Tidbits 4

The non Pulitzer prize winning series continues with tidbits 4.


Kimchi... The Korean version seems to be spreading throughout the restaurant scene in my area.
I don't get what all the fuss is about but seeing as I have not tried it yet perhaps I should
temper any comments until I get a better understanding of it.

Peach Cobbler... No, this is not a recipe for peach cobbler but a comment on presentation. Many years
ago we stopped at I believe was a Marriott hotel. How they served their cobbler was interesting. After
chopping the cobbler up into chunks they put it in a large glass goblet with vanilla ice cream
on top. Just something about that way made it seem much better than just dishing it out on a plate.
Ever since then I serve it the same way.

Scary Stuff... It seems more and more these days that really basic food staples are subject to
being carriers of items out to change your lifestyle... from active to inactive. And not
just those items being brought in from foreign sources either.

Grapes... I understand that there are different types of grapes grown for wine production but are
any of these suitable for eating. What thoughts do you have about the green and red grapes you
generally find on the supermarket shelves. Also, I have never really found a use for the small
champagne grapes I sometimes see on the market shelves. Isn't grape jelly terrific. It just
continues to hold it's own against the more exotic jellies and jams. Perhaps it refuses to die
or fade away due to the boost it gets from it's association with peanut butter. I haven't been
to a restaurant in many many years now. Do they still serve those little packets of grape jelly
when you have breakfast.

Things that have gone by by... Has anything that you can think of disappeared from the American
culinary scene. Right now I can't think of anything but there must be tons of things. The only
thing I can think of right now is not culinary in nature and it is that Norman Rockwell paintings
probably do not sell well these days.

Political Hi-jinks with a Food Flair... I am tired of politicians who think that a photo opt of them
flipping a pancake will somehow garner my vote. Now we have a pizza guy running for president. His
foreign policy background consists of having breakfast at IHOP.

Blanky Blank... This space is intentionally left blank for those who are fed up with my tidbits
and want to add their own.

Dreams... I have been dreaming profusely for five years or more. Dreams are hard to capture unless
you recap them immediately when you wake up. One dream I remember from years ago was that I was
having a difficult time explaining to David Rosengarden that the cilantro he put in a drink he
made for me was just plain awful. A week ago a local ballplayer worked his way into my dreams.How
he did that I do not know as I did not particularly like this player. A couple of days ago I
dreamed that I had a large operation of some kind going and I got pissed off at something
the employees did and I was busy kicking them out the door enmasse. A well known politician appeared at
the front door requesting an interview. He was finally allowed to come in. At the time I was
sitting at a table layering long rolls of some type of sandwich meat. When he sat down and
started to admonish me about kicking the employees out he started to collect chocolates that were
on the table and putting them in his pocket. Anybody want to make sense out of that.
So, bottom line is this... do you dream...is it culinary in nature... does any of it make any
sense or is it just gobbly gook... please, do not give us a blow by blow account of any dreams
that are sexual in nature... like your romantic encounter with a pear. My record is clean up to this
point... at least, to some degree.

Halloween... The forum members better be spending some major time in the kitchen making cookies
and other nice things this year. With so many youngsters getting their hands on firearms these
days when they knock on your door and yell... Trick or Treat... they may really mean it.

Chocolates question... Someone asked this once... why does eating a 1lb box of candy add 5 lbs
of weight to the waistline.

Bread... What a wonderful food item. It can transform into so many things. How about bread
pudding... still one of my favorite simple dishes. Another simple dish is a great way to use
leftover southern cornbread... here is the recipe I use.

Cornbread Salad

1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped poblano chile (or substitute red pepper etc)
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro (or substitute parsley etc)
2 tablespoons rough-cut pecans
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Kosher salt or regular salt to taste
1-1/4 cups crumbled cornbread

Mix the onion, red pepper, parsley, pecans, mayonnaise and salt
together. Gently fold in the crumbled cornbread.


Alert!!!... politicians have just ruled out eating of bacon... False alarm... at least for now. Once they
finish banning soda pop and french fries they will continue down the slippery slope towards bacon.


That's all for now.

Tim

Kimchi... The Korean version

Tim I enjoy your titbits, but... ummm ...Kimchi IS Korean in fact a definitive Korean staple.

I enjoy your posts too, Tim.
Regarding grapes, I usually hesitate to buy them because they go soft so quickly. If I see red ones in the store that are not already brown where the stem meets the grape, I'll pick a few up. I don't like the green ones at all.

Grapes... I understand that there are different types of grapes grown for wine production but are
any of these suitable for eating.

