| Cooking disaster? Yes! | | Posted Tuesday, January 23, 2007 3:11:57 PM by Blog57 Team | | Betty Kluckman had no interest in cooking while she was growing up and it wasn't until she married Harlan that she tried to figure out how to prepare a decent meal."Instructions are vague when it comes to cooking spaghetti or rice," she says with a frustrated sigh. "I finally came up with some no-fail ways to cook it. In the event there are some bewildered new brides as I was, I'm putting my instructions in with my recipes here." She admits, "We had a lot of sardines in tomato sauce when we were first married."Betty is a native of Java, lived for a time in Lemmon as a girl, and moved to Mobridge with her family when she was in the seventh grade. "I had home economics when I was in high school in Mobridge, but I didn't learn much...I always had my nose in a book." There was a time that they had guests and her father, Bill Hepper, told her to go help her mother in the kitchen.... | |
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| | | Pugster Happy Birthday Letter Cake Party Candles Celebration Italian Charms | | Posted Tuesday, January 23, 2007 1:07:20 PM by Blog57 Team | | A cake is decorated with candles, pink rosettes and the words "Happy Birthday." Celebrate your birthday or the birthday of someone you love with this charm. Crafted and authenticated by Pugster Inc.... | |
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| | | Books for cooking up fun | | Posted Sunday, January 21, 2007 1:13:13 PM by Blog57 Team | | Looking to get your kids cooking but don't want to shell out big bucks for them to learn the finer points of pasta? Try it the old-fashioned way -- cook with them. Cookbooks aimed at children and their parents have become a growing publishing niche. Here's a selection of some of the latest: "Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook" by Georgeanne Brennan (Random House, 2006, $16.95) Oh, the places you'll go. Inspired by the words of Dr. Seuss, kids will have fun making Cat in the Hat Tub Cake (a pre-bought angel food cake that you decorate with whipped cream and berries), Jed's Bed of Shrimp (deep-fried coconut shrimp) and Daisy-Head Mayzie Burgers. Many of the recipes, such as Gertrude McFuzz-y Berries and Silly Sammy Slick Sodas, require no chopping, cooking or appliances, so kids can make them with minimal supervision.... | |
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| | | Amy Sedaris: 'Strangers with Recipes' | | Posted Sunday, November 19, 2006 1:09:02 PM by Blog57 Team | | Amy Sedaris' subversive fan base might have been shocked to see her recipes and hospitality guide shoot to No. 10 on The New York Times best-seller list. How many people can truly appreciate a book that includes a banana dipped in Jell-O powder as a munchie? Sedaris claims "this is not a joke cookbook," yet readers will have to page through many 1970-style photographs of recipes, such as Chicken of the Taverns, as well as the See You in Five to Seven Years special-occasion prison cake. Anyone familiar with Sedaris' television show and movie, "Strangers With Candy," or with the writing of her brother David, will not be surprised that the book's humor goes beyond camp. The subtitle: "Under the Influence." There are tips to "identify the specific enhancer your guest is flying on" and the observation that "people who normally like to drink during the day love brunch because they can drink and not hide it." Sedaris' signature grotesque self-costuming has been toned down in more than a dozen Todd Oldham portraits of her as hostess, circa 1970.... | |
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| | | Sugar glazed morning goodness | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 7:07:04 PM by Blog57 Team | | Editor's note: Living in the Colorado high country is pure joy. Baking in it isn't. High altitude makes cookies spread in the pan, cakes fall, and few baked goods turn out as they do at sea level. This column presents recipes and tips to make baking in the mountains successful. "Please help," pleaded the email I recently received. "It will soon be my turn to bring morning treats to work and I want to surprise everyone by taking something homemade. What can I make? I'm not a very experienced baker." After reviewing a number of possible recipes to recommend, I selected this sugar-glazed snack cake. It has a lovely texture, a rich, butter-vanilla taste, and is easy to make. It needs no frosting, so it requires less preparation time than many baked goods. You could definitely put it together after a day at work and have it ready to share with your colleagues the next morning.... | |
