eG Foodblog: Marlena - Life is Delicious Wherever I am

[CaliPoutine]

My Bagel Breakfast

My bagel this morning was soooooo good, the first bagel after a long bagel-less couple of months, how good was it? it was so good that when i was biting into it i was thinking: I wish I had TWO MOUTHS! so could eat it in both at the same time!

Crisp edges, tons of seeds and onion and garlic, just enough butter that i put on only to sort of warm it not to melt, and since the butter was sweet (unsalted) i sprinkled the tiniest amount of salt flakes here and there.

Lip-smacking sounds ensure just thinking about it.

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Here is another thing we're on the same page about. I wrote about this same topic in my blog too. I can't find a decent bagel here, even Montreal bagels dont measure up to NY Bagels. Whenever I go back to Ft. Lauderdale, Fl to visit family( 2x a year). I bring home bagels from my favorite Jewish Deli.

I have you beat though, I bring home 2 dozen!! I just ate my last one a couple days ago and now I really want one!!

Have you ever tried making them at home? I heard the recipe in Bread Baker's Apprentice was good.

[helenjp]

Passsionfruit! That's something I miss from NZ - it's a bit too cold here in winter for the vines to survive. What I like best about them is that they just GROW - you don't need to mess about with that care and cultivation stuff, you just go out one day and there are the beautiful flowers - and only the wonderful fruit could console one for the fact that they fade and die...

Thanks for the sage offer, but honestly, I can smell it as I type...I don't need the actual physical presence .

One thing about not living in an English-speaking countries is that whole aeons of food culture come and go unknown to me - I googled you on Amazon.uk, and gosh, your Jewish Heritage book comes up in a paired offer with my sister's everyday food bible, Evelyn Rose's book! It's fate...

I'm very sad that you wrote a book about cheese though - it's probably the food I miss most in Japan.

My microwave has a place in my kitchen - I think particularly because I only have 2 heating elements on my gas range, so it speeds things up to have one more cooking device around. And secondly, packed lunches here are supposed to leave home HOT - so it's either up at 5 am with the gas stove, or up at 6:30am with the microwave!

I'm enjoying sudden memory-shocks - Hiroyuki asked about NZ foods that I still cook in Japan, and because the British tradition is so strong in NZ, your blog keeps uncovering things that might have been covered by the detritus of many mental flood-tides for ever (doesn't that sound better than "I forgot all about it"?).

Macaroni cheese! I feed it to my kids, but my husband thinks it's a side dish to be eaten with rice, so I never cook it when he's around!

Steamed puddings - I brought my grandmother's stained old pudding cloth to Japan with me, and a pudding basin too.

And cornish pasties - for a while I made them often in Japan, but I'd forgotten all about them...good with lamb too...hmmm.

Bagels - I have to agree with your husband. I'm sure there are good bagels there, but the ones I see in bags in the Japanese supermarkets can just stay right there, thank you.

[Swisskaese]

Mochihead - Macadamia nuts!!! I love them, but alas they are outrageously expensive here.

We also have passionfruit and every season I forget that I want to try a recipe I found for Passionfruit Sangria.

We have both the red and white guavas, they are really lovely.

I miss pineapples. We have terrible pineapples. They are so tiny.

You mentioned that the area where you live is blackberry capital. Are they any specialites, using blackberries, from the there?

[marlena spieler]

Mochihead - Macadamia nuts!!! I love them, but alas they are outrageously expensive here.

We also have passionfruit and every season I forget that I want to try a recipe I found for Passionfruit Sangria.

We have both the red and white guavas, they are really lovely.

I miss pineapples. We have terrible pineapples. They are so tiny.

You mentioned that the area where you live is blackberry capital. Are they any specialites, using blackberries, from the there?

