Things I love that other people don't get

[Behemoth]

Jaymes, NulloModo, CompassRose – I love fruitcake and make one that is so good (I even candy my own citrus peel) it converts Previously Avowed Fruitcake Haters. Will you have me in your group? NB: I soak with bourbon.

I get a big one from my mom every year. She actually uses the gross supermarket fruit but the cake is delicious and I still like it. (I'm not a big dessert person but a sucker for any spiced cakes). She makes a little flower design on the top which is cute, since that was my job as a kid. I have her send it to me as early as possible so I can properly soak it in liquor. For some reason in the past few years she decided buying alcohol was too troublesome and has tried to soak the thing with fruit juice. Heresy!

[Pickles]

Kraut with gin?  Never thought of that, will have to try it out today....

I've had it with juniper berries, but not gin. Interesting.

Juniper berries give gin its unique taste, so adding gin to sauerkraut seems fairly logical to me. I love sauerkraut. Add an old gym sock and some rusty nails to it, and I'll eat it. ((Now watch some smartypants say "how could you tell the difference! ))

Pickles in tuna salad

Leave me outta this! Seriously..I always add some dill relish to my tuna salad, and I refuse to slink off like a cowering, beaten cur for saying so.

Edited June 12, 2004 by Pickles (log)

[balmagowry]

Jaymes, NulloModo, CompassRose – I love fruitcake and make one that is so good (I even candy my own citrus peel) it converts Previously Avowed Fruitcake Haters. Will you have me in your group? NB: I soak with bourbon.

If you candy your own peel, even I might join - it's really only the candied fruit that usually puts me off.

[Pickles]

The crap (red lumps, green lumps and yellow lumps) in most "fruit"cakes aren't "citron" at all. Citron is a REAL fruit.

[mrsadm]

Cauliflower for me!

I grew up with fresh cauliflower every fall and it was served at Thanksgiving too. But my husband HATES it. He can't even tolerate the smell of cooking it.

I finally found a way to cook it that he likes (the recipe is on this site somewhere) and that is to chop it up, toss with olive oil, and back in the oven.

James Peterson admitted to not liking cauliflower in his "Vegetables" cookbook. And I was hoping he'd have some more recipes for me to try!

[Mayhaw Man]

I finally found a way to cook it that he likes (the recipe is on this site somewhere) and that is to chop it up, toss with olive oil, and back in the oven.

You might find some help from like minded folks in this thread all about roasted cauliflower. Who knew this topic could have legs this long?

[andiesenji]

Jaymes, NulloModo, CompassRose – I love fruitcake and make one that is so good (I even candy my own citrus peel) it converts Previously Avowed Fruitcake Haters. Will you have me in your group? NB: I soak with bourbon.

I make my own candied peel for fruitcake also - have been for many, many years also candied ginger and several types of glacéed fruit.

On that note, I have finally pefected a way to candy peel in the microwave. I have my step-by-step method, with the timing of each step, on a bunch of cards with corrections written in where necessary until I got it right. I have to input it into the computer and then I plan on taking photos of each step and also making a video and putting in on DVD.

I tried out my method demo on a group at the local Senior Citizen's center and they thought it was interesting (and liked the candied peel, particulary the ones I dipped in chocolate.)

Have you ever made Jamaican Black Cake? It's a type of fruitcake but is different enough to make it interesting.

Andie

[Barb48]

Am not.

Liver and onions. Liver and anything. Chicken liver. Calf's liver. Beef liver. Chopped liver.

I tolerate beets but absolutely adore liver and onions, especially tender veal liver.

My husband maybe will tolerate it once every couple of years, and figures I'm allowed to go manic once in awhile!

BUT we both love fried gizzards! DIVINE! (oh, and I love chicken livers and hearts too) Could it be I read "A Cook's Tour" when I was just an infant?

[balmagowry]

Have you ever made Jamaican Black Cake? It's a type of fruitcake but is different enough to make it interesting.

No, but take a look at Ms. Victoria's blog - I suspect her husband Keifel would have to be voted the reigning expert on it, and he waxed lyrical about his grandmother's. We all drooled.

[gingerly]

fruitcake...with cheese i'm sorry but i was a hapless 'as read in..' food victim as a child.enid blyton did the most damage (cream teas anyone?)this particular one was brought on by james herriot.

cilantro of course.

[andiesenji]

Have you ever made Jamaican Black Cake?  It's a type of fruitcake but is different enough to make it interesting. 

No, but take a look at Ms. Victoria's blog - I suspect her husband Keifel would have to be voted the reigning expert on it, and he waxed lyrical about his grandmother's. We all drooled.

I came across the recipe in Laurie Colwin's book "Home Cooking" at least fifteen years ago.

After the first time I made it, it was an instant "keeper" and has been one of my regulars ever since.

The fact that it keeps practically forever is a big plus.

[CompassRose]

Ohhhh... I have a couple recipes for the Jamaican Black Cake too! And I'm dying to make it -- only it makes a lot. And, well, I could eat it myself, but, er, should I?

The last couple years I've been making Alice Medrich's California Fruit & Walnut Cake, which people actually like as gifts. And which I like a lot. Last year, I also made a recipe for Fruitcake Cookies, with an almond-marzipan royal icing on top. Flavour of fruitcake, small and non-intimidating -- people liked those, too.

(Now if only I could spread the love of quiet, unassuming-looking Eastern European delicious spicy cookies among my woefully-lured-by-the-lurid-icing inlaws! A recipe of Spekulaas also makes way too damn many cookies!)

