Toliver

Green Tea does have caffeine: Caffeine content of tea I buy it decaffeinated but it still has all the other good-for-you stuff in it. I think the headache could definitely be a withdrawal symptom. It's a matter of waiting it out. It should go away over time. If not, see a doctor.

Invest in a tall skinny spatula and every jar should come clean with ease. So yes, (raises hand) I'm guilty, too!

During my college days, I worked at one of those shopping mall cheese & sausage stores so I learned a little bit about cheese. Freezing cheese (or freezing anything) will dehydrate it. The moisture will leach out which will lead to a changed texture when thawed. Normally this means that a cheddar, for example, that has been frozen and then thawed will tend to crumble when you attempt to grate it on a normal kitchen grater. That's why cheeses that have been frozen are more suited for cooking and baking rather than just setting them out for a cheese course. As for leaving them at room temperature, sure it will make the cheese taste better. I'd be concerned about mold, though. I'm more of a "refrigerate it, slice off what you need and let that slice come to room temperature" kind of guy anyway. Cheese should always be served at room temperature. We used to give samples of a Colby Longhorn Cheddar to our customers that tasted incredible at room temperature...almost silky and most definitely buttery. It was a revelation. A tip for cutting the cheese (no snickering from you there in the back of the class!), it helps to have the cheese at room temperature. We'd use a large sturdy wire with handles on both ends to slice through the largest cheese wax-encased wheels. We also had a cutting board with a wire cutter (home versions are usually small...our version was quite large). To cut portions off the wheel pieces, we'd take these huge, insanely sharp knives and run them under very hot water, carefully wipe the blades dry and easily slice through any cheese. Repeat the knife heating as needed.

It's a long haul from where you're centrally located but if ever you're up in Encinitas, you should try Roxy Restaurant & Ice Cream. They have a booth every year at the Del Mar Fair (it's always in the exact same location) and I always get their Falafel Burger, which is quite good...not really dried out at all. It's a big green "burger" which is weird looking but it's tasty.

I ended up subscribing to the magazine. It's an odd food magazine. It has a simplisitic tone to it ("Celery: How to buy it, how to store it, how to use it and its nutrition content"). But, sadly, I've decided not to renew thanks to the March 2006 issue which includes an actual recipe for...wait for it...a grilled cheese sandwich. C'mon! In the March issue they're also soliciting recipes from their readers for future issues. Is this now "Taste of Home a la Martha"? That's not what I signed up for. It's as if this magazine is being aimed at the Forrest Gump's of the kitchen who want to cook but don't make it too involved, please. Sure, the original idea was good meals done quickly and simply (a la Jacques Pepin, Sara Moulton, et al) but they seem to be emphasizing the simple ("This is a spice called 'cayenne'"). I guess I'm just now realizing that I'm not their intended audience. There's a definite difference in the tone of the magazine as compared to the tone of the companion PBS cooking show.

Behold the Peeps! (click here)

I was down in San Diego visiting my family during the President's holiday weekend when my brother started raving all about this little Vietnamese sandwich shop...which turned out to be K Sandwiches! What a small world... Of course, my brother, aka "the Coupon King", also liked it because the sandwiches are so cheap. We were gathered at my mom's house for our usual family holiday dinner where we all cram into the kitchen to make our own special dishes. My brother made his version of the Vietnamese sandwiches using baguettes he bought at K Sandwiches and some sautéed spicy pork butt that he got from the asian grocery store on Mercury (north of Balboa...don't bother parking in front since the parking lot sucks...there's a better parking lot in back). The sandwiches my brother made were quite good but he said K Sandwiches versions are much better. My future SIL always orders their Veggie sandwich. By the way, if you've been there lately you may have noticed quite a line during meal times. Turns out that just down the street at Mesa College some enterprising credit card company has been offering a free K Sandwich if you filled out a credit card application! Brilliant marketing concept by the credit card company and by K Sandwiches. A nice way to bring in more business... edited for spelking

Life's too short to pass up a slice of just-out-of-the-oven pound cake.

I just finished some Trader Joe's "Savory Thins" original crackers and I am really impressed with them. They had to be the cruchiest, crispiest (is that even a word? ) crackers I have ever eaten. From the ingredients list: Rice flour, sesame seeds, natural flavors, safflower oil, salt, garlic. The label also states "no preservatives, no artificial flavors, no artificial colors". A serving size is 15 crackers for a total of 125 calories and 18 fat calories. They have an immediate sesame taste to them and have a sort of sheen to them, as well. Hopefully, I will be buying these again. You never know if Trader Joe's will continue carrying an item, or not...

It depends on what's being cooked at home, depends on the family income, their education, etc. Another eGullet participant, chefzadi, taught a sort of culinary education outreach, teaching economically disadvantaged people that there's an alternative to "nuking" something in the microwave, that there's an alternative to pre-processed and pre-packaged meals. You can read more about his efforts to launch the program in this past discussion: "Cooking classes for disadvantaged folks"

I couldn't recall a "I can't believe anyone would buy this crap" discussion so I thought I would post this here: "The only Flipping Frying Pan in the World" The perfect pan for those who are spatula-challenged or didn't read the eGCI course: "All About Eggs -- Omelettes and More". Wait for the GIF to load to see this beauty in operation. Yeesh.