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When I come visit you, and really, you're closer than Mochihead so i should do it sooner, so when i come visit you i'll bring you some of our english pineapples, which are very sweet, and well yes, folks, i'm sure they dont GROW them here, but not sure where they do grow them, as they are very sweet-tart-juicy. and reasonably priced! (not like in nyc where you need a 2nd mortgage to buy a pineapple!).

i'm interested in the red and white guavas. and the passionfruit.

and yes, when blackberry season hits we have blackberries along every road, alleyway and path in the area, along every fence, and down by the creek. and yes, they are so much better than any you can buy.

interestingly enough, though not a big surprise, there don't seem to be any blackberry specialities in the area. I once did a BBC Radio 4 programme, i think it was Woman's Hour, on Blackberries. they had two food writers bring in blackberry dishes. the other brought in blackberry mint pie, and also another british traditional blackberry dish which i forget. i could mention the other food writer but i don't have a good word to say about her, so i simply will leave that blank unfilled. in the same vein, it would be churlish of me to mention whose dishes the production crew liked best, but i might just add a meow right here. and believe me, i don't like myself for this!

i brought in a spicy grilled duck salad with blackberries, and also my very favourite summertime pud: I make a gelee of elderflower cordial and suspend blackberries in it when the geleatin is half-gelled. sometimes i do this in bon-bon size to just pick them up with your fingers and eat them before they slither off in the summertime heat; sometimes i make them in regular dessert sized portions; individual ones look nicest. sometimes i add raspberries too which gives a lovely pale pink tinge to the crystal clear blackberry dotted thing.

elderflower cordial is one of britain's finest foodstuffs as far as i'm concerned, for the gelees i love to make. there is nothing so light and fragrant on a summers evening, and very elegant for entertaining!

sometimes i think i live for blackberry season, and elderflower cordial. (i know you can make your own, but i always buy it. so easy! so good!) i believe you can buy it online in the us. as for israel? i don't know.......

[mochihead]

Mochihead - Macadamia nuts!!! I love them, but alas they are outrageously expensive here.

We also have passionfruit and every season I forget that I want to try a recipe I found for Passionfruit Sangria.

We have both the red and white guavas, they are really lovely.

I miss pineapples. We have terrible pineapples. They are so tiny.

You mentioned that the area where you live is blackberry capital. Are they any specialites, using blackberries, from the there?

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Wow! When you said in your blog that you had faboo produce, I didn't realize that you could get all of the tropical fruits that we have here, too! I would love to hear about that passion fruit sangria recipe.

Oh, and macadamias - everyone can have my share. It's one of the few nuts that I really don't thoroughly enjoy eating, along with Brazil nuts. I think I'm jaded to them, because well, they grow in the backyard! Hmmm... I wonder what shipping costs to where you live would be.

[helenjp]

Blackberries *groan*. When I return to NZ, I buy frozen blackberries to make pie with, because we are never there in summer. I'm sure my kids don't understand it, but I have so many memories of blackberrying! Of course, in those days you couldn't buy them, you HAD to pick your own.

I think blackberry jam is my favorite jam.

[Adam Balic]

okay, here is my treacle sponge pudding

it serves 4, or 2, or 1, if you know what i mean......

its a little overindulgent; the recipe only called for half the amount of syrup originally, placed in the bottom of the bowl. while that was good, i discovered that double the amount of syrup was even better, especially sort of doused on after the baking.

4 ounces/125g softened butter, plus extra for buttering the pudding bowl

4 ounces/125g sugar

2 eggs

4 ounces/125 g self raising flour

pinch of salt

1-2 tablespoons milk

8 tablespoons golden syrup

2 tablespoons water

butter a 1 pint pudding basin and set aside.

    Cream together the butter and sugar until they are soft and fluffy. Add one egg, whip it into the mix, then add the other egg together with a tablespoon of the flour and whip them together. Gently mix in the flour, salt, and milk. It should make a thick batter.

    Spoon half the syrup into the bottom of the pudding bowl and spoon the batter onto the top. Cover with a piece of buttered parchment paper and secure it tightly with string. Set into a large pot of boiling water about half way up the sides of the bowl.

