GG Mora

With a full-time job and a small herd that gets cranky with hunger at dinnertime, I gravitate towards the no-fuss no-muss school of weeknight meal preparation. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I've never gotten into this flipping-the-bird thing. Nor am I a spatchcocker. And while crackling-crisp chicken skin is a marvelous thing, I'm of the opinion that it's not a natural state of affairs for a simple roast chicken. I roast chicken for dinner once a week. Like this: Heat the oven to 500°F. For a 4-ish lb. bird, I peel and smash 6 cloves of garlic, peel and quarter a small onion, and halve a lemon. I make up a small dish of kosher salt blended with freshly ground black pepper, and cut two 1-ft. lengths of kitchen twine for trussing. All of this gets rounded up next to the sink, along with a bottle of OO, my roasting pan and, if I have any, a small dish containing either a few teaspoons of herbes de Provence or a teaspoon of fennel pollen, and a wad of paper towels. Prepping up like this before I get into the bird itself prevents my smearing toxic chicken goo all over the kitchen as I round up my tools and ingredients. I unwrap the bird in the sink, rinse it with cool water and pat it dry. Then I flip the bad girl on her back and tie her wings together at the "elbows" to force her breasts out, and tuck her wing tips under her shoulders. Standing her on her neck end, I squeeze half a lemon into her cavity, sprinkle it well with S&P, stuff in the lemon half and the onion and garlic, and finish up by squeezing and stuffing in the rest of the lemon. Then I quickly tie her delicate ankles together and lay her on her back in the pan. Next, she gets doused with a few tablespoons of OO, which I rub tenderly in to her nooks and crannies. Then I generously season her all over with S&P and whichever seasoning I have on hand and stuff her into the oven. Prep takes all of 10 minutes. Let her roast for half an hour at 500, then drop the temp to 400 and let her go another hour and some until she's done. I baste two or three times with whatever lovely fat has oozed out into the pan. For skin obsessives, the thigh skin done this way is nice and crisp. The breast skin will be burnished and crisp when the bird first leaves the oven, but will soften as it rests. I gluttonously use the chicken fat to sauté brussels sprouts or roast cauliflower as an accompaniment.

The Fat Guy Invitational Think of it as a hybrid of Iron Chef and sumo wrestling. Fellas with an elevated heft factor, dressed only in black, erm, "basket sashes", have one hour to come up with a 5-course meal featuring the following ingredients: – Bacon – Durian – Andouillete – Pig's trotters – Sake – NYC tap water – Lard The field of play is a multiple-kitchens-in-the-round arrangement. Competitors will be disqualified if another big fella manages to muscle them out of the kitchen. Top prize is a book contract.

Does it have to be an Olympic event? Personally, I'd like to see a Fat Guy Invitational. I'm not even sure what the events would be. It just resonates, you know? "Fat Guy Invitational". George Hamilton can just get bent.

Dab them behind my ears. Oh, and mix them with a little veal demi-glace for an excellent sauce for, um, meatloaf. And caramelized onion pizza is a wonder....especially with rosemary, toasted walnuts and some crumbled goat or blue cheese (that's goat cheese, not crumbled goat. Ew.).

I had my first Epoisse last week. A freakin revelation! Thanks to eGullet for recommending it! I need to try this. But first I need to know how to pronounce it. Help? eh-PWOSSS Eat it with a spoon. Better, with your fingers.

You know, I had to Google just to be sure. No, they haven't (yet). But I did find this.

I can't believe Jelly Belly hasn't made bacon-flavored jelly beans yet.

Did you have a reservation? How far in advance did you make it? We pass through Vergennes every few months & have been dying to try the Black Sheep, but on the two occasions when we would have been through at dinnertime, I tried calling the day of (we generally don't have much advanced warning of our travels through) and they were thoroughly booked.

