stellabella

I love hot cereal. I buy bulk ingredients and keep a batch of cereal in the fridge: the combinations always change, and to this day I still haven't hit the PERFECT mix. Suggestions would be appreciated... I start with rolled oats and cracked wheat and add any or all of the following: wheat germ quinoa cous cous sesame seeds sunflower seeds dates chopped nuts oat bran While it's cooking [i use milk and water, usually], I add some pure vanilla extract and grated nutmeg, and if I have it some chopped crystalized ginger and shredded coconut. A pinch of coriander adds excitement. I eat hot cereal with "cajun crystals" cane sugar and vanilla yogurt.

dstone--yum--i ate a lot of kale growing up--my mom cooked huge messes of kale and i used to steal bites from the kettle while it was cooking--she seasoned hers with lots of salt and pepper and veg oil. i tend to go a little lighter on the oil, EVOO only, and add sauteed onion and garlic, and some dried whole hot peppers. the best way to eat it, for me, is with a huge hunk of hot skillet cornbread--i put the bread in a big bowl and ladle the greens on top. pot likker. mmm.

chapter 3 watched a program called "Bosnia Hotel" on worldlink last night, a documentary about samburu tribesmen who had served in bosnia as un peacekeepers. juxtaposed to the central theme was a ritual circumcision, rites of passage to manhood, warrior status, etc., i guess. anyway the first event was slaughter by strangulation of two goats. the two boys participating in the rite had to kill the goat, slit a little pouch in it's throat--as the blood pooled in the flesh, they dipped their lips into it and sucked up the blood. loudly, slurpily. it really sickened me. and yet.........

There's a pub in London called The Bung Hole. It also means a window in a ship, I think.

wilfird, very interesting question about whether southerners eat more innards than northerners. my GUESS is that it's a total class & ethnic distinction. i remember seeing jars of pickled pigs' feet in adive bars when i was a kid [like, having stepped in with my dad ] or in these little mom and pop roadside groceries. i thought they were gross and scary and i have never known of anyone to actually eat one. and then of course here in the local groceries one can buy jars of them. i've had pork skin and cracklin cornbread at african american bbq joints. the conventional wisdom is that offal is part of southern african american cuisine becasue they never got to eat anything but the scraps during slave days, and then during reconstruction poor people in general got very little protein , and relied on wild game, possums, raccoon, etc., for meat, what little there was. so using pork parts for protein and flavor was not only not trendy, but people's lives depended on it. since egullet came into my life i am interested in trying everything. i haven't developed a taste for tripe but love sweetbreads and cracklins and a GOOD kidney pie. but here where i live, i don't know of ANYONE who eats offal as a regular part of the diet, and the vast majority of my peers REFUSE to eat it.

This so great. I almost feel inferior. In the past I gave people old mason jars filled with my dried basil, decorated with little hand-colored labels. But I never seem to have the time or energy or creativity to get really artisanal at Xmas--by the time the semester ends, it's Dec. 19th and I am out of my mind with exhaustion. And the hoo-ha of assembling gifts for everyone, getting together to exchange them, etc., did me in for good last year. Eight years into our relationship, I have finally convinced my husband that we are no lonmger giving gifts, period. Next Saturday we are hosting an artisanal dinner for our eight close friends, asking them to bring top quality beverages to share, if we provide the food, the music, the lights. We're serving: 1] guacamole, hot queso, salsa & chips 2] chiles en nogada, corn pudding with roasted peppers, jicama and beet salad 3 cinnamon chocolate mousse and almond shortbread The menu is going to be a challenge for me, and I am doing it all myself. I am really looking forward to it. Best of all, we'll have a night of great food and laughter to remember throughout the coming year.

ya'll are too kind. and i am glad i wrote about it because it made me remember how important that day was. i left out a very important detail, of which my friend, the nurse, reminded me recently--it was Good Friday. true, true.