    Steam for 35-40 minutes.

    Remove from heat, and remove pudding bowl from steaming pot.

    Meanwhile, in a saucepan warm through the remaining syrup with the water and bring to the boil.

    Remove the paper topping from the pudding and discard. Pour the hot syrup over the top of the pudding, loosening the sides so that the syrup trickles down the sides of the pudding and reaches the bottom of the bowl. Dig in with a spoon and serve some of the pudding, some of the hot syrup with each portion.

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I think that I now know why you have never had a non-heavy steamed pudding

. In Australia we have an old fashioned pudding called "Golden syrup dumplings" which is basically scone dough poached in golden syrup and butter and is similarly rib sticking. If I create a 'pudding thread' would it be OK to copy this recipe over?

[marlena spieler]

okay, here is my treacle sponge pudding

it serves 4, or 2, or 1, if you know what i mean......

its a little overindulgent; the recipe only called for half the amount of syrup originally, placed in the bottom of the bowl. while that was good, i discovered that double the amount of syrup was even better, especially sort of doused on after the baking.

4 ounces/125g softened butter, plus extra for buttering the pudding bowl

4 ounces/125g sugar

2 eggs

4 ounces/125 g self raising flour

pinch of salt

1-2 tablespoons milk

8 tablespoons golden syrup

2 tablespoons water

butter a 1 pint pudding basin and set aside.

    Cream together the butter and sugar until they are soft and fluffy. Add one egg, whip it into the mix, then add the other egg together with a tablespoon of the flour and whip them together. Gently mix in the flour, salt, and milk. It should make a thick batter.

    Spoon half the syrup into the bottom of the pudding bowl and spoon the batter onto the top. Cover with a piece of buttered parchment paper and secure it tightly with string. Set into a large pot of boiling water about half way up the sides of the bowl.

    Steam for 35-40 minutes.

    Remove from heat, and remove pudding bowl from steaming pot.

    Meanwhile, in a saucepan warm through the remaining syrup with the water and bring to the boil.

    Remove the paper topping from the pudding and discard. Pour the hot syrup over the top of the pudding, loosening the sides so that the syrup trickles down the sides of the pudding and reaches the bottom of the bowl. Dig in with a spoon and serve some of the pudding, some of the hot syrup with each portion.

←

I think that I now know why you have never had a non-heavy steamed pudding

. In Australia we have an old fashioned pudding called "Golden syrup dumplings" which is basically scone dough poached in golden syrup and butter and is similarly rib sticking. If I create a 'pudding thread' would it be OK to copy this recipe over?

←

what are you saying? you're not clear.

marlena

a treacle sponge recipe note: i have one in the steamer right now. when i was making the sponge i added 3 tablespoons instead of the 1 to 2 that the recipe initially called for. it should be ready in.....about 15 minutes, its bubbling and steaming away. the sponge seemed light and fluffy; i tasted the batter on my finger of course. it was delicious: i licked the spoon and the bowl too. i almost didn't want to put the batter into the pudding bowl.

further note: i made the whole thing in the food processor. i might eschew a microwave, but i love my food processor.

[Adam Balic]

okay, here is my treacle sponge pudding

it serves 4, or 2, or 1, if you know what i mean......

its a little overindulgent; the recipe only called for half the amount of syrup originally, placed in the bottom of the bowl. while that was good, i discovered that double the amount of syrup was even better, especially sort of doused on after the baking.

4 ounces/125g softened butter, plus extra for buttering the pudding bowl

4 ounces/125g sugar

2 eggs

4 ounces/125 g self raising flour

pinch of salt

1-2 tablespoons milk

8 tablespoons golden syrup

2 tablespoons water

butter a 1 pint pudding basin and set aside.