It all comes down to what is meant by suitable.

Yes you can eat ripe wine grapes, as many do when we visit a vineyard at vintage time.

However there are different commercial demands for grapes grown for wine and for eating.

Wine grapes have seeds, whereas nowadays people prefer eating grapes to be seedless.

Wine grapes will be immediately crushed/fermented after picking. They need get only from the vineyard to the winery. Eating grapes have to be picked, packed, transported and displayed in shops so they look good for customers to buy and stay in good condition for some time afterwards. So a table grape's longevity and ability to stand up to transporting maybe many thousands of miles is important.

Table grapes have to look good in the shop, nice shaped bunches with no blemishes. Wine grapes looks don't matter. So table grapes are trellissed differently so bunches don't rub against wires, are separated etc.

Black and red wine grapes need a high skin to flesh ratio, and they mostly have thick skins whereas table grapes are larger with a higher juice to skin ratio.

The classic grape that doubles as a wine grape and a table grape is Muscat, with its large sweet berries, (and seeds).

There is a big difference between customer/grower attitudes to wine and table grapes. Whereas with wine grapes the market demands traditional varieties and newly developed varieties have a hard time gaining acceptance, with table grapes there is no variety loyalty and most of the table grapes on sale today have been developed in the past 50 years.
For a book I've just produced I went through a list of the top 20 table grape varieties grown in South Africa for export to Europe in 1915/16 and only one of them is still gown for the table. Compare that with the top 20 wine grape varieties and all are still grown.

(above comments refer to UK shops and vinifera grapes; we get from Spain, Chile and South Africa mostly -- we don't see US varieties such as Concord)

What thoughts do you have about the green and red grapes you
generally find on the supermarket shelves. Also, I have never really found a use for the small champagne grapes I sometimes see on the market shelves.

I don't have any thoughts. I've seen grapes labelled as 'champagne' in US supermarkets but not bought them, we don't get them in UK AFAIK

Isn't grape jelly terrific. It just continues to hold it's own against the more exotic jellies and jams. I haven't been to a restaurant in many many years now. Do they still serve those little packets of grape jelly
when you have breakfast.

I've only had grape jelly in US & Canadian restaurants, and I saw them in Denny's last week. Often labelled as Concord. But they are so sweet they could be anything. I think the first three ingredients on the packet are sugar in different forms.

[Jenise]

Wine grapes have seeds, whereas nowadays people prefer eating grapes to be seedless.

An expert in that field told me a few years ago that it's not "people" whose preferences drive the choices of Big Ag, it's mothers who make lunches for their school-age children. Hence, the seeds I accepted as normal and had no objection to in my own childhood have disappeared from the grapes, watermelons and citrus fruit I used to love. And most of what's here now doesn't taste as good as the seeded versions. One exception: perlette grapes, the crunchy, sweeter-tarter perfectly round green grapes that show up around April and October but at no other time during the year. I adore them, and wait for them hungrily every year.

This is also why apples like Red Delicious are overripe nowadays. Mothers who don't understand that a few green streaks are actually the best for this particular apple have ruined everything.

[Jenise]

Oh, and something I miss? Hash brown potatoes. Real ones. Not reconstituted freeze dried ones and not cooked from frozen, but the real deal: russet potatoes half-cooked, grated, and then browned in a pan. There is no better potato on earth. And it doesn't exist anymore, not in restaurants anyway. The sublime real deal has given way to modern convenience, once again.

[quote="Tim OL"]The non Pulitzer prize winning series continues with tidbits 4.


Kimchi... The Korean version seems to be spreading throughout the restaurant scene in my area.
I don't get what all the fuss is about but seeing as I have not tried it yet perhaps I should
temper any comments until I get a better understanding of it.
Our Italian neighbors, next door, keep a jar of Kimchi in their refrigerator all the time...never understood that, them being Italian. I've always want to make it, because I think a home made version would be better.
Come to think of it, I keep some unusual items in my pantry too.