he frequently uses words like "nonsense" and "bogus" when he dismisses certain early "theories" about health and nutrition. i don't find his language offensive here--basically he is saying that certain therories were flat out wrong, not necessarily because they were unscientific but because they were silly [i.e. bordeline insane!]. and i don't think he's being unfair. salisbury believed we should live soley on hamburger patties! if anything, i'm impressed by how right on many early food scientists and nutritionists were about the origins of health and illness. it's almost as if the physical body has its own tuition about what it needs. people like graham sound like anorexics to me. i'm surprised no one yet has latched on to the notion of socially constructed meanings of eating--why do we eat what we eat? it's a great question--i don't pretend to know how to answer it right off the bat!

my reply is a little late, but here's a tip--build in plenty of time and don't go with people who don't want to be there--by the time my gang had to leave to catch a film, we were still in the wines!

as a novice to the world of tequila, i appreciate everyone's input, esp mickeyblue's descriptions of the flavors of young, rested and aged tequilas. question: what do you recommend for margaritas? i had a "oaxaca rita" in houston made with monte alban anejo and cointreau--i really liked the smoky flavor--any other, better suggestions?

Toby, I have a probelm with tripe that I am determined to overcome. Your burrito sounds delicious to me. And the language you have used to describe this dish seems as savoury as the dish itself.

the origins of salisbury steak, graham crackers, and compartmentalized cafeteria trays--this book is chock-ful of interesting and worthless trivia!! i can't put it down--thanks, gals, for starting this thread, and turning me on to such a great read. i'm still in ch. 2, the meaning of eating. i can't speculate where he's going with this. what about "taste" as a social construct? in my experience as an esl teacher i've always been surpirsed by the distaste for certain foods among certain groups, e.g. vietnamese kids like tart candies, but not chocolate. i realize i'm generalizing, but i have seen patterns. i could argue that a fresh godiva praline is more delicious than a dried tamarind--am i right? what about the amazonian chicha? do they really like the way it tastes, or do they just drink it because they are hooked on the alcohol? or because they have to to stay alive? capt cook trivia--he and his crew overstayed their welcome in hawaii--the natives began chasing the men down the beach--cook, being a captain, refused to run, and they caught him. later the crew waged an armed attack on the natives and sent the second in command, william bly, back to retrieve cook's body. the only part of him that remained was a buttock. when my husband told me this story i was puzzled--wouldn't the buttocks be tender and juicy, and therefore desirable, cuts? maybe they were saving the best for last? as for the role of fire/cooking in the development of any society: think about what fire made possible--people could live in cold regions where they could not have survived before, they could make rotting meat edible, etc.

structural functionalism: based on the organic analogy, the way a society is structured enables it to function in a certain way--if this sounds like a tautology, it basically means that in order to succeed, the society must be structured in ways that allow it to advance: the young must be nurtured and educated, people must be fed and housed, clothed, etc. ancient native americans were able to create sophisticated civilazations because of CORN: it provided enough protein and energy to allow them to accomplish other tasks beyond the gathering of adequate food. chapter two: captain cook gets credit for being the first to eliminate scurvy aboard his expeditions. F-A forgot to mention that poor old cook ended being EATEN himself........

amen to that. me too. and by the way, we ARE saving the world, one small meal at a time.

i'm impressed with his etymology--i've learned the roots of "focus," "cannibal," and "cultivation." so far it's a great mix of anthropology and sociology, and history. every now and then i stop and read aloud a passage to my sociologist spouse, who claims that there's been lots written in the social sciences about the role of food sharing and the meaning of eating -- and they've long contended that societies have evolved around communal cooking fires. he's heavily influenced by levi-strauss. i read a fascinating piece once about the cultivation of manioc among amazonian tribes. the manioc is the sole domain of the women, who sing songs to the goddess nuunqui as the plant, tend and harvest the tuber. she is their most sacred deity--"cultivation" indeed. i've been struggling with the notion of vegetarianism for a while now; i appreciate the health and moral /ethical arguments that can be made in the west for a meatless diet, and yet as a traveler to the far corners of the earth [well, i hope] i know that meat is the most coveted of foods. i am enjoying reading about how the animal has been used to feed through the ages--stomachs and bladders used as cooking pots, etc. my time is crunched right now but when i get back to work next week i'm eager to enter into an earnest discussion--thank you, priscilla and yvonne, for starting this.

