Yum! While you're doling out the family recipes, do you perhaps also have the recipe for your father's lemon/fig preserve handy?
I have to write him for it, but I'll do so. in the article it mentions scuppernongs, a kind of grape; they make a great jam/jelly too, but are harder to get.
Hurray!
I notice that whenever I tell English people that I'll make them something American, I immediately start planning a Southern menu. Californian food, as distinct as it is, is too Mediterranean or such to stand-in for the nation as a whole.
agreed. europeans who doubt the wonderfulness of US cuisine can easily be swayed with, say, fried okra, or spoonbread. shrimp and grits, for that matter. and everyone loves biscuits.
you guys need to start fighting or something. I can slander the whole non-coastal part of the US with impunity?
in the body's biggest muscle
The gluteus toteshotimus!
With Parenthetical tagging the west coast as unamerican we've only a few regions left. Poi tastes like wallpaper paste.
In the Carolinas, we hang wallpaper with bacon grease.
and they eat like kings. Kings, I tell you!
I always imagine that kings mainly subsist on cold rubber chicken, and dream of BLT.
It's true that Southern food is the biz, but New England gave us clam chowder, which is worth something. I can take or leave Californian food (exc. SF Chinese, which I will take, thank you very much) - as you say, generic Mediterranean/Pacific Rim. OK, no personality.
OK, no personality.
Oh, I definitely wouldn't say that. It's just that it's hard for me to cast it as 'American' in a way that isn't - look, we steal all of our immigrants' food! (Granted, that's also true of the South, but it's a more unified cuisine to my eyes.)
Then again, immigrant food really is American food, so maybe I should start arguing for California.
Italians eat lentils for New Year's, and the story one is told is that the lentils resemble coins. Wikipedia says the same for Hoppin"'" John.
Hold firm, Parenthetical, against those cosmopolitan bastards with their leafy green vegetables and avocados.
Everybody's food is immigrant food, with the possible exception of parts of Italy and China. And southern India, I suppose.
13: I am Californian! It's hard not to argue for my state. And god, I miss avocados.
I love Californian food, but cooking it outside of California can be a problem when the produce isn't fresh fresh fresh.
Thanks for the recipe, alameida: I would now like to scarf down some beans and rice.
Did anyone else read an article (or hear a radio segment) about heirloom rice and beans people in South Carolina? Here's an example of the sort of thing the article discussed. Looks pretty exciting.
14: Not in the same way American food is, I'd argue. The sheer numbers and diversity make it hard to compete with, even as much as, say, English food has been influenced by the empire and immigration.
All you who're praising Southern food, and you're not wrong, do you consider Louisiana a department of the South? From out here on the crowded west coast, it seems distinct.
15: It's all turnips and boiled peas for you, now.
I had a French friend who made fun of Americans and their food (...of course) when we were in California. Then we both moved to the South (different parts) and she discovered Southern food. Now she's planning on opening an American restaurant in France. She was really interested in bbq/barbecue* sauce (I told her they all started with ketchup but she either though she couldn't get that in France or it'd be too expensive or there must be a way to make it from scratch). Any good recipes?
She was also amazing to learn Southerners eat turnip greens - "They just throw them out in France! And they are so delicious!"
*not just limited to Southern bbq, also including "grilling"
Actually Louisiana is very similar to parts of southern Alabama (specifically Mobile) because they share French and African roots, plus seafood availability.
I assume it's never the right thing to respond to someone's family photo on facebook with "Jesus Christ! You have SIX kids?!" right?
so hilarious! my family has always joked of opening an SC-style BBQ restaurant in paris which would become the toast of the town. as why should it not, because who doesn't love meltingly tender shreds of roasted pork?
I feel louisiana (and some adjacent areas) is its own thing. but then low-country food is also somewhat distinct from food in, say mississippi, which I don't know much about. other areas of the south don't rely so heavily on rice, for example.
To my understanding there are three Louisiana cuisines: Cajun, Creole (sort of New Orleans) and standard inland Southern.
I don't really know that much about the intricacies of Southern tradition so you could be right that Louisiana is totally different than most else. But visiting Mobile, they had a lot of the French architecture and traditions that New Orleans had. Sometimes ports can be more similar to each other than to the intervening areas (see e.g. Boston and Halifax).
(I'm watching Sandra Lee make Louisiana food as we 'speak' - she is horrifying as always)
oh god, not sandra lee. she thinks every problem can be fixed with a can of pre-made frosting. good night people, I'm going to go be miserable and hallucinate for a while.
re: 199
Haggis, neeps, and tatties, I'll thank you.
I can slander the whole non-coastal part of the US with impunity?
Eh, I was just ignoring it. OTOH, maybe it's just that you're right: both Tweety and I had some serious stomach unhappiness the evening of our Christmas meal in MO, due (we think) to having ingested a metric ton of sugar each. Everything had sugar in it. We were happy to return to our coastal enclave this week and resume our high fat (but not high sugar) diet.
I told her they all started with ketchup
I expect apo would like to have a word with you...
It's true that Southern food is the biz, but New England gave us clam chowder, which is worth something.
And forget not the Mid-Atlantic, which gave us scrapple!
Chicago-style hot dogs.
It's true about the sugar, since a lot of eating out is chains and carryout where the immigrant owners have mutilated their recipes for the benefit of what they think the locals want to eat. Except that places that are actually indigenous don't lean sweet, I think of them as greasy spoons, diners on the ground floor of a building or the corner of a single story. Many of them were started by Greek or Yugoslav owners who have since sold the business. Anyway, those places don't serve sweet main courses, and neither does Harold's. Actually, the deep-dish pizza places don't run to sweet sauces either.
MO = St Louis? Good food there takes some searching, that's true.
||
Video of anarchists confronting a stalker in the scene. Problematic on a tactical level (why identify yourself and others to the cops when you don't have to?), but a welcome development overall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES7z1PNK6tA&feature=share
||>
Does okra really taste good and I've never had it properly prepared or is it just "good" as in "doesn't suck as bad as most green vegetables"?
re: 35
I think it's the inverse. It's worse than almost all other green vegetables. God, okra mings. And I've had it done various supposedly tasty Indian ways, and tried various recipes myself in a bid to convince myself that it must be OK and the people who like it aren't deluded. But fuckit, they are deluded.
Deep-fried okra are the 2nd best deep-fried item on a Southern menu. Deep-fried pickles being #1.
