PSoTD

It was delicious if you like salmon, and I guess I do.

Recipes, recipes.

This sounds pretty damn tasty:

Is gonna be pretty slow for bloggin'. Enjoy your day, and your dinner.

And I like it!

It sure seems to me that the price of food has gone up considerably over the past year, more than just the few bucks reflected in this Thanksgiving dinner article:

Turkey. Mashed Potatoes. Stuffing.

They're the foods we all look forward to when November rolls around.

So, how much do they cost?

A survey released by the American Farm Bureau shows prices on the rise.

A thanksgiving dinner for ten people with all the trimmings now costs about $44.61. The cost is only a few bucks more than last year, but in this economy, shoppers say every bit counts.

I think this cost increase assessment is more representative to what we see.

Over the next several days, shoppers will be flocking to the grocery stores, stocking their shelves with essentials for their Thanksgiving meal. According to the Arkansas Farm Bureau, this year it will cost you more to make that meal.

Major Stephanie Greenham with the Salvation Army is planning to fill around 500 food boxes for the less fortunate this Thanksgiving and Christmas. She says it will cost considerably more to fill those boxes this year.

Greenham says its costing her food buyer more just to purchase day-to-day meals the Salvation Army serves.

"He says he's seeing a 30 percent increase across the board. For the rolls of hamburger meat, milk, and eggs and all of the things that we have to have," said Greenham.

Chowhound has some thoughts on it.

He put together some seriously great cookbooks. I like to cook, I like good tasting food, but I don't want to spend more than an hour making it. Thankfully this guy put together recipes that fit into my attention span.

Well, not really, but just thought I'd share the idea.

Photo by Keith Kelly

I wish we had one in the area. I love their spaghetti with mizithra cheese.

Have you been there?

Sounds delicious.

It's not your imagination, there are less and less of them around.

November 1990, Ouro Preto, Brazil. Had one of the greatest lunches of my life - Feijão Tropeiro. My memory has faded - I wish I could remember where I had it exactly, but I don't remember the name - but I think it could be the RESTAURANTE CASA DO OUVIDOR. If I could ever find my journal from the trip perhaps I'd know the name for sure.

Now I'm hungry.

I tried to make something called "Aunt Eileen's Eggplant" the other day, primarily because we had a lot of eggplant and I really don't like eggplant and I was trying to figure out a way to use it all up without ruining dinner.

My wife liked it, our kids did not, and I hated it. I hate eggplant. That's the absolute last time I try to cook with the stuff.

Interesting blog post about buying local-grown produce in the Harrisburg area.

I have heard this place in Philadelphia is very good. Anyone out there have a personal recommendation?

Okay, I'm convinced, Cheeburger Cheeburger crushes Five Guys. We ate at the Carlisle Pike location today. I'd say they're fairly even with Five Guys on cheeseburgers, but onion rings at CC were awesome, and then there's the milkshakes. They told there were something like 86 milkshake flavors, and I bought a Coconut Cream Pie milkshake, and all I have to say now is that I have a new favorite milkshake flavor. I must have said "this is delicious" 20 times, of which at least ten times my daughter insisted HER milk shake was delicious, too.

My Seattle-area brother and his wife have now twice sent us salmon as a Christmas gift. This is not a complaint, but a declaration of ignorance. The first time, the salmon sat in our refrigerator for, I believe, two years, in a foil packet. It's not that we don't like salmon, it's just that we haven't acquired that much of a "thing" for it, and so it has been much easier to prepare or eat almost anything else that has been in the house.

If I had a dollar for every time I said "we have to eat this salmon sometime" on the first go around I'd be able to buy my gas-powered bicycle. Eventually it disappeared, but we still haven't figured out something desirable and low-on-the-learning-curve to do with salmon.

And last year we received three packets of salmon.

If you're reading this, D & A, you know we love you, and you know we're proud and don't like to admit we're boneheads about anything, but you gotta help us out. Gifts of food are excellent for the initiated. Send me a box of breaded pork tenderloins, or steaks, and those babies will fly out of the freezer. But we need help on the salmon. I found a site that provides recipes for dishes that include smoked salmon, and we can find something that way. But personal recommendations are preferred.

