A little red wine helps everything.  Will try it on the liver next week. I have to have mine smothered in Onions though.

I'm another one who loves liver pate or terrines but can't abide liver or gizzards or other intestinal meats.When I was growing up, we were allowed one food we didn't have to eat and mine was liver. So I often had a fried onion dinner. Now both of my sisters would fight you over their share and as Joan' says, "Whatever rocks your boat!"

I just received three packages of catfish from a friend, along with other items because she is moving south to be with her grandchildren after being recently widowed. I have no idea how to cook them. Now with grayling, I would dip them into  eggs, then cornflour and fry. Would cooking with catfish be similar?

I was OTL this afternoon and it must really be summer as we all ordered salads rather than soup except for our "always burgers," friend. I had a Cobb salad and bought the majority home for at least two more meals!

Angelface, catfish is a nice mild white fish.  You can cook it any way you like.  I liked to dredge it in a little cornmeal and flour, then pan saute it in a little butter or olive oil.  Just don't overcook it.  I love catfish!

Thank you Mary!

Well first time I have stepped in here and boy am I feeling hungry....

Reading Jeanne P's version of how things were different in the earlier days, our parents days, brought back memories of my childhood....of which I was only talking about to someone the other day asking if his mother - parents done the same,  was....We had a kitchen pantry, some might call it scullery, with thick concrete shelves not wood...my nan and my mother would store a large jar of flour, guess plain, not self raising, and cheese, along with other home made Items such as pickled cabbage, pickled onions, gherkins and pickled eggs....I can remember opening the lid to the flour only to see the flour moving, was alive, yes tiny white creepy crawlies, but the flour was never thrown out to my knowledge, was still used to make crusty meat pies....similar to cheese, cant remember it being covered with cling film, don't think that existed them days, just placed on a china cheese stand, that too would go hard and mouldy round the edges, we would just cut around the rind and still eat it, no fridges in them days, or if there was we never had one....How did we survive?....

I am a fish eater but don't ever recollect eating catfish, I ate red-snapper in the Caribbean, that was then a favourite of mine, not so much popular over here....

Yes. I remember we had to always checked the flour and other things that were kept in a pantry. I don't remember what my grandmother used in order to keep the buggy things out.  She baked 3 times a week and so not kept around to long.
It can happen here fast so even though I keep lots of things in tight containers and don't buy in bulk. I still check good. Health food stores, one has to watch there in their Bulk Barrels. specially in Summer.  I saw weavels has they call them in the loose Oatmeal.  I know people who just cut the mold of cheese.  YUK!. Bakery bread goes moldy fast here also, but not bread you  buy in stores it last for weeks.. I try to just bake small loaves. Thank goodness we have big refrigerators.  My family there in UK  use to be so small but now see that they are getting much larger in UK.  I sort of like the small built in ones that match your kitchen cabinets but never see them here. Would be fine for me as I keep a big freezer in my shed.

Besides clean shelves and tight fitting lids, one noninvasive trick to keeping bugs away is to crumple whole bayleaves along your shelves.

I have a large package of chicken breasts with leg attached, that is slow cooking. I added a third cup of lemon juice, sage, onion powder, and poultry seasoning to the meat. After 12 hours, I will debone and toss the bones and skin before shredding the meat into freezer bags of one and two cup sizes.

This type of chicken can be used for so many meals, from a main dish to salads to casseroles to sandwiches.

As soon as I bring flour, cornmeal, Bisquick, cake mixes, oatmeal,  anything with flour in it into the house, I immediately put in the freezer for at least 24 hours.  The freezing kills the weevils , or whatever the bugs are called.

They still may be in there, but at least they aren't wiggling when I open the package .

Mary

Now I sprinkle Cinnamon around to keep the ants away. Place where can't put the traps etc.
One of the worst thing for bugs (worm type)   are some spices. Chili Powder really bad. I toss my spices out twice a year. 