can i even remember the names of these places? once while visiting new orleans i ate some psilocybin mushrooms and wandered through audubon park and into a hole bar off some side street. i approached a youngish man sitting at the bar. "My god," i said, "You're so drunk! And it's so early." "Look!" he pointed to the wall behind me. "An enormous angel is unfurling her wings." a couple hours later i ended up at tipitina's and told the bartender this story. "Oh, I see you've met robert," he said. "About five years ago he drove his car as fast as he could into a brick wall." that night we drove to metairie to play pool at a place called Zaps, i think--or Zots--in any case, surely the diviest dive in divedom. my friend was in nursing school and someone began yelling for her to come outside, quick. there was a naked man staggering on the sidewalk, bleeding profusely from the testicles. he'd had to make a quick escape from a brothel just up the street, and, unable to unlatch the jalousy, attempted to crawl through the glass pane. his eyes were wide, his flesh white and gummy, like raw pizza dough. i'll never forget it. pretty soon the paramedics arrived, and the man became strangely animated and confused, darting like a rabbit into the crawd, which broke in a wide arc around him as he attempted to leap into a bush. finally a stocky, haggard-looking female paramedic got close enough to croon, "Okay, okay, buddy, it's okay. Let us help you, buddy." the man stood still and suddenly everything was quiet. the medic silently threw open a large white sheet. a hot breeze caught the sheet and opened it around him gently, and as the cloth fell over his body, he sank slowly into a heap on the pavement, his eyes wide and staring, like eggs over easy. it was one of the most tragic images i've ever witnessed. it was a very long time ago.

NL's recipes do work, and are easy to make. She is a true inspiration, because she makes no fuss about cooking and keeps it enjoyable. The only thing I don't like is when she puts her finger way down her mouth (Tommy please don't use this opportunity for x-rated comments!) to taste some batter, as if she had food stuck in her teeth. I find that disgusting. i watched nigella bites on style tv tonite for the first time, ever--happy now to know what all the hype is about. nigella struck me, in this episode ["templefood"] at least, as high on caffeine--her hands were positively twitching. and some of her commentary was brutally tautological--" am using this orange juice because i want this dish to have an orange flavor" BUT what a chick--i do believe this woman eats and enjoys every bite. i think her midnite raid on the fridge and the chilled snickers bar was totally staged, but i loved it nonetheless, as well as the blurry image of her in the bathtub scarfing down a plate of fruit. the dishes she prepared looked yummy, and so simple.

thanks to the suggestions, here's what i ended up doing: red leaf lettuce with very thin sliced shallot--not much--pomegranite seeds, thinly sliced tart red apple [my husband bought them and forgot what kind , but i think rome], and a few toasted walnuts, with sherry vinaigrette, which my friend helped me make--he's much better at dressings than i--we used a little sherry and a little red wine vinegar for acidity, salt and pepper, pressed garlic, EVOO, a tsp of dijon, and a splash of water the stew was very rich, and we ate the salad after--perfect thanks

i have a drier but love to hang my laundry. i have a dishwasher and love to use it sometimes it leaves little specks on the glasses, and my husband throws tirades against it--he never had a dishwasher before we lived in this house., and thinks this one is "useless." ignore, ignore, ignore. i love cooking, but hate cleaning up. i don't mind cleaning the rest of my house, but wish i had a washing up genie in my dish soap bottle

mulching mowers come with bags--if you want to catch the clippings, use the bag--if you don't use the bag, they blow out onto the grass a bin with a door on it sounds like the right thing to do--keep in mind that most critters are nocturnal--possums and raccoons, cats, dogs, etc.--and if the squirrels start to bother you, get a .22 hopleaf, since you're so far north, you don't want to put your plants out til you have warmish overnights [60s is preferable]-- in the chicago area this could be the end of may--it's way too early to start plants from seed--they'll get leggy. late february, march is probably a good time to start--try different peppers, and tomatillos. before your little plants go into the ground they have to be "hardened off"--my husband knows more about this than i--ask around about the best time to begin this process in your area. starting from seed is great fun, and remwarding, but if you have access to a good greenhouse that sells organic plants, support your local organic farmers, too.

