evewitch's Profile
Food and Facebook?
I can't be bothered to take/post a picture. However, whenever I make a Recipezaar recipe while I am logged in to facebook, I share it because it's pretty easy. If I posted more, likely more of my posts would be about food. :)
What are you eating RIGHT NOW?
Red wine and a few squares of Wonka Exceptionals Domed Dark Chocolate.
need suggestion for lots of sour cream
And here I was just lamenting the fact that I don't have any. My favorite corn muffins, blueberry muffins, and coffee cakes all call for it...
Since it isn't too far off I-77...
I thought I would mention Bonfil Cakes & Sandwiches in Statesville. I had a truly delicious breaded chicken torta there today. I am not too swift about describing food (especially since I seem prone to people's worst food-word pet peeves LOL) but I highly recommend it. Also, they had Coca-Cola from Honduras (the sugar kind, of course) in glass bottles. North from Charlotte you would take the Garner Bagnal exit. Bonfil is on the left. Don't know hours or anything offhand. Their number is 704-871-0734. I might have to make this a regular lunch date, since they are less than 5 min. from my place of employment.
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Bonfil Cakes & Sandwiches
1525 Salisbury Rd, Statesville, NC 28677
A decline in home cooking?
Hell, it has resonance to me (two years after the original post, no less)!
What do you over-buy?
Oddly, Hamburger Helper. I know, I know... I don't like the stuff either. But on sale with a coupon it is cheaper than other skillet dishes I can make with ground beef. Like $.75 a box or something. So now they are taking up every square inch of my pantry and I still don't like them. Bleh! I have to discipline myself to just not cut out the damn coupons anymore!
Anything that "seemed like a good idea at the time." Like the extra can of chickpeas to make another batch of hummus. Six months later it's still in there. Wasabi powder, rum extract, Betty Boop dijon mustard. All bought from the markdown rack or from Big Lots. Actually, just keep me away from Big Lots period. I am finally using the mustard but it isn't very good.
Butter. For a while I was buying 2 lb. every time I went to the store. Even when I was highly disorganized and going to the store nearly every day. They were literally falling out of my freezer. I finally quit, and now I am almost running out. I can see the pendulum swinging the other direction soon.
Family packs of chicken parts. Even though most of my family members do not like chicken on the bone, I will buy it when it goes on sale and stick it in the freezer. Just like that, in the package it came home from the store in. Yes, I know. Finally this week I disciplined myself to roast the breasts instead of freezing them. (They still sat for 2 days uncooked and then 2 days cooked before I cut them up and used them, but I still think it's an improvement. Perhaps except for the 1c. of cooked meat that is in the freezer.) I did take a package of thighs out to make chicken and rice today.
Credit only for food and drink items while flying...
Is this even legal? I thought that cash was "legal tender for all debts public and private." (Quotation marks to indicate that these are not my words, not to indicate an actual quotation because I have no clue what the wording actually is.) IOW, if you are selling anything, you MUST accept cash, but other forms of payment are optional. Maybe this is not the case because we are discussing AirCanada?
Nostalgic Recipes
As much as I love food, I don't have much food nostalgia because my mom is a wretched cook most of the time. She also cooks something different practically every night from a new recipe (although I do tend to do that also).
I miss my Nonnie's (great-grandmother) garden and am nostalgic for her homemade wine, although I was too young for the wine and really only recall one meal at her house.
My grandma's pizzelle. I have some in the house right now. Lucky me! Also she always seems to have blueberry muffins in the house and oddly cake-textured chocolate chip cookies. Cranberry bars. I have the recipe but have only made them once. She is a good cook, but I don't particularly recall her savory dishes. I am envious of her pantry, which is huge and always stuffed to the gills. One great memory from our yearly visits as a kid when grandpa was alive was one night we would always get Chinese takeout. I loved it! And it was so much fun passing all the dishes. Little did I know at that time that the restaurant we ordered from, around the corner from her house, was one of the best in the Boston area!
