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Everything, as always, looks amazing. I had completely forgotten about the idea of pasta in cartoccio. I actually had a very similar-looking seafood ragu in Sicily which slipped my mind until today. I agree with previous posters who mention that the aracine look particularly great. Are they deep fried? The crust looks very even. I usually pan fry in a large amound of oil and I almost always have problems with the balls maintaining their integrity. This might be because I always use leftover risotto which often has a lot of additions that interfere with the ability to stick together. Yours look beautiful.

Diana Kennedy has a recipe for torta de clabacitas (zucchini squash torte) in The Cuisines of Mexico. There are some differences from the product you describe, but it most likely a variation of the same thing. I have made it before and it has the texture you describe. It uses layers of sliced zucchini and rajas con jitomate (chile strips with tomatoes), but a variation with shredded squash would probably produce what you describe. I'll paraphrase the recipe in case you want to try it. Cut 1.5 lbs of zucchini into thin strips, cook in boilining water for 3-5 minutes and cool. Preheat oven to 350 F and butter a 2-quart souffle dish and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Beat the whites of 3 eggs until stiff, then add 1/4 tsp. salt and add yolks, one at a time. Layer cooled squash, rajas con jitomate, and room-temperature meunster cheese, followed by eggs mixture and dot with butter in 3 layers, ending with squash-egg-cheese-butter (no rajas) as the third layer. Bake until the egg sets, about 25-30 minutes. for rajas con jitomate 1/2 medium onion cut in thin strips 4 poblano chiles, veined and seeded, in strips about 1 1/2 inches by 1/2 inch wide 10 oz. peeled, seeded, and chopped tomato Fry onion in oil until soft but not browned, add chile strips and salt, and tomato. Cook over moderately high heat until liquid has evaborated. I feel like in paraphrasing this I've left out all the imprtant parts that show Diana Kennedy's personality and knowledge of when something looks right, so blame me and not her if this doesn't work for you. I've had it and thought it was excellent.

Unfortunately, I learned a long time ago that cake donut donut holes are even better when split in half, grilled or griddled and buttered. Some things you just can't unlearn.

So I guess I should be excited if I get a hornworm infestation this year. Green tomato flavored giant larvae sound pretty good to me.

I haven't had the luck to find any for sale here, but I have had the opportunity to eat Yukon salmon in Alaska a couple years ago. It is definately worth it. The fat content is noticeable higher than other wild Pacific salmon I've tasted. The mouth of the Yukon River is significantly further north, and colder than most salmon fisheries, and like fat people in winter, salmon also protect themselves with fat. Delicious fat. Plus, they think they need all that energy for the long journey ahead. It was funny, because when we started the trip further south in Homer, mny people said that they prefered the typical farmed Atlantic salmon because it was jucier (fattier), but the Yukon salmon combines the flavor of the wild salmon with the rich fattiness we all crave. The fatty acid that is good for you, that is.

I thought that I was the only one bothered by this, but I seem to have the exact same thought as fireandknives, namely, "ooh, that makes it sound much more technical!" Of course, I'm sure that my scientific jargon would probably annoy far more people than kitchen jargon. And don't get me started on medical jargon.

To me, the best fettucine alfredo is made with just butter and parmiggiano reggiano tossed with egg fettucine. I think that this is the original recipe, but I am too lazy to look it up right now. Alfredo with cream is better than a bechamel alfredo, but none is as bad as the artificial cheese sauce alfredo that sometimes makes its way onto restaurant plates. If I wanted Kraft macaroni and cheese I'd make it at home, as I do when I want fettucine alfredo without extraneous ingredients.

I've gotten white-spotted mayo before. If you covered it with plastic wrap and refrigerated it you probably just had some condensation (water) drip back down on your delicious mayo. That is what my white spots have been.

I've made this dish a couple of times based on the Eileen Lo recipe sheetz mentioned (also a chicken and snow peas variation in the same book) and it is excellent. I've never had authentic Cantonese chau mein in a restaurant (or Cantonese home) so I always wonder about the crispiness of the noodles. When I make it I always end up with a giant noodle pancake that is quite crispy on both sides, but soft in the middle. I really like it this way, but never know if it is supposed to be crisp all the way through or not. Does leung mein wong mean crispy all the way through? Thanks for any help.

