Anna Blume

Okay, okay, I'm in, too.

However, my attitude towards dieting is similar to John Travolta's. I refuse to modify what I eat to any major degree even though I can think of at least 4 people who swear by Weight Watchers. It's the lack of significant exercise that is the principal cause of my undoing, at least, in terms of what I am able to control. Apparently, the vow to walk to all in-city sources of food is not enough.

I just lost one pound despite slathering dessert with whipped cream last night. I advise preparing untried recipes for dinner in the hopes that they'll be so unappetizing that you'll eat less.

Question: Might we dedicate a thread to documenting participants's most satisfying and delicious meals as a resource for planning menus and shopping lists?

Thank you, everyone, for the ideas.

Mrs. B. and others who suggest sautéing cabbage in olive oil until it melts speak to my definite preferences. That's what I did with the half that is no longer in the fridge, following Romagnan tradition by adding tons of garlic. Leftovers acquire an even stronger garlic flavor (i.e. instead of being merely sweet as the dish is the first night) and are wonderful with fresh tagliatelle; I added a little cream.

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Since there are 2 3/4 lbs. left, I'm going with the pain au chou (Deborah Madison's "Cabbage Gratin" which is pastry-free) first with a lemon-based or mushroom sauce, roasted winter squash and a lentil pilaf---or mushroom stew and polenta. If I went with a tomato-based sauce, perhaps chickpea fries since I have a jar of chickpea flour in the freezer.

Madison also has a recipe for panade which would incorporate broth as Zora recommends.

No truffles in the house, alas, but since I was not raised on stuffed cabbage and have never made it before, I just might try a jazzier filling than the one in the CC's NYT cookbook.

Whatever I do, I'll make one dish today, Ilaine, and hope that any old bean will do in a pinch since I didn't buy black-eyed peas this time around.

I have half of a huge green cabbage left from a trip to the farmer's market a couple of weeks ago.

Still in good shape, but since it's cut, I figure I need to cook the rest of it pretty soon.

Currently thinking about making:

-stuffed cabbage if any of the half-leaves are big enough to roll up

-pan au chou (custardy gratin)

-tortelli with cabbage filling

Two questions since I rarely buy this vegetable:

1) If I decide to make either/both of the first two dishes mentioned above, what do I serve with it? The first, in particular, is such a one dish meal (meat, rice, green veg, tomato sauce...), I can't think of an appropriate side dish. Carrots? Beets?

2) Any other recommendations welcome, besides a corned beef dinner.

PRODUCE

The Fuyu persimmons, 4 for $2.29 are gone now. FTR, while I whined about the quality of the first packages I saw at the store for a slightly higher price, I bought really good ones a bit later in the month.

Blood oranges: 2 lbs. for $2.29. They're the usual Moro (vs. the sweeter, more subtely streaked variety carried by the Tenleytown Safeway last year at a bargain price), inexpensive because they're under-sized. However, they are sweet as well as beautiful.

Satsuma madarins: 5 lbs. for $6.99 is a bargain compared to the price at Whole Foods.

Red currants: Haven't seen these offered fresh at any other stores in D.C.

OTHER

The all-peanut butter at $1.69, purchased only once, does not seem to be a good deal. Its oil content is higher than others.

Canned Italian plum tomatoes at 99 cents are also mediocre.

Only had 2 kinds of organic dried pasta at 99 cents (vs. wide variety at .69 of lower quality), but spaghetti is great.

TJ butter is priced in competition with Whole Foods (both at $2.69), but deal on Plugra is remarkable.

A lot of staples and popular items were not in stock Saturday afternoon. Big gaps on shelves.

Whole-berry cranberry sauce mixed into plain yogurt along with granola, all homemade.

Okay, Heather, for reasons beyond but including origins, I still find "epicure" to be an elitist term. We're addressing an elitist culture here, but I find the word to have a "standoffish" quality that "foodie" doesn't have.

I agree that it doesn't make much sense to try to overthrow a word that has already been widely accepted. Yet, if P. Diddy could do it, why not try?

The meaning of "foodie" is easy to grasp since it does not depend on knowledge of Latin or Greek roots or foreign languages. Take a lesson from The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Nothing obscure or esoteric. The cute factor is annoying, though.

For those of us old enough to remember the heyday of the word "preppy", words coined to designate a newly recognized and overly scrutinized social phenomenon are all easy to dismiss as self-conscious and trendy. As one historian puts it, "If I read one more paper that addresses Charlemagne's lifestyle..." It would be ideal if the word didn't sound brand-new. Yet:

-Thanks to the origins of the word "epicure", it sounds elitist, archaic and priggish. Arch.

