browniebaker

sometimes pimiento cheese (a Southern thang), sometimes plain extra-sharp Cheddar cheese ketchup, mustard, *and* mayo grilled sliced onions three dill pickle slices on a warmed soft white bun

It isn't? My Texas grandma always baked hers in an iron skillet (pre-heated in the oven w/ bacon grease) and now I do the same. What makes it *not* cornbread to you? I think she meant that her peeve is cornbread that isn't baked in a cast-iron skillet.

Oh, it's not a picnic without pimiento cheese!

I will never again make my slightly lactose-intolerant husband drink more than a cup of milk to help finish up the milk the night before a long trip -- and then go to watch a movie in a theater. He missed the first several action-packed minutes of Saving Private Ryan depicting the D-Day invasion. Oops. Sorry! This was before I learned that you could freeze milk and use it later in cooking.

Sugar in cornbread!

Thank you for the wonderful report -- but you're killing me! I sure miss Chinatown, from my three-month stay in San Francisco three years ago. My favorite bakery was Eastern Bakery, just because I favor their deliciously eggy crackle-topped custard buns (bo lo mien bao) and incomparable mooncakes. My husband's spending next week in S.F. for business, and you've got me thinking I will, after all, take him up on his offer to bring me back anything I want!

Love bean pie! I simply substitute an equal amount of mashed (and strained, if you like) or pureed beans for the pumpkin in the famous Libby's pumpkin pie recipe. There are a lot of variations on the bean pie, some milkier than others. a good amount of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cloves is advisable, for a plain bean pie would be terribly dull. Try different types of beans, too. Adzuki (small sweet red) beans make a marvelous bean pie. You can even buy sweetened red bean paste and use it from the can, adjusting the amount of added granulated sugar in the recipe. The bean pie is good for you, too, packed with protein, full of fiber, and inexpensive.

I have learned my lessons from having to pay the plumber. Not OK: onion skins cauliflower or cabbage cores that have not been cut into smaller pieces surprisingly OK (at least in my disposal): rind of watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew My plumber also says to run the water before, during, and at least 15 seconds after turning on the disposal.

You need a designated garpefruit-peeler in your household. Everyone in my house claims they love grapefruit, but none of it gets eaten unless I peel the grapefruit. I peel them like oranges, but I also remove all membranes so that it's just pure grapefruit sections. I peel about ten grapfruit at a time and keep them in a bowl in the fridge. That's when the grapefruit-lovers come out and the grapefruit sections are gone in no time.

You're probably right. But I'm not in the mood to hunt out the special pan and then bake bread at 90F for a kiddie tea party. If I can find the unsliced "square" loaf to speed up the sandwich making for my DIL, I'll get it for her. Otherwise, she can do them slice by slice with Pepperidge Farm thin slices. I can understand not wanting to bake in 90 degree F weather, but if you ever want to try it, you can use a loaf pan topped with a cookie sheet and a brick (as a weight).

There are a milliion different chess pie recipes out there! Some contain milk/buttermilk/cream/evaporated milk, and some contain none such. I like mine milky, with 3/4 cup buttermilk to 3 eggs. And I wonder, at what point a chess pie becomes a buttermilk pie. My buttermilk pie recipe uses a higher ratio of buttermilk to eggs: 2 cups buttermilk to 4 eggs. Some use whole eggs, and some use just yolks. Some use vinegar, and some use lemon. Something sour to cut the sweet. Old recipes use no vanilla extract, as that was not widely available, but newer recipes use vanilla extract and even other flavorings like almond. Some Southerners say it's not a chess pie if it doesn't contain cornmeal. But, then, the chocolate chess pies I have seen have not contained cornmeal. Some say the name "chess" comes from its keeping well in a pie-chest, in the days before refrigeration. Some say it comes from its being "jus' pie." Other say it comes from "cheese pie" because it derives from the English cheese pie or at least, in its golden glory, looks like a cheese pie. One thing's for sure: it's my favorite pie. Edit: I'm from Tennessee, and mine has to have cornmeal.

