Woman Beats off Intruder With her Emeril Lagasse Pan

Did anyone hear abou this? Hysterical.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090227/D96JVGL80.html

I'd be mad too if police took my good pan in for evidence.

question about brining some pig

question for you all: is it possible to brine, say, pork chops; freeze them for later; then defrost them and cook them with no issues? would there be a weird taste or a texture issue? i've never done it before; normally i just freeze straight from the grocer, then later brine before cooking.

just something i was thinking about while my boy grills some pork chops for dinner tonight.

what happened to gina de palma's column?

is gina's stint in Rome over? i really enjoyed the heck out of her posts.

Need low country boil help

so on sunday, a largish group of us are getting together for a low country boil, and everyone is looking to the boy and i since we're the ones with the most culinary experience. however, in the nearly 20 years i've lived in the South, i've only ever eaten it but never made it.

so as far as i know, here's what goes in:

red potatoes, corn, shrimp, crab legs, kielbasa, some type of seasoning (like Old Bay), and one of my coworkers from South Carolina swears by this, a couple of bottles of malt liquor (instead of beer). when done, dunk it over onto a brown papered or newspaper covered table and dig in.

for those of you familiar with this, does this sound about right? am i missing any ingredients?

help the boy make pho!

i've taken the boy to eat pho many a weekend now, and he's now hooked on it. He wants to make it at home, and we've got the basic ingredients down for the beef stock, but not sure if it should be made the traditional French beef stock way (roast bones, tomato paste [pretty darn sure there is none of that in there!], roast veg, put in pot, lots of water, bouquet garni, simmer for hours, yadda yadda), or if there is a "traditional" vietnamese way to make the broth. can anyone help out?

we figure some of the ingredients are: beef bones, star anise, cinnamon, peppercorns, but what else? and for how long to cook? i assume the bones ought to be roasted first? any help is appreciated!

In the market for a new deep fryer; need your advice.

so i've had a Philips deep fryer for about 6 years now, and even with regular upkeep and cleaning and changing of oil and degreasing and whatnot, it's just getting old and not as efficient as it once was (although 6 years is not a bad track record for one - i think). we've use ours pretty regularly (at least once a week - my husband must have chicken wings on Sundays), so we'd need one that would stand up to frequent usage and not poop out on us in two years. for those of you who have a deep fryer (and even those who dont, but know a thing or two about 'em), what kind of fryers do you prefer? is there a brand that has stood out lately? i need your advice! thanks!

need advice on a cookbook purchase!

and i need it today! for my husband's birthday, i want to get him either "Jean-Georges: Cooking At Home with a Four-Star Chef" by Jean Georges Vongerichten or "Think Like a Chef" by Tom Collicchio. they are different types of cook books, and i can't get both because i'm already getting Daniel Boulud's Braise. anyone out there have either of these books and can give me quick advice? thanks in advance!

Gas vs. Charcoal grilling?

it's warmed up a bit here in the South and we used our grill for the first time this past weekend. before we actually bought the grill, my husband and i had huge debates over gas versus charcoal. i'm a charcoal purist, and it took me a long, long time to convince him that charcoal is best for our needs. for those of you who have grills, what is your prefered choice and why?

Each time that I find myself grocery shopping for a dinner party, I make sure to pick up a few snacks for cocktail hour. Being a creature of habit, my pre-dinner nibbles are inevitably Marcona almonds and olives. The almonds... More