-"Gourmet" and "gourmand" both put on airs for similar reasons. I love French food, but object to the hegemony of France in culinary matters. I even resent references to Italian cuisine.

I like the idea of turning to non-European languagues for fodder, but see Paragraph 2 above. Were there a nice short word that is easy to say...

Finally, to avoid sounding precious the word should end in a familiar unstuffy fashion such as:

-er, -or (Cf. "eater" above)

-an, or for the sake of bipartisanship, -at

-ist (ETA: see below)

I have also enjoyed a wonderful burrata at Dino's, flown in from Naples that morning.

Sorry, Porcupine.

At Dino, I enjoyed a very fresh burrata that was sourced from Naples.

N.B. I found the word "medley" in Gourmet, October 1981, the only issue from that decade that I kept. It was written when editors at the magazine still insisted that the word "tinned" should replace "canned" in copy.

Here's the introduction to a menu for a housewarming:

"The days are crisp with cornflower blue skies. The nights are cool and starry. Frost nips at the pumpkin, but gone is the garden. The seasons have changed.

We, too, have come inside, to celebrate a return to the warmth of hearth and home....Crystal and silver sparkle and tapered candles flicker gently, a fitting setting for an intriguing buffet.

The aromas suggest a menu of the Middle East and the subtleties of the spice routes. Unmysterious, though, are the preparations..."

Medley

This thread is about food-related terms, right?

Written on menu:

"Try a slice of our homemade pie, just like Grandma's."

Thanks for the full and educational report. Actually, the bratwurst makes a lot of sense since it's not unlike mortadella in terms of texture even if it lacks the big splotches of white fat. I've been told the mortadella you get here just isn't as good as the real thing unless you make it yourself.

I already offered long reports at eGullet in The Cooking and Cuisine of Emilia-Romagna which I can't link here since the site is being overhauled for the next few days. But I urge you to go down to the Italian forum soon and look through all the great stuffed pastas others have been making. (I'm Pontormo there and do not document my posts with photos, though others do.)

As I also mentioned here, I cannot recommend Lynne Rossetto Kasper's The Splendid Table (1992) enough. It's a model of research and presentation and gasp, the Ragu alla Contadina surpasses Marcella Hazan's recipe for ragu bolognese that was my standard until now. (Otherwise, I agree with Al Dente regarding essential cookbooks.)

In any respect, tortellini ARE round. They're supposed to resemble Aphrodite/Venus's navel. One version of the legend is that someone spied Praxiteles, I think, carving his Knidian statue of the voluptuous goddess, and was inspired to make these pastas based on all he could see through the keyhole. (Doesn't make sense unless the naked model was standing right in front of the door, but...) If you don't have a form with a handle, they're a pain in the ass to cut out. Cappelletti cut into 1 1/2 in. squares take a little less time.

See my formula for dough in the thread here on Pasta Making. Once you have a dough that pleases you, especially if you have a machine to roll it (I have an old hand-cranked Atlas that I hadn't used for nearly two decades), everything is extremely easy, if time-consuming.

I served the tortellini with butter and cheese alone on Christmas and last night, got around to throwing the cappelletti I froze* into brodo (making broth took 12 hours total), inspired by Porcupine's original query. Wonderful and a great antidote to all those cookies.

*I spread kitchen towel on jelly roll pan. After a while, you turn the filled pasta over as you're working because, sure enough, their fat little bottoms become moist and potentially gummy if you're not careful. There is absolutely no need to parboil the babies. Just make room in freezer, pop in the tray and when they're frozen, pack them as you normally would in plastic containers or bags.

7) Blues is the ideal music for working pasta

On Christmas I found Greg Brown good for putting together the filling, then for the tedious job of rolling, cutting tiny circles and stuffing: The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Bob Dylan. Harry Belafonte and the Tom Tom Club were in the stack, too, though a combo of NPR news, Sam Cook and Ella helped for a second shift the following day.

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This is the recipe I've grown to like for making pasta dough in a smaller batch than porcupine's:

2 extra-large eggs

1 2/3 c AP King Arthur flour

1/3 c cake flour

2 T EVOO

2 T water

Instead of doing the well-business, I just reach for a huge metal bread-baking bowl and mix all with fingers there before kneading dough on counter. I found letting it rest for 45 mins. wrapped in plastic useful. It's even easier to manipulate after resting in the fridge overnight; when making spinach pasta, it turns from flecked to uniform, deep green. Thawed in fridge after freezing? Turns a darker color and gets much softer, but not sticky and is otherwise fine. 1 1/4 batches of this was enough for filling 178 tortellini & cappelletti with 1 3/4 to 2 in. diameters.

