh out of sea salt--need to go to market for cooking i use diamond crystal kosher--i keep it in a squat willoware cellar and just pinch out what i need. i adore salt cellars. i always feel sad when a guest comes over and asks, Uh.....what dis? How i use it?

i swear to you--i haven't got it in front of me because--IT'S OFF THE NILLA WAFER BOX. someone tell me, is there still a recipe for banana pudding on the box? it would be from scratch, not from any mixes, etc.

both my maternal grandparents died in the last four years, and previous to that my husband's first cousin passed away from lung cancer, so we had a spate of attending funerals together and marveling at the bizarre and in some odd way funny similarities in our families' food cultures. M's cousin's funeral was followed by a supper in the basement of a Presbyterian church in rural Western PA. we sat at long tables and passed plastic cafeteria bowls of boiled potatoes, green beans, baked chicken, served family-style. afterwards we swarmed around the pie table--dozens of plates of individual slices of pies--fruit and cream pies, mostly. after my pop-pop's and then my mom-mom's funerals, we gathered in the fellowship hall of the Frankford United Methodist Church in Frankford, DE, for a pot-luck luncheon: fried chicken, baked ham, macaroni and cheese, green beans, lima beans, squash casserole, cole slaw, pretzel salad [a profoundly repulsive dish which deserves its own thread], and dozens of other dishes, laid out along two end-to-end folding tables. we, too, had a dessert table, but ours was laid mostly with slices of cakes and puddings, and only the occasional slice of pie. back at the farm afterwards, we ate more cake, and potato biscuits with ham and chicken salad. we drank several cases of beer. a few of my cousins meandered aimlessly from room to room, mumbling bitterly about the affront to my grandmother's memory of bringing beer into her house. to which i muttered in response, under my breath--Well, I suppose we could go stand out in the barn and drink it, like Pop-pop used to do..... now my husband and I keep pictures of the pie and cake tables on our fridge--they remind us as much of his cousin and my grandparents as they remind us who we are and where we came from.

blue, it's nice that this thread got dredged up again--what fun to read. and now i am thinking of my mom's banana pudding.....

i want to cook for myself and my husband every day, yet i don't have the time to experiment or produce labor-intensive meals very often. nor have i access to the kind of ingredients i prefer, so i basically work from staples, including lots of grains and spices, and the occasional piece of fresh fish. laelty i'm very into using bourdain's instructions for fish--salt and oil then roast in foil in a very hot even. and i use other egullet tips for flavor--rubbing with cracked peppercorns and coriander; the next day the cold leftover salmon goes well with some simple vegs--last night i made gujarati carrots--they were just heated with black mustard seeds popped in oil in a skillet, and some cabbage and peas heated with cumin and turmeric and chile powder. i also confess health and weight are two constant concerns for me. i love to eat and i don't deprive myself, but i stick to a very healthy diet during the week, or when i am feeling particularly in need of some rest and self-pampering. the challenge is to eat healthily and deliciously at the same time. i am very much on the no-carbs bandwagon--that is, no refined flours, sugars, white rice, etc.--i notice a huge difference in how i feel. but it gets tricky, becasue sometimes i just want a slab of hefty bread with butter, or a giant homemade brownie. i try to satisfy my cravings with big salads with nuts and avocados, or smoothies made with soy milk and blueberries and a banana. any other suggestions for easy low-refinded carb fare would be appreciated. if my tastes change at all as i age--and, hell, i'm only 35--they change only in the sense that i listen more carefully to my body and try to take care of it, as i am reaching the age where it won't always do what i want it to do. i want to be able to bend over and tie my own shoes when i'm 80.

the recreation dept asked me to bring a pot of baked beans for the kids' cookout a couple years ago. my husband bought his favorite canned pork 'n beans--yes, i ate that white tasteless jujube once when i was a kid--gack! as jin would say--and even though they were for a bunch of kids who wouldn't eat them anyway, i added ketchup, mustard, molasses, hot sauce, anything to try to make them taste like something. years back i took baked beans to a cook-out--i used canned baked beans and added molasses and a little dried mustard and laid strips of bacon over the top and baked them in the oven. the men loved them. that was a long time ago before i really knew how to cook right. but they were edible, it seemed. which only makes sense, considering that american eat tons of those things.

