> Don't even know who Julia Child is?

Very vaguely... cookbook writer, yes?

Only as a side shoot. She's one of the great American cooking gurus - just
about the first woman and first American ever accepted into the Cordon Bleu
school of cooking. She's been teaching cooking since the early 50s

 If I had to shoot her at a party my handler would have to point her out.


Easy to do, she's head and shoulders above everyone else (over 80 and still
over 6ft tall, even stooped over with age)

> Good with garlic butter

Nah.  Fish or shrimp for this kid....

Huhu grubs taste like butter coated white shrimp

> Um - er - you don't?  Why not? Should be between the pork section and
> the poultry section in the supermarket

Not around here; I don't know that I've ever seen rabbit in the
Houston groceries.  Must admit I've never looked for it, either.  If
they had it it'd be a "specialty" item and cost at least six or ten
bucks a pound, which is so far out of my league it's not funny.

Not a specialty item here, just in the supermarket, about the same price as
goose

> Can't imagine that it would be much of a staple in the Andes - too far
> from the sea.

Actually, first time I tried it was in Guayaquil... Pacific Coast
port city, home to about half of Ecuador's commercial fishing fleet
(both boats! ) and a first-world city in its own right.

This was about halfway to a state dinner... we were the Governor's
Guests. The chef was supposed to be from Paris, some famous school or
other... So I ate the rubber squid and the pasty yucca, and drank the
wine  and listened to mine host and
the guy who was the nominal leader of our little band talk past each
other since neither one spoke the other's language and neither one
knew it, and I could understand BOTH.  I got through without
dissolving into giggles though our official liaison and I got wildly
tuned on some local firewater  and laughed our asses off
about it later that evening.

I don't know what it is about State dinners - you'd think they'd have the
best food, but just about everyone agrees that the food at them is passable
at best. I've been to a few "up there" meals and was surprised
that the food
wasn't better - it looked fancy, and had fancy names, but taste and texture
were not exactly top of the line. In a documentary after he retired, Pierre
Trudeau commented about eating "the usual rubber chicken" and when asked
once how she maintained her health Queen Elizabeth said "In my line of work
it's easier to eat small portions than you'd think"

The next morning I positively destroyed the breakfast bar.  Fresh
pineapple, local oranges, bananas, wonderful ham, fresh eggs with a
local white cheese, and the best croissants I've ever had.  (and of
course God's Own Coffee.)  When I move I'll have to watch out for the
panaderias (local-style bakeries); they're dangerous.  More than made
up for the vulcanized dinner plate.

The breakfast bar sounds like my idea of a feast

> Laurie give me variety every time Phoenix

Me, I'm a peasant and happy with it. Beans and rice and tortillas
will do me just fine; when I get bored with that I throw a cow over a
fire and start carving off chunks. 

I would starve. My idea of being a peasant is to catch fresh fish and cook
it over an open fire, with fruit picked from the trees. Peasants eat
different things in different places. Tortillas isn't peasant food to me,
it's an experiment. Beans to me means green or yellow bean pods picked fresh
from the garden, not the bean seeds, and rice is for pudding. Dead cows
aren't cooked over a fire, they're roasted in the oven with yorkshire
pudding or made into stews.

Laurie longing for real peasant food Phoenix

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha