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eG Foodblog: FabulousFoodBabe - Of Queens and Former Presidents


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So another day ends chez Foodbabe. We are pooped from two weeks of houseguests -- first, the inlaws and then, a girl my older son met on his work/study to Vancouver this summer. She lives just outside Los Angeles. Of course. Every time we've relocated we chose neighborhoods with lots of kids so that the boys would have someone close by to hang with. Every single time -- no kidding -- they connected with someone who lived a few miles away. Now, it's 3000 miles. Sigh.

We have few traditions in our house, but the ones we have mostly revolve around food and drink. Memorial Day and Labor Day meals are blue cheese-stuffed burgers (for us; the boys have plain or hot dogs), potato and egg salad, and the last "legal" gin & tonics of the season.

My husband's job is to be sure I've got mine in hand by the time the burgers go on the grill:

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As you can see, my kitchen island is a little cramped. I try not to get too mad at it; it didn't ask to be annoying.

The kids love this soda, and I try to get some for them once in a great while. Pure cane sugar -- I could never drink full-sugar sodas sweetened with corn syrup,but this stuff is pretty nice.

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We started our pre-dinner noshing with a Hardie Family Favorite: Wieners Wellington

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"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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Firstborn:  Egg bagel.  This is a plain bagel, toasted and buttered, with scrambled eggs (NO seasoning, no salt, nothing, nada, and 'firm').  Hey, it works for him.

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Works for me, too. That looks delicious, and I'm glad to know that someone else in this universe likes their eggs scrambled firm/well/dry/no runny stuff, thank you ever so!

Marcia.

Don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted...he lived happily ever after. -- Willy Wonka

eGullet foodblog

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Fabulous food babe,

I'm glad to see you blogging, I have admired your shoes from afar.

I'd love to know how the renovation process is going for you.

If you go with the banana dessert, please take a picture and post it as buying bananas here requires most of your child's college fund.

Aw, shucks. Thank you, fou. the shoes are lovely and I smile through the pain!

Unfortunately, the banana dessert was nixed by everyone here, since they wanted to eat Chipwich's (yick). More on my husband's horrible eating habits and the fact that, at 48, he looks like he's 22, later (when I'm not reminded of how jealous that makes me!).

But I will do the bananas, maybe tomorrow night. They've got another day or two left on them. Probably for the best, because we had issues with the oven and the plumbing today; I had to put out a fire and deal with a flood. But more on the reno later this week. In short, the cabinets have been chosen and are now being designed; variances have been requested; appliance schedules have been finalized and all materials have been chosen. And best of all -- a contractor who is just amazing is doing the work.

Anyway. Here's my mis en place (I call it plaaaahhhhhzzz) for the burgers:

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And what my dinner looked like

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Best of all, we finished a bottle of one of my favorite wines in the world: Williams Selyem 2003 Pinot Noir. Sigh.

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I didn't photograph the stock becuz I forgot, and I'm too lazy to go back and do it. :rolleyes:

tomorrow, if it's nice out, I'm going to play golf with my husband and another couple. The club we belong to has THE most amazing chef (we'll have dinner there tomorrow night with some friends and I'll show you), and equally great is Mary, who runs the halfway house. Her hot dogs are legendary, and I'm sure are why I always shoot better on the back 9.

*****

Oh, and Pan: We live on the Millwood side of Chappaqua -- where the poor folks are! :laugh: Seriously, one of my son's friends said they "downsized" by moving from Riverdale to here. Good grief. I've got too much Ohio left in me, I think, to get my arms around that one!

good night, eGullet!

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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P.S.: About the Wieners Wellington: They are of Lobel's hot dogs, and Dufour's puff! I do my own puff when I have time and I haven't for a while, but this stuff is pretty great in a pinch.

And yeah, my husband likes HIS W'sW with dough-in-a-can. ::shudder:: The man should weigh a wheezing, cholesterol-laden 300#. It's just not fair! (whine!)

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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Chappaqua, huh... do you know the dammann's or the baltays?

i guess its a bit too early for leaf peeping, so, could you install the smell-a-puter function so i can at least smell the beginnings of an east coast fall?

tia :wink:

dvs (transplanted right-coaster)(living on the left coast)

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It's Sunday, and I can see some blue sky out there. Yippee skippee!

One of the reasons I chose the coffee cup for my teaser photo is because coffee has played a very prominent role in my marriage. Please tell me you've heard weirder things than that.

