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wookie's Profile

Website:

Location: Indianapolis--for now

About: Grew up in the restaurant business, loves to eat or cook, hates to clean up after, addicted to anything food related.

Favorite foods: Haven't met a food I wouldn't take a bite out of.

Last bite on earth: Due to a serious food allergy I have never tried fried soft shell crabs or Joe's Stone Crabs. I have not had a crab cake or my mom's spicy crab stew in over 20 years. So, a taste before whatever gets me first, the anaphalactic shock or...

The Ten Most Recent Posts By wookie

From Talk

Freezing Cakes, Cookies, & Frosting--Need Advice

I've been on a baking kick. I made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I frosted half & it's on the kitchen table. I wrapped and froze the other half, unfrosted.

I have 2 cups of cream cheese frosting left--can it be frozen? What's the best container? Ziploc bag or tupperware?

I am about to make some macadamia nut lace cookies. Should I freeze the extra dough or freeze the extra cookies?

OK, I need to get a flouride treatment now.

From Talk

Do you garden?

I'm more than a little curious. With the rising cost of EVERYTHING, I am reminded that my grandmother used to garden to keep her family fed. While my parents visited two weeks ago, my mother planted two varieties of lettuce for ssam, some scallions, spinach, and jalepenos. I really have no idea what to do with this garden that has so blithely been left in my care. We have fortunately had rain every few days, so nothing is dead yet.
Do you garden? What do you grow? Any advice for a novice?

From Talk

Need Gnocchi Know-How!

Hubby bought a ten pound bag of russett potatoes because it was on sale for $1.99. We go out of town for a week on Sunday and I don't want to come back to a potato vine growing out of the pantry. I thought I'd make some gnocchi. I've never made gnocchi before. What's the best recipe? Whats the best technique? What should I know before I start? Do I freeze gnocchi after cooking or before? Help!

The Ten Most Recent Comments By wookie

From Talk

SEers help! Foodie Fam Reunion Invite Help!

From Talk

SEers help! Foodie Fam Reunion Invite Help!

Chelley--have you thought about a website to add to the invite? I think they are pretty easy to set up, my friends set one up for a destination wedding in St. Bart's and included all kinds of useful info, like accommodations, places of interest, recreation, airport, events leading up to the wedding, etc. This way anyone who needs to can access any necessary info and after you can post photos.

From Talk

food processors anyone?

I have a Cuisinart that is a blender and a food processor. I purchased it from Costco a few years ago. As a blender it's good. Has good capacity and adequate power. Not the best ice crushing blender, but if you spin it long enough it will produce a great margarita or smoothie. The food processor attachment is small. I would guess it's about 4 cup capacity. The big negative with this model is that it is LOUD. I mean really loud. For some reason it is louder when I use the food processor attachment. I mean, you want to cover your ears, it is that loud and shrill. I also think it is pretty inefficient. It takes too long to do a simple task. I made bread crumbs the other day and my ears were ringing a quarter way through the task. I find it extremely annoying and will avoid using it, if at all possible. I am looking at full sized fp by Kitchen Aid and CuisinArt. I think I'm leaning towards the Kitchen Aid.
I keep thinking about an episode of Ina Garten's where she grated like four pounds of cheese in about a minute--they didn't even cut the camera away--they showed her grating all of the cheese. It literally took about a minute AND it was not loud at all. Her stand mixer made more noise than her fp. That's the fp that I want. I have a suspicion it might be a commercial model. I really hope it's not.

From Talk

Shad Season

Really great story Karen.

I've only tasted shad roe once. I don't know if actually tasted it. It was wrapped in thick applewood smoked bacon and fried. I couldn't taste the roe because the bacon was so overwhelming. The roe was overcooked and dry and crumbly and tasted of bacon. Basically I feel like I tasted a slightly fishy bacon that day.

Then someone who claimed to love shad roe, proceeded to cover the entire bacon-wrapped roe with ketchup before eating it.

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: Cowgirl Cuisine

My Korean wedding banquet. OK, she had help, but I know her food and her organizational skills and so I can confidently say, she prepared this meal. And it was amazing and I will always remember it.

From Talk

Cutting Boards...

My favorite cutting boards are wood. My favorite is a dark end-grain checkerboard pattern that we received as a wedding present. Perfect size for everyday. I have larger and smaller plain grain wood cutting boards that I've collected over the years, but no bamboo, yet. I'm happy to see so many fans of the 'boo. Now I wish I had bought the ones at Costco last year.
I also have a medium sized poly board and two small ones that I've tossed into picnic baskets or pull out for small jobs.

