Toliver

Potato Buds. Word. Grew up eating them. Not bad if you've never had the real thing (insert something here about shadows on the cave wall & Plato). We didn't do real mashed potatoes unless it was a holiday and you were going whole-hog, so to speak, with everything else so why not go through the bother of making real mashed 'taters? In addition to the milk and butter, I'll sometimes add a bit of sour cream and if Mom isn't looking, a little bit of prepared horseradish. My sister-in-law goes nuts over real mashed potatoes. She and I could eat the entire pot, they're so good. Turkey? What turkey?

With my luck they'd be serving a warrant on one of the owners. I'd hazard an estimate that about a third of the local Ma & Pa family restaurants here in town can be qualified as "good". The rest seem to get by on their looks, I guess. Fortunately(?) for most of the people driving through town, the joints closest to the freeway are chains where they can get something predictable.

Hi Bill, Are there any special regional dishes for the Moab/Utah area? Besides jello, that is.

I second the request...If not to make it then to at least rubberneck at it while I drive past on the Home-Cooking Highway.

After your recipe tweaking, what was your final recipe?

Chipwiches Be still my beating heart... You can buy them in boxes? They were one of our favorite treats when we'd visit the San Diego Zoo. Thanks for blogging! It's been entertaining and enlightening.

When frying french fries, my dad always would drop the fries into the hot oil and stir them up so they didn't stick together. Then, after a short while, he would lift the fries up out of the oil with his wide metal slotted spoon and then drop them back in. He said "airing the fries" made them crisp better. Is this just a bunch of hooey (nonsense)? Afterall, fast food joints don't do this...though their fries are never as crisp as our fries made at home.

Tuberose! My brother grows a small patch of them every year ever since my sister-in-law fell in love with them. Their fragrance is wonderful...like being in the tropics but without the high airfare. I visited my mom in San Diego for the Labor Day weekend. She was eager to show me some "weird" tomatoes one of her plants was growing. They turned out to be Romas! There's so much fruit growing on the plant it fell over, stake and all. We re-staked it and tied it back up. I explained her "weird" tomatoes were culinary gold and she should enjoy cooking with every last one of them. My oldest brother (my family's "black sheep gourmet") will have a field day with them when he sees the crop that's coming in. What a way to end the tomato season... edited to add: Both my mom and brother bought an upside down planter from some slick salesperson in one of the gardening booths at the Del Mar Fair earlier this year. Both of the tomato plants my brother and mom planted in their respective new-fangled planter died. Rubes!

If you're staying at the Hyatt I think you'll be at, they have a top-floor bar (in the right tower in the picture at the above link) with a fantastic view. The service can be very iffy at times especially if there's a crowd (like there is normally on weekends) but the view is spectacular. If you like jazz, you can check out Croce's in the Gaslamp District up the street (5th) from the hotel. The small bar in their corner restaurant usually has a nice jazz combo playing. Check the web site for a line-up. The last time I was at Blue Point in the Gaslamp, there was a nice floor-to-ceiling aquarium separating the bar area from the restaurant (don't know if they still have it). There are a lot of restaurants/bars in the Gaslamp, everything from Irish pubs to beer joints. You should try also posting your query in the California forum. You may get more responses there.

Stephen King isn't so bad a choice. Choose some of his food-related work like: "Thinner" that he wrote under the psuedonym Richard Bachman. Then there's also his, in my opnion, best story ever called "The Body" in the collection of four novellas titled "Different Seasons". "The Body" was made into the movie "Stand By Me". Two other novellas in the book were translated into films, as well ("Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" became the movie "The Shawshank Redemption" but I think the film bears little resemblance to the novella). I mention "The Body" because there's an infamous blueberry pie-eating contest in it. If you remember the movie "Stand By Me", you know what it's all about.

Kitchen etc has started free Super Saver shipping on everything everyday. No more special codes or limitations for specific products.

Ben & Jerry's Pint Lock Now I've seen everything...a lock for your pint of ice cream. Now this is freaky cool...scroll down to "Liquid Orange" in the post "Royal College of Art Summer Show 2006" from Thursday, 6 July 2006. Rancho_Gordo should submit his bean web site to the Food section.

Any pictures of the Red Velvet cake, yet? I'm anxious to see the red interior. Okay, I'll be the one to vote for (wild) salmon. You're in the right neck-of-the-woods for it. edited to add the vote.

