Toliver

I will never knowingly eat lima beans again. Or liver.

Thanks for the info. It explains a lot. I really didn't notice that they dropped the PBS affiliation since they still seemed to be airing PBS-like content (oodles of cooking shows). It will be interesting to see how they will fare. Fortunately they're in Los Angeles. If they can't make it there they can't make it anywhere. Now I wonder if they will be having pledge months, too, since they're still commercial-free. Lidia 5 days a week? Sign me up. I keep catching a Japanese "diary"-type show where they showcase a western woman (of italian descent?) living in Japan and her next door neighbor, a japanese artist who also restores japanese screens with painted murals on them. It's slow paced and oddly interesting. I did catch the John Folse show which was far too talky. The current series seems to be delving into the history of cajun people, arcadians, etc, of Louisiana, and has a studio audience. Too much gabbing, not enough cooking. I wonder if they got a deal on japanese-themed programming since they seem to show so much of it.

KCET in Los Angeles has been showing some cooking shows on Sunday (rather than Saturday). I just checked out their schedule online and have discovered they have cooking shows most of the weekday all this week, which is odd (due to a pledge drive, maybe?). Shows by Eric Ripert, Jacques Pepin, Lidia, Ming Tsai, Tommy Tang, Rick Bayless, Steve Raichlen and so on. They have "Paul Prudhomme's Always Cooking!" in rotation with "Taste of Louisiana with Chef John Folse & Co.: Our Food Heritage". I haven't seen John Folse's show but did catch Chef Prudhomme's show yesterday. I was amazed at how much I learned. What the show lacks in pizazz is made up by the nuggets of cooking wisdom he tosses out as he cooks. Has anyone else seen Paul Prudhomme's show?

I use a strawberry flavored kefir in my morning smoothies. I've also used it with my Kashi cereal in place of milk. I suppose you could use the plain kefir as you would use sour cream/yogurt in certain dishes (like in a tzatziki sauce), though it doesn't have the same body to it.

The emphasis add to the above quote is mine. It means that while they didn't add any MSG to the chicken salt, MSG can naturally occur in some soy and wheat products during processing. So while they truthfully didn't add any MSG, MSG could still be present in the chicken salt. It's a quasi-CYA thing on their part.

A little off-topic but this belief is, indeed, a fallacy but for a different reason. Microwaves do not cook food from the inside out. See the last paragraph under "Principles" in the Wikipedia entry: Microwave oven That being said, I've been a potato pricker all my life. Never understood why it had to be done but see now it's an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure (or time spent cleaning the oven).

My brother loves iced coffee because he can consume it quicker than when it's hot...get that caffeine in ASAP. My SIL got mad at me when I suggested he take his "leftover" brewed coffee and make coffee ice cubes out of it. That way, when he makes his iced coffee with the coffee ice cubes, he won't be diluting it with ice cubes made from water. My SIL still shoots me dirty looks whenever the subject of his iced coffee arises.

Assuming the ingredients are the same, I believe it is just sliced thinner. Less calories per (thinner) slice.

Sur la Table online is having an "Up to 75% Off" sale...even on their clearance items: Sur la Table Sale One such deal: BeaterBlade for KitchenAid mixers only $9.99. When attempting to provide a link to this item, the price kept reverting back to the original price. If that happens again, try doing a search on their site for it while the sale is still going on to get the sale price. Such a deal! Edited to add that I ended up calling their customer service because the sale price on the BeaterBlade kept changing (one minute on sale, the next minuute not on sale). They explained that they had recently changed some of their online software and that was likely to be causing the problem. They gave me the sale price when I placed the order over the phone. Great customer service!

My mom would do almost the same thing. Except she would roll it up into a cylinder, slice it into one inch pieces and then bake them. They looked like mini cinammon buns (except they were crisp). She called them Pinwheels.

My mom grew up in a small town in Kansas. Her parents were from Bohemia (Pre-Czech). Have you ever made kolaches? When we were kids she would make kolaches for us and at just about every family function we'd have pork roast and sauerkraut with dumplings. A Polish neighbor suggested potato pancakes would go well with the pork and sauerkraut so she started making them, as well. Your blog rocks! Thanks for doing it.

I used to attend a yearly convention in Las Vegas and was fortunate enough to live within driving distance. This meant we'd have a car for grocery shopping and be able to transport real food in coolers. That being said, I found a big-ass water bottle to be indispensible. We'd be at the convention 8 hours a day for a couple of days and it was quite handy (I carried a sturdy tote bag to haul it in). I also brought oranges, one a day for however long I was staying. Granted, if you're flying, this may not be possible. But if you're going through a buffet and see some fresh fruit, grab it and stock up for your hotel room. As for non-food items, bring eye drops and some sort of chapstick in case the weather in the convention center city is drastically different than what you're used to.

Instead of starting a new topic I thought I'd add to this one... What's with made-up words in fast food commercials? It started with Taco Bell hyping their breakfast burritos with "fluffy eggs and melty cheese". Now I would hope they would be using "fluffy eggs" but since when is "melty cheese" an ingredient? As if that wasn't bad enough, Jack in the Box and now Subway have used the same exact wording "melty cheese" in their lastest television commercials. Is this bad writing or just another of the Culinary Signs of the Apocalypse: 2011?

My mom would use this hot roll mix for her pizza dough. She never did make rolls from it. Go figure.

