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Favorite foods: Beets, brussel sprouts, risotto, tarts, pie, chili, cornbread, roast chicken, pesto, pasta, soup, cauliflower, olives, avocado, tomatoes, crisp apples, fresh baked bread, eggs, brown rice, all fruit

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The Ten Most Recent Posts By KitchenKore

From Talk

I have a mozzarella baby

I just went to a fabulous mozzarella cheese making workshop a friend hosted for her birthday at A&S Pork in Park Slope and now have a very fresh loaf of mozzarella cheese in my fridge. I need help - what should I do with this incredible mozzarella? The problem is that I think of mozzarella as more of a summer cheese -- it pairs so well with tomatoes and eggplant, which are far from in season now. What are good uses for mozzarella this time of year? My only ideas are a pizza, or just eating it on bread with olive oil. I'd love your suggestions!

From Talk

Holiday Baking - what are you making?

Now that Thanksgiving is over - on to holiday baking!

My plans include gingerbread, rugelach, ginger cookies, lemon sables, peppermint cookies, pistachio biscotti, and stollen.

What are you planning to bake this holiday season?

Do you give baked goods as gifts? Bring to the office? Parties?

From Talk

Food and Fiction

Last night I had a baked potato for dinner and it made me think of The Accidental Tourist, the novel by Anne Tyler. The family the book revolves around eats baked potatoes constantly, and the baked potato acts as sort of a metaphor for the character of the family - bland, boring, wholesome. Although I don't think baked potatoes are always boring (mine was quite delightful last night), I now associate baked potatoes with that book.

What foods do you associate with certain books?

The Ten Most Recent Comments By KitchenKore

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

Apple butter. I had a beautiful jar of apple butter that had been given to me as a gift in my carry-on about 4 months ago when I was returning from a trip, not even thinking about the liquid ban. It was confiscated and I wanted to cry. But really, is apple butter a liquid? I think it's a gray area...

From Talk

Friends Arriving - Where to get Pizza?

Take them to Grimaldi's in Brooklyn! I just had visitors in town this weekend and took them there, and it was great, as usual. Don't be daunted by the line, it moves fast. Grimaldi's is right under the Brooklyn Bridge; while you're there go down to the ferry landing or up to the Brooklyn Promenade for one of the best views of Manhattan. If you have time, you can also walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.

From Recipes

Sack Lunch: Black Beans and Rice

This is really funny because I just had black beans and rice (from home) for lunch at work today. I did Cuban food for my little Oscar party last night, which of course included black beans and rice. I had enough left over for several days of lunches this week. I topped it with a little whole milk Fage yogurt (totally not authentic, but good) and diced avocado.

From Talk

'I Drank your Milkshake!'

Vanilla with oreos. The best.

From Talk

What do you eat for breakfast on the weekend?

I love to have a latte and chocolate croissant for breakfast on the weekend.

From Talk

Looking to get rid of high-fructose corn syrup from your diet?

I don't find it difficult to avoid as I don't eat a lot of processed or packaged foods and don't drink soda. However, I can't see how simply replacing foods with HFCS with similar foods made with with real sugar is much healthier. Paying attention to how much sugar in any form (HFCS or cane sugar) you are consuming is probably a good idea.

From Talk

Have you inherited your parents' eating habits?

Fun question. I am happy to have inherited many of my parents' food habits as they eat fairly balanced, healthy meals. My mom is a great cook, and I mostly learned to cook from her. I probably eat more fruits and veggies, whole grains, and legumes than my parents (I was vegetarian for a while and still don't eat tons of meat). I don't use many mixes, but one I cannot give up is Jiffy cornbread mix - it was an essential food of my childhood - for cornbread muffins and pancakes. I definitely feel like that is a family inheritance!

From Talk

Any thoughts: Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone?

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is perhaps my all-time favorite cookbook, although I'm no longer vegetarian. I find it inspiring. Even if I don't follow a recipe exactly, it gives me ideas on what foods to combine to create wonderful meals and flavors. The vegetable section is a wonderful guide to how to prepare nearly every vegetable as well as what flavors complement it. All the soup recipes I've tried (which are many) have been amazing. The barley soup and white bean soup in that book are two of my favorites that I make every winter. I think it's a book for true veggie lovers -- I have a CSA and the vegetable section is great for trying new types of produce. I happen to love Deborah Madison's style - earthy yet refined - and I think it has influenced my own approach to cooking more than any other book.

From Talk

Where can I get a good king cake in NYC?

I know that Pain Quotidien, which has locations around NYC, carried gateau des rois around the time of epiphany in early January. Although I'm assuming you're referring to the New Orleans version. Is it different than the French?