1] you might consider planting herbs seperately because many of them are perennial and ornamental. a healthy, established rosemary bush is green and attractive year-round. 2] my compost pens are IDENTICAL to snowangel's; keep them out of direct sun, and away from the house and any place where you might socialize--they shouldn't stink, but they might not make for a good view. if it gets dry next summer, run the hose over them occasionally--they need heat and moisture to work. turn them with a pitchfork occasionally. 3] you'll have a lawn? hopleaf, promise me you'll NEVER bag leaves--i might have to smack you--you're a gardener now. if you've got a lawn, you can compost--throw your leaves on the compost, or better yet, get a mulching mower--instead of raking, mow, and the macerated leaf bits will work themselves right back into the lawn--food for your grass--it needs love, too. 4] i compost everything. there seems to be some debate about it. one botanist and avid gardener friend swears that all food can go into the compost. moldy cheese is fine--the mold helps the decomposition process. meat is fine--the biggest problem with it is attracting critters, which i happen to like. but if that gets to be a problem with your neighbors, don't do it. 5] my husband and i had a garden epiphany this summer--we spent five weeks away but couldn't bear the thought of no tomatoes, so we planted late and small [a departure for us, as we have had as many as 68 tomato plants]. we put in 12 pepper plants, varied, and four tomatoes, and mulched them VERY heavily with grass clippings--religious mulching, obsessive mulching. well, those four plants produced bushels of tomatoes--big gorgeous juicy beautiful fruits--and the garden was SO manageable. good luck to you--you'll love it. get dirty. see if you find any buried treasures in your yard!

when i visited egypt in '94 ramadan had just ended, so one of my hosts prepared a special eid dessert for me--called oom-allah--but that's phonetic, no idea how to spell it--she was sorry we had arrived too late to miss the wonderful eid dishes--apparently they eat crazy huge delicious meals every night. maybe one gets used to the fasting. thanks for the feedback!

At least four of my students are fasting for Ramadan. Yesterday I commented on their listless, inattentive, glazed stares. Of course, I am totally supportive of their commitment to the religious observation, but I'm worried about their academic participation. They told me that technically they're supposed to rise every morning at 5:30 and have a good breakfast together before dawn, and then eat again after sundown. Of course, they're 18 so they don't rise for their morning meal. Observing Ramadan in Oxford, Gerogia, must be quite tough. I know very little about it and wonder, Is anyone else fasting for Ramadan? If so, how do you deal with the fatigue? Do you get used to it? Tips? This is the worst time of year to be fasting--the weather is changing, our bodies crave warmth and sleep, and above all, food.