I hate, hate, hate glass cutting boards. Knives are ruined by them. I was at a friends house and all she had was a glass board--when I heard the sound of her knife hitting that glass surface, I wanted to run, screaming and pulling my hair, from her kitchen. I can stand fingernails on chalkboard, but I cannot tolerate the sound of knife on glass.

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: Wine Bar Food

Oysters are my hands down favorite with champagne.

From Talk

Long weekend in New Orleans...

The last time we were there, we went to Bayona, Susan Spicer chef-owner, and had a very memorable meal.
We ate at many of the "must-trys" and we enjoyed the ambience and the food here the most. And the servers and hostesses were incredibly friendly and happy to recommend some other "must-try" places.
So charming.

From Talk

brussel sprout smell

LOL---I really think Southern_bella's suggestion of burning some microwave popcorn is a great idea! Also, if you don't burn the popcorn, get the extra buttery kind because everyone likes that uber-buttery smell and it'll mask your sprout-stink.

From Talk

sugar cream pie

I had never heard of it until I moved here (Indianapolis) and my neighbor's dog jumped on the counter and polished off that night's dessert (the sugar cream pie) and then started in on the lasagna, before getting busted. That dog knew the order of things: life is short, eat dessert first.
We all had a good laugh, grilled some burgers and dogs (hot dogs, not the Greaty Pyrenes who ate dessert--LOL), and picked up a quart of Ritter's frozen custard while everyone told me how much they love sugar cream pies...have yet to try one.

Responses to Comments by wookie

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: Wine Bar Food

Hi, I enjoy shrimp, cheese and crackers and stuffed mushrooms with dry champagne. For sweeter varieties of champagne, I like dessert and/or
fruit. Please enter me in your delightful cookbook giveaway drawing. I really appreciate it.....Thanks,Cindi

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: Wine Bar Food

Chocolate
Fresh fruit--peaches, strawberries, grapes, pineapple

From Talk

food processors anyone?

I bought a black and decker cheap one. I think 30 dollars. It works really well but food gets stuck in parts that I can't really clean

From Talk

Cutting Boards...

wood for me. one for onions and garlic and one for fruit.

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: Wine Bar Food

Smoked Salmon is my favorite

From Talk

Cutting Boards...

Thanks for asking this as I'm in the market for a bamboo cutting board.

I have come to like the silicone ones simply for ease of cleaning and sanitation. I have the Silicone Zone ones that have separate boards for chicken, meat, veggies, and fish. I haven't noticed any problems with my knives and like that they can go in the dishwasher.

Only problem I've had is the backing is supposedly a grip surface and the paint has begun coming off on our counters on the vegetable board that I use most often.

That peeling has caused me to want a bamboo one for vegetable prep since I think it will last much longer and I've been impressed with what I've read about the bamboo.

Any certain brand people prefer? I checked Sur La Table last weekend but the only ones they had were too small for my liking.

From Talk

SEers help! Foodie Fam Reunion Invite Help!

That's the sort of crowd who WILL pick up the phone and shepherd each other, making sure every last 4th cousin twice removed is gathered up and brought into the fold. I have the same in my own family, 'cept they're Polish. Maybe offer a prize for the one who gets the most people to attend?

From Talk

food processors anyone?

I have a 12-cup wide mouth KitchenAid (named "Choppa") that I adore and use at least 5 times a week. I make a lot of pie dough, and use it for chopping, shredding, or slicing veggies, shredding cheeses, slicing beef, making bread crumbs, pureeing soups, etc. etc. I bought it after I got my stand mixer and was surprised that I use it much more than my mixer, and it has sped up my prep time tenfold.

If I didn't have a matching stand mixer I would have chosen a Cuisinart, both that and my KA are Cooks Illustrated recommendations, those are the only two brands I was willing to buy. I also LOVE the 3-cup mini bowl mine comes with for small jobs.

I always suggest buying the largest size you can afford because you usually need the extra room, especially if you make pie or bread dough you'll need something at least 9 cups.

My sister and bro-in-law have the Cuisinart blender/mini food processor and even though she likes it ok, after seeing how well my Choppa performs she'd rather have a larger FP.

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: Wine Bar Food

raw oysters or smoked salmon with creme fraiche, some caviiar would be really indulgent

From Talk

SEers help! Foodie Fam Reunion Invite Help!