Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Win a Free Organic D'Artagnan Turkey

After reading the store-bought stuffing reviews, this year I'll go with the 365 Organic as the base for my family recipe, adding two batches of stale cornbread and BRAZIL NUTS as the magic ingredient. plus the usual herbs and spices and turkey broth.

MikeLM at 6:10PM on 11/08/10

What Are the Absolute Must-Visits in Portland, Oregon?

Go to Jake's Seafood - I was last there in 1971, but Bing says they're still there. It was 60-odd years old then, so they have staying power.

Call and ask if they still offer the Barbecued Crab Legs. I still dream about it. It's a ceramic pot full of Dungeness leg-meat chunks in a fantastic barbecue sauce. They served it with a fresh, warm, middle-sized loaf of house-made bread; when the server put it on the table I said "you're out of your mind - I can't eat that much bread!"

I dipped the first bread chunk in the sauce, between bites of crabmeat and... it turned out I had no trouble eating the whole loaf.

Just as a general principal, eat as much Dungeness crab as you can while you're there.

MikeLM at 1:38AM on 06/26/10

Barcelona food/restaurant recommendations

A suggestion from the very past past... as in 1954. My ship was there for liberty, and we were referred to a restaurant called Los Caracoles. It was a wonderful white-tablecloth place and we had a fantastic meal including a three-foot wide platter covered with - yes - snails.

Next day, we mentioned this place to the French wife accompanying the U S Naval attache who had come down from Madrid to take care of the several ships visiting. We said we thought Los Caracoles was pretty good. She gave us a funny look and said... well, yes, it's considered one of the top ten restaurants in Europe!

Fernand Adria hadn't even been born.

I mention this because Los Caracoles was over 100 years old at the time, so I think it might still be going strong!

MikeLM at 7:20PM on 02/28/10

What Are Your Favorite Super Bowl Ads?

My all-time favorite is the Tabasco mosquito ad. A guy is eating pizza and it's made clear he has poured six or eight bottles of Tabasco on it as he ate. A mosquite lands on his arm, drinks deeply, and starts to fly away... only to explode in a little fireball. Hysterical.

It's on permanent display at the Avery Island visitors' center. Probably can be found on the Internet.

Nothing remotely approaching that on tonight's SB.

MikeLM at 9:28PM on 02/07/10

Serious Cheese: For Cheese Dip, Toss the Velveeta and Try Welsh Rarebit

Welsh Rabbit from James Beard's "American Cookery" (as an aside, this book is the absolute foundation of a cookbook library, along with "Joy of Cooking")

1 TBSP butter
1 lb sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup ale or beer
1 egg, slightly beaten (optional)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp Tabasco
1 tsp dry mustard
... I like to add 1 TBSP cornstarch, mixed with the last of the beer

Melt butter in chafing dish or double boiler; add cheese, when it's melting add beer and stir well. Add egg, seasonings and serve in a ramekin over toast. I like to put a couple strips of bacon (how could that hurt?) on the toast before the rabbit is poured. If it's really cold out, you could top the whole mess with a poached egg. A moment or two under the brioler will add a nice color to the whole thing.

By golly, I'm going to have this for brunch tomorrow!

MikeLM at 7:39PM on 02/02/10

Taste Test: Store-Bought Stuffing

We start with the P-Farm Herb stuffing, home-made cornbread, and add onions and celery and lots of Brazil nuts, sliced in three. (TJ has shelled ones) and mix with a thick turkey-neck stock, with black pepper, sage, thyme, parsley and butter added. Bake in muffin tins. My mpther's recipe which I've eaten all my life.

Last week, a poster on the ChefTalk Forum asked what people were going to change for this year's T-giving dinner. He got a flood of enraged responses... you just DON'T CHANGE the family's traditional T-day dinner! Pretty funny, and my sentiments exactly.

MikeLM at 12:01PM on 11/24/09

Time for a Drink: Bloody Mary

I, too like Svedka as a reasonably-priced but respectable vodka. The big one goes for $18 at the local Costco. (Or you can pay Jewel $25, if that makes you feel good.)

In this vein, did others see the article in the "Weekend" section of the WSJ that described how many of the makers of premium-priced, designer vodkas produced their pricey masterpieces? They start with a RR tank car or tank-truck load of industrial-grade beverage alcohol (97 proof) from Archer-Daniels-Midland and cut that with some kind of fancy water (melted iceberg ice, anyone?) an arty-farty label, a tricky name, and a price to impress the fashion-conscious.

You know who you are.

I'm gonna try some of the suggestions here, including the horseradish, the Sriracha, the aquavit, the cilantro, the celery salt, and the Clamato.

Maybe not all at once, though.

MikeLM at 4:59PM on 10/30/09

Photo of the Day: The Back of Someone's Head

Up above, we've had very mixed opinions on her restaurant. I've never been there, but four or five years David Steingarten, who travels the world eating and writing it up in the "Weekend" section of the Wall Street Jounral
(how's that for a dream gig!?) ate there and gave it a VERY negative review. Don't remember the details, but it was four or five thumbs down.

MikeLM at 3:08AM on 10/13/09

Sneaking food into movies

Sort of sneaking in reverse...

When in college, my son and a half-dozen fraternity brothers spent - lost -a weekend in a fancy Chicago hotel on Michigan Avenue. (Could only afford it because they all stayed in one room.) When they regained consciousness (late) on Sunday morning, they noticed the self-serve refrigerator-bar was completely empty. They pulled out the inventory/price list and realized they owed the hotel just a little over $400.