Also, the OP asked about the "dress code," which means what the restraurant requires or desires. If the OP had asked, on the other hand, what patrons have been seen to wear . . . .

you often don't get a good indication when talking to the receptionist. hearsay, which we would hope would be firsthand reports, often do the trick. If I have any doubt and need to ask, I actually prefer the official line from the restaurant, and I never ask patrons who have been. Maybe it's because I like dressing up and am not looking to find out how casual I can go and still get away with it?

Marbled cheesecake brownies keep fine without refrigeration. Same is true of rugelach, which can be made with cream cheese in the dough, or any pie or tart made using this pastry. Ditto: cream cheese danish; cream cheese poundcake.

Wouldn't a phone call to the restaurant be better than hearsay?

Buz, thanks for taking the time to reply to the last review. I have been hoping to get to Richmond to try your bbq, but it's a two-hour drive for me, and I don't know when I'll make it. But I definitely think it's worth a try, to find good bbq.

after dinner, banana cupcakes with chocolate cream-cheese frosting on top

There's got to be a better way to celebrate. I'm feeling a little sick.

It's (1) inflation, followed by deflation, and (2) baking at high temperature that cause cracking upon cooling. Inflation, deflation, and cracking on top can all be minimized (and density maximized) if you avoid beating the batter much after adding the eggs. My New-York-style cheesecake bakes up as dense as can be and without a crack. I mix together the cream cheese and sugar until perfectly smooth before mixing in the flour and vanilla. I beat the eggs separately until a uniform yellow and then blend gently into the batter to avoid air bubbles. I pour the batter into the pan and rotate the pan by several quarter-turns to release any air bubbles and settle the batter. Next I wrap soaking-wet Magi-Cake strips around walls of pan. First I bake at 475 degrees for 15 minute, and then lower thermostat to 200 degrees and bake for one hour and 15 minutes. I do not open oven during baking. When time is up, I turn off the oven and leave the cake in the unopened oven for one hour.

OK, I give up. That won't stop the sticky-rice chicken at my favorite dim sum parlors from reminding me of Jiaxing zongzi with their simple, moist savory filling. BTW, Beijing "white zongzi" are steamed, yet they're referred to as zongzi..... Apples and oranges are both fruit. OK, truce. But this whole debate makes me think of my father, a Taiwanese immigrant to the US who absolutely *must* have his zongzi, which his late mother used to make so supremely well and which are hard to find to his satisfaction where he lives. If you offer him a noh mai gai as a substitute, he just laughs as if you're mad. He never orders noh mai gai at dim sum, yet he falls all over zongzi and will drive miles for a good one.

Restaurants are not the one type of business that give out freebies or discounts. Lots and lots of pther kinds of businesses do it to create good will or to do a favor. My father's a surgeon, and he might discount a patient's bill, or make a housecall free of extra charge, or give free samples of a drug for which he has given the patient a prescription. I agree that no one should come to take freebies for granted, but restaurants are not the only buisnesses whose customers or patrons come to expect or even brazenly demand freebies with an arrogant sense of entitlement. Just ask my father, some of whose patients even have the gall to ask him to open the office one hour on a Saturday morning just to see them!

In the North, bamboo leaves are never used for zongzi. It's always reed. Palm or banana leaves are also sometimes used elsewhere. They are all zongzi. Zongzi are boiled; noh mai gai are steamed. They are apples and oranges.

Agree with Suzanne, that the special touches a restaurant might add for a celebration of an anniversary or a birthday might not and need not be in tangibles such as food or drinks. I just called and made a reservation for two for the 22nd of June, letting the restaurant know that my husband and I are celebrating our ninth wedding anniversary at the restaurant where we had our first date. The person who took my call obviously took note of that. What do I expect? I expect them to give us a table in a quiet and romantic spot in the restaurant. Anything more would be icing on the cake but not expected. edit: typo

By law, the employer is liable for criminal acts of discrimination that an employee commits in the course of performing his duties on the job. It's good policy, actually, to give employers incentive to supervise and not just turn a blind eye. Also, as a practical matter, many restaurant employees do not have the money to pay the hefty fines for racial discrimination; therefore, fining employees and letting employers off the hook would emasculate the laws against discrimination.

Did that. Totally agree! I'm a Jif Chunky myself. I even specify Jif Chunky in my baking recipes. There's no substitute.