Thanks for the Crepes

@Anna Nhas a philosophy that I have taken to heart about freezer storage. Most of us want to avoid food waste, but if you did not like it the first time, the time in the freezer is not going to make it any better, just the opposite. Bin it or give it a ride down the garbage disposal in my case. Beautiful looking fish and chips! One question, though. Around here, coleslaw is mostly shredded cabbage with bits of maybe shredded carrot, onion, and I make one with some apple chunks. Your slaw looks more like what we would call salad here? So can you describe Australian coleslaw, please? Sorry you didn't get to eat much of your lunch. I spent many years doing that or not getting to eat lunch at all. Crazy as it sounds, this stress eating makes you gain weight for some reason.

I often enjoy going back and reading most of these older dredged up threads. I stopped at this post and looked up the mentioned "song" on Google, because prurient interest, you know. Good Lord! That was a mistake. Don't go there if you have a romantic thought ever left in your head. The "artist" may have had some point to make, but I quit listening halfway through the rant because my scatology overload threshold had been reached. What kind of demented personality would play this to a restaurant full of people trying to enjoy their dinner? I'm not a prude, but this was shocking and just gross. There is not a lot of music anymore in most of the restaurants around here because the Cary PD is very aggressive in enforcing copyrights. Restaurants either have to pay steep royalties, or go without. You can't make your own mix tapes or CD's here anymore and play them in your restaurant for your patrons. Also, sadly, the trend is for horrible acoustics so the restaurants tend to extremely noisy during busy times. I was delighted that when my sister and niece had a meal with me at Torero's in Cary and my sis seemed to enjoy the mariachi band. She can be very strongly opinionated about stuff, so I was afraid she would not like the very loud playing next to our table, but she loves live music. I told her I was very happy she enjoyed it, but took the opportunity to remind her how much she drove me crazy practicing her clarinet when we were kids. I mean she drove me out of our shared room in the home into 20 F below zero weather in Vermont. Wind instruments are difficult to master and can really hit the irritation nerve if not played well. The trumpet player in the mariachi band was very good, but he needs a mute in the confines of the restaurant. It would probably be fine outdoors on a patio like they have in Mexico.

When I was cooking on a power boat, a small cabin cruiser, It was mostly long weekends. So I would do a lot of prep and assembly of stuff in my home kitchen. I brought pasta or potato salads that we kept on ice in a couple of big coolers. There was a "refrigerator" that required dry ice to keep anything cold, and dry ice was hard to source, so we stored other stuff in the "fridge" and kept perishables in the ice cooler. There was also a small 20-gallon water reservoir on board that dispensed into the sink, but since it was so difficult to keep this reservoir clean in the summer weather, we used bottled water and again stored stuff in the sink. The only source of heat for cooking was a charcoal grill, something like this one. Mine came with hardware to mount it to the gunnel and was half the price of the linked one. The gas version at the time was about the $200 price of what this charcoal one is now. The arm would pivot over into the boat for easy loading of the charcoal, and then you swung it out over the water to light it and do the cooking. A very good meal can be had with a charcoal grilled steak and some potato salad made at home, enhanced by a lettuce and summer tomato salad. I would usually bring along some cookies or something like that for dessert. When you're done grilling your steaks or whatever, just let the grill burn out, if you have come to rest for the evening.If you want to get underway again, after dinner, just use the pivot to dump the still-burning charcoal into the water. We ate a lot of sandwiches for lunch and usually did not eat breakfast, unless we were invited to a campsite where they were cooking eggs and bacon. Those were good mornings for me. One of our friends used to cook a pound of bacon in a skillet over a campfire on the State Park provided grate. He just dumped the whole pound in there and stirred it around. Said he learned that in the Scouts. Eventually, it would all render down and get crispy, but it took a while. Then he would cook eggs in the resulting bacon grease. This happened on shore in the camp ground. So I've had many memorable meals on the water, but it takes a lot of forethought and preparation to do this on a small boat with a cabin where you can sleep, but no real galley. I was hired, along with my husband at the time, to transport a yacht for a dentist in Memphis from his slip in Biloxi, MS (beautiful marina!) to his boathouse at McKellar Lake Riverside Park Marina in Memphis. The dentist arranged for us to have groceries on the boat and there was a full working galley, but the tow boat company that he had also arranged for us to hitch a ride with decided that there would be less liability if we had a cabin on board their boat and ate in their mess hall. The food was very good, but I hated that our groceries basically rotted and I was looking forward to cooking for the first time in a functional boat galley. Man! These tow boat companies feed their employees so well that obesity is a problem for captains. Most other workers get a lot more exercise, but still the food is so copious and good! Unfortunately, it seems that the marina where I lived and worked for a year in the late '70's has become a garbage dump. I find it very sad. We actually have another yacht delivery skipper as a member here. @JohnTwho's from South Africa and has many, many deliveries under his belt. I would love to read about you two exchanging stories!