My mom places a one-cup container in the upper rack and fills it with white vinegar then starts the dishwashing cycle. No more spotting or filmy glass.

If you're going to buy a gimmicky pizza-wheel cutter, you might as well get one with some panache to it: Star Trek Enterprise Pizza Cutter

The return of the McRib was supposed to be only for 6 weeks. But the last news item about the McRib I read is that individual franchises have the leeway to extend that deadline. However, if it hasn't disappeared off the menu of your local Mickey D's, it soon will. The only McDonald's that offer the McRib year-round are those in Germany. During the six weeks of McRibs, McDonald's sales were up almost 5% which was attributed to the return of the seasonal sandwich.

Gooogle is your friend...searching for each item and the words "san francisco": "san francisco" stollen -stolen "san francisco" "linzer torte" Unfortunately, there's a band in the area called the Yule Logs so you own't find an edible link until the 3rd page: "san francisco" "yule logs" Instead of Yule Logs you might do a search for "buche de Noel": "san francisco" "buche de Noel" It'd be great if you could find them all at one location but that's not likely. Good luck with your quest!

Wendy's has now revamped their fries. They're unpeeled "natural" fries. Has anyone tried them? Also, Wendy's is test marketing two new burgers. Is anyone in the test market areas and have you tried the new burgers? One of them sounds like a Big Mac (including their own "special sauce"). Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess.

This past weekend I tried making a batch of an old family recipe of fudge (so old the original recipe didn't even include amounts) and ended up with a bowl of Fudge Dust. It seemed fine when cooking the marshmallows, sugar and evaporated milk but when poured over the chopped chocolate, vanilla, butter and nuts, it just seized up and literally turned into chocolate sand. From the posts in this discussion I am thinking I may have cooked the sugar-milk-marshmallow mixture too long. Does anyone think that is correct? I'd like to prevent this from happening again. By the way, we are not throwing the dust out. It's still delicious and it's being used to top everything from ice cream to pumpkin pie. I even made a batch of pinwheels (pie dough rolled out, spread with butter and the fudge dust spread across that then rolled into a pinwheel, sliced and baked). Next time I may omit the butter since the fudge dust already has butter in it but the fudge-y pinwheels got a thumbs up from everyone who tried them. Who knew?...Fudge Sand Serendipity

A couple of years ago, I tried convincing my mom she shouldn't do everything herself for Turkey day and attempted to get her to at least let us buy pies from Marie Callender's or Coco's. She got mad at me and baked 3 or 4 pies in advance (then froze them...and thawed them for Turkey Day) just to prove she could still make pies from scratch. This year she bought Mrs. Smith's frozen pies. I go down a day ahead to help be her sous/prep chef and try to shoulder some of the work. She also learned a new word this year: "Delegate"...and had relatives bring certain dishes for the dinner. Finally. The successes this year were: -The main turkey (19 lbs. cooked in a Reynolds Oven Bag...we swear by the bags...almost 4 hours cooking time and it was perfection). -The corn casserole -My mom's stuffing -Mashed potatoes - they were some of the whitest mashed potatoes I've ever made (I'm in charge of the mashed potatoes). I can't recall what kind of potatoes they were but with lots of butter, some milk, sour cream and cream cheese, it's hard to go wrong with the end result. Guests were fighting for the leftovers. -Sweet potato casserole (mashed with a oat/granola-ish topping) -My brother's Andouille/Boudin sausage dressing made with cherry bomb chile peppers...smoking hot but incredible flavor The bad: -A second smaller turkey my brother brought. His lesson learned is that you really shouldn't put a rub with salt as an ingredient on a brined turkey. He smoked/cooked it on his Weber grill so it had a great smokey flavor...but, alas, it was quite salty. -Mom's new lemon Jell-o salad...the topping had to be cooked then cooled and it involved adding shredded cheese on top No thanks, Ma!

We've had the marshmallow topped sweet potatoes every year. And I never touch them...too sweet for me. My (now ex) sister-in-law made a batch that were sweetened and mashed then topped with a granola-ish oatmeal topping that was crunchy and provided a foil against the mashed sweet 'taters. It tasted like dessert, though. My brother makes twice-baked sweet potatoes with sour cream and roasted garlic that rocks. I'll suggest adding some bacon this year. Give me the savory versions anytime. edited to add: I had dinner at a friend's house once and they made their sweet potatoes with those cinnamon red hot candies. The candies melted, of couse, during baking but gave the sweet potatoes a definite sweet cinnamon-y flavor. I actually preferred it over the marshamllow version but then that's not saying much since I don't really like the marshmallow version.

For some reason my mom started making this dish the last couple of Thanksgivings. We asked her why it suddenly appeared on the home menu and she said she thought she had always made it before. Think again, Ma! We figured she bought into the advertising and thought she just had to make it for Thanksgiving. We've finally convinced her that we have enough to eat without that dish. Go figure...

I saw a television commercial for this last night...You can now order the Whopper for breakfast. I know Jack in the Box has a policy that you can order anything on their menu at anytime of the day (breakfast for dinner...dinner for breakfast, etc). I couldn't find any info on this on the BK web site. So is it just the Whopper that BK is offering at breakfast or are they, like Jack in the Box, offering all of their menu items during breakfast hours?

God forbid you should assemble all of your ingredients before tackling a recipe (mise en place, anyone?). See any recent FoodTV show where the cooks wander around the kitchen gathering ingredients while talking to the camera. DOH![/Homer]