Margaret Pilgrim

Thanks for this, b_d. These names from the past bring back many memories as well as moist eyes as I realize how many are no longer with us.

You've been watching! My favorites were oyster crackers, kinda mini-saltines. Grab a handful and drop them into soup. Instant dumplings.

Here, BK seems to advertise once a month in those mailed flyers. Also Subway, but less frequently -> $3.99 6" sub. Subway is a good "have it your way" sandwich but is huge, and one every month or so is enough. My subway order: Italian deli meat (pepperoni, salami and ham) on fresh whole grain sub, pepper jack cheese, toasted, then added lettuce, tomato, red onion, large handful of jalapeno and dill pickle chips, mayo, chipotle mayo. DH's is much more refined.

I grew up o Roman Meal. Very difficult to trade sandwiches at lunch in grade school.

Red Cholula was my constant travel companion for a decade. It makes any airline meal palatable. For me, at least.

I recall some years ago (15?) that hot sauces/salsas collectively had outsold catsup in the US.

I have never heard of this preference. My dh does often request garlic bread when we're having something something that sops.

Thanks, @rotuts. We often/usually have fast food or taco truck lunches en route to and from the country. We have found that at fast food places, splitting a sandwich and fries, with a drink for dh, is correct for us. Our two favorites are Carl's Jr. Santa Fe chicken, which is grilled, not fried, or Burger King's Big Fish, a large fried fish fillet with lettuce, cheese and tartar sauce. I can't get my arms around the pricing on published lists since our tab at either place hovers between $12 and $13, for one sandwich on the meal deal (I.e., plus fries and huge drink). We don't quibble since these serve us well as junk splurges, but it is puzzling. We do periodically play the system by using coupons for a 2 for meal. Like 2 Jr. Whoppers + 2 medium fries for $5.49. Woohoo! Such a deal!

Anna, you say you beat the egg, but then it is fried like beginning an omelet? Looks quite okay in your photo.

Word.

While Maite is very funny, one needn't understand French to get the gist of and to howl at this. I would never argue with her. What ever she says, GOES with me!

An all time favorite of mine.

This is one of those things dh dropped into the shopping cart while my back was turned. Oh, well...okay. In the country. Spaghetti night. He decides to bake up his purchase. Smells good. Tastes surprisingly good. We wound up turning off the boiling water, refrigerating spaghetti sauce and having these and salad for a very satisfying supper. Would buy again.

I have understood your quest but have paid more attention to external and internal textures than to regularity of external color. I.e., I condone white butt.

A bag in the freezer = instant happy lunch!

Curing is exactly what you write. There is a very precise curing procedure that, as I recall, required several heatings over time. No maximum firing. It took a week or so before oven could be used for pizza. And one should also note that building an oven can nickel and dime you to death. We bought an Italian masonry kit at no small price, and still had to provide cement block base, a cement base on top of that, chimney, roof, etc. We could have bought a half dozen upper end Oonis for the final amount we were in.

Enter, The Cheat. I became interested in caneles after Pim wrote about them and gave impeccable instructions on her blog. But I never afforded myself the copper molds, nor had the patience to follow her lead. I fell over a silicone mold in France, and later the LA Times simplified recipe. and have been happy enough with the results.

Eat your hearts out, urban Sub-Zero techs! Boondock repairmen know how to get stuff done!

As a first time cook, I needed to get a meal on the table, after work and commute. I was absolutely turned off by JoC. Betty Crocker showed me how to do this with reliable results. I'm not at all sure that knowing the scientific why materially improves one's cooking. Observation and extrapolation possibly work as well.

Great flamekuechen in a home oven!

Totally subscribe to all of the caveats above. We built//installed an Italian pizza oven in the country. Lots of free fuel. Retired, supposedly lots of time. I wanted it also for cooking large hunks of meat and baked stuffs. It works a charm...but requires someone at attendance at all time. You don't leave a fire burning at these temps. It takes almost an hour to bring it up to temp. Great if you are feeding a small crowd, but from my end, shaping and topping pizza for a crowd is a LOT of work. Letting guests create their own is often a disaster as they overload and wind up with calzone. For wildfire reasons, we don't use in on hot summer days, and manning it in the rain is equally impractical. We've had it for around 16 years. Husband says we've now got the cost per pizza down to under $100, plus ingredients, maybe. I often make pizza on the floor of my kitchen oven since no one at the end of the day has much stomach for several hours attention to the pizza oven. Had the Ooni been available at the time we built, I'd have gone for it in a heartbeat. Our pizza oven is charming, for sure. But it gets little use. Husband, oven chef, adds you need at least 3 feet internal area to cook two pizzas at a time.

Live duck, yes. These ducks were dead, plucked, eviscerated. Just torque and cram. And they have special duck-sized plastic bags. You can buy bags of feet in front of many of these shops. Also chicken's. Used to be $1 a bag. Haven't noticed lately.

Husband is fond of saying "Piled higher and Deeper".

I always think back to sending DH to my favorite Chinese market to buy 2 ducks for a dinner party. Since few at the market spoke English, I sent him off with a 3x5 card on which I had drawn a duck head with neck, duck body and duck feet. I instructed him to choose 2 ducks, put them in plastic bags, pay for them, then return to the butcher counter and hand the nice man the card. Nice man cut up the ducks as shown and husband came home an accomplished shopper.

I will never forget the first time we went to a Korean barbeque, half a century ago. We were brought a slew, 8 or 10 tiny bowls of "little things". Thinking them appetizers, we scarfed them up, praising them to our server, who just nodded and smiled vaguely. Later we realized what we had done. But they were delicious none the less.