I have really enjoyed the episodes of this show that I've watched and am glad for Marcus Samuelsson that he has his own show now. Just don't buy his branded baking sheets. I bought one before I even knew who he was several years ago, a BIG one. The large size amplifies the SPROING thing that goes on with thermal contraction/expansion. This flings the carefully prepared food you made all over the place. I can't use it for baking, but it might come in handy for something else one day, so I kept it. Believe me, this happens EVERY time the sheet is subjected to oven heat, even at 350 F. No one field tested this product. Couldn't have.

I know what everyone is saying and it is so true! You will get a much, much better-looking slice of pie, lasagna or whatever. I'm a lover of piping hot food though, to the point that I regularly slightly burn my mouth a little. When I'm cooking something, I'm already hungry, and the aromas of something baking just enhance this. So many times, I will serve lasagna or pie very hot for the first small serving, which of course serves out like slop, but it is SO GOOD. Then after eating the initial small serving, the dish will have a little time to set up and serve better. After refrigeration, you can get cookbook food stylist slices for reheating. I have even developed a technique for slicing hot bread after a few minutes rest that involves a long serrated knife being drawn upwards and backwards towards me to avoid squishing the slices. This was before I lost my mojo with bread. (I can't believe I used to make all the bread we ate, and now, with the same recipe, can't get it to turn out decently!) The exception I make is with meat. Even I, with my love of screaming hot foods, can see the life juices running out of meat cut too soon after cooking. I try to time everything so I will be busy with final prep and plating of side dishes and garnishes to distract me from wanting to cut into the meat too early, because that is just a degradation that cannot be tolerated in my world. I have always liked hot foods served very hot. I burned myself when I was a wee tyke by pulling the cheese off a homemade pizza my mom made off the pizza and down onto my chin, taking a bite of it. I still love hot, HOT! pizza. I think my obsession with hot foods served hot became even worse though after my month in the the hospital and rehab/nursing home. In there everything that is supposed to be hot is served lukewarm if you are lucky and room temp if you are not. Most of the stuff served would not have been much good even if it were served hot, though there were some mysterious few exceptions where they actually made things that I liked better than my own version of them.

I think the ham has enough salt content that it does not pose the threat that unprocessed meat might. I'm glad you found a way to enjoy the croissant squares. I used to really enjoy the Alsace tart from TJ's. It was similar, but bigger and included onions, I think. I wonder if they still carry that or these new croissant squares are intended to replace it? The tart was very popular.

The crumble looks great, but I was always taught that you needed scrupulously clean beaters and bowl to whip egg whites because even a trace of fat will interfere. So yeah, that is a very weird instruction.

