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annieb

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  1. I am hoping to find these jars somewhere in the US/Canada. I have searched to no avail. http://www.moderndroguerie.eu/catalog/terr...it-pi-1671.html They are like the 8 oz mason jars, only they are about 12 oz. A perfect size for canning pate, which is what I have seen them used for in France. I want something that can stand up to pressure canning, which I don't think the le parfait or the weck jars can (but please tell me if I'm wrong). If I'd known they would be so difficult to find, I would have lugged a couple dozen back from France. Modern Droguerie will ship, but it's exhorbitant. On the subject, I used to be able to find 24 oz. wide mouth straight-sided mason jars. They were perfect for some things, and I would like to find them again. They're like a larger version of the 12 oz preserves jar, wider and taller. I like the 12 oz, but would also like to find the 24 oz. I've only got 1 or 2 left. Any help appreciated.
  2. If you are going to prepare it yourself, you can get fresh whole foie gras from Chicago Game & Gourmet on Ogden. You must call first. They only take checks. They are a purveyor to the trade, but will do individual orders. Fox & Obel are ridiculously uninformed (and snotty) when it comes to the foie gras question. My understanding of the ban in Chicago is that it extends to prepared foie gras served in restaurants. It is still legal to sell raw or cooked foie gras for preparation/presentation and consumption off premises (although obviously not a "to go" order:-) When I tried to enter that discussion with them, they were just plain rude. I had hoped they might be willing to special order, as at the time I was only looking for a slice of raw foie, which I had seen there in the past, rather than a whole foie. Been to F & O about three times, total, and except for the lunch meeting, where the food was decent but not earthshaking (but best available in the Navy Pier area), I remain completely mystified by the success of this place.
  3. Identifying the meat cooked with different woods? Easy. The one cooked over maple tastes like floors and the one cooked over oak tastes like chairs. Now that I've got the graduate degree, all I need is a job and next year, I'm there!
  4. annieb

    Swamp Cabbage

    The summer place I referred to was in Wisconsin, and there are the Hot Sulphur Springs in Colorado.
  5. A downstairs neighbor who is peruano had an excellent version: A feta cheese (more like a Bulgarian than a creamy Hungarian if that helps, that's what they sell at the local produce market here) Saltines Bijol for food coloring Water In a blender, blend. Garnish with hard boiled eggs and olives, if you can't get peruvian (or they're too pricey) he used to use kalamatas. Also a good potato that will hold it's shape, not really a red waxy, around here there's a thin-skinned variety called papa criolla, although yukon golds work also. My guess would be that it's not the something missing that's elusive, it's the "too much stuff" that is detracting from what is a brilliantly simple dish.
  6. Not just cheeses are succumbing to EU regulations. A farmer friend in the Auvergne complains that EU demands that everything now has to be "Inox" in sausage production, and he has had to seek out an old sausage making artisan to help him make his annual production of sausage, which he refers to as contraband because it is cave-cured. I had a long discussion with the proprietor of the charcuterie in the old Albi market who said the same thing. He said if his grandmother had lived to see EU regs which do not allow for selling some sausage after 60 days...she always hung some sausage in the loft behind the chimney, where it acquired a smoky taste and became very dry. He made a connection between the EU regs and a change in taste to a softer style of sausage.
  7. annieb

    Swamp Cabbage

    We had real bad sulphur water at a summer place. When we had guests who were in danger of overstaying, I'd run a couple loads of wash, extra rinse, and leave the lid up on the washer as it filled. Generally drove them right out. Takomabaker, good luck on your swamp cabbage. Don't get discouraged if it takes a few tries, it'll be worth it. I only make my grandma's potato salad about once a year, but I've finally got it down, and now when I make it, I make a lot, usually for a big potluck, so when people say how good it is I can tell them about my grandma Jess.
  8. Well, there's the classic song from Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: "Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in bed."
  9. Lest we forget, the southern part of Illinois is further south than Richmond, VA. Finding peaches growing near Chicago, you've got to go to the fruit belt in SW Michigan where the weather is considerably milder. Peach cobbler shows up a lot in Chicago, primarily in soul food restaurants. You don't have fruitcake on that list, and while it's become the brunt of many jokes, I think that's because most people haven't had a good homemade fruitcake from a Southern recipe. We're talking dark here, lots of molasses. I've got my great-grandma's from Alabama's recipe. First time I made it with my (not quite yet) husband and his brother to help me stir, they ate two hot out of the oven, and they had sworn up and down they didn't like fruitcake. She also made a dessert called "Apple Do Funny" which I've never seen referred to in that way. Also no specific recipe has come down in the family. It's basically an apple crisp. I think she may have asked some of her Alabama neighbors when she moved there as a young bride who didn't know how to cook at all, having been orphaned and raised on the fly by friends and finally a rich older sister who had servants. She may have described it to some neighbor lady who helped her figure out how to make it but thought it was a funny way to do apples. At least that's one explanation. The other is that the name came from Canada, where she spent her early childhood. For a bunch of Michiganders, my mom's family has a real weird combination of Canadianisms and southern foodways.
  10. A classic dish based on a local fish is Urta a la Rotena. Urta feeds on local crustaceans, and has a sublime flavor because of it, and a pinkish flesh. Haven't been to Rota, but had this dish in a family-run establishment in Cadiz (name long forgotton) and it was outstanding.
  11. I would agree completely with the last sentence, but would interject the humble spud as more than a common interest. As to Cornwall, Mediterranean markets, Breton presence at, etc., there has been trading among the Celtic people of western Europe (generally at "land's end" of whatever country) since the time of the Phoenecians--it's pretty generally accepted that saffron came to Cornwall via that route, where it is still found in saffron buns, etc. Kind of hard to make the trip in those little boats without stopping a lot along the way, eh?
  12. In my house, we call that GREASE
  13. My Grandma made this, I loved it as a kid, only she used salad dressing instead of mayonaisse and a little grated onion. Although she was from Michigan, a lot of her cooking was Southern, as her mother was orphaned at about age 8, crossed Lake Superior alone on a steamer to live with her much older (and wealthy) sister in Alpena, MI, where Aunt Liz nor her girls did not cook. When my Great-Grandma married, it was to a train conductor as he was being transferred to No. Alabama, where she learned to cook from a neighbor lady. Burgoo, I still make her fruitcake, some of the best fried chicken. I've also seen this as a small town funeral food in central Michigan.
  14. The BEST kielbasa I ever ate was sent, on a paper plate on Christmas Day, by a friend of one of my cousins in Detroit "for her family". It had LOTS of garlic. It was about two pounds, homemade, and not nearly enough even for people who were already very full. My uncle, who claimed not to like garlic and liked to say that my mother would put garlic in ice cream, loved it because it had "the right spice." It had a great crumbly texture, which I like, I often think people put too much water into their sausage to make it "smooth." There's a famous kielbasa maker in Milwaukee (sorry, can't remember the name, but on the south side of course) who uses ice instead of water. I think it's because you can use less, as the friction of grinding and ambient room temperature will make it melt. It allows you to distribute it throughout the grind, I think maybe with water you sometimes end up adding too much.
  15. Yah, but you still didn't explain what's a northern redneck. A friend from north Florida (which he liked to say was really more like south Georgia) said you could tell the difference between a redneck and a good ol' boy because the good ol' boy always threw his beer cans in the back of the pickup instead of on the side of the road.
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