If this really bothers you, you could always do what Julia Child did, on occasion. When adding veggies or what have you to a pot of boiling water, at the same time she would thrust into the pot a red hot metal "wand" that she had heated separately. The water would continue to boil furiously and there was no lull in the boil. I believe I've seen Jacques Pepin do the same thing once or twice. Not sure where one would find a "boiling wand" like that...

Welcome to the Unicorn Magnum Fan Club! I was so happy with mine I gave them as Christmas gifts to just about all the serious "foodies" I knew. Cooking Illustrated rated it the best peppermill, too, though they thought the "Darth Vader" design left something to be desired.

If you're looking for added heat try the "Dave's" line of sauces. The Insanity sauce is insanely hot and just a couple drops will do it. There are also other sauces in the product line that offer more flavor.

I thought I would bump this discussion back up. I just tried the new Dawn Direct Foam and I am impressed. After cooking, most of the time I will do "spot cleaning", meaning I won't run a sink full of water for just a few dishes. So I will put some dish washing liquid on a non-abrasive scouring pad and quickly wash up the pans and utensils. This Dawn Direct Foam lasts quite a long time in the scouring pad. I squirted one pump full onto my Dobie scouring pad (it didn't look like a large amount) and washed up the dishes and there was still quite a bit of foam/soap left in the pad when I finished my cleaning. I was surprised it hadn't run out of soap. I think I could have cleaned another set of pans with the soap that was leftover in the pad. I bought it at Target and saw they had the refill bottles there, as well. Has anyone else tried this new product?

Ever since reading about soft scrambled (large curd) eggs here on eGullet, I've been hankering for them. This past Sunday morning I made them for breakfast. I started with some sautéed shallots and diced garlic beef sausage (which I get from a local grocery chain that makes it own sausages). In a small bowl, I cracked open three large eggs, added some milk (it may have been as much as a half cup or more...I just eyeballed it) and used my hand-cranked egg beaters to whip it all up into a frothy golden mess. I poured the egg mixture over the shallots and sausage (I had turned the heat down to low) and slowly but methodically stirred up large curds of egg until almost all the liquid was gone. I added fresh ground pepper and a little kosher salt and some grated sharp cheddar cheese. I put a lid on the pan and removed it from the heat. By the time I poured my coffee and got the plate, the scrambled eggs were done, the cheese melted from residual heat in the pan. Sorry I don't have a picture but take solace in the fact that they were quite good, a sort of comfort food from my youth.

When I was a kid, Jack-in-the-Box was either Gag-in-the-Bag or Jacques (to make it sound spiffier than it was...like calling Target stores "Tar-zhay").

Adding them to something ordinary will raise it to another level. For instance, I like to carmelize shallots in butter and then mix them into a good mac 'n' cheese. Quite tasty....

I don't care for bleu cheese either and use Ranch instead. The wings still taste great.

The OXO Garlic Press has that feature.

Treat the peach like an avocado. Rotate the peach around the knife. Twist the halves apart (some won't want to come apart). Once apart, pry the seed out with a paring knife and trim the innards. If it won't come apart, treat it like a mango and slice past the pit on both sides. You will lose some peach but not too much. Also, some peaches are of the Freestone family. If that's the variety you have, the pit should come out easily .

I've posted before about how my paternal grandmother, a farmer's wife, was the shame of the county because she couldn't cook and didn't know how to drive. Well, my mom put me straight on that. The part about her not knowing how to drive was true...my grandfather would have to stop farming and drive her where she needed to go, which you just didn't ask a farmer to do. My mom told me Grandma Bea knew how to cook but because she was a farmer's wife and was always helping out in the fields, when it came time for dinner she would have to rush back to the farmhouse and start dinner in a hurry. Everything was thrown onto the stove turned on high to get it done in a hurry and so it's no wonder my father grew up not liking her cooking. I still remember the smell of over-percolated coffee on the stove when we would come to visit. What's that saying about Ginger Rogers? She could do everything Fred Astaire could do but she did it backwards and in high heels. Poor Grandma Bea! They had a lot of chickens on the farm and so my father grew up hating chicken for dinner because of the way Grandma Bea burned everything and wasn't a big fan of it when my mom would cook it for dinner when we were growing up. My mother, however, was raised by her older sister, Aunt Mary, and Aunt Mary was a goddess in the kitchen. To this day, my mom adores chicken in any manner, shape or form thanks to Aunt Mary's wonderful cooking. And because she learned how to cook from Aunt Mary, we all grew up liking chicken in any manner, shape or form, too. My father's side of the family was of English/Dutch heritage but it wasn't really reflected in the food Grandma Bea cooked. She did teach my mom how to make homemade egg noodles, though. My mom's side of the family came from Bohemia. Aunt Mary would always make kolaches when she came to visit. And all of us now-grown-up kids love my mom's pork roast with sauerkraut, big, fat, fluffy dumplings and potato pancakes that a Polish neighbor taught my mom how to make when she was a newlywed.

The glass restaurant was called Lehr's Greenhouse and, yes, is now a Japanese buffet restaurant.

It depends on where you look for them. Microplanes (sometimes also called "rasps") were originally wood working tools before they found their way into the kitchen. Click here for an example on the left side of the page. Check out the rest of the page for other types. Here are some more at Bed, Bath & Beyond online. You should be able to find them in their brick & mortar stores, as well.

One spice that's often not named in the list of ingredients is celery salt. I find it has a distinctive flavor whenever tasting seasoned salt. I suppose you could experiment and concoct your own version of seasoned salt so you wouldn't have to worry about the chemical flavor of the pre-packaged stuff.