fromagina's Profile
Guacamole with Mayo/Sourcream
"When it is loaded up with onion and tomato ..." Huh.. hmmm.. the only places I've ever had guacamole that didn't have onions, fresh garlic, chopped chilis, chopped tomatoes, cumin, (probably) cilantro, and fresh lime or (rarely) lemon juice was in the homes of persons with no ethnic connection to that huge country south of us.. or from "Mexican" restaurants geared for persons with no ethnic connection to that huge country south of us. I still maintain that true guacamole is a relish (like salsa or chutney or pickled onions) that is served with food to aid digestion.. not a dip for chips. That it tastes lovely on a chip is nice.. but I'd rather ladle it over my tamale or rice or beans.
Guacamole with Mayo/Sourcream
Adding mayo or sour cream might, with interesting ingredients and a nice ripe avocado, make a pleasant Avocado Dip; but it won't be an authentic Mexican Guacamole. Personally, I believe there should be more avocado dips out there and I think I'll play with that idea.. but true Mexican guacamole is ideally a pleasant relish that aids in the digestion of what is essentially a culinary tradition made up of starchy food. I live an agricultural area with a significant and long-established population of 1st, 2nd, and even 3rd generation people originally from Mexico. I've ordered guacamole in numerous neighborhood Mexican restaurants from Watsonville to King City. The overwhelming majority of guacamole is simply a chunky salsa with avocado in it. Here you find the thicker green avocado dip in the Mexican restaurants that are more geared for an Anglo clientele. I remember having mayo-laden avocado dip in the 60s and 70s. We were under the delusion that we were making this exotic guacamole stuff.
What did you eat in the Seventies?
A fine legacy indeed! My son, who as a toddler could deftly remove bile sacs from chicken livers as I was butchering them, became a tofu brown rice vegan at age 14 and I had to learn the once scorned vegan cooking techniques if I wanted him to be fed. Luckily, as his athletic abilities developed, he evolved into a lacto-ovo vegetarian.. a lot easier on his cheese maker mother. It was shortly after he discovered rock climbing and mountain biking that he rediscovered meat protien again. Phew.
What did you eat in the Seventies?
Oh dear.. all I can think about when I think of that dish of layered legumes is the inevitable gastric consequence. Yes.. those WERE fumerous times!
What did you eat in the Seventies?
I think I was just a bit too cynical to ever be a good and willing commune dweller, but I visited many of them. Because I had been raised to cook and keep healthy livestock, I ended up being kind of a long-haired, long-skirted consultant to the city kids that were flailing around trying to get "back to nature". I rescued many neglected goats (keeping goats healthy takes a lot of skill and a lot of woooorrrk) and taught a number of zonked out would-be cooks about soaking beans and preserving food.. between tokes, of course.. those were fumerous times. I think that some of my best memories of those days include packs of little naked children! I remember summers when my kid could go days without clothing.. naked kids and mongrel dogs and long skirts-of-many-colors.. those were visually exciting times! AND slooowly the hippies learned how to cook and they eventually became the chef-supporting Yuppies of the 80's.
What did you eat in the Seventies?
Someday I've got to ask my son what he thought of his hippy parents and their rather colorful lifestyle.. hey.. I know he's thankful I didn't name him Sitar Karma Moon Spirit. Several of his contemporaries have dropped their hippy-kid names. Morning Star is now something like Rebecca; Sequoiah (sic) is now something like Bob; but River seems to have almost entered the panoply of acceptable mainstream names and I know several. Gee.. the hippie's kids are only about a decade away from getting their first AARP letter..
What did you eat in the Seventies?
Did she ever make brownies with carob and say "...and it tastes even BETTER than chocolate!"? My crystal-waving "sugar is poison and butter will kill you" friend from those days is now a beef rancher.
What did you eat in the Seventies?
Was that YOUR Healthy Peanut Butter Cookie recipe?
Okay.. okay.. 70's hippy macrobiotic pot-luck wedding "reception" at the Chohaundrabootie ashram commune.. India bedspread tablecloths, matching wooden bowls for the (emaciated) happy couple.. and 17 bowls of variations-on-the-theme-of-brown-rice. If you were there, I was the very pregnant one on the end with 3' long braids sitting next to the bearded guy with the Neapolitan afro. I was the one who's stomach was growling louder than the sitar combo. All I could think about was a bowl piled high with grilled pork ribs.
What's the matter with chicken today?
Will Owen's brining advice is good.. just make sure not to over-brine it! The skin on those 8 week old fryers is very permeable and you can end up with something that tastes like chicken jerky. We air-dried a 24 pound turkey once by putting it on a rack in a big box then turning the portable air conditioner on it! Hey.. whatever works.
What did you eat in the Seventies?