Ben and Jerry's (or should I say Unilever?) must be the all-time champeens of torture-through-discontinuation (though they prefer the term "retirement"). They even have a page on their site devoted to the Dearly Departed: B&J's Retired Flavors Two that I miss deeply are Cool Britannia (strawberry ice cream with chocolate-covered shortbread) and Tuskegee Chunk (peanut butter ice cream with huge dark chocolate chunks). I know that they were recently making something called Peanut Butter Cup, which was (is?) peanut butter ice cream with chunks of peanut butter cups. Just not the same....lacks the subtlety of Tuskegee Chunk. And boy, do I remember Sultanas. Best (like Peeps) when slightly stale.

Sometimes a simple omelette with cream cheese is transcendent. But I'll stuff any reasonable leftover into an omelette. My husband's even more daring than I – his latest abomination had something to do with leftover Spicy Eggplant in Garlic Sauce. My current favorite pre-meditated stuffed omelette uses painfully sharp Vermont cheddar with roasted Poblano peppers. The peppers I've gotten lately are delightfully hot, which I don't quite understand but wouldn't dare complain about. In fact, when I want a pepper with some zing, I choose the poblanos over the anemic "jalapenos" commonly available. This is only vaguely related in the most tangential way, but I calculated this evening that my modest family of four went through 6 pounds of cheddar cheese in the last month. That might begin to explain why my jeans are so tight. Good thing cycling season's coming up fast. Blah blah blah. Put a little vodka in her and you'll never shut her up.

You caught it! (signed) a whiting Huh...and I thought the first one was just a fluke.

I've had their White Vodka (the one distilled from lactose). It's incredibly smooth, but rather on the sweet side.

I don't know if this has been done already (I've read most but not all of this thread... The other night I was roasting some cauliflower concurrent with roasting a chicken, and when I slipped the bulb baster into that lovely golden fat at the bottom of the chicken's pan with all good intent to simply baste the chicken, overindulgence overcame me and I squirted a whole basterful into the cauliflower. I swear I didn't mean too [cough]LIAR[/cough], but holy shit was it delicious.

You are dead-on correct. I checked the ingredient list on my can of Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup and high fructose corn syrup is right there. I checked, too. In addition to the HFCS, it also contains wheat flour. Not something I'd be quick to think of adding to my tomato soup, but it sure does thicken it up nice.

Be sure and have a bowl of B&W M&Ms on hand.

I'm quite sure you're right that they've changed the formula. It just doesn't taste the same, nor does the consistency seem to be what it used to be. I have a strong suspiscion that there's corn syrup involved. I'd have to check the ingredients.

Has anyone been to The Vietnam Restaurant in Essex Junction? Is it still there? Any good?

Congratulations, matey. No need to justify the food intake! My longest ride ever was 90 miles, and I DID NOT eat enough during or after the ride. I bonked about 5 miles from the finish (and was in good company) and the following day I was able to do nothing besides eat and sleep. It really is hilarious to see non-cyclists reactions to what cyclists eat and drink. THE HORROR of realizing that they drink Coke while riding the Tour de France! I have a friend who is hands-down the most committed and obsessed cyclist I know: does the 30-mile round trip commute to work (at a bike shop, of course) through the Vermont winter. It's not at all unusual to see him pedaling home at 6 in the evening, in total darkness, sub-sub zero temperature, near blizzard conditions. I did a Sunday afternoon ride with him once, along with 2 other riders...total whiner all-gear-no-guts types. We stopped at a convenience store to refuel, and the geeks got all over the Gatorade and Power Bars. They were mortified when Bill (the REAL rider) sprung for a large Coke and a big box of off-brand sugar cookies.

