"I was FLOORED!"

[mike_r]

this might sound weird, but until about eight or nine years ago i didn't even know brownies came in boxes; i thought they all came out of my mother's recipe book she's a great cook and baker, and i count myself fortunate that alot of the "flooring" issues here didn't happen to me growing up...

[lovebenton0]

I was bragging to my brother, who is an excellent cook, about a cocktail sauce I had made.  He asked me if I had made my own catsup.   I thought that by combining the store bought catsup, jar of horseradish, bottle of tabasco sauce and my very own freshly squeezed lemon juice that it qualified as homemade.  After all - I did have to follow a recipe!   This isn't a level playing field, and we will all pick the levels we are comfortable playing on.  Maybe those folks who live on pre-packaged mixes just haven't had a chance to broaden their horizens - or they need a little convenience sometimes, like me.

Well, asking the question is fine but to deride a cocktail sauce because it contains Heinz catsup is just plain snobbery. Cocktail sauce is supposed to contain store-bought catsup, IMHO!

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In his PBS show this weekend, even Jacques Pepin used a bit of store-bought ketchup in his "quick" salsa.

birder53, tell your brother you'd like a batch of his homemade ketchup as a gift for Christmas in case you eventually want to make more cocktail sauce.

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Great idea! I mean wouldn't we all love to have the time to make homemade ketchup to have on hand for those quick cocktail red and thick style BBQ sauces? I would -- but I'll do with Heinz until I get my in-home ketchup factory going -- makes a good base. If you've got a source through your bro -- pump him for it! And ask him to include his recipe, birdie53.

[Della]

I am floored by people who say they are vegetarian, then proceed to eat fish both at home and out at restaurants. Also, they tend to eat soup, rice, tortillas and other various items out at restaurants they contain stock and/or lard.

I don't mind picky eaters as long as they know exactly what they dislike and hopefully why - or at least can admit it makes not sense (example - I like everything that goes into pesto, but I don't like pesto). But general comments like "I am a vegetarian" but then they eat rice out at a restaurant or even yet, split fish and chips with me...........grrrrr!

[Della]

I'm pretty amazed that Malaysians pack into McDonalds, KFC, Wendy's, etc., when Malaysian food is so great and so much of it is so cheap. In particular, I was kind of floored that within a 2-block radius of the Night Market in Kota Bharu - full of all manner of very inexpensive delicious foods, especially Ayam Percik Yati - there was a Wendy's, KFC, McDonalds, and I think some other chain, filled with Malaysians. But there's no accounting for taste... 

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It's a little less horrifying to me to see the locals jamming into those chain restaurants: they're going out for foreign food, in a sense, just as it was exotic for our family to go to a Chinese restaurant when I was growing up. That's the one hand. The other hand, of course, is that junk food is being encouraged as "nutrition"...and oh why oh why, are these sorts of thing among the USA's largest exports!? It sure doesn't help our image!

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As my boyfriend is fond of saying.... "If something has enough fat and salt in it, it will taste "good" to people." That is also his way of saying he won't eat something!

[munchymom]

I am floored that in North Carolina, at the height of the apple season, the grocery store is selling apples from New Zealand. I mean, there are apples growing RIGHT HERE! How can it possibly be more cost-effective to ship them from the other side of the world?

[birder53]

[

Well, asking the question is fine but to deride a cocktail sauce because it contains Heinz catsup is just plain snobbery. Cocktail sauce is supposed to contain store-bought catsup, IMHO!

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In his PBS show this weekend, even Jacques Pepin used a bit of store-bought ketchup in his "quick" salsa.

birder53, tell your brother you'd like a batch of his homemade ketchup as a gift for Christmas in case you eventually want to make more cocktail sauce.

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[eunny jang]

I think it's all a matter of priorities. I keep Hellman's on hand, but do make my own mayonnaise occasionally, when it's an important part of a dish and I want it to really shine - say an aioli garnish, or homemade mayo for frites. There's no way I'm going to make it in a mortar and pestle every time I want to eat a sandwich.

Some people do, and that's cool. I grind my own spices - there are people who'd never do that. I'm fine with storebought bread, but there are people aghast at the idea. It's all about what's important to you.

What floors me is people who don't understand this, and judge other people based on this kind of lame-o criteria.

[Toliver]

My brother even makes his own mayonnaise.  I have no desire to ask him for that recipe or his catsup recipe.  I wouldn't refuse samples of the finished products, but I'm not ready to take the leap to "super cook"!  Yes, I'm cooking these days and not using mixes or prepackaged seasonings, but I'm not ready to make my own condiments yet.  Someday...maybe?

