Margo

Great, that's helpful information. Thanks!

I'm attending a conference in Dallas this week, staying at the Adam's Mark. Is it too much to hope that I'll find a diner-type breakfast place and decent Tex-Mex within a 15 minute walk or via public transportation? (I've tried searching this board with little luck, so please feel free to point me to relevant topics if this has come up before.)

My parents saw Eartha Kitt there last fall, and they didn't mention the food at all... But that may have been the electrifying Miss Kitt's doing.

Oh, now, can't you just thin it out with something? Or are the visuals too unforgettable?

Boiling them first removes some of the bitterness. (I've used the technique for broccoli rabe, for example.) This is a guess, but if you blanched the kale and the dandelion greens, you wouldn't have to worry about one cooking faster than the other as you proceeded with the recipe.

Ken Russell's Tommy. Ann-Margret in baked beans.

We've yanked the batteries out of all of ours. I was an adult before smoke alarms became a necessity, so stupidly or not, I'm comfortable living without one. Or three. Edited: prepositions.

There was an article on it in Saveur not long ago. Recipe index, Saveur #106 Scroll down for the cavolo nero recipes.

Thanks, johnnyd, the shrimp are cooked. Good on the quiche, I'm leaning in that direction. No pix, no camera. I'm what you'd call the opposite of an early adopter.

$3.99 a pound, Price Chopper again, yesterday. A different counter guy, also a fan, but wishes they were bigger. I sauteed both pounds in olive oil with urfa pepper, salt, and some lemon. My husband agrees, these are our favorite shrimp. Not "pithy" like the frozen ones can be. But I have leftovers, maybe half a pound in the shells. Ideas? I thought maybe quiche, or a frittata. (I have permission to eat them all by myself for lunch one day, but I think I should share...)

Such an entertaining and educational blog on all sorts of levels, you three. I feel like I'm at one of those parties where everyone is so smart and verbal, the conversation just clips along and I sit back in awe. Thanks for a great week.

Turkey pot pies! Turkey tetrazzini: funny that so many of these recipes for leftovers s-t-r-e-t-c-h the meat, when you're just trying to use it up. I mean, so you make tetrazzini and now you have a whole casserole to work your way through.

Loved spending the holidays with you! Thanks so much for sharing your life. Terrific blog.

Second the Au Pied de Cochon recommendation. My husband and I are in your position. The $130 Cdn or so that we spent was, frankly, a stretch but well worth it. We've also enjoyed Le Paris, on Ste. Catherine, and Le Bourlingueur, on St.-Francis-Xavier at St. Paul. The food is solid, not spectacular, but the atmosphere at both struck us as "French." Whatever that means, it was what we were looking for.

I don't doubt they're worth every loonie! Thanks for the report--your sauce sounds perfect. I look forward to reading about the rest of the fruits of your research.

Oh, Abra, and if I were living with that stunning ham, I'd be in paradise, too. Your life in France blog has me rapt. I love the idea of ham as a secret flavoring agent: ours will do for that, nicely. And I am bowled over by the developing ham pastry recipe. K8memphis, you are hard-core!

Well, finally. I picked up just under two pounds at Price Chopper in South Burlington. $4.99 a pound (and my PC discount card should have knocked off a buck at the check-out, but didn't), headless, shell-on. I thought they looked good, but we should have eaten them last night according to my nose. The guy at the fish counter said they started carrying them 10 days ago, and remarked that I was one of a "small but devoted" following in the area. He also offered that steaming them and dumping them on a table covered with newspaper was the way to go. And that beer was the best side dish. Johnnyd, Ray's Seafood has closed their retail operation on lower North Street, to consolidate their operations in Essex. The Shanty seems to be a restaurant, they don't advertise a market on the outside anyway. I didn't stop in, though, because running errands in the poorly-plowed streets of Burlap was stressing me out.

dockhl, that sounds fantastic. I'm all about Slovak and hearty at this time of year. And christine007, I love scalloped potatoes with ham. All the various spreads and salads, great ideas. Re. the ham-eternity connection. I was thinking Mark Twain. But I just Googled, and here I found that indeed it was Ms. Parker, and Mr. Clemens said that "nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs."

That looks like something Moshe Safdie might have built if he worked in adobe or stucco. What is it? Do you know who designed it? ← I thought La Fonda hotel at first, but is it the Inn at Loretto? You mentioned the Monte Sol neighborhood around St. John's College--my alma mater! Did my junior year "abroad" at the Santa Fe campus, where I fell in love with red and green chile. Even today, they are among my pantry essentials. Maria's was a favorite spot, for fajitas. Is Molly's Mexican Kitchen still operating? Dave's Not Here?

Thanks so much for the ideas, and advice, and the link to the other thread. Lilija and Katie, I was reminiscing yesterday about my mother putting leftover ham through a hand-cranked grinder for her ham salad and timbales. Deviled ham is a great idea. Dougal, oh that it were a Parma-type ham. But it's not that kind of business he works for. We were joking before he received it, that he might be getting one of those canned ham products. So a bone-in Mackenzie (a regional producer) ham, not spiral-sliced, exceeded our cynical expectations.

I wanted to chip in this bit about Allen Stamm, the builder of Verjuice's house: It's from his 2003 obit in the Albuquerque Journal. Steering back towards on topic, you said you rarely venture to the Plaza area. What neighborhoods do you frequent? I left Santa Fe in 1990 after a four-year post-college walkabout there. I lived on West San Francisco Street, a few blocks from the Plaza. At that time, my apartment was very close to what Anglos referred to as a barrio, and just a few doors down was an Italian restaurant that turned into a lively gay bar after dinner service. When I returned for a visit a few years ago, the gentrification was stunning, although honestly it was well underway in 1990. Like you, I'd avoid the downtown area. Every space was leveraged for maximum retail potential, but no place to buy, say, a tube of toothpaste. (Maybe pinon toothpaste.) Anyway, your blog is a delightful trip down memory lane. Thanks for doing it!

My husband received a whole ham from his place of employ as a Christmas bonus. There's just the two of us. We've thought about inviting the neighborhood to share the largesse, or calling the butcher to see if he'd cut it in half for us. We love ham, but honestly! What would you do, between the first slices shared among friends (and given to them to take home in big foil packages) and the last, inevitable split pea soup? How well does ham freeze, anyway?

-a tart pan with removable bottom -little ramekins for custard -big ramekins for pot-pie and a NEW! TOASTER! (The old one liked to grab the bread and pull it into the bottom of the slot, beyond the reach of knives [unplug! unplug!] or tongs. The other week I was banging it against the counter, the floor, the sink... My husband finally put it out of our misery.) Plus Judith Jones's memoir. And I gave him a package of pork products from Zingerman's.

New Mexico, I think. But who?

Please give a full report, you guys! I wonder how detectable (delectable?) the maple will be?