My son remembered there was a Walgreen store with a liquor department a few doors up the street. He took the list there and found miniatures to match virtually everything in the inventory. He sneaked them into the hotel, restocked the bar, and it came to a couple bucks over $50.

MikeLM at 1:16PM on 09/08/09

Served: Goodbye Waiting Tables, Goodbye NYC, Goodbye Served

Hannah, I've come late to SE and your writing, but have enjoyed it. I'll miss it, and I hope you will take up your blogging gift again soon. Looking forward to learning what group you're with. If they operate in the MidWest we will give any Chicago operations a try.

Lived in Santa Barbara for six years - some time ago - and SoCal is an entirely different world. Hope you like it. It may be a little harder to live there since the state iwent broke.

MikeLM at 6:31PM on 07/13/09

Large Movie Popcorn with Butter: 1,220 Calories

When they lived in Chicago, my son and his wife each took a bottle of wine and a straw in the inside pocket of their parkas - this was only feasible in the winter - and a few snacks in the pockets.

This would be more difficult in Southern California, I suppose.

MikeLM at 8:42PM on 05/16/09

The Mustards in My Fridge; Which Are in Yours?

Bunch of mustard lunatics here, obviously.

May I suggest a new item at Trader Joe's- their Aioli Garlic Mustard Sauce. Good stuff.

Eight or ten years ago, we visited the Mount Horeb (MI) Mustard Museum - which most of you posters here should avoid - which is run by a former lawyer named Barry Levinson. The guy has a great sense of humor, as well as a HE!L of a lot of mustards from around the world. I wandered around in there for a half hour and spent $75 before my wife grabbed my credit card and dragged me out of the place.

One of Barry's funniest riffs is his account of breaking the news to his mother - an entirely proper Jewish Mother who was very proud of her son, the laywer - that he was bagging the practice of law to open... a Mustard Museum.

He seems to be making a go of it, last I checked.

MikeLM at 9:50PM on 04/09/09

Cook the Book: PBJ

In the fall of 1954, I was a junior officer on a destroyer returning from NATO exercises in the Med. We ran into a hurricane just off the Azores, and everybody on board ate peanut butter sandwiches for five full days, because it was too rough to do anything like cooking in either the crews' mess or the wardroom kitchen. (Destroyers are like that in rough weather.)

There are a lot of people from long ago on the USS Stribling who are still not fond of peanut butter sandwiches, no matter how innovative.

MikeLM at 12:51AM on 04/09/09

the best cookbook for beginners

Go to Amazon and get a copy of "Joy of Cooking" from the 1960's; then a copy of Beard's "American Cookery" and, of course, Harold McGee. You can get a feel for the quality of any cookbook by the size of and the details in the Index.

All three of these have HUGE indexes..

MikeLM at 7:20PM on 04/08/09

You live where?

Mice thread.
Born St. Louis, MO, grew up in Bethesda, MD when it was out on the edge of the WashDC metro area. Went to boarding school in Concord, MA - so I know how to pronounce it - college in Cambridge MA then three years Navy (destroyer officer) based in Norfolk, then 4 years grad school back in Cambridge, then to Chicago three years. Transferred to Santa Barbara three years, then four years Seattle (Bainbridge Island, actually) then back to Santa Barbara again for three years and then back to Chicago for the last thirty. Lousy choice; too cold, too crowded.

More than any of you wanted to know!

MikeLM at 6:28PM on 03/29/09

Photo of the Day: MMMBACON Vanity Plate

My wife worked for a restaurant chain near Chicago quite a few years ago, and one of the owners was quite proud of his license plate which read

EAT OUT

I have always thought this was a real coup, license-plate wise.

MikeLM at 12:00AM on 03/24/09

Tomato paste in a tube?

Michael Chiarello solves the tomato paste problem neatly by cutting both ends of the little can, using one end to push the tomato paste out the other, open end. You cut off what you need and freeze the rest, still in the can. Next time, warm the can slightly, push and cut.

MikeLM at 10:12AM on 02/26/09

What to Do With Leftover Wine: Mulled Wine Syrup

What is leftover wine? I've never had any.

MikeLM at 5:17PM on 01/09/09

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: D'Artagnan Boneless Heritage Ham

A wonderful ham sandwich has to be done with great care.

From the bottom good rye bread slice upwards: mayo, just a little spicy mustard, lettuce, thin ham slices, thin slices of a mild cheese - provolone or swiss - VERY thin slices of Spanish onion, more ham slices, lettuce, mayo, and top bread slice. It's important not to crowd out the ham flavor with the mustard, cheese, or onion.

MikeLM at 11:40PM on 12/20/08

Does Your Grocery Store Have You Crying Tears of Joy?

I'm surprised that no one from the San Franscisco area has mentioned Andronico's. When visiting our daughter in Walnut Creek, we we visited one and thought it a wonderland of food of every kind.

MikeLM at 2:31AM on 11/19/08

http://www.cheftalk.com/forums/food-cooking-questions-discussion/31088-sweet-potato-fries.html

Sweet Potato Fries -- Who Likes These Things?

Extensive discussion of SPF, many by professionals

Great site, too if you don't know it already

MikeLM at 11:47AM on 11/10/08

Preferences of Horseradish

I find a Microplane makes an excellent grater for peeled, fresh horseradish. Add a little cider vinegar, a pinch of sugar, and some salt, and you're on your way to burned-out sinus passages!

MikeLM at 12:22PM on 11/07/08