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kathyvegas's Profile

Website:

Location: Las Vegas

About: Former chef living in Las Vegas

Favorite foods: Anything that doesn't involve jello, marshmallows or peanut butter. Or that cheese from Sardinia that has the live maggots in it.

Last bite on earth: Dry aged and perfectly grilled prime rib eye steak

The Ten Most Recent Posts By kathyvegas

From Talk

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets... Love them or hate them?

Posted by kathyvegas, February 15, 2008 at 8:47 PM

After watching the market near my home being being built all winter I couldn't wait to storm the doors on opening day. I'd read it was owned by the UK giant Tesco's (the UK equivalent of Walmart) and was longing for a new link in my food chain. Yes I can shop at pricey Whole Foods or the Trader Joe's in a rather unsavory area of my town. Yes there are 3 major chain megamarts within a mile of my home. I was still longing for something 'different' maybe even better.

After 3 shopping trips to my new Fresh & Easy I think I'm in love. I've found some very cool items I can't readily find elsewhere- British style bacon, white Stilton, jumbo eggs for $1.97 a dozen, amazing wines at dirt cheap prices. I could go on and on. Maybe pricier than my mega mart for toilet paper----maybe not much of a selection in the prepackaged veggie department and not very photogenic interior, but with 96 cent Pellegrino water, hormone free butter under $2.00 a pound and a slew very affordable cool house brand specialty food items they have my attention for now. It was worth the wait. How do the rest of you feel about your local Fresh & Easy's? Will I be let down when the honeymoon is over?

1 Comment

The Ten Most Recent Comments By kathyvegas

From Talk

homemade pasta: worth the time, trouble and storage space?

We enjoy the fresh pasta I can make with my manual machine, you won't buy dry lasagna pasta once you've made lasagna with fresh. We also still use dried pasta, fresh isn't always the best type for certain recipes.

kathyvegas at 3:14PM on 07/14/08

From Talk

Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen

1. cilantro
2. margarine
3. Jell-o
4. artificial vanilla "flavoring"
5. that cheese from Sardinia with the live maggots in it
6. instant rice
7. ranch dressing
8. canned pumpkin
9. cheap soy sauce
10. cole slaw that's been in my fridge longer than 1 day


kathyvegas at 11:28PM on 05/31/08

From Talk

Grocery shopping at Target!?

The Archer Farms curry flavor baked potato crisps are addictive.

kathyvegas at 11:52PM on 04/14/08

From Talk

99 Cent Store shopping!

You bet! Our 99 Cent Stores here in Las Vegas have all sorts of Mexican and Asian food finds. I'm a sucker for the interesting hot pepper sauces and salsas I always find there....and the great bargains on shelf liner paper (wink).

kathyvegas at 9:48PM on 02/23/08

From Talk

Never put ____ on my pizza!

No pineapple, no tangerines, no fruit period. Except for tomatoes which are technically a fruit. Must have some sort of tomato product.

kathyvegas at 5:53PM on 02/19/08

From Talk

Crocus & Daffodils blooming, and ___ cooking heralds SPRING!

asparagus...every day while it's in season till I can't stand it anymore. There's no point in eating that out-of-season stuff they ship here from other countries in my humble opinion.

kathyvegas at 2:46PM on 02/17/08

From Required Eating

Weekend Book Giveaway: 'Secret Ingredients, the New Yorker Book of Food and Drink'

old school M.F.K. Fisher...new school Bourdain

kathyvegas at 12:22PM on 02/16/08

From Talk

Have you ever made Sticky Toffee Pudding?

I bake mine in muffin pans. Slide the 'muffins' into small freezeer bags to freeze and zap in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up when it's time to enjoy it. It freeezes beautifully and somehow the preportioned serving sizes slow me down from consuming the entire batch in a weekend.

kathyvegas at 8:56PM on 02/15/08

From Recipes

Cook the Book: Black Bottom Cupcakes

chocolate fudge with ganache piped in a big swirl on top

kathyvegas at 8:57PM on 02/14/08

From Required Eating

Valentine's Day Chocolate Giveaway

milk

kathyvegas at 11:54AM on 02/10/08

Responses to Comments by kathyvegas

From Talk

homemade pasta: worth the time, trouble and storage space?

