Toliver

Palates change, acquire depth (hopefully) as we grow. As a kid, you start with ketchup on a hot dog and hopefully, one magical day, you will eventually discover the delight of trying mustard on a red hot. Today, I won't pass up tuna salad, PB&J or even a balogna sandwich . A force of habit having grown up in a relatively poor household where if you didn't eat it, you went hungry. Of course, I don't go out of the way to make it for myself nowadays but if it's put before me, I will eat it. What's interesting is the contrast of my mom and dad and their likes and dislikes. They both grew up on farms, in Kansas and Indiana, respectively. My dad's mom was the shame of the county. Not only was she was a farmer's wife who didn't know how to drive (so if she needed to go anywhere, my grandfather would have to stop farming and drive her where she needed to go...the shame!) but she was also a farmer's wife who was a terrible cook. To this day I associate the smell of burnt, boiled coffee (over-percolated on the stove) with their farmhouse. So my father grew up eating food cooked by a terrible cook. He ended up hating chicken, which they had just about every day living on the farm, and he would refuse to eat it the rest of his adult life. My mom, on the other hand, was raised by her older sister who was a marvelous cook. My mom grew up eating everything from pork roast and homemade sauerkraut with dumplings and potato pancakes (the family was from Bohemia) to prune kolaches or chicken soup with egg noodles. To this day my mother loves chicken and eats it as often as she can (I try to steer her away from KFC, though...yikes!). It's interesting how the meals of our childhood years shape our palates as adults. Fortunately for me, my mother learned how to cook from her older sister so my brothers and I all love chicken, too.

Jinmyo, As usual, it all sounds just heavenly. I have two questions, though. 1) Regarding the horseradish mayo, at what ratio do you mix the two? Is it mayo with a hint of horseradish or is it mayo with a heckuva horseradish kick? I only have access to the bottled horseradish and I'm guessing I wouldn't quite get the same results. 2) This is probably a silly question, but since alcohol doesn't freeze, do you add the tequila after the lime granita has been formed? It sounds incredibly refreshing! Thanks!

Is it a handle that is cranked or is it a handle that is pressed or is it just a handle to hold onto? My brother gave me a white plastic pepper mill from Bed, Bath & Beyond that is actually battery operated. It has a silver handle on the side that you press to operate. Works like a charm. You can adjust the grind, too. If that's what you're talking about, I can post the maker/brand tomorrow.

Elizabeth, as most of my friends can attest to, I have no standards. I am always interested in new recipes & perspectives so go ahead and post it.

Whew! Is this the longest thread on eGullet? I had avoided reading this thread since I've come late to the game and it seemed daunting to say the least. It took a week to read it all and I'd like to thank my boss for, unknowingly, allowing me the time to do so. But like Hillary conquering Everest, I've slogged my way through each and every post in this thread and am humbled and inspired by the entries (hits and misses included). Dinner last night: Store bought chicken & spinach tortellini...Tried to make a nice red sauce to go with it but it just didn't get thick enough for my liking. Green beans, lightly steamed then tossed with butter, minced garlic, a squirt of fresh lemon juice and S & P. Along with a summer tomato salad made with chunks of gold & red tomatoes from the local farmer's market, tossed with thinly sliced red onion, lemon cucumbers and red radish slices as big as a 50-cent piece (surprisingly firm fleshed and not mushy) and smashed & pitted "mediterranean" olives, all dressed with evoo, balsamic vinegar, minced garlic, pepper and kosher salt. Oh, and a smattering of basil chiffonade (sp?). Accompanied by an ice cold Gordon Biersch Blonde Bock. Yesterday was our 15th day of triple digit temperatures so the beer hit the spot! I looked in the eRecipes index but couldn't find a posted recipe for Basilguy's Walnuts that someone raved about (I hope I got the name right after so many pages of posts). Does anyone have it? Edit: Forgot I had added olives to the tomato salad