Well, there was the time I turned a bottle of Irish Whiskey into a bottle rocket on one of my first nights on the line in my first and only restaurant job: Small kitchen, midsummer, hot as hell outside, hot as f*** behind the line. The butter kept on hand for finishing sauces was a liquid pool & the wines, oils and booze used for cooking were probably approaching 100° in their bottles. There was a lull in the action, just a few entrees working, and Chef stepped off the line to replenish something or other and asked me to finish a steak with whiskey sauce he had going. Pulled the steak, tossed in a few green peppercorns, took the pan from the burner and spun around for a splash of whiskey -- good girl, play safe: add the spirits OFF the stove, then put the pan back on to flame it (bottle still in hand). Spun again to return bottle to shelf, noticed only a dribble of whiskey left & figured WTF, drain it...spun back to the stove and poured the last of the whiskey...flame from the pan traveled up the stream of whiskey to the bottle & ignited the superheated fumes inside which shot the bar pourer out the top with a quick hiss and a VERY LOUD BANG which attracted the attention of everyone in the kitchen...all eyes on me -- I just held up the bottle, said "cool!" and tossed it in the trash. I was able to fake sangfroid well enough that I secured my spot on the line then and there. Nevermind that my knees were trembling under my checked pants. Edited to add: the bar-pourer top was found that October when we shut down for a week and tore apart the kitchen for a massive cleaning. It was behind the refrigerator in the pantry, 15 feet from where I was standing at the time of the, um, event.

There's also this thread. About half way down the second page are results of a test I did, with photos, comparing the different cooking methods. My Argentinian friend reports that at home, they would put a handful of glass marbles in the pot of simmering DdL to minimize the buildup of sludge on the bottom and sides of the pan. This is for the version starting with whole milk. She also reports that they would thicken it with a little cornstarch to use when filling alfajores. Any moderators reading this? Should these threads be combined into a master all-inclusive Dulce de Leche thread?

Yeah, 15 years ago Progresso Soups were still da bomb. Sorry.

Mmmm. Kabocha. I split, seed and roast them, then scrape out the pulp and mash or purée it with salt and pepper. Perfectly delicious all by itself. Sometimes you get a dry one that needs some liquid added to the purée. Milk works, so does chicken broth or apple cider. Close runners-up are Sweet Dumpling and Delicata squashes. You can have your Butternut.

It used to be that Progresso soups kicked Campbell's ass all the way down the block. I used to keep my larder stocked with Progresso, and had a special fondness for their Split Pea, Tortellini, Lentil, Beef Barley and Manhattan Clam Chowder. This is going back 10 or 15 years. I never bothered to make my own soup since Progresso was so good. I'm not sure precisely what marked the decline or exactly when it started; I will only say that at this point I prefer Campbell's to Progresso by a mile. The descent into suckdom was slow, and imperceptible at first, but in the last 3 or 4 years Progresso Soups have become nearly inedible. For a time, I would kid myself that they hadn't gotten that bad, and every few months, in dire need of a steaming bowl of soup when there was none to be had in fridge or freezer, would spring for a can of Progresso Something, only to be reminded that the world had changed. My last can of Progresso Soup – and I mean my last can as in "I'll never eat Progresso Soup again" – was a can of Tomato Tortellini, or whatever it's called these days. It was so vile that if you told me every ingredient had been formulated in a lab somewhere, I would believe you. The "broth" was thickened to a fine slime with God knows what and had a nasty, bitter, chemical flavor; the tortellini were plasticky-textured and flavorless. Whoever it is that owns "Progresso" these days (is it General Foods?) should be forbidden the use of the name or sued for making false claims: that shit is NOT Progresso Soup.

Another vote for parchment. I like to do a whole-meal-in-a-packet chicken breast thing. Thinly sliced new potatoes, mushrooms and brussels sprouts tossed together with some OO and slivered garlic, seasoned with S&P. Slap a boneless breast on top with a rosemary sprig tucked underneath, splash with white wine & season the chick with more S&P, seal up the packet and bake at 350° til the chicken's cooked through (30 - 40 minutes). You could sear the breast aforehand just for color if you really needed to.

Is it possible that the seafood was cooked with some "magic" additive in the water, something that would extend the longevity of an otherwise perishable product and at the same time leave the flesh flaccid and flavorless?