Arey

Like most exotic foods, I suppose it depends on where and who you are. Scrapple might be considered exotic by some,(also by spell check as I just found out while typing this)but I don't regard it as exotic, especially when topped with a couple of fried eggs and next to a pile of home fries. Now beaver, I would consider exotic, I didn't even know people eat it, how do you cook it and what does it taste like? Cup Cheese might also be considered exotic by people without Pennsylvania Dutch in their background, since basically it is like a very strongly scented mucilage. The sort that comes in a bottle with a pink rubber nipple like top.

I doubt very much that Julia Child ever did a a series with Fieri, you must be thinking of some Food Network spawned series.

On the classic Bob & Ray soap opera spoof "Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife" the Backstaygers opened a restaurant, The House of Toast. They only had two items on their menu, a thick prune shake and toast, however the customers could specify whether they wanted their toast buttered on the near side or the far side.

Should bartenders be rinsing out their shakers between mixing drinks? I should think that would be standard procedure. I would think they would have several shakers, and give the one most recently used a quick rinse and left to drain on a rack while taking a dry off the rack. This is just supposition since I haven't been in a bar for years, or even eaten out for several years. This is because of my abhorrence of drinking and driving, which is equaled only by my abhorrence of dining and not drinking.

Can we at least agree that a club sandwich comes with a cellophane bedecked toothpick holding each triangular quarter together?

there was a children's show on Phila TV, back when there were only 3 channels, and rabbit ears on top of the black and white TV sets, called Willie the Worm. One of Willie's sponsors was Miracle Whip, and W. the W. used to recommend spreading miracle whip on a slice of bread for a snack.

You never know when you're going to find yourself in circumstances where you need to shout Schlag! Schnell! Especially at this time of year.

An electric carving knife. This year it went to a thrift shop. I also had two coffee grinders, which were gifts, which I never used. One seems to have disappeared, and the other is up in the attic. It will have to be dusted off, and the dead silverfish shook out before it will even be fit for the thrift shop. Edited to add that I have such limited space that before I buy anything I have to figure out what I'm going to get rid of, otherwise I would have bought a blender this year, and maybe even a pressure cooker. My kitchen cabinets have more unusable space than usable space.

Well ,of course, you don't eat the whole thing! You just serve the quail on toast points as an appetizer. All the the rest you give to your lhasa apso for dindin.

I'ts also good grilled, but your idea sounds good. I'll have to try it soon.

I bought the book based on something I read here. I made the white asparagus recipe and it was alright. I would like to try the Belgian endive with anchovy dressing, but have problems. How would I get the equivalent of canned anchovies (which I really don't like )from bottled anchovies which I'm addicted to. I use Bellino anchovies with capers, since I can no longer afford Ortiz anchovies, and since I only cook for one, what would be some other uses for the anchovy dressing? I would have liked more grilled recipes for bitter greens. Earlier this week I had a grilled Belgian endive and Treviso radicchio salad with balsamic vinegar and parmesan.. My small George Foreman Grill is perfect for grilling vegetables if you only cook for one, and the only thing I use it for is vegetables. I was surprised she didn't throw some anchovies into her sauted broccoli rabe recipe. I think it adds something to them. If I ever see cardoons down here, I'll try them too.I don't live in the part of New Jersey that has Pierre Robert cheese, far less on sale. I live in the part that frequently has American cheese on sale, or Kraft Single slices for the gourmand portion of the population. Edited to add that stuffed bitter melon with black beans is a real treat. There use to be a Phillipina lady , now retired, running an Asian grocery store halfway between where I am and Philadelphia who use to make weekly trips to NYC and bring back all sorts things from a restaurant up there, and I got the stuffed bitter melon whenever she had it. The Asian supermarket down here occassionally has frozen stuffed bitter melon, and the label says it's stuffed with "gray feather", but I've never bought it.

When I grew up in the 40s and 50s the family dinner table was a very tense place. Dad didn't really enjoy the company of his family and Mother wasn't happy in the kitchen and didn't enjoy cooking. One of my earliest memories of food is sitting at the table for what seemed like an eternity refusing to eat lima beans. I hated lima beans as a child and I still do. I tried them once as an adult, and it reminded me of how much I disliked them. On Thursday nights when Dad went to Kiwanis, I could have what I wanted for dinner, and Mother would have half a dozen little refrigerator dishes in front of her eating things that there weren't enough of to serve at another meal, but it would be a shame to waste. On Sundays my brother and I had to sit at the table until Mother and Dad were finished eating. Of course, my brother and I would be done first, then Mother, and after what seemed like forever Dad. He was a very slow eater, and if it was ham for dinner, it'd take forever for him to get done. He really enjoyed ham, especially the big white glistening globules of fat. As an adult it was years before I'd eat ham for dinner. I rather like it now, but that took a long time. I still remember as a child thinking he was finally done with dinner and then he'd say "I'll have some more ham".