Peach Cobbler... No, this is not a recipe for peach cobbler but a comment on presentation. Many years
ago we stopped at I believe was a Marriott hotel. How they served their cobbler was interesting. After
chopping the cobbler up into chunks they put it in a large glass goblet with vanilla ice cream
on top. Just something about that way made it seem much better than just dishing it out on a plate.
Ever since then I serve it the same way.
I would like this version of peach cobbler, and so would my husband. I actually make parfaits, in this manner. It is a great way to use up a couple of slices of apple pie, or a few home made cookies

Grapes... I understand that there are different types of grapes grown for wine production but are
any of these suitable for eating. What thoughts do you have about the green and red grapes you
generally find on the supermarket shelves. Also, I have never really found a use for the small
champagne grapes I sometimes see on the market shelves. Isn't grape jelly terrific. It just
continues to hold it's own against the more exotic jellies and jams. Perhaps it refuses to die
or fade away due to the boost it gets from it's association with peanut butter. I haven't been
to a restaurant in many many years now. Do they still serve those little packets of grape jelly
when you have breakfast.
Most all of the restaurants which serve breakfast here, will have a small container of these little packets on the table. I love the orange marmalade. When going for breakfast with friends, I've noticed this is the first thing asked to be passed when the food arrives. I don't eat supermarket grapes, Gene does, but I prefer to eat them when they are in season. I buy them at the farmers market and I love the red ones. The grower has a sign on the box that says, "no seeds, almost" I love that little sign, because almost all of the little red grapes have no seeds. Why that occasional one in the bunch has them, is a mystery. Perhaps it is survival

Things that have gone by by... Has anything that you can think of disappeared from the American
culinary scene. Right now I can't think of anything but there must be tons of things. The only
thing I can think of right now is not culinary in nature and it is that Norman Rockwell paintings
probably do not sell well these days.
I love Norman Rockwell paintings, never see them anymore, except in an occasional magazine. As a child, I adored them, and used to sit for hours studying the faces, body language, expressions, and every small detail. Rockwell was a master at this. I think I learned a lot about human behavior well before my time.


Political Hi-jinks with a Food Flair... I am tired of politicians who think that a photo opt of them
flipping a pancake will somehow garner my vote. Now we have a pizza guy running for president. His
foreign policy background consists of having breakfast at IHOP.
Politicians who do photo opts at inappropriate times are mud in my book.

Blanky Blank... This space is intentionally left blank for those who are fed up with my tidbits
and want to add their own.
I love your tidbits. You need to contact 60 minutes and apply for the spot that Andy Rooney occupied for so many years. We never missed his ten minute spot. Loved that man. He made so much sense.


Dreams... I have been dreaming profusely for five years or more. Dreams are hard to capture unless
you recap them immediately when you wake up. One dream I remember from years ago was that I was
having a difficult time explaining to David Rosengarden that the cilantro he put in a drink he
made for me was just plain awful. A week ago a local ballplayer worked his way into my dreams.How
he did that I do not know as I did not particularly like this player. A couple of days ago I
dreamed that I had a large operation of some kind going and I got pissed off at something
the employees did and I was busy kicking them out the door enmasse. A well known politician appeared at
the front door requesting an interview. He was finally allowed to come in. At the time I was
sitting at a table layering long rolls of some type of sandwich meat. When he sat down and
started to admonish me about kicking the employees out he started to collect chocolates that were
on the table and putting them in his pocket. Anybody want to make sense out of that.
So, bottom line is this... do you dream...is it culinary in nature... does any of it make any
sense or is it just gobbly gook... please, do not give us a blow by blow account of any dreams
that are sexual in nature... like your romantic encounter with a pear. My record is clean up to this
point... at least, to some degree.
My dreams are in vivid color and always the same subject....loosing something. I am either looking for my purse in some huge hotel or house, looking for one of my dogs, or looking for my beloved car. Last one I had, my Lexus SUV had been stolen off the street. I had a huge adventure full of international car thieves, boat rides to foreign countries, and local police. I was exhausted all day.

Halloween... The forum members better be spending some major time in the kitchen making cookies
and other nice things this year. With so many youngsters getting their hands on firearms these
days when they knock on your door and yell... Trick or Treat... they may really mean it.
We stopped doing Halloween years ago, and so did our neighbors. Not because we hate kids or anything like that. Parents started bringing their kids into neighborhoods they felt were safer. Some of the kids were not nice, came back two and three times, smashed pumpkins, threw eggs, so we shut them down on our block. Haloween is so much quieter now.

Oh, and something I miss? Hash brown potatoes. Real ones. Not reconstituted freeze dried ones and not cooked from frozen, but the real deal: russet potatoes half-cooked, grated, and then browned in a pan. There is no better potato on earth. And it doesn't exist anymore, not in restaurants anyway. The sublime real deal has given way to modern convenience, once again.

Jenise, we go out for breakfast every month with one or two couples...we have a standing date. I love hash browns and always ask if they make their own. If yes, I get them, if no, I ask about the country potatoes. Usually the country potatoes are made fresh, or they tell me they will ask the cook to make them fresh. One place we go to just for the country potatoes. There are chunks of russets, with onions, red and green bell peppers, and I always ask for fresh garlic. Then I sprinkle them with Tabasco! Actually, that cook does really well with these..
Personally, I get tired of breakfasts out here in Redding....they are geared towards men.

