Bistro Bijou

[sassynyc]

See, this is why I love being here...the thoughts and prayers of you wonderful people have made this situation easier for all of us here to bear.
Little M has been diagnosed, as earlier reported, to have a staph infection (possible that it is still of the MRSA variety) deep in the muscles of her left thigh and buttock. Doctors will do bone scans tomorrow to see if the infection has impinged on bone. The good news is that it is all treatable with no long-term affects. However, she will have to be on IV antibiotics for at least a couple more weeks, and possibly as long as six. Prognosis is excellent that she will have full recovery, albeit slow. We will probably be able to bring her home by a week from Monday, (July 13), and then continue administering the IV antibiotics ourselves. Complicated by the move scheduled on July 16, but we will then fly her up rather than drive, so that her treatment is not disrupted by the move. Hospital in PA has already been notified and is on board, and I am told that Lancaster General Hospital is an extraordinary hospital. So barring unforeseen developments, life will go on as normally as normal can be in this situation. Fortunately, we have time off from work (AA doesn't start until last week of July), so we can devote most of our non-moving activities to M. AA's parents live in Lancaster County, so that will help as well, and will help us get acclimated to our new home quickly--M will stay at their house for a few days until we can make the house presentable and look like a home. This hs been emotionally trying, but it looks like the worst is over, and the rest is manageable.
I can't say how much I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers and wisdom. My focus, as you might expect, has been elsewhere, but of all things, when I find myself home alone during my times away from the hospital, your company here in the Bistro has been an incredible tonic. I read and reread the thread that has grown during my absences, and I get great comfort from watching you all evolve and converse.
Thank you all for being my other family. I love you all.
A

I'm just getting in from the weekend and catching up on all this in recap. I'm so glad to see things have improved and that you're looking at a positive prognosis. You have all my good thoughts and prayers for a continued recovery for your little angel. Love to you and your family.

 

[Angeline]

Gazpacho is simply cold.

Now, borscht is truly icky.

Borscht was the bane of my childhood. We had it every Friday night. And I hated it every Friday night. It looks especially disgusting with a lump of sour cream floating in it. Yech!

 

[Homburg]

DO WANT

 

[Guest]

Borscht was the bane of my childhood. We had it every Friday night. And I hated it every Friday night. It looks especially disgusting with a lump of sour cream floating in it. Yech!

What is borscht? Is it some icky meat thing? Looks horrible.

I remember being made to eat potato soup, bean soup or split pea because it was cheap to make and you could make enough that it would last several meals. I hated those soups then, but I love them now. I make Junior eat them now and she hates every bite.

 

[Angeline]

What is borscht? Is it some icky meat thing? Looks horrible.

I remember being made to eat potato soup, bean soup or split pea because it was cheap to make and you could make enough that it would last several meals. I hated those soups then, but I love them now. I make Junior eat them now and she hates every bite.

It's beet soup. Yuck.

I love potato soup. I'm going to make corn chowder with fresh corn and potatoes this week. But beet ? Or anything with beets for that matter? Can't touch the stuff. The early borscht experiences killed any liking I might have for beets.

 

[myinnerslut]

It's beet soup. Yuck.

I love potato soup. I'm going to make corn chowder with fresh corn and potatoes this week. But beet ? Or anything with beets for that matter? Can't touch the stuff. The early borscht experiences killed any liking I might have for beets.

potatoe soup, yum! i hardly see it anywhere but i love the stuff.

 

[Tzara]

Borscht was the bane of my childhood. We had it every Friday night. And I hated it every Friday night. It looks especially disgusting with a lump of sour cream floating in it. Yech!

It's your cultural penance, Ms. A., just as lutefisk is mine.

Awful stuff. Tastes like gelatinous cardboard. Literally.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I LOVE borscht. Both hot and cold.

I also LOVE gazpacho.

So there.

bj

 

[Guest]

It's beet soup. Yuck.

I love potato soup. I'm going to make corn chowder with fresh corn and potatoes this week. But beet ? Or anything with beets for that matter? Can't touch the stuff. The early borscht experiences killed any liking I might have for beets.

Beets. http://www.pushupstairs.com/images/emoticon/extra2/puke1.gif

I saw a recipe and it does have icky meat too.

 

[Angeline]

It's your cultural penance, Ms. A., just as lutefisk is mine.

Awful stuff. Tastes like gelatinous cardboard. Literally.

I used to work, years ago, with a Swedish woman, a minister's wife (and an incredibly sneaky and dishonest mrs minister she was, but that's another story). She sang the joys of lutefisk to me, but I didn't trust much of anything she told me. Also my gut (literally) instinct was that I would really hate it. Right up there with the Italian delicacy bacala.

 

[Angeline]

Beets. http://www.pushupstairs.com/images/emoticon/extra2/puke1.gif

I saw a recipe and it does have icky meat too.

Yes. That pukey face about sums it up for me.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I used to work, years ago, with a Swedish woman, a minister's wife (and an incredibly sneaky and dishonest mrs minister she was, but that's another story). She sang the joys of lutefisk to me, but I didn't trust much of anything she told me. Also my gut (literally) instinct was that I would really hate it. Right up there with the Italian delicacy bacala.