     Cream together the butter and sugar until they are soft and fluffy. Add one egg, whip it into the mix, then add the other egg together with a tablespoon of the flour and whip them together. Gently mix in the flour, salt, and milk. It should make a thick batter.

     Spoon half the syrup into the bottom of the pudding bowl and spoon the batter onto the top. Cover with a piece of buttered parchment paper and secure it tightly with string. Set into a large pot of boiling water about half way up the sides of the bowl.

     Steam for 35-40 minutes.

     Remove from heat, and remove pudding bowl from steaming pot.

     Meanwhile, in a saucepan warm through the remaining syrup with the water and bring to the boil.

     Remove the paper topping from the pudding and discard. Pour the hot syrup over the top of the pudding, loosening the sides so that the syrup trickles down the sides of the pudding and reaches the bottom of the bowl. Dig in with a spoon and serve some of the pudding, some of the hot syrup with each portion.

←

I think that I now know why you have never had a non-heavy steamed pudding

. In Australia we have an old fashioned pudding called "Golden syrup dumplings" which is basically scone dough poached in golden syrup and butter and is similarly rib sticking. If I create a 'pudding thread' would it be OK to copy this recipe over?

←

what are you saying? you're not clear.

marlena

a treacle sponge recipe note: i have one in the steamer right now. when i was making the sponge i added 3 tablespoons instead of the 1 to 2 that the recipe initially called for. it should be ready in.....about 15 minutes, its bubbling and steaming away. the sponge seemed light and fluffy; i tasted the batter on my finger of course. it was delicious: i licked the spoon and the bowl too. i almost didn't want to put the batter into the pudding bowl.

further note: i made the whole thing in the food processor. i might eschew a microwave, but i love my food processor.

←

Eh, just that I though I now knew what you meant when you said "But I've never eaten a light steamed pudding." as the recipe will be quite rich.

[marlena spieler]

goodness, once again with the pudding-talk, and i've completely forgotten to tell you all about my lunch.

last night i mentioned poaching some chicken in a broth with star anise, gingerroot, dried shiitake, and onions/garlic.

Today I took the two chicken legs and browned them lightly in a pan, then added some thinly sliced carrot, red pepper, fresh chopped ginger, shiitakes, and baby bok choy. I ladled in some stock a little at a time to reduce it into a sauce, seasoning it with a little bit of sugar and soy sauce for a sweet-savoury balance.

i served it with a drizzle of soy and sesame oil. very very umami. and warming on this cold afternoon. i had gotten the idea from visiting helenjp's blog, but the spicing was a result of my vietnamese-philia: i love the star anise and ginger, sweet- spicy thing. mmmmmmm.

[marlena spieler]

okay, here is my treacle sponge pudding

it serves 4, or 2, or 1, if you know what i mean......

its a little overindulgent; the recipe only called for half the amount of syrup originally, placed in the bottom of the bowl. while that was good, i discovered that double the amount of syrup was even better, especially sort of doused on after the baking.

4 ounces/125g softened butter, plus extra for buttering the pudding bowl

4 ounces/125g sugar

2 eggs

4 ounces/125 g self raising flour

pinch of salt

1-2 tablespoons milk

8 tablespoons golden syrup

2 tablespoons water

butter a 1 pint pudding basin and set aside.

    Cream together the butter and sugar until they are soft and fluffy. Add one egg, whip it into the mix, then add the other egg together with a tablespoon of the flour and whip them together. Gently mix in the flour, salt, and milk. It should make a thick batter.

    Spoon half the syrup into the bottom of the pudding bowl and spoon the batter onto the top. Cover with a piece of buttered parchment paper and secure it tightly with string. Set into a large pot of boiling water about half way up the sides of the bowl.

    Steam for 35-40 minutes.

    Remove from heat, and remove pudding bowl from steaming pot.

    Meanwhile, in a saucepan warm through the remaining syrup with the water and bring to the boil.

