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Pipe-Organ Pizzerias Briefly Explained
When I was a kid, I loved going to the Organ Grinder in Greenfield whenever we'd visit relatives in Milwaukee. I was driving up hwy 100 not too long ago and was surprised to see it still there.
What's your favorite food when drunk?
Back in college, it was gyros. One bar that was two blocks from my house, shared it's men's room with a next-door gyros place. Very handy.
There are no gyros joints near my current favorite bar (my basement), so I have to settle for whatever's the most salty and greasy at the moment.
Best Espresso Machine?
Bugger-- I screwed up my tags-- make that espresso and easily.
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The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
My mother makes waffles by partially cooking bacon on the waffle iron, then pouring the waffle batter over the bacon and bacon grease.
The most unhealthy thing I make would have to be either frozen custard, which is egg yolks, cream, sugar and whatever flavor, or duck confit, which is duck leg quarters slowly cooked in duck fat.
Pipe-Organ Pizzerias Briefly Explained
When I was a kid, I loved going to the Organ Grinder in Greenfield whenever we'd visit relatives in Milwaukee. I was driving up hwy 100 not too long ago and was surprised to see it still there.
What's your favorite food when drunk?
Back in college, it was gyros. One bar that was two blocks from my house, shared it's men's room with a next-door gyros place. Very handy.
There are no gyros joints near my current favorite bar (my basement), so I have to settle for whatever's the most salty and greasy at the moment.
Best Espresso Machine?
Bugger-- I screwed up my tags-- make that espresso and easily.
Best Espresso Machine?
I've got a De Longhi pump-driven e[b]s[/b]presso maker. It's one of the least expensive pump-driven ones you can get at ap $75. I've gone through many, many makers from stove top to steam-driven ones, and this one beats them all [i]easily[/i].
Nationwide Shortage of Canned Pumpkin Threatens Thanksgiving Pies
We were at Trader Joes and another, larger store a couple of days ago-- no canned pumpkin. TJ did have canned sweet potato, though, which worked as a direct substitute in my wife's pumpkin nee sweet potato bread.
'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' Cupcakes
My son bought a cupcake book (Hello Cupcake) with this design in them. Last Christmas, he and my wife made these. They were a hit. I think I have a photo somewhere...
Home Remedies for Sore Throats?
Mix the juice of one lemon with 1T of honey until the honey is dissolved.
Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice and add the lemon honey mixture, one shot (1 1/2 oz) bourbon and 1/2 shot Cointreau. Shake and strain into a martini glass.
After four or five of these, your cold symptoms will seem to disappear.
Paul Deen has new talk show Mom Logic. Did anyone go to taping?
I saw that on FNH. I thought it was a joke.
Gadgets: Progressive International Folding Mandoline Slicer
@Nikki Goldstein
Yep, perfect fries is the main function of my mandoline as well.
@hungryhungryhippo
I nicked myself every time I cut fries until I got a glove. I like to think of myself as being a safe operator in the kitchen, but man-- this thing got me every time.
raising your own chickens: pros & cons
Listen to Pavlov, Pooch and LanaRae. The eggs are wonderful, though. My sister and her husband have a small farm and have chickens. My advice is to talk someone you know into raising chickens and then mooch the eggs.
Oh-- don't forget about skunks finding their way to the coop.
Gadgets: Progressive International Folding Mandoline Slicer
I love my mandoline. Like plazmaorb says, though, you do get what you pay for. I'm not much of a fan of the lighter weight plastic mandolines. They seem like they'd be ok for slicing lighter fare, but I'd think they'd move around too much for anything heavy.
I also have a cut-resistant glove that I wear when using my mandoline. I think these are almost essential.
Serious Cocktails: Rediscovering Calvados and Other Apple Brandies
I've got a nice bottle of calvados from some monastery in Normandy. I love the stuff, but my wife is no fan. Oh well-- just means more for me. And as the nights turn cooler, I'm looking forward to fires in the backyard with a pommeau or three.
Convection Oven
Some convection ovens (mine is a GE Profile Performance) automatically adjust for the quicker convection cooking time by lowering the temperature when running the convection heater and fan. That is, if I set it for convection at 350F, it's really running at 325F.
For cookie baking with convection, you need to use flat pans-- the lip on a regular pan can interfere with airflow causing uneven baking.
I don't use convection when baking cakes, but for roasting meats, it's wonderful. I won't go back to a regular oven.
Brioche For Burgers?
I'm at the opposite-- I love brioche for burgers. I love how the sweet of the bun plays off a smoky chili-rubbed grilled burger.
What herb combo to use?
I don't know about the tarragon-- I think it might bring out a sour-ness to the goat cheese.