Yes, a lot of times now, you have to ignore package directions and follow your own better judgement, Am I just old or did package instructions seem to be more on point with recipes that were really good that were aimed at getting you to buy more of their product? Seems to me like kids who don't cook come up with the instruction on the packages now. I've handwritten and saved many an excellent recipe from older packaged of products that caused me to buy a lot more of that product over decades. This seems never to happen anymore. Marketing people for food products, get up to speed and do your research! Tell us how to cook and use your product like used to be done, or otherwise, it will just look like a rip-off! I do love TJ's and wish I could get back there, but as hard as it is to get ANYWHERE and the fact they don't have a lot of things I need, I haven't been there in several years.Their frozen ready-to-cook selections usually can't be beat with a big stick. They have the BEST frozen pizza I've ever had! Many imported from Italy. They have absolutely spoiled me for any other frozen pizzas, which are not worth eating IMO, no matter how much you pay, and TJ's are cheap to boot. I also love their cheap and tasty cheese enchiladas, the ciabatta bread from a local bakery, the fact that I got an intact brussels sprout stalk (I grew these one year in Memphis, but had never seen them in a store before) from there around Thanksgiving one year, the friendly and genuine employees and on and on. I TJ's, but they and many other distributors/manufactures need to up their game on research for their product preparation and labeling. Go back to how it used to be and you could win many customers.

@ChrisZ, I'm very happy you found your replacement mold! (mould?) When this thread first popped up I thought you might be talking about some of the tin molds for gelatin or mousse that are plated with copper that were popular back in the 60's and 70's here in the US. As part of my retro country kitch decor in my large kitchen, that I love a lot, I have five of these molds hung on the walls. There is an elaborate heart (smaller) and larger ones of a swimming fish, a leaping fish, a lobster and a rooster. They are all quite detailed with feathers on the rooster and scales on the fish. I have never used then to mold anything, but I just love them anyway. I was hoping I would have something you like that I could send you, but such is not the case, so I'm very glad you found what you wanted.

That's what makes the world go 'round and how the whole animal winds up going to good use. But believe me, if you cook spareribs well, the fat all renders and keeps the meat moist. That's why you only need just two or three in a pot of beans, so the rendered fat doesn't overwhelm if. If you cook a slab of ribs normally, the fat renders off and gets discarded.

Arey, Have your ever tried putting a couple teaspoons of dry rice in a small salt shaker or more rice for a bigger shaker? It worked pretty well down here in the hot and humid South when my landlord refused to replace a broken A/C. I also like saving and washing out spice containers with screw-on tops and the snap on sprinkle tops for salt and pepper. It keeps the pepper's flavor ( flavour ) in and the ambient moisture out of the salt.

I like this dish too, but usually use the flat pole beans (sometimes called Italian beans) in it as I think they hold their texture and have better flavor here. And yes! Pork shoulder does rule. I love blade steaks and spareribs are so good too. I just picked up a St. Louis-style slab tonight when sis took me grocery shopping. These are better than babybacks to me because of the greater fat content. Try dropping some spareribs in a pot of beans, and you only need a few ribs to flavor the whole pot. Good stuff.

That is pretty wonderful! Are you the lucky owner of this wood-fired oven, your son's school? Have you got shots of the finished pizzas? because I know I'm not the only pizza hound here, and that magnificent oven looks like it would produce some outstanding ones.

I was saying that I liked the look of your carnitas and they'd be to my taste because they were well done. I like the tasty pork fat well rendered or even crispy. I braised a pork chop the other day by cutting the major fat off and rendering it down slowly then cooked the meat in the rendered fat and later an Eastern NC BBQ sauce. Very good, but the best part was the crispy cracklins from the rendered fat. Sorry to be unclear. I think you rocked the pork cooking!

Here is a report on one of the very last herring shacks in NC that has been favorably reviewed by Roadfood. Unfortunately, it burnt to the ground.

Dinner tonight was a pan pizza made in my 8 or 9 inch Wearever cake pan. Measurement on top and bottom is different, no measurement stamped on the bottom, so who knows? I used this recipe for the crust. I split the dough into 4 pieces for 4 pan pizzas. Sauce was crushed tomatoes laid down over crust on top of a sprinkle of garlic powder, crushed red pepper and oregano. I went much lighter on the red pepper because I laid a whole crosswise sliced jalapeno with seeds and membranes over the sauce along with a bit of finely chopped white onion. Cooked in the CSO for 15 minutes until bubbly all over. Then laid torn mozzarella cheese slices over the hot pizza with a little grated cheddar left over from last night's Mexican dinner of sopapillas, red rice, frijoles refritos and salad. On top of the pizza went raw Jumbo shrimp sliced in half. It went back in the over for 8 minutes at 450 F, the original cook temp as well. This came out very tasty, but I must say that this pizza dough does not freeze very well. The crust was much better the day I cooked it freshly made, and it has only been a few days since I froze the dough.

