Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

When I was a teenager in the 70s, I used to cut recipes out of magazines, fantasizing about the day when I would have my own apartment. One of them was for a turkey curry that uses up Thanksgiving leftovers. I grew up in a home with almost no ethnic food at all, so curry seemed exotic, but the ingredients were friendly. It's very mild spice-wise, but it was my first exposure to Indian food. To this day, I make that curry after Thanksgiving, with apples raisins, almonds, turkey, onion, and yogurt. My 16yo daughter makes her own curry experiments in our kitchen - green beans, potatoes, and chicken most recently. I'm not making her wait until she leaves home to cook!

So far, I have been making quick breads, biscuits, and bread machine white. But I want to make real bread more than one loaf at a time, with a minimum of kneading - I have carpal tunnel issues. This book would be perfect!

I made note of this recipe back in June, but didn't try it until now. It's a great way to use up leftover holiday sweet potatoes. The biscuits are FABULOUS. I served them with some homemade pineapple jam at breakfast, but I could totally see doing them with ham and chutney at dinner, or just gobbling them down unadulterated. The recipe made 12 nice-sized biscuits and they were gone before the pan cooled.

Muhlissa, I suspect you added more than a cup of mashed tater. I don't know what a "medium" potato - is they go from pretty-darned small to giants of several pounds, especially if you grow your own. But I LIKE the idea of a sweet potato pancake - you could roll all sorts of things into it. Yum!

We didn't eat much pork when I was a kid. Ham, but not uncured pork. I had to wait until I was an adult to discover pork. I recall the first time I had a BRT pork roast, cooked by a boyfriend when I was in college. Rosemary and orange juice marinade. I married him.

Last year, I won a one-year subscription for the Grateful Palate Bacon of the Month club, courtesy Serious Eats. I can't tell you how cheering it is, during a difficult month, to have a package of bacon suddenly appear.

You also get some assorted bacon swag, and a monthly bacon cartoon. Frankly, the cartoons are usually very bad - but who cares? I have BACON!

I will miss it. Even the Post Office workers will miss it - I have a PO box, and they all commented on the Bacon package. I just can't justify the cost on our family budget. The packaging waste and huge food mileage make my inner eco-vore cringe. But, again, it's BACON! I think I am going to search out local sources of monthly bacon indulgence.

I have some pie pumpkins, so I am going with Spiced Pumpkin Pudding.

Early in my life, Julia Child. I actually removed a chicken from its intact skin to make her pistachio-studded Chicken Melon when I was a teenager - I have photos. I also loved the Fanny Farmer Cookbook back then. Then there were a few local chefs when I worked in kitchens, and a friend that introduced me to vegetarian cookbooks, where an omnivore can learn a lot. After I left food service, I had a chef neighbor who showed me a lot about whole foods. Lately, I am fond of Alton Brown and of Mark Bittman.

Ccbweb, that's the number I called, and the CSR could not give me allergen information without collecting personal data and "doing further research." She also said that information could not be given in writing and would not be posted to the website. I just find that very strange, and too risky for me.

This is supposed to be part of the new "healthy" product line. It should not be a difficult question for a major food chain: "Is there any soy-based ingredient in this product of yours?"

If I call, as Erin did, and they say "nope, no soy," and I find out later that the fiber powder is from soy, is the no-writing rule so that they can say, "We didn't tell her there was no soy." Or do they truly not know the sources of their food additives? Which one of those weasel-reasons is worse?

And here is the Panera Bread chain beverage ingredients, on their site. Click on the mango smoothie, for instance, and the pop-up will be detailed ingredients:
http://www.panerabread.com/menu/cafe/drinks.php

This open sharing of information feels far more customer friendly to me. What is Starbucks hiding, that Tier I CSR's cannot tell me if there is soy in the Chai? Surely someone else has asked.