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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!

[TotallyNutz]

I have to bring up again about that crappy show with Sandra Lee. Watching that show is like looking at a train wreck, you can't turn away. It was the last straw when she proceeded to make a panfried dumpling filling with that overprocessed fake Chinese canned LaChoy vegetables. That is totally disgusting !!!!! No self respecting Chinese person or Chinese food lover would even go that route . I swear FN programming is getting worse by the minute. It's all flash and no substance nowadays.

Edited November 12, 2004 by TotallyNutz (log)

[ludja]

Now, you don't even need to get out the knife and possibly get your hands dirty holding on to the cookie-dough log. I really don't think the "lasting memories" a child will have of placing dough pellets on a cookie sheet could possible match the memories I have of baking cookies with my mom from scratch. Everything I know about cooking started with that experience that day.

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For me, seeing this recently at the supermarket was a "floor me" moment and the example I thought of when I started reading this thread.

Whipped cream often makes an appearance with my desserts. It has floored me when people were semi-incredulous that it was "home-made".

[Dr. Funk]

I have to bring up again about that crappy show with Sandra Lee. Watching that show is like looking at a train wreck, you can't turn away. It was the last straw when she proceeded to make a panfried dumpling filling with that overprocessed fake Chinese canned LaChoy vegetables. That is totally disgusting !!!!! No self respecting Chinese person or Chinese food lover would even go that route . I swear FN programming is getting worse by the minute. It's all flash and no substance nowadays.

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When I was very young, my mother used to make what us kids called "chopped sewage" using that canned La Choy crap. The only thing worth eating was the chow mein noodles. She later became a pretty decent cook, but the 50's were pretty grim.

[MichaelB]

Whipped cream often makes an appearance with my desserts.  It has floored me when people were semi-incredulous that it was "home-made".

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I have posted here before about something I make every year for my office's pre-Thanksgiving lunch -- chocolate pudding with softly whipped cream.

Every year there is at least one new employee who won't believe that you can make pudding.

And are several who each year stand slack-jawed as I apply a whisk to a quart of cream.

[birder53]

Whipped cream often makes an appearance with my desserts.  It has floored me when people were semi-incredulous that it was "home-made".

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I have posted here before about something I make every year for my office's pre-Thanksgiving lunch -- chocolate pudding with softly whipped cream.

Every year there is at least one new employee who won't believe that you can make pudding.

And are several who each year stand slack-jawed as I apply a whisk to a quart of cream.

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I remember my mother making fresh whipped cream to serve with her freshly made Duncan Hines angel food cake. She would add a bit of instant coffee to both the cake mix and the whipped cream. Good stuff!

[WHT]

I am not sure what I find stranger; people that buy microwave mashed potatoes or the people that can’t understand the directions on the package.

[MsMelkor]

These are the people who scorned my beautiful Bavarian Apple cheesecake, and instead chose the unset, warm, Jello no-bake cheesecake with the burned crust that my SIL made.  Heathens.

I had a similar experience at my mother's a few months ago. I made the lemon tart w/pine nut crust and honey mascarpone from The French Laundry Cookbook for a family dinner (about 20 people), and my mom made a couple of "pies" from Jell-O chocolate pudding, Cool Whip, and premade graham cracker crusts. Nearly everyone in the family peered suspiciously at the lemon tart and then went for the pudding concoction. Oh well, that left more for me (and Melkor)....

[chile_peppa]

I'm not making this up...

At dinner last night, my son told me about his cousin's new girlfriend. She was going to make French toast. After dipping the bread in egg, she boiled (NOT broiled -- I asked!) it. When making macaroni and cheese from a box, she put the cheese powder in the boiling water with the noodles - no milk, no butter. She couldn't figure out how to turn on the oven and was astonished when my son showed her how to turn the knob (she was looking for a push button). Lord help us if this turns out to be a serious relationship and she becomes a member of the family!

[fatmat]

The ingenuity of Pizza delivery companies at getting more saturated fat in pizzas than ever before. I figure that the UK are probably way behind the US on the pizza front, but a few years ago the stuffed crust pizza appeared in the UK - just when you thought that they couldn't get more cheese into the pizza, they found a gap in the crust and put it there. Now Dominos have gone one better and released the double layer pizza - base/cheese/more base/toppings/cheese - This is coronary genius!!!