I love talking about my family's culture of food; often people think I am bragging OR that I was extraordinarily deprived. Having skimmed through these posts, it is facinating to see how similar our backgrounds, in certain key ways: food was a focus [EDIOT:it is the focal point now, for what, as Jaymes says, is very much the bitter but honest truth of who we were/are and where we came from; in other words--the lack of food as a focus speaks volumes, doesn't it?]. My mother cooked us breakfast every morning [i have four sisters], either scrambled eggs or cream of wheat, and I still love hot cereal to this day. When we were little we ate school lunches without too much fuss, but by the time we were old enough to feel the pricks of peer pressure we all began to insist on sack lunches--and for the record, lunch boxes were SO uncool--we preferred the plain brown paper bag--with very few exceptions my sisters and I lunched every day on PB&J and a bag of orange wedges. I remember how every day after school one of my sisters would heat two hotdogs in a pot of water, then wrap them in white bread and mayonaisse. Therer was never "junk" [although I now count Wonderbread in this category] or "convenience" food in my house--we rarely drank sodas or ate candy or sweet cereal. Our afternoon snacks consisted of the aformentioned hotdogs, saltine crackers, etc. My dad loved saltine crackers--he would fold a slice of american cheese into four squares, place one on a saltine, drizzle Tobasco over it, and make himself a little plate of hillbilly hors d'ouvres. My sisters and I loved them. Suppers were the main focus. My mother cooked meat and vegetables every night: a pot roast with carrots and potatoes, and green beans on the side, or fried liver and onions, or baked fish or chicken, with more green beans on the side. A special treat was homemade banana pudding--my mother used to make the recipe on the box of Nilla wafers--complete with homemade oven-browned meringue--this is a beautiful dessert, and for me remains synonymous with comfort. My mother was and is a good cook but I think she's become less inspired in recent years. When I think about the meals she cooked, meals I would never cook myself, I can't criticize them for being simple or "plain" or "unsophisticated," because in fact I believe that cooking my suppers for eighteen years was one of the greatest gifts my mother has ever given me. My family is pretty dysfunctional, and we're not among the closest of families these days, which is odd when one considers the thousands of meals we took together, sometimes while watching Hee Haw, other times on the fly, but always seated together around the kitchen table. No one ever scolded for elbows on the table--we were more likely to get a withering glare for not cleaning our plates, or, at the very least, not trying a little bit of everything. We took turns saying grace-- we hated it and would mumble through it, but my mother insisted. These days, though I am thoroughly irreligious, I feel very strongly about giving thanks for my food--and for those I share it with. I always invite guests to say a blessing, and if I am by myself I try to take a moment to acknowledge my gratitude for my good fortune. My first sip of wine was undoubtedly bourbon. That's a long story best saved for another thread. At holidays my grandmother and mother filled the table til it was absolutely groaning under the weight of the platters--turkey and ham, green beans and potatoes, kale, sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, dressing--one with oysters and one without--broccoli casserole, sweet potato biscuits. For dessert pumpkin pie, sweet potatoe pie, buttermilk pie, pecan pie--all served with Cool Whip. If my mother's parents' descendants were all gathered together, we had at least two kids' tables--there are two sets of granchildren, about ten years apart--I was in the younger set, and of course thought sitting at the kids' table totally "sucked." My mother's parents were farmers--they raised cattle and corn on about 400 acres in southern Delaware. My grandmother was a true farm cook--she canned everything--in case you were wondering why we ate so many green beans. She could make a pie crust blindfolded. I always watched her but never tried to join in--I didn't start cooking in earnest til I was out of the house and on my own. We went to Delaware every summer, and every year my grandfather butchered a cow for us--and I do mean the whole cow--so early on my parents invested in a deep freeze and we took home [TN] the butcher-wrapped roasts and steaks, and endless packages of hamburger. We always had lots of MEAT--but we never ate tenderloins, and I am now very suspicious--maybe Pop-pop sold the best cuts and gave us the rest When I was in high school I interrupted my grandmother slicing a tongue for a sandwich, and I continue to recoil in horror every time I recall this moment. We ate a lot of meat, but very little offal--except liver, which to this day I love. My family's star meal: CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS, known affectionately among us as CHICKEN DUMP. Birthday? Graduation? Feeling lucky? Ask for chicken dump: my grandmother, and one of my still-living aunts, were the star dumpling makers--from scratch, cutting the chicken fat into the flour, rolling the dumplings very thin and rolling them in the boiling stock til they're slick and shiny and tender--with homemade sweet pepper relish on the side, one couldn't ask for a more comforting, more delicious meal. That's about it for me, at least as I can recall at this moment--I'm getting ready to eat my second brekafast. This is a great thread, and I think I'm going to print it out and read it snuggled up in my favorite chair, so I can really savor these stories.....