(no subject)

[mrissa]

Do you ever have those days when you only want to eat things it's impossible for you to get at the moment? A soup from a restaurant that went out of business six years ago? An appetizer from a different restaurant two time zones away? That thing your great-grandma used to make but never gave anyone else the recipe for?

Today is one of those days for me. This is not helped by the fact that I'm still not really safe to drive or to handle hot and/or sharp objects, so the list of impossibilities is longer than it might otherwise be. (I really, really miss cooking right now.) My mom has expressed a willingness to be helpful, but I'm not willing to tell her what to do in nearly as many particulars as she's willing to be told it.

Tortilla soup from Garcia's. Lin's cream cheese pie with peaches. Moo goo gee from Long Life. Crab tempura from Minokichi. Cabbage rolls from Nina's, and Russian peasant ravioli, and palacsiiiiiiinta. David-in-California's egg curry. Those glorious, glorious Brussels sprouts from Loring Grill. Dark chocolate mousse with brandied cherries from that restaurant in Portland I probably couldn't even find again. The world's most perfect clam chowder from that other restaurant in Portland that doesn't even exist any more. The stir-fried greens from House of Nanking (with garlic, garlic, and more garlic).

Sigh. Foolish, foolish brain.

Comments

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Mmm...tortilla sooooooup.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmmm.

I have those weeks days too, yes. There's a scallops appetizer in Texas that I'm missing very badly right now.

[rosefox]

Iced chocolate from the Peacock Caffe. I'm glad I got one of their menus to frame before they closed.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

But yay for an appetite?

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

There's this pizza place in my husband's hometown in rural Ohio, of all the damn places, that makes the best pizza I have ever eaten. I crave that stuff all the time. And of course we live approximately 1000 miles away from there.

(It's a combination pizza place and drive-through liquor store, actually, which entertains me no end.)

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Oh how I wish I could step into the back room of Buster Holmes. Just smells could wake a dead mans appetite. Red beans, fried chicken, hot sausage, the pop of real NOLA Barque's root beer, bread pudding w/hard sauce. Ah goodness just thinking about that place and time. BTW the back room was where blacks had to sit during segregation, I sat there to help break that, I wish I knew then how to stage a sit-in, it might have helped end that sooner.

P.S: I almost didn't put in the bit about the back room, I still get very bad head space from that era but it's all part and parcel to me. I needn't run from that anymore.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

there's a ukrainian grocery store on west seventh/fort road in st. paul. and i believe they have pelmeni for sale there. you'd have to boil them yourself, but still. (also, moscow on the hill, on selby, in st. paul. mmm. pelmeni *and* vareniki. mmm.)

[ckd]

Skyline Chili.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

My mother's paternal grandmother, for whom I am named--made a pastry involving cinnamon, sugar, and rice, for which she never divulged the recipe. She died before I was born (which is how I came to be named for her), so I never got to try the pastries myself. When I was a kid I remember my mother trying to make pastries that were apparently not the right thing.

E. Shou Shrimp at Jimmy Tsang's restaurant in Pittsburgh (I hope it's still there...I have no idea).

The floral-tasting tea that my friend G brought from Sweden when she moved back to the states.

The goat-cheese salads at Sassy Tea House.

and then there's the old neighborhood back in Brooklyn. Real Nathan's hot dogs (which are still available, I'm just too far away). Knishes from Mrs. Stahl's (gone for real and for true...waah!).

Oh man, I'm hungry now.

Tortilla Soup

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Do you need a good tortilla soup recipe?

B

Re: Tortilla Soup

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Couldn't hurt. I know of a couple of places where we can get decent tortilla soup, but good is a step up -- and might be close to the soup from the long-mourned Garcia's (Mexican place in Pleasant Hill, CA, that closed while we still lived out there).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I could do with scallops one of these days.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yep. Appetite's been good this week, despite the dizziness, but it's not something I take for granted.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Is it still there, or has it gone now?

I'm glad you needn't run.

Bread pudding with hard sauce, ohhhh. Added to the list of "things I want and won't get today." Well, scottjames's dad always used to say, "It's good to want things."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ayep, I've been there. They have Hungarian paprika sausage, which we occasionally require. Is "moscow on the hill" a grocery or a restaurant?

We also have a Russian grocery close to us, but I haven't been yet.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

restaurant, and a moderately fancy one. if you like vodka, try the horseradish vodka. i believe it's made in house, and it's really not bad in that way that will make your table mates look at you like "you just drank *what*?"

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

oh! and if you end up going to the grocery near you, i'd love a review. (if you don't end up going soon, i'd love an address/name, and will give you a review. :)

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

That's sort of how I felt when I realized Lawrence's Bakery in New Orleans was the only place that made cakes that tasted just the way I thought all cakes *should* taste, and that's why all the cakes I'd been finding recently were tasting "wrong." Mr. Lawrence Aiavolasiti, Mister Wedding Cake, was a legend in the city for his almond flavored cakes with an icing that could not be duplicated by any who tried, and unfortunately for us, Lawrence took the secret to his marvelous cakes to the grave a couple of years ago. I am almost *unreasonably* disappointed and distressed over this. I just have so many memories tied up in the smell and taste of a Lawrence's birthday cake. Nothing else tastes like birthday cake now. They're just...cake. It sucks. I hate it when people don't share their recipes before they die. It's unfair.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My paternal grandmother died before I was born. She didn't deliberately keep her limpe recipe to herself, but nobody seemed to be able to find it. Finally my great-aunt found it folded in an old cookbook -- two months before my dad's 50th birthday. His mom had died two months before his 25th. So for his birthday I made his mom's bread for him, for the first time he'd had it in probably 30 years. If he hadn't been so darn Scandosotan, he'd have cried. I knew what he meant anyway.

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

That was quite the fortuitous find, and very sweet of you to make it for him. I'm sure he treasured the first taste of it after all those years like nobody would believe.

Now if only your great-aunt would go poking through Mr. Aiavolasiti's papers and snoop around, perhaps she could have the same luck, and maybe I could persuade you to be similarly kind someday and make me a proper birthday cake. ;-D Stranger things have happened. :p

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

As I am not a fan of vodka or of horseradish in quantity, i think I'll pass on that last bit.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Will do, one way or the other.