    Remove the paper topping from the pudding and discard. Pour the hot syrup over the top of the pudding, loosening the sides so that the syrup trickles down the sides of the pudding and reaches the bottom of the bowl. Dig in with a spoon and serve some of the pudding, some of the hot syrup with each portion.

←

I think that I now know why you have never had a non-heavy steamed pudding

. In Australia we have an old fashioned pudding called "Golden syrup dumplings" which is basically scone dough poached in golden syrup and butter and is similarly rib sticking. If I create a 'pudding thread' would it be OK to copy this recipe over?

←

what are you saying? you're not clear.

marlena

a treacle sponge recipe note: i have one in the steamer right now. when i was making the sponge i added 3 tablespoons instead of the 1 to 2 that the recipe initially called for. it should be ready in.....about 15 minutes, its bubbling and steaming away. the sponge seemed light and fluffy; i tasted the batter on my finger of course. it was delicious: i licked the spoon and the bowl too. i almost didn't want to put the batter into the pudding bowl.

further note: i made the whole thing in the food processor. i might eschew a microwave, but i love my food processor.

←

Eh, just that I though I now knew what you meant when you said "But I've never eaten a light steamed pudding." as the recipe will be quite rich.

←

but rich is not necessarily heavy; and most of the steamed puddings i've eaten have been made and steamed by someone else's loving hands.

this pudding is so rich that you find parts of your body shaking that you never even knew that you had. well perhaps i exaggerate. but it does make me shuckle with delight. if i'm gonna eat heavy, i'd like it to be rich. you know, like shortbread: they are very rich. and filling. but not necessarily heavy.

[Abra]

Wow, Marlena, you said two of the most eGulletish things I've ever seen on eGullet! That you wish you had TWO MOUTHS, and that you'd gotten a little pocket prosciutto for travel! I think you get the eG crown for those gems.

Hey, if you have blackberry passion, you need to visit me too. Blackberries are a weed around here. This past summer I had a new garden helper, and I had to tell him to quit whacking all my blackberries because "around here they're a crop, not a pest!"

[hathor]

....pssst... I don't have a microwave either. I'm a menace around one, all I want to do is make things blow up.

And one of my all time favorite sports is panty/refrigerator shopping! Line up those ingredients and see what happens. We actually named one dish a "starvation salad" (long story....on a barge in France and no food to be had ).

But...you mention elderflower cordial. Have you ever made elderflower syrup? Does it need to be distilled or can the flower just steep? anyone? I have a passion for this flavor. Its great in the morning with some bubbly water, makes a great sorbet...I could go on and on....

And please let me know if you head back to Umbria!

[marlena spieler]

Wow, Marlena, you said two of the most eGulletish things I've ever seen on eGullet!  That you wish you had TWO MOUTHS, and that you'd gotten a little pocket prosciutto for travel!  I think you get the eG crown for those gems.

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i WAS rather proud of those lines and feel very very flattered to have them called egullet-ish! well, perhaps proud is not exactly the right word, if you know what i mean, but thank you, thank you!

i SHOULD come out to blackberry season your way! when is it? maybe just maybe i'll be able to come out. we could have a blackberry-a-thon!

what do you do with yours?

Actually i have this fruit soup/dessert that i was making last summer, very light and refreshing. i should rifle through my files and see if i have it anywhere. after all this heavy steamed pudding stuff i'd like to show that i can, indeed, have a lighter touch!

now, to get back to the subject of steamed puddings for a moment, though.

my treacle sponge was deeee-vine. this time as i said i used a little extra milk, and more syrup, even more syrup than the original. the sponge kept absorbing golden syrup, so i kept adding more. i served it with warm....wait for it......ambroasia custard from a tin. YES. i opened one of the many tins of Ambrosia that my hopeful husband bought while i was gone, and here's what i think: treacle sponge is fabulouso with tinned ambrosia custard. the thing about ambrosia custard is this: its very thick, and has a lovely creamy texure, kinda like the pudding inbetween the balls of tapioca. its just that it has no vanila, well no flavour except for sweet. bland. creamy. but with the treacle sponge, its juuuuuuust right.

the secret to this dish, according to husband, is that the sponge and the treacle is piping hot, and the custard is as warm as it can be.

it WAS good. says marlena

[marlena spieler]

....pssst... I don't have a microwave either. I'm a menace around one, all I want to do is make things blow up.