I make fresh pasta regularly, using a hand-cranked machine. As long as you're not making stuffed pasta, it's about as time-consuming as baking a cake.

thebasilqueen at 12:30PM on 07/16/08

From Talk

homemade pasta: worth the time, trouble and storage space?

@empath, the only pastas I freeze are the filled ones, and I just cook them from the frozen state. I think if you try thawing first, they'd sweat and then stick together.

Hmm...actually, I also will freeze gnocchi when I make that. But for stranded noodles, it's such a fast process, I don't see any reason to make so much of it that I'd want to freeze it.

dbcurrie at 2:09AM on 07/15/08

From Talk

homemade pasta: worth the time, trouble and storage space?

YES!!!

simon at 3:30PM on 07/14/08

From Talk

homemade pasta: worth the time, trouble and storage space?

When I was a kid I helped my dad make fresh pasta. I was scarred for life. I'd definitely have to watch someone do it to decide if I wanted to try myself. Generally, rolling stuff out is on my list of things I avoid in recipes. *shudder*

DJ Dedd at 3:18PM on 07/14/08

From Talk

Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen

1. Okra
2. Miracle Whip
3. Whole milk
4. Spam
5. Olive loaf
6. any ketchup but Heinz
7. Plain yellow mustard
8. mango
9. hot cereal (oatmeal, cream of wheat)
10. kale

oddcouple1 at 10:47PM on 06/18/08

From Talk

Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen

Oh, this is fun!

1. Canned entrees (ie. spaghetti-oh's)
2. Cool Whip
3. Miracle Whip
4. Durian fruit
5. Spam (or any canned meat for that matter)
6. Any deli "meat" that you can stick your finger in, and it will congeal back to its original state---I've seen it; it's disgusting.
7. Any creme filled cookies (Oreos or those nasty oatmeal cakes)
8. Bitter melon
9. Sweetened applesauce, and most other canned fruits (I do like the applesauce with no sugar added)
10. Fake caviar...I have to have to real thing.

Tasty Morsel at 1:23PM on 06/09/08

From Talk

Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen

1. margarine
2. fat free anything
3. eggs from any grocery store in the 5 boroughs ( only place to get eggs is at greenmarket. flying pigs, millport dairy or knoll krest)
4. processed cheese
5. canned fruit
6. pickles (i'm a chef who hates pickles i can't help it, i will never change)
7. oreos, just hate them always have.
8. jelly. my pb&j sandwiches have always just been pbS
9. anything containing aspartame.
10. white bread. it tastes like nothing. give me a good whole wheat sourdough or whole grain anyday.

midgepingleton at 1:14AM on 06/03/08

From Talk

Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen

As a Korean-American I can never say anything bad about Spam. If you're a fan of Korean food and you don't appreciate the magic that a can of Spam can bring to a Kimchi Jjigae, you don't know Korean food.

blim8183 at 10:53PM on 06/02/08

From Talk

Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen

I don't care what you say. I like Miracle Whip!

eatorama at 5:45PM on 06/01/08

From Talk

Top 10 ingredients I will never have in my kitchen

First time on Serious Eats and this was so good I had to join so I could post - so here goes:

Spam. No explanation necessary.
Marmite. I ahve no idea what this is but it sounds like insect paste.
Tofu
Organ meats
ditto on the cold cuts that end in 'loaf'
Scrapple
Converted rice. Even my kids called it 'fake.'
Livermush - Hey "Sbelle" I'm from NC too!
Bologna, and I probably should put in hotdogs. I took a graduate nutrition class and as a part we toured a meat processing factory. Ewww.
Bait. Sorry but as a kid it was often in the fridge, not as food of course. It's that NC upbringing again.

There are lots of convenience foods that have saved the day for me or pacified my granddaughter, so I won't list them, but I agree that it's just not that hard to do something quick from scratch.

tarmstro at 3:53PM on 06/01/08