Toliver

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 ).

Oops. The Broham is actually $6.45. When I wrote my post, I had misplaced the paper menu I brought back from Phil's so I copied the price off their website, which, obviously, hasn't been updated to reflect current prices. Needless to say, I found the paper menu and $6.45 is the current correct price for the Broham.

Congratulations on your swellings and transplants! In regards to the peppers, my brother visited a chile pepper festival recently and discovered a lot of the dried pepper displays had "orphan" seeds at the bottom to which he surreptitiously helped himself. He's planted some and is now waiting to see what grows. Is there a time limit for dried seeds? Perhaps soaking them first might help.

You know, that's the thing I don't get -- the condescension factor. So some people like one thing, and others another. What is it about that that causes this haughty superiority among the 'mayo only' crowd. ← Oh, my SIL can have her condiment territory war. The ironic thing is almost every holiday/family gathering is held at my mom's house where MW reigns supreme. At those events, my brother, who is obviously (Miracle) Whipped , will bring over a small jar of mayo for my SIL. Maybe it's a Kansas thing. My mom was born and raised in Ellsworth, Kansas, and grew up using MW.

This weekend I saw two new food magazines on sale at the local Barnes and Noble: Cooking with Paula Deen Turns out this was her third issue. It's 6 issues a year at $19.98 (US). It's Martha Stewart meets Bon Appetit meets Taste of Home. If you're a fan of Paula, you should enjoy the magazine. There are some photos of her son's wedding, of her kitchen: Windows do that, eh? There's a Q & A section where Paula answers cooking-related questions, there's a gadget section (a la Bon Appetit), some stories on southern businesses (this issue was about a bee-keeper who sells honey), some comfort food recipes, party recipes, etc.Lidia: Italy at Home This is Lidia Bastianich's premier issue. It sells for $5.99 (US) which is expensive but I recommend it. Strangely, there didn't seem to be any information on how to subscribe to the magazine in the magazine itself. Usually there are a lot of those subscription post cards inserted in magazines but the only cards I found in Lidia's magazine were for Family Circle Magazine, Ladies' Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. There's a survey in the back of the magazine trying to find out what readers would like to see in future issues. A minor quibble would be that some of the recipe titles are in a faint pastel color which makes it difficult to read. The recipes themselves are easy to read. As for the magazine itself, I give it a huge thumbs up. The photography is quite good and appetizing. I'm no longer an eGullet digest writer but if you're interested what is covered in Lidia's first issue: "Growing Arugula" with a recipe for "Arugula and White Bean Salad" "Taste Test - Balsamic Vinegar" - from the expensive to the ridiculously expensive. Recipe: "Reduced Balsamic Vinegar" (with honey, bay leaf and cloves) "Artisanal Ingredient: Marsala" Recipe: "Cherry-Chocolate Semifreddo" "The Family Gathers" - Lots of pictures of Lidia's family and food for the family table. She also suggests some wines. Recipes: "Steamed Vegetables with Warm Prosciutto Vinaigrette"; "Chicken Cacciatora", "Asparagus, Green Pea and Scallion Sauce"; "Swiss Chard and Potatoes"; "Bread and Tomato Salad"; "Torta al Vino with