jeniac42

Here's hoping (you don't become a robot!) this is the right forum for this. A lot of nights I get home from work pretty late, so dinner ends up having to be something fairly quick. There are a lot of good things you can make that don't take a lot of time, so that's fine. However, I do like to spend the evening cooking, so I was thinking that packing more complex lunches would be a good idea - I can do them the night before and that way I'm not starving the whole time I'm cooking. Does anyone have any ideas for something like this? I mean, I know I can do various slaws, sandwiches, salads, etc. but just wondered if anyone had a great idea for a sandwich that involves a lot of prep, or something. Note that I am a horrible failure at bread baking in anything other than the machine (don't know why - I think my hands are too hot and I end up overflouring), alas. What did you eat for lunch today?

(Watch, as the amazing Jen runs around the boards replying to old but interesting threads that nobody's reading anymore!) I consider myself a picky eater, still, because the things I don't like I *really* don't like. However, I've always been willing to try anything and in fact when I was younger, I used to eat things just to be contrary. (I was one of those kids who pretended that spaghetti-os were octopus tentacles, OK?) Mustard on chocolate chip cookies, mushrooms, fish, tomatoes, olives, sauerkraut was my favorite food for years, pickle juice straight out of the jar.... The list of things I dislike hasn't changed much over the years, although I now eat and enjoy broccoli. (I always liked the taste, but the texture of the floret part used to turn me off.) This includes: Oregano (in some (usually limited) applications it's OK, but pizza sauce... *shudder*) Thyme (learning to like it more) Organ meats (I try to like them, it just hasn't happened yet) Tomato paste and sundried tomatoes (again, I'll eat them but don't like them much)

Just to throw in my (smoker's) two cents' worth, there are a fair number of restaurants in the Columbus, OH area that are smoke-free, voluntarily. At this stage, it's easier to argue for legislation banning smoking in restaurants because it is still difficult in most cities to find a place that does it voluntarily. But I think, based on the numbers of restaurants that go smoke-free as time goes on, ten years down the road the market would have sorted things out without having to ban smoking everywhere. Sometimes, for me (oh, what a dirty, dirty addict I am) and for the other smokers I know, smoking is an important part of the dining experience. When you finish your meal, sometimes it's just nice to smoke, particularly if you're eating at, say, Tee Jaye's at 3am after a shift (or a visit to the bar). Hey, the food's not that great, so you've gotta make up for it somehow, eh? So I suppose, in short, that my feeling is that the legislation is a little overboard. Perhaps some encouragement in the form of a smoking tax to be paid by restaurants that want to allow smoking, much as they pay for liquor licenses, would be more appropriate and push the pendulum further towards smoke-free while still allowing cigarettes in a few places.

I've done that hot-pan-handle trick, too. A friend of mine wrote about his experience doing that here - http://www.izzlepfaff.com/blog/archives/00...0047.php#000047 (hopefully that's the right way to do a link). At work I once tried to get some boiling hot boullion to use for a base for some fondue (hey, they ordered it that way). So I'm pouring it into the cup and I dump it, instead, all over my hand. Well, that kind of hurt, but I still need some more in the cup, and I'm totally weeded so I just keep pouring. All over my hand. Doesn't really hurt too much, though, so I run out to the table to make the cheese. As soon as I stick my hand in the cloud of steam over the pot, well, holy heck, Batman, that hurts! Also once saw another server carrying back a pot of boiling oil without a lid by putting it on her tray, carried above the shoulder. Stupid. One night someone threw iced tea in the oil pot (honestly, the things don't look that similar) and a few people took it out to tables. I'm sure I've done something stupider, I just can't think of anything right now....