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| | | Mansion offers flavor of 19th-century holiday | | Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006 11:09:00 AM by Blog57 Team | | BLOOMINGTON - Celebrating Thanksgiving was hard work in the 19th century, but it was an important holiday for uniting a nation teeming with immigrants.That was a message visitors to the David Davis Mansion State Historic Site heard on Saturday at "The Blessings of the Table: Thanksgiving at Clover Lawn." The event honoring how the holiday was celebrated in the Victorian era continues through this week."It was a lot of work (preparing Thanksgiving then)," said Barbara Wittemann of Gibson City. She was among 24 members of the Gibson City Girl Red Hats who visited the mansion."We're the last generation who could appreciate what the work our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did," she said. Wittemann and her contemporaries witnessed their grandmothers preparing for such holidays, she said.The women attended a tea and toured the mansion to learn about the traditions Sarah Davis, David Davis' wife, imported from her New England family home.Several visitors were impressed by the long list of items on the menu.... | |
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| | | Kentucky flavors collected for book | | Posted Thursday, November 09, 2006 11:19:09 PM by Blog57 Team | | Sharon Thompson, food writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader, has collected some of the commonwealth's favorite recipes, old and new, in a new cookbook from McClanahan Publishing House. Thompson will be signing the new "Flavors of Kentucky" cookbooks, $24.95 for each hardcover book of 160 pages, including many color photographs, from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 18 at Kentucky Haus Artisan Center, 411 East 10th St., Newport. Kentucky chefs and families were sources for both creative or traditional recipes. The newer inventions usually include a favored Kentucky ingredient, such as bourbon, grits or pecans. Thompson's own family and in-laws were obviously generous enough to open their recipe boxes. Church potlucks, horse farms and Kentucky B&Bs also contributed treasured recipes.... | |
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| | | (wap) (A TN: Feature editors) | | Posted Tuesday, November 07, 2006 11:26:27 AM by Blog57 Team | | Emeril Lagasse might be the most famous chef in America. He has a wildly popular television show. He has several well-known restaurants, including three in New Orleans (one of which is still closed because of Hurricane Katrina). This past summer he prepared a special meal -- freeze-dried jambalaya, a spicy stew -- for astronauts on the space shuttle. But when he started cooking, he was just a 7-year-old boy hanging out with his mom at home in Massachusetts. His first major kitchen project was vegetable soup. He cooked a batch every day for four or five days straight. His mom, Hilda, would taste each one and tell him it was pretty good before suggesting that some ingredient be changed a bit or cooked a little more or a little less. "When I got it right, she said, `This is how it should be.... | |
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| | | Fish cake: It's a staple in many Island kitchens | | Posted Saturday, November 04, 2006 11:19:41 PM by Blog57 Team | | Fish cake. Ask any Islander what a fish cake is and, depending on their ethnicity, their age and their favorite takeout spot, you'll get a wide range of answers. And a lot of opinions on what makes a good fish cake. If you're Chinese, you might define it as that pinkish-gray paste you buy in the fish shops, or the steamed or fried cakes made from that ingredient. If you're Japanese, you'd probably think of kamaboko, loaves of pureed, steamed whitefish the pink-and-white half-moon form a common ingredient in saimin and fried rice. Or you might picture chikuwa, hollow rolls of steamed and grilled kamaboko. If you're Hawaiian, you'll likely think of 'o'io, the aptly named bonefish (aka ladyfish, Albula vulpes). Scraped from the many-ribbed skeleton, the tender white flesh is often blended with ogo or other seaweed and made into fried cakes.... | |
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| | | Fish-cake recipes you can try at home | | Posted Thursday, November 02, 2006 7:13:24 PM by Blog57 Team | | If you love okazuya-style fried fish cakes, you might be surprised how easy they are to make at home. The following recipe is a stripped-down version making use of less expensive aku, or skipjack tuna. These are great with a sweet chili sauce (mix sweet chili sauce with mayonnaise and a little Tabasco or chili pepper water). Okazuya-style Aku Cakes 1 pound fresh aku 2 teaspoons garlic salt 1 tablespoon minced garlic 2 teaspoons grated ginger 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil 1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper 1 egg, beaten 2 tablespoons fine, dry bread crumbs Oil for frying (vegetable or olive) In a food processor, pulse aku until chunky.... | |
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