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Greetings from Iowa

post #1 of 5
1/28/12 at 8:30pm
Thread Starter 

Hello everyone. I am an at home Chief. I love to cook and try new recipes and ingredients. Problem is, I live in NW Iowa, in a little town in the middle of corn and cattle country. Everyone here eats beef, and more beef. The corn they grow here is used for cattle feed and to make plastics. People here are very narrow minded about what they eat.  All the restaurants in this area are fried foods and hamburgers.  This makes cooking at home a must!! My problem here is getting fish, fresh herbs, Asian ingredients, even vinegars for cooking. I do a lot of ordering on the Web but the shipping can be expensive. Despite all this I do seem to be able to put on a gourmet meal a few times a week.

I am very much looking forward to learning and to sharing my knowledge.

Leda

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post #2 of 5
1/29/12 at 2:40am

Hello to you both and welcome to Cheftalk.

 

I have lived in various parts of the world, so I feel your pain re ingredients.  When I first lived in the Gulf, you could certainly get SOME 'Western' ingredients - but they cost and arm and a leg and you couldn't be sure how long they'd been on the shelves!  Life is so much easier nowadays, with the internet suppliers almost 'on tap'!

 

The membership here is broad - from around the globe and all levels of culinary expertise - I'm in the 'very enthusiastic amateur' camp!  The wikis, articles, reviews and photography on the site are all sources of inspiration - and well worth spending the time to view. 

 

Feel free to join in on any thread you find interesting, or start your own in the relevant forum.  The Professional fora are read-only for those of us who do not work in a culinary capacity (but make for interesting reading, nonetheless!)

 

Chocbutton:  are you British..?   I thought your name might have been inspired by a certain Cadbury's product!

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post #3 of 5
1/29/12 at 2:19pm

A dead giveaway!

 

My Mum worked at a Scottish chocolate company called Duncan's.  They invented the walnut whip.  Sadly, they have been taken over, dumped, reinvented and other sad events over the years.  Yes, the recipes change when companies are taken over.  Interestingly, I visit Australia often and THEIR Cadbury's tastes nothing like 'ours'.  People say it's the milk content, but I don't know if that's true.

 

 

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post #4 of 5
1/29/12 at 3:30pm
Thread Starter 

Chocbutton,

If I was to bake I would be fatter than I am now!!! LOL  Really, I dont bake because I will eat it tell its gone, and there is only the 2 of us in the house now .But I am curious, is the food in Spain good? And does it taste anything like Mexican food?  I have never tryed cooking Spanish food before, but always wondered how much the Spanish borrowed from Latin America.

Leda

 

And thank you and Ishbel for the greetings!!!

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post #5 of 5
2/3/12 at 3:14am

Hi everyone, I am new to the forum as well. I am an expat moved from US and living now in SA as of very recently. So its really different with all the brand names being completely different, and the food being prepared and cooked completely differently. However I am really looking forward to getting into discovering the fruits here and the fish, will definitely be a good culinary challenge!

 

I dont know much about spanish food, and I have only had paella once (with prawns). 

 

now I am just rambling, but greetings everyone!

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