[hillvalley]

natto

cilantro (in any form)

natto

Hostess snowballs (purple are my favorite)

natto

grass flavored jelly bellys

natto

skin from roasted chicken and turkey

natto

[Mayhaw Man]

They were from some fruitcake pusher down in Corsicana, Texas.

Are these the fruitcakes? I love those things. We get them for Christmas every year from a friend in Tyler who sends them to seemingly everyone she knows. They are really good.

[bobmac]

I'm with all you lima beans, liver, beets, Spam folks, sardines out of the can. In fact if so many of us like this stuff, maybe we're not the minority.

And as to the original post, I have a friend who eats blueberry pie topped with red onions.

[Pickles]

I have a friend who eats blueberry pie topped with red onions.

My Dad liked buttermilk mixed with tomato juice.

[mongo_jones]

in high school i used to top butterscotch ice-cream with mustard. started doing it to get a rise out of friends but then actually started liking it.

[CompassRose]

My mother likes peanut butter and tomato sandwiches.

My ex-boyfriend liked peanut butter, strawberry jam and bacon sandwiches. Eugh.

Edited June 13, 2004 by CompassRose (log)

[NeroW]

I love peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.

[Randi]

skin from roasted chicken and turkey

This is my number one favorite "food" - crispy poultry skin!

*swooning*

and I thank goodness that not everyone loves it because that means less sharing at Thanksgiving, as well as the possibility of being given other people's discarded skin the rest of the year. (I don't mean THEIR personal skin - I mean the skin from their chicken, turkey or duck dinners)

[andiesenji]

Ohhhh... I have a couple recipes for the Jamaican Black Cake too! And I'm dying to make it -- only it makes a lot. And, well, I could eat it myself, but, er, should I?

The last couple years I've been making Alice Medrich's California Fruit & Walnut Cake, which people actually like as gifts. And which I like a lot. Last year, I also made a recipe for Fruitcake Cookies, with an almond-marzipan royal icing on top. Flavour of fruitcake, small and non-intimidating -- people liked those, too.

(Now if only I could spread the love of quiet, unassuming-looking Eastern European delicious spicy cookies among my woefully-lured-by-the-lurid-icing inlaws! A recipe of Spekulaas also makes way too damn many cookies!)

The thing to do with the black cake "batter" is to bake it in the mini loaf pans.

I have this silicone one from kitchencollection.com.

Don't ice them.

If you double wrap them in foil after they are completely cool, then place them in a large freezer bag, you can freeze them and take out only one or two when you want to serve it.

Each slice is two bites, easy to eat and is really good spread with cream cheese, or if you like it, mascarpone.

The same for "regular" fruitcake - I make three varieties.

Some go into mini muffen pans, also silicone, like this:

I wrap them individually in colored cello to tuck into gift baskets. It is odd that people will eat these when they wouldn't touch a standard fruitcake.

[Randi]

My Dad liked buttermilk mixed with tomato juice.

My Mom drank that as well!

[balmagowry]

in high school i used to top butterscotch ice-cream with mustard. started doing it to get a rise out of friends but then actually started liking it.

Boy, if that ain't quintessential Mongo in a nutshell...!

Friend of mine makes a nice powerful "Cholula" jelly and keeps us all so copiously supplied that we're always looking for new applications. The crowd in question is not, generally speaking, unadventurous in matters gastronomic, but for some reason they all thought I was weird when I suggested pairing it with vanilla ice cream. They thought me even weirder when I did it and reported I'd been absolutely right. What is wrong with these people?

And yes, I bet blueberry pie is delicious with a bit of red onion. Hey, if you can put Seville orange or sour cherries on your duck, apricot/plum sauce on your spare-ribs, and raspberries in your vinegar, why not onions on your blueberries? One of my favorite sound-bites when I'm lecturing on the Renaissance is something to the effect that around that time the use of sweet and sour in cookery paralleled the use of chiaroscuro in art. Gimmicky, but true!

[NeroW]

And yes, I bet blueberry pie is delicious with a bit of red onion.

One of my favorite sound-bites when I'm lecturing on the Renaissance is something to the effect that around that time the use of sweet and sour in cookery paralleled the use of chiaroscuro in art. Gimmicky, but true!

My thing is . . . I don't think of red onions as particularly sour.

Another thing I love is Lenders Onion Bagels toasted, with plenty of butter and . . . green shakey Parmesan cheese.

You may expel me now.

EDIT: to say I also love bread and gravy. Any kind of gravy.

Edited June 14, 2004 by NeroW (log)

[balmagowry]

And yes, I bet blueberry pie is delicious with a bit of red onion.

One of my favorite sound-bites when I'm lecturing on the Renaissance is something to the effect that around that time the use of sweet and sour in cookery paralleled the use of chiaroscuro in art. Gimmicky, but true!

My thing is . . . I don't think of red onions as particularly sour.

No - they're not. And neither are some of the other things I mentioned. What I was really talking about was more generally how apparently contrasting flavors can complement and balance each other... and then I couldn't resist bringing in the sweet/sour thing as another example of that. Hubris goeth.... But though a good red onion is quite sweet, it's a different KIND of sweet from blueberry pie, and it does have that touch of acid bite to it - just enough to make the combination sound incongruous to most people.

Another thing I love is Lenders Onion Bagels  toasted, with plenty of butter  and . . . green shakey Parmesan cheese.

You may expel me now.

If we didn't do it when you confessed to Kraft Mac & Cheese, you can figure you're safe now. Though I must admit, with Lender's bagels, any flavor, you're definitely pushing your luck. Maybe it's because you are like a dog! I'm sure my dog would eat them....

Edited June 14, 2004 by balmagowry (log)