And one of my all time favorite sports is panty/refrigerator shopping! Line up those ingredients and see what happens. We actually named one dish a "starvation salad" (long story....on a barge in France and no food to be had  ).

But...you mention elderflower cordial. Have you ever made elderflower syrup? Does it need to be distilled or can the flower just steep? anyone? I have a passion for this flavor. Its great in the morning with some bubbly water, makes a great sorbet...I could go on and on....

And please let me know if you head back to Umbria! 

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I too know what its like to see sparks flying all around the microwave (no one mentioned that there couldn't be even a speck of metal in the bowl). it made the microwave look as if it was having a visitation by otherworldly forces!

I don't make elderflower cordial as am too lazy and there are too many good kinds available on sale. i do love it, and if i'm ever far from it i'll have to learn the secret to its preparation. i bet someone out there knows!

Ah i love Umbria! do you spend much time there? where? my culinary heart is divided up into several parts: italian, french, greek, israeli, mexican, black southern, with a wee bit of spanish. i'm sure there are other compartments that i haven't even ventured into. there is a little corner of bulgaria there. whenever i am where i'm eating these things i feel like i totally belong: the language, the lifestyle, the whole damned thing!

Umbria is really an enchanted place though. very cozy. and i love the truffles! love the italians, of course! and don't even mention the porchetta!

Lining up the refrigerator/pantry goodies and putting together dishes IS a great sport, isn't it! do you ever do it at friends houses? thats my fave, cause people just go: wow, i thought i had nothing on the shelves, and there you are making schnitzel, shredded vegetables, whirling up a little cocktail.......

Edited January 6, 2006 by marlena spieler (log)

[Swisskaese]

Here is the Passion Fruit Sangria recipe.

We grow all types of fruit here. I will try and do another blog in Spring/Summer and show all of our bounty.

[hathor]

We are in Umbria about 6-7 months of the year at this point, and right now I'm missing home very badly.

You go into people's cupboards?? Brava! What fun! I'm very badly behaved and get all preachy about all the prepared foods available in the U.S. My mother gets particularly peeved at me. I just don't understand the rational of all these prepared, pre-flavored, pre-chopped things....and aisles and aisles of salad dressings... Sorry. Its a sore point with me.

[Swisskaese]

Well, I come from the deep South and I can say that my second Mom, Alberta made the best fried chicken, peach pie, pecan pie and blackbery pie and cornbread dressing I have ever had.

My parent's house used to be on a dead-end street and at the end of the street were blackberry bushes. My brother and sister and I would pick as many as we could find and Alberta would make a glorious pie.

Then, one day they bulldozed through the blackberry bushes and built a road.

The treacle pudding sounds very nice, but I would have to serve it with plain custard. I really dislike tapioca.

The duck and blackberries sounds divine. I also would like to try lamb and blackberries. I saw a recipe for it once and it looked very interesting.

I also want to try Marlena's "Sephardic Roasted Chicken With Two Kinds Of Ginger And As Many Kinds Of Grapes As You Can Find" when grape season begins. That really sounds delicious.

Edited January 6, 2006 by Swisskaese (log)

[marlena spieler]

We are in Umbria about 6-7 months of the year at this point, and right now I'm missing home very badly.

You go into people's cupboards?? Brava! What fun!  I'm very badly behaved and get all preachy about all the prepared foods available in the U.S. My mother gets particularly peeved at me. I just don't understand the rational of all these prepared, pre-flavored, pre-chopped things....and aisles and aisles of salad dressings... Sorry.  Its a sore point with me.

