Profile

piglet

Please don't call me a "foodie."

  • Location: Old Virginnie
  • Favorite foods: Eggs in almost any preparation, assertive cheeses, potatoes, pasta and noodles of every description, fresh bread and not-so-fresh bread dolled up into pains perdus and panzanelle, rice, and usually butter: yep, I'm going on Atkins.
  • Last bite on earth: a perfectly prepared omelette

What's your favorite sandwich?

feta, avocado, thinly sliced cucumber, shredded carrots, and red onion with a splash of champagne vinaigrette on a toasted, split homemade 9-grain ciabatta

egg salad (eggs, mayonnaise, curry powder, Dijon mustard, fresh thyme, s + p) on just about any bread

coming soon: tomato still warm from the sun, sliced, salted, and peppered, between slices of the cheapest-ass white bread smeared with commercial mayonnaise (preferably Duke's, Hellmann's in a pinch)

Weekly grocery bill...

$15-20/week, which includes toiletries, paper products, and cleaning supplies. In 2010 I spent $923.17 all year at grocery and drug stores. I'm a vegetarian who uses coupons and grows her own stuff in the summers. Perhaps obviously, I live alone.

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Pasta Mancini Collection

With grated parmigiano-reggiano and a bit of nutmeg and a splash of the pasta-cooking water. Oh, and butter.

Peas!

I've been noshing on green pea hummus all day. Shockingly good!

Poll: Which Celebrity Chef Would You Most Like To Meet?

This list sucks. Most of these people aren't even chefs. As much as I enjoyed Alton Brown when I used to watch him, even he fits this non-chef description.

Hey SE'ers-What do you do for a living?

I teach in the humanities at the largest university in my state. This sometimes means huge classes, with the students in the nosebleed seats watching me via video. If I were not to get tenure and this professoring thing didn't work out, I've fantasized about a baking career, but that's just a fantasy: I love it too much to have to depend on it for a living.

Saving money at the grocery store.Whats your tip on how to do it

Um, that's "To date, I've spent $536.27 in 2010." I guess I'm better at budgeting than proofreading.

Saving money at the grocery store.Whats your tip on how to do it

I don't eat meat and, in the past two years, have been growing my own tomatoes, lettuces, and hot hot hot peppers. For much longer I have grown my own herbs.

That said, I still go to grocery stores. There, bulk bins and coupons have been key. If you wait, you can combine coupons with sales to get free or close-to-free canned tomatoes, pasta, cereal, granola, etc., not to mention things like toothpaste, shampoo, soap—items I haven't actually paid money for in years. And don't forget to bring your own bags and make sure you get your bag credit. Sure, it's only 5-10¢, but all that spare change adds up.

To date, I've spent $536.27 to date on groceries and stuff for the household and hygiene. Yet I'm a complete failure compared to this guy, who recently completed a challenge to spend

It's important to bear in mind, however, that how much one spends on food will vary dramatically according to what kind of market you're in. Supermarkets in my city offer double coupon discounts, for instance, whereas markets with less competition will be more tight fisted with the deals. I've found Bundle to be a fascinating resource in determining what my environs look like as an economic demographic.

Paper or Plastic???

Depending on your line of work, canvas bags can be had in plenty for free. Indeed, I have and use, to the point of religiosity, my abundance of free bags. All my local supermarkets offer issue credits for using reusable bags. These warm the cockles of my frugal heart.

Still, every other month or so I will forgo the bag credit and use a paper bag so that I can package up six or eight weeks' worth of recycling. (People keep stealing our recycling bins here, so now I set my recyclables out in paper bags.)

What Was The Best Thing You Ate This Weekend?

A sandwich made from mass-produced white bread, the best industrial mayonnaise, and salted-and-peppered slices from a tomato still warm from the sun.

Poll: What's Your Favorite Summer Cookout Food?

Onions, mushrooms, asparagus, and eggplant—in that order.

What is your Favorite Rice?

I've never met a rice I didn't like. Jasmine, Basmati, pilaf, sushi, risotto, mochi, spring roll wrappers, noodles: bring 'em on!

Actually, the mention of the word "Basmati" made me salivate. For what it's worth, I buy Tilda or Royal (love the burlap bags), and cook the rice in the rice cooker with a bit of salt, a couple of cardamom pods, a bay leaf, and one or two cloves. The smell is divine. With some clarified butter, so is the flavor.

You can eat a whole box of _______in one sitting!!

Oh, and how could I forget: kettle-cooked potato chips, in those boxes that most people call bags. Day-um.

Sorry for the double post. This was IMPORTANT!

You can eat a whole box of _______in one sitting!!

rosemary-and-olive-oil Triscuits
airy, sugary cereals, such as Honey Bunches of Oats (for this reason only the more satiating types like raisin bran are allowed in the house)

I've never finished a box of mac and cheese, but only because I always add stuff to it (canned fire-roasted tomatoes; frozen peas, spinach, or edamame). I've come close, though.

