Comments as posted to rec.food.cooking after the cook-in
Pamela wrote:
I just got back, pretty late for me, from the NYC Cookin but can't go to bed without saying thanks to everyone. It was my first experience of meeting folks from the list and it will change forever how I feel about posting. Curley Sue (tm) with sweet and savory breads, Laura whose mastery of chocolate could only have been defeated by truely demon chips, June (Ildewild) with the real, live Matt, Don, our host and ... Now they're faces and voices and memories instead of just sigs and posts. oops. Articles. While we were approaching dessert satiation we called the Portland crowd - speaker phone to speaker phone. Coast to coast good spirits (pun intended). What a good idea all of this is.
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June responded:
yes, thanks from me (and my friends), especially to don for hosting, and sue for organizing.
It was my first experience of meeting folks from the list and it will change forever how I feel about posting.
a second for me, i have met ny martin (visited hahvahd last spring and rudely woke her up twice).
pam brought a big pot of chili, with all sorts of toppings. it was very very good. it has a different flavor than regular chili, and i'm looking forward to seeing the recipe for it someday.
Curley Sue (tm) with sweet and savory breads,
excellent breads. one was a quickbread with banana, cranberry, and mini chocolate chips. the other was a wheat bread with molasses, raisins, and caraway. truly divine. she also brought chicken cacciatore (sp?). it was very good. i noticed that my bf, a notoriously picky eater who did not eat any mushroom tart because it "looked funny", did eat a big piece of the chicken. good job, sue! :) she also brought a variety of cookies - flourless peanut butter and... something with chocolate chips? i was so full, i wasn't able to try the cookies. :(
Laura whose mastery of chocolate could only have been defeated by truely demon chips,
folks, this was a GORGEOUS cake. my foodie pal, glynis (who is a student in my dept, who i hope to teach how to read newsgps), she privately 'fessed to me a few days ago that she'd LOVE to be a pastry chef, was just stunned by this cake. it had ruffles of white chocolate with dark choc. drizzled on it like you wouldn't BELIEVE. it was flourless (for don) chocolate with a mocha glaze and these white ruffles. laura also brought this chicken dish whose name i can't remember - turkish? turkesian? something - of which i took half of the leftovers, it's in this creamy sauce with walnuts (?) and breadcrumbs. orange colored. gooooood.
June (Ildewild) with the real, live Matt,
yeah, i brought mr. charisma with me, didn't i? what, did he even say ten words during the five hours or so that we were there? he's really more interesting in smaller functions (read: one on one). he's like that even in front of his own family.
i brought pad thai (keith rickert's recipe, halved, with the peanuts and turnips omitted), and a mushroom tart. my friend glynis brought a veggie style sloppy joe made out of lentils, eaten with rice instead of hamburger buns. that was my first time eating lentils. i had wondered what they were like. anyhow, it was a good experience.
Don, our host
don's place is gorgeous. mmmmm..... there is all of this wonderful woodwork everywhere, giant glass enclosed bookshelves and china cabinets, wooden floor with this great border running all around it, a magnificent staircase that greets you when you walk in the door, stained glass inserts above the door to the kitchen and a door leading... outside? he's also quite a collector (huge shelf of christie's catalogs), and he's got a lot of books on boat racing (tactics and strategies of yacht racing, among other titles).
...were approaching dessert satiation we called the Portland crowd >- speaker phone to speaker phone. Coast to coast good spirits >(pun intended). What a good idea all of this is.
kay was drunk as a loon. :) she sounded very happy, tho. we couldn't tell who was there, other than johanna and kay. well, i expect we will soon hear about it.
--- but i'll just tell it as it happened for me.
i got up at 9 yesterday morning, too excited and nervous to sleep in. i made the pad thai (during which my roomie from hell asked if she could wash her pile of dishes from this past week - my god, i almost fell over with encouraging her to wash all of that crud), then i took a break.
the ex-bf called while i was organizing for the tart, he's in san francisco for a macworld conference. i invited him to the thing, b/c he lives in the village (well, east village), and i thought he'd be back in time, but it turns out we were both wrong about his travel plans. he says he'll accompany me to the next one - pam sez she has a good place for outdoor stuff, so maybe this summer. i thought it'd be really funny to bring both of them (matt and richard) to a cookin, so y'all could see the people i talk about all of the time, and they get along well, but oh well, not this time.
i did something dumb while making the mushroom thing. i was carefully chopping mushrooms, and when i had a pile of them, i equally carefully swept them right into the trash, instead of the dish of other chopped mushrooms. oops. i used dried (reconsituted) chantarelles, dried (reconstititued shiitake), fresh portobellow, and fresh regular mushrooms this time. i had purchased a pack of fresh shiitake, oyster, and crimini (?), but upon opening it, they felt slimy and smelled distinctly of ammonia, so i tossed it. five bucks down the drain. and i threw in a generous handful of smoked gouda cheese (grated) - while i was stirring, i realized i had put in too much. another oops.
so the cooking was done. the cleanup was done. matt showed up in an extremely bad mood. (blah. men. men are scum.) then glynis showed up. we reviewed directions on how to get there. we stopped off at a place to pick up some japanese desserts. and ZOOOMMM!!!! we were off to brooklyn. we made it to brooklyn in record time. glynis drives at speeds equal to or exceeding 80 mph. never been ticketed, she says. i squinched my eyes shut and bounced in the backseat as the car hurtled towards the city. glynis drives like a nyc native. she swerves and doesn't signal and merges and curses with the best of them. we got there just after five, nearly a half hour earlier than anyone else (oh you fashionably late new yorkers).
don was in the midst of setting up a fire (in the fireplace) when we arrived. we stood around and chatted amiably until pam and sue showed up, then we started heating up food and setting it up. pam and sue came with these great big shopping bags bursting with food. glynis, matt, and i had come with only our three dishes and dessert, glynis and i looked at each other (huh huh uh huh, we suck) and helped unpack. matt wandered out of the kitchen, while don directed us to serving utensils and the like.
there was a lot of miscellaneous food that either sue or pam brought, and i'm sorry i don't know who belongs to what, but there were also: pickles, coleslaw, cheese tray with pepperoni, roasted red pepper strips, blue cheese and cocktail bread squares, potato salad... what else? i am probably forgetting stuff. (i think i ate a little of everything, tho.)
all of the pad thai i brought vanished, so i think keith was another winner last night. thanks keith!
we talked about a lot of things - the split of rfc to rfb, rfe, and rfm; net politics; public transportation in nyc; my roommate *ah, that lovely lady*; how to handle a cleaver; melting white chocolate; different cheeses; e. coli; the ki-master and his breathing good health into people; hypothesis in medicine and grains as the root of all evil, other misc. net topics (newsreaders we know and love, spam, etc); and of course gossip about other members of rfc (how could we not?).
val stark, if you're reading this, could you post your recipe for ricotta cheese? i swear i remember you saying something about having made this when you were squirreled away in vermont (?) w/o electricity and water...
during dessert, we called the portland cook-in via speakerphone and sort of shouted hello at everyone there. kay kept urging us to drink, drink, drink more! i expect a full report on that portland cook-in, kay.
then it was past ten, and we helped clean up, distribute leftovers, load the dishwasher, and say goodbye. it was time to hurtle home at more breakneck speeds. i had a lovely evening, and i was pleased as punch to meet more rfc-ers in the flesh. sorry if i've left out any vital details, someone else will fill them in?
and recipes! let's see the recipes!
-j. -- Will cook for food.
Updated: January 13, 1997
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