Toliver

Have you read the eGCI class on potatoes? "The Potato Primer, Instructor: Jackal10" If your potatoes aren't browning, I'd have to question the fat, the pan and/or the heat. If you're getting a crust on the bottom, your pan may be too thin and the bottom potatoes are quickly getting overcooked. A cast iron pan would be recommended for even, consistent heating. A nice liberal useage of fat would be good, too. Cooked potatoes are like sponges. I like to fry up bacon and then use the bacon fat for the home fries/diced potatoes. Perhaps Jack (Jackal10) will step in to help out.

America's Test Kitchen, the PBS series by Cooking Illustrated, did a taste test on chicken broths. Their winner was Swanson's Low Sodium Organic Chicken Broth. I'd assume the non-organic would be just about as good. rooftop1000 has it right...low sodium is the way to go ...better to add salt than to end up with something too salty. edited to add link to Swanson's web page...it's the third item on the page.

Her favorites the last few years have been either the generic Cherry Tomatoes or the small Yellow Pears. She eats them like candy. She used to plant in the ground behind her home but they never did very well since it was the north side and didn't get much sun until the height of summer and even then that didn't last long enough. So now she plants in pots that she can move to track with the sun. The tomatoes have been doing great in the pots. My brother preps her pot soil every year and will give her interesting new varieties to try. Last year he gave her an heirloom (he didn't tell her the name) that grew tomatoes as ugly as sin but tasted heavenly. They were as large as beefsteaks and were quite meaty. I'm not sure if she will get the same from him this year. The nice thing about San Diego weather is that if you stagger your plantings, you can have tomatoes clear through to October and sometimes to November. Oh, and she has wild varmints to contend with who like to snack on her tomatoes. She lives next to a part of the Mission Trails Regional Park and has everything from rats and raccoons to deer and quail trying to nosh on her plants.

Yes, they sound like "lace" cookies to me, too.

From that eBay auction: My mom used to have an "open" indoor grill. It had a heating element and grill and had a rotisserie attachment. Kind of like this one but deeper (so the fat that dripped down wouldn't smoke). I'd think an enclosed rotisserie would be more efficient.

When it comes to smokin' I don't think there's such as thing as overkill. Better to have too much than not enough. And if you do cook too much turkey, think of all the great leftovers you can make with it. Plus, it freezes well, too.

As much as I enjoy your salt cellar avatar, you realize you're going to have to change it to something knife-related now. [MARTHA]Self-promotion is a good thing[/MARTHA]

Perhaps this thread could get merged... What Coolio described and what the show looks like it's going to be based upon the promos I've seen seem to be two different things. It looks like just a ripoff of the Iron Chef series, et al, except with "celebrities" helping the chef (let's keep the quote marks for now). Interesting to note that the show debuts in less than two weeks and the web page on NBC's site promoting the show isn't even finished yet. edited to change punctuation!

"Celebs don aprons for NBC cookout" A train wreck waiting to happen if ever I've seen one. I think the shark has been jumped on this concept...jumped, filleted and cut into sushi.

My mom was talking about planting herbs this year and I wanted to warn her about some of the herbs that spread like wildfire if planted in the ground. Are thyme and mint the only culprits, or are there more?

If the show Fear Factor is any indication, the answer appears literally to be 'nothing.' ← It may be just a rumor, but I'd heard that the things the contestants eat on that show have to be actual food consumed by people, cultures, tribes, etc. Somewhere someone in the world eats it as part of their diet. So they just don't make it up, supposedly. To go back on topic, I'd recently posted about a fascinating documentary I'd seen on PBS about "The Cheese Nun". The point being that she published a scientific paper on molds that create a lot of cheeses and how, in France, depending on which cave you stored the cheese in for aging, you would get a completely different mold and hence a different flavored cheese. That's why there can be more than 350 different kinds of ripening cheeses in France thanks to the varied mold spores. Amazing little buggers, eh?

Not at all. You could even start now (or when it's warm enough). Put some large pots on your back porch or front stoop and plant tomatoes or whatever you like. Then when you do move in, you hopefully will have the beginnings of a good crop. My brother has a decent backyard at his house but still prefers to use large pots for his tomatoes and chile peppers. He likes the control he has over the soil and is able to move the pots to follow the sun over the course of the seasons.

