Toliver

My mom told me she had harvested some of her tomatoes that had turned a good shade of red. She said she was surprised, though, because the fruit is really hard. She is attributing it to the lack of sun thanks to the May Gray/June Gloom in San Diego. So her kitchen windowsill is lined with tomatoes finishing their ripening.

Has anyone tried Pringles Jalapeño flavor? They also have limited edition Pringles Jalapeno Cheddar. I was just curious as to what kind of "kick" they had.

Please feel free to FedEx the leftovers to me. Old Foodie, this may be of interest to you...an eGullet discussion of the Chinese Master Sauce: "Lushui Zhi, Questions About This 'Master Sauce' " edited for spellling

I'm not sure how your server peddled to you, but Maggiano's plates are meant to be shared family style. i can see someone trying to upsell by getting everyone to buy an entree but it's not supposed to be that way. ← The first time we went to Buca di Beppo, we were real rubes. We did the same thing...everyone ordered something, not knowing the food was served family style, enough to feed 3 to 4 people. When the food came they could barely fit it all on the table. Live and learn.

Has anyone else tried Colgin's Worcestershire sauce with liquid smoke? I tried finding a picture of the bottle on the web but came up empty (not even the Colgin site had a picture!). I used it in a marinade for some cheap steaks and it turned out to be quite good. The smoke flavor wasn't overwhelming but you could taste that it was there. It was like a subtle layer of flavoring. One weird thing was that when I went to use the sauce again and removed the cap, there was a "pop" noise, like when you reopen a 2-liter bottle of soda pop. I couldn't figure out what ingredient in worcestershire sauce would cause this gas pressure, unless it's the smoke flavoring itself (which is actual liquid smoke, according to the Colgin web site, as opposed to something synthetic). Liquid smoke is an antioxidant? (scroll down)

I wasn't getting my Bon Appetit magazines at all for a couple months. I went online to their website to check the status of my subscription only to find that sone idiot at the post office had returned my magazine to Bon Appetit and said it was undeliverable. So my subscription was sort of on hold. I emailed them and told them to resume, that the post office was in obvious error. They nicely credited my accounted the missing issues. So now I get to file a complaint with the post office which will be like shouting at a box of rocks. It accomplishes nothing but at least it will establish some paperwork in case something happens to my account in the future. Grrrrrrr.

I met up with a coworker at a local chinese buffet that opened on Sunday at noon. The coworker ended up bringing some company 401k information and was thinking about enrolling in the program (I was already enrolled). By the time we were done talking about it, it was 5pm and we closed the place. We didn't eat the entire time we were there but it was odd to get there when they opened and to be there when they closed. Fortunately, they didn't get a huge crowd that day so we didn't feel guilty about taking up a table for that long of a time.

Share I will...it's a very simple recipe (actually, just a short paragraph that I've reworded) from the 1953 edition of Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. It turns out that this is one of the recipes that got cut from later editions of the cookbook which is why I had to find this specific edition on eBay in order to get the recipe back. "Chinese Mustard Sauce" Put 2 tablespoons of dry mustard in a small bowl that can handle hot temperatures. Add 6 tablespoons of boiling water and stir until blended. Add 2 teaspoons of a mild vegetable oil (as opposed to olive oil or something with flavor) and also add 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Blend it all together. That's it. It's not a thick sauce. Like I mentioned earlier, we always make it when we have ham for dinner. Dip a bite of ham in the sauce before eating it. Fair warning, as Andie also pointed out, depending on the dry mustard you use, this can have a kick to it and can turn out very spicy hot. Which is why my brothers and I always loved it. To go back on topic, I mentioned this discussion to my mom who said she is looking forward to making a tomato sanwich from the first tomatoes of the season from her garden. It was something she ate as a kid in Kansas. Her tradition is to slice them up on white bread and top them with MW. Sometimes simple is better.

There was an interesting PBS series called "Building Healthy Communities" that asked: The second episode dealt with City Heights (scroll down the page for the second episode) and showed how what started out as a great and noble intent ended up unintentionally changing the neighborhood. Sol Price (founder of the Price Clubs which was sold to Costco) was part of the redevelopment effort. City Heights had a number large low-rent properties which is how it came to be so ethnically diverse. But unfortunately for all involved in the redevelopment effort the housing market in California took off (soared, actually) and a lot of the houses that were being rented were put on the market. This, combined with the redevelopment, turned the neighborhood into one of gentrification and now a lot of the low-income families that made up a large part of the diverse community can no longer afford to live in the area. Very ironic and sad, actually. And I'm also wondering, along with Susan, what's a "Pork Melt"? Anything like a tuna melt? [Homer]Mmmm...Pork Melt[/Homer]

Funny you ask ... I know others have been discussing this exact subject in another thread. I always wait a day before I judge the salts since I'm usually so smokey right afterwards I can't tell how much smoke gets in. My experience is that the salt smells really smokey, but doesn't taste too smokey. "C" restaurant in Vancouver sells it's own line of smoked salts, and they really taste smokey. My suspicion is that they're cold smoked for a day or so, rather than hot smoked for 6 hours. A. ← My salt experiment in my brother's WSM turned out the same. Smelled nice but had no discernable smokey flavor. Needless to say I was bummed it didn't turn out. I know vanilla beans can impart flavor to sugar crystals when put into the same container. I wonder why the smoke isn't getting into the salt crystals, unless as you suggest, time is a factor.