To answer the first question, yes, some Californians can cook it. There used to be a place called Brendory's in Bonita (south-southeast of Chula Vista which is south of San Diego). It was a one room buidling (couldn't really call it a "shack") with a dirt parking lot filled with Cadillacs and Beemers belonging to the customers who travelled quite far to arrive there. The chef would roam the dining room offering up deep fried alligator to the diners who were busy devouring jambalaya, red beans & rice, collard greens and platefuls of cornmeal-breaded catfish. It was a legendary place that served incredible southern food that eventually went out of business when it tried to expand to a "better" location. The owner tried for a while to sell some of his bottled sauces through a local Costco. I don't know if he was ever successful at it. Good southern food can be had. Keep the faith...

If they keep selling 2 liter bottles of the stuff for a buck (which is why I bought the bottle I did), it'll continue to be a success.

I coulda swore someone posted that her series on FoodTV was (surprise!) renewed for another year. Not sure if she could do both FoodTV & PBS at the same time...

Googled "gardening passionfruit vine yellowish" and got this Australian FAQ on homegrown passionfruit vines and their problems: "Passionfruit: Solving problems in the home garden" The answer to the yellowish-ness may be a typical passionfruit virus called "Passionfruit woodiness virus".

I wonder how it compares to the Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburgers.

I believe there a previous discussion of this (in a roast chicken thread?) where the consensus was that adding acid to the brine made the protein "mushy".

Speaking of Williams-Sonoma, they have a monster-sized Le Creuset pot in their clearance section: Le Creuset Oval Dutch Oven, 15 1/2 Qt. Available in either Sonoma Blue or Dijon. That's almost the same price I paid for their 7 & 1/2 qt. dutch oven in a kitchen store in San Diego. They also have these set of 4 Cedar Grilling Planks on sale. If for any reason the links don't work, go to their "Sale" section on their website. edited for spellling.

I saw the first TV commercials for Jazz last night. So far, it looks like it's aimed at women. I also thought it was interesting in the advertising campaign that it wasn't mentioned as Diet Pepsi Jazz or even Pepsi Jazz, but it's called Jazz, with the words "Diet Pepsi" in small letters underneath. Why not emphasize the Pepsi name-brand association instead of almost downplaying it? On another tangent, I think this could work out quite well for Pepsi. Instead of debuting new Pepsi flavors (Pepsi Twist, Pepsi Lime, etc), they could use the Jazz line to introduce new flavors. They could even be called limited edition flavors (like some of the candy companies do) and if a flavor fails to catch on then it's not really a failure because the "Jazz" brand will continue on and they save face, so to speak. One dilemma they face, though, is the name "Jazz" itself. There's the muscial association (shown in the commercial) which may pigeonhole consumers of the brand. It's almost like they're going after a niche market which seems like it could constrain its popularity.

Since cost is a determining factor, perhaps you shouldn't go with a specific style for tableware. No patterns or designs. Just something simple to showcase the food. And when (not if) you become successful down the road you can always buy the tableware you really want. Just bide your time. Hit the Ross', the T.J. Maxx's, the restaurant odds-and-ends stores. There used to be a pottery store near Old Town in San Diego that sold tableware from restaurants that had gone out of business. I picked up a variety of pieces, none of it matching, that turned out, IMHO, to be quite fun to serve meals on. Plates, serving dishes, platters, etc, and most of it is solid stoneware that will take a lot of abuse. I am sure you can find a similar store near you.

What's with all the posts about keeping them clean?! What am I not getting here? Will Bryan be serving people who eat from the wrong end of the utensils? Has he misjudged his target clientele that much? While the utensils may get a little dirty, I would assume they would be cleared from the table to be dropped into whatever cleaning set-up he has. If they were left dirty to air-dry overnight, then there might be something worthy of a discussion about difficulty in cleaning, but somehow, Bryan doesn't strike me at that type. If I sat down to a restaurant table set with this flatware I'd expect something exciting and unexpected to be served out of the kitchen. This isn't flatware you use to eat Spaghetti-O's. I say, "Good choice, Bryan". Now let's discuss china.

I use regular splatter screen. Works like a charm. Every once in a while there is a little splatter through the screen but it's neglible. Wouldn't fry bacon without it.

Here's a similar recent discussion: "Zabar's Pickles, the fresh ones" I also questioned the absence of an acid (vinegar) in the recipe posted in this discussion. It's the fermentation that is supposed to give them the "sour" taste, as it's been stated above. I didn't think 4 tablespoons of salt was enough to make a brine solution but perhaps that's not the purpose of the salt in this recipe. Maybe too much salt (a brine) = no fermentation?