Of course now, I'll have to try it to see if it does.
cooking demo based on movie scene
Rice omelette or noodles from Tampopo (or prawns or raw eggs)
Risotto from Big Night
Desserts from Chocolat
Thin mints from The Meaning of Life
Does ‘hunger and a buzz’ make a meal… AMAZING?!
@gastronomeg
I don't think it's even legal to eat White Castle while sober.
Surprising Comfort Foods
Hardly surprising, but if time permits, kugel. For a quick snack, a tin of smoked kippers on crackers.
What herb combo to use?
Use thyme and a little bit of rosemary. If the rosemary is dry, crush it to a powder. But again, only a little rosemary-- it can be quite powerful, and believe-it-or-not, overpower the goat cheese.
Serious Cocktails: The Gin Boomlet
Hendrick's and Gordon's are my favorites. Although my wife doesn't like that the 1.75l of Gordon's comes in a plastic bottle, so she pours it into a glass Seagram's bottle.
@BKNYDan-- Sabra has a nice lighter gin that I think is good for someone who might be leery of the stuff. There's a nice small-batch gin from Wisconsin that has basil as part of their botanicals-- but I can't remember the name offhand.
Food photographers: which lens to get for low light conditions?
Old-school photographer here. I still shoot on film with fast prime lenses and calculate f-stops on the fly, including fill-flash-- all, including focus, done manually.
Pictures of food in restaurants with no lighting help? I don't mean to be a downer, but you're not going to get good results regardless of the lens. That said, even an f/1.8 lens might be too slow, at least at 50mm. At 50mm, you're looking at shooting at 1/60 (shutter speed) handheld at the slowest, which isn't going to be enough in the subdued lighting of a restaurant. And 50mm is going to be too long to use an improvised tripod on the table. Then again (I'm thinking as I type), a wide angle lens is going to give odd perspectives.
A 50mm 1.2 will give you an extra stop of light (i.e., use half the light), but be much more expensive. Likewise a 28mm 1.8 will also give you another stop of light (handheld shutter speed of 1/30 vs 1/60 with 50mm), but will also be expensive.
I'm not that familiar with the D70, but I don't think it's a full-frame (i.e., same coverage/sensor size as 35mm film) camera, so my handheld shutter speeds numbers may be too fast for your camera.
Like accidentalepicurian says above, stay away from zooms for low-light performance. For anything macro, though, you'll need a tripod, and still need lots of light (e.g., strobes) if you want anything over an inch of depth-of-field.
Here's the bottom line-- if I were shooting this for money, I'd get permission from the restaurant and shoot 85mm on a tripod with lights, if they let me, or worse-case, sans lights, but still on a tripod. If you have to do it hand-held, go as wide and fast as you can afford (Nikkor 14mm is nice but expensive, 20mm is more affordable). Check keh.com for used lenses-- I've bought a lot of used gear from them and have never been disappointed.
For KitchenAid fans: An NPR segment
First thing I made in mine was the white cake in the book that came with the mixer. Second thing was the buttercream frosting in the book.
The most recent thing I made was the chocolate stout cake in the most recent Bon Apetit.
The wildest food you've ever tried and will never try again
I see a lot of people mentioning sea cucumber, and that's something I haven't eaten-- and hadn't thought to eat. I guess I have to try it now.
What's for Dinner? 08/30
I ground some beef short ribs for burgers and made some brioche buns. I stuffed some of the burgers with olives and some of them with sliced garlic. Topped them with havarti cheese and tomatoes from my garden.
The Secret Ingredient: Pomegranate Molasses
I stumbled upon this site looking for recipes for Pomegranate Molasses, and I'm so glad I did! I love the Secret Ingredient idea and can't wait to check out the others! And these Pomegranate Molasses and Pine Nut Cookies are going to be a nice change to make for Christmas! Thanks for the inspiration!
weird reasons for not trying certain foods?
Growing uo on a farm in KS my brother and I wouldn't eat chicken because we knew them personally.
weird reasons for not trying certain foods?
p.s.- oops I lied...when I was little I wouldn't eat the legs in calamari and other squid/octopus dishes because I thought the suckers would stick to my tongue...
weird reasons for not trying certain foods?