I'd rather be called a X, Y or Z than a "foodie"

I prefer verbs over nouns, which are often labels. When someone asks me if I'm a foodie, I enthusiastically assert that I like to cook, and I like to eat.

Recap: Top Chef DC, Episode 2

@LetthemEatQueso: Yeah, my mind was boggled by that as well. Even the guy at Restaurant Depot looked a little bewildered when she asked him, "Where's the alcohol?"—presumably because he was aware of the challenge.

But Amanda took charge, as chefs are presumably supposed to do (notice how rudely she was cutting off Tamesha, whose gnocchi would have just as bad a choice as bad-boozy chicken) while Jack-Clean knuckled under and compromised her dish. I wonder how her catering business is going to fare, now that she's gone out in a mini-streak of "grainy" glop. At least she was consistent.

You're on Top Chef Episode 2

green (spinach! pesto!) eggs and ham quiche

baked ziti or lasagne with vegetables hidden in the sauce

baked falafels with colorful shredded salad and cucumber-yogurt sauce in a pita

. . . and on and on. I can't believe that one contestant with her chicken braised in cooking sherry. Never mind serving booze (only 85% of it cooks off) to kids; isn't cooking sherry such salt-adulterated crap that real chefs will spontaneously combust in its presence?

frozen fries

I'd forgotten that Kenji Lopez-Alt's burger lab column devoted a piece last week to "Perfect Thin and Crisp Fries." One of the secrets achieving to this perfection is freezing the parboiled fries. Unfortunately the Montgomery Advertiser's (or any small paper's) average reader is unlikely to be hanging out on Serious Eats.

Weekend Poll: Do You Prefer Regular or Diet Soda?

I'm with those who prefer diet because regular is too sticky and heavy, defeating the purpose of the fizziness. I don't drink a lot of soda pop, but when it's made available at meetings or other functions, I'd prefer diet; if all that's left is regular, I go without.

frozen fries

The review is uninsightful and quite poorly written (from the context, that "step above" boxed mac and cheese remark was supposed to be complimentary), but it's a positive one: the reviewer considers your food "quite good" and "yummy." For a professional committed to her or his work, it is natural to focus on the criticisms buried in the praise, but try not to let the seemingly negative bits get to you.

As for your question, I totally agree with thepirateking. Your "hot and fresh and lightly sprinkled with seasoning salt" fries are probably a lot tastier than the review's description lets on.

Favorite Potato Chips?

I can't eat them, because they're fried in lard: Grandma Utz's.

How do you like your eggs?

It depends on the season. In the spring, I've been scrambling them, making omelets out of them, frying them (breaking the yolk) and putting them into sandwiches, and incorporating them into egg salads.

In winter, though, nothing beats a jiggly chawanmushi, except perhaps quiches, frittatas, and tortillas españolas.

Breakfast Sandwich Poll, Part I: What's Your Favorite Bread?

Other: flour tortilla, preferably homemade, using 1/3 whole wheat flour and AP for the rest.

I like a chewy contrast to my broken fried egg. So, in descending order of preference:
1) bagel
2) English muffin
3) wheat/hippie bread toast
4) white toast
5) croissant
6) biscuit

What's your favorite bean (if you have one)?

I can't think of a bean I don't like, but I always have to have dry black beans, blackeyed peas, chickpeas, and lentils on hand. Cans of these, as well as gunga peas, are permanent residents in my pantry. Likewise, there must be ten bags of shelled organic edamame in my freezer.

Finding Cane Syrup in NYC

I'm in the relative boonies of Old Virginnie, where Lyle's is available in the supermarket aisle with all the British stuff (P&G Tips, Marmite, McVitie's Jaffa Cakes, etc.), and it's not even all that expensive, so I'd be surprised if it weren't even easier to find in Manhattan.

The 10-Ingredient Shopping List

food for a looooooong bus trip

In a fit of craziness and frugality, I've booked a 27-hour (each way!?) trip on a Greyhound bus next month. There will probably be stops for food, but I'd really rather not eat stuff from a bus station cafeteria or fast food from rest stops. I was looking forward to packing healthy, tasty vegetarian food that keeps well, but now I find I'm not as creative as I thought I was. Sure, peanut butter and honey sandwiches are delicious, as are baby carrots and hummus, but they are kind of boring. What about bean or grain or pasta salads? I'd be grateful for y'all's ideas, which must be more inspired than mine.

Magazine Storage

Hi! I'm a new member, but I've been a serious eater for a long time—long enough to have amassed hundreds of cookbooks and a desultory collection of magazines about cooking and gastronomy. The latter threatens to take over the "library" area of my kitchen. I still subscribe to a frightening number of titles, and whenever I travel I collect the local food porn. I just wedge in the new arrivals wherever there's room, and it's all looking pretty sloppy. I keep them in wire magazine holders on a wall covered by these shelves, but mine are old and groaning from the clutter. I cannot bear to clip from the magazines and throw them out, because you never know when you're going to be suddenly engrossed in adverts from that Bon Appetit from 1986. If you have a lot of magazines, how do you keep them organized, presentable, and accessible?

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