I think it's the opposite. My mom always used sour dill pickles in her tuna salad (and Miracle Whip...but that's a whole other story). I think you're right on track about it adding to the "crunch factor". Without the diced celery & pickle, it would be all mush and who wants that? The dill pickle definitely adds a satisfying salty contrast to the all the sweet. Yin and Yang in a lowly tuna salad.... As for canned tuna, I will add it to macaroni and cheese along with carmelized shallots, minced garlic, sun-dried tomatoes and a healthy dose of hot pepper flakes. And if my niece is having any, I'll omit the pepper flakes and add a can of corn (I know... a redundant starch) since she refuses to eat most vegetables and I need to sneak fiber into her food one way or another. No, it's not turned into a casserole. It goes from the stove top to the serving bowl where it's all blended together to the lunch table. Has anyone started a "Miracle Whip - What the Heck is it?" thread before? Or perhaps a "Mayo vs. Miracle Whip" thread?

Ah, if you omitted the preserves then you'd miss the joy of science in the ice cream...at least, according to Alton Brown: Transcript of Alton Brown's "Churn Baby Churn" episode Click on the above link and then scroll down to the text box just above SCENE 4. In it he explains why he added the preserves in the first place. No, you cannot taste the peach preserves in the final ice cream. Did it really change the consistency of the final recipe? I have no idea. I just know that the final outcome was a whipped, creamy concoction of some delicious "serious" vanilla ice cream. If you do decide to follow the recipe (and I would recommend doing so the first time just so you have a proverbial "yardstick" to measure with), be aware that any pieces of peach from the preserves that find their way into the ice cream won't dissolve away when cooked. If they bother you, just strain the mixture with a sieve, after cooking it, as you pour it into your ice cream maker's canister to remove any remaining chunks of fruit. We ended up serving the ice cream on my Mom's hot, freshly made peach cobbler so it was a moot point anyway! Oh, and I doubled the ice cream recipe for my outdoor canister, which holds 4 quarts, and it still didn't make it up to the "Fill" line. I went ahead and let it churn a little longer than I should have until the ice cream touched the inside of the top of the lid. I'm sure the extra added air in the final volume added to the sinful sumptuousness of the ice cream.

Someone beat him to it...it's called Buca di Beppo, a chain of Italian restaurants spreading throughout most of the United States. Buca's home page As for Mama and another poster's comments questioning whether her methods were sanitary, she was wearing gloves when she started mixing the meatballs up on the counter. I can't recall, though, whether she was still wearing them when they moved the pan down on top of a milk crate to give her better leverage. Why they didn't get her a step stool, instead, is beyond me..."Let's put this over-sized pan full of meatball mixture on a too-small surface and let's see if Mama can get the whole thing to dump over onto the floor." {CUE LAUGH TRACK} And I was pleased as punch to see Mama dumping industrial sized canisters of Progresso bread crumbs into the meatball mixture. Too bad Progresso didn't buy product placement like Coors and AMEX. I'm sure then she would have been happy to show the canister labels. Just what was her secret ingredient mentioned regarding the meatballs? Guess I'll have to keep watching {sucker!}.

I have a recommendation for a recipe. I like to make homemade ice cream on summer holidays (using the old-fashioned outdoor ice cream maker) and have been searching for a great vanilla ice cream recipe that didn't include eggs. I'd tried many cooked egg-based recipes but was disappointed since they all seemed to come out tasting like vanilla pudding. I tried non-cooked egg ice cream recipes and stopped making them when I found bits of frozen yolk on the paddle. But I found a winner: This past July 4th, I downloaded Alton Brown's "Serious Vanilla Ice Cream" from the FoodNetwork web site and was ecstatic with the results. There are no eggs in the recipe. It's a little pricey since it does call for a real vanilla bean, but it was worth every penny. You heat the mixture until it reaches 170°. Then let it cool to room temperature and then refrigerate it overnight before churning. The end result was a smooth, light and very intense vanilla ice cream, almost as if you had blended whip cream with vanilla ice cream. A sensuous soft serve ice cream, if you will. You're supposed to let it "ripen" (harden) in the freezer but I thought it lost a lot of its charm once it was frozen. You can find the recipe here: Alton Brown's "Serious Vanilla Ice Cream"

