FOODIE THREAD FOODIE THREAD FOODIE THREAD

1. Best easy salad dressing.
I'm into roasted hazelnut oil with balsamic vinegar lately.

2. Favorite junk food.
Pizza, chocolate cake, and cookies.

3. Favorite ethnic food from your heritage.
I'm a Southern Jewish Princess. So I'd say kugel, fried fish or shrimp, and to split the difference, barbeque brisket.

4. What do you serve to your favorite people?
Chicken soup if they are sick. Fantastic Artichoke Dip and Cranberry Meatballs at a party. I can also make a pretty mean salad with lots of stuff and people love my plum upside down cake. Oh, and lemon squares. Everyone loves lemon squares.

5. Secret kiddie food you still love.
Captain Crunch. Twizzlers.

6. Impress us with your kitchen ability.
I mix my own curry powder. Don't ask me what I put in there. It was a process. I have no idea. Must have over ten spices though.

7. Your favorite cook book.
I enjoy the Moosewood Cookbooks and one called "Best Ever Chinese and Asian" and I like Dr. Weil's book. I have about a hundred.

8. What type of diet/food restrictions/lifestyle do you follow, or try to follow?
In my next life I'll do the macrobiotic (without a lot of the hocus pocus part). I'm not supposed to eat wheat/gluten but I cheat and take a pill. I cook a lot of gluten free though. I usually eat what is in front of me though, unfortunately.

9. Grossest thing you have ever found in your food. (kidding)
Not really going there.

1. Best easy salad dressing.

Olive oil, salt and pepper 

2. Favorite junk food.

Chocolate croisants - Au bon Pan are good ones - most airport ones are mediocre, more croissant than chocolate. 

3. Favorite ethnic food from your heritage.

As a kid I loved chicken fricasee. Especially the pupicks. Then as an adult I found out what a pupick is!

4. What do you serve to your favorite people?

Easy to make food - roast chicken, matah ball soup, squash casserole. 

5. Secret kiddie food you still love.

Snowballs - you know those marshmallow balls covered in pink coconut. Twinkies are good too and not as bad for you as you might think. 

6. Impress us with your kitchen ability.

You'll have to wait for the blog. I am a decent cook, thanks to my wife. 

7. Your favorite cook book.

The Naked Chef - Jamie Oliver got me interested in cooking. 

8. What type of diet/food restrictions/lifestyle do you follow, or try to follow?

Try to avoid saturated fat, high fructose corn syrup and overly processed foods. If I could afford an all sushi diet I would do that. 

9. Grossest thing you have ever found in your food. (kidding)

I routinely find hair in various restaurant meals. I think you have to accept a certain amount of non-food objects in prepared food. Weirdest thing I ever found AS my food was probably duck tongues at a Mandarin restaurant in San Francisco.

 People often ask me if I can eat while editing surgery videos. Very little grosses me out, although I could tell you, but I won't!

It's not my heritage, but if I could Indian food all day every day, I would. (I know I could cook it myself, but it wouldn't be as good. )

One of the dishes I get in every new Indian restaurant I visit, just to get the lay of the land, is malai kofta. It's not unlike an Indian version of falafel in a classic Indian sauce, frequently with cashews. I'll be honest: what first got me to try it was the menu description at Utsav, my favorite Indian restaurant in New York, truly elegant and beautiful, and still nicely priced.

Here's the description: "creamy vegetable balls in nut sauce." My wife and I still laugh about that way, way too often. But it's really good.

I could go on and on about great Indian food, and restaurants around the world.  But that's the short verstion.

Hmmm, sounds like a wonderful exercise for a lazy day-before-the-holiday afternoon.

1. Best easy salad dressing.

Balsamic, olive oil, small amount of fresh squeezed lemon juice, Italian seasonings to taste. Quick, easy, diet friendly.

2. Favorite junk food.

Creme Brulee (Okay, okay. Regular custard will do too.)

3. Favorite ethnic food from your heritage.

Lindeboom already used my answer... just substitute Scotish/English/German. So I have to go with Tim. LOVE Indian, in fact love almost any ethnic food from Greece, through the whole of the Middle East, north Africa, west Asia, central Asia, east Asia and that especially includes Afgan dishes. Yummmmm!

4. What do you serve to your favorite people?

Fine red wines. If they require food my perfect chef of a wife does this thing where she take salmon steaks, coats them with brown sugar and salt and I sear them on a very hot grill for as short a time as possible.

5. Secret kiddie food you still love.

See answer #2.