Shudder! BUT I learned a lot from good old Adell and I can proudly say that I raised a fine healthy Adell Davis baby.. who is a disgustingly healthy 36 year old athlete now with GREAT teeth. I do remember making some extra healthy peanut butter cookies for my son's soccer team from a friend's recipe. The recipe was heavy in wheat germ and brewers yeast and molasses.. the kids ended up trying to break them by throwing them at a fence. Back to my nice sugary buttery cookies.
I remember those 40 pound handmade bowls.. and big wobbly mugs.. and trying to eat a meal at some commune or other that only used wooden spoons. Ah.. those were the daze.
What did you eat in the Seventies?
Oh yes.. the horrors of Commune Studge! I recall chipping a tooth on a bowl of some kind of undercooked grain studge at a commune in Woodstock NY. Commune Studge was the product of idealistic young thangs whose total cooking experience prior to their first hits of acid had been Bisquik pancakes. After reading Adell Davis, every dish these novice cooks made was seasoned with brewers yeast and wheat germ. shudder. Usually I was the only person around who could cook but my omnivorous ways shocked the newly-forged macrobiotics and vegans. I was NOT a commune studge Hippy.. I was one of the lusty country Hippies.. the ones with the good food,
do you get crabby when hungry?
What IS it about those particular french fries? They do stink! My local grocery store is downwind from a McD's and it almost hits my gag reflex. something in the fat? A neighbor gave me a ride the other day and her car reeked of rancid french fries.. "But my kids love it!" shudder.. Why doesn't the local BK smell as bad? I'm not a franchise foodie so maybe I've not developed a taste for that intense stink.
What did you eat in the Seventies?
Country Hippy food, all homemade: taboulleh, hummus, baba ganoush, caponata, pasta puttanesca, homegrown goat, lamb, fowl, pork, and beef. Huge parties with pit-roasted pig, homemad breads and cakes and pies and homemade beers and wines. Homecrafted cheeses, sausages, confit, and preserved meats like corned beef and homemade hams and head cheeses and salamis. Huge overflowing vegetable gardens.. a kitchen hung with garlands of onions, garlic, dried herbs, and drying salami. Good times.
Black whole chicken?
The black one shown in the photo was a regular-sized Szechuan Silkie. I didn't check to see if McMurrays sells the meat size. The ones I see in San Francisco are a bit more than twice the size of the little Silkie bantams I've had. The meat Silkie really isn't that big of a chicken compared to, say, the commercially raised Cornish crosses that will weigh 3 - 4 lbs at 8 weeks! I don't think those black Silkies would weigh more than 1 1/2 lbs and I bet they're older than 8 weeks. Hmmm.. I'm heading up to SF on the 19th.. maybe I'll get one and try it out. I'll report if I do.
What's the matter with chicken today?
I imagine the breeding has a lot to do with it too. The modern Cornish x Rock that you buy in the store as a 3-4 pound fryer is only 7 or 8 weeks old. Even as day-old chicks, those Cornish xs are heavy! They are phenomenally stupid and are best raised in rounded pens because they'll jam themselves into a corner and suffocate. Commercially they grow shockingly fast on very high protein food.. very much like commercial pigs. A "normal" chicken like a Rhode Island Red or a Barred Plymouth Rock will maybe weigh 1 1/2 lbs at 8 weeks. You've got it right, food is very important to flavor. I raised a batch of Cornish crosses on corn, oats, barley, and alfalfa pellets and they grew much more slowly and the meat was considerably more flavorful and less flabby than the commercially raised chicken of the same breed. I butchered them at 10 weeks and got 3 to 4 pound dress outs.
Black whole chicken?
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/category/feather_footed_bantams.html
Yep.. not only are there Black Silkies, there are "Blue" Silkies! Some "fancy poultry " breeders call the black strain the Black Szechuan.
Black whole chicken?
There are also black-feathered ones. I see those most often in S.F. Asian markets. I wonder if the white one is the one given to new mothers. The Silky is a very attentive brooder and mother. I used to use them as my incubator chickens. Even the white ones have blue skin.
Black whole chicken?
The meat of the black-feathered, blue-skinned Silky chicken is considered to have medicinal and aphrodisiacal qualities. You point out your live chicken of choice and it's butchered right there. The skin really IS blue!
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!
I don't get it! All you have to do is WASH the danged tomatoes.. don't they wash their produce anyway?
Thanksgiving Mishaps
At my mothers house, circa 1960: Huge huge turkey sitting on counter awaiting stuffing.. we notice the turkey's breast is quivering.. mother shouts "Earthquake" but I grab her and point out nothing else is quivering. Cat head pokes out of cavity opening.. "Meow? Whas happening?" What are you going to do? Rinse out the cat hairs and continue as per planned. We're essentially a dark meat family anyway.
do you get crabby when hungry?