So if you have any, send them my way. I'm clueless.

Selling hot dogs never sounded so glamorous.

Fools! You cannot stop the mighty Cheez-It. A little bit of trivia - apparently, Cheez-Its have been around since 1921, as the king of all cracker snacks.

Oh, and by the way, Cheese Nips are for total goobers. Cheez-Its rule!

(Can you tell I got a box of them for Fathers Day?)

I never knew there were so many kinds of lettuce.

Alright, it was a beautiful weather holiday weekend, the kind that makes you think you're jumping right into summer regardless of what the calendar says. Summer means picnics and barbecues and just plain eating outdoors. So what is your favorite "summer" food - the kind of food that you primarily see at these outdoor eating events?

I'm a sucker for deviled eggs. I know they're not just a summer food, but summer seems to be the eating gathering time, and if you're at an outdoor potluck you just know somebody's going to bring deviled eggs. Or at least they better, or I'm going to be perplexed. Deviled eggs are a must, and none of that "include relish as the filler" stuff, either.

Next year I'm going to plant a couple of American Persimmons in the back yard. Hell, maybe I'm starting an orchard.

The main reason I'm interested in persimmons is because our family has a LONG tradition (well, apparently my grandmother's mom made it, so that's a long time ago) of making persimmon pudding. I have the recipe around here somewhere, but there are lots of versions of it online.

I did not know this... we should be swimming in butter.

The Land O'Lakes Carlisle Butter Plant, located in Mt. Holly Springs, PA, is the largest butter plant on the eastern seaboard, producing more than 400 thousand pounds of butter a day. The plant also manufactures powder and condensed milk products. Opened in 1978, the plant serves as a balancing plant for milk produced in the Mid-Atlantic region, capable of handling six million pounds of milk per day. The plant began processing butter for Land O'Lakes in 1980 and formally became part of the Land O'Lakes system when Atlantic Dairy Cooperative merged with the cooperative in 1997.

Era of cheap food ends as prices surge

Makes sense to me. Give this a read, Cumberland County Library System...

I don't know about you, but I just don't see how blueberry and coffee should go together, ever.

In our preparation for a vacation in Italy, we're trying different Italian wines. The Luna di Luna post below was something we found about a month ago, and it's just good company wine, period. Yesterday I stumbled onto this wine magazine, Decanter, while searching for good Italian wines. They had this bizarre little poll listed:

Should wines be made specifically for women?

No, it’s patronising - 87%
Yes, women’s palates differ - 6%
Yes, women prefer simpler wines - 7%

Is there any research out there that would suggest a reason for a "woman's wine" other than some sort of marketing approach? I just thought the whole idea was contrary to my experience of drinking wine with friends in general.

If you want to get me to go to church, you better offer these as standard snacks during service. They are delicious!

Valentiners getting jabbed with over-the-top chocolate prices?

German investigators have raided the offices of several major confectionery companies amid allegations they fixed the price of chocolate.

Mars, Nestlé, Kraft and Ritter, which have all confirmed they are part of the investigation by the Federal Cartel Office, face multimillion-pound fines if found guilty of the charges.

The investigation, which comes days before Valentine's Day, one of the peak times for chocolate sales, was launched after several of the companies raised their prices by between 10 and 12 per cent within a few weeks of each other, raising the suspicions of the authorities. A further three companies have also received letters informing them they are part of an industry-wide inquiry, although they have not been named.

Competition officials visited the German headquarters of the confectionery companies last Thursday. "We think there was collusion on price rises," said a spokeswoman for the cartel office, adding that the investigation is expected to take several months.

Ah, man, I've got a hankering for their King Arthur's Supreme pizza. Why doesn't everyone offer linguica on their pizza?

Yeah, I prefer Red Robin over those other those other two. Have never been to a Houlihan's.