Friday, June 18, 2010

One day @ a time - #10 This is it! - June 15

"This is it. This is it. This is life, the one you get so go and have a ball" - One Day at a Time - theme song lyrics

See how the lyrics of One day at a Time really pull this blog-orama together? I know, I'm corny.

I made it through a day of bloggin. Truth be told, I wrote 3 of them yesterday, but woke up this morning knowing I set a deadline of getting one up per hour. So, here's the last one ...

Rewind to ...
Tuesday, June, 10, 2010
So, somewhere in all the craziness of my schedule and the computer malfunction, I got a comment here on the blog from Toby. I met Toby and her travel buddy a couple of years ago as I was leaving work in Chelsea Market. We stopped, chatted and I took a pic with her friend Barbara ...
Cool thing is I got to see Toby (not pictured) earlier this year in Florida while I was on tour with Viva Towels. We made a joke that we saw each other once the first year we met, and now it's two for the second year ... guess we have to go for 3 next year? Or maybe 3 this year ... I just got off the phone with Toby, I was asking her to email the picture we took last week and it sounds like she may make it up for the Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival! So Toby, I'm looking forward to it! I'd also like to thank you so much for your support. You're my type of foodie! I had a great time and in a busy week it was a joy just sitting for a few minutes and catching up. You ladies are a riot, I needed all those laughs! If you come up here one more time and go to a Broadway show without me ... I'll give up dessert! Eww ... well maybe not dessert, but you get me. :-) Can't wait to see the pics and share them ... until then, here's Barbara's picture of my mom's Easy Classic Funnel Cake from last month's issue of Food Network Magazine.
Lookin' goood! I may have to fry up a batch this weekend! Okay, looking forward to the email Toby!

This is the end of my "One day @ a time" posts ... thanks for hanging around these parts. I hope you have a great weekend! I hope you catch Cooking for Real tomorrow at noon! I'm making the meat and potatoes crew happy and giving Popeye a run for his money :-).

3 comments:

Linda said...

Hey Sunny!

This is Linda from NC, and I have a dilemna that I am hoping another Southern girl can help me solve.

See, yesterday I made a TON of pimento cheese from scratch using what I though was fresh sharp cheddar, Duke's Mayo, and diced pimentos, cracked pepper, and sea salt. Should have been To Die For, right?

Yet, when I tasted it after it was done, the cheese tasted bitter. Yep, that is what I said.. BITTER like something that would turn your mouth inside out from the bitterness. I guess I could say it was very close to how a pecan bitter would taste if you accidentally bit into it.

I used a yellow sharp cheddar and a white sharp cheddar cheese. Both tasted okay by themselves. I always taste my cheese before I go through the hassle of grating it up.. This kind of pimento cheese does not come cheap, so I am very distressed now as to what I can do, if anything, to correct it.

My mom told me to write you and ask you if you had any suggestions. I don't want to grate any more cheese in it to even it out because I don't want to spend even more money just to wind up throwing it out because of how bitter it tastes. I have never had this happen before, and I am truly stumped at what could have caused this to happen.

Oh, I used a SaladMaster grater to grate the cheese with. It was handed down to me from my grandmother that I may have mentioned to you before. It is surgical grade stainless steel. Very old, granted, but no signs of metal breakdown or the like.

Can you help a girl out, please? Man, I wish that I could call you, LOL..

Thank you so much!
Linda in NC

Sunny Anderson said...

linda, oh my, i am probably too late. wish i could taste all of the ingredients alone to see what happened. it's very possible it wasn't the cheese, but the pimento. come brands are sweet, some are bitter ... but only in nuances. i say next time do a teeny batch, i always do half recipes when it's my first time. wish we lived next door, i'd say bring it over so i can taste it! what did you end up doing with it?

Linda said...

(If this shows up as a double post, please delete one of them. Google is acting up this morning!)

Hey Sunny!

Well, I winded up letting it sit in my frig for a few days, trying it again to see if the bitterness was gone, and then I gave all of it to my mom because lo' and behold! She liked the mess! She said that the cheese was extra sharp even though the packaging said sharp. I never knew that pimentos could cause a problem. This time, I bought the store brand of the pimentos instead of my usual Dromedary brand. I think that I will buy brand in this case for future reference. Thanks for the tip!

Anyway, I bought brand name sharp cheddar made by Cabot Creamery to try again. I love this cheese for simple slicing, so I thought that I would give this a try for this new batch. Same Dukes mayo, Dromedary pimentos, and the 2 pounds of Cabot Sharp Cheddar.. This batch turned out SO MUCH better! Just enough sharpness to make the pimento cheese ROCK! Can you imagine hot buttered toasted pimento cheese sandwiches? Can't you just taste it in your mind? I know, I am evil!

I will have to do the tiny batch in the future if I try another batch. I love toasted pimento cheese sandwiches and soup.. especially in the winter. Yeah, I know it is blazing hot in NC, so what gives? Ha! I went over to my mom's house a few weeks back, and she had some that she made and it was so good that I just HAD to make some for us..:) Two pounds of grated sharp plus all of the above made 1 quart and 1 pint of pimento cheese.

My grandma used to mix mild, medium, and sharp cheddar in 1 pound blocks together to make her version.. That was yummy as well!

Anyway, just as an FYI.. there is a very nice house for sale right across the street in my neighborhood. It is selling for the asking price of $106 K. It has 1700 square feet, 3 bedrooms, a HUGE living room, a HUGE kitchen, and a dining room separated by a nonloading wall. It has a master bedroom with a master bath that has his/her closets, (her closet is much bigger than his.. LOL) a half-bath in the hall, linen closet, foyer closet, pantry in the kitchen, hall closet, a small deck on the back right out of the french door from the kitchen.. It is about 45 minutes away from Fayetteville, has an acre of land with it, a nice front porch, and pretty shade trees in the front. I know all of this because it mirrors my house. The same builder built identical houses that mirrored each other in this cul-de-sac that I live in. Very nice neighborhood.. Interested? Hehehehe..:) Man wouldn't that be something! Sunny Anderson living on my street! LOLOL!!!

You know, that is just an FYI type of thing.. :)

Thanks for your reply! I really appreciate it!

Linda in NC