Orange Julius is not quite as detailed, but they provide detail about additives that might contain allergens - so I can see that there is lecithin in the Coconut cream, that probably comes from soybeans. They also warn me that other beverages may end up containing with traces of these additives:
http://www.orangejulius.com/sec_nutrition_allergy.html

So, if Starbucks is worried that someone will take something out of context, or they will have liability exposure by listing ingredients, why not simply use similar disclaimer statements, that have undoubtedly been reviewed by many attorneys?

At a time when we are all asking where things come from, and looking at food miles and supply chains, it seems out-of-place, and gives the appearance that something is being hidden, for Starbucks to be so secretive.

What kind of molasses did you use? There are a number of types, with more or less strong flavor.

We have always been a family of limited means, 2 adults and 2 kids. We have always had a limited budget for food, usually $40-80/week. It's insulting and glib to imply that the rise in food prices will force low-income families to stop wasting their food stamps on junk food. In many urban neighborhoods, there is very little fresh food available. It takes hard work and planning to eat better, and many families don't have the skills or transportation. Fortunately, we do have a car, although it is not a late-model high-mileage vehicle. The price of gas hurts. We plan our trips carefully - we can't just drive out into the boondocks to visit the cute lil' organic boutique farm every weekend.

Our two "farmer's" markets are mostly not producer-markets - so often the supermarket has cheaper produce sales. "Eat local" is hard when most of your area's produce is shipped to a larger regional Northeastern city to be sold in trendy urban neighborhoods at a premium we local schmucks can't match. But I do score organic chicken backs at $5 for a 2-lb bag, to make stock for soup, sauces, grits, rice, beans, etc. Smoked ham shanks are one of my favorite budget-stretchers.

The Food Network is fun food-porn, but what I have really been studying is peasant food from various cultures. Notice, there is no cooking show aimed at poor people. You have any idea what that meat costs for those trendy grilling shows?

We do buy bulk - the Hispanic stores have the best bean and rice prices. I make my own stock, sauces, soup, etc. We buy almost nothing name-brand. We braise and slow cook a lot - I am planning to build a solar oven to try slow-cooking in it. We don't drink soda or coffee; we brew our own herbal tea. We have as large a vegetable/herb garden as we can in a small city yard. We bake our own snacks and desserts. We buy day-old bread to make bread pudding. I've tried to justify paying $7.99/gal for raw milk, but I cannot when commercial milk is half the price. I barter for pastured eggs, and go to pick-your-own orchards - fruit is harder to find and more expensive than veggies.

There is no slack in our budget. I admit to stockpiling rice, cornmeal, dried beans, spices, sugar, honey, and flour - I buy an extra bag as often as I can. I watch yard sales for working manual old-timey tools - meat grinder, grain mill, apple peeler, etc. I have not been able to stand canning in an airless city kitchen with no air-conditioning in the middle of summer - which is when the food wants canning - but I will try again this summer.

The global food news is scaring me - my family does not have the means to adapt as fast as the world can crush us.

Kugel! Sweet noodle kugel, especially. I am not Jewish, but my brother converted for his marriage to my sister-in-law. I got to cook the wedding luncheon, in the kosher synagogue kitchen, under the close supervision of the cantor. Made three kinds of kugel. (I had worked for a kosher caterer for a few years - it's not like they let just anyone wander in and take a shot at kosher food). It remains a favorite cooking memory of mine.

Latkes are a pretty close second, though! I can never decide between apple sauce and sour cream on top, so I go back and forth with each bite.

I live in the area that has Sheetz markets. Sheetz is a convenience store and gas station chain. I have not tried the Frickin' Chicken, but I have eaten other Sheetz food (when I had no other choice) and found it to be at the very bottom of the convenience food scale. Over priced, poorly prepared, stale, over-microwaved, tasteless. But the stores are bright and colorful, and apparently they have clever marketers. I wish I felt confident enough to try the chicken sandwich, since I think the objection to the advert is silly, and I would vote with my wallet.