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Awesome recipes! I'll try them out tomorrow night. thanks! Mike

Don't worry about the recipes being the same. Everywhere I went I had different versions of Joloff Rice or groundnut stew. I just want those fundamental tastes back! :-) Mike

I'd love some recipes, especially for joloff rice! The leaf might be bitter leaf...does it make a soup sort of slimy? Hm...I've not been able to find shrimp maggi anywhere, but I'll have to keep searching. I live in a pretty multicultural city, so I'm sure they're around somewhere :-) Mike

hm, that's interesting. I didn't know that Brie and Camembert where the same (ish). I was reading a great book called "Last chance to eat: the fate of taste in a fast food world". The author devotes a quarter of the book to Brie, which is no longer being made in the traditional way. I was...

ah, sobering thoughts all. To be fair, my super-quick meal was borne out of necessity: I got home at 6pm and people were hungry :-P. I do so love to cook at home, but I keep telling people that if we had a six burner gas stove and two full-sized ovens, I'd be a lot happier :-) Mike

I've been in a restaurant kitchen for a few weeks now, and they started putting me on the line. For some reason now, when I try cooking at home...It's so slow! It took me 30 minutes from start to finish for a meal for my family, they were impressed, but I still think I could have shaved off...

interesting! Thanks everyone.

That's true. I think my biggest culinary failures (at home, anyway) have been spawned by a desire to be overly complex. :-) Simplicity works. Mike

I didn't have a specific dish in mind, just in general. I'm starting to become a huge fan of the "less is more" movement as well, mainly because I can't really deal with "more" :-P Mike

Thanks everyone. I think it's time for an experiment :-) (I do so love it when I get to run little experiments that involve something I can eat :-p) Mike

I was making a Russian dessert today called Kisel. It's a fruit puree thickened with some kind of starch. The recipe called for potato starch to be used. I know that potatoes are a common ingredient in Russian/Ukrainian cuisine, but I'm not sure if a peasant would have had access to refined...

I've just recently realized how versatile risotto can be. I know there are traditional ways of preparing it and, coming from an Italian background, I've tried them all:chef:. But I've been experimenting with some interesting combinations, and wonder what everyone else has done. Here's my...

I'm personally really fond of an once (or two) of Benedictine as I'm cooking. It tends to loosen the mind and get creativity flowing :-P

I understand flavour, but I can't garnish food so it looks nice. Does anyone know of any websites, books, or advice I can use to make my food look pretty? :chef:

:O That's exactly them! Thanks! Mike

I was baking my first cake from scratch, using a recipe from the Joy of Cooking. It was a brick when it came out of the oven. But that's not where the fun ends :-) I said, "hey, I have 6 pounds of cake, I should still ice it". so I tried to make buttercream. Except....no one told me you...

A few summers ago, I lived in Ghana, West Africa. I was in the North, and I'm looking for a few how-to's on the food there. Specifically, it involved a lot of fermentation of grains and the like, and while I saw them do it (basically just stick the milled grain into a bucket with some water...

It's really strange: After not eating for hours...I just can't be hungry enough to eat. Although the calimari that the kitchen makes is (are?) fantastic, and there's usually a few extra that we get to eat :-) Not to mention that the concept of cooked food confused me. I had a steak knife in...

So I just started my first job doing a lot of prep in a kitchen. I've been there the past three nights, and have come home usually too late and not very hungry enough to make myself something to eat. Last night, the family had a BBQ and left me some. I couldn't pass that up...but when I sat...

good ideas everyone. I agree with the bacon thing, it might be a bit much. I'm still a bit wary of leaving the skin/pith on, but I guess it's time for an experiment :-) Mike

Interesting. I can see why you wouldn't candy the lemon (that in itself was a pretty weird idea), although I'm not sure why you'd leave the peel on. If the goal is for people to eat the whole thing, wouldn't the peel be really bitter, even in a thin slice? Mike

I was trying to go to sleep yesterday when a thought struck me: Lemon goes well with seafood, but does seafood go well with lemon? That is, what happens if you try to make lemon, instead of seafood, the focus of the dish? This is more of an appetizer, and I'm wondering what people think: I'll...

For me, for some reason, every now and then I need that bland spaghetti and tomato sauce that you can really only get at a school cafeteria. My mother is Italian, so it would be tragic if she even *tried* to make bad tomato sauce! Strangely, I also discovered that Ikea sells the exact same...

I've also heard of people putting the melon (with the vodka inside) into the freezer, then taking it out a week later :-) Mike

Actually, while most "store brand" olive oils are meaningless in terms of "extra virgin cold press", anything that is truly imported from places is usually a safe bet. I love spanish EVOO, but before I buy anything I make sure it has the Controlled Product label (um...I totally forgot what this...