From Talk

Yucky foods of the past

I didn't start to like sushi and olives till I was about 20. I also didn't like raw tomatoes till I was a teenager.

Responses to Comments by KitchenKore

From Talk

Looking to get rid of high-fructose corn syrup from your diet?

Just moved to Israel and I find that I can eat more (yay!), especially bread, because there is no HFCS in foods.

We discovered on our honeymoon 8 years ago that European Coke and Fanta are made with real sugar and boy does it make the American version tase icky; like the difference between regular and diet (yes, reformed diet soda drinker...)

From Talk

Looking to get rid of high-fructose corn syrup from your diet?

Langers just removed HFCS from there juice cocktails and a nice box telling people why it chaged from HFCS

From Talk

Looking to get rid of high-fructose corn syrup from your diet?

Free Fructose is the evil sugar but when bound up as it is in cane sugar beet sugar and fruit is it fine so avoid HFCS invert sugar, crystline Fructose and Fructose

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

on trips back from south africa and australia, various members of my family have all resorted to different methods to hide biltong (sort of like beef jerky) from the customs agents. always aware of the possibility of a roaming beagle, we've resorted to emptying half the contents out of a huge bottle of shampoo, and putting the biltong, in a ziplock, into the container to hide the smell. i've never had any of it confiscated, yet on a flight back from colorado i had an agent take away an unopened liter sized jar of creamy peanut butter, while commenting that they had been given specific instructions that peanut butter is not allowed....

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

Three years ago, my family and I took a trip to Italy. We started in Rome, traveled down to the Amalfi Coast, hit Naples, Positano, Sorrento, then traveled back to Florence. Being the vinos that we are, of course we bought wine along the way, at every possible delectable wine shop. At the end of the trip, amongst the 4 of us, we had 36 bottles of wine. Including limoncello. We bubble wrapped. And we smuggled. And we didn't get caught. Bear in mind that this was 3 years ago. But a pretty fantastic feat, you have to admit!

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

There's a place in LA that makes these great kosher sausages. The company ships them, but then they become almost prohibitively expensive for people like us on a budget. The sausage people said they had another option. They packed all of the sausages up in a bag with dry ice. We put that bag in my husband's backpack and brought it as a carry-on back to NYC. When we opened the overhead at the end of the flight the entire bag was crusted over with ice. I'm SHOCKED no one asked about it.

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

In the late 90's, long before any of the serious regs we contend with today, I was flying back from Cincinnati and wanted to bring my friends a treat. They had both worked for Proctor & Gamble (HQ'ed in Cincy) and were familiar with Skyline Chili. So on the way to the airport I stopped in one and ordered 6 5-ways to go. For the uninitiated, that's their delicious beef chili over spaghetti with red beans, onions and heaps of shredded cheddar cheese. Yum!

They boxed them up and away I went. No problem with security (they chuckled at my carry-on), but I was almost jumped by my fellow passengers due to the wonderful aroma emanating from the overhead!

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

Last spring I had a country ham in my carry-on that I had bought in Asheville and was bringing through security in Atlanta. Of course the x-ray technician did a double-take and brought everything to a halt. He did finally recognize it as food and asked if it was a turkey. The other guy perked up when I mentioned that it was a country ham and we joked that if he confiscated it I wanted it to go to a good home. But they let it through. I also had jars of jelly in my check-in baggage and my suitcase had been gone through, but they left the jelly.

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

Went to Northern Italy two years ago, and just HAD to bring back some stuff...among the goodies - a huge chunk of prosciutto and a huge chunk of Parmesan. He took one in his luggage, I took the other. We were waiting at baggage check in JFK, when two customs agents walked through with a BEAGLE. UGH! We both panicked...my fiancé turned to me and said - whoever gets their bag first goes immediately to the exit...at least one of us has to make it through! We can't lose BOTH the cheese and the meat!

The beagle stopped in front of some old woman - you know, all dressed in black with the scarf on her head and everything, with tons of boxes...she was probably bringing back tons of stuff to her family here from wherever they were from. We did not wait to find out what happened.

Cheese and meat were happily reunited and consumed for the next couple of weeks. :-)

From Talk

Airport Security checkpoints and food stories....

I brought a bag of Daniel Boone stone ground grits and a stick of Split Creek chevre as hostess gifts with me on a recent trip to NO -- the TSA took a longish look, but let me keep them. In general, the distinction between liquids and gels on one side, and pastes and solids on the other, seems specious and arbitrary. I strongly suspect that such routines, and the shoe and laptop fandango are expressly designed to be inconvenient, to create the illusion of a thorough security screening process.