Thanks for the Crepes

I made a smaller casserole than usual of scalloped potatoes, which were excellent as always, but I still have a serving or two left over. This is not a bad thing. I love scalloped potatoes. This was served with a ground chuck burger with no accompaniments except its luscious med rare juices and salt and pepper. Frozen ground chuck burgers are good for a single person. Quick to thaw and no waste. So good too. Green stuff will come tomorrow, unless you count the limes I used in my Coronas, and the scallions in the scalloped potatoes.

I know this probably won't help Shelby, because I don't think there are any Food Lion grocers in her area, but it might help my neighbors in the Southeast. They're based in Salisbury, NC. I like their store brand of "hot" Thick and Chunky Salsa. It doesn't have added sugar, and is a little John and Jane Q. Public hot. It's got onions, tomatoes, jalapenos, and if you have cilantro at home to dice and mix in, you can take it up a notch. It's good enough though, that I was thinking of walking over to the nearby Food Lion the last time we ate at what used to be our favorite Mexican restaurant to get some decent salsa to go with the good warm chips on offer. The restaurant's salsa really sucked. Haven't been back. To scoop it up, I like Snyder's white corn tortilla chips or their Restaurant style ones that I bought last time because the available white corn were nearly expired, and it takes me a while to work through a one pound bag. I thought they might be more national, but it looks like the Snyder company is based in Charlotte, NC. So that might not be much help in your area either, sorry @Shelby.

Oh, it's quite possible. Easy, in fact. The 2% food tax is forgiven on SNAP purchases in this state, and the computer programs have no problem with charging the higher 6-3/4% tax rate on toilet paper and such, sorting them out and making benefits recipients pay cash for such items. Water would be no different. Interestingly, some groceries around here disallow bread from the deli and allow Big Ag bread on the program, and others allow the deli bread. I put that down to bad programming on the part of the ones that prohibit it. It's easier to not allow everything from the deli, but it's not right either. Then to add insult to injury, they also charge tax on top of something that should legally be covered by the program.

I fried up some zucchini tonight, and while I already had the mess from the frying going on, I decided to fry my sweet potato and thin pork chop as well. I also threw in a jalapeno and a couple serrano peppers into the mix. While this meal was all fried, it wasn't as greasy as one might think. I use more paper towels draining and blotting fried foods than I use for all other purposes. The pork chop was given a liberal introduction to cayenne, a milder, but flavorful chili pepper and black pepper, and everything was shaken in a bag with flour before its trip though the hot oil. I prefer pork chops broiled, but that requires a war with the smoke detector. I'm pretty sure it is a militant vegetarian.

Our cornmeal for hushpuppies, corn bread and such is different that grits here in North Carolina for sure. I got corrected when I claimed in another thread that our hominy grits were treated with lime. Not caring to get into an argument and not in the mood to do a lot of research at the time, I let it pass. They are still labeled "hominy" grits, and taste a lot more like the whole hominy I use in polsole than they do the stoneground cornmeal I use in grits. I have a can of Juanita's Mexican-style hominy kernels in the pantry, and while it just claims hominy, water and salt on the ingredients label, these babies have clearly been treated with lime. At this point, I am unsure if our grits are indeed treated with lime still. Doesn't really matter to me, as I love them just as they are. (I secretly think our local grits are treated with lime still or they'd be called corn grits and not hominy grits.)

liamsaunt, your oven baked eggplant looks so very good. Would you be kind enough to share how you made this inviting healthier version of a classic?

Ashen, I love fried grits, but I hate making them because of the oil popping out, making a mess of the stove and doing it's best to burn me even with a splatter screen. I had never heard of brustolada, but the next time I have leftover grits, I'm giving it a try. Do you brush your squares with oil or butter before broiling?

Marcella Hazan calls for adding Parm rind to soups.

I make most meals from scratch and shop primarily from the refrigerated cases around the perimeter of the supermarket. I'm not a super freak about it, though. I will use convenience foods if I like them. I don't like many now, but I use dried pasta and have never made my own cheese. I did make some butter in a jar in Girl Scouts once. Canned tomato sauce, tomatoes, beans, mushrooms, beets, soups, tuna, salmon, corned beef, some fruits, french-fried onions, refried beans are among the staples of my pantry. There's coconut milk and a jar of nopalitos in brine in there now. I buy the vast majority of mayonnaise, always Duke's, and yeast breads. I use canned whipped cream from the refrigerated case occasionally. I also buy frozen vegetables regularly. They're not only convenient, but cheaper and/or better than what I can get fresh. I don't like the texture of frozen carrots or broccoli, but most frozen veggies are fine. I also buy commercially frozen fruit, shrimp, and puff pastry. I have Pepperidge Farm apple turnovers in the freezer now. I actually prefer good commercial ice cream to the denser homemade. Mrs. Smith's frozen fruit pies and cobblers are just fine to me, especially the blackberry. My regular grocery doesn't offer much edible in the way of ready-to-heat frozen foods, but I have been known to buy cheese ravioli, stuffed flounder from a North Carolina company, Stouffer's mac and cheese is still good, breaded clam strips and frozen french fries and tater tots. I used to buy Stouffer's lasagna, but it went to the dogs a few years back. I like Deep brand frozen spinach and cheese samosas from my Indian grocer's freezer case. I go crazy in the freezer cases when I rarely make it to Trader Joe's. They have not only edible, but delicious, frozen pizzas imported from Italy, cheese enchiladas, mushroom pastries with cream cheese flaky pastry, chocolate croissants, spanakopita, cheesecake and a whole lot more. Now it sounds like I eat mostly convenience foods, which isn't true. I'm just sayin' not all convenience foods are anathema.