I got the weekly list of the book on sale this week. !2 of them. One I just have to put on my Ipad or Tablet. Mine come by E-M from BookBub.  Called. "Mrs Wilde's Boarding house Cook Book' from 1943. She kept a boarding house in Savannah. (Still does in her 90s) only 1.99 was $17.99) it says. I have so  many books on my IPad. Not many on my Amazon Fire Tablet
This looks good for southern cooking.

While searching for something else, I came upon the Easter Seals of 1977's little Eskimo cookbook, totally recipes collected by small children from the village of Shishmaref Day School from Shishmaref, Alaska. My mother, a member of Easter Seals at the time, helped to put this booklet together. Let me list one or two home recipes from the children.

Seal or Oogruk Flippers, Ooshak by Raymond Seetomona

Cut the flippers off from the oogruk. Put the flippers on the seal in fresh blubber. Let them stay there for about two weeks. Take the loose fur off the flipper. And then cut them in small pieces and eat the meat.

Remember, these are young children speaking of what they've seen their families do so it isn't entirely accurate then or now. But it was more realistic back then.

Na-zek' meek-tak by Elsie Tocktoo. (English translation, Bumblebee flower).

This plant is reddish with pink and green flowers. We pick it from the ground. Clean and wash the plant. Put them in a seal poke and pour water on them. We keep it for winter when it is all frozen.We cut it into pieces from the poke. We put it in a big bowl and add seal oil and sugar when it is ready to serve.

Seal Poke

The inside of the seal together with the head and all is cut and taken out through the head part of the sealskin. the skin is then turned, cleaned and blown up for drying. This is then used to put the meats, berries, leaves or other foods for storing in the winter.

Seal Meat Fresh this and the seal poke recipe by Bert and Pauline Tocktoo.

Cut the meat into pieces. Put water in the cooking pot, and add seal meat. Add salt to taste. Let boil.

I thought you might enjoy this "taste" of the past and Eskimo culture.

Wish I could taste the Seal Flippers! lol

The recipies were interesting and different, Patricia.

Isn't it amazing what people in other countries eat. I watch some of the recipes being made and have to stop looking. Suppose the think the same about us.

I was in error about the date. It was not 1977, but 1952! I'm sure that there have been many, many changes in the Inuit villages!

We (my son and I) have hummus for lunch several times a week.  Usually, I buy either Sabra brand or the Harris Teeter (my grocery chain) brand and they are good but a little pricey.

This week I tried this new product,  http://www.bushbeans.com/en_US/products/hummus, and it is every bit as good as the store bought brands.  Less expensive and fresher, too, so I think this is what I will do from now on. I think I'll try the black bean version next time.  It only takes a few minutes to fix in the food processor and you can add whatever you wish.  Healthy, too, since hummus is part of the recommended Mediterranean Diet.

It has cooled down today and so going to be cooking in order to get some things into The Freezer for when I don't feel like cooking dinner
Right now I am making the Oriental Chi Chow.  I love that stuff.  I also got a recipe for one I have not tried. Mongolian Beef. It cooks in the Slow cooker so will do that one after getting more beef. Not to much goes into that. Havethe rest of the stuff.  Have all for Corn chowder other than the fresh corn.  Some is coming in from Georgia now and pretty good.

Jeanne, I looked that up because I wasn't familiar with the name. It was what we made and called chow mein as kids.

I make a version of stir fry with steak sliced thin, and broccoli. onions, peppers, and  chili verde spice or else madras curry powder.

I love doing Stir Fry's as you can just put in anything you have handy. Want it Indian than use Curry and Indian Spices. Chinese use theirs. I just play and put in what I fancy. I don't have any Chili Verde . Will have to pick some up. I buy my spices now at the International Store bye me. Sold loose by the oz.  Buy the Basmati rice that way also. Prefer it

I do like rice, except for the perfumed variety as that gives me a headache and tastes strange. I am close to several family owned and operated restaurants that also have attached groceries so I keep buying small amounts and use them quickly.

A Hmong family has not only the restaurant and attached grocery but also a tailor shop and shoe/boot repair.