I forced myself to learn to drink coffee when I started working in an office. I soon realized that coffee wasn't the issue -- that coffee was. The stuff in a can that our company produced and actually sold to its employees was, and is, nasty (to me). I've always had a pretty sensitive palate and getting the good roasted beans was a revelation. And yeah, I was called 'Yuppie' because of it.

From the day we married, my husband has brought me a cup of coffee in the morning. The only exceptions have been my pregnancies when I was either too nauseous to smell it or too paranoid to drink it. He bought me a coffeemaker with a timer on it when we were dating, and I'd have a cup and a cigarette before I got out of bed in the morning, watching Joanie Someone do her Jazzercise routines in those legwarmers and leotards. What a way to wake up.

When we moved to California in 1988, a couple of small local companies were roasting their own and we got weekly batches. Moving to Central Ohio a few years later, I was thrilled to find a small roaster in Worthington -- I like to keep things close to home if I can, and I still remember fondly their "Large Marge" blend. When we moved to North Jersey, though, we had to travel to get the good stuff, which was fine. Then a family from Northern Cal moved in and with them, Peet's. My search was over.

Someone told my husband a long time ago that keeping the beans in the freezer retains freshness. I cannot get him to stop doing it, and because of that repeated attempts to get him to use a burr grinder have failed (imagine what they do to frozen beans and no, he won't let the beans sit out and be un-frozen). This is one quirk I let him have: Ground coffee only. And in a drip pot (I make my next cups with a small press pot). The new kitchen will have a Miele center that uses whole beans, but he's squawking that he still wants his Krups coffeemaker.

Please note that Mr. Foodbabe has used the same Borden sherbet container since 1992, to hold ground coffee. If he can't find it, he gets kind of twitchy. And then I get twitchy and all hell breaks loose.

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"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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Hi, I'm enjoying this blog, too.

When you were in Modesto, where did you go skiing? I worked at Dodge Ridge a part of one season. Couldn't stand preparing the food that was required and soon found a job cooking real food.

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This is a FABULOUS blog, naturally.

I only have one question.

What, exactly, is icky about Chipwiches???? :hmmm:

Chipwiches are delicious! :cool:

Basil endive parmesan shrimp live

Lobster hamster worchester muenster

Caviar radicchio snow pea scampi

Roquefort meat squirt blue beef red alert

Pork hocs side flank cantaloupe sheep shanks

Provolone flatbread goat's head soup

Gruyere cheese angelhair please

And a vichyssoise and a cabbage and a crawfish claws.

--"Johnny Saucep'n," by Moxy Früvous

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And you're off and running very early.

Hmm. This is what popped out of a garden my younger son grew this year. I'll add his gardening to some photos later on this week when the rain stops completely, so you can see what he's done. We were stumped by this until we cut it open. Now, we're semi-sure. Any ideas?

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There is a variety of zucchini called "Eight ball" - "unique, round, dark- green fruits won this new zucchini an All-American Award" that looks quite similar. There are older globe shaped ones as well - Italian Rondo? And Round French Squash from Seeds of Change, "Round zucchinis of exceptional flavor throughout growth, but most delicious steamed at 3 inch or stuffed at 5-6 inch. Prolific."

If the fruit is old, the seeds will be bigger and tougher.

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Well, I know where the Chappaqua exit on the Saw Mill is, and that's about it.

I was going to ask if you bought your coffee &/or tea from Simpson & Vail over in Pleasantville, but looking at their website, I see that they've moved to Connecticut. I have no idea when that happened or whether any of your time in Chappaqua might have coincided with their tenure in the area.

Back when S&V were located in NYC, I was just learning about the pleasures of real (non-supermarket, non-teabag) tea, & they were my first serious tea merchants. I drove up to their store in Pleasantville a couple of times after they moved out of the city, but that became impractical so I mail-ordered their stuff for a while before I found other sources.

Another side trip down Memory Lane. Please carry on.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea!

- Sydney Smith, English clergyman & essayist, 1771-1845

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Oh goody, it's you!  Looking forward to a great blog.  *

* Am hoping for gratuitous mention of the chef's footgear as well.   :wink:

I'm ashamed to admit that I only have three pairs of Danskos, all black. One pair oiled and two, shiny.

What? No Choos in the kitchen? :raz: I shouldn't tease - we all prefer to see fabulous footwear without food stains on the satin.

Which of the Peet's blends do you drink? It looks like Major Dickason's, but I couldn't be sure. I love Peet's coffee - it was the coffee that turned me into a coffee drinker (though it only took a decade or so between first tasting it and being able to get it on the east coast ... )

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From the day we married, my husband has brought me a cup of coffee in the morning.  [...]