Alex's technique probably works fine for finishing a thick piece of fish after starting it in the oven, but please don't try it with baked potatoes. I prefer the dryness and flavor of oven baked over nuked potatoes in winter when I'm not running the oven against the A/C. Not too long ago, I was baking a potato to served with charcoal grilled rib eye steak, and everything was humming along on schedule. When I checked the baked potatoes, they were still slightly hard. I had already started the charcoal, and short winter daylight was fading. I've started potatoes in the microwave and finished in the oven many times, but never baked and then nuked. I wish I hadn't tried it this time. I took my slightly underdone tater, popped it in the microwave and turned away to assemble the ingredients for twice baked. About 15 seconds in, I heard a muffled boom, raced over and hit pause. It was too late. I spent fifteen minutes cleaning exploded potato mush off every surface of the interior of the microwave, started over nuking a fresh potato, assembling the twice baked, popped it in the oven and raced out to the grill as the fire burned down and the light waned. That is the second potato I've managed to explode, and the first one was forty years ago, but not started in the oven. The old-timey nukes didn't have turntables, and I didn't know to puncture the potato then. So ... baking and then trying to finish in the microwave for potatoes, at least, is not recommended.

The property management company that owns my home and many thousands of properties in this area must have expanded to New Jersey too! I would ask why you are doing your own repairs to the landlord's property, but unfortunately, I know the answer all too well already. The only thing my landlord has proven to be any good at over 26 years is collecting money. They have that down pat.

I'm surprised how popular shredding has turned out to be. You can't get a hand diced chicken salad at a restaurant around here, as far as I know. They all seem to shred it in a food processor. I thought it was to save labor costs, but apparently some prefer it that way. I never order it out, and when I make it I always dice it. Just a little minced celery and onion with a little mayo, salt and pepper makes it perfect for me.

I too have a hard time with this root vegetable. It's available for less than a dollar a pound at my Korean owned Asian grocer. The good news is that if you start cutting from the root end and keep the part you don't use refrigerated, it lasts a surprisingly long time. Weeks. This is good, because the roots available are well over a pound. Sometimes the top will start to sprout, and I pinch that off and use it as a little bit of green in a dish.

Oh good, your fridge has proper pull handles. I am constantly left behind by "improvements" and "advances", so I didn't say anything when I saw the first photo of it with the little nubs sticking out where I guess the handles mount to. I have never seen one without the handles installed. It is very pretty now. Contractors don't have the time to unpack and inspect every component prior to installation stage. If they did that, they would have to charge you for that time, and I know you don't want that either. You are a wise person to not speak every thought off the top of your head. I can learn much from you, Master Po. Grasshopper

I don't know about modern GE stoves, but my 1970's model is a workhorse, and still going strong. Also weird fact: my nephew, who works on a nuclear aircraft carrier, told me that the familiar GE logo is on the nuclear warheads he has seen. I suspect they have a very strong engineering department at GE. Jacksoup, I hope you will be so happy with your new kitchen.

Looking forward to that. Have fun!

johnnyd, I sure miss you around here and I'm sure others do too. I love your reports on Maine seafood harvesting. I've learned a lot from you too, and wish you would come back to visit and enlighten a lot more often!

Roast chicken is not a problem and would freeze well. I'm not so sure about your roasted veggies surviving the freezer well. You could chop the roasted veggies and chicken, add some peas, make some gravy out of that lovely-looking exudate around your roast chicken, make a pastry crust and turn it into a lovely chicken pot pie. As for the baby spinach, my favorite way with it is to boil up some eggs, and fry some bacon with a little onion. If you can find good tomatoes, and it's summer where you are, so probably, definitely use them. After frying the bacon, remove it, add a little vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper, let this get hot, and add tomato wedges. Cook these just until some juices start to come out. Put in the spinach, and toss to coat, warm and wilt just a little. Immediately plate and top with slices of hard-boiled egg and bacon crumbles.