6. Impress us with your kitchen ability.

Remember the part about "perfect chef of a wife?" I'm the sommelier, a job I take VERY seriously.

7. Your favorite cook book.

I just went to the kitchen and looked over three sagging shelves of cookbooks. While "Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook" is well worn, we probably get the most out of Hugh Carpenter's "Pacific Flavors" (and others).

8. What type of diet/food restrictions/lifestyle do you follow, or try to follow?

"Don't eat anything bigger than your head." And at the American Thanksgiving holiday if you can't get up from the table, you've probably overdone it.

9. Grossest thing you have ever found in your food. (kidding)

Try... not... to... remember... anything. I'm supressing on all 8 cylinders.

-Nick Griffin "Some people say that I'm superficial. But that's just on the surface."

Ron, I've never heard of anyone making homemade fresh chocolate. From cocoa beans? I don't hear much new when it comes to cooking, but that's a new one!

Mike, if you have the inclination or time, I'm looking for a perfect squash casserole recipe, I'd love to see yours. And I shot at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta for a year. We could surely share gross video stories.

Tim, thanks for starting the new category, I almost put this in Entertainment myself.

The consensus is, I MUST try more Indian dishes! I have a crappy Indian place across the street from me. I need to venture further for some of the good stuff. I am so adventurous with Asian already. Korean, Vietnamese, of course Thai and Sushi, but need to branch out to Middle Eastern.

Nick, sounds like you really know your place in your marriage. Good for you. And you win the prize for best item to serve to people. WINE.

I will be trying all of these salad dressings. I'm also looking for a salad dressing recipe with maple syrup, if anyone makes that.

Hi Jacki,

Ron and Kathlyn hooked me up with raw chocolate on my most recent visit to The COW Mothership. I snarfed it down so fast that they didn't even get a bite. Truly awesome stuff.

Great to cook in the Fall when squash are cheap and local.

1 Butternut squash

1 acorn squash

any other type of squash

Green and yellow zuchinni

Sweet potatoes or Yams

New potatoes, red or white

Slice all into chunks or slices, mix in baking pan, toss with olive oil, butter (mmm, butter), brown sugar, molasses, orange juice to prevent drying out, honey or maple syrup if you ar enot on a diet.

Mix thoroughly with utensils or hands. Spices to taste.

Cover loosely with foil. Place a pan of wate on the lower shelf and the casserole on the upper shelf. Bake at 200 for many hours, checking once an hour to keep moist. Takes 4-6 hours to get really goood.

An alternative, if you are in a hurry, is to buy frozen bags of butternut squash, turnip, fresh sweet potatoes or yams and new potatoes. Boil in water until tender. Drain water and mash like mashed potatoes. Add milk and butter to taste and desired consistency, and then whip the heck out of it with a wooden spoon and your dominant arm. I like to pretend the pot of potatoes is a difficult client!

Mike Cohen

MAN! I know what I'll be trying as soon as it gets cool here in Georgia! Your recipe looks fantastic, Mike! Since it cooks so long and is to stay moist, I may have to try it in the crockpot soon. Will not be as good as the oven, but that is a lot of heat in the Summer here.

1. Best easy salad dressing.

 olive oil, rice wine vinegar, roasted red peppers and feta cheese

2. Favorite junk food.

Smart Food cheese popcorn

3. Favorite ethnic food from your heritage.

Colcannon (mashed potatoes, cabbage and green onions), but really . . .anything made with potatoes (which I REALLY ate too many of as a child).  There aren't a lot of exciting Irish dishes . . . although my Grandmother's oatmeal molasses bread is REALLy good too (but who has time to make bread from scratch these days?!) 

4. What do you serve to your favorite people?

Ginger-rubbed salmon filet, jasmine rice and steamed veggies (after all- I want them to live a long time too!) 

5. Secret kiddie food you still love.

 NONE - never ate it as a kid and certainly didn't start as an adult

6. Impress us with your kitchen ability.

I'm Irish, my kitchen ability isn't impressive (unless you like onigiri, that is) 

7. Your favorite cook book.

Don't use one - my son (who wants to be a chef) is partial to the joy of cooking at this point in time 

8. What type of diet/food restrictions/lifestyle do you follow, or try to follow?

I don't eat meat, sweets (except fruit), refined carbs - mostly fruit and veggies with some seafood thrown in.   

9. Grossest thing you have ever found in your food. (kidding)

That's a tough one - any time I've found organ meats in my food has been rather unpleasant - but that's ust me - your mileage may vary! 

slainte, marisu