I'd love a good calamari recipe, I've made it and it doesn't turn out as good as restaurant fried calamari, but I'll keep on trying. There isn't anything I wouldn't make at home if I wanted it.

When I got my Wolf cooktop, I had all intentions of rolling up my sleeves and making demi glace. However, I have a source from which I can buy demi that is pure, glorious gelatin, so that's never happened.

It would instructional to get it under my belt, but...

There's not much I won't try if I'm eager enough. I think living in an area where I can find foods from all over the world, I have less need to make things myself, unless I really want to.

I cannot think of anything I would never make at home -- I'd guess it would have to be something that requires ingredients, equipment, or tools that I don't have. I prefer to cook everything myself because then it's done the way I like it with ingredients I know and want.

Not never, but I don't usually fry at home--maybe once every other year--whereas I'll steal french fries if someone I'm with orders too many out. :) I actually like things like tempura and fried chicken, and have made them (not expertly). I guess I just don't find frying fun.

Tamarind paste. Did it once. Like climbing Mt. Fuji, once gives you wisdom. Twice, when the stuff in the jar is so good, is foolish.

Seafood. Too many kosher friends and relatives, and I don't want it enough (though I do say that if G-d wanted me to keep kosher he wouldn't have made me allergic to fish).

Most other things that we'd eat, I'd make myself. My problem is that I cook better than a lot of the restaurants I've been to--often fine dining is the worst because the expectations are higher. I won't eat a steak in a restaurant. I've learned to skip the risotto as well. I've had good risotto out, but it's a total crap shoot. We went to a restaurant that has been a family favorite since my parents' youth recently. Same menu, same descriptions, but they served some kind of factory made and frozen sludge rather than the amazing, beautiful tip top quality food that they're known for. My own was inedible. My companion said his wasn't quite as good as the chain restaurant he where he doesn't like it much, but edible. They comped us the whole meal. It was sad. So I'd rather cook at home...

Cioppino. We don't have fresh seafood readily available up here. Husband doesn't care for seafood. Not something I would attempt just for me. Haven't had it for at least 10 years. A visit to the Italian restaurant may be in order soon!

krmarchese, would you share that recipe for calamari? Now that I've said I'd NEVER make it at home...maybe if a great recipe presented itself, I'd change my mind.

We live on the outer Cape (Cod, Massachusetts). Land of fish and chips. I don't deep fry anything in my kitchen, but do enjoy the local clam shacks. Calamari with banana pepper slices are a fave. I just hate the waste of oil and the mess of cleaning it up.

I dislike eating out and seldom do it, so when I do, it's usually something with a ton of ingredients or unusual items that won't be used for anything else.

I've made sushi many times, and bake all our bread. Heck, I even make catsup and mustard, homemade mayo and hot sauce. I can't think of anything I absolutely won't make at home, especially if someone else will clean the kitchen after!

Annie

I don't bake. Hate working with flour. Not much of a bread, muffin, cake kind of person. But I do love ordering French toast when we go out for breakfast. A rare event, but a treat for me.

seagrass

I think it depends on what your aspirations are, as well as how good your restaurants are. I know I can't put out plates like some restaurant kitchens do. I'm not a chef with a staff, so I really enjoy complex plates with excellent sauces and reductions, inspired pairings, innovative techniques and meticulous knife work etc. Cooking in my own kitchen, I really appreciate and can be in awe of culinary talent.

Can I cook a good steak? You bet. But I also grasp that it takes experience and talent to put out good and worthy food in fine dining restaurants.

I also feel that I get inspiration when dining out and it infuses new energy and ideas into my cooking endeavors.

Like seagrass says...

Oh yeah - deep fried anything - what a mess!

& it's not even that good for us - so I only eat it as a treat occasionally. Fried calamari is my fave.

Ditto on deep fried anything in my kitchen. I hate the lingering aroma and the messy clean up. I've never made bread or sushi, but being better off without grains or gluten, that's a good thing. Sushi is readily available in dozens of places nearby so why bother.

I told my husband when we first married 41 years ago that he would have to eat liver and onions in a restaurant, the smell and texture are revolting.

I often prefer my own cooking to the zillions of mediocre restaurants or one where I cannot control my ingredients. My food sensitivities leave me ordering the plainest prepared foods on the menu.

Can't think of anything i would not try if handed an ingredient...

We make everything and enjoy it.