What a sweet story. :wub:

What is a chipwich? At first, I thought it was a chain/fast-food restaurant but now I'm guessing it's a chip sandwich?

What CaliPoutine said, with LOTS AND LOTS of ingredients that don't exist in nature.

they're delicious. :wub:

Basil endive parmesan shrimp live

Lobster hamster worchester muenster

Caviar radicchio snow pea scampi

Roquefort meat squirt blue beef red alert

Pork hocs side flank cantaloupe sheep shanks

Provolone flatbread goat's head soup

Gruyere cheese angelhair please

And a vichyssoise and a cabbage and a crawfish claws.

--"Johnny Saucep'n," by Moxy Früvous

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Fabulous food babe,

I'm glad to see you blogging, I have admired your shoes from afar.

I'd love to know how the renovation process is going for you.

If you go with the banana dessert, please take a picture and post it as buying bananas here requires most of your child's college fund.

Apologies for taking this blog onto a brief tangent, but why are bananas so expensive in Australia, where you can surely grow them, and which is near other countries (e.g., Indonesia) where bananas are grown?

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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why are bananas so expensive in Australia, where you can surely grow them, and which is near other countries (e.g., Indonesia) where bananas are grown?

One possible answer here: Australia does not allow banana imports (or even apples from New Zealand - its free-trade partner) on the basis that these imports might bring in pests that could harm Australian agriculture. This means Australia has a very limited supply of domestic bananas ... recent cyclones damaged the crop and so, as supply has dropped, the prices have skyrocketed. Does any of this make sense to you as an explanation?

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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Greetings, your majesty! :biggrin:

Any chance you might make an expedition across the Hudson this week to visit my childhood hometown, Nyack? (It still kind of boggles my mind to know that there is now fine dining going on there, as well as live music and antiques and what-all--when I was in high school in the early 1970s, all those chichi cafes and shops were nothing but a bunch of decrepit and/or vacant storefronts.)

(Edited because sometimes I kan't spel)

Edited by mizducky (log)
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Gifted Gourmet has it exactly right. Cyclone Larry ripped through Queensland earlier this year destroying most of the banana plantations and driving the cost of bananas to between 16 and20 dollars a kilo.

Sorry for the interruption.

I think I lived on chipwiches and their ilk as a child. Lovely, sticky memories.

Thanks :smile:

If only Jack Nicholson could have narrated my dinner, it would have been perfect.

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Hi, I'm enjoying this blog, too.

When you were in Modesto, where did you go skiing? I worked at Dodge Ridge a part of one season. Couldn't stand preparing the food that was required and soon found a job cooking real food.

Oh, yeah. Dodge Ridge! I learned to ski there. We also went sledding in Strawberry; I remember the "Bigfoot Sighting" tote board in the little general store in town. There was one woman who saw Bigfoot at least once a month!

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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This is a FABULOUS blog, naturally.

I only have one question.

What, exactly, is icky about Chipwiches????  :hmmm:

Chipwiches are delicious! :cool:

Chipwiches ... the ice cream, when it softens, gets kind of spongy ::shudder:: My husband likes the BadaBing Cherry variety.

Ling, they are also rolled in little mini-chocolate chips. I've made my own version of these for the family and they don't like them as much as the Chipwiches.

I give, and I give .... :wink:

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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Oh goody, it's you!  Looking forward to a great blog.  *

* Am hoping for gratuitous mention of the chef's footgear as well.  :wink:

I'm ashamed to admit that I only have three pairs of Danskos, all black. One pair oiled and two, shiny.

What? No Choos in the kitchen? :raz: I shouldn't tease - we all prefer to see fabulous footwear without food stains on the satin.

Which of the Peet's blends do you drink? It looks like Major Dickason's, but I couldn't be sure. I love Peet's coffee - it was the coffee that turned me into a coffee drinker (though it only took a decade or so between first tasting it and being able to get it on the east coast ... )

Ack! Choos are for the town car, honey! :laugh: (Oh, who am I kidding. The Volvo.) The few times I watched Top Chef, I laughed at the girl in the cowboy boots. I can imagine taking a slide across the floor in them. Yowch. The current kitchen floor is tile ... when we went to the Beard Foundation shindig a few weeks ago, I wore them on that concrete flooring at Rockefeller Center. Wound up walking barefoot to the train.

Peet's makes my mouth smile. I love Major Dickason's, and the Peaberry they get every so often. We get a monthly shipment and when I'm in the mood,I have them toss in a jar of Scharffen Berger chocolate sauce. I LOVE Peet's.

"Oh, tuna. Tuna, tuna, tuna." -Andy Bernard, The Office
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