My guess is the machines simply add air so they have to use less product in the shakes and thus increase their overall profits.....but that's just the cynic in me. On the other hand, being a sporadic optimist (at least, I hope I am ) perhaps the machines, by adding air, do lighten the texture of the shake (whipping the cream) and change the "mouth-feel" of the shake to something you just can't get at home. Maybe that's it...instead of milk, add lightly whipped cream to the ice cream and blend that together. Hmmm...this could get decadent.

The bad news is that when I went back to my local farmer's market, the same farmer said she didn't have time to pick the lemon basil that morning. The good news was that she did, however, have cilantro which I took as a sign (given Bloviatrix's recipe) and purchased it on the spot. Bloviatrix, your recipe turned out great. I think I added too much cilantro which was a little too "there" in the final outcome. I marinated some red snapper with the charmoula sauce for about 4 hours and then oven baked it. It turned out like something I'd get in a restaurant! I am eager to try it on chicken, too. I accompanied the charmoula snapper with a side dish of rice with parmesean, butter and sun dried tomatoes and served a tomato salad which was red & yellow tomatoes (that I got that morning at the Farmer's market) with thinly sliced red onion, diced lemon cucumbers (purchased from the same lemon basil farmer...they don't taste like lemons...they are small white/pale yellow skinned cucumbers that are squatty, about the size of lemons....the inner flesh is white and the seeds are a lime-ish green, compact and soft with a sweeter taste than regular cucumbers), garlic, some green pepper, a chiffanade (sp?) of Thai basil with EVOO and basalmic vinager). Thanks for taking the time to share your recipe!

Thank you, that would be great!

I'd recommend drying most of your harvest. My brother uses a Ronco-type food dehydrator on his chiles and it works like a charm. If you leave them whole after drying, you can always rehydrate the chiles by soaking them in hot water depending on the dish you make. Or you can grind the dried chiles (with stems removed) in a dedicated coffee grinder to make crushed pepper flakes which can be easily added to dishes. My brother grinds his dried peppers outdoors because the grinding creates a fine pepper mist that burns. He also wears goggles and a breathing mask to prevent getting "gassed' by the pepper mist (a lesson you have to learn only once). He then gives the hot flakes (and these are really HOT) in shaker bottles as Christmas gifts to the rest of the chileheads in our family. I usually have to have a refill mid-year. As for harvesting the crop, last year my brother paid his daughter a penny a picked pepper and, boy, does she keep track of how much she's harvested! Last year this arrangement cost him almost ten dollars, which speaks of the bounty of his harvest. I think this year my niece, smart businesswoman-to-be, is renegotiating for 2 cents a pepper.

Ooooh, that does sound good! I have a recipe for a charmoula sauce but the recipe calls for lemon juice. Should completely forgo the addition of the lemon juice since the basil is lemony? Or does the charmoula need the acid of the lemon juice? Can I ask what your recipe is? Charmoula recipes seem to vary as much as marinades do.

Last Saturday I was buying some tomatoes from one of the farmers in our local Farmer's Market and I asked if she happened to have any basil. She said she did but that she also had some lemon basil and would I like to try that instead. I ended up making a great tomato salad with the lemon basil (and the last of my Vidalia onions). The flavor of the lemon basil is like regular basil, at first, but with a citrus aftertaste, kind of a faint lemony kick at the end. I am going back this weekend to find if she has more of it. Does anyone have any suggestions of what kind of dishes I can use this herb in? I was thinking it would probably do well in a rice dish (rather than anything with potatoes) and it would probably rock with chicken. Thanks in advance!

Yum! Mix the worchestershire, horseradish and V8 with some vodka, Tabasco, celery salt and a twist of lemon and you have my brother's version of a Bloody Mary. To quote from "I Love Lucy"- "It's so tasty, too!"