My example actually occurred. Having been in line behind the office worker buying sandwiches for her entire office staff at a Subway Sandwich shop with each sandwich having its own list of ingredients, it's easy to see why I'm not a fan of these kind of places. I'll go to such places during off-hours, but never during their busy times since getting served will take longer than I think it really should meaning longer than my patience can endure. That's also why I've got a pat answer in these places when asked what I want on my sandwich: "Everything" or "Whatever it comes with". It's the answer that gets me and my to-go order out of there the quickest. Of course it's easier and faster for a worker to assemble the food item looking at the order printout than having to schlep through the assembly line while the customer picks this but not that, and that but not this. I guess it's a trade-off of efficiency (in my opinion) versus letting the customer have the control of creating their own product and you know on which side I land with this issue.

Have you been to Jake's Tex-Mex on Oak Street in Bakersfield? It's a similar assembly line concept except their base ingredient is shredded deep pit beef or shredded chicken. You'd be amazed at the different combinations they've come up with using a set of limited ingredients. It ranges from salads to sandwiches to Frito boats to nachos and on & on. All with either shredded beef or shredded chicken. If I recall correctly, it's an "L"-shaped set up with usually two employees on each side of the "L". The first employee will start putting your order together and pass it to the next employee to finish it. The other side of the "L" has the salads & fixin's along with desserts and beverages and the cashier (the 4th employee). While not the same cuisine, it's an idea similar to yours. Also, Subway sandwiches uses the assembly line method and usually has the very long lines to show for it. I think the more ingredients you offer, the more specialized the orders will be ("yes on the tomatoes, no on the onions, yes on the sour cream, no to the cheese") and if they're ordering for their entire office it really sucks to be in line behind them as they special order each sandwich. edited for punctuation! edited again to say now that I've read my post again, Jake's usually has long lines and so does Chipotle (and Subway). There is nothing quick about using an assembly line where the customer has to pick out the ingredients as the item is being put together. Go with eje's suggestion and have a cashier take the order. I think it would be faster by far.

Time to bump this back up for us California folks. My mom is prepping her planter pots for tomatoes. It's still a little too cool at night to plant but it'll happen soon enough.

I thought I would bump this back up since it's that time of year again up here in the Northern Hemisphere. So what are you planting for eating and cooking purposes this growing season?

A past discussion on this cook-it-yourself trend: "Grill Your Own Steak Restaurants, Have it your way 'cause you're making it" The first link in my post in that discussion redirects, so here is the new link to the Gaslamp Strip Club. The second link in my post is completely dead but the third link works.

Bleu cheese and all ripening cheeses go through a similar symbiotic process thanks to a living fungus or mold.

Do NOT give them crappy knives! You will regret it. I gave a gift of a "Henckels" knife set/block for a friend (while not a "foodie", he does most of the cooking) who was getting married. Even though the knife set had the Henckels name on it, the set was quite bad and I hear about it every once in a while from my friend. Follow Fat Guy's advice and you'll all be happier for it. edited for spellling

I saw on Amazon's Friday Sale that the Lodge Logic 5-Quart Pre-Seasoned Dutch Oven was on sale. The lid isn't flat so it's not a camping oven but my question is is there any reason why I couldn't use this as a fryer as well? The Lodge Logic Pre-Seasoned 5-Quart Chicken Fryer with Iron Cover is 2 inches larger in diameter but has a depth of 3 & 1/4 inches. The Dutch Oven has a depth of 4 inches. If I get the Dutch Oven and use it as a fryer, too, am I losing anything by not having that extra 2 inches in diameter? Overcrowding could become an issue, but is that really an issue in this case?

Thanks for the great blog. I would have enjoyed hearing about the food/dining scene of Johannesburg.

Regarding the Cotton Country Collection, the Chocolate Peppermint Cookies on page 444 were a huge hit with my friends. I made them during the height of summer last year and the chocolate topping melted a little, but there were no leftovers. Recently added to my collection: Chinese Homestyle Cooking by Wang Jinhuai and Xue Yuan A Cook's Tour of Shreveport by the Junior league of Shreveport The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock

I found a PDF from Cooking Illustrated that looks like a gadget review with an illustration showing how the Heartwatch Gourmet Fat Skimmer works. But that's the only reference I could find. How odd that I could access a PDF from that site since I think you have to pay to be a member... I found this skimmer on eBay which looks like the skimmer you're looking for. It's located in Hong Kong, though.

Slate rated the two-slice version of the same DeLonghi toaster highest. Ironic, isn't it? Frankly, I think I would go with andie's recommendations before I would consider Slate's!

Use what you can, freeze what you can then donate the rest to a local shelter or food pantry before they go bad.