I said they are the exception, which they are, but they exist. Here are a few examples: Buckner's Family Restaurant, Jackson, GA Hollyhock Hill Restaurant, Indianapolis, IN Several eG members have been here, and documented this one. The Salt Lick, Driftwood, TX We used to have more of these restaurants, but with our declining economy they are disappearing along with the still more common, but also declining buffets. The only local restaurant we have had recently that served unlimited food with table service is Mamma Mia's Italian in Apex, NC. They lasted a year or two with this offer, then went to one weekday night with it, and now it is all plated meals. Buffets are also disappearing, but there are a few left in town. There are no pizza buffets left, but I am going to a South Indian vegetarian buffet tomorrow for lunch. I have also enjoyed seafood meals at The Hungry Fisherman with all the fried seafood you could eat with table service just outside Memphis, Tn. These were not served what we consider "family style", but rather if you requested more, it would be served hot out of the fryer on your plate from the kitchen by waitstaff. This was in the 70's. As more fall below the poverty line, and homelessness increases, these kinds of bountiful feasts are harder and harder to find here. Heck, it's hard to find a decent salad bar anymore, and I have been to some spectacular ones in better times. Now the fast food restaurants are keeping condiments behind the counter so the homeless or poor don't come in and scarf them. So yeah, this kind of service is rare now, but is part of our history and still exists to a small extent. So don't mess with my beautiful memories.

Your link takes me to the Fox news site where there is indeed a photo of a grilled cheese, then some text of the article, then a photo of the suspect's booking photo. I just rechecked it and the photo is still there. It may have been added after you posted your link or it may be an effect of China's oversight of web content. I also checked my browser history, and that is where I got the idea I'd seen this photo. Which I most definitely had, so I am not going senile ... yet.

Caesar salad again tonight. Large heads of Romaine have been running at 99 cents, available tomatoes are really bad, and let's face it, Caesar salad is good! No, I'm not in a rut. I am on a kick! Then I made one of my favorite pasta dishes: sliced button mushrooms sauteed in butter with a little salt and garlic then shrimp given the same treatment in that pan with crushed red pepper flakes while the spaghetti cooks. Stir it all together, plate on the hot plate where you were keeping the 'shrooms warm on and add parmesan cheese. This was really good, but I made myself put aside a serving for breakfast tomorrow. Dessert was part of a cantaloupe from Guatemala. It was a huge fruit, but it won't win any prizes for sweetest of most fragrant. Still it is a very nice change from more local fruit available in the dead of winter with snow and ice still on the ground. I was very glad to get it.

I'm sure glad you found your way here, andie. I have learned so much from you. I have learned never to doubt your word, but it is amazing all the areas you have experience and are conversant in, so I can understand why someone who hasn't taken the time to read your writings (and is also a pompous ass ) might. His loss, our gain.

We had a version of the same story on our local news yesterday and the copyright credit is given to the Associated Press, not Fox News. Which is correct, I do not know. I have no problem with family style meals either, as long as the serving utensils are sanitary and no one serves themselves from the communal dish with a used eating utensil or their hands, except maybe bread rolls or something where they can get one without pawing the rest. If by "western meals", you mean individually plated meals, then I am with you. I cannot stand someone, anyone, grabbing something off my plate without asking! It's another thing if we diners decide between ourselves to transfer and share food between our plates with clean utensils at the beginning of the meal. That is fine, as long as anyone has the right without causing a ruckus to decline. By the way, we serve meals family-style frequently here in the U.S. at home, but not so much in restaurants. There are a few restaurants that do that though, and they are definitely the exception. At home, the host always makes sure there is plenty for everyone, and that usually means leftovers. I suspect so very few restaurants here do it because they are focused on their profit margins and don't want to be taken advantage of by big eaters. The Chinese restaurants here that do it limit their losses by serving it family-style, but when the dish is empty, it's empty. Order another. Western restaurants that serve family style will refill the bowl until everyone gets satisfied. Even though I have not been truly hungry in many decades, and even though my brain knows that there is plenty of food available. Although I know if I am shorted at a restaurant or something, I know I can go home to an obscene embarrassment of various foods, something in my lizard brain/survival instinct/animal override of logic kicks in, and I am fully able to understand the man in the story's reaction. It would be especially triggering to me in the scenario in the story, since the sandwich I was looking forward to would be ruined for me to where I could not eat it, because someone had taken a bite out of it and smeared it with their saliva and whatever germs they carried. Don't laugh! We have people dropping dead of influenza here right now. I'm sure it's not worth killing someone over in our current civilized society and land of plenty, and in fact, I understand the man in question didn't even shoot toward anyone. If you don't want to accidentally trigger someone's long-ingrained survival instinct, though, please remain civilized, and don't grab any of their food and especially don't get your saliva on it. Rude doesn't even start to cover it. Stealing food from someone else who had done the work and expended the calories to acquire/prepare it meant the difference between life and death for many eons. We can reason with ourselves all we like, but in a flash, that instinct can rise to the surface under the right circumstances. The man in the story is pictured in liuzhou's story link, and it appears he has been been beaten by the police. I'm not a fan of punishing people without due process of law. I also wonder if we in our ultra-civilized society are not punishing and selecting against the very genes and instincts that have allowed our species to survive so long.

This thread was started by a mom seeking to help her son with a school project on regional U.S. foods. The project is long over, but it generated a lively and interesting conversation on the subject, and I couldn't search out a better place to share this link from Wikipedia on the subject. I've been interested in this for a while, and I learned a few new things. Frogeye salad, anyone? There are lots of photos and links to more info on items that catch your fancy.

@Okanagancook, is the rice cooked/boiled first or dry and raw?