The thing I remember most about my other grandmother was her getting teased for putting butter, mayo, ketchup, etc. in serving dishes instead of setting the containers on the table. Also cocktail hour every night. I was too young for that, too, but was once allowed a Rusty Nail. Not quite to my taste. (Big understatement.) Also, she always pulled a frozen lasagna or dish of manicotti out to heat up. I always thought that was strange because she is not the least bit Italian, but they were still good.
My mom does get an honorable mention for Beachcomber Heroes, from an ancient Betty Crocker kids' cookbook. French loaf, salami, provolone, peppers, heated in the oven. Not sure what else is in them, but they were really good.
Earthshaking Cutting Edge Sandwich Survey
Typically I spread mayo on the bread, but not in a surgically precise way. I put the mustard between the meat and cheese. Sometimes I spread it, sometimes squirt it, but it typically doesn't go all the way to the edge because the flavor seems overpowering if I put enough on to do that. These would, however, be utterly boring bread/mayo/not enough prepackaged lunchmeat/not enough sliced cheese/sometimes pickle sandwiches.
I spread mayo on the bread for chicken salad or tuna salad sandwiches, which I have been told is excessive.
When I get a sandwich from a restaurant, I am so excited to have something that is not the boring combo detailed above that I am not picky about the placement or spreadage of the condiments.
A burger gets mayo on the top bun (spread), mustard on the bottom bun (typically squirted) and ketchup (squirted) on top of the patty. If I am having a boring topping day, this means the ketchup and mayo mix, which doesn't bother me. At a restaurant, again, I am not picky about placement.
I think I like buying steak from supermarkets more than a butcher.
I guess it depends on where you live, too. I live in "small town/suburban" NC. Our "butcher" before it closed was basically a grocery store with only meat. You could order stuff, but it came from Sysco. I think they did buy primal cuts and butcher them, but the quality was not significantly better. And the turnover was lower than the grocery store due to price and location. I don't mind supermarket meat. My only quibble is that there isn't a single store in my town where I can reliably buy skirt steak or flank steak, both of which I used to use for all kinds of things.
Deep-fried beer
Ok. I heard about this on the radio and hadn't had a chance to research & see if it was real. Thanks for the link. Now I want to try it just to try it.
ketchup without high fructose corn syrup?
I had switched to Hunt's a few years back after the Cooks Illustrated test when I discovered I really liked it better. Now, the last two bottles of Hunt's I have purchased were HCFS-free. I can't report on the taste yet, though. Might do a side-by-side with one of the previous bottles that I have in the pantry.
Your Salad Dressing History
No, I meant the Annie's Goddess dressing, which is some sesame concoction. I've never ever tried Green Goddess, because I am scared it will screw it up.
Your Salad Dressing History
I grew up with exclusively bottled dressing (even though Mom is the recipe queen, she never quite made it to making salad dressing). Usually Italian or some other oil/vinegar style, but in my later years at home she got hooked on some Vidalia onion thing. Unfortunately, I really don't like any of those. I prefer creamier dressings. The one I eat most often is ranch, and it is usually bottled although I have made it. I really like Annie's Goddess, and my attempt at making that was an abysmal failure. I don't get it often because it is very overpriced here. I also like honey mustard on occasion, and I like that ginger stuff that comes on the salad at Japanese steakhouse chains. I have made those too. When I eat out it is usually ranch, but occasionally honey mustard or, rarely, Thousand Island. I also have had barbecue ranch that was really good, and once a spicy ranch that was awesome. I don't know why, but I have a real aversion to vinegar or too-tart citrus, so just about all non-creamy dressings are off my radar. I would really like to never buy salad dressing but the ones I like are more labor intensive so I don't see that happening in the near future.
