I would go with something acidic or tart, fo a side. I was at a friends for Thanksgiving and she had the best coleslaw I ever tasted. Regular creamy slaw recipe w/ the addition of walnuts, mandarin orange slices and tons of craisens (dried cranberries). The craisens really were amazing - I don't even like them on their own - for how they twanged that slaw.

Ozark hillbilly here, and Barmy's right. No veg. oil & NO sugar. Yankee's put sugar in cornbread. Southerners use cornbread as cheap bread, not a sweet. You wouldn't ladle a serving of beans & ham hock over a sweet, would you? (seen this served in a restaurant, and the first - and only - bite of sweetened beans and cornbread was horribly unforgettable ) Back in the day, cornmeal was cheaper than flour, and 'lightbread' was for sundays only, in the depressed south. Sugar? Hardly anyone could afford it for everyday use.

A reply like this reminds me of just how distanced some people are from the realities of life (for most of humanity) since the beginning of time, until just a few years ago. The impracticality and lack of understanding combined with a fantasy reasoned out to excuse hipocricy is astounding.
Killing dinner is as basic and neccesary a human function as sex, or sociality. You were conditioned to this extreme view, not born to it.

Really? I laughed : D

BLT's & marinated, not creamy, slaw. I am having those 3 things for supper tomorrow : )

My hillbilly mom was making it in Saudi Arabia in the 70's!
Stunk up the whole house.

Those old timers had to get by on some awful things. My grandma told me they used to snare robins to eat when she was a girl; bullets and shot cost too much to use. Children were served last, after the men and (secondly the) women. And when the meat was gone - it was gone. She said you don't know what it is to see the last piece of chicken being picked up and know you won't get any that day.
I guess once you go hungry, you're never as particular again.

In the South here, and I never ever EVER put sugar in cornbread.
I like corn muffins -yes they're delicious!- and I once had a birthday cake made from a sweet cornbread recipe. But cornbread to people I know is a base to pour soupy foods on, like ham & beans, greens and pot liquor, chili and many other traditional recipes. Nothing spoils a savory meal like ladling it over a piece of sugar filled cornbread. A retaurant did this too me once and it was a nasty mouthfull of food. I never fail to ask a server about the cornbread now, and I did not eat or pay for that meal.

Cornbread was the only bread easily available (cheap to make) to most people in my region (rural Ozarks) for everyday eating. Wheat flour was too costly to use every day, and was for Sundays and holidays when women would bake "lightbread".
Cornbread soaks up the juices so you get every bit of the nutrients, and it fills in any hollow corners occasioned by scanty rations. Sugar not only clashes with the flavor of those authentic southern dishes, but is innacurate to our traditions - as the people in this culture didn't sweeten with it - it too cost too much. Sorghum or honey was used for daily sweetening.

People must've been doing better for themselves up north!

Imitation crab meat ಠ_ಠ

Appreciate the tip - I've had Masa in the freezer for a year now!

To preserve it, you can dry it in a 150 deg. oven till it's brittle, or, take a quart jar, stuff in the sage and freeze it. I keep my dill this way. I like sage steeped in black tea, like the Saudi's make it. Or you could wrap it in bundles for native American 'smudge sticks'.
Here's a link to a very informative page on sage, with recipes: http://homecooking.about.com/library/...

i used to eat frequently at a local Mexican joint that was owned and staffed, by an immigrant couple from Acapulco; they were the only staff. The food was unfussy and excellent, and w/ no finesse was more dropped off fast food style, than 'served'.
The place was very low rent in appearance; tables were plastic folding tables bought at K-Mart (I bought the same one for camping) and the chairs were metal folding chairs. Prices were quite high for the type of atmosphere and service, but again, the food was excellent and I was a regular customer (frequently got take-out as well).
You could expect to pay between $8.50 and $18.00 per meal, (not including extras or drinks) and this was about 13 years ago, in a converted house on the side of the road..