Now that is "snacking" after my own heart! Our carry-on luggage is usually half food. I like the Baby Bel idea.. better than the chunks of cheddar that tend to squish. Add rice crackers, hard boiled eggs, candied pecans, dried persimmons and apples, and celery sticks (for digestion) and we're pretty close.. though, there was that woman behind us who made gagging noises when we ate our hard boiled eggs. She's lucky I didn't bring a jar of kim chee.
After reading so many posts about this food-deprivation crankiness, I'm beginning to realise why I never have a problem with it: I'm always eating.
Why won't my bananas ripen?
The apple-in-a-bag advice is very good.. works for me. Sometimes I do that with green platanos (plantains) to ripen them to get a more intense "banana" flavor. I ripen my avocados in a bag with a bruised apple too.
The Ultimate Diner Meal
Breakfast:
Bacon and two eggs over easy and hashbrowns with catchup and Tobasco, coffee.
Is the bacon good quality and not overcooked?
Is the white of the egg just cooked and are the yolks nice and yellow.. not pale?
Are the hashbrowns crisp on the outside and moist and potatoy inside?
Is the coffee drip-brewed and kept in a thermos so it doesn't burn?
Is the water free of disinfectant taste? Ice cubes fresh?
If the classic bacon and eggs passes.. next time I'll order an omelette and expect it to be well filled, moist inside, and tender.
I can't eat wheat so a number of diner meals are out for me, but when a diner has a hash of some kind, I'm hooked. For lunch, corned beef hash with a house salad on the side is pretty indicative of the quality of the place.. I don't mind an iceburg lettuce salad, just make sure it's crisp and fresh and plentiful.
We have a local diner that will grill my rice bread and make me a MOST delicious hand-formed hamburger with real cheddar, red onions, and a side of mayo. Their french fries are thick, twice fried, and delicious.
My dad judged a diner by its chicken fried steak.. must be moist inside with a thick gravy. Mom loved diner shortribs. When I was a kid.. I loved the twirly counter seats.
:
do you get crabby when hungry?
Luckily there were no permanent scars and frankly, it was a good lesson for me.. LISTEN! I was so disgustingly healthy back then that I hadn't a clue as to bloodsugar imbalances.
do you get crabby when hungry?
Trust me, 30 years later S. is still a much loved friend.. but I have learned to pack snacks when we travel! I think for me it's like the difference between those who had morning sickness with pregnancy and those, like me who didn't. It took me a looong time to finally realise that those gags were real and not some kind of self-fulfilling indulgence. In my senior years I'm getting a bit hypoglycemic and finally understand how compelling a food-imbalance can be.
What's the matter with chicken today?
Until you find that perfect chicken, here's a trick taught me many eons ago by a Puerto Rican friend who decried the bland chickens found here in the 'States. She rinsed the chicken well and patted it dry, then sat it on a rack over a plate, uncovered, in the frige for a day.. so simple and so effective for developing flavor. The extra moisture is removed in the dry refrigerator, the enzymes in the meat get to tenderize it a bit, and the chicken, even cheap chicken, tastes a lot more like my old homegrown chicken. Koshering the chicken by salting it and letting it drain works well too, but it is salty. I wash my Foster Farms chicken in some white vinegar (to discourage bacteria) then pop it on a vertical roaster tower and sit that on a plate in the frige for 24 hours. When you roast this aged chicken, the flesh will be firm and tender and the skin crisp and very tasty.
do you get crabby when hungry?
I can tell by the pained look on my dh's face.. oh yes, and by the deepening depth of those two little vertical lines above his nose.. that it's time to place calories in front of him. I'll toss him an apple or a banana or hand him a piece of cheese and he looks so surprised. "Wow! How did you know I was hungry?" If I don't feed my mild-mannered sweetie pie when I see the signs, he becomes a very cranky vinegar pie. My son gets hyper and twitchy when he's hungry but he's good at knowing what to do about it so I don't have to toss food into the bear pit when he's hungry.
What to do with a 5 pound bag of limes?
To make a sweetened lime base good for any number of good things, boil the whole limes, holding them under the surface with a sieve, for about 7 to 10 minutes or until the skin is easily pricked with a toothpick. Drain and cool. Quarter the limes and chop, juice and all, in a food processor. Measure how many cups you have of this then add about 1/2 cup sugar for each cup ground limes (taste.. if you like it sweeter, add more sugar). Put this in small batches in your blender then put in an airtight container in your fridge. This keeps for at least a month (I have some lemon base that's 6 weeks old and still fresh tasting and delish) and can be used to make lime curd, lime pie, lime cake, lime liqueur, lime frosting, lime margaritas, lime chutney.. you'll come up with something.