Pickle juice is vinegar kicked up quite a notch, so to speak, so she's doing just fine, as far as I'm concerned. I'll have to give that a try next time I do deviled eggs.

You can find more info on dealing with wet foods in the "The Food Saver/Vacuum Sealer Thread".

SC is known for its unique Q, which, I far as I can recall, is shared by no other state. That in itself would be a valid reason to have such a Q organization let alone join one. That they believe New World Q began in SC is just a by-product of their passion over their native Q. It is something for which they can be forgiven and something that can be tolerated, like the odd uncle who takes to wearing a tinfoil hat. Renew your membership and provide the balance they obviously need.

I believe I mentioned them earlier in this discussion but you should try Carr's Lemon Ginger Cremes which can be found at Trader Joe's. They do have a little bite to them.

Mizducky, Here where I live the Arthritis Association has an aquatics center with a heated pool so those with joint pain can still get exercise without stressing their joints. Does San Diego have something similar? I know there's a Y west of Fashion Valley on Friars Road that has a pool but I doubt that it's heated. Besides, that may be too far from your new location. I'm looking forward to more pictures of my hometown!

How did the salt turn out? How "smoked" does it taste?

Get yer pecan logs at Stuckey's Online. Fair warning...if you explore the Stuckey's web site some of the pages have audio (for those of you at work ). You can shut it off by clicking in the little audio box in the lower right corner of the page.

I've admitted this in another eGullet thread in the past but I get a jones for it every once in awhile at the register and grab a Slim Jim. I realize it's probably made from pork eyelids and chicken lips and God knows what else, but sometimes I just gotta have one.

Throw away the skin? You certainly know how to make a grown man cry.

I think Rachel Ray has that one covered for the whole network. David ← Yes, she is giggling and jiggling all the way to the bank.

What about Stuckey's? I can't recall for certain but I believe there was a gas station attached to the Stuckey's in the outskirts of Yuma (which, frankly, used to be all outskirts ). We'd always stop at Stuckey's on our way to Phoenix to visit relatives. With their gift shops they were a lot more touristy than what you get with today's AM/PM's or 7-Elevens. But then they don't sell a nice pecan nut log like Stuckey's does.

That's because Diet Sprite totally sucks. It ruins the cherry-limeade love vibe. Word.

The mustard I use is Coleman's DRY mustard - a totally different thing - you know when you feel the "bite." ← That sounds really good, but it's not something my mom would ever try. She's not one to change ingredients. I'm sure you know the type. The one thing she did use dry mustard for was a recipe out of her Better Homes & Gardens cookbook for a hot mustard "dip" for ham. I use the quotes because it was very much a liquid sauce as opposed to a thick dip for chips. I seem to recall it being a combination of dry mustard, hot water, salt and vegetable oil. You would cut a bite of ham off the slice on your plate and dip the bite into the sauce before eating it. If it was made correctly, the mustard sauce would clear your sinuses for a month. As for MW, once a summer my mom would grind up bologna (that's redundant isn't it? ), mix it with pickle relish and MW and either put it on slices of white bread for a sandwich or sometimes eat it with just saltine crackers. I saw that someone else on eGullet posted this same concoction once so it wasn't just my family's recipe.

Funny, I've seen it spelled "tamale", too. That should be filed under menu misspellings... It's a lobster liver so imagine all the crap it's filtered and someone wants to eat it? You may have my portion. But then I don't go near foie gras, paté, kidneys, hearts, offal, etc, either. Call me a culinary weenie. I prefer not to eat body filters.

It's funny that those of you who are attempting to recreate MW at home keep mentioning mustard and vinegar. That's exactly what my mom uses with MW when making her deviled eggs or potato salad (usually both at the same meal). She uses the same MW base for both. In a bowl, she spoons a healthy healping of MW, some milk to thin it a little, a whisper of cider vinegar and just a wee bit of regular yellow mustard. Blend it all together. She's like a lab chemist as she tastes the mixture, then adds a skosh more vinegar or the smallest dab of yellow mustard to balance out all the flavors equally. And when you add this base to potato salad, make sure you also add in the secret ingredient...celery seed (where is fifi? That's her secret ingredient, too ).