Served a basket of chips, for three people at the table (we had ordered full meals plus extras like guacomole -requiring chips), we gobbled them up and wanted more. My ears perked up when I was asked if I wanted a "full order". They had begun charging for re-fills on chips. I expressed dismay, and was given the helpless shrug.

I subtracted any extra chip charges from the tip (server owned the restaurant) from then on when I ate there, -the prices were already so high for a hole in the wall, but it spoiled my pleasure in the little place. I learned how to make my own tamales and never went back. Since then, the business was closed and the house sold. I do not know why, but I wonder if they just priced themself right out of their customer base? .

Ask for a glass and go to the bathroom sink.

Not exactly the same but similar; regarding trips or events my sister and I have planned together. I'm try to make my arrangements in advance so I don't have to concern my self with details at the last minute. I can never get her to commit to any action or plans ahead of time, as she prefers to keep her options open, but if we arrive somehwere and I have booked the best available, she will stay with me, and behave as though my accommodations are hers by right without saying a word. If there's a unforseen better alternative, she'll walk away without a backward glance and there is no question of sharing; I'm not invited.

I don't travel with her anymore, as it is just too hurtful to be used for what you can do for another, and quickly dumped when something better pops up. I don't think there's a cure for behavior like this. It is symptomatic of a completely selfish world view, and I prefer to avoid it entirely.

If I were in your shoes I think I would ask my husband to do whatever he likes as far as issueing invitations, but that I myself will be visiting elsewhere, or on a mini-trip (with a friend or alone). Or I might suggest he and his brother go alone together on a getaway. Is there anything they would enjoy doing together on a 'guys' weekend? (Fishing, golfing, aviation museum, professional sports venue, casino trip, road trip back to a hometown or alma mater, mini-cruise, or whatever)

Do they never invite you to their place?

Back in the day people ate things that no-one in their right mind would eat today - and no-one got sick. My grandpa used to reminisce longingly about 'clabber'. That's home produced milk left to sit at room temperature (in a kitchen that used a woodstove summer and winter) until it, well, clabbered or soured and set up a little. MMMM, lol.

There was a first class sandwich shop in Sedona in the mid 80's called "Eat Your Heart Out". I get what they're trying to say w/ the name: eat your hearts desire; but it always sounded embittered and jealous to me. Or even gruesome (mental picture of crazed man tearing into a bloody heart).
They had a cracking business though, and the best sandwiches I ever ate came from there. They used only very high quality meats and cheeses and homemade bread. And had kick-a** chocolate chunk cookies. Sigh.

I 'inherited' one of these and had no idea what it was intended for. I kept it because it works well to stir up kool-aid or frozen juices. So I am the proud owner of a lettuce knife, who knew?

When I get snowed in - it doesn't happen very often - I make snow ice cream. My mother taught me how and it is nostalgic for me as she has been dead 30 years.
Take a cereal bowl of snow, add vanilla, cream or milk, sugar and stir it up. Be sparing w/ your liquid at first till you see how much you need to use to make the snow bind into "ice cream". If you wanted, you could probably jazz this up with chocolate syrup, malt powder, or anything...

They used to make this in the 1800's I know, and probably much further back than that.

A 5 foot long chest freezer died in my garage last year. I lost 2 whole lambs, homegrown pork, whole boughten pork loins, 50 lbs of venison, different fish. It was horrible. When we discovered it, all the meat was already spoilt and was reeking. I thought I would cry.

It was too nasty to even deal with - we pushed the freezer out onto the car-port, Dad looped a chain around it, towed it out to the woods behind a tractor, pulled it onto its side and let nature deal with it. Now we have a mere three free-standing freezers and two fridge-freezers in the house, for two people.
It is an addiction. We hoard meat.

The best eggs I ever ate were deep-fried in more than 3 inches of bacon grease. We had a crowd for breakfast & I made GOBS of bacon, the acumulating grease was cooking the bacon a lot faster than in a relatively dry pan, so I didn't pour it off.
The deep-fried eggs were shaped more like poached eggs, but were just phenomenal.
Don't do this unless you like that lacy crispiness on the outside of your eggs - So Good!