35: Okra is disgusting. Don't let anyone try to tell you different.
See, al, I'm trying to start a fight. But I'm also correct.
Bhindi masala is fabulous, made with okra. Curried green vegetables generally are not bad at all.
36. Proper trolling requires that you actually insult the people who disagree with you, not just the opinion. Tongue damaged by decades of freshly deepfried offal and tubers?
Okay, Ttam got there first, fight-pickingwise. (I hate typing on a phone.) But I'm helping!)
Okra is the food of the gods; canned okra is the food of the gods of the underworld.
I've had bhindi masala. I've even tried _making_ bhindi masala, just in case the restaurant I had it from made it badly. I've also tried various recipes that involve frying the okra really hard to crisp it up, with chillis and other veggies. Still boggin'.
There must be people who genuinely like okra, but I find it really hard to see how. Horrible slimy stuff. Even preparing it gives me the boak.
I've had okra and it wasn't bad, but never so great that I didn't wish I could have gotten a salad instead.
Horrible slimy stuff.
If it's still slimy, it hasn't been prepared properly.
I'm fond of deep fried Oreos. That's some quintessential American food, right there.
re: 45
Everyone always says that. It's really slimy when raw -- that clear gunk that comes off it -- but even when cooked it has that texture about it, even if the slime itself is gone. In the interests of science I've tried it in several different restaurants, and it just has a texture/mouth-feel that isn't pleasant [to me].
Bison ribeye for dinner last night. Cedar plank steelhead the night before. Roast turkey the night before that. We're not starving here in the inland PNW.
Now I want guacamole but the store by me has shitty produce and I do not want to go far.
re: 50
FWIW, the deep fried Mars bar thing was a joke, started at one chippie, as a deliberate piss-take of the propensity to deep-fry anything. The legend has taken on a life of its own, though.
I adore okra in just about any preparation. I grew up eating it from our garden. Picking it is horrible, though: the entire plant is full of these really fine, prickly hair things that get stuck to you. You pretty much have to shower after picking okra.
A Canadian friend in Savannah at this very moment reports "loooving old historic savannah!!! however these people are obsessed with paula deen and midnight in the garden of good and evil!!!"
Google informs me that Paula Deen and "Midnight in the garden of good and evil" are two different things.
I accept that it's possible to prepare okra well (although I've never tasted any evidence (to be fair, I have not been as diligent as ttaM in the pursuit of scientific knowlege)), but it doesn't seem worth the effort or the risk.
|| The image at the end is worth a minute's thought. |>
51: Come to the Minnesota State Fair sometime. You really CAN get just about anything deep-fried, and on a stick. Candy bars are old hat.
51: OH, I know, but I am in the belly of the Scottish beast* right now and must be permitted my defenses. (Really more like late-50s UK preserved in amber. I'm surprised they're not rationing sugar.)
To be honest, I suspect that those who rave about okra have their memories overly-influenced by the rare times it came out edible.
MO = St Louis? Good food there takes some searching, that's true.
My family lives a little over an hour west of St. Louis. I have enough old favorites in the city to eat decently, but once we get out to my family all bets are off.
I think nosflow just set a cross on fire.
And I've had [okra] done various supposedly tasty Indian ways,
For what it's worth the friend who most likes oka is particularly fond of it as part of a goat curry. So you could try African or Caribbean curries as well.
But it sounds like you've done more than enough experimentation.
Also, to the OP: The only time I've been served Jell-O salad in the midwest is at my grandmother's house or at rural church potlucks. You can buy it in the store, but I never see anyone doing so.
That said, there isn't as much distinctive regional cuisine here as in many other regions of the country. My father has been complaining that he can't find good sausage anywhere in New England College Town, so I'm going to try to send him some at some point. Apparently there are places where you can't get bratwurst? That's weird. Nobody around here except really perverse Norwegians eats lefse and lutefisk, and that pretty much only at Xmas. But, here in Mpls. at least, we do have a lot of very good ethnic restaurants. As I've said before, the Mission-style burritos are better than the ones you can get in the Mission. I'd put up my favorite local mango lassi against any lassi in the world (excluding bhang lassi of course), and the vegetarian Taiwanese basement restaurant is really exceptional, even though I get an allergic reaction every time I eat there. Probably the MSG, although I don't get it at other Chinese restaurants, so perhaps it's something particular to fake meat.
NMM to Cheeta:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2079272/Cheeta-1930s-Tarzan-chimp-dies-aged-80--real-star-old.html
I think liver and onions is a regional dish where I now live. Can that be true?
Around here is pretty good for sausage and smoked and pickled fish. Lutefisk is ritual Christmas food for old people but one restaurant does serve it for 6 weeks around Xmas. (Lutefisk is also eaten in Italy, but as a Lenten food IIRC). Not good here for cheese or beer; all the old breweries have been wiped out (there's a ruins in New Munich, with a tall chimney) and the milk biz is all commodified for the world market. There's no truck gardening to speak of though many have their own garden which they use for gifts and exchanges. Likewise locally caught fish which can't be sold commercially.
A smorgasbord (A buffet) actually has a lot of tasty stuff if you like fish and sausage, but it's not a living tradition except around Christmas in churches. No smorgasbord restaurants.
Are corn dogs a thing outside of North America?
re: 62
The best Indian version I had was OK-ish. I ate it, anyway. I'd just choose almost any other green vegetable for similar cooking over okra, and I won't cook it again myself.
re: 65
It's a fairly traditional English thing. My mum made it when we were kids [before we went vegan]. Where is it you now live?
63.last: Gluten intolerance of some kind?
A map with a characteristic food for each state. Minnesota does get the coveted "Fried food on a stick".
it just has a texture/mouth-feel that isn't pleasant [to me]
I understand. I have the same relationship with mushrooms.
70: Connecticut = hamburger? Huh? Is this a thing?
Rfts' okra is fantastic, but I don't particularly like gumbo.
33.last: But the pizza! Seriously, that's weird stuff. Every town in England has its own cheese; we've got a million bizarre variants on pizza.
St. Louis lays claim to toasted ravioli, right? I kind of love those.
72: Not that I know of, I suspect they just did not have anything else. Also lame: having Maple Syrup for New Hampshire rather than Vermont so Vermont could get Ben and Jerry's.
Hmm. Best I can do for CT is New Haven pizza -- which is really good.