suvir, i used powdered ginger , but i think wingding has answered your question better.

god, FINALLY, adam, thank you i'm an american who grew up drinking cold pale american lagers, and drinking real ale in the uk saved my life, truly. there have been lots of discussions, some heated, about relativism and food, and in the case of beer, i can't agree that it comes down to preference. my sister tried to argue that with me once, "Look," she said, "Some people really like Budweiser better." maybe they like it better, but that doesn't make it better. last summer i was pleased to discover that the Queen's Larder in Bloomsbury had Bass REAL ALE on tap--my husband and i stopped in almost every afternoon for a half just because it was so damn good--the unpasteurized bass was thicker, sweeter, rounder on the tongue--and of course served at room temp, unlike Bass at home. i'm not sure about the whole guinness thing. extra cold is extra cold, and it's not my preference. as for difference in the taste, i notice variation from one pub in ireland to another within a few miles range. the cleanliness of the lines and turnover are always a consideration. a good pint of guinness is cool, thick, smooth, more sweet than hopped, with a bit of a tingly finish. reggie, you sound like you enjoy your beer, and i am willing to bet you that your life could be transformed by a pub crawl through the right pubs with the right people!

read brillat-savarin [in translation, of course] for good fun discussion of the imprtance, nay, necessity, of chocolate. timo, you can still be pretty simple about it--melt good chocolate in milk [or water]--the better the chcolate, the better the hot chocolate. as it's melting, be sure to stir it--whip it, really--often.

it looks like a bag of turbinado sugar, but it is in fact dried cane sugar--has that characteristic taste. i get them at the dekalb farmer's market in atlanta--i only discovered it about 6 months ago--may be a fairly new product.

my husband loves pork and beans, too, esp. the vegetarian faux variety. sometimes we make sandwiches for lunch on weekends, and he heats up a whole can for himself. and mocks me as he relishes every last bite.

Does anyone other than me crave warm, sweet pablum on a cold dry winter day? One of my dearest friends put together a tiny little booklet a few years ago: Breakfast Puddings for Kings and Queens. I daresay that any one of her little sweet cups will make the jewels in your crown twinkle more brightly. Here's a great one for January: Indian Pudding 2 t + 2 T butter 2/3 c sugar [i use Cajun Crystals dried cane sugar] 1/2 c yellow cornmeal 1/2 t ginger 1/4 t cinnamon 4 c milk, divided 4 large aigs, i mean eggs 1/3 c molasses preheat oven to 350. butter 8-10 6 oz custard cups with 2 t melted butter. combine cornemeal, sugar, ginger and cinnamon in a bowl. heat 3 cups milk in saucepan over medium heat until very hot, then slowly stir in cornmeal mixture [use whisk if you need to].reduce heat and simmer til thick, stir contsantly, 10 mins. stir in 2 T butter and let cool 10 mins. combine 1 c milk, eggs, molasses then whisk into cornmeal mixture. pour into custard cups, placed in shallow pan with boiling water halfway up sides. bake 35 minutes--tops will rise and puff and crackle, and will collapse when cool. the texture is divine. and of course this is a great opportunity to use your thousands of custard cups. well, i have lots of them. they're so cute. any other homemade pudding or custard recipes out there?

jaymes, as usual. i keep a few cans of beans [and i mostly buy organic, brands like westbrae] in the pantry for making quick hummus [which i did today] for tossing into a salad or stirring quickly into a simple pasta dish. but cooking dried beans simply feels better. if i were going to make black bean soup or a pot of black-eyed peas for New Year's Day, of course i'd start with dried. i hate canned baked beans. i refuse to eat them--i don't care what you do to them--add bacon, molasses, whatever, they are mushy and nasty and taste like tin. i also agree with nina about chickpeas. i'll enter the contest for chickpeas. it must be a chemical reaction because the difference between a soaked and cooked chickpea and a canned one is so obvious. personally, i think beans are one of the world's greatest foods, nevermind the fact that they keep X people alive. anyone who loves them and wants to get more of them into your diet, may i recommenbd a great little book i got for xmas two years ago: The Instant Bean by Sally and Martin Stone. the first 41 pages are devoted to a discussion of the different types of beans, how to cook ANY type of dried bean, how to pressure cook, the merits of canned beans, etc. and a slew of great and some very easy recipes.