Arey

Mobius pretzel sticks with die Jung mustard. Pliny the elderberry tarts

I think that dinner should be the fourth meal of the day. When working, on my afternoon coffeebreak, usually between 3:00 PM and 3:30 PM I'd be sitting in my pickup drinking a cup of coffee and thinking "Boy, what I wouldn't give right now for a toasted english muffin dripping butter all over". Unless, of course. it was snowing in which case I'd be wishing my coffee was hot chocolate and I had a toasted English muffin dripping butter all over the place.

My three Carmello tomato plants have decent sized tomatoes which are gradually losing their dark green coloration. I hope to be picking ripe tomatoes before the end of the month. In the meantime my basil plants are coming along well and I'll have to thin them soon. I've grown Brandywines but they take forever to produce a small yield. Carmello is a French hybrid tomato which produces clusters of nice sized tomatoes. I purchased my plants from The tasty Garden, an Alabama nursery and they were nice healthy plants. I also dug a new bed for the plants this spring in my backyard where they get sun almost all day, and are easy to water, and it's paying off. I don't use herbicides or pesticides in my back yard, and even have a Cardinal and its fledgling that come by on a regular basis to check out my tomatoes, parsley and dill for caterpillers.

It was nice to see boys in the cooking classes you gave. When I was in highschool in the mid 50's girls took Home Ec, and boys took Shop. So I had to take 1)mechanical drawing, where I did enjoy looking at the diagrammed pentagons and cross-sectioned cones, but I couldn"t draw a straight line with a ruler 2) metal shop where I wasn't allowed to use sharp implements lest I harm myself or a fellow student 3) woodworking shop where I wasn't allowed near the power tools. In the meantime, the girls were learning the use of canned coconut shreds, mini-marshmallows, and gelatin molds. I probably wouldn't have done well in Home Ec . even if I had been allowed to take it. The girls would all have been learning how to cook like mom, while I would have been trying to learn how not to cook like Mom. I was the only member of my Boy Scout Troop to get a Cooking Merit Badge. This was not regarded as a particulary noteworthy accomplishment by anyone but me.

Speaking of seed spitting, many years ago, about 50 or so, one hot August day in Woodbury (So. Jersey) I took a slab of watermelon, out front and sat on the front steps trying to see how far I could spit the seeds. It was as dead as it can be on a hot So. Jersey afternoon. The only car to pass by was a police car, and the policeman grinned as he passed by and waved to me. Then my mother saw me, and ordered me into the backyard while saying, in her customary lockjaw mode of addressing me "Nice people don't eat watermelon on the front porch where they can be seen by everyone". It was a constant struggle for her having married into a family that came from the poorer section of Bendersville. May we expect a Musselman's Applesauce reference during your blog?

For anyone who's really worried, lead x-ray aprons are available through dental supply catalogues. They're reasonably priced - under $100 - and available in a variety of styles and fashionable colors so you can color co-ordinate your apron with your kitchen. Everyone has aluminium foil in their kitchen to make their aluminium hat, and nstructions are easily found on the web. For mine, I lined an old kitchen collander with foil and attached a grounding wire to one of the collander's feet.

Look for focaccia bread. It's even readily available down here in So. Jersey. I've no doubt No. Jerseyans can reccomend the best place to get it.

The only problem I see with this is in the presentation. It needs to be LaBanized. First the bowl has to go. It needs an oversized handcrafted styrofoam plate. Centered on that is a dab or two of mashed heirloom potatoes topped by an uneven number (but not more than 7) of corn kernals from a cob flown in from a almost inaccessible Andean valley and carefully kept at the right temperature of _____ (fill in any temperature you want, no one will know the difference). Then the gravy, based on the secret family recipe of the restaurant dishwasher who is an illegal immigrant but sends most of his wages back to the almost inaccessible valley where the corn is grown.Then the chicken which is from free range chickens,which themselves were hatched from eggs laid by free range hens leading an idyllic existance in a chicken coop that makes your average McMansion look like a hovel. Top that with the three cheeses being very very careful not to topple over the pile or you might just as well scrape it into a bowl and cut your profit margin in half. Then around the perimeter strew some scrapings from a windshield bug screen.

My brother had an elderly neighbor who made the best apple pie he'd ever had, but she didn't have a recipe. Her instructions were of the "use enough butter but not to much and don't overwork the dough" sort. So one day he sat down beside her, and took notes as she made a pie crust and apple filling, and was able to replicate her apple pie to the point where people were asking him for the recipe. One day a co-worker to whom he'd given the recipe came to work and told him with great indignation that the recipe was no good, and the crust came out terrible. When he asked if she'd been careful not to overwork the dough, she replied that she didn't have the time to make the crust by hand so she'd made it with her food processor.

There's a whole different thread topic. "What do you eat, and what had you been planning on eating between the time the blood is drawn for the cholesterol tests, and you get the results?"