Grapes" (a traditional wine cake); "Basic Risotto". "Italian Wines that Sparkle" - Joeseph Bastianich recommends 6 summer sparkling wines. "Italian Pantry" Lidia tells us what's in her pantry at all times. What is near her stove top, what's in the vegetable bin, what's in cans and jars, what's in the refrigerator and what's in the freezer. Recipes: "Skillet Chicken Breasts Aglio e Olio"; "Linguine with Bacon and Onions"; "Pan-Fried Scallopine"; "Twenty-Minute Marinara Sauce with Fresh Basil"; "Chickpea and Tuna Salad". "Cheese Primer: From Mozzarella to Burrata" - Recipes: "Broccoli Rabe with Oil and Garlic"; "Garden Tomato Elixir"; "Mostaccioli with Fresh Basil and Burrata". "Every Day Ingredient: Garlic, the Italian Way" Recipes: "Pan-Fried Garlic Bread"; "Basic Aglio e Olio (Oil & Garlic Sauce)". "The Wonderful World of Herbs" She briefly covers the majority of herbs used in Italian Cooking. Recipes: "Herb Frittata"; "Pot-Roasted Herb-Scented Pork Loin"; "Classic Pesto"; "Zucchini and Scallions with Vinegar and Mint"; "Risotto with Nettles". "Seasonal Soups" - Lidia's Summer Soups. Recipes: "Broccoli and Shrimp Soup"; "Minestrone - Vegetarian or with Pork"; "Semolina Gnocchi in Mixed Meat Broth"; "Rice and Pea Soup". "Good to the Last Crumb" Lidia on bread crumbs and their use in the Italian kitchen. Recipes: "Green Bean Gratinate with Cherry Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Basil"; "New-Style Chicken Parmigiana"; "Cavatelli with Bread Crumbs, Pancetta and Cauliflower"; "Shrimp and Scallops Gratinate"; "Ricotta Cheesecake"; "Roasted Pepper Halves with Bread Crumb Toppings". "Cooking Class: Osso Buco" Lidia's take on the classic. Recipe: "Osso Buco". "Pasta" What to do with it, which to use, etc. Recipes:"Farfalle with Arugula Pesto and Shrimp"; "Linguine with Garlic, Broccoli and Pecarino Cheese"; "Pasticciata with Bolognese Sauce"; "Orichette with Cauliflower, Onion and Sausage"; "Tagliatelle Carbonara"; "Rigatoni with Neapolitan Sunday Sauce"; "Fettucine with White Clams and Scallops". "An Antipasti Party for Grown Ups" by Lidia's daughter and daughter-in-law. Recipes: "Grilled Calamari Strips"; "Mussels in Tocai Sauce"; "Bruschetta with Tuscan Beans and Caviar"; "Fried Mozzarella Sandwich Skewers"; "Stuffed Mushrooms"; "Potato and Pepper Frittata"; "Cherry Peppers Stuffed with Prosciutto and Provolone"; "Roasted Black Olives and Pearl Onions". "Voyage of the Senses" Lidia and Friends set sail on the Adriatic. Recipes: "Aragosta in Brodetto"; "Baked Lobster with Seasoned Bread Crumbs"; "Shrimp Prepared in the Scampi Style". "A Visit to the Fish Market" - Lidia describes how to pick the best fish at the market. Recipe: "Simple Grilled Cod Fillets". "Full-Roasted Ritual" Lidia with the Italian take on coffee and what to eat with it. Recipes: "Peaches in Red Wine"; "Ricotta Pancakes"; "Panini"; "Panna Cotta"; "Citrus-Almond Cake"; "Lidia's Almond Biscotti"; "Fregolotta" (a classic crumbling cookie). "Italian Light" The emphasis is on light and healthy. Recipes: "Chunky Marinara Sauce"; "Shrimp in Chunky Marinara Sauce"; "Seared Marinated Breast of Chicken with Tomato and Basil". "Fresh Fruit Desserts" Lidia's favorite way to showcase summer fruits. Recipes: "Fruit Jam Tartlet Cookies"; "Fragole al Balsamic"; "Blueberry-Apricot Frangipane Tart"; "Crostata Invertita with Rhubarb". She (and the editors) cover quite a bit of territory in this first issue and start with the bar raised quite high. Overall, I am very impressed with Lidia's magazine.