Now lutefisk we all agree on. My grandparents were full Swedes and even they make horrible faces when lutefisk is mentioned.

In general, I think it's best to avoid eating anything prepared with lye.

bj

 

[UnderYourSpell]

It's beet soup. Yuck.

I love potato soup. I'm going to make corn chowder with fresh corn and potatoes this week. But beet ? Or anything with beets for that matter? Can't touch the stuff. The early borscht experiences killed any liking I might have for beets.

I have my beetroot in salads but not the sort done in vinegar first as the only thing I eat vinegar with is fish and chips
(french fries to you but not tiddly skinny things big chunky chips)

It's your cultural penance, Ms. A., just as lutefisk is mine.

Awful stuff. Tastes like gelatinous cardboard. Literally.

Looks disgusting but we have jellied eels which looks just as bad or tripe (cows stomach) yuckkkk mind you I am very fond of Haggis which is cooked in a sheeps stomach or faggots which I think means something entirely different to you lol do you eat offal over there anyway? I had grits on my last cruise and found it most peculiar like sloshy porridge

 

[Tzara]

I used to work, years ago, with a Swedish woman, a minister's wife (and an incredibly sneaky and dishonest mrs minister she was, but that's another story). She sang the joys of lutefisk to me, but I didn't trust much of anything she told me. Also my gut (literally) instinct was that I would really hate it. Right up there with the Italian delicacy bacala.

Swedish. Yer problem right there my ancestors would have said, being Norwegian, and them not so getting along with their former political masters.

But I, being of less (or perhaps merely different) jingoistic sentiment will merely point out that your instinct (and your gut) were right. Lutefisk may not be the worst thing I have ever eaten (Tony Roma's ribs, for example, were immediately rejected by said gut one unfortunate evening, leading me to suspect the chef had put an emetic as one of the secret ingredients in the sauce), but it ranks right up there.

My guess is that winter deprivations northwards of the Arctic Circle (a/k/a starvation) made lutefisk into the delicacy it is today.

I have no idea whether the same thesis could be applied to borscht.

 

[sassynyc]

I have my beetroot in salads but not the sort done in vinegar first as the only thing I eat vinegar with is fish and chips
(french fries to you but not tiddly skinny things big chunky chips)



Looks disgusting but we have jellied eels which looks just as bad or tripe (cows stomach) yuckkkk mind you I am very fond of Haggis which is cooked in a sheeps stomach or faggots which I think means something entirely different to you lol do you eat offal over there anyway? I had grits on my last cruise and found it most peculiar like sloshy porridge

Grits are definitely an aquired taste. It's more so a textural thing, as it doesn't have much of an independent flavor. It's a southern staple, often dressed up with goo gobs of butter or cheese, both of which test my gag reflex! If I eat it at all, it has to be plain and simple; salt and pepper....that's it. Goes pretty well with fried fish (whiting/catfish especially). I can count the times in a year that I have grits, on one hand.....and I'd still have a few digits left over.
How does the vinegar with fish and chips work? I've always heard of it, but can't really picture the combination. I'm hoping it's better than salt n' vinegar potato chips....agghh!

 

[Tzara]

Now lutefisk we all agree on. My grandparents were full Swedes and even they make horrible faces when lutefisk is mentioned.

My grandmother, god bless her, hand made the stuff, lye and everything.

Fortunately, she also made a lot of things much more palatable to her grandson's finicky American palate.

On visits where that was the main dish, I ate a lot of bread. She made great bread, in a wood-fired stove. Awesome stuff.

In general, I think it's best to avoid eating anything prepared with lye.

Good point. The only other substance made with lye that I can recall eating was part of a bar of soap that my mother used to make a point about my exuberant vocabulary.

I didn't like that much either. Lux, if I recall correctly.

 

[Homburg]

potatoe soup, yum! i hardly see it anywhere but i love the stuff.

Now lutefisk we all agree on. My grandparents were full Swedes and even they make horrible faces when lutefisk is mentioned.

In general, I think it's best to avoid eating anything prepared with lye.

bj

Centuries ago, some Swedish asshole got drunk with his buddies and made a stuuupid bet. Poison + fish = dinner. And people have been paying for that guy's mistake ever since.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Grits are definitely an aquired taste. It's more so a textural thing, as it doesn't have much of an independent flavor. It's a southern staple, often dressed up with goo gobs of butter or cheese, both of which test my gag reflex! If I eat it at all, it has to be plain and simple; salt and pepper....that's it. Goes pretty well with fried fish (whiting/catfish especially). I can count the times in a year that I have grits, on one hand.....and I'd still have a few digits left over.
How does the vinegar with fish and chips work? I've always heard of it, but can't really picture the combination. I'm hoping it's better than salt n' vinegar potato chips....agghh!

