Thanks for the Crepes

Cranberry orange muffins or bread are a combination that is surprisingly more than the sum of the parts. and fresh cranberries are in season now. I always try to get enough for the freezer to last through the year. Weirdly, I have never seen any sold in freezer cases in the store. I guess they sell out the fresh supply and make the rest into canned cranberry sauce?

Nope, won't stream for me either, although it looks like it will, but then just sits at the opening screen after I click the arrow to start the 8:56 minute video. Mmmkay, reclicked the link, and now it's playing within seconds of the first try? Gotta love non-command line interfaces where it's impossible to diagnose problems. At least sometimes they are self-healing. 0? Sylvia's in Harlem - soul food 1. Delmonico's NY financial district - food that was French with new world twists 2. Shrafft's again NY - catering to middle class folks, and notably, for it's time females, for the first time. 3. Howard Johnson's upstate NY - fried clams and franfurts around the car culture. I miss the sweet clam strips so. 4. La Pavillon - catered to the upper class 5. The Four Seasons - advent of seasonal menus and the modern power lunch. 6. Mama Leone's NY - Introduced a lot of people to Italian food, marking the true globalization of the American economy. 7. The Mandarin in San Francisco - in 1961 chef-owner Cecilia Chang introduced food north and west of Cantonese. 7-b/8. Freidman's Restaurant?????????? I swear they mentioned this here, but no details ??????? Weird?????? 8. Chez Panisse, Berkeley CA - fresh, safe and wholesome food from chef Alice Waters. 9. Antoines, New Oreleans, LA - since 1840 cajun and sparkling fresh seafood. 10. Sylvia's in Harlem - they cover the to-go Thanksgiving meals this restaurant sells beaucoup of. Hope you folks can load the video. It worked for me on second try. I enjoyed transcribing it, though, because right now, bringing a little order into the world of something I can control is inordinately comforting.

The problem I see with these "Trash Can" Nachos is that the stuff is all layered into the can and sits at the pass until a server picks it up and delivers it to the consumer. The great appeal of nachos to me is the contrasting textures of the crispy chips, and all the different textures and flavors and temperatures of a well constructed plate of nachos. Personally, I don't want my chips steamed in a can and dumped out on a plate. I love nachos, but usually won't order them at a restaurant except for Torero's which seems to share my nacho philosophy about crispy chips and top notch toppings. I really loathe "cheese" sauce in this dish, which is just an excuse to add a lot of cheaper ingredients and sog my chips out. It's so easy and cheap to make nachos at home, so it's not a problem most restaurants don't make them the way I like them.

It's a great-looking meal, nonkeyman. That pickled egg looks like the ones I believe @Shelby does. She uses beets, I think, to bring out that lovely deep pink color.

Have you checked in the freezer cases for calves' liver? It's never sold fresh here, but I accidentally found it after years of searching. Then I realized I didn't care for it in spite of the enormous nutrition benefits. Y'all would not believe how much Vitamins A and B12 this cut has! I cooked it up with bacon and onions just like what we had as kids. I suspect we were getting liver then from cattle that were raised better. I recently made a big batch of popcorn from an expired bag of it, but the kernels were sealed well with the bag in a thick plastic container. I was expecting a lot of unpopped kernels. It was, surprisingly, the best batch I've probably ever made, and it was a store brand. I'm a definite fan of starting with cold oil and kernels in a cold pan. The bag says to start with hot pan and oil, but that just doesn't work as well for me. I use a triple-ply SS big pot with glass lid, and even though it has a small vent hole, I find it critical to fan the lid up and down during the most furious popping to dispatch excess steam and ensure crispy finished product. This snack was inspired by looking at a relatively small $4 bag of already popped corn in a store. I left it there and made some fresh at home for pennies. Just got a very scary call from the rehab facility my husband's in, but it turned out to be good news. Some food remnants were found in his bed, so they knew he'd managed to get a hold of some food against doctors' orders of nothing by mouth. His attendant who called said he hadn't choked or aspirated anything, so Yah! He said he'd eaten a hot dog (of all things and one of his favorites). It was apparently an accidentally delivered meal, as happened on the first day he was admitted when my brother and I were there to prevent him from actually eating it. His support staff is supposed to revisit his swallowing study ASAP and perhaps revise his diet. Everyone wants to eat, so I can't really blame him for going against orders, especially with one of his favorites after 2-1/2 weeks of eating nothing but pap in swallowing studies. I'm just glad and so relieved it turned out well.