I know a guy who is so put off by milk that he won't eat any dairy products or anything that looks remotely dairy...his reason "it's white"
it seems in my area fish in general is just a big "ew" but I can't get anyone to give me an actual reason why they won't eat it
my father...most confusing of all...refuses to try sushi because it's raw fish yet he swears up and down it can't possibly be raw because "americans have poor immune systems and would just get sick" he fails to acknowledge his own contradiction
as for myself...maybe it's because both of my parents are immigrants or maybe it's because my dad is a chef but I can't remember ever flat out refusing to try any food...well other than anything involving bugs...I was always the kid to try anything from cat/dog treats to leaves to the glazes in art class (which pretty much all taste the same btw)
among friends I have a bit of a reputation as "a foodie" solely because I actually know what's in/goes into foods and how they're prepared...I find it alarming that other people don't know and/or don't care to know
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
French toast made from doughnuts, filled with ice cream and gingered mangos and topped with hot caramel sauce. Since I do not foresee making this again (blessedly my beau does not have a sweet tooth), no regrets for this one-time splurge.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
A sauce made with sliced breakfast sausages, cream of chicken soup, Hellman's mayonnaise, lemon juice, ground pepper, broccoli, shredded aged cheddar on top and served over pasta or rice. The sauce smells vile but it actually tastes delicious and I would even go so far as call it comfort food. I often find myself craving this sauce during winter.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
Just had this one, recipe follows for all of you seriously in need of upping your cholesterol levels:
Boil or bake a potato and keep hot. Soft boil an egg: The white should just be set and the yolk still runny. Cut a cross in the potato and squeeze to expose inside and create a hollow. Add salt and a generous dollop of butter. Slice the top off the egg and dribble/scoop the yolk into the potato. Top with grated Tusser's or Cheddar cheese and shredded pepper ham. Pig out.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
fried hot dog - melt butter in frying pan, fry a split oscar meyer 100% beef frank until golden brown and crispy. Melt American cheese slice on top. For added goodness, butter and broil hot dog bun in oven. Place hot dog in bun and add your usual toppings. Also, makes me think of similar fried bologna sandwiches. Man, I love processed meat!
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
in compliance with my low-carb diet...
low carb "nachos"
layer deep fried pork rinds in a pan,* sprinkle on some hot sauce, then smother with an assortment of sliced cheeses (pre-shredded will not do!)
place in broiler until cheese is bubbly.
*best when using the ultra large pork rinds found in Mexican groceries
eat immediately. keep a cell phone within reach to dial 911!
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
It has to be the casseroles I make once or twice a year....hashbrown casserole (hashbrowns, butter, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, onions and cheese) or chicken casserole (cooked, shredded chicken breasts, cream of chicken soup, ro-tel and crushed doritos...all mixed together and then topped with cheese and baked).
Dessert-wise: Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake...It has 4 sticks of butter in just the cake, that's not even counting the Italian Meringue Buttercream frosting...that has 5 sticks of butter!!
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
@butterfingers -
oh
my
gosh.
my sister used to eat that!
you two are two in a million i would assume LOL
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
Once I made a shortbread recipe that called for 2 sticks of butter...... for 9 cookies.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
@betteirene -- I'm afraid that regional American cooking is going to disappear. Between chain restaurants, cookbooks and magazines, eating and cooking is getting much more homogenized.
I'm a fan of sugar cream pie, I just don't eat it daily -- or even monthly. I had the butter and sugar sandwiches when I was a youngster -- also peanut butter and brown sugar. I'm not sure that a butter/sugar sandwich is any worse than grilled cheese made with processed cheese food.
There's also some evidence that by adding the bacon or bacon grease to greens, for instance, you make them taste better and people eat more of the greens. The fat makes some of the nutrients in the greens more accessible.
@MarvinDog -- I think the French might be surprised to find out that duck confit is unhealthy.
@tacoo -- It's all about moderation. Unfortunately, over the last 30 years or so we've been taught that if a lot of something is bad, then none is best.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
@freakyhair...Word. Love that recipe but holy cow!! The butter content rivals Paula Deen's toxic concoctions. Luckily it's a huge batch.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
It's a tossup among three for me:
As a child I LOVED white bread and mayonnaise sandwiches with my Pepsi... luckily, Grandma wouldn't let me have them - I had to sneak them. ~Shudder~
With holidays/Winter approaching, time to break out the fudge, too. My fave is basically sweetened condensed milk and choccolate chips. Mmmm, sugar, fat and chocolate - what's not to love?
And, I hate to admit that lately I've had a hankering for college food, specifically Chili Casserole: Canned chili (my favorite rhymes with 'Shtennison's Not') layered with oodles of cheddar cheese and corn tortillas and baked. Doesn't seem that bad until you read the ingredients on the can (what IS 'textured protein'?!) and realise the cheese is basically about a pound of hydrolised fat... The only healthy thing in it is the 6 corn tortillas.
But then, nowadays opening a can of anything but organic tomatoes feels sinful, so who am I to judge?
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
Cinnabon clone buns. so....much...butter....
http://www.thecookingphotographer.com/2009/07/clone-wars-er-i-mean-cinnabon-clones.html
They were good, but not good enough to eat all that butter. I had 1, and gave the rest away.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
A black olive sandwich!