70 - Someone did not read enough Jan and Michael Stern back when Gourmet was publishing them. (Although I would have given Connecticut pizza and New York a weck or a pretzel or something. Coffee in one of those Greek diner takeout cups. And Illinois deserves hot dogs, not deep dish pizza.)
re: 71
Yeah, I can get that. Generally I really like mushrooms, cooked in all sorts of ways, but sometimes they are are cooked in a way that has an unpleasant mouth-feel that isn't a million miles away from the thing I dislike about okra.
Louis' Lunch in New Haven claims to be the birthplace of the hamburger sandwich.
74: There's also St. Louis style pizza, which is cardboard thin, topped with provel, and cut into squares. The biggest St. Louis style pizza chain is Imo's, which also has decent toasted ravioli.
Ha-ha, I stealth-pwned Blume. (I've tried St. Louis pizza, and it's... pretty awful.)
re: ravioli [and stuffed pasta generally]
I had potato stuffed tortelli [tortelli di patate] in Florence, earlier in the year, and that was surprisingly good. Stuffing pasta with potato seems an odd thing, but it was great.
Yes, toasted ravioli is delicious. St. Louis style pizza is... edible? Barely?
St. Louis does have Obama's favorite deep-dish pizza, though.
78: Used to take the original edition of Roadfood with me on trips (late '70s I think it came out?). Unfortunately it became more of a testament to unique places not being able to stay in business or under original ownership. The internet has certainly helped the timeliness (I know they also have regularly updated the book).
I'm fond of deep fried Oreos.
YES. Also deep-fried Twinkies, which turn out to be the greatest donuts I've ever had in my life.
Cooked okra I can take or leave, but okra pickles are teh awesome. (Then again, I love pretty much anything pickled.)
In hindsight, Obama's willingness to abandon his hometown's pizza should have been a warning sign.
78, 88: Reading Road Food as a kid gave me a lifetime craving for chess pie, but I could never find it anywhere. I finally tried it a few years ago and it was revolting.
91: I find it OK, but a little bit goes a long way.
In hindsight, Obama's willingness to abandon his hometown's pizza should have been a warning sign.
Really? I always thought pineapples and ham on pizza was strongly overrated.
I also think thick crusts are overrated.
No one wants to offer up Indonesian pizza, so we have all bases covered?
Barack likes elitist American Dream Pizza.
Wow, thanks for this recipe. I've got my hambone stock ready, and I've soaked black beans because I was going to make Spicy black bean soup, but I think I'll try your recipe with black beans instead of black eyed peas.
I've got my hambone stock ready
...laydeez.
You should buy some Carolina Gold rice from these people and experience the wonder.
I was just about to, but I just couldn't being myself to order from "Carolina Plantation Rice" selling "A taste with a history." Even if it's completely inoffensive, and I know nothing about the history of Carolina rice production, it's still feels a little odd to read, "Rice remained a dominant commodity on the coastal rivers of South Carolina until the end of the Civil War, when production started a long decline due to a loss of labor . . ."
I just feel like I would have to know more about the history before I would feel comfortable ordering from them.
The place linked in 87 has gluten-free pizza that is quite decent.
I also concur with the love for deep-fried Oreos. They were the surprise hit of a let's-deep fry-everything party I went to, along with deep-fried avocados.
Perhaps free-range fair trade Carolina Gold rice will become available soon.
They were the surprise hit of a let's-deep fry-everything party I went to, along with deep-fried avocados.
Oh, this reminds me of the other amazing deep-fried foodstuff I've had: deep-fried Meyer lemons. ZOMG so tasty.
Brussel Sprouts roasted with grapes are surprisingly good.
101: Geez Apo, you are scaring them away.
58: I have loved it every single time I've made it.
But I've only prepared it 3 ways:
1) sliced, soaked in buttermilk, dredged in cormeal, and deep fried
2) Smokra (i.e. okra seasoned with paprika and grilled)
3) To thicken a soup
I also only make it when it's available at the farmer's market. I wouldn't go for unfresh okra. But I do disenjoy inferior preparations somewhat less now that I have had it made proper.
88: Is this the same book as Good Food, Road Food? (At least I think that's the name I'm remembering.) My parents bought this book when I was a kid and we drove lots of places, and I think we tried some interesting stuff we would never have though to try, though we also tried South Carolina barbecue at a place called Maurice's Piggy Park, and were all squicked by the sweet, mustardy sauce...
I'd have thought that fried okra was one of those uncontroversial good things.
109: Good Food was the sequel. Both great books.
I love love love okra as long as it is not undercooked or otherwise ill-treated, but I can easily understand that some people would dislike it no matter how well it is prepared, as with eggplant/aubergine or mushrooms. I do wonder how possible it is to get nice truly fresh okra in the UK. Doesn't it need real true hot sun? Although plausibly it grows just fine in hothouses, I suppose.
There is one Indian store here in Cambridge that always has perfect okra, even in the middle of winter. It is amazingly, shockingly good.
I like cornbread. And barbecue, I guess, but I'm pretty sure I once left the room when other people started a foodie conversation about barbecue.
re: 111
UK is warmer than much of the continental US outside of summer [all temperate and shit], and is close enough to southern Europe and Africa to make transporting warm weather foods straightforward and cheap.
Googling, it grows in the UK in ordinary polytunnels or under cloches but would only be in season in the UK in summer, other times it would need to be imported from hotter bits of Europe or Africa.
114. I'm inclined to leave it out except during the British forcing season, but good pro chefs seem to manage to get decent stuff right through except the dead of winter. Quite a lot of non-native veg. and herbs which are regarded as important to S.Asian cooking tend to be grown on allotments and sold through effnick shops a lot, which means they're dead fresh if you get them the day they come in, but they need looking at closely before you buy them because it isn't really warm enough for some produce a lot of the time.
||jacobians currently at Grand Central Station waiting for some purported laser light show|>
UK is warmer than much of the continental US outside of summer
But summer is the relevant part! But yeah, of course, surely recent shipments from Spain or wherever could be as fresh as you would need.
116: Make sure you look at the model trains in the Transit Museum store.
Backload freight is the secret sauce. There is enough passenger traffic between Ghana and Nigeria and Kenya on one hand, and the UK, and the trade in goods is skewed enough, that airfreight rates coming back are very low.
NE has some interesting endemic cuisine. Nothing I'd want foreigners to think of as American, though: grape nut custard, chop suey burgers, that sort of thing.
Grape nut custard is good. Pumpkin pie is also a delicious American food.