No idea if it's stainless, but if it's rusting, wiped it with a little oil each time you baked for a while, and season it to halt that rust.

@gfweb, I was watching a rebroadcast of "A Chef's Life" S4 E8 "All Sunchoked Up" with Vivian Howard today. She addresses this issue. If the chokes do not get hit with several hard frosts, the flatulence factor renders them, if not inedible, extremely regrettable. It's been too unseasonably warm, at least here, for them to become something one wants to eat in polite company right now. Sorry I couldn't provide a link. It seems UNC PBS has become much less generous with their free episodes of the show now that her book has taken off so solidly. But yeah, you're right about folks gut bacteria. If they are not used to eating much fiber, certain things can be er... problematic. There is a funny account from Kerry Beal on here somewhere about regretting eating sunchokes and hanging out outside while on a shift at a hospital or clinic. I doubt she will be a fan and future consumer of even properly frosted ones. If you're not growing these sunflower related tubers yourself or from a trusted farmer, it's probably not worth the risk. It makes me wonder if short stints in the freezer alternated with fridge visits could render grocery store ones flatulently harmless?

I'm not Shel_B, but here's a link to the discussion of the Corn Pudding recipe that used to be posted on the Road Food site when Jane and Michael Stern owned it. The new owners pretty much gutted and ruined the site, and all the recipes are gone. The last post by susanhopebell most closely resembles the recipe I copied down into my permanent hard copy recipe file from the website before the Sterns retired. I have made it many times, and have some personal adjustment notes I've added over the years. If anyone's interested, I'll post it. Unfortunately, I failed to note the restaurant in New England somewhere that shared the recipe with them. I do remember that they promoted it as a great cold weather party dish.

I have found that flaking of the seasoning is usually caused by trying to use too thick a coating of oil and then heating it. It takes time and effort, to get a proper seasoning. I've found that several coats of oil wiped off to a barely perceptible film between multiple heatings is necessary for a flake-free, non-stick coating that lasts without flaking. Also, I don't know how much trust I'd put in factory pre-seasoning when everything seems to be done in a cost-cutting way these days.

@liuzhou, Notwithstanding Anna N's recommendation against advice, I'll give you my experience anyways. We make salmon cakes down here in the South, or at least us old fashioned folks do. They include no potatoes, but do include a small proportion of fresh bread crumbs and an egg or so, depending on how much you're making and a little liquid. I form them, coat in cornmeal, because that's what's is generally and personally favored around here. Then I refrigerate for an hour or so while I work on other components of the meal. After this, I fry them in a little hot oil, and they handle and flip very well after they brown on one side and set up. I also make fried leftover mashed potato patties. These don't have any bread or grain, but they do have egg. I fridge these too for an hour or so after forming. They are more delicate than the fish cakes, but hold together pretty well. You also have my empathy and envy. I used to make all the bread eaten in my household for many years, but quit for many years. The last time I tried my favorite tried and true bread recipe it disappointed spectacularly and bummed me out to the point where I haven't tried again. So yeah, we all have our culinary stumbling blocks. You are making some very nice looking homemade breads, so take heart. I'm cooking for one now and into the foreseeable future, barring a miracle, but I made a smoked ham, mushroom, spinach and cheddar quiche and had it with apple compote the first night. Tonight was some of the leftovers with a tossed salad. I froze the rest for later so as not to get tired of it. The first night I pan fried the 1-1/2 pound ham steak and ate some with a baked sweet potato and stirfried shredded cabbage with onion, garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. I still have almost half the ham steak left to do something with. I think tomorrow I'll make a couple biscuits and have some ham and eggs on them. Food sure goes a long way now.