What did your Mom always have on hand, that you NEVER do?
margarine
powdered milk - probably a money thing because later it was skim milk
powdered coffee creamer - she has now "graduated" to soy milk
Tang, not that I remember ever actually drinking it
Russian tea mix - ditto. She still has the jar, but now it has tea bags in it
the spice rack from Holland from her high school exchange time - I've seen her use the marjoram from it
huge can of Crisco (I do have some, but it's the premeasured sticks, and I hardly ever use it)
lowfat/fat free/light everything
Accent (never saw her use it, though)
canned "Chinese" food
boxed taco kits
stollen in the freezer - she has this recipe that makes 3 loaves; Thanksgiving, Chrismas, and New Year's Day. It's horribly dry. She used to make it with day-glo candied fruit. A few years back my sister finally talked her into using real dried fruit. Growing up the freezer was stollen-free for most of the year, but now that we've all moved out they last longer and longer. She pulled some out at Easter this year, and has admitted to having them in there for over a year at times. Won't quit making it, though.
frozen juice concentrate - another money thing, I guess. Now it's regular juice, which I still seldom have
a jar in the freezer with lemon and lime slices - a recent innovation
bottled lemon juice - I think she still uses this despite the previous
dry cereal that no one really wants to eat - I buy cereal for my family, but it's the edible kind I still can't bring myself to eat it at all
multivitamins
bananas - rare for me to have them
One thing that was notably absent was any kind of snack food. Most of our kitchen horror stories revolve around us kids trying to concoct something to eat. I used to regularly mix the aforementioned margarine with powdered sugar to make a kind of frosting/candy. Or simply eating sugar out of the bowl with a spoon. My middle sister melting chocolate on the stove as the beginnings of something, then trying to hide it in the fridge when Mom came home unexpectedly. It melted through two shelves. Or the youngest doing something similar in the microwave. With a metal bowl. You would think Mom would have gotten smart and just bought some snacks fer cryin' out loud!
Ocean Spray - how trifling can you get?
Bi-Lo does this too - which I love. I don't remember any of the Florida stores (Publix, Sweetbay) doing so. It was always the first one at full price and the second free. Half price is so much better with some coupons.
Emergency! How to Cook Turkey!
For the past three years I have cooked my turkey using the basic Cook's Illustrated "roasting a brined turkey" directions. I tried to re-up my membership just now and I am in limbo. It is old enough that their system can't find it and new enough that the system won't let me start over with a trial. So, since I am clueless in the kitchen, I have no idea how to cook this thing! Help! I'm off to make the crust for my pie, but will be back soon.
Friendz Bar & Grill - Statesville, NC
I had been here once before to see a friend's band play on a Saturday night. My husband & I took our son for lunch today, although I didn't eat much because I had just eaten breakfast. I had fried pickles, which I love in all incarnations. They were a bit salty; I don't think they were frozen, and it kind of tasted like there was salt in the breading which was overkill. Still good, and I would order them again. Both of the guys got bacon cheeseburgers; one standard with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and one "rodeo" which had an onion ring and BBQ sauce. I took a bite of the rodeo burger and it was good; decent meat, good bread, good BBQ sauce. (My son had taken the onion ring off - I guess he only wanted it for the sauce. He's 10.) Both burgers were cooked "well", and they weren't offered a choice. I can't remember if that is NC law or not. They both got seasoned waffle fries, which I didn't taste. We will probably go back, and I will give more opinions when I actually eat. The menu prices were reasonable, as were the beer prices (Yuenling pint draft was $2.60, and it wasn't a special or anything).
No website. The address is 1531-A Cinema Dr.; Statesville, NC 28677. 704-838-8755
What's the best Mexican fast food chain?
We tried this in Mooresville, NC, yesterday. It was awful. My husband picked the ground beef burrito and he was able to literally pour the grease out of it. It was the same "meat goo" described upthread. My son and I shared some "grilled" chicken nachos. The last time that chicken saw a "grill" was in a factory. The sour cream was the consistency of a sauce, the pico de gallo (my son's choice) if ever fresh, was certainly a day past the corporate specs for discard. Canned black olives. The cheese sauce was clearly canned. (My son did say he liked it.) The full name of the place was "Salsarita's Fresh Cantina" which is horrid, because the only thing that was fresh was the $4.50 Modelo. Never again! Not only was the food bad, but the damn credit card machine had a tip line on it. The counter service was terrible - the kid kept "whatting" me as a result of his attention drifting off just before I spoke *every*single*time*. And you carry your own food to the table and bus your table - exactly why should I tip this buffoon?