Is that brownish color in the image of the cooked grits really how it is in real life? If so, too bad, because the blue corn is so pretty before cooking. The texture looks good though. Creamy with some larger bits of grain. Just how I like it. I'm glad you enjoyed @kayb's version of shrimp and grits. I love to see more people partaking in our simple Southern staple.

I think @mgaretz's carnitas look very tasty, but I like my pork on the well done side. I certainly understand people's preference for more rare and juicy pork because it's sacrilege to me to ruin beef by overcooking it beyond rare. Good thing most of us know how to cook things just to our liking.

@blue_dolphincertainly does have a knack for plating up colorful, attractive food that sounds like it will taste just as good as it looks.

I have my own entry upthread concerning Hatch chiles. I really will never again prep them without gloves. I was only doing a couple just for me, but WOW! that hurt. I handle a few jalapenos all the time barehanded, but never Hatches again. They are sneaky.

Well it should be legal everywhere for open bottles locked in the trunk of the car. And remember, when cops ask to search your vehicle, you have the right to just say no without a search warrant. It might be different in Canada?? Of course the cops don't like this refusal within your American citizen rights, so your mileage might vary if you get a renegade violent cop. Body cams are eliminating some of them, which is very cool with me. Me? I am scared of cops. They have way too much power and we are constantly reading about their abuse of it down here. I don't blame you for ditching the open bottles and restricting repurchase. It's just not worth the potential hassle. I would be curious if Canadian citizens have the right to refuse a search of their vehicle without probable cause or a search warrant? Of course, even this right won't help you if you are involved in an accident (not your fault) and then you are dead meat. So, no, not worth it.

Hi @deewelch! I'd also love to hear about what attracted you to our community and what you love to eat. Where are you in the world? Do you eat out a lot or cook mostly for yourself. If you want to learn about food, you have come to the right place. I used to think I knew a lot about food, but manage to learn something new here almost every day!

Thank you, egullet peeps for introducing me to Jonathan Gold, of whom I had never heard, before your guidance. He was, indeed, an exceptional food writer, and will be missed. Very sad. Fortunately his writing lives on. I hope he did not suffer too much. I knew one person who had pancreatic cancer over 20 years ago and she could not eat even the best of festive food toward the end. She was head of the Eastern Star in NC and would throw her napkin over her plate at fancy feasts to control her nausea. I hope medical advances saved Mr. Gold from this cruel and ironic twist of fate.

Yes, I believe the manual says not to do this, but I always do as long as I don't block the vents. It works very well and I think prevents energy from going to waste. I really dislike a cold plate sapping the heat away from a hot dish. And yes, from down here in the South where it's so hot and humid all summer, I have to give an endorsement for the CSO for not heating up the house. The difference between turning on your big oven and the CSO is like the A/C will run against the big oven constantly and then afterwards until the house finally cools back down and with the CSO, you will not notice the heat and neither will the A/C. So it is a BIG difference for those of us who swelter through the summer months down here.

Y'all are triggering my eyerolley response again. Grit on! You might actually come up with an innovation that will improve the standard prep. Or not. Have fun skimming off the chaff from your fancy, expensive grits. Just know that is not the norm for our staple here. Your fancy kind is probably better?? I am genuinely delighted that such interest in a humble Southern staple has drawn the attention of such an erudite culinary community that I am so glad to be a part of. I really do love y'all. This is the only place I feel comfortable coming to talk about the little nuances of food. So thanks for that. Still gonna laugh at these machinations over grits, though.