In this part of the world/country, concord grapes are a specialty, and I've liked them since I was a kid. But even if they have less flavor, I enjoy those tiny champagne grapes and will buy them if I see them later in the season.

Seems 'champagne' grapes are Black Corinth variety from Zante used for making currants - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zante_currant and http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/article/31/

I did have to smile at "Kimchi, the Korean version" -- it is true that only the Koreans call it Kimchi, and that they are responsible for preparing and eating the vast majority of Kimchi.

But one can make an argument that there are in fact other versions. The Korean language is part of a group of languages that include Mongolian and Turkish. The reason why there are Turks in Turkey is a great migration westward that happened more than 1000 years ago. In Biblical times, Turkey/Lydia was largely Greek, with a patchwork of other ethnicities. And the multiple little "-istan" countries were largely Persian. The Mongols spilled out of Mongolia and populated Turkestan, Uzbekistan, etc. finally converging on Turkey. And Constantinople fell in about the same year that Columbus discovered America.

The Mongols carried fermented cabbage leaves with them and ate it as a staple. Somehow, during the long occupation of Russia by the Mongols, Europeans living in Russia, Poland, Ukraine and eventually Austria and Germany learned how to ferment cabbage. Today we call it Sauerkraut, but you could possibly call it "European Kimchee."

At any rate, I have mixed feelings about Kimchi. I buy it, occasionally I find it delicious and want to eat it. On other occasions the smell gets to me, it can smell like garbage, and having someone eat it nearby can be torture. A lot of the interest comes from the fact that it is generally flavored with hot pepper and garlic. The best Kimchi I ever had, came with chunks of tender cooked pork in it. I didn't know enough Korean to understand what I was getting, and I don't know enough Korean to be able to find it again.

Kimchi is quite versatile. I often use the cabbage version in fried rice, or stir-fried with pork, and still have fond memories of a kimchi soup I tried while visiting Korea. I avoid the stuff that comes in jars in favour of the many varieties of "fresh" kimchi sold by weight at the local Korean supermarkets. Besides cabbage, my favourites are the cucumber, garlic stem, and radish. Other tasty stuff that's sold by weight: tiny spicy anchovies (which also go well in fried rice), baby octopuses, tiny spicy crabs to be eaten whole, and bulgogi and other pre-marinated meats. Getting hungry just thinking about this...

I noticed yesterday that there was a new cooking series on public television focusing on Korean cuisine. The first program was... The Kimchi Cronicles. I watched part of it. Although it was interesting I think I will continue to go down the path of fried chicken and apple pie for awhile.

Tim

Regarding grapes - they are grown for 5 markets: wine, juice, jelly (jam & preserves), table and raisins. Some varieties are used in more than one market. Generally, wine grapes have a higher sugar content than table and juice varieties, smaller berries and big seeds, which makes them messy to eat, but they can be delicious. One of the local growers I buy some of my wine grapes from has a small vineyard next to his house where he grows Cayuga, Vidal and Steuben for a few home wine makers. However, he has a large vineyard a few miles away where he grows several varieties of table grapes for a supermarket chain. Steuben is a very nice black grape, large berries, small seeds with a mild Concord-like flavor, but spicy. He also grows several seedless varieties. Two that I like are are Canadice, also called seedless Delaware, and Lakemont. One year he could not supply me with one of the wine grapes he was growing (Seyval, which he later had to tear out) so he offered me some Lakemont. It made a very nice country-style wine - tasted like Seyval with about 10% Niagara blended in. While there are more wine grapes being planted in my area, especially vinefera varieties, like Pinot Noir, Riesling and Cab Franc, most of the local grapes are Concord or Niagara, which are sold to Welches. I like Welches grape jam and always have it on hand, however, a real treat for me is Smuckers strawberry jam on buttered rye toast.

I noticed yesterday that there was a new cooking series on public television focusing on Korean cuisine. The first program was... The Kimchi Cronicles. I watched part of it. Although it was interesting I think I will continue to go down the path of fried chicken and apple pie for awhile.

Tim

Jean Georges Vongerichten has long had Asian influences on his cooking. This time it is his wife Marja, who is half Korean, who takes the lead but we often see Jean Georges cooking something during the show. Kimchi Chronicles wasn't just the first show, it is the name of the series, which appears to be filmed in South Korea. I have seen a few episodes. Interesting stuff.