I was hoping this could go into the "San Diego Cheap Eatz" thread, but it wasn't that cheap. Phil's BBQ in Mission Hills We arrived mid afternoon on Memorial Day. We lucked out because Phil's isn't usually open on Mondays. We also lucked out because usually there's a line out the door and you can see by the picture that there wasn't a line when we arrived. Don't let the small restaurant front fool you. The restaurant runs deep and can seat a large number of people. There's a large free standing menu sign posted outside for those waiting in line to order. Once you step inside, dine-in customers order right then and there. There's a menu sign inside in case you forgot what you were going to order. The BBQ smell is fantastic as you walk up to the joint (apparently, after they opened, neighbors in the area actually complained (!) about the constant BBQ smell...imagine that). Sorry the picture isn't better but this is a cropped close up from a wide shot with some heavy tweaking in Photoshop to make it look half-way decent. They use mequite wood to grill the meat. Note the use of wordage. Unfortunately, this isn't a true BBQ joint. They have a separate kitchen away from this grilling area. We happened to be seated next to a door leading to the actual kitchen. The employees would stream in and out out of the kitchen carrying a large stainless steel pot, for instance, and yelling "Hot beans coming through!" to warn customers as they walked down the narrow corridor leading from the kitchen door to the front grilling area. From what I saw, the kitchen is filled with electric smokers. I'm guessing they were smokers from their configuration (metal racks holding trays of chicken parts and ribs). They weren't professional convection ovens or even regular professional ovens since I know what they look like which is why I am guessing they were smokers. It looks like the meat is pre-cooked in the smokers and then carried on a tray out to the front grilling area to be finished. In fact, everything is brought out from the kitchen to the front grilling/serving area, from buckets of sauce, to beans and coleslaw. As for the food: This is almost a half-rack of ribs (we dug into them before I remembered to take a picture). They sell the ribs by the bone (see the menu on their web site). The ribs were quite good with the meat being fall-off-the-bone tender. They did have a great smokey flavor while the sauce had a sweet tang to it. I thought $13 bucks was a bit steep for a half-rack. You can get either two sides with the order of ribs or one large side. I got the slaw and beans (the beans came in a separate container). I was very disappointed in the beans. While they had a decent flavor, I was surprised by the absolute lack of any sort of BBQ flavor in them. Most BBQ joints will toss BBQ meat odds and ends into the beans to help impart a nice BBQ flavor. But this wasn't the case with Phil's. This is the Pork Broham sandwich. It's one of the least expensive menu items ($5.95). The pulled pork is flavorful and mixed with BBQ sauce. They put the pork on top of the coleslaw which was odd since I think with most other BBQ joints the slaw usually tops the pork to help retain its crunch. The one drawback is that the bun top is "gi-normous" and quite chewy (there is also a bun bottom down there somewhere). We ended up attacking the bun top with a plastic knife and fork and topping the bun pieces with the pork and slaw...sort of like a BBQ bruschetta, if you will. This is a large order of their batter-dipped onion rings. This could feed four people. They were rich but each table in the restaurant comes with a bottle of malt vinegar which helps cut through the grease. If you want ranch dressing it's 50 cents extra. Each table has its own roll of paper towels since your fingers tend to get a little messy eating the ribs and onion rings. They have this hand washing station in the middle of the restaurant with a sink to rinse your hands off and gobs of paper towels to dry them. I love good barbecue, I really do. And while Phil's was good, knowing that it wasn't "true" BBQ kind of colored the experience for me and the cost will certainly prohibit repeat visitations.

I grew up eating Mircale Whip in my food and enjoy it. My mom's tuna salad, potato salad and deviled eggs just don't taste very good unless she uses MW. My brother, unfortunately, married into a mayo family. For awhile, my SIL refused to let MW into their house. She now allows a small jar of MW in the fridge to placate my brother.

MSNBC has rated the Top 5 gourmet sodas that go beyond the ordinary: 1. Blenheim Ginger Ale (includes a Hot version) 2. Dr. Brown's Black Cherry 3. Abita Root Beer 4. Stewart's Orange 'n Cream 5. Cricket Cola Mayhaw Man has sung the praises of Abita Root Beer in these forums. Abita is made with cane sugar and Cricket Cola is made with sugar as opposed to the usual evil High Frustose Corn Syrup. Googling the others, Blenheim uses either sucrose or sugar (in their Ginger Beer). Both Stewart's and Dr. Brown's use HFCS. Has anyone tried all five sodas? Do you disagree with the rankings? Or have better suggestions?

I once had a dream about a taco cone (not to be confused with the Tacone Franchise. I also thought about nachos in a tortilla cone, or just melted cheese sauce in the cone that you dip chips into...portable nachos! Then one day I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a taco cone on it from some place in Texas. There went my million dollar idea. To go back on topic, that pizza cone does look good in a greasy fast food sort of way. Hmmm...the possibilities seem endless...how about lasagna in a cone-nolli?

Orange Julius is never a destination. It's a happen-stance, waiting for you in the mall as you walk by. When I was a kid we used to try and make our own Orange Julius at home using vanilla ice cream and orange juice. It was more like drinking a 50-50 Bar or Orange Creme popsicle. Still, it was very good...