Elsie, This recipe is very similar to my favorite cornbread recipe I've been using for years. My recipe doesn't call for veggie inclusions, although I've added them. The raw veggies are going to release some additional moisture during cooking which has not been a bad thing when I have done it. My recipe only calls for 1 cup of milk or buttermilk. That's the proportion I use for the rare occasions I make hush puppies, usually for outdoor fish fries. The 1-1/2 c liquid in the bishops recipe is closer to what I use when I make stove top corn pancakes with my old recipe to beat the summer heat. Oh, also my recipe calls for 1/4 c fat in the batter, and I use butter or olive oil for cornbread, but reduce it to 1 T for hush puppies because they will get cooked in fat. If you make this recipe again, try reducing the liquid to only 1 c. You can fry a few and if they are too dense and dry, easily stir in a bit more liquid as you go. Hush puppies should not be disintegrating bits off into the frying oil.

I don't know about the mangoes, but information has recently popped up on my radar that canned "pumpkin" may not be what it is labeled at all. I always wondered why the pies we made from the pie pumpkins we grew were always stringer, waterier, and required a lot of reduction, and never really got as flavorful as the canned stuff. My personal preference for this type veggie custard pie is sweet potato anyways, now. No reduction necessary. As for the mangoes, and this is just conjecture on my part, but often times produce destined for canning or freezing is often harvested at the peak of its development and quickly whisked into the processing system. This is why canned tomatoes are often much better than winter grocery store styromates. Frozen petite peas frequently outshine "fresh" ones in the pod, even for those lucky enough to find some commercial fresh English peas in season. Ever brought a hard peach home and have it "ripen" on the counter to a mealy, tasteless, inedible waste of money? I know you live in the land of wonderful produce, but I've sure wasted money on fresh peaches and apricots down here. I keep doing it because I remember the perfume and perfectness of the good ones. You would not believe how bad the few apricots we can get here are. Canned ones are lovely. Produce sold as fresh is subject to shipping and handling delays and bruising, so often is not bred or harvested for optimum taste, but for sturdiness in travel and handling. Maybe your frozen mangoes contained more natural sugars because they were allowed to ripen to their optimum best on the tree and processed right away? Who knows? You gotta love the FDA. Or NOT.

Well?... okra boiled with collards is something I've not heard of, and I've lived in the South most of my life. This experiment will be very interesting. Thanks for sharing your travels with us all, @Smithy.

There are no more outstanding unsolved movie clues. 11. Submitted by Thanks for the Crepes: This one features donuts in an armored car in an already flooded town that is downstream from an old dam that's questionable under the circumstances, and eventually bursts during the movie, further flooding the town. The answer to this was "Hard Rain" from 1998 with Morgan Freeman. 12. Submitted by liuzhou: "chicken sandwiches and cornets of caviar" No Googling! Congratulations to @Alex for this hard solution. I'm glad there are no unresolved movie clues. I'm forced to resign as organizer of this thread due to family illness. This thread was a lot of fun, though.

Thanks @Shel_B, I really enjoyed that. Life has thrown me another curve ball, and this was a very nice distraction. My favorite line (of many): "... and while just about everything but ice cream can be done with elbow grease, if that's the grease you've got ...". She's talking about the kitchen equipment and gadgets you'll need to prepare her recipes. She goes on to say how stand mixers, ice cream makers, etc., make your life easier. It resonated with me that she still gets that some of us don't have access to the latest luxury kitchen gadgets. I guess she's not old enough to remember the old school wooden ice cream churns with a manual crank where you added ice and rock salt around the sealed metal container. Those things took nothing but elbow grease and plenty of it. We kids used to take turns making it out on the porch. The crank became harder and harder to turn as the ice cream froze. It was a lot of work, but it was really, really good. I am so happy our homegrown gal is enjoying so much success.

Here is Steven Raichlen's solution for doing just that. He wants you to buy this stovetop smoker, though, and it costs almost $50. My local PBS station out of UNC recently aired an episode of his that was all about smoking without a traditional outdoor smoker. Unfortunately, it's not one of those that is offered free on the PBS site. @blue_dolphin's solution would work better for me.