What are chop suey burgers? (At a semi-wild guess, it might involve crumbling up those dry 'chop suey noodles' which are sort of like stick-like crackers into the ground beef?) Grape nut custard I'm familiar with, as grape nut pudding.
Most of the NE cuisine I'm familiar with is so obviously ethinic/immigrant-based: New England boiled dinner, say, which is something like Polish, or at least they always served variants on it -- as well at that highly-black-peppered boiled cabbage, which isn't bad at all -- at the Polish Club's festivals.
As LB has mentioned here before, Nero Wolfe, in Too Many Cooks, gives a speech to a bunch of fancy continental chefs about the wonders of American food. It was things like corn pudding and river trout, iirc.
122: There's no burger to it, just soupy chop suey and crispy noodles on a hamburger bun.
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Modern-day slave-catchers:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/25/local/la-me-wrong-id-20111225#.TvvGtmmsOtM.facebook
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Honestly, though, I feel we've had this conversation too many times to generate a fight from it.
(I've just deleted a bunch of fight-making words. Grits suck, though, and southern food is invariably either too salty or too sweet.)
124: Are you sure your family didn't make that up? It's like sloppy joes, right, except with chop suey. I'm surprised my own family didn't make that up, actually.
Grits are awesome. If we called them polenta would you like them better?
123: There's a whole Nero Wolfe-themed cookbook.
Grits suck, though, and southern food is invariably either too salty or too sweet.
This is crazy talk.
There's a whole Nero Wolfe-themed cookbook.
As I recall, not that focused on American food - Fritz is Swiss, after all.
Grits are usually coarser than polenta, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I had an entertaining meal at this place once with some people who seemed to think the more southern menu items were really exotic and interesting. To me it seemed like an overly gussied-up version of my grandmother's everyday cooking.
128: Not if they were still soupy and pudding-like, like Cream of Wheat. Baked polenta is okay.
I should say that this is a matter of taste (de gustibus) on my part: I'm not a fan of mushy foods, is all. Therefore don't like boiled greens either. I'm on record as not liking (what I register as) slimy foods either, but I understand this is just me.
Grits go with cheese in a way that oatmeal can't manage. But, plain oatmeal is better than grits.
Grits are much better than Cream of Wheat. Cream of Wheat is foul shit.
I've never tried oatmeal with shrimp and we just finished the last of the Christmas Eve shrimp leftovers so it's too late now.
135: Have you tried it with cheese?
you sure your family didn't make that up?
My family could never be responsible for such a culinary atrocity. The worst we've done is parmesan grits. I've only ever seen the chop suey burger eaten by one particular set of people, so it's possible one of them made it up.
Hawaiian pizza?
Very popular in Canada, and possibly invented in Chatham, Ontario (or so says wikipedia, but who knows?). A horrible idea, wherever it's from.
I've only had grits once, and didn't like it at all. But it strikes me as the kind of memories-of-childhood comfort food that would taste delicious if that's what you'd grown up with.
118: did do that-it was great. Light show canceled this year though not effaced from the website.
137: I've tried grits with cheese many times. I'm not sure why I'd want to try foul shit with cheese.
141: If you have to eat foul shit (or fowl shit), maybe put cheese on it.
I am certainly not a foodie by any means, but during my time in Houston I found it to be a place with very good diverse choices for relatively inexpensive restaurants. A lot of that is no doubt due to being well-situated to pick up Louisiana/Cajun and more generic Southern as well as different varieties of Mexican as well as Tex-Mex, Central Texas BBQ and Texas German/Czech cuisines. Also a seaport (just without the sea), and some decent Greek and various SE Asian cuisine restaurants (I never had Indian food there, however).
I like cream of wheat and Hawaiian pizza. But not mushrooms, those are gross.
I like mushrooms.
In my running list of post topics, I have a long ignored "what the heck is the nutritional value of mushrooms, anyway?" My plan was to speculate that there's something of value that we haven't identified. I have done zero reading on this topic.
Grits are coarser than polenta, some say: so they're like a mouthful of gritty mush. Let's put some cheese in that!
Heh. Realize this is all coming from the woman who once mocked yogurt and granola as "gravel and paste". Little did she know true yogurt and granola, or indeed, what she would become.
I'm pretty sure the texture of any food can be described in a repulsive way.
What is "California food"? Do you mean California cuisine, invented circa 1986, or what people actually eat. I like Cobb Salad and Santa Maria barbecue
Houston has really excellent food, including, as much as it pains me to say it, far better Mexican food than Southern California.
Southern food tastes great but no wonder that southerners are fat as fuck.
Maybe not bread. Like a fluffy roll. That's probably universally palatable. Except to Halford.
Ha! I wrote 150 assuming Hal was nowhere around.
I love cream of wheat, smothered in brown sugar, over which you pour just enough milk to dissolve the sugar. So good! (When I was a kid, my mother liked us to eat porridge in the winter, and cream of wheat was my favourite. It is probably over-refined and then "enriched," which is probably why I liked it so much).
I also like Red River cereal, which is not available in my little corner of NJ (I'm not sure if it's sold in the States at all, actually).
146.2: Forty-two pounds of edible fungus
In the Wilderness a-growin'
Saved the settlers from starvation,
Helped the founding of this nation.
Forty-two pounds of edible fungus
in the Wilderness a growin'.
146: Aren't mushrooms a good source of B vitamins?
I like them cooked (sauteed in butter, e.g.). But raw mushrooms (in a salad, say) can be a bit off-putting.
152: Yeah, cream of wheat can be okay on a cold morning if you make it just right, with the right mix of water and milk, and sweetener -- brown sugar or maple syrup, raisins sprinkled in are good, maybe some raspberry preserves swirled in -- so yeah. But if you mess up the proportions or it gets cold and thickens, all is lost.
151: Heebie, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Mary Catherine has solved a many-year mystery for me! CA and his entire family are fans of pineapple (and, when they were young, ham) on pizza. I never understood this. I will now blame Canada. Well, Ontario anyway.
After all, it does have Canadian bacon on it.
Also just jalapenos and pepperoni.
WTFINFINITY!!!?? you all have succeeded in arousing my ire.
1. grits are generally more finely ground than polenta (and stone-ground really are better); polenta is also eaten in the south under the glamorous name "cornmeal mush;" in such guise it is not infrequently allowed to solidify, cut into squares, and then fried/broiled. also, nothing is wrong with parmesan grits.