Have you had green (fresh) coriander seeds? Are they commonly used in any cuisine? I have never seen these sold as a product, while I have seen some cilantro sold with roots on it. Of course, both the green seeds and roots are very easy to grow on your own. I'd be interested if the fresh seeds are traditionally used in any dish. I use them much the same as I would the roots, but this is only because when the weather is hot coriander goes to seed really quickly so the seeds are very plentiful. I like the intensity of the flavor, but cilantro haters would really hate it.

To me, cilantro roots taste similar to the leaves, but a little more intense--not that far off from the stems. Pan, you've probably had cilantro root as an ingredient in a lot of Thai dishes before. It is pounded into a lot of curry pastes, and is the main ingredient in a common marinade for gai yang--fish sauce, black pepper, and cilantro root. To me, the main flavor difference in coriander in all its forms is dried versus fresh. The "seeds", which I learned are actually fruit right here on eGullet, taste like really strong fresh coriander leaves when green, as do the stems. The dried fruit tastes very different. And the dried leaves, while almost tasteless, taste nothing like fresh cilantro leaves.

I'm glad I came upon this thread and found that others have been experiencing the same pink Lion's Head meatballs that I have. I do use cilantro in my recipe, and will have to make a cilantro-free ball to check out the hypothesis next time. In general, pink, cooked meat occurs because the myoglobin, a major protein in muscle that is used to store oxygen, has something bound in its heme group that keeps it in the oxygen bound conformation. In its oxygen-bound conformation it appears red, but if the oxygen is used (or released upon heating) it is no longer red. Other small molecules can take the place of the oxygen. This is why smoked meat can be pink or have a red "smoke ring". The carbon monoxide in smoke binds the heme in myoglobin. Nitric oxide in cured meats also binds the heme resulting in the pink color. I’d be interested in what substance in cilantro binds myoglobin. After googling it, it seems that cilantro is often recommended by herbalists to remove heavy metal poisoning, which might relate to heme binding properties. Anyway, it looks like we should all be using plenty of cilantro, as I know many studies have shown it also has antimicrobial properties.

Yes, to sterilize your hands you should hold them in pressurized steam for at least 20 minutes. Luckily, most bacteria and other food pathogens have a fairly high infectvie dose, meaning that the few that still hang on after regular hand-washing won't be enough to infect you. But seriously, I have seen so many employees wear gloves while using the cash register and handling money, then wear the same glovesb back into the kitchen. I, being a wimp, never say anything, although I do passive-aggressively make a disgusted, questioning face. They probably think I'm just constipated or something.

Butterminlk, sour cream, and creme fraiche are all cultures of the same bcteria, Lactococcus lactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides. What makes them all different are their fat contests. Buttermilk has almost no fat, while American sour cream is about 20% fat (and usually contains stabilizers like starch and gelatin) and creme fraiche is 30% fat or so. This is around the same percentage s whipping cream, so in theory you can just mix little buttermilk into whipping cream and leave it at the bacteria's preferred temperature (warm room temp--not as warm as a yogurt maker) and it will turn into deliciously thick creme fraiche, but I've never gotten quite as thick of a product as I would like. The 50:50 sour cream:heavy cream substitution is also not as thick, and less favorable than the homemade, so I prefer the homemade. (fat percentages taken from Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, 2004)

I like using beer in beef stews in braises. It is usually an essential ingredient in my chili, depending on how hot I made it. For some reason, people are always really impressed by my beer battering of things--I just add beer to flour and a little bit of corn starch and whatever seasonings I want in the mix. I guess people think of beer battering as something you can only get at an inexpensive restaurant.

Yes, the root is edible and is considered to have magical herbal benifits. It is fairly bitter, like most of the dandelion. I have added it to soup once, as you would burdock. I found, however, that digging the roots of both dandlion and burdock is much more trouble than it is worth. My original intention was to dig enough dandelion roots to roast them and use them like you would chickory as a coffee amendment. After three or four measly roots I decided the chickory from the store for a little over a dollar was the best deal I'd seen in a long time.

You can buy dandelion wine from the Amana Colonies in Iowa here. I think it is better than the sweet fruit varieties of wine they make, but it is definately different and not what most people would think of when they think wine. The rhubarb wine is also fairly interesting. The rest of the fruit wines taste like ridiculously sweet wine coolers to me, although the cranberry tastes just like regular cranberry cocktail to me. Back on the subject of dandelions I just found out that you can make dandelion jelly, much as you would violet jelly and I think I will try my hand at that. By the way, I've been eating a lot of violet and curly dock salad recently.