A shopping spree at Surfas in Culver City...

Should you have a serious need for chocolate, Surfas is holding a sale online. 3 kilos of Valrhona cocoa for only $50.

Cappelletti en brodo

Green salad with roasted beets and shallot dressing

Monkey's panettone bread pudding.

Sunday Dinners at Lucques by Suzanne Goin -- my chef crush

I don't blame you.

Next summer, please, please don't forget to make the layered potato and Heirloom tomato casserole that bakes for at least two hours. (Only, be careful about the plastic wrap layer; Glad does melt no matter what she says.) I used a combo of green & red Striped Zebras and Purple Cherokees and it was one of the best things I've ever eaten period.

The green rice is wonderful, too. The only thing I don't like about the book is the decision to illustrate so many of the recipes with lovely photographs of raw ingredients (a leek, a perfect piece of fruit, etc.) instead of documenting what finished dishes look like.

Thanks for the great report on the truffles. This is one of the most inspired uses of leftovers I've read; the sausages sound wonderful.

*I generally have a low tolerance for cookbooks that talk too much, whether it's Bourdain's silly swaggering in the Les Halles Cookbook; Ruhlman-penned paeons to rabbit killing and upright fish in The French Laundry Cookbook or Judy Roger's repeated flashbacks to her years with the Troisgros clan in Zuni. I mean, just shut up and cook. By this measure, When French Women Cook should be the worst offender of all. The premise of the book is that it shares reciped learned at the feet of a series of women with whom Kamman lived as a girl and young woman in France, each from a different region: Mimi in Savoie, Claire in Tourain and so on. Thus each chapter starts with a little story about the women and their impossibly picturesque hearths, tales of mushroom-gathering and cheese-making and so on, and is followed up by a series of regional recipes. Somehow Kamman -- whom one suspects takes no prisoners and is fun to drink with -- spins these tales without using eye-rolling levels of treacle. The recipes are excellent, while also serving as a basic primer on the differences of French regional cooking. And, if you like a little backstory with your cookbook, it may be perfect.

I happen to love the writing in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, though my favorite is the story of the drunk reaching in the window to steal a pig's head out of a stockpot rather than any of the nostalgia. I also like the long-winded recipes because it's interesting to learn how such an exacting cook thinks; some of the fussiest instructions prove very worthwhile when it comes to results.

I agree about cloying sentimentality. Same goes for the chipper, bright, peppy stuff. Barbara Tropp in her restaurant cookbook is just a bit grating in her asides. I usually find the appeal of wordy cookbooks a matter of presentation and substance. You can always skip the introductory material if it's all superfluous blather to you. It's when the author can't write, didn't hire a collaborator, and has very little to say that the prose becomes precious and irritating. This is especially true when autobiographical material is of little interest to a reader who becomes increasingly uncomfortable when it's clear how profoundly the business of "setting up" a recipe matters to the author. On the other hand, when a book concerns regional cooking, carefullly researched and skillfully presented historical information is as welcome to me as the recipes.

FYI: The magazine caught my eye because of the demographics, too. I fear it's the nature of the profession more than the local scene alone. Remember, Ris Lacoste is still searching for a place to call her own.

Dave: I cannot speak for Heather, however, I suspect the reference to "welcoming" alludes to the kitchen rather than the dining room. I'd like to know what the statistics are regarding catering. I'd imagine they are reversed.

There have been quite a few threads on eGullet about the topic and I suspect, a bibliography could be compiled, complete with statistics and charting of trends. Today's not the best day for heavy-duty thinking and typing, but the situation is also due to the perceptions of girls and young women as to the desirability of such work.

Yet, you'll find in many professions that rely on an apprentice-system or on-the-job training, female leaders are rare. Construction. Carpentry. Plumbing. I'm drawing a blank on current examples not classified as "blue collar" or manual labor, but that is a related factor.