If your blooms aren't setting fruit yet, you can always self-pollinate them without the bees. I'm assuming your plants are either staked or have a cage on them. You can always whack the stake with a mallet or give the cage a tap or two for each plant. The shake should be enough for the flowers to self-pollinate. Good luck with that! My fingers are crossed that your blooms take that next step soon. The good news is that she has two plants producing fruit like gangbusters. I'd be surprised if some of it doesn't start to turn a lucious red before the 4th. She needs to put up some sort of fencing around the pots, though. If the fruit turns, there are plenty of deer or other critters near her home that will make a meal of the tomatoes quicker than she can pick them. The bad news is that May Gray seems to have turned into June Gloom. This morning she said it was actually foggy during her morning walk. Fortunately, she's far enough inland that the sun usually breaks out by about 10am but that's only on the good days. I'm hoping the run of June Gloom will be far shorter than the 18-day run of May Gray that San Diego had.

Jake orders four fried chickens and a Coke and Elwood orders dry white toast. edited to add John Candy orders an Orange Whip drink at the big concert. Is that like an Orange Julius?

From the English version of that web page: Maybe it's like a pourous "sous vide" sort of bag? This is just a guess but it sounds like you put the ingredients in the bag and put the bag in the liquid. Because the bag is pourous, the ingredients inside flavor the liquid surrounding the bag but the solids stay in the bag. If true, it would eliminate the need for skimming. Hence, the clear consommés. Too bad they left out the size/volume of the bag so we could see how "super" it is. Here's an email address from the site so you can direct any questions to them: icc@cookingconcepts.com

Take any excess coffee and pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. Then when you want iced coffee, used the frozen coffee cubes instead of regular ice cubes. That way your iced coffee won't get diluted.

In regards to this topic, yes it does. No online menu? Then no online consideration. It elminated them for me in my specific case since I was in another city and was using the internet to locate places that were offering Christmas Day dinners in my mom's city. If they didn't have on online holiday menu posted then they weren't in the running for my business.

I seem to remember Rally's fries as being sort of batter-dipped. It's too bad all the Rally's around here have gone out of business. They were pretty good fries.

I've given this some thought since everyone seems to be asking the same question. I'm just going by logic here but if the restaurant in question is going through a slow period, there may only be one area of the restaurant in service, meaning only one waitstaff working. While this doesn't excuse the host person from seating the two separate parties side by side in an empty restaurant, you could assume that they seem to be positioning the clientele together for maximum serving efficiency. In other words, they're thinking of the waitstaff instead of the customer.

Not sure about the Butt Gear...I hear, however, there is some sort of secret handshake involving a alcohol in one hand and pork fat slathered on the other. The actual details are murky for outsiders like me who are butt smoking virgins living vicariously through y'all.

Well, they aren't really lying. It's titled "Chef at Home" and it just happens to be someone else's home, not the Chef's. This is ripe for a Monty Python takeoff...the Chef taking a sandwich upstairs to little Billy who is sick and when he enters the room Billy sits up and yells "Who are you? And where's Mummy and Daddy?!" and begins pelting the Chef with everything laying around the room...

It's a quasi-sort of Shepherd's Pie with a KFC twist on the ingredients, of course. Chris, I'm looking forward to your report!

I grew up in San Diego and it was always pronounced "Carmel Corn", not car-a-mel corn. So maybe it is a "southern" thing.

Online menus helped me to decide where I was taking my mom for Christmas dinner last year. We always do a big Christmas Eve dinner at home so Christmas Day dinner has always been leftovers. Last year I decided we should eat out instead and searching through the different online Holiday menus was a great timesaver for me. I don't live in the same city as she does so I used the internet to do online research (reading reviews, investigating menus, etc) months in advance. Think of all the restaurants without online menus that may have been open on Christmas Day but weren't in consideration for my business due to the focused-on-the-internet nature of my search.

I guess I'm too empathetic then. When watching the cooking shows, I always assume after the food is cooked and the show ends that someone working on the crew, most likely, will be eating the food as opposed to it going into the trash. So for me it has an importance on a purely emotional level. And since I only have basic cable at home and don't get the Handwashing Channel, I have to get my thrills from the hand washing on the cooking shows.