Well assuming you have never had British fish and chips the white fish is dunked in batter then deep fried, the chips are as I said pretty chunky lengths of potatoes also deep fried then you have a shaker of vinegar which you splash over them both then shake salt on top of that. Very fattening but yummy

 

[Tzara]

Looks disgusting but we have jellied eels which looks just as bad or tripe (cows stomach) yuckkkk mind you I am very fond of Haggis which is cooked in a sheeps stomach or faggots which I think means something entirely different to you lol do you eat offal over there anyway? I had grits on my last cruise and found it most peculiar like sloshy porridge

We have SPAM:

http://gypsyfirechicklet.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/spam02.jpg

which is made from animal parts most of us don't want to hear about. I ate it fairly frequently as a kid. Fried.

I know. Scary.

Philadelphians are big on scrapple. I don't know much about it myself, being from the wrong coast.

What foods are acceptable (even considered really tasty) and what foods conceptually make one queasy is an interesting subject. My wife's company dealt for many years with Chinese companies and would frequently entertain employees from their partner companies. One thing that was interesting to me about this was that the Chinese do not eat dairy products and find cheese, in particular, kind of nauseating.

I, of course, would (and probably will) give up my heart before I give up cheese.

I never asked them how they felt about lutefisk, though.

 

[Tzara]

Well assuming you have never had British fish and chips the white fish is dunked in batter then deep fried, the chips are as I said pretty chunky lengths of potatoes also deep fried then you have a shaker of vinegar which you splash over them both then shake salt on top of that. Very fattening but yummy

You forgot the mushy peas.

 

[champagne1982]

<snip>My guess is that winter deprivations northwards of the Arctic Circle (a/k/a starvation) made lutefisk into the delicacy it is today.

I have no idea whether the same thesis could be applied to borscht.

Not likely, but I think it does work against muktuk on the yummy scale.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

My grandmother, god bless her, hand made the stuff, lye and everything.

Fortunately, she also made a lot of things much more palatable to her grandson's finicky American palate.

On visits where that was the main dish, I ate a lot of bread. She made great bread, in a wood-fired stove. Awesome stuff.
Good point. The only other substance made with lye that I can recall eating was part of a bar of soap that my mother used to make a point about my exuberant vocabulary.

I didn't like that much either. Lux, if I recall correctly.

See, exactly. Soap is not generally considered terribly edible by most people.

I find it telling that Swedes and Norwegians tend to blame the invention of lutefisk on one another. No one actually wants to take responsibility for it.

You're not supposed to like me, you know. I'm half Swede. I wasn't aware of the enmity between the groups until high school when I began dating a boy whose mother was Norwegian. When I was informed that she didn't like me because I was Swedish, I laughed. Not a good move. But I really didn't realize until too late that she was actually serious.

There were so many other, much better reasons not to like me. Like the fact that I was busily corrupting her number one son. I mean, we're all catfish-belly white, after all.

In fact, spelunkers have met creatures that look like Ricardo Montalban next to me.


bj

 

[UnderYourSpell]

We have SPAM:

http://gypsyfirechicklet.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/spam02.jpg

which is made from animal parts most of us don't want to hear about. I ate it fairly frequently as a kid. Fried.

I know. Scary.

Philadelphians are big on scrapple. I don't know much about it myself, being from the wrong coast.

What foods are acceptable (even considered really tasty) and what foods conceptually make one queasy is an interesting subject. My wife's company dealt for many years with Chinese companies and would frequently entertain employees from their partner companies. One thing that was interesting to me about this was that the Chinese do not eat dairy products and find cheese, in particular, kind of nauseating.

I, of course, would (and probably will) give up my heart before I give up cheese.

I never asked them how they felt about lutefisk, though.

We have Spam too I used to love spam fritters

You forgot the mushy peas.

You're quite right I did although mushy peas aren't part of what makes up a fish supper but of course can be bought at the same place along with pickled eggs! Ever had pie and mash and liqour? it's all green and runny lol

 

[champagne1982]

<snip>You're quite right I did although mushy peas aren't part of what makes up a fish supper but of course can be bought at the same place along with pickled eggs! Ever had pie and mash and liqour? it's all green and runny lol

Green split pea soup... with spam bits instead of ham. .. blech..
Although, I looooove habitant style pea soup with bannock and back bacon... Et while wearing a toque and drinkin' Molson's .. eh?

 

[Tzara]

See, exactly. Soap is not generally considered terribly edible by most people.

Procter & Gamble might try to persuade us otherwise, but no. Soap is not even good for oral cleansing, despite what my mum thought.

I find it telling that Swedes and Norwegians tend to blame the invention of lutefisk on one another. No one actually wants to take responsibility for it.

You're not supposed to like me, you know. I'm half Swede. I wasn't aware of the enmity between the groups until high school when I began dating a boy whose mother was Norwegian. When I was informed that she didn't like me because I was Swedish, I laughed. Not a good move. But I really didn't realize until too late that she was actually serious.

There were so many other, much better reasons not to like me. Like the fact that I was busily corrupting her number one son. I mean, we're all catfish-belly white, after all.

In fact, spelunkers have met creatures that look like Ricardo Montalban next to me.

My grandparents would make light of it, but you could tell there was some real animosity there--kind of like Red Sox fans "hating" Yankee fans. You think they're kidding, but you aren't entirely convinced.

I personally like to blame lutefisk on the Finns.