I could not "Like" your post but one time. I felt compelled to say how much I appreciate your sharing your travel and eating adventures with us. I know it takes time and effort to document and share this stuff, and I, for one, am just loving it!

We had an excellent takeout meal from Alpaca Peruvian Charcoal Chicken. The sides were yucca frita and a very nice salad of spring mix, tomato and cucumber. Unfortunately, they seemed to have tamed down the heat in their green sauce. There are several complaints on the Yelp website about this sauce being too spicy, but I liked it the way it was. It's still very good, though, and I guess they have to aim at the largest market they can get. Both of us ate for under twenty bucks, and we have half the chicken left for tomorrow's dinner. You cannot beat this place, if you're in the area.

Well, I still love my local TJ's. The employees have always been friendly and helpful and seem to be happy to be working there. If you tried to dig up negativity and employee dissatisfaction at many, many workplaces, I'm sure Trader Joe's would be a small blip down at the bottom of the radar, if it didn't fall completely off. Mr. Nagle, the primary disgruntled ex-TJ's worker featured in the article worked at a location in Manhattan. Real estate is notoriously expensive there, and the stockroom may be undersized to make more room for the income producing sales floor. Another of his complaints is about noxious odors making employees sick. Does this sound like something that would not be immediately addressed in a store packed with customers? I agree though, on reprimands to employees over the PA system. That is ridiculous in a store, again, packed with customers. We're all human beings, and we are going to have personality conflicts, bad days, and so on. There are going to be bad practices going on in some workplaces. I don't think TJ's is in danger of going down the tubes based on this article. Mr. Nagle should thank his lucky stars he doesn't have to work for Walmart, which sadly is the largest private employer in our country. It's also one of the worst IMO, and this is supported by the many court decisions against them where they violated labor laws.

So can I now. Must have been down for maintenance or something when I tried earlier, or either swamped with people trying to access. Collards are ubiquitous and cheap here. Even Walmart carries them, I noticed. At my local Food Lion they are 89 cents for a big ole bunch. They sure are popular, but I never developed a taste for them.

You might be surprised, Toliver. There's no shortage of "foodies"/food curious folks in California. I'd certainly give it a try, now that my source of local venison and striped bass has moved out of the neighborhood, if it were offered here at a local Arby's. I can't resist saying that my ex-neighbor was on the cover of a fishing magazine for her skills after she won a tournament. I'm not enough of a fishing nerd to recall which one (they're all small circulation). It was a very big deal around here, though, and I sure enjoyed the bounty for the many years it lasted.

Yeah, the original article @Alex linked to in the Washington Post (link's already dead) seems to have been taken down. I couldn't find it on a search either. Update: The site itself seems to be down, and the link may recover. Or? it could be the site is overwhelmed by people trying to access the original article? There is, however a complete media frenzy , about it. What a powder keg!

@liuzhou, Thanks for the information. It could be very valuable to someone who is willing to seek out the ingredients for the cure and make them or for someone who is curious and wants to purchase them at their Asian market or just runs across them in a restaurant. We even have restaurants here in our growing burgh that offer them. That would be where I would start. I'm going to assume that this cure is alkaline/basic. Perhaps we Westerners nicknamed them "century eggs" because they keep so long? I have to weigh in at this point with the fact that I don't like our vinegar pickled eggs. They are ubiquitous in dive bars, often fished out of their cloudy brine with tongs that are not washed or even rinsed after doing that. I have never seen a woman partake, but I have witnessed them groaning when their men did. I can only guess that's due to the flatulence effect afterwards mentioned upthread. Gross! I have seen some specimens here on eG that were turned a delightful pink with beets and onions in clear brine that I would probably love. They would be so pretty sliced over salad as a garish. Of course, my little snowflake self did not live in a time without refrigeration or electricity and become accustomed to welcome protein in the winter when the hens weren't laying as usual under artificial light. If I had, I'm sure my view would be very different.

basic = alkaline

I mean basic vs. acid. Here we cure eggs with an acidic vinegar pickle.