2. kinda sounds like ttam just doesn't like okra. everybody doesn't have to like everything. its "slimy" texture is a good thing in thickening soups or "limping susan," but is entirely annihilated when they are pickled, so maybe some pickled okra would be a last resort there. though I find it hard to imagine not liking them in cornmeal and deep-fried in a mix of rendered bacon fat and crisco. that said my father has often been heard to remark that small pieces of tire inner tube would probably be delicious prepared in such wise. blume is right picking okra is the worst. my hands are itching now just thinking about it.
3. all BBQ sauce is not based on ketchup. (now apo and I can get in a useless fight about BBQ sauce! but truthfully NC BBQ is delish.) ketchup is also easily made at home--and bought in paris unless I am very much mistaken.
4. french people throw away turnip greens?!1?/!1 first of all, they are my favorite greens, with mustards running a close second. second of all, I thought it was an article of peasant cuisine that nobody threw anything away because everyone was starving (hey lets make soup out of this...stale bread we have?); christ, people make salad out of chainey brier (one of these smilax but with vicious thorns) when it first comes up.
On topic nostalgia.
Off-topic nostalgia: original The In-Laws on TCM.
3. all BBQ sauce is not based on ketchup. (now apo and I can get in a useless fight about BBQ sauce! but truthfully NC BBQ is delish.)
NC BBQ is better than the BBQ based on ketchup, but it still isn't very good.
If you can make the grits in such a way that they're not mush, Alameida, we're cool.
Red River Cereal has been embargoed because of and undisclosed allergen.
Ice cream is mush. Lots of delicious things are mush.
additionally:
1. chess pie...OK, I'll let that slide, it's not my personal favorite. my dad makes banana cream pie that...[begins weeping softly into keyboard]. fully blind baked short crust; homemade pastry cream with real vanilla bean; bananas, softly whipped cream. it sounds so plain and simple, but I would probably gut one of your fuckers for a slice. well, if I'd just smoked one of my dad's joints I might be more inclined. or more lethargic! it depends upon the carefully calibrated mix of sativa and indica that has caught his fancy that month.
2. if you're worried about whether the people who make carolina gold rice might not be big old racists, probably the white ones are, but black people are doing 80% of the work. if this bothers you I advise you never to eat at any restaurant in the south, ever, even mcdonald's. I agree they should be more honest; it is interesting to know that an adult male who knew about rice cultivation cost $800 in the early 1800s. that's not inflation-adjusted: $800. SC was 80% black for a time before the civil war. those 20% were rich as fuck and scared shitless; only systematic, brutal repression on the plantations kept them safe in their beds. nonetheless I can see how they're not using "chattel slavery made this delicious rice possible!" as their tagline. just order it, dude. if you feel bad about enjoying it, send some money to a reputable charity in sierra leone or something. or better, some gullah preservation charity.
3. cream of wheat is good, y'all. if you don't like hot cereals, just don't eat them. I do not like oatmeal, by contrast, finding it slimy. also, people are mildly underselling non-southern east coast regions. maryland crab cakes; lobster rolls; clam chowder; manhattan clam chowder; brown bread; baked beans; maple sugar candy; smoked whitefish; home-smoked bluefish and salmon; swordfish steaks on the grill; silver queen (and variants) corn; that portuguese food in RI or some shit?; the products of the entenmann's baking company.
165: parsimon, for you, I will pour the leftover grits into a pan, let them solidify, cut them into fingers, and broil them, before putting fresh shrimp in a delicious sauce over them. then we'd be cool.
I do not like oatmeal, by contrast, finding it slimy.
Have you tried steel-cut oats (aka Irish oats)?
I know! I was like "Your people ate snails and frog legs because they were starving and were too good for turnip greens??!"
Turnip greens are the best green.
But, sorry, I don't like grits either. With cheese they are better but they're still too sludgy or sandy or bland or all of those.
the products of the entenmann's baking company.
Kosher!
its "slimy" texture is a good thing in thickening soups or "limping susan," but is entirely annihilated when they are pickled, so maybe some pickled okra would be a last resort there. though I find it hard to imagine not liking them in cornmeal and deep-fried in a mix of rendered bacon fat and crisco.
Alameida is confirming my stereotypes about the folksy, homespun glamour of Southern foodways.
I like the idea of Southern cooking, but as a vegetarian I am wary of anything too "authentic" or traditional (aren't greens typically/traditionally cooked in pork fat, e.g.?). I am going to buy some Carolina gold rice, though, it sounds delicious.
I salute alameida for her shout out to Entemann's.
eh, everybody don't have to like everything. steel cut oats are better, even moreso if you toast them in butter first, and naturally enough butter and maybe syrup/honey will render anything palatable, but I'd still be thinking, "I wish I were eating cornmeal mush."
as long as people have tried a well-prepared version of the thing they reject, no judgment. I, for example, do not like gravy on biscuits, such as those heathens in tennessee favor.
Oh god, can we please not have the bbq debate again?
176: is it ever. what the fuck kind of BBQ is good? aside from SC, obvs. but come on, even as a rabid partisan of SC BBQ I recognize that other versions are their own thing and can have their own charms. like the oklahoma/TX-style people in oakland CA make.
169: Sounds excellent!
Heebie is defensive about this mush business. Next she'll be defending tapioca.
I declare the BBQ debate over, since each style is like a special snowflake of wonderfulness which can be prepared deliciously on its own terms, except my dad's is still the best.
I've never had South Carolina BBQ. I think maybe I was boycotting the state or maybe just never bothered to visit except once and only ate seafood that trip.
Having reviewed the wikipedia article on tapioca, I amend 181 to read "tapioca pudding", which I knew in the first place.
Did you know that tapioca can be made into biodegradable plastic bags which revert in under a year? That is awesome!
My "I am going to buy some Carolina gold rice" posted before I read 168.2.
166: Apparently it may contain soy, which is not listed on the label.
181: tapioca can be delicious. so can rice pudding. just because things are often or usually prepared badly does not mean they are per se no good. one has eaten much terrible macaroni and cheese in school cafeterias. does it follow that mac and cheese is not good? indian people also make heir own tapioca and rice puddings which are good, if likely to be too sweet for parsimon unless I make them myself and cut it way down, as I usually do, because, dude, indian people: I'm an ex-junkie who takes 6 packets of sugar in her coffee and y'all are making this shit too sweet up in here. but nice job on the silver leaf, I was so not going to think of that on my own.