Will never deep fry for the same reasons posted over and over above. We have it out a few times a year...i actually had a delicious piece of fried cod today, fresh lemon with an avocado, cuke, tomato salad. Outdoors picnic table style.

Don't understand the calamari mystery... it's just seasoned flour, squid rings and oil. I suspect the secret is in getting good squid.....and not over cooking it!

There is a big difference between knowing how to do something, which most here do, and not wanting the mess of frying grease in the house.

I would never roast a pig in ground or do a clam bake in ground. We got boulders. No digging here.

I also would never make cochinita pibil in the ground, although I did have roast pig in the ground at a friend's house on the Olympic peninsula in Washington.

I never cook beef at home because Kevin does not eat it, and so I only have it when we go out. I've never braised any meat either, although I would if Kevin would eat beef. I had some very good braised beef in Florence, and I've had very good Beef Bourguignon in Culver City. I've never made Beef Wellington, but I've ordered it in restaurants.

I have no problem with deep frying or cooking or preparing any seafood, although I am a bit squeamish about throwing a lobster or crab into boiling water.

Lars, if you want to try a braise, Molly Stevens has an amazing, if a bit fiddly, recipe for braised duck legs. Last I looked they had the unsweetened dried cherries at Whole Foods.

To Bumblebeez point, I know how to make Beef Wellington, but I find not one little spark of a wish in me to make it. :)

I've never made croissants and between my general incompetence with baking and my lack of desire to eat more than one croissant, I probably never will.

That goes for a lot of baked pastry and dessert sweet things. I'll never make candy, or fudge, or fancy cakes.

As far as things that are cooked, actual "dishes", there's some stuff that is probably weirder or grosser than I care for. Goats Head Soup, if that is actually a dish and not just a Rolling Stones album. Roast Warthog Anus, if you remember that episode of Anthony Bourdain's show.

But are these really legitimate dishes? I think to be a legitimate dish for purposes of this discussion, it has to appear in cookbooks. Mainstream cookbooks, that is, not weirdo jokester novelty cookbooks. I recall a whole cookbook about meals you could make on your car engine as you drove, which were mostly potatoes and their friends, wrapped in tinfoil and roasted on the engine case of an aircooed VW driven by hungry roadtripping stoners. There were also meals you could cook on the radiator of a V8, if you prefer a wet method. I'm sure there is a recipe somewhere for cooking Warthog Anus in the engine compartment of your Land Rover, but that doesn't make it a legitimate dish.

I'm also going to exclude dishes using wild game or fish, because I'm not a duck hunter nor do I harvest impala, bear, or sturgeon. Let's stick to stuff you can buy in stores.

While we're at it, I'll leave out hospital food and special dishes for medical conditions.

Now that we've defined away the tricky parts of the challenge, I can proudly say: there is no dish that I cannot and will not ever make. And if there is, I'll have a reason why it doesn't count.

Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b

I would never roast a pig in ground or do a clam bake in ground. We got boulders. No digging here.

******

No boulders here, but I don't see us hauling a whole pig home, storing it in the bathtub, brining it and roasting in a Caja China.

I've been to Caja China roasts and damn, that's good pig. But I don't think I'd undertake it.

Roast Warthog Anus, if you remember that episode of Anthony Bourdain's show.

*****

I can not unsee that. Nope. Never. Not enough brain bleach in the world could erase the memory of Bourdain choking down burnt, singed poop shoot.

I do fry occasionally, and find it's not terribly messy when I use a big cast iron enamel oven. Yeah, it's a PITA, but we really enjoy homemade Bang Bang shrimp.

I haven't tried deep frying chicken-nothing that takes that long.

Lobster. I'm a complete hypocrite. I'll eat it with gusto, but I won't push the poor things into the pot or choose a particular one from a tank in a restaurant.

Lobster-feel the same but have cooked them at home way in the past. Thankfully, I have places close enough to buy and steam, then rush them home and slap them on the table.

I'm not squeamish about putting lobsters headfirst into boiling sea water. Always cut off the rubber bands because I.can.taste.them.

I would never cut up a live lobster for paella again and have the tail jump up and wrap itself around my wrist and watch the claws and legs dance around in the olive oil.

Another never cooked in my kitchen: pancakes. I hate them. The smell nauseates me. Particularly dislike buckwheat. My MIL made them every morning for my husband's father when they came to stay with us for the summer.

Ugh.

Always glad to watch that couple drive away...

I'm with the crowd -- nothing in the ground, little if anything deep fried, and I will add lobster and crawfish because I don't like eating them. I'd much rather eat shrimp.