Speaking of Lodge, I am amazed at how low their prices are on Amazon, considering what you're getting. On top of that, each piece is a fairly heavy chunk of metal and with Amazon's SuperSaver shipping (with purchase of $25 or more), you save a buncha'bucks on shipping. I just sent away for their 3 quart chicken fryer (with lid) thanks to a previous thread on fried chicken and a recommendation by FatGuy (I believe). Slowly, eGullet is draining my bank account! Now I am off to find an eGullet thread on seasoning cast iron cookware...

I love the new Tabasco chipotle, too. While a fan of the original sauce, I think it has more of a "kick" to it than the regular red Tabasco sauce, or perhaps its depth of flavor gives me that impression. I did try their Habenero flavor and while I enjoyed the heat, alas, I am not a fan of the taste of habeneros or scotch bonnets. I am anxious to try the Chipotle flavor on a pan of Buffalo Wings. Saturday's menu is coming into focus...

A simple milk gravy (the kind you make when serving fried chicken or a southern chicken fried steak). Mine end up tasting like...nothing. The one thing my mom could never do well was make a good gravy and I've seemed to have inherited it from her.

I'd like to argue that the dish we Americans call "Lasagne" with it's red sauce, meat and ricotta IS a true "lasagne" dish. It may not be so in the world of Italian cuisine but it is in the world of Italian-American cuisine and should be recognized as such. Italian-American cuisine is not a "bastardization" of Italian cuisine but has become a genre unto itself (it also gave us pizza..where do I start building the shrine?). Over time, the meaning of the word "Lasagne" has changed here in America and what once described the pasta used in the dish now represents the entire dish. Times change...words take on new meanings. So I see nothing wrong with calling this glorious bubbling dish of layered flat pasta noddles, red/meat sauce and melted cheese "lasagne". Perhaps we can tag an "IA" in front of it to clarify which cuisine we're talking about so as not to offend anyone.

Tabasco. On just about everything...

A little fiber with my alcohol...do I sense a new hit product for the Baby Boomers? And a watermelon quote I stumbled across: "Watermelon - it's a good fruit. You eat, you drink, you wash your face." --Enrico Caruso

I can see your point, but the soup really had no heat to it at all so you couldn't even call it "warm". If they had added the cream after removing the bisque from the heat, logically you would think it would be, at least, room-temperature cream and not cold cream from the restaurant fridge. And to hijack my own thread, this makes me curious as to how chefs gauge the temperature of the food they're serving without tasting or touching everything.

This is a very minor question in the Grand Scheme of things but I thought what better place to ask it than here at eGullet? During the last holiday season, I took my best friend's mom out to eat at a french food cafe she had been wanting to try. It wasn't a full blown french restaurant...they said they served "peasant/country food", whatever that is. For a starter we thought we'd give the Lobster Bisque a try (what all the lucky french peasants get to eat these days!). When it was served to us the temperature was tepid at best as if it had been sitting for a while waiting for our waitress to serve it. Most of the hot soups in our dining past have been served hot so this was puzzling to us. When we told our waitress that our soup wasn't hot and could she ask the kitchen staff to heat it up for us, she seemed a little put off as if the tepid soup WAS served at the correct temperature. She did get the soup reheated for us but this leads me to ask: Is Lobster Bisque supposed to be served at room temperature and did we make culinary fools of ourselves asking for it to be reheated? Or should it have been served hot? Thanks in advance for your replies!

Thank you, Jinmyo & maggiethecat for the welcome. I've been lurking and decided to de-cloak for this thread. I am on vacation now at the family homestead and have requested of my Mom during my stay that she show me how to make her CFS or the Swiss Steak. The '50's shall live again through me, yet. As an aside (and it probably belongs in another thread) the local fair is on and the big culinary "hit" this year is deep fried Twinkies and deep fried Snickers. I will report on my gastonomic galavanting at the Fair if I'm not sent to the hospital from the Fair food first.