187: oh, come on. if you judge food products by the historical means used to produce them in the past you're going to be one hungry canadian. and yes, greens are traditionally prepared with pork fat, but you can wilt turnip greens still wet with the rinsing water in a little vegetable oil, for a few minutes and then put some pepper vinegar on there, and it will all be both regulation southern and delicious. sometimes people couldn't afford any meat.
186: You overcook your pasta, don't you?
190: I just forget about it, okay? It overcooks itself.
Actually I tried to improvise a chicken noodle soup, and I guess you have to use egg noodles, because the ordinary noodles that I grabbed out of our pantry turned repulsive. Shudderingly repulsive.
191: I figure, if you throw some cheese on there it'll work out. You could always let it cool, then fry it gently in a pan in some oil. There's always a way to make people overlook mush problems.
(The pan-fried spaghetti, with some beaten eggs poured over, is a thing, and a pretty good thing, as people probably know.)
Rødgrød is a grits / groats based pudding still sometimes found in Minnesota. Rømmegrøt is another quite nice pudding.
However, the fact is that Minnesota's Scandinavians seemed to Americanize their diets all too quickly, and since much of agribusiness is sited here, the more boring forms of American food dominated. Alas. The above are both ceremonial foods eaten mostly at Christmas.
Germans seem to have kept closer to their traditional diet of sauerkraut, sausage and beer, with some supersweet pastries.
Because this is so rich, it is often served in small cups with a small amount of butter topped with brown sugar, cinnamon and cream.
Butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cream are the very things you need to moderate an excessively rich dish.
oh, come on. if you judge food products by the historical means used to produce them in the past you're going to be one hungry canadian.
Oh, I agree. It's just that it looked like I was maybe responding to your acknowledgement of the racist origins of rice production with: 'hey, that sounds great! I'm going to buy some.'
Also agree that:
just because things are often or usually prepared badly does not mean they are per se no good.
Mashed potatoes, e.g., are often lumpy, tasteless, and 'mushy' in the wrong way, a carbo-laden "filler", or "extra" to the 'real' food. But that's only because they weren't prepared properly. When done the right way (the way my mother makes them), they are wonderful and delicious: almost bland, but not quite, because a little bit earthy. After boiling and draining your spuds, btw, you should always shake them in a pot over a hot burner for a minute or so, to get rid of all moisture. And the butter and milk (or cream, or buttermilk) should be gently heated before adding to the potatoes. And please never use an electric mixer to mash and whip, that only makes your taters gummy and glue-y. A hand-held masher (or a potato ricer) to get out the lumps, with a wooden spoon to make them fluffy.
176, 182: 183 gets it exactly right. Like my taste in pickles, my taste in BBQ is catholic.
179: Oh god, can we please not have the bbq debate again?
Sure, we can over to the other thread and talk about bicyclists v. pedestrians.
196: 100% agreed, although I didn't know about pre-warming the milk/cream, but it makes sense as you have to do them at the last second and you want them to be hot. [since I'm annoying, granted] I taught my maid how to do it; she makes great mashed potatoes now. she kept wanting to make them sooner in the dinner prep process so as to be ready but I held firm. differing with my maid on dinner preparations is oddly not strictly a 1st world problem, because I can only afford to hire a maid because she is from a 3rd world country. what it is more like is a 19th century problem. people do even steal each other's maids if they are exceptional cooks! philip k. dick-world problem: should I friend my maid on facebook or will it seem like I am keeping tabs on her? I have declined to do so, so far. she has my old iphone, and an apple laptop, so with wifi in the house she can be on facebook all the time.
please tell me the other thread is not a bicycle thread. I haven't looked. also, why has a friend of a friend on facebook got such a crush on me already that after maybe 5 chats on facebook message he wants to skype with me? what? that's kind of forward, honestly. isn't that somewhat forward? I can barely manage to skype enough with my mom. now I don't want to comment on facebook because I'll have to talk to him right away every time. he seems nice and all, but come on.
One time at Summer Language Nerd Thing we ate Entemann's brownies and drank Jim Beam and had an (unsuccessful) seance to communicate with Anna Akhmatova and then we found five rubles. Otherwise I associate Entemann's with old Jewish ladies mostly.
Early sexual imprinting is a powerful thing.
I taught my maid how to do it; she makes great mashed potatoes now. she kept wanting to make them sooner in the dinner prep process so as to be ready but I held firm.
La Cheyniest may be a foreigner, but he had me summoned the other day to give me a telling-off about a potato salad. You know, or maybe you don't know (music begins) that in order that this salad be edible, one must pour the white wine on the potatoes when they are still boiling hot, which Celestin didn't do because he doesn't like burning his fingers. Well, the master sniffed that straight away (music continues). You say what you like, but that's a man of the world!
philip k. dick-world problem: should I friend my maid on facebook or will it seem like I am keeping tabs on her? I have declined to do so, so far.
The rule of thumb that I've heard is that you don't friend down, you let the other person friend up. In my context, I shouldn't friend my students, but it's fine to accept a request from them. Whereas I can friend my provost if I want.
I mean, seriously, I've had five conversations with this person (who, I hasten to add, seems very nice and smart; otherwise I wouldn't have chatted with him (eh-instant-messaged, technically)). skype? tell me that doesn't seem overly forward.
if you're worried about whether the people who make carolina gold rice might not be big old racists, . . . nonetheless I can see how they're not using "chattel slavery made this delicious rice possible!" as their tagline. just order it, dude.
As much as anything my reaction was that, on a first pass I'm inclined to be curious about and interested in foods marketed as heirloom or heritage but, once I got to the web site, that ran up against my discomfort with people devoted to the "heritage" of the antebellum South. It was just a moment of cognitive dissonance.
As far as the traditional cultivation methods I found this:
In Colonial Carolina and Georgia, African slave women were tasked daily to hand pound Carolina Gold Rice: to hull it to brown rice, then winnow it, then pound it again, winnow it again and screen it for brokens (middlins), then hand pick it to produce grain for grain white rice. The resultant rice was considered the finest quality, exclusively for the tables of the elite. But many slave rice dishes called for Carolina Gold Rice that was simply hulled to brown rice.
I don't know that I would necessarily avoid buying it for that reason but it did make me think that it's been a while since I've tried to find a good Basmati rice (which I went away from after the local co-op switched their source, a couple years ago) and that I'll start experimenting with some Basmati varieties before I try the Carolina Gold.
206: Is your profile picture all cleavagey or something?
