Pumpkin Lover

barawidan, I love you. I was just about to post in the NY forum where in Queens one can buy these things. I LOVE ELMHURST!

Hey, can AmyDaniel and I come to an eGullet event, too? We're Columbia, AND we live in Inwood--we're as NoMa as all get out, we'll represent well.

That is so not a good sign. Sigh. Thanks for that NY Mag review.

I got a dilemma on my hands: a good friend of mine who I haven't seen in a couple months is having a birthday celebration at Butter. Just Menupage-d and Citysearch-ed this place. Four dollar signs on Citysearch! No meal prices on Menupages! These are not good signs, as I am po'. Anyone got the goods on this place--what are the prices like, what's the food like, etc.?

Hot damn. This book and that Times piece by Coco Valdes (is that her name? The hostess from Hue?) are making FOH jobs sound all lucrative now for writers. Maybe I should change careers....

Noche Mexicana is awesome. Amsterdam between 101st and 102nd.

Totally off-topic, but I'd just like to point out that Eunny Jang wins the internet for her Smoove B signature. Back to dinner.

This is so rad: an enormously happy poster with an equally happy blog, and her homegirl posting along! I like this blog a lot, it's cheering me up. LMF, I imagine you as a very bubbly person. Yay, blog on!

Thank you guys for all the advice. Right now, I have a small granite mortar and pestle which is smooth in the inside bowl area: it's heavy, it's powerful, and I think for now I won't be doing fancy stuff, so it should be good. Thanks, thanks

The dinner I cooked tonight will be dinner for tomorrow night; prep took so long for me that my meal wasn't finished until 11. So tonight, I ate a bowl of rice with soy sauce and Sriracha. But, while eating that rice, I made this. It's the first time I've ever cooked with wine, and I used a 2003 Santa Cristina Sangiovese. *Wow*. I can't believe what a difference wine makes with stews!! I just had a taste of the stew now, with the last of the wine (my sister and I couldn't help but partake in the open bottle of wine...it's really great). I wish I had a camera to show you guys the stew: everytime I make something from scratch, I always feel like I'm cooking for the first time. But, I'm so proud of this result, this stew is perfect. And, of course, with all stews--it'll taste better tomorrow, so I should be happy that I didn't eat it tonight.

I definitely think there should be an investigative reporting seminar at my journalism school about all this. "Wigs and Forks: The Ethics of Food Journalism." I can see it now.

I just got Suvir's new cookbook, and he suggests, for a lot of the recipes, to toast and grind spices before using them. Could I achieve the same results, however, if I pounded the spices in a mortar and pestle? I wouldn't get as find a grind, obviously, but would the results make much of a difference in the final result?

I've been to a restaurant like that in Toyko. We sat at the bar, on the floor (I think), with our legs dangling down in the hollowed out floor. I wonder if this kind of sitting style is becoming a trend now.

Wow! Thanks, Hiroyuki! That sounds exactly like the problem I've been having. Looks like some cups and a teapot are going in for the boil. Thanks again, youse guys.

You know what, I'm a total dope: they're glazed on the inside and out. I wrote that post without consulting my cups beforehand. I scanned that first site you posted, Hiroyuki--I think (and I hope this isn't the case) that my cups might glazed with lead-based glaze. At least, that seemed to be the glaze that best described what's on my cups. I'll try to describe the cups: they are slightly shorter than a pint glass. Again, they're glazed inside and out, except for a small bit on the outside of the cup, near the bottom. They're beige on top, then become slightly peachy in the middle, and become beige again to the bottom. The cups have slightly raised ridges all around. I tried to scan all the sites you guys listed with no luck in finding cups similar to mine. So, if they're glazed on the inside, do I have to prep them, or should I not worry about it? (And, if is is lead-based glaze on them, should I even bother using them)? Thanks, Kristin and Hiroyuki.

We had them while we were in Japan, remember? They were not as soft as American sweet potatoes, and definitely not orange. They reminded me of chestnuts or just any old nut. They were also a lot more crumbly than our regular baked potato over here.

Two years ago, I bought some ceramics while in Japan. One of the purchases was a pair of cups, glazed on the outside but not on the inside. They came with a piece of paper explaining how to take care of them, but the Engrish translation left something to be desired. So, I never did anything with them as far as prepping them before usage. I've only used the cups once, because I think they absorbed a lot of the liquid I had poured into them. The little sheet of paper explained different methods on how to prepare the ceramics; I think one method was to cook rice gruel (congee?), and swirl it in the cups. Anyway, how do you guys prepare your ceramics before using them? Is it weird that my cups absorb liquid? I really want to use my cups again! Thanks.

A bowl of utter sadness, homey.

Even though I feel ready to hurl while I listen to presidential election results all night, I'm having two dinners: 1) Just had a reheated chorizo taco that sis brought home yesterday. Ate it alongside a salad. 2) Drinking a cab sav... an Israeli wine that sis brought home just now. Recanati Reserve 2001. From Galilee (how cool). In honor of her purchase of Daniel Rogov's new book on Israeli wines. This begins a night of (hopefully) getting really wasted in honor of the election. For now, I am glad I'm sober, because this wine is great. 3) In a couple hours, I'm going to an election night party to drink more. 4) Then I'm going to the BF's house to eat Domino's buffalo wings and chicken poppers and cheesy bread all, all, ALL night long while we watch the election coverage. Why Domino's if I'm feeling hurly? Because I'm PMSing, that's why! Man, election day couldn't have fallen on a worse week. Don't stay up too late, everyone!

spaghetttti, WOW! That looks amazing!! Can you post your recipe for soto ambon? I'm finally ready to use a mortar and pestle that my auntie in Malaysia sent me; this looks like a recipe that might utilize it.

Okie, I have a stupid question or two about the washing/pre-boiling of the bones for beef stock... 1) I only wash and pre-boil beef bones if I'm making a white beef stock? I don't have to do this if I'm making a brown beef stock (where I'd be roasting the bones)? What I'm getting at is, if I roast the bones, do I have to purge the fat and blood out of them through boiling first? 2) If I wanted to make a white veal stock, say, do I go through the boiling purge of veal bones? Do they have as much blood and fat in them as beef bones?

I have a tiny cookbook called "Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!" which lists different types of carving and eating pumpkins (I'll get to seed-related stuff in a second). Carving pumpkins include: Big Toms Jack-o-Lanterns Big Max Funny Face Spirit Big Moon Eating pumpkins include: Sweet Sugar Winter Luxury Connecticut Field Trick or Treat Big Cheese Half Moon Midget eating pumpkins include: Cinderella Cheyenne and Tricky Jack With Tricky Jack pumpkins, the author says that "Seeds have no hulls so can be dried in oven and eaten whole." So this makes me think that all eating pumpkins except Tricky Jacks have hulls on the seeds that need to be bitten into and thrown away before eating the core?

This thread is fantastic. Yay for all us university students. There's a lot of stuff you guys have listed that I don't know how to cook: can anyone share recipes for the dishes listed on the thread? Khichdi, coriander chutney, chole, mattar, etc.? I'd be much obliged. Also: what you do guys suggest I keep around as far as an Indian pantry for cooking quick dishes?

That sounds damn good, and easy, too--I think I'll try it soon.