Tijuana Flats coming to Raleigh
Just moved back here after a couple of years in St. Pete, FL. If you *never* go to a chain simply because it's a chain, then it is not for you. However, the food is really good, the atmosphere tends to be good, good service, etc. If you like guac, you won't be too disappointed with theirs. The chips are either fresh or a really good brand. All of the hot sauces are good. AFAIK, they do not have margaritas, but they do serve beer, and the sangria is pretty good if you are into that sort of thing. Prices are reasonable. I kind of wish this was being built here.
Ol' Bob's BBQ & Catering; Statesville, NC
Don't get too excited - this is not going to be a post about 'cue. I was actually on a quest for wings. My daughter and I headed over to Dawg's, but discovered they are closed on Saturday (and Sunday). We decided to settle for pizza instead. First we stopped at Fast Trax, which was already closed despite the sign saying they stay open until 10. This was around 8. No big problem, though. It is connected to a "game stop" so the quality of food is likely to be on a par with Chuck E. Cheese. (That will probably not stop me from trying it at some point.) So we decided to try Amalfi's. We pulled into the shopping-center parking lot and saw the giant poster-board on Ol' Bob's next door advertising .... wings! (Insert halo music here.) So we went in and ordered 50 for $23.99. (A Saturday special; the regular price was $24.99.) We selected the medium honey from another poster-board sign that listed 9 or 10 sauces (the menu only lists 5). These wings were awesome. Slightly spicy, great blend of flavors, wings cooked perfectly. The ranch was good. I think I will be ordering these often.
I also got excited about their breakfast, since they open at 6 am. And yes, there is a livermush biscuit on the menu. In the interest of science, I am sure I will have to try the pork BBQ at some point as well.
1737-J Wilkesboro Hwy. 704-871-1998
Why are main courses called entrées in the US?
I think the real origin is a bit cooler, really. Always hate to hear of something that is named what it is because of "those stupid" whomever.
Why are main courses called entrées in the US?
Yep. My grandma (an American-born Italian living in Belmont) has always called it "tonic."
Regional Fast-Food Chains
Yes. In fact, it might be all chicken. They are on the same road as Wal-Mart, off of Turnersburg Hwy.
http://www.zaxbys.com
The Second Fret Coffeehouse & Music Hall; Statesville, NC
This isn't much of a review because I really didn't eat. I was still stuffed from my less-than-stellar Chinese meal earlier. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/648437 We mainly went to go out. I really like the atmosphere and we are planning to go back tonight (we are on the reservation list for the music).
The beer selection was phenomenal. Except for Miller Lite on tap, there was only good beer. We started out with Flying Dog draft. This was a $1 drain-the-keg exercise and it ran out before we could have a second. (I can't remember what they replaced it with, sorry. Something German.) My husband switched to Stone Pale Ale and I switched to Harpoon Pumpkinhead Ale. (Both were bottles.) They were reasonably priced as the daily specials ($3.50 and $2.50, I think). I finally did order some Parmesan Potato Wedges ($2.49). They were really, really good. Perfectly cooked, well seasoned. The parmesan was freshly grated. I had them with ranch dressing, which was really good (menu says it is house-made, and I believe it). Not much else I can add, really. Entrance to the music room would have been $4, but we decided to stay at the bar instead, and we were still able to hear the band. A good option if you are frugal, I guess. The music was good. The bartender knew what she was doing. The coffee is locally roasted and smelled great. All of the desserts and muffins and such looked yummy, but I am really not much of a sweets eater. I also thought about having some hot chocolate instead of that third beer, but decided against it because of the sweets thing.
http://www.thesecondfret.com/