I just did this this weekend. I picked a bunch of what I though were young enough dandelion greens for a salad, but they were still a little too bitter for a stand-alone salad, so I cooked them. I browned som bacon and shallots, deglazed with dry vermouth (or white wine) and added the greens and salt. I think the sweetness and acidity added by the wine helps counteract the bitterness. For bigger dandelions, like those shown in Danel's picture are usually stewed or blanched before stir-frying to reduce bitterness. You can also batter and fry the flowers, or use the petals to flavor other dishes. They're pretty good in pancakes.

I've got another popcorn-making grease-fire disaster. I was going to pop popcorn in my tiny, 5th floor Manhattan apartment. I got a bit distracted and when I took the lid off the pan it burst into flames. Under the pressure of a flaming pan in a small apartment (with no venting hood) I panicked. Luckily I realized that it would be bad to involve water in the grease fire, but not being able to think of the proper solution at the time, and panicking about the smoke building up, getting ready to set off the hall fire alarm which sometimes called the fire department, I decided to hold the pan out the open window. I'm sure the neighbors and passersby were greatly amused. It took me quite some time, while holding a flaming pan out the window, to figure out that all I had to do was replace the lid and let the fire burn itself out. All's well that ends well.

I apologize if this has been mentioned before, but I'm not reading the 13 pages over again. Now that it is warm I prefer to roast my vegetables outdoors on a sheet pan on the grill. I can usually maintain a temperature between 400 and 425 F with the lid closed on my propane grill. I often lift the pan up on a makeshift rack of cans so I can grill meat under it for the last 20 minutes or so. Of course I also like to grill lots of vegetables like asparagus and baby bok choi right on the grill, but that would be a different topic.

Yes. The incindent remains a mystery but I remain very much alive and well.

My Polish-American grandmother always made a raisin babka for Easter. It looks like another Polish girl from New Jersey does the same: Martha Stewart's Easter babkarecipe looks very similar to the one my grandma used, although she always baked it in a round pan.

The last time I was wondering this I managed to find this link. Although it is presented as secondhand information from the National Pork Board, which could be the last place to go to for straightforward information about pork, I like it for all the reasons false etymologies are usually liked: it conveniently explains everything and involves a bit of a story. This makes sense, but butt can mean so many things you could really make a number of explanations that do not include Boston fly. The top (shoulder (Boston butt)) is of course the larger or thicker end of an object. My favorite definition, related to the hog-packing barrel meaning, is the volume of two hogsheads, or about 126 gallons. Keeping it low on the hog.

These pictures of food from the Riviera are really torturing people like me with 8 weeks to go until the last frost date. That last meal looked especially Summery. I just love the full but somehow light taste of Ligurian cooking. Pasta alla Genovese is my second favorite cook dinner in the time it takes to boil water and cook pasta meal (after carbonara). I make it with the potatoes sliced rather thinly and added after the pasta and they usually break up a little bit, which I like, but I'll have to try this way next time. Is it the cheese focaccia that doesn't have any leavening? I can't believe that I never noticed this in my many eatings of it in my poor student days hiking Cinque Terre, but it makes complete sense in retrospect. I ate a lot of that and fried fish (and pesto, of course) on my short trip there. I just wanted to add that this is one of my favorite threads and probabaly the most interesting New Year's resolution I've heard. It reminds me of the conversation people have where one says, "but we just had Chinese food last night!" and the other says, "Chinese people have Chinese food every night." and I laugh.

Since I like to pretend that eating oatmeal makes up for all the other stuff I eat, I tend to have oatmeal every day for breakfast. I make a week's worth or so at a time using. I just toast the oats in butter or clarified butter and add twice as much water as oats and simmer, stirring occasionally, adding a little salt near the end of the cooking time. The first batch is always the best, but I think it reheats fairly well. I usually add some more liquid for reheating, plus any variatios like nuts, fruit, yogurt, cream, butter or cinnamon and sugar. I think I'll be working the toasted sesame oil helenjp suggested into the rotation. I use bulk, organic steel cut oats because they are cheap and good here. The wierd thing is that one time, when I took a shower during the simmer stage because I was running late and didn't stir at all, the texture of the oatmeal was just fine when I came back, but there was a greenish residue on the top. Has anyone else seen this? It seemed to be one of those natural reactions, like how garlic can change to green or blue in acid. I haven't found any evidence that oats contain anthocyanins or sulfur compounds that can turn green, but I haven't looked that hard. Anyway, I just stirred it a couple times and the green was no longer perceptible. Mmm, green oats.