elspethdawitch's Profile

I usually organize them by theme (cuisine, technique), then title, but organizing by title only really bothers me if I have a lot on a topic (i.e. Greek cuisine, because I'm Greek). So there are bread/baking books, BBQ books, Greek food books, slow cooker books, etc., but there are some finer categories, and where lines blur I let one flow into the other - a BBQ book with salads near the one with mostly salads, something with salads and pasta goes next to the pasta books, which are next to the Italian ones, which ends with an Ancient Roman cookbook, which is next to the Ancient Greek cookbook, which starts the Greek section...etc. Or I'll have celebrity chef books and have a Giada book before the Italian section, that sort of thing.

I have like three shelves full of cookbooks. It's a problem.

Mango pits are divine, but awkward in the breakroom at work. I want to suck the pit, but everyone is watching me! Much easier at home.

At home, some favourites that are my prerogative as chef - dipping some bread in the pan after frying or roasting meat (especially if I've deglazed the pan with wine!), chicken skin (though my husband mostly gets that), delicious steak bones, marrow, a taste of the cream at the top of the can of coconut milk. My husband is a big fan of chicken skin, pan drippings, and eating extra cheese while grating it/adding it to a recipe.

I was raised by a rural Greek dad so I'm very much a "pick up the meat with your hands and eat every last scrap that isn't bone" kind of eater...I find it very hard not to pick up a chicken leg, say, when I'm out.

I find the Greek one kind of hard on the eyes, and I feel like the mix of upper and lower-case letters would be confusing for kids..

Why not get a stove-top moka pot to make espresso? It might not make the best crema in the world, but it's relatively quick and relatively easy to clean up, comes in different sizes...

Other personal-sized coffee makers that don't involve pods: personal-sized French presses (my coworker recently marveled at how tiny the one was I was using at work the other day, which I found quite amusing since it was a wedding gift from her!) that make exactly one cup of coffee, or a briki/ibrik/cezve/raqwa/etc. for making Greek/Turkish coffee, which also comes in various sizes.

LIVE. I *LIVE* in the Maritimes. Can you tell it's the end of a long work week?

When I say my mother thinks "they" are "too heavy", I mean all cast-iron cookware. So I grew up in a house that didn't have any. Thankfully I worked at a pioneer village for six summers so it's not a completely alien concept.

I have a 1926 treadle-powered Singer and an old Kenmore (c.1970s?) that had belonged to my great-grandmother, who turns 98 on St. Patrick's Day. She bought the Singer used, and used that until someone bought her the Kenmore, which she hated (it was electric and went "too fast"), so it went into the closet and she went back to using her Singer. After she went into a home and they found a buyer for the house, we went about cleaning the place up, and none of her daughters wanted either machine! (although one of them laid claim to *all* of the quilts...yeah, that sounds fair). Sure, my husband hates the Singer because he had to help carry it up 3 flights of stairs and it takes up space in our tiny apartment, but it works great (just need to replace the old leather belt, which I broke - whoops!). The Kenmore works great, I took it to sewing class with me a few times. Does everything I need it to do.

I agree with helianthemum and New England daughter, it always tastes...off, somehow, Had some once that tasted fine, but it was full of preservatives. What I've had since (bought in bulk from Costco) tastes like cornflakes with milk and just a hint of stinky feet. Like kind of fermented or something. Definitely not coconutty.

I've peeled them before, but only when I'm feeling ambitious. I can't usually be bothered to do *all* of them. Besides, hummus is one of those few things that my husband actually loves to make, even if most of our friends don't like it. If I make a better hummus than his, he'll get demotivated and give up on it entirely...so I let him make his hummus. With skin.

Not in the kitchen long enough to need supportive shoes, unless I'm baking. I find baking cookies at Xmas time exhausting, but maybe that's just because Greek Xmas cookies are so labour-intensive. Plus my slippers are suede, don't want to get them dribbled on. But some sort of footwear is a good idea, lest you drop a knife and have it go into your foot - it happened to one of my former professors!

Definitely use a "garbage bowl", didn't realize it was a thing either. I often use whatever empty container is sitting on the counter, like the little plastic box the mushrooms came in, or I'll put them on a paper towel, fold it up and chuck it, but I do sometimes use an actual bowl.

Mise en place is certainly important, but only necessary when making stir-fries, because you just can't slice all those ingredients in the time it takes the previous one to cook.

I definitely use an apron, and eat with it on if we don't have company. There is always a towel tucked in it, especially if I'm washing up as I go, but I don't use that towel to grab anything, because grabbing hot dishes with a wet towel is a sure way to burn yourself. The wet towel does work well under the cutting board, learned that from my parents as a teenager.

Hubby sharpens the knives, though never as often as I'd like.

I'd add: start your starch first, at least boiling the water. There's nothing worse than holding up supper because you're waiting for the potatoes/rice/noodles to cook. Besides, rice/quinoa/bulgur needs to sit a bit before you fluff and serve it anyhow.