Starey gaze pie after overexposure to a glut of tv political ads, robocalls, and political mailings.

Nowadays it seems to be a holiday thats designed to give kids a lot of sugary trash they don't really need. When I was a kid we only went to the houses of people we knew and they would pretend to not know who we were and reduce us to giggles with ridiculous guesses and then give us candy. Lastly we'd go to Mrs. Cruet's house at the end of the street where old Mrs. Cruet would have a table full of home made treats. Now its just a contest to see who can get the most junk by visiting the most people. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out there's a app available mapping out the best streets and the best homes for the kids to hit, and the ones there's no point in going to. Two years ago the kids in my town didn't even get to go trick or treating since the island was still under a mandatory evacuation order, and some of the kids are still living in motels or with friends or relatives because their homes are still uninhabitable.

Well, don't be a Georgie Pillson. Be Lucia, and imagine the customer displeasing you as Mapp. Buon appetito.

From your previous posts, I know you'd never give the most appropriate response, which in my opinion is "If you want samples go to Whole Foods, they have lots". I'm not in the food business, but think your big mistake was giving out that first sample. How 'bout saying "I'm sorry our tasting menu isn't available today" unless it is available, in which case you tell the customer how much they'll enjoy it.

I found a segment from the "Television Kitchen " show from 1956 on YouTube. I don't know where I got the memory of her in a pill box hat. Maybe because she was so very proper, and calm and relaxed in the kitchen. She even seemed to enjoy cooking. Maybe she's the one who planted in my teenage mind the idea that cooking could be a pleasure even fun, not just one more tiresome chore to be gotten out of the way.

Some things which were once seasonal are now available year round. but I don't want them year round. Case in point ;Ivins Spiced Wafers. Last Monday while in the local Acme supermarket, I saw the familiar black and orange cartons, it's October, Halloween is near, so of course I bought a box of them. They're in the Acme all year round now, but I don't want them all year round, I only want them in October. In two months I'll be buying Springerles at one of the two bakerys in Atlantic County that carry them during the Christmas season. They're not available all year round, but even if they were I probably would only buy them in December. Is there anything that was a once a year treat for you and is now available all year round but you only buy when its the season for it. edited because I misspelled Ivins, but like I said, I only buy a box once a year.

I tend to get impatient with Americas Test Kitchen gadget guru. One gadget she criticized for being too difficult to clean. I'm sitting there thinking "It's not hard to clean if you unscrew the top and take it off, yuh ninny". Another time she described a utensil as totally useless. I have three of those totally useless items in my utensil drawer and use them regularly. I've given up watching the Food network, and the Cooking channel. I'm too old for those shows. I'm in my 70's and those shows just make me miss Julia, and Joyce and the young Martin Yan. I don't miss the galloping one or the frugal one, although I did use to watch them. I may be the last person on earth who remembers Florence Hansford, and her cooking show from the GE kitchen sponsored by Phila Electric. She always wore a little pillbox hat while cooking, but must have taken off her daytime length white kid gloves before starting the show.

I never got around to planting basil this year either, and the farm market go to usually gives you a handful of basil when you buy their tomatoes, but their basil crop this failed this year. Usually I would make pesto, but leave out the cheese, and freeze it in small containers. I always poured a thin coating of olive oil on top before freezing it. If it was a bad year for basil in So. Jersey, and a bad year in Indiana, that may be an indication of a widespread problem developing for basil. I hope not. I love my green glop and could eat it with a spoon. I've never bought manufactured basil and never will.

At an Elizabethan dinner a diner might ask "Is this a hen, pen, or peahen egg?"

I don't think a day goes by that I don't use it in the kitchen.

I once had stuffed spleen in a Philadelphia restaurant. I didn't particularly enjoy it. I don't remember which animal the spleen came from, but it definitely wasn't a pig spleen, since it was a kosher restaurant.

In my freshman year in college 1958-1959 I had to eat in the cottage cafeteria, and they served City Chicken regularly we were told it was veal, although some of us had our doubts. Tomato aspic, and carrot and raisin salad also appeared regularly. The catering was done by a firm out of Baltimore.

Well, at least you can be sure the server didn't get their thumb in your dinner.