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me too, esp bottled salad dressings: i just want to yell: get a bottle of evoo, and a lemon!

where do you live in umbria, what do you do in umbria, do you like strangozzi with truffles, are the truffles out and about right now and where are you right now can we go truffle hunting? when i was in umbria last i did a little walking around trying to imagine myself living there, but an italian friend i was with said: no one will ever accept you, it will be worse even than britain where 18 years here has left me feeling even more estranged and lonely, and yet, i did begin to wonder.....she said that when she went back to italy it was very difficult. but then, there is italy and there is italy, every region is so very different. did you do the buy a run-down place and fix it up thing? (am jealous of people able to fix things up, we can't even figure out how to plug our phone in, and still use the broken one with the crackling, dangling wire).

i have some strangozzi right here on my shelf. after our late afternoon tea of treacle sponge and custard, i don't think we would have room for strangozzi. but still. eventually i'll get hungry again.....and when i do, strangozzi will be there for me!

whats your favourite umbrian thing?

Marlena

[Zucchini Mama]

Marlena! All this talk of grilled cheese and not one word about Welsh Rarebit? I somehow only make it when I'm on England. Do your ever make it?

I have good memories of cycling to the Hundred House, picking blackberries from the hedgerows and then making an apple blackberry rustic tart.

Zuke

[hathor]

whats your favourite umbrian thing?

Marlena

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[daniellewiley]

Here is another thing we're on the same page about.    I wrote about this same topic in my blog too.  I can't find a decent bagel here, even Montreal bagels dont measure up to NY Bagels.  Whenever  I go back to Ft. Lauderdale, Fl to visit family( 2x a year).  I bring home bagels from my favorite Jewish Deli. 

I have you beat though, I bring home 2 dozen!!  I just ate my last one a couple days ago and now I really want one!! 

Have you ever tried making them at home?  I heard the recipe in Bread Baker's Apprentice was good.

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Randi, what about the bagels at Zingerman's? I find those adequate substitutes in between my trips home to NY.

[Swisskaese]

I think we should plan an eGullet long weekend in Umbria and all stay here.

[CaliPoutine]

Here is another thing we're on the same page about.    I wrote about this same topic in my blog too.  I can't find a decent bagel here, even Montreal bagels dont measure up to NY Bagels.   Whenever  I go back to Ft. Lauderdale, Fl to visit family( 2x a year).  I bring home bagels from my favorite Jewish Deli. 

I have you beat though, I bring home 2 dozen!!  I just ate my last one a couple days ago and now I really want one!! 

Have you ever tried making them at home?  I heard the recipe in Bread Baker's Apprentice was good.

←

Randi, what about the bagels at Zingerman's? I find those adequate substitutes in between my trips home to NY.

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Sorry Danielle, I wasn't that impressed with Zing's bagels.

I really think that if you're raised on good Jewish bagels, nothing else will do. The bagels I bring back from Florida are really good. On Sunday's people line up out the door to get them. While eating a bagel last week, Robin said " I don't understand what the big deal is about these". No, of course she wouldnt because she grew up eating rolls with holes in them.

Edited January 6, 2006 by CaliPoutine (log)

[marlena spieler]

Marlena! All this talk of grilled cheese and not one word about Welsh Rarebit? I somehow only make it when I'm on England. Do your ever make it?

Zuke

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I make a sort of faux, or streamlined, welsh rarebit, on toast with a poached egg: here is what i do:

shred lots of sharp Cheddar, toss it with a little bit of Worchestershire sauce, and a few drops of Tabasco, a tablespoon or two of beer.

Poach an egg, then lay it on top of a piece of buttered wholewheat toast, top with a very big wodge of the shredded cheese mixture and run it under the grill/broiler.

When it is sizzly melty, the rarebitty thing is ready.

this is one of my desert island comfort foods.

how do you make yours?