Seagrass...I suspect your feeling for pancakes has more to do with your MIL than the taste of pancakes! LOL!
Proper fried chicken is cooked in a couple of inches of oil....still messy and spatter-y...but less used fat to deal with.
And a roast 40 pound suckling pig is wonderful....doesn't need a pit nor a special oven. A big grill with a cover....and low and slow does the job.

You've reminded me of the new Denny's ad where they say their customers loved their pancakes but they didn't so they've improved them. I've only eaten them while travelling years ago, when warm, starchy/sugary, (clean restrooms) and served without any exertion on my part were the chief attractions, even though I never thought they were great. My companion wouldn't eat them. "Denny's makes tough pancakes!" (One assumes over mixed...)

Good pancakes are dead easy to make, Denny's aside, but you do have to like pancakes first. And not have the smell associated with bad feelings. :)

Ever since I was a child I've detested pancakes. They always sit like lead weights in my stomach. Kind of like gnocchi. Balls of dough ballast through the porthole...

Mmm......Pancakes! Gnocci, spatzel, dumplings....muffins, biscuits, fresh bread.....Love it all! Ballast keeps me grounded! LOL!

I won't make puff pastry or filo pastry. That's where I draw the line. I don't make things like sushi as I don't eat it or like it. I make most everything else that we eat.

Ahhhh. Filo. So, the way it was described to me is you make a small ball of dough--just flour and water--about the size you'd make for a batch of pasta, maybe 5" in diameter. Very tight and fairly dry with well developed gluten. You boil a pristine white king sized bed sheet and lay it out on the floor. Put the dough ball dead center on the sheet and start pulling. When you have covered the sheet completely, you're done and can cut it into smaller sheets for cooking.

Me neither. Love filo. It's part of my heritage. The young ones love what I make with it and they don't know that the dough isn't like the old commercial stuff, let alone granny's. I'm not making it. No.

Filo dough is like strudel dough....but with strudel you stretch it on a white linen cloth on a table.
But Iw ill tell you that store bought filo works well for strudel....in case you don't have a clean linen cloth to stretch it on...;-)

I will never make filo dough or puff pastry. Fuggetaboutit.

I've made puff pastry, but there are recipes for rough-puff pastry that take less time and are still flaky so I mostly do that now.

I don't cook pork because I don't eat it. I've never liked it so even though I'm a pretty accomplished cook I have no idea how to cook it. My honey eats it when we go out if he wants it.

I only bake during the holidays- again, it's something I have little interest in eating. We rarely even order fried food out so there isn't much interest in having it at home, either.

There are so few foods I enjoy eating out that I don't want to prepare them at home, so I can continue to eat the foods out and thoroughly enjoy them. I am one of those who normally prefer my own cooking to that sold in most restaurants. And if you think that sounds bad of me and self-proud, well that's just the way it is.

I'm an excellent cook, but since we live where really good restaurants abound and great ones are within easy reach, eating out is one of my favorite hobbies. DH can eat what he wants, I can eat what I want; no shopping, no prep, no cooking, no clean-up. Works for me, LOL.

DH has a long list of dishes I am uninterested in making again. Lobster ravioli, homemade bread, etc. Too easy to buy "just as good or better" artisanal vendors or make a reservation at Farmhouse Inn or La Folie or Auberge du Soleil.

The primary one he misses is probably the classic Time-Life Viennese recipe for Rigo Jancsi. It takes 1-1/2 HOURS just to cook that whipping cream down, stirring constantly, to create the world's most luxurious ganache - and only then do you chill and whip it for the filling! Dirties up a ton of pans and bowls, all for an 8" cake, about 2" high. But in 45 years we still rank it the best chocolate dessert ever.....

Sushi is easy to make. It's just vinegared/sweetened rice. It's picnic food from my childhood; I class it with grilling hotdogs and eating macaroni salad - bleh. Sashimi, OTOH, isn't worth making at home. Even in the SF Bay Area, there are only a few vendors who deal in sushi-grade fresh fish, and the retail cost is so high you'd be better off sitting down in a restaurant to order a 20-slice plate of hamachi. Oddly, DH adores both sushi and sashimi, neither one of which he encountered before immigrating to the US.

