Toliver

Well, if your're going to bring bacon into it for crying out loud. Thats cheating. ← Giada De Laurentiis did something similar on FoodTV: "Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta" And Emeril has his pork-related green veggie recipe: "Roasted Asparagus with Tasso" And if you can't find pancetta or Tasso, I am sure bacon can be substituted.

Here is a map showing the locations of the Basque restaurants in Bakersfield. Note that the Basque Club (in south Bakersfield) isn't really a restaurant but is a members-only Basque club. The three restaurants in the upper right, located in "Old Town Kern" in East Bakersfield, are the more famous ones. The Basque have been here since very early on. Many of the first sheepherders in the area were from the old country. If anyone is interested in making Basque food, by clicking on "sitemap" on the above web-page, you can find the link to the Basque recipe section of the site. There are many other non-Basque restaurants in town that are very good (Bruce, I still owe you a list!). Most offer standard eats, though, we did have goat tacos at the Kern County Fair one year. There is a "Little Saigon" opening on Union Avenue. The Pho Vi eatery is already open though I don't like their pho as much as the pho I've had at Far East Cafe on White Lane (a chinese restaurant that also serves Vietnamese food).

I thought I would bump this back since Amazon has the West Bend 84765 5-Quart Oblong Slow Cooker with Tote, White for $29.99. That price should qualify for free Super Saver Shipping. The reason I recommend the West Bend Slow Cooker is because the pot itself can be used on the stove. So you can brown your meat on the stove in the cooker pot and then move the pot to the griddle-base, add the rest of your ingredients, put the glass lid on and your slow cooker is good to go.

I don't think I would go with a name that's unrelated to what you do. If you want name recognition, something as simple as kakes says it all, it says what you make and, thanks to the varied spelling, makes it stand out immediately as something different, ergo, not your run-of-the-mill cakes. Keep It Simple, Silly.

I think the "cough syrup" comment was actually directed towards the Mountain Dew Pitch Black that debuted around Halloween. Some people posted similar comments about its taste in the eGullet discussion about Pitch Black.

They're being positioned as Limited Edition flavors and/or Collectibles (issued with a sequential number). Though I question whether that's really a good justification for the high price, I would hazard a guess there are some future eBay sellers who are buying them for that very reason.

I agree. But then I chalked it up to looking so bad because it was "prop pizza". Sadly, I think I've eaten some of that in my day.

Word. What she said. Weber "grilled" turkeys rock. The indirect heat, the drip pan, the domed lid...it's an oven with wheels in your backyard. And soup from the carcass is to die for. Your neighbor should be able to handle it. Tell him to test drive a chicken this weekend as practice.

To quote from the film "Thelma & Louise": "You get what you settle for." Perhaps they don't think it's worth the trouble to make good food for themselves so they settle for what's in front of them. Or maybe they really haven't had good food in their lives so they just make what they know how to make which is not-so-good. Or they think it's easier to defrost & nuke some processed package than to make something from scratch. They're certainly cut of a different cloth, eh?

What? No boneless, skinless chicken breasts?! It's a new trend, indeed.

It also works out that if you start cooking on the flesh side, once you flip it, cook it, then plate it, the skin side will be down on the plate and the "pretty" side will be face up. Yet, another Sara Moulton (from FoodTV) "trick".

I just had to bump this discussion back up. I may have too-much-food-on-the-brain thanks to eGullet, but after watching last night's episode, I could swear the writers of the show just have to be eGullet lurkers/members. Last night, among many of the food references, Lorelai actually mentioned Sookie brining either a turkey or a chicken in a molasses and salt water mixture. I just about did a spit-take with my decaf when I heard that. "Hey, that's eGullet talking!" Alright, confess! Which one of you writes for the show? edited to add: Can we get an eGullet Q & A with the writers? That'd be a hoot.

My workplace is having a Holiday Food Drive for the local Food Bank all day tomorrow. As successful as they have been in the past it always seems as if it's not enough. But we do what we can.

I use pale dry sherry in my cooking, not the sweet. Sorry I can't recall the brand at the moment but it's not anything high-end. I use it in everything from chinese dishes to sautéed mushrooms. As for vermouth, I don't use it in my cooking or my martinis (I like them really, really dry).

Here is another discussion on vinegar that segued into making it yourself: "Nasty Stuff in Red Wine Vinegar, What's that?"