A can of chopped black olives mixed with far too much mayo spread on 2 pieces of white bread slathered with too much mayo, for the ultimate olive/mayo sandwich with a large spoonful of mayo au naturale as the appetizer before the sandwich. The first 3/4 was great and by the end my hunger for it was fullfilled. Not to be eatten again for at least a month or twenty-two.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
I made a bread pudding out of chocolate/orange quick bread and then covered the whole thing with caramel sauce.
Soooo....bread that consisted mostly of chocolate, sugar, processed flour and orange juice baked in a bed of eggy custard slathered with homemade caramel.
Ruined by health concerns? Hardly! I had some, and so did my guests, and we all enjoyed the heck out of it. Would I do it again? Maybe in another year or two. After all, it was amazingly delicious.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
@BobbieAnne I make that with matzoh for Passover every year. I got the recipe from Gourmet - it's called Caramel Matzoh Crunch, and peopel just devour it.
The 'most unhealthy' thing I have made recently was a jelly doughnut bread pudding from the New York Times - 14 jelly doughnuts, heavy cream, eggs, sugar, and it disappeared in seconds.
I also make brownies that have granulated sugar, brown sugar and Karo syrup, 6 oz. chocolate, 1/2 # butter and 7 eggs in each batch.
@IndyGal I agree - I don't make this stuff for myself, but I bring it to parties and events where there will be lots of people. So you eat 1 or 2 pieces, once in a while, no problem.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
I noticed the hillbilly theme we got going here and it reminded me of a trip we took from Chicago to visit the kin in Gilbert, W.Va. Instead of following the usual interstates through IN and OH and eating at Shoney's, we took a scenic route over three days and made a pit stop at a Cracker Barrel in TN one day and went to the Loveless Cafe for dinner.
One Sunday after we got back home, I tried to duplicate Cracker Barrel's breakfast menu. I made biscuits and gravy, chicken fried steak, eggs, grits, fried potatoes (instead of hash brown casserole) and fried apples. Every now and then, we'll get a hankerin' for a meal like this, but it's such a pain to get the timing right that I won't do it unless I've got help. It's disgustingly unhealthy, but man, once in a while we just gotta have it.
Don't you just adore regional American cooking? I just love it when a recipe starts with a stick of butter, or when you take something perfectly healthy, like green beans or spinach, and doctor it up with a a pound of bacon and a couple of spoons full of bacon grease.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
Grilled fresh foie gras (with diced mango, port soaked prunes and sherry wine vinegar) over brioche toasts, with duck fat fried potatoes [and green beans to assuage the guilt some]. Quite delicious.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
I've made many things that weren't healthy at all - from real mac & cheese with 6 kinds of cheese to Guy Fieri's Mac & Cheese that is topped with bacon, and the Sweet Potato Gooey Butter Cake from Paula Deen. I think the thing that was the worst was the Toasted Ravioli which is deep fried ravioli. I've made all kinds of deep fried things. It may be bad for you but it tastes soooo good.
I've eaten worse though - Deep Fried Oreos, Deep Fried Macaroni & Cheese (both at different fairs), Deep Fried Mars Bars, Deep Fried Twinkies - but i've never made any of them. I'd rather eat stuff like that out of the house. If I deep fry in the house, it smells like it for days after.
My favorite thing to make at home (But only for holidays) is Potato Latkes. They are sooo fattening but so good. Also, 3x a year I make my own chopped chicken livers for Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Chanukah. Ground up chicken livers with chicken fat - can't get much worse for you.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
King Ranch chicken casserole, followed by tater tot casserole (traditional recipe) and then by Paula Deen's tomato pie (third in line because it actually has tomatoes in it, as well as two cups of cheese and a cup of mayo, plus whatever goes into the crust). All so good, yet so bad that they only are allowed to be cooked once a year in my house.
The Most Unhealthy Thing You've Ever Made
Marvin Dog...the waffle dish sounds like a close cousin to my "Hillbilly Special." Look about 6 comments above yours!
What's your favorite food when drunk?
Days of college, days of youth, six parts gin to one part vermouth
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1919716
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About MarvinDog
Website: http://bar.marvindog.net
Location: Suburban Chicago
About: I'll try anything that people somewhere eat and enjoy.
Favorite foods: Edible
Last bite on earth: Duck Confit
My mother makes waffles by partially cooking bacon on the waffle iron, then pouring the waffle batter over the bacon and bacon grease.
The most unhealthy thing I make would have to be either frozen custard, which is egg yolks, cream, sugar and whatever flavor, or duck confit, which is duck leg quarters slowly cooked in duck fat.