Ok. Since you admitted that, I can admit... Suddenly Salad, Bacon/Ranch flavor.
I caved, got a box for my kids and was hooked. Creamy, salty, BACON.

I can't stand "mushy' rice and for twenty years have left out the last 1/4 to 1/3 C of water to every pot of rice I have made. The rice cooks through with less water, but it isn't that too soft, textureless rice that has no 'body' to it.
I can rarely eat rice served in a restaurant because it's far too *pappy* it seems that spanish style rice suffers the worst from this.

I cannot even eat a fried egg any more, unless it is spiced w/ tabasco, or hot mango relish. I want some ZING!

There's no substitute for the 'fried rice' version - it's actually the only Rice-a Roni I have ever eaten, and I ALWAYS keep a box in the pantry in case of a craving! I was so mad when they quit putting the almonds in the mix - I am still mad.

Vimto!!! I love it so much that it's my profile pic., lol. And it is hard to get in SW Missouri. I notice too that they've changed the recipe... It's a lot more orangey than it used to be, less berry-like. It is a sad change : (

Agreed! I like it well seared on the outside and raw in the middle. If you rub salt into the fat, it helps to brown it up nice and crisp, too. (I will ration the fat out so as to have a little with each bite of meat).

I once had to forgo my chosen hunk of meat at the butchers: the man picked it up and sliced the fat off of it before I realized what he was doing. Had to go for the second best piece - and he thought I was some kind of nut.

Thoom.
It's a white garlic sauce from the middle east, and it is fan-f*ck*ng-tastic!
It is tangy, massively garlicky, and a have-to-have for Middle Eastern and mediterranean foods.

Here's a link to the recipe I put up on Chow:
http://www.chow.com/recipes/28592-tho...

I love meat & I don't mind butchering animals. I have done hundreds of them, mostly rabbits; I used to sell cleaned meat rabbits. What I hate is *hunting*. Ugh, it's boring, cold, it's usually wet and it SUCKS.
My Dad is too old to hunt now and I no longer have a freezer full of elk, antelope, mule deer & white-tail deer. It is a sad thing to go back to store bought beef after having the best meats for so many years. And I miss squirrel, too.

The worst thing I ever had to butcher was chickens. They are NASTY, NASTY BIRDS. We used to get together with a neighbor and do all our birds at once, in an assembly line. The killing was done by placing the bird in a hanging, upside-down cone. Their head sticks out the bottom of the cone and they get kind of dazed - presumably from the blood flow to the brain - and you cut off the head. Then remove the feet, dunk in scalding water and slough off the feathers, gut them and send them into the kitchen to be finely cleaned inside and out, washed and wrapped for freezing.
Fresh killed "opened up" chickens smell far worse than any other animal I have ever butchered, and the disgusting things you find in the craw of free range birds will make you want to hurl! The first time I thawed one out, I couldn't eat it. I could detect "that smell". Took about six months to get over that.

I think every meat eater should have to face the reality of what they are consuming. The fact that a life is taken, in order to sustain yours, matters.

'Jello' shots have a bad rep. that I don't think they deserve. Sure, if you put cheap vodka in Jell-O, well, yuck.
But make grown-up jello shots using unflavored gelatin and the possibilities are truly endless and delicious. Use 1/2 booze, 1/2 other liquid(s) to dissolve the gelatine in. I made some amazing pina-colada jello shots last summer; they were oh so good and a huge hit.

I have heard of a joke shot called a 'cement mixer'. You buy this for someone else, and it comes unmixed - in two seperate shot glasses. One glass has Baileys & the other a liquid
(I can't remember what) That curdles and coagulates the Baileys when you mix the two together in your mouth. This is a nasty trick - it was once played on my sister and our cousin, who were two beautiful young women by some laughing young men with a camcorder.
She said the feeling of curdled cream in your mouth was horrific.