Thanks, Dean. That makes perfect sense. That and the fact that oleo doesn't have to be refrigerated made it extremely popular (interesting marketing angle to see it in the dairy case next to real butter even though it won't perish if it's at room temperature). To this day, my mom stills writes "oleo" on her shopping list when she needs more margarine. It's an economy of motion, I guess, so she doesn't have to write out the longer word. And for crossword puzzle fans out there, "oleo" is still popular to use in puzzles due to its three vowels and one consonant.

Welcome, CharityCase! I don't know how large the Starbuck's are up north, but here in Central California their interiors are too small to be considered as a meeting place for more than 5 people. There's barely room for the customers standing around waiting for their orders, let alone tables and chairs for the community to gather around inbetween the racks of coffee, coffee mugs and other caffeine-related paraphernalia for sale. That's one advantage some of the older local java joints have over Starbucks. They have the interior real estate to truly offer as a meeting place for the community. The wisest thing Starbuck's has done is offer drive-through service where they can but then that's California and the drive-thru (spelled in a truncated manner becasue we don't have time to spell it correctly with all those extra letters ) mentality for you.

My mom, who is of Bohemian descent, always uses Bisquick to make the dumplings for her pork roast and sauerkraut. There's a recipe for them in her Bisquick cookbook and I'm sure you can find a similar recipe online somewhere. It may be heresy to some to use a mix but that's the way she learned so I think it's valid. Besides, they come out fluffy and almost but not quite cake-y and they taste good which is what counts.

Let me preface my remarks by stating that I am a Diet Pepsi drinker and have been for years. Before I switched to diet, I drank the regular stuff. I spent the evening with friends last night and brought along a 2-liter bottle of the new flavor. Including me, five people tried it and the most common remark was that it tasted a lot less sweeter than regular Pepsi. It's also a deep reddish color, which I thought was cool. The spice undertones were all there. One person thought there might even be a "Sprite-like ('uncola')" flavor. Everyone thought the spice flavorings were subtle but good. I really couldn't decide what I thought it tasted like. At one point I thought there was an RC Cola-like taste to it, the next moment I thought it was reminiscent of Pepsi One. Finally, I figured it was almost like they blended Pepsi and Coke together. IMHO, Coke has always had a cinnamon-y flavor to it and I thought that was very present in the Holiday Spice flavor. I give it a thumbs up and would hope next year they will have the forethought and consideration to put out a diet version.

I was at a friend's house last night and was skimming through their Sur La Table catalog when I saw they had a Children's cookbook in it. It looks like it has a cool "retro" look to it thanks to the vintage illustrations. I haven't seen it first-hand so I can't say whether it's a good cookbook or not. It seems reasonablely priced. Plus, at the bottom of the page they have other kid-oriented items (e.g., a kid's apron). Hope this helps... edited to add: When you go to the web page linked above, click on "View Larger Picture" to get a slightly larger image of the book and its pages.

I do the same thing with herbs. They really last a lot longer that way. And are you a Tabasco fan or a chilehead in general? I keep a bottle of the new Tabasco Chipotle Sauce in a drawer at work.

I eat my fries with not just any ketchup...it has to be Heinz ketchup. I get the oversized twin "Jugs o' Heinz" from Costco so I won't run out. While working in my college cafeteria, only Thousand Island dressing would make their french fries palatable.

Hey, me too! I bought it via Scholastic Books through my class/teacher (I wonder if she got a commission? ). I made my first Apple Brown Betty (or was it an Apple Brown Lucy?) thanks to that cookbook. There was no looking back after that... edited to add...nothing, since I changed my mind.

Dude, you're missing the point. Don't ask for his recipe. Ask him to make it for you. If he's going to deride you for not using from-scratch ketchup, the least he can do is make it for you. Let him do the work...you reap the benefits of his labor and make a point in doing so. Ah, brotherly love!

For years, my mom has used the Reynolds Oven Bags to roast her turkeys. Not only do they cook a little faster in the bags than if you roasted them in the regular manner in the oven, the turkey also gets very fall-apart tender. One year, my mom went to check if it was done by wiggling a leg and the bone came completely out in her hand. One drawback is, even though the skin browns in the oven bags, it's not a "crisp" skin like you get when you do a regular roasting. Other than that, it's a great way to cook a turkey.