So, a long list of dishes I wouldn't bother making at home because it's so easy to get exquisite versions from various vendors/restaurants:

- bacalhao (dried salt cod)

- croissants, great bread, puff pastry

- virtually anything deep-fried, including chicken

- raw oysters

- any kind of dumpling: Chinese, Tibetan, whatever

- virtually any ethnic food, such as Ethiopian, Afghani, Mexican or Cal-Mex (except for chile verde pork, which is easy to do in the oven), etc.

What's worth making at home:

- omelets. I'm fussy about my omelets. If there's a brown spot or crispy edge, I'm going to think you don't know how to cook eggs!

- roasts. I like to marinate these and beef steaks, so it's easier to do it at home.

- roast chicken. Due to the super-salmonella scare, except for the very very high-end restaurants, we have found all the restaurant cooks are overcooking chicken, especially breast meat, these days. It's mostly shoe leather territory out there now, unless the chef brines the meat (and most of them don't).

I loooove to cook, so there are not a lot of things that I don't wanna make. But, here are the two that I couldn't live without!

•chick- fil-a breaded nuggets

• McDonald's French fries

Best pork roast I've ever had was made in a La Casa China box, prepared by a real Cuban. Don't think I would attempt it though. I'm also one that dislikes pancakes but DH loves them and says I make the best in the world so I do make them once in awhile. To me a pancake is a pancake. He likes mine because I make them thinner, he was used to the crepes in Europe when he was a child so that's why he likes them thin. But he puts good ol' American maple syrup on them.

Jakkom, as I was eating "picnic food" today, I was wondering what home food was like for you as a kid (I apologize if you've said before and I've forgotten). My Japanese friends didn't eat any sushi at home, but did eat a lot of fish on rice or noodle bowls and eggs and soups and stews (sorry for the lack of names), while my Japanese American friends mostly ate American food (roasts and potatoes, meatloaf, though some fish for sure, though I don't know how it was prepared) and maybe Japanese noodles though they called it spaghetti, except for holidays which were kind of half and half Japanese and American treats. I grew up around many who were less assimilated, but who also were more reserved, so I didn't know much about their home lives. So, please don't feel put on the spot if you don't want to share, but I'm really curious! Thanks. :)

WalnutCreek, if it is self-proud, I guess I am too. I could drive 50 miles to Grand Rapids and eat any kind of restaurant food from Wolfgang Puck's new "Kitchen" to Golden Corral. Chicago is a train ride away with chefs from Rick Bayless to Grant Achatz to Stephanie Izard.

Although I'm relatively adventurous about trying new things, I'm picky about what I don't like. I don't want things piled on top of each other or foamed and it offends me to get a teaspoonful of reduction with an ounce of beef for $100.00. I don't think you should go out to eat and come home hungry, either. I've done the tapas thing and it was fun, but we had to stop and eat on the way home!

Annie

plllog, the Filipino portion of my family, even though the kids came here VERY young, still have their comfort foods at our celebrations. It's not unusual to see lumpia alongside BBQ chicken or pancit on the table with the turkey. We eat it all. It's never exclusively one ethnicity or the other.

Rob, same with our Middle Eastern foods. I'm just interested in food and culture and wonder what people eat. Thanks for the links! I know a lot of Filipinos but mostly see them eating Mexican food (Southern California local food). And they'll eat anything, as long as it's with rice. ;) (My friends, I mean. I'm not speaking for an entire people!)

Yes, rice at every meal. I don't know how they do that! Anyone who has rice at every meal. I love certain things, but I can think of nothing I could eat at every meal, every day?

I'm with many other CFers by not having deep-fried in our house for at least 25 years. And when I did, it was basically French fries so I could dip them in homemade ketchup. So I do enjoy occasional fried chicken, fish or seafood if it's on the menu at a good restaurant.

Another thing I don't make at home is yeast dough. I used to make all kinds of bread and rolls, pizza dough, raised coffee cakes, etc. but have stopped since we've been empty nesters. The two of us just don't consume enough bread to use it up before it gets stale. I'd rather go to a bakery and buy two rolls or a mini-loaf of bread.

I have made sushi, dumplings and other Asian specialties but it's easier to buy them.

I still enjoy trying new ingredients and recipes but sometimes the effort is disproportionate to its rewards.

>>Jakkom, as I was eating "picnic food" today, I was wondering what home food was like for you as a kid>>

Our home food wasn't like any other JA household we knew of. My mother was always interested in food, and actually made everything EXCEPT Japanese food, lol. She learned Scandinavian dishes from living next to/working for Swedish families in Washington and Minnesota, then learned Mississippi soul food cooking from African-American neighbors in Chicago, along with German food (we were the only JA family who ate artisanal bockwurst and real deli sauerkraut with buttered rye bread alongside) and Jewish food (ditto for the lox and gefilte fish).

My mother was more likely to create a week's worth of dinners that consisted of: corned beef and cabbage; Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes; American-style beef stew (with potatoes, but served over rice); spaghetti or lasagne; pork chops (if there was money) or Spam (if there wasn't); burgers or steaks.

Chickens pre-Perdue were more expensive than beef or pork so roast chicken was a treat. I've recounted elsewhere, I think, about her experiment to find the best way to roast a chicken: over 20 chickens were roasted over six or eight months. Boy, did I love that cooking experiment [smile].

We learned to like offal because it was cheap or even free: liver, oxtails, sweetbreads, giblets. And I still remember the smelly Limburger cheese in the refrig!

Mom never deep-fried; she could but didn't like to do so. Besides, we lived within a few minutes drive of the original Harold's Chicken in Chicago. NOBODY we knew of any nationality or race bothered frying chicken if they lived near Harold's! At the time it was his only storefront. You always called in your order because they would not start cooking anything until ordered. If you are from the South Side of Chicago, you understand that everybody worships at The Shrine of Harold's Chicken.

We occasionally went out for tempura at Japanese restaurants - not a home dish, in my entire extended family only one aunt has ever regularly made it at home. Sushi (and chicken teriyaki on the BBQ grills) was always a part of the potluck dishes at every JA community event, however. It's standard stuff to this day, I think. I was stunned when I came to the Bay Area in 1969 and my friends told me they loved going out to sushi restaurants.

My response was, "Seriously? You PAY for pressed rice?!"

When I was growing up sushi just wasn't a big deal. Sashimi - yes. Always very very expensive.

Later in life, Mom married a Chinese and really got interested in the cuisine. Plus, there was a Cantonese cook at the restaurant they worked at who was, to this day, probably one of the finest chefs we ever had the pleasure to know. It was home cooking taken to a high-end professional level. The employee/family banquets (the owner was a big spender as most of his employees were relatives, including Mom's DH) were as good or better than anything I've paid $$$/pp as an adult in the Bay Area.

Mom's interest in food never flagged. She later took lessons from Cecilia Chiang of the Mandarin restaurant/SF as well as Mexican cuisine's first great cook, Diana Kennedy. Ran her own cookware store and gave cooking lessons for a while. We loved talking about food together, needless to say.

In most major cuisines there are three types of cooking: home cooking, restaurant cooking, and banquet/royal cooking. The "quick and dirty" fallback in most Asian households is a bowl of rice, an egg with a runny yolk, and soy sauce. My DH in Hong Kong and me in Chicago both remember that one!

Thank-you so much, Jakkom! Fascinating story, especially about Harold's! I have some Chicago friends and one cousin, but I haven't been informed about Harold's. That's something to know! It sounds like your home was similar to my Japanese American friends', only amped up by your mom's love of food and cooking. I see now where you get it from. :) My mom, who while being a good cook was never a pro nor as diligent about new cuisines, had a fairly similar approach to feeding the family, though perhaps with more old country food (she was first generation born in U.S.).

Have to laugh at the "Seriously?" There were some venerable sushi restaurants near where I grew up which mostly served the Japanese community, and had a separate area for English menus and fork. :) They really didn't serve the sushi to Americans, though if someone knew how to order it, they'd bring it out. :) But I totally get your point. A friend of the family used to make sushi rolls as picnic food too--like PBJ, omelette, and tuna salad. :)

Rob, it occurs to me that the trick is to think of it not as rice but as starch. I know a lot of people who eat bread at every meal, or tortillas. I know a Swedish family who have potatoes at every meal, but I think that's the mom, not Sweden. :) And rice goes with Chinese and Japanese food unremarkably at any meal. It's the rice with Southern fried chicken or meatloaf or split pea soup that's more remarkable, right? So if I think of it as in lieu of biscuits, it makes sense. :) Which I wouldn't have figured out if we hadn't been discussing it, so thank-you for that!

plllog, I agree. My Irish roots had us eating potatoes at every meal on many days. Elery would happily have bread at every meal and he has a son who makes a sandwich out of everything, from eggs at breakfast to the au gratin potatoes at supper! My son in law still won't eat rice because his best friend in high school was from the Philippines and his mother made rice for every meal.

So, if you think of it as your "starch", that makes sense.

Annie