Seriously agreed on turnip greens. Those fuckers are so good.
should I friend my maid on facebook or will it seem like I am keeping tabs on her?
It'll be a bit Gossip Girl maybe. Can she do a Polish accent that incomprehensibly is terrible given that she's actually Polish, or am I mixing up your life and television too much here?
205: my thinking also; if she sent me a friend request I would say yes; otherwise I assume she'd prefer not. she can always complain about me in tagalog in any case.
I don't know, I have trouble with the very concept of referring to someone as "my maid," so I cannot provide advice.
Mary Catherine's mother is right about mashed potatoes, though I've never actually heated the milk or butter; just brought them out before beginning, so that they come to room temperature. The same for any milk or butter or eggs that will be incorporated in muffins or a quick bread: best at room temperature first.
2: What novel is it where they go on about a scuppernong arbor? A Member of the Wedding perhaps.
210: she's filipina. 206: not really. modestly cleavage-y, I guess? you could always friend me and find out. certainly it's not salacious or anything. there are some pictures of me up there in other dresses that are significantly cleavage-y, granted.
212: I could call her "my helper" and sometimes do. it seems a distinction without a difference. to her I am "my madam," a curious monicker.
oh, come on. if you judge food products by the historical means used to produce them in the past you're going to be one hungry canadian.
Unless I misunderstood him, I don't think NickS was judging the food based on the historical means of production so much as he was judging a vendor that chooses to elide that means in the present. As for me, I like my rice history white.
And I see that I'm pwned by the original source. Time to get back to work!
Otherwise I associate Entemann's with old Jewish ladies mostly.
I associate Entemann's with classic (before the hipsters took over) Brooklyn, so: old Jewish ladies, sure. Those gals really raised the standard for deliciousness in baked goods (but the standards got lowered with mass production for 7-Elevens, of course).
201: Yes, that is too forward. Tell him you don't do skype, and block him if he persists. You do not have to talk to him, really. It does sound a bit awkward, though, since he's a friend of a friend.
214.2: I'm just saying I would assume ulterior motives.
216: fair enough. it's soooo good though. rumor has it that it was once favored by the emperor of china, secretly.
Does skype have some kind of feature where it tries to reproduce itself by sending messages to everybody in your FB? I think I remember saying "no" to that type of request
194: The Danes seem to have substituted potato starch for grits in rødgrød; also, rødgrød med fløde (red-berry-pudding with cream) is so challenging to pronounce that it's been made a shibboleth.
221: I kind of thoughtlessly told him my email address and then thought better of it and wrote back to say I didn't feel up to it, being so sick.
it would be stupid to let him chase me off fb though. I guess I'll have to extricate myself politely somehow.
though I've never actually heated the milk or butter; just brought them out before beginning, so that they come to room temperature.
Honestly, heating the butter and milk (cream/buttermilk) does make a difference: as soon as you drain and shake the potatoes, they lose heat quickly, which can lead to an undesirable "gummy" texture. But room temp is fine; the important thing is never to add cold ingredients.
221 is wrong. I forgot that he was friend of a friend, not someone you friended.
I also have a facebook stalker who is a crazy woman I know, whom I rescued by sending her cash to get her a new passport in Nepal after her wallet was stolen. cuz I'm nice like that. but now she comments on my every status update and picture, within minutes of posting. christ, you're in kathmandu, why are you obsessively refreshing my fb page?! I think I can block her from view without defriending her, is that right? and why am I so stalk-worthy; what's the deal? drama club mercenary says it's because there's something appealingly wrong with me that attracts bad people, but he would say that. hey, I should hassle him for some money right now...
177 I, for example, do not like gravy on biscuits, such as those heathens in tennessee favor.
You don't like biscuits and gravy??? You're shocking me. It's biscuits! And gravy! Two great tastes that go great together!
205 The rule of thumb that I've heard is that you don't friend down, you let the other person friend up. In my context, I shouldn't friend my students, but it's fine to accept a request from them. Whereas I can friend my provost if I want.
My god, there's official Facebook friending etiquette rules now? What is the world coming to?
a crazy woman I know, whom I rescued by sending her cash to get her a new passport in Nepal after her wallet was stolen
She e-mails me all the time.
I approve of "philip k. dick world problems" as a category.
Somehow I can see alameida's photos on Facebook even though I haven't friended her. The woman who immediately comments on all of them appears to be named "John Emerson."
230: I know, I know. I swear to god this was not a nigerian scam but an actual person, admittedly crazy, whom I have met, who updated the day she got robbed. the US embassy was willing to pay for a ticket home for her, but unwilling to waive the $130 fee for the passport processing, in a catch-22. I sent the fee to her in kathmandu, earning her undying gratitude, and that was it; it's not like she touches me up for a loan all the time, she just stalks me.
essear: I know, two great tastes, but the biscuits get damp. I like mine either dry or saturated with melted butter, not wet. I don't even like to wipe up the egg yolk with them.
232: LOL. I guess my privacy settings are stupid. I should probably ever do something about it.
Hmm. I like mine with small enough amounts of gravy that it doesn't soak through and make them completely soggy. I guess that isn't really the standard, though.
Beet greens are the best of greens, but those are a seasonal luxury. In the canonical three, collards reign supreme.
ooh, beet greens, god, I do love them. I forget about them because I eat them so rarely. I adore collards too, I just prefer turnip and mustard. I would never turn down some collard greens. they've got a lot of nice greens here in narnia that I've never known till I came. hong kong flowering chye sim is a lot like flowering mustard greens, but shockingly greener. there are tons of kinds at the market, pretty much all good, though some are mostly white, more like an endive; I love them less.
gah, drama club merc is back to violent mood swings and intricately plotted murders. his psych is going to up his meds. he's also decided he's tired of not making enough money and is going to go to the "dark side." I just...what else is there to do? fuck, as long as he doesn't tell me about it.
OK, I just learned something so disturbing about his childhood that I am reverting to pity and empathy. goddamnit. I mean, that doesn't excuse people for being evil, but fucking A that was horrible. one could argue that he's just fucking with me again, but it sort of doesn't matter. that poor bastard.
We bought Red River cereal. I think it was at the fancy Star Market in Chestnut Hill.
222. Danes do indeed use potato flour in Rødgrød; it makes it slightly translucent. I'm intrigued they still use grits in Lake Wobegon. I don't think my grandmother, born in Copenhagen in 1900, had ever encountered it - certainly never mentioned doing so.
