Tropicalsenior

What the heck is that?

That's the article that I cited in my introduction and until I read that I had no idea that it was also popular on the East Coast. Now I'm told it's also a southern thing. The only place that I've ever lived that seemed to know much about it was Montana.

I have better luck when I stick to just soft bread. This morning I made some hot dog rolls from this recipe for chili dogs for dinner and made cinnamon rolls with the leftover dough. I got a little heavy on the glaze.

Just a little background, here in Costa Rica we can't get the good golden fleshed sweet potatoes. What we get is a red-skinned variety that is totally white inside and in my opinion, totally tasteless. However, for about a year our high-end supermarket carried a brown skinned sweet potato that was yellow inside and very sweet and very delicious. I got hungry for the sweet potato salad that I used to make, so I had to find a copycat version of Durkees. After I made my salad I had no more use for it and it promptly went to the back of my refrigerator and sat there just like, apparently, it does for everyone else. I love to hear everyone's response because now I definitely don't feel alone.

No, Miracle Whip is pure white and sweet. Durkees is darker and sharper in taste. They are quite different.

I had never tasted it until I came to Costa Rica. It is definitely a unique flavor. I'm never without several of these packages in my refrigerator. A quick fruit drink, thicken it for a sauce or Incorporate it in any number of desserts. It's very quickly became my favorite fruit.

In texture, it is very similar to a mayonnaise based sauce. In color it is just a little darker than mayonnaise. Perhaps a bit more yellow. And in taste, it is a little Tangier than mayonnaise, perhaps with a bit of mustard taste but with a bit more vinegar. People use it like mayonnaise on a sandwich and when I was working in Butte Montana they put it in everything. All the salad dressings had Durkees in them in some manner or other. One salad that I remember particularly sounds pretty gross but it was actually pretty good. It was mashed sweet potatoes, hard boiled eggs and Durkees. And although the proper name of it is Durkee sauce, everyone there just called it Durkees. I think the good people of Butte, Montana would disagree with you there.

Oops, forgot to add the picture. This is my latest attempt at a baguette. Taste is right, texture is about right but the crust is like trying to cut through an inner tube.

This is my humble offering for today. It is a loaf of Amish white bread. I bake bread about twice a week and I am currently trying to come up with a decent baguette. It is still a work in progress. I am working with fermented refrigerated dough instead of sourdough. I can't seem to keep a starter alive if I can even get one going to begin with.

When I grew up in the Midwest all of our beef was cooked to crispy critter state. My father's philosophy on beef was if it is brown it is cooking, if it is black it is done. My future husband and I went to dinner with friends and he ordered a rare steak. I was appalled until he offered me a taste and I tasted real beef for the very first time. I've never wanted steak any other way since. After we married we moved to California and I learned to love all kinds of different food that I didn't even know existed.

Hmmm, something I haven't done for quite a while. Yours looks perfect. Perfectly delicious.

Nice to meet another breakfast cook. I worked breakfast lines, off and on, for over 9 years so I think I can safely say that I have made thousands. To my taste, a brown omelette is a total failure. I wouldn't serve one nor would I want to be served one. French country people may like them but I don't. On an extremely busy breakfast line, sometimes it is just a total necessity. In my opinion, it does diminish the quality. I would much rather make an omelet with eggs fresh from the shell. As for adding salt, that is something that I would also never do in a restaurant setting because salt on eggs is so much a personal preference that that is always left to the customer. I believe that fluffiness depends on the skill of the cook and the speed at which gets to the customer. Eggs start to deflate the minute that they leave the heat.

Just saying, I've made thousands of omelets that look just as good as his and never used a fork nor did I ever have to tap the pan to get them to release. It can all be done with just a flip of the wrist.

If he took care of his egg pans and didn't scratch them up with that damn fork they wouldn't stick in the first place and he wouldn't have to bang them with his wrist.

When I say it goes bad. I am talking about my clone version that I make. I wouldn't trust that for 19 years.

Damn, I threw out my bottle that I bought in Colorado and it was only 5 years old.

And all this time I thought it was strictly West Coast. The last bottle that I bought was in Colorado Springs, Colorado. As I said, I first came across it in Montana where they use it on everything. The restaurant that I worked in bought it in five gallon tubs and put it in every sauce and every dressing that they made. If I remember right, they even put it in sauerkraut salad which to me was totally disgusting. I get hungry for it every once in awhile and since I can't buy it, I found a recipe that is close, but no cigars. My problem is that I don't use it up before it goes bad. Maybe I need to make sauerkraut salad.

Sounds like a great idea but it is currently unavailable. Oh, but they do have this one but then again, there's that one catch about shipping it to Costa Rica. $13.99 $23.78 Shipping & Import Fees Deposit to Costa Rica

What is Durkee Sauce? That is the question that @Smithy asked in the lunch thread today, and I was wondering if anybody but me has ever been addicted to this stuff. I first got introduced to it when I lived in Montana and it was ubiquitous. Everyone used it and just called it Durkees. In Butte, you couldn't eat a John's Pork Chop Sandwich without Durkees. You had to have Durkees to make sweet potato salad. I've even seen people put Durkees on their pasties. I always thought that it was a West Coast thing until I read this article about the history of Durkee Sauce. Of course, when I came down here it's completely unavailable so I had to learn to make my own. As @Steve Irby says, sometimes it just gets shoved to the back of the fridge so I was wondering if anybody else had dressings or other things that they make with it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I use a soft silicone spatula now but before they had those I always just cooked it lightly on one side, flipped it and then used wrist action to roll it onto a plate. Sorry, Jacques. If you want to cook in my kitchen, you bring your own egg pans.

As I said, I am talking about restaurant situations and I have spent too many hours tempering egg pans to risk even the tiniest scratch. There are two things in the kitchen that I am completely anal about and those are my knives and my egg pans. There's nothing worse than getting your rhythm going and then having an egg pan that sticks. Fortunately, today most restaurants use Teflon but I remember the "good old days" when you had to protect them like they were gold or you spent hours tempering them all over again.

I still use the classic egg pans. I have two small tempered steel and two larger non-stick omelette pans. I don't use the fork because I have made so many that with just a flip of the wrist I can get them to curl perfectly. But I do realize that not everybody has the ability or wants to put in the hours of practice necessary to learn.

That may be good and well for teaching a home cook how to make an omelet but since we started out talking about restaurant eggs that is a situation that you would not see in a restaurant. First, the shape of the egg pan is wrong. Egg pans have totally sloping sides. Second, I would have scalped anyone that came near my egg pans with a fork, in fact I still would.

Beautiful images. I'm always amazed at the strength of the Israeli people and their ability to create such beauty in such a barren and turbulent place. I wish you peace and safety and I look forward to all your wonderful contributions in the coming year.

That was all theater. All you need is a good egg pan and with a quick flip of the wrist it rolls right out. Anyone that has worked the breakfast line knows that if you whacked it with your wrist every time you made an omelet, you would be crippled in no time flat.