Dutch apple pie has frosting. I have to cast a vote for cake. Going way back to my childhood, when everything was better, I showed a definite preference for Butterscotch Krimpets, followed by Chocolate Juniors, then Coconut Juniors (and I don't particularly care for coconut), and if none of them were available apple pies. I'm talking TastyKake mind you. At bake sales, my mother would always ask if a cake was "made from scratch". There were rumors going around back then, that some women were actually contributing cakes to the cake sales that were made from MIXES (horrible dictu).

Happy Birthday. Delighted to be reading another blog by you. Especially since it's getting my mind off Philadelphia,the RTM and DiBrunos, although your cheese plate did cause a flashback. In your last blog, you showed aged Gouda, which I use in an arugula, walnut and gouda salad. What are some of the other things you can do with it?

[ Penna was also sending liquour board agents over to hang out around the New Jersey liqour stores . On one memorable occassion, two Penna liquor board agents were arrested outside a NJ liquor store for "loitering". "Though they were being slowly phased out when I arrived here in 1983, the old State Stores were thoroughly gloomy, depressing affairs with a counter at the front and everything else behind it. You walked into the store, flipped through a book if you didn't know what you wanted or needed to look up a price, then told the guy at the counter what you wanted and he would go get it for you." Back in the early 60's when I was living in Phila, the stock in the stores tended to be what the big sellers in the neighborhood were. The closest store to the Reading Terminal was very well stocked with Thunderbird and Tiger Rose wine. To get anything decent you had to go up to the Rittenhouse Square area stores.

Parsley's a biennial. For the first year it produces lots of foliage and stores up food in its tap root. The second year it puts up its flower stalk and sets seed. I always let a few parsley plants over-winter and go to seed since parsley self-seeds well. I don't know about cilantro, but parsley and dill both seem to dislike the heat and humidity. Once it gets hot my dill gets very scraggly looking and goes to seed. I also let the dill self-seed, and usually have a lot of dill coming up all over the place. I have sage, but I tend to overlook it since I only use it to make sauteed butternut squash with sage, once or twice a year. I also grow bronze fennel (which one garden writer I read referred to as an annual determined to be a perennial) and that self-seeds like crazy, frequently overwinters, and has to be kept away from the dill or it'll hybridize.

One year a local car wash planted corn in the largish planter in front of their busioness, and had some very healthy corn plants. You might end up with rats and raccoons, and squirrels along with all the grain eating birds going after your plants. A combined assault by all of the above can't accomplish what one bored neighbor's kid can do in a couple of minutes.

I have chives, garlic chives, and rosemary (it made it through the winter this time). My Greek oregano died off, so I'm replanting it this spring. I've also decided this is another year when I’ll plant tarragon and watch it fail to thrive. I also have to replant thyme. I planted it last year but then erected a Swallowtail caterpillar-rearing cage over it. Final score in the fall was Swallowtails over the thyme, 2 - 0. I hope to do better by both the thyme and the Swallowtails this summer. I'll also be planting copious amounts of parsley, basil and dill, and 3 Carmello tomato plants. Few things are as rewarding as wandering out to the garden, picking a perfect tomato, and a handful of herbs at dinnertime. Anybody else worrying about drought?

Simple. Ask where the restrooms are, and surrender your camera before using them.

Are you even going to try for a whole turkey this year. I got the impression from your last blog that French butchers have problems with the concept of a whole turkey.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I'm looking forward to trying them instead of making do with whatevers already open. Like the White Queen's jam every other day, my wine and meals only get paired well every other day.

Last night for dinner I had a recipe from Everyday Food magazine which I really like, and it freezes well. As a single person I like recipes that freeze well. The ingredients were as follows. 4 whole chicken breast halves 1 1/2 tablespoons Olive oil 1 whole lemon -- cut in half lengthwise, then cut into thin slices crosswise 1 whole onion -- chopped 2 whole garlic cloves -- minced 1/2 cup green olives -- pitted and halved 1 cup chicken stock 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper For wine I was using up a bottle of Duck Pond Pinot Noir, a marriage as unpleasant as my parent's, but fortunately it only lasted 42 minutes as opposed to 42 years as my parents did. I also had a salad of escarole, grape tomatoes, kalamata olives, red onions, and my basic vinaigrette. So I was wondering, what wine would have gone well with the chicken? I had bottles of Willamette, Duck Pond and Louis Jadot Pinot Noir, Chateau St. Michelle chardonnay, Principessa Gavi, Trimbach Gewurtztraminer, and 1 bottle of Trimbach Reisling - which I'm saving for when the scale needle gets below 170 at which time I'll be off to the Amish market for wursts, for a wursts and sauerkraut dinner. I would even consider buying something to go with the chicken recipe as long as it's no more than $15.00 or $16.00 since I have anosmia - an almost non-existant sense of smell-.