Do you buy pepper vinegar or do you have to make it yourself? I think I've seen it at the BBQ place up the street from me, but I don't know whether they sell it. Their stuff is sweet.
I mean, if horrible childhood abuse excused all further bad behavior we'd be in a sorry state, right? it maybe explains later bad behavior. I should just never talk to him and I wouldn't have these problems; I wonder why it could possibly be that he hasn't finished paying me yet? feeling very sorry for him, though.
The grits is from wiki. I've eaten it, but I've never seen it made.
242: you make it yourself; just heat up the vinegar, and then put chopped peppers in there. I add a little sugar but not much, maybe a tablespoon to a whole bottle of vinegar. rice vinegar is good, actually, because plain white vinegar is pretty harsh. don't use apple cider vinegar or something. you can keep it forever. obviously you can vary the spiciness by what kind of peppers you choose and how much of the seeds you put in.
you might as well go and make pepper sherry while you're at it; same deal but don't heat up the sherry too much, only barely. my step-grandmom always used to layer the peppers in the bottle in some attractive way but I honestly don't know how she did it. this too keeps forever and is very good in soups.
maybe one of those big pairs of tweezers with the bend in them? they looked so pretty, even in recycled ketchup jars and the like.
good night, 'tariat. still not the remotest improvement in health, but at least I'm not obsessively planning operations to kill people in the minutest detail. (well, and at the moment he's focussed on killing his enemies, of which I am not one, so whatever.) however I was roughly that crazy and depressed a month ago, and now I'm mentally fine, I just need to keep that thought foremost. my family is overall in a much healthier state no matter how long I lie in bed with a fever. it's very rare nowadays for people to die of moping around in bed being very pale, wearing vintage silk bed-jackets, having their maids bring them trays of tea, and coughing into delicately embroidered handkerchiefs. back in dostoyevsky's time such behavior was 99% fatal, but we've made medical and narrative improvements. the death rate for people being perfectly well-dressed and up and about with suicidal depression is, by contrast, rather high. so it's all good. though I'm so fucking sick of having a fever.
finally, natilo: awesome handmade swedish axes and froe much appreciated as christmas gifts. I got my dad a little hatchet for trail-clearing, too. thanks again for the advice, I would never have known about them. I also got to put "I got you this sweet froe, bro" on the personalized gift label, which was more or less worth the whole thing just on it's own.
uphold unfogged's primary function of entertaining john emerson while I sleep, people. I'm counting on you. (we took off "cigars" and put that there: fact).
Can your friend re-open the Khyber Pass? That would be real helpful.
Her friend isn't Athelstan King, Charley.
Wait. Is he?
On the topic of pepper/vinegar, this is another local food I'm growing to like. Surely it has a Germanic name as well.
I used to buy something quite similar to that at the grocery store in Germany that I believe was called Greek cabbage salad. Germans love their Rohkost. (And play fast and loose with their ethnic food designations.)
249: if what is required to do so is just killing a shit ton of people with daisy-cutters and the dumbest bombs one can find, and not caring at all about civilian casualties, then he just might be your man. ideally this would be accomplished through engineering some kind of tribal conflict into a gang war with judicious use of bribes and narcing people out as collaborators, so that one doesn't then have to do anything but watch drone footage.
I do not like oatmeal, by contrast, finding it slimy.
If you're making rolled oats, toast them in the pan/pot until you can smell their redolence and, like a god, be nourished solely by the odor before adding the liquid. This will dramatically reduce, even eliminate, sliminess.
dreamy yet mopey thoughts of me are preserving him from suicide, though, which we're all very happy to hear. especially my husband. he's more cheered by the "let's kill our enemies" plan, actually. and reasonably a little pissed off for letting my friend get into me for such serious money, 15K is no joke. he's good for it, I insist. yes, true, but nonetheless why essentially lend money to crazy people? I plead psychotic episode.
254: I refer you to 175, which implies knowledge of oat pre-toasting: eh, everybody don't have to like everything. steel cut oats are better, even moreso if you toast them in butter first
nonetheless, I do not particularly like oatmeal.
If you're making rolled hall & oates, they probably still suck.
201: Turn off FB chat. I was basically forced into doing so by middle-aged men whom I last saw in person in the (very) early 90s.
That is exactly right. And then beware because occasionally FB turns it back on, and a random student says "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Dr. Geebie!!"
256: I apologize. I did not read the thread with anything approaching my usual thoroughness and care. Nevertheless, I must clarify that I was referring to toasting totally dry. It is of course true that no one need like everything.
I confess to liking the Bird & the Bee album of Hall & Oates covers more than is reasonable.
Make your porridge with less water for a firmer texture.
Have spent the last week eating. All delicious, very little of olf fashioned Irish food is different from old fashioned English food. Maybe more pig. Also we like floury potatoes which no one else does except some Scots. But mainly it's been standard stuff done well. E.g old fashioned trifle based on home made sponge, h.m. jam and "pastry cream" custard where the whites are whipped separately and folded back in ( I "make" the trifle but am supplied with mother's sponge & jam) With fruit salad also home made separately, the kind with the orange segments eased out of their membranes. Also 2 kinds of soup every day, free range turkey, ham our butcher cures himself, smoked salmon / parma ham w. melon for starter. Salad with that. Parsnips, carrots, broccoli, roast peppers with mains. Cranberry & bread sauces. Sirloin roast yesterday in case we were sick of turkey, w gravy and fresh horseradish sauce. Christmas cake (home made of course as was the royal icing). Mince pies. Apple tart. H.m. fudge. Pavlova with strawberries. Oh yeah, homemade brown soda bread with the soup.
262: shit, I have to call the hotline too. I love the cover album and I just straight-up like the song "rich girl." and not just because it's my theme song at the store, which my partner plays to mock/celebrate me.
I actually use FB message though. my family is very not-responding-to-emails-ish, but if I can see them actually commenting on facebook I can message them with success.
263: emir, that all sounds delicious. I adore trifle. it was one of the more difficult things of giving up drinking not to pour sherry in there. or in lane cake. that said I am not a absolute purist and have eaten plenty of dishes in restaurants containing small amounts of alcohol, but I can't bust out the sherry and my house and start throwing it around.
And how could one not admire this album cover?
I attended a Hall & Oates concert in the '70s and lived to tell about it. As far as i can tell.
stormcrow's a zombie everybody! run!
An old, fat, slow one. So no rush.