Also, the company I retired from, "The Great Alaska Bowl Company," has a large variety of Alaskan food products made by small entrepreneurs. You can buy all kinds of things, including some hot sauces that placed first and second in Louisana last 2014 in the Hot Sauce contest.  They beat out the US entries and 11 countries' applicants for the win.

I brought the GA Bowl co. up on line. Looks like a interesting place to shop.

Thanks, I was there for a number of years as a sales clerk and then as a tour guide. I met all types of people from everywhere and enjoyed showing them our products and how they made wooden bowls, utensils and other items from Northern Birch.

Patricia..........

Just watched the Vimeo video showing the making of a series of bowls.  What a fascinating process.

https://vimeo.com/45662685

It is and I really enjoyed telling folks about it. We could not do the tour until we had done each step of the process ourselves, making our very own bowl. From the first cut to etching pictures  with the laser.

The other part was going aboard the large tour buses, giving a short spiel and then leading the group, between ten to a couple of hundred folks, into the shop and to the viewing window. After that tour and talk, we turned them over to the sales clerks and the folks doing taste tests.

But I was glad to retire!

Patricia, what a very precised process.  I never realized that the bowls were light wood that was tinted. What is in that bath, do you know? Apparently it does not color the hands of the handler.
I love the irregularly shaped bowls/plates too. Are those shaped by hand?
I wish they had an outlet here.

Bubble, everything in that process is how it was done over 100 years ago. Except,it is no longer totally a hand process, the 60 year old  machines were rewired and powered by electricity. The wood is Birch and no tinting, the oil used is one safe for food.

The bowls are cut, taken to the kiln for processing, (24 hours);  and then it is a nine step sanding process which takes per step, ten minutes to a half hour per bowl size and then to the oil bath. After dipped in oil, they are placed on racks to dry for 24 hours. Only then are they brought to the sales floor.

We are the only ones doing that type of hand made process now in this country, there are others that are fully automated. I don't know about other lands or countries. There is an online outlet and I know they ship worldwide as we have sent to  Russia, Korea, Italy  and Australia and others that I know of.

Watch the small video at the top of the webpage.

http://www.woodbowl.com/

That was certainly an interesting video.  Thanks for posting it, Donklan.

This is an interesting video.    I do like wooden articles and these are especially nice.    It is interesting how much of the work is hand done, even though the cutting is done by machine.    We watch How It's Made and so much is automated but we notice that even there that some manufacturing requires a certain amount of hand work.    On these bowls,  I liked how the color was different according to the grain of the wood.     Here  people are so partial to white birch trees for landscaping.....just imagine having so many that they could be harvested like this!!!!

We live in the midst of millions of Northern Birch. Blue or Black Spruce, Tamaracks, Cottonwood and a few pine brought in by bird droppings.

"The forests found in Alaska's interior are known as Boreal Forests. These forests extend from the Kenai Peninsula to the Tanana Valley near Fairbanks, and as far north as the foothills of the Brooks Range. They stretch from the Porcupine River near the Canadian border and west down the Kuskokwim River valley. Species with commercial value include white spruce, quaking aspen, and paper birch. Other species include black spruce, balsam poplar, and larch.

These forests are the product of extreme climatic factors. Temperatures can vary as much as 160ºF from summer to winter. Summer days are long and daylight hours in the winter months are few. Slow, short growing periods cause the trees to have tight growth rings, making the wood prized for strength and delicate beauty. Within the boreal forest, conditions vary considerably. North of the Alaska Range, precipitation rarely exceeds 20 inches per year, so moisture from snow melt nurtures the forests. Heavier snowfall and more rain in Southcentral causes different growth and maturity rates in the trees of that region."

Back to food, yesterday I had lunch at a friend's home with others. The Chicken salad main course was nice but not memorable. What was memorable was the canapes of homemade wheat pita chips, red grapes and  Irish blue cheese. I was sorry to see that cheese go and stopped off on my way home and bought some for myself.

I have noticed that Irish cheddar is not as sweet as the English cheddar, but the Bleu cheese from Ireland is much sweeter and better tasting than the English or ours. Or at least it seems to me.