Off-the-top of my head, the best counterpart I can think of is a profession that is considered less than mainstream. How many of you can name ten living visual artists who are major figures in their fields? Ten major, living artists who are women? I'd nonetheless argue that there are many more these days than when the Gorilla Girls first started protesting the sexism of the art world back in the 60s and 70s. Why? Studio Art has emerged as an academic discipline in colleges and universities throughout the country, and not just in independent art schools. The growth of major departments in Studio Art runs parallel to the rise in the numbers of girls who applied to college, and the increasing numbers of female college students who come from classes other than Upper. These are all developments of the 1920s, onward, a rise that increases most significantly in the 30s and 40s (i.e., re departments vs. female students). You could say similar things about movie directors and film departments at NYU, USC, UCLA, etc. In the case of sculpture & painting in particular, artists rose from the status of mere laborer to Creative Genius with fame, social standing, etc. long, long, long before many women considered themselves professionals. This is not a perfect comparison and I do have to run so I can't fill in all the blanks. However, chefs have only recently become rock stars and line cooks still lack the prestige that accountants have.

^Light ending is a good idea.

I just recently tweaked a recipe for individual pumpkin flans, making them with persimmons instead with a pomegranate syrup instead of straight caramel for the top. Really good combination. Key lime & pom would work, too. Or simple lemon ones.

Last year for Hannukah/Christmas, did a Tunisian blood orange cake with olive oil that was stunning. Poked surface and poured in additional blood orange syrup and put glazed orange rings on top. Pretty.

I am wombat

My name is William. No, I am a wombat.

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FYI: The magazine caught my eye because of the demographics, too. I fear it's the nature of the profession more than the local scene alone. Remember, Ris Lacoste is still searching for a place to call her own.

Just saw a copy at the supermarket.

Michael, congratulations!!!!

Great suit, great smile, and from what I understand, well-deserved honors, indeed.

Regarding the item mentioned in Mrs. B's inaugural post: the same bargain was offered by the same store last year in October or November.

Rodman's sold out so quickly that they stocked up around Christmas time. I got a choice of two remaining as a present to myself.

It says Made in France inside the lid (?) but not Staub anywhere else. Nor, at that price, does it have the stylagtites (sorry no time to check spelling or verify t or m's) inside the lid that distinguish Staub from other (less costly) brands; they're there to help the vapor drip down again into your braise.

Some of the enamel on the lid has chipped off a wee bit during the year. The golden yellow has darkened after a few rounds of Minimalist no-knead bread.

Yet, as the first enameled Dutch oven type thing I've ever owned, it is a dear, dear possession and more than worth forty bucks. Can't believe I ever lived without it.

P.S. 1) Check the BASEMENT area of the DC Rodman's for housewares. 2) A quirky store, not always a bargain, but I've been amazed by some of the things I've found there and nowhere else, such as Orange Blossom Water (the Middle Eastern vs. French version, but very inexpensive and more than adequate).

One of the best meals I've ever had in late December involved one course after another with dishes flecked with black truffles. A tiny roast chicken with black truffles tucked under the skin and studding the crisp surface.... This was in the countryside way outside of Florence in a small restaurant run upstairs in the home of an Italian husband and his American or Scottish wife--or vice versa.

I have also enjoyed a wonderful burrata at Dino's, flown in from Naples that morning.

I wonder, though, as much as lots of college-tuition money and a connection to the kitchen of one of this area's best restaurants might help you acquire really good truffles, if there might be something to locavorism in this case. A generous pile of the more costly mushrooms grown in Pennsylvania could be special, depending on your plans for preparing fungus.

I don't know if the mushroom suppliers are showing up at the Dupont market on December 24 (which is operating both the 24 & the 31st, if an hour later on the latter). I was disappointed with King's Oysters that I bought at Whole Foods; they weren't as flavorful as the ones at the market. The quality may depend on the day of the week and I am sure WF & the market are not the only places to shop for them.

I don't buy the argument that a bad review from an individual on this board will affect the livelihood of the restaurant's employees, either.

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My family used to mash turnips and rutabagas together. Grandparents even had a dirt-floor root cellar to store them! However, James Beard has a trick that I love: slice or chop up mushrooms roughly and cook them forever (or low, up to 30 mins.) in plenty of butter until they darken and shrivel up like old men. Mix these with mashed rutabagas with lots of black pepper and more butter. Great with brussel sprouts, hashed or otherwise.

I've made Yorkshire Pudding only once myself and it was so-so since done in haste with batter poured directly into the roasting pan while the roast rested and I might have left too much fat in the pan. If you search online, you'll see recipes are basically for one big popover with only 2-3 T of rich drippings spooned into a heated pan before the batter is poured in and put into a very hot oven. My British stepfather somehow managed to make the (incredible) pudding around the roast in the same pan, but then, again the beef was cooked until a pale shade of gray. Here's Delia.