[fatmat]

I am floored that in North Carolina, at the height of the apple season, the grocery store is selling apples from New Zealand.  I mean, there are apples growing RIGHT HERE!  How can it possibly be more cost-effective to ship them from the other side of the world?

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There are 800+ different varieties of apple growing in the UK and we still buy flavourless French apples!!!!! It's just plain wrong

Edited November 13, 2004 by fatmat (log)

[fatmat]

It floors me when... I spend days planning and hours preparing a fantastic meal (not to mention the cost for the finest ingredients)... and my guests turn up with a single bottle of super cheapo Vin Gutrot - leaving me to provide not only the food but the wine for the evening as well!!!

Edited November 13, 2004 by fatmat (log)

[Misa]

It floors me when people expect me to bake something for them because "you like doing it." While I do enjoy doing it, I'm not rich. So, when somebody asks me to make them something that would cost me $30 or $40 (because I might not have the ingredients on hand) and I tell them I wouldn't mind doing it, but they'll have cover the cost of the ingredients (and I don't add on labor or anything like that), they get mad. "But I thought you liked doing this. Why should I have to pay for it if you enjoy doing it?" Nevermind the fact that they usually ask on short notice and I still try to do it, even if I'm busy.

[bleudauvergne]

My brother even makes his own mayonnaise.  I have no desire to ask him for that recipe or his catsup recipe.  ...

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I'm floored. I find it easier to make mayo than to go out and buy it, and it tastes better. Ketchup, on the other hand, is something we buy. I do have a recipe for it, though. The recipe I have takes a long time to make.

Anyway, I was floored when we went to some friends for dinner and they said they made a "special sauce" made of mixed ketchup, mustard, and mayo, and they were churning Pringles around in it. I politely dipped a chip in the disgusting vaguely orange chemical bath as I sipped on my muscat when they mentioned they made this sauce just for me - being American they knew I would love this! At that point I almost choked. They were being quite sincere, and other than this wierd anomoly they have been nothing but friendly and supportive people. I thought it was a joke at first but then I realized it was true, they really thought that this is what Americans like to eat. If course I couldn't say anything. When I think back on meals we've had at their house I always thought it was because they have kids that we were served things like breaded fish sticks and tater tots, but I really think now that maybe they thought that's what we like to eat.

We served Mongolian Hot Pot once to them in the past. And the sauce made with the fermented tofu and sesame paste was I think something they'd never had before, so maybe they got some strange impression. The next time we had them over I prepared the fricasee de Poulet de Bresse with fois gras sauce, they seemed to like it. We'll see what happens next.

[StudentChefEclipse]

I've been job-hunting lately. When I come across an ad for waitstaff at a restaurant, I give the manager a call to set up an appointment to bring around my resume and my credentials. Everyone I talk to says they are absolutely begging for good help. (This is not fine-dining we're talking, but local casual eateries.)

What I am floored by is the fact that no one seems to understand the concept of career-changing. In every case, I make it clear that I have changed careers to work in food, that I have just graduated from school, that I have no experience but lots of drive and I learn fast and well. So the idea of being OVER-QUALIFIED sort of makes no sense to me. For a number of reasons.

[Mottmott]

It floors me when... I spend days planning and hours preparing a fantastic meal (not to mention the cost for the finest ingredients)... and my guests turn up with a single bottle of super cheapo Vin Gutrot - leaving me to provide not only the food but the wine for the evening as well!!!

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But when you're providing a work of love meal, chose the wines yourself. Your guests aren't even aware of your menu and what will be appropriate.

That said, showing up to dinner with a cheap wine unless you know it's going to be pizza or spaghetti, etc., is, well, cheap. People who don't know much about wine should bring flowers, candy, or send diamonds to the hostess the next day.

[Mottmott]

[ LOL....our homes aren't restaurants and you don't always get it your way I know it's nice and hospitable, but really....sometimes it just gets out of hand I think.

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[birder53]

It floors me when... I spend days planning and hours preparing a fantastic meal (not to mention the cost for the finest ingredients)... and my guests turn up with a single bottle of super cheapo Vin Gutrot - leaving me to provide not only the food but the wine for the evening as well!!!

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I prefer to choose the wines myself. Unless you have a guest with excellent taste in wine who asks to bring something to compliment the meal, I would just say thank you for the wine and consider it a gift to drink at another time. Why take chances when you have already put such time and effort into your meal.

Edited November 15, 2004 by birder53 (log)