Pan

Don't worry, Nat; everyone is permitted to include their web site in their sig(nature) if they want to. And you are certainly free to post it in this thread, where it's relevant.

Thanks for that great meal report. I feel like I'll be the last person in New York to make it to Amma. Just a little side note: Jackfruit isn't that much like durian (which to my knowledge is an equatorial fruit grown in Malaysia and Thailand, for example, but not in subtropical regions like Guangdong province in China), except that they're both very large fruits that grow on tall trees, have thick skins and have soppy sections of fruit surrounding large seeds, with fibrous tissue in between. But the smell and taste are totally different, and jackfruit also has smooth skin and no thorns (duri in Malay).

In Malay, sampan is a type of boat. Do you have any idea why sampan porridge is so called?

Rachel, I'm not sure if I could make it or not, but if the waiting list isn't bursting at the seams, why not add me, and if there's room for me and I can go, I'll see about getting a ride at that point.

Man do I love rhubarb! I didn't really love it until I had tartes rhubarbe in France, though. I could never see the point of the rhubarb in the strawberry-rhubarb pies I had in New York in my childhood, but when you feature the rhubarb by itself in a tart as a tart fruit (no pun intended), it is fabulous!

Brooks, I have to admit I've never had pickled okra. I'm wondering where it might be available in New York. Is pickled okra something that's sold in most any food store in Louisiana, or/and is it mostly a home-made item?

Just curious: I'm wondering, based on the descriptions of some techniques some of you use, whether all of you wash the parsley carefully to get rid of any dirt or (if it's not organic) pesticide residue on the parsley. If not, why not?

I agree. It never hurts to ask for leniency, but basically, my answer to the question that started this thread, "am I being unreasonable," is "Yeah, probably." But like the others, I want to know what kind of fee we're talking about. If it's 100 pounds, they suck and no way should they get that money.

Hathor, the Indian dishes I'm most familiar with panfry okra in a masala (spice mixture) that was previously fried in oil or ghee (a lot or a little fat, depending on your preference). The key for that style is not to have lots of liquid and not to overcook. But if you turn up the heat too high, you'll burn the masala, and that won't be any good.

Rubbery is bad. Cuttlefish can either be chewy or tender, but should never be rubbery. I like cuttlefish, but would be hard-pressed to describe its taste. It doesn't have a strong taste.

Do people eat brussels sprouts stalks?

There was a previous thread on okra here, but it dealt with reducing its sliminess. What we haven't had yet is a thread that's exclusively concentrated on ways to use okra to make delicious dishes. As far as I know, there are basically two paradigms: (1) Deemphasize the mucilagenity and emphasize its quality as a vegetable all its own (e.g. in Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian cuisine) (2) Use it as a thickening agent (e.g. in gumbo) But in any case, I think this vegetable needs some advocacy here. So share your thoughts about how to get best use out of this unique bean.

Definitely. Indian and Malaysian/Indonesian recipes deemphasize its mucilagenity (?) and there are lots of good ones. By contrast, Gumbo uses okra specifically as a thickening agent. I just did some searching of the Cooking forum under "okra," and while we've discussed it, it doesn't seem like we've had a thread that exclusively explored the uses of this peculiar bean. I think I'll start one. See you there.

I lived in Malaysia for 2 years, but my parents had also spent a year in Florence (Italy, not South Carolina ) a couple of years before I was born in 1965. We also were in Baton Rouge from 1966-67 when my father was in residence at LSU for a year. My mother did substitute plain yogurt in place of sour cream or mix the two, so she was not impervious to nutritional advice. But her substitutions worked, and she was a good enough cook that I found almost all institutional cooking disgusting by comparison.

I won't tell you to go to Tres Aztecas, anyway. I used to like the place until I had some food there that was so salty it was practically inedible. Unfortunately, I don't think I've tried any of the places you mention. I'll be eager to read a meal report on whichever place you do end up at.

I used to hate peas and brussels sprouts until my father discovered how I could like them (and by that time, I was several years into adulthood, but his discoveries are still much appreciated): Take organic frozen peas and put them in boiling water for about 30 seconds, just long enough to blanch them and get rid of the raw taste, but not so long that they get the mealy texture I dislike. Boil brussels sprouts so long that you boil out most of the bitterness (to others, it would mean that you have killed them). Of course, there are other things that I used to dislike when I was a kid and like now (e.g. olives, wine, durian), but I see that as a product of becoming an adult, nothing else.

Really? I've never had these. And I've never been to the restaurant, actually. I sense an outing in the offing. Tough to get into NGB at peak hours, though, and I feel pretty sure they wouldn't take reservations, but I could be wrong. I'm glad to see Bo Ky mentioned. Those Chou Zhou places are excellent values in noodle soups and dishes over rice. Chou Zhou in Flushing is a standby for soothing soup, and there's also Chou Chou (sp?) on Mott near Hester. My favorite soup at Chou Zhou on Main St. across from the Flushing branch of the Queens Public Library is the Triple Ball Noodle Soup, which is made with beef balls, shrimp balls, fish balls, and fish cakes. I do also like the Cuttlefish Ball Noodle Soup at Bo Ky that eatpie mentioned.

down where? atlanta ga. apparently rather than garlic sauce, they do oyster sauce for everything. and it's sweet. :( Sweet oyster sauce? Yuck!

I'm not sure if anyone else has made this remark before in this thread (because I haven't read the rest of the thread), but anything my mother made that was bad was a mistake (left to cook too long and burned, poor recipe, etc.). My mother was always an excellent cook when I was growing up.

My experience was that the chickens all slept in the coop but during the day, came together when people called them for a meal of raw rice and otherwise didn't really form a flock as I would think of it. They walked around in a variety of relationships to one another which struck me as more like the relationships of people in a crowd than geese in a flock flying south for winter or even flocks of pigeons that tend to go to fly to the same place because of the presence of food or danger. There was one hen, though, that clearly enjoyed my rooster's company and liked to stand near him. But these are old though vivid memories, and clearly, your memories are current. (Good points about the manure-covered concrete, by the way.) I take it, then, that you're a farmer of free-range chickens?

Fennel tea? How interesting. Do you make it or is it something that you can buy? Just boil some water with fennel seeds in it. You have to buy the fennel seeds if you don't have some around the house, but that's it.

I'm sure you aren't, but some of us love them.

Thanks, JJ. That's a beautiful website!

My folks have a Burmese cookbook called The Burmese Kitchen, written by Copeland Marks and Aung Thein. The dish I liked best in the cookbook, and which I've cooked, is a chicken dish that included various spices one might think of as Indian plus five-spice powder. I forget all that went into it, but it's a very good dish. Mingala used to serve things like Golden Triangles, which you might think of as a Burmese take on potato samosas. They include cilantro and are eaten with a savory dipping sauce something like some Thai sauces but different. It's not so easy for me to describe Burmese cuisine, but from my limited experience, it seems to me that the biggest influences on it are Indian, Thai, and Chinese, which makes sense given the geographic position of the country. And that synthesis produces something unique and different from any of those other cuisines.

Yes, good distinction, and it makes me think of a dish I've had at the Chelsea Grand Sichuan, also from the "Mao's Home Cooking" section Eric Malson referred to: Duck with Bitter Melon. The diced bitter melon complements the black pepper-covered duck really well. My father and I liked this dish very much, but the melon was too bitter for my mother. Some dishes that I think are great are not for everyone.