I like salty cheesy junk food. When my mother lived with me for the last ten years of her life (which I tend to think of as the lost ten years of my life) she would give me a big can of Pepperidge junk food each Christmas. One year she gave me a big can of popcorn, caramel, cheddar, and butter flavored. . I asked her, politely, why she had given me a big can of popcorn in three different flavors. She said "I thought you might like a change". I said "Mother, I've spent my life determining what I really like, and popcorn got crossed off the list years ago" Mother, by the way, resisted, detested, and obstructed change whenever it threatened to intrude in her life. Once when she was going to be hospitalized for a week, and I was still living at home, she gave me a whole list of menus for dinner for the week, and stocked the fridge and freezer so I'd have everything, I needed to cook dinner for my father and myself. Wednesday night dinner was pannbroiled chicken, which I cooked and served with the usual rice, pan gravy, and some green vegetable. My father barely ate anything. "What's wrong with your dinner?" I asked. "I don't like chicken" my father said. So when Mother came home from the hospital I asked her why she had instructed me to cook chicken for the Wednesday night dinner if Father didn't like chicken. "Because we always have chicken on Wednesday" she said.

I used to live trap mice and take them to work in Atlantic City and turn them loose. When questioned about this by a co-worker, I told them "I give them a roll of quarters, a comp for the 'all you can eat buffet' and if they're not back by 5:00 when I leave work, they can walk home". The odds of survival for either mouse or man walking down Maryland or Pennsylvania Ave back then was very poor. It probably still is. As for eating pork or beef, or poultry; I just try to make sure it didn't die in vain. Now, any pig that ended up as a sausage or pork chop my mother cooked, had had its life ended for no good cause. You could say the same thing about green beans, brussel sprouts, or any chicken that had given up its liver for chicken livers and rice. Evolutionaryly or Intelligent Designly speaking, I don't have the teeth to be an hervbivore. I also don't have the teeth to eat unpitted olives, but that's an entirely different subject. I have (or had ) the teeth of a scavenger with carnivorous proclivities. Only last night, I wanted to make tabouleh, and the package of bulgar I had bought, said to presoak the bulgar by pouring one cup of tap water over one cup of bulgar, and allow it to sit for 1/2 hour. Which I did, and after 1/2 hour I sampled it, and said to myself "I can't eat this". If I had a mouthful of big flat molars suitable for masticating sugar cane, or baobabs, I could have handled it, but I don't so I poured a half cup of boiling water on the bulgar, and it was much better. So as a carnivore (but not a scavenger because they have an ordinance in this town about feeding scavengers although it's primarily aimed at seagulls) who's also a member of Green Peace, NJ Audubon, National Audubon, Natonal Wildlife Federation, and the World Wildlife Fund; I try to make sure that no other creature that died to feed me ends up uneaten in the garbage.

Your having leftover crab leads me to suspect that you didn't taste it often enough while preparing it to make sure it was really good. The next time, be more cautious, sample it frequently to make sure it's alright. I always do. Usually, I have to overcome my concern for the well being of my guests and tell myself "Okay, no more sampling. They'll just have to take their chances".

In the So. Jersey resort town I live in there is a location that has been the death of a lot of restaurants. It started out as a Western Auto store, which failed, and then has been the site of a lot of restaurants that failed. Recently it was a bagel place, financed by the proprieter's father-in-law who wanted the husband of his "precious darling" to settle down and operate a successful business. However, it seems that "precious darling"'s husband didn't want to operate a bagel place. It was hard to tell when the place was open, and even when it was, the dark cavernous interior was very uninviting. The proprieter was also the only waiter , and his attitude made me wonder if he was going to announce himself by saying "Hello, I'm Charon, I'll be your server today. So it closed, and was followed by an Italian restaurant I really liked. The proprieter made a really good spaghetti with garlic and oil, and his grilled vegetable antipasto was great. I was told by my former barber, Cynthia , that the proprieter was a male chauvinistic Italian pig, who treated his waitresses in a demeaning and degrading manner, and spend his whole time, when not pointing out the soul-destroying result of feeding Americans, to wishing he was back in Italy. This didn't bother me. Like I said his spaghetti with oil and garlic was really good, and his grilled vegetable antipasto was to die for. What difference did it make to me if he spent his spare time kicking puppies and drowning kittens, unless, of course, they were Boston Terrier puppies and Burmese kittens. You have to draw the line somewheres. Following the departure of the Italian male chauvinistic pig who did a really good sphagetti with garlic and olive oil, another Italian restaurant opened. I never got around to going there. Even from the outside the inside was uninviting. It wouldn't have surprised me. if when you entered the vestibule, you were greeted by a man in a toga who said "Hello, I'm Virgil, I'll be your guide" Well, early this Spring, there were signs in the window announcing the B***** M****** C***. A deli and gourmet grocery store. They had posted the menu from their home location in the window. Quiches, empanadas. Thai Spring rolls, and assorted imported cheeses would be among the many take-out items available. Once I pried myself off the window, and wiped the saliva off with a hanky, I told myself, "finally take-out besides pizza , cheesesteaks, and subs has come to the island" When I told my butcher, who is also a town councilman that a new and wonderful cafe-gourmet grocery-take out place was about to open, his response was "I wish people would stop trying to open restaurant's there". Well, that was March and here it is two weeks from Labor Day and they haven't managed to open yet. It seems the floor in the entire first floor had to be replaced, then they were having licensing problems with the state in mid July which could take up to 45 days to resolve, so the B**** M***** C**** may not be the first place to fail at that location, but it may be the first one to do so without even opening.

"Well, I say it's broccoli, and I say the hell with it"