Margaret Pilgrim

Indeed! Moosh your prawns in salt, pepper and olive, lay on side in a hot CI skillet, turn to other side, turn onto "shoulder". Remove. Perfectly cooked and succulent. You can hold in a covered vessel for an hour.

You quote my father. 'salami never entered out home.

My great-grandfather was from Baden Baden. I am a quarter German.

Okay, I'll admit that you've sent me down the rabbit hole on this one. I enjoy beef, veal and lamb tartare, but am somewhat boggled at what is essentially pork tartare. Moreover, the rabbit hole recipes call for belly and shoulder, at least 25% fat. I can't get my arms around a raw, cold pork fatty spoonful. What am I missing?

I used to buy Label Rouge sardines in France that indicated the date caught and name of boat. Just shelved them after getting home, They do get turned periodically. Maybe 10 years on them now. Will have to try one one of these days. I recently opened an ordinary brand can that was probably 15 years old. it was kind of mooshy at room temp, but once cooled down, the fish were firm and flavorful

Lovely with yellow peaches, cracked black pepper. Classic Greek salad (tomato, red onion, cucumber, feta, EVOO, red wine vinegar. Mooshed into a vinaigrette.

The sobering side story is how the less affluent are most at risk for preservative caused cancers. Bacon is not on our regular rotation, and I've switched to salt pork, pancetta and guanciale for cooking. However, these are costly alternatives and not readily available in many stores. A re-occuring story of many food categories as well as health education and services.

Several ideas here. My usual go-to is soaking affected area in a strong Oxi-Clean/boiling water solution. Works for chocolate ganache and greasy tomato splotches.

Wow. McConnell's is around $10 a pint in San Francisco.

Even more confounding, all of the French home-cooks I've met line their tart pans with parchment paper, regardless of if they are plain or fluted. Certainly a puzzlement.

Thanks for the memory jog. I used this method decades ago for making "tassies".

Just as we were packing to drive to the country, a friend dropped by with his handmade chestnut pappardelle. I asked him how he would dress it and he suggested an artichoke sauce. Badly framed and poorly photographed, but delicious. I cut some jarred artichoke bruschetta with a bit of chicken broth, topped with pecorino. (FWIW, this stuff is a super emergency hors d'oeuvre topping when time or energy is short.)

Ice cream brand or Amazon?

Better than McConnells? Wow, that's a toughy. I love McConnell's SWEET CREAM, which it pure and unflavored, a wonderful canvas for dessert concepts. We also love Straus' vanilla bean for roughly same uses at half the price. Straus' is clean and organic. Both their coffee flavors are superb. By the way, I usually find coffee to be a definer of a company's ice cream. Or maybe just my preference.

McConnell's is $11 a pint at my two "corner stores". And worth every penny. We are spoiled by regularly buying Straus' at Grocery Outlet for 2.99/pint. But that's comparing apples to oranges. Both delicious but certainly not the same.

I remember some years (decades) ago, going to a city Safeway for a particularly good promotional price. The advertised price didn't come up at checkstand. The checker called the manager who looked at my flyer, shook his head and said that he had never seen it before and asked where I got it. I told him it came in the Tuesday junk mail packet. He met the prices. I later realized that it probably was delivered to our weekend place, a half dozen counties away. Sorry about that.

Probably once a day. And with a clean spoon.

vis a vis, mayo in general: chicken salad; tarter sauce; Momofuku ranch dressing; Louis dressing; instead of egg for binding schnitzel crumbs; chocolate cake

Andie's point should be well taken. Leaving fried foods on the heat until they readily release from the bottom is the clue to good crusts.

As the globe faces recently unprecedented inflation, it makes sense to think outside the box when shopping. If youre willing to take a leap into the unknown, you may find product otherwise overlooked. All you can lose is the cost of that one item and you may open an new door. I have long been willing to try the untried, visit a venue without its being vetted by someone "in the know", trust my own taste. I've always been willing and fortunately able to spend what I need to to get the product or service I want or demand. But I'm also loathe to spend a dime more for the same product or quality. I often laugh at the old San Francisco social judgment, "Who IS she? Nobody knows her mother!"

b_d, I imagine that my referenced off-brand qualifies in his context.

An excellent point. I usually pay little attention to items that are constantly in our pantry, but somehow the manipulation of commercial mayo prices bugs me. I have always used only Best Foods or Kewpie, and having lost my mayo virginity with Banquet, i was startled to see how an off brand could so outdistance the other major brands.

"None that I know" and "most" does not equal all.

I was brought up on Best Foods but its price hike pushed me to try Banquet which Grocery Outlet was selling for $2.49. It is astonishingly acceptable! But now out of stock. I would buy it again in a heart beat.

Not so here. In the '60s Green's restaurant, one of the nation's first vegetarian restaurants features cheese heavily in its menus. Vegetarianism is a continuum. Like politics and religion, each person finds a place for himself on the arc.