Let's introduce ourselves and get to know one another better

Welcome, Dan! Ive been in Phoenix in the middle of August. Dry or not, it’s hot as hell!

Lots to see and do around HO. Hopefully you find a couple of places you can put your feet up and sit a spell and join in the chatter. Just don’t put your feet on the table, please. :wink:

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Thank you.
You are correct… it is HOT – at times!!
Yes, I’ve been reading around… looking at different threads.
Slowly but surely, I’ll learn how to navigate around the forum… click this, don’t click that, etc. etc.

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Welcome to the community Dan. Greetings from Sri Lanka- a tiny island in the Indian Ocean.
And I know a lot about living in a hot climate too.

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Hi, I’m redwood2bay, and I was redwood2bay on CH for many years. I just found Hungry Onion when I was looking for the CH COTM threads. Nice to see some familiar monikers!

  1. San Jose, CA
  2. Home cooking (cookbooks and no recipe cooking), farmers markets. I’m lucky to have two markets nearby that I go to weekly.
  3. I love restaurant meals but lately the meals that I’ve been thinking about have been times when friends or family cooked for me. The chicken gumbo that my stepmother has on the stove whenever I visit. The paneer masala that one neighbor makes, and the enchiladas that the other neighbor makes (I payback in baked goods). An Israeli family who invited us to their Seder (we are not Jewish) after we invited them to Thanksgiving. All of these folks are excellent cooks, but even if they weren’t, this food would be meaningful to me.
  4. I’m Asian American but grew up in Cajun country, Louisiana. I don’t have an accent-- well, at least not a Southern accent-- but will say y’all to other Southerners. My first foreign language was French because of my birthplace. I later learned Chinese in college.
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Welcome! I am technically in “The Bay area” as well, but all the way at the other end in Vacaville.

@shrinkrap Thanks, and nice to meet you!

Welcome, @redwood2bay – I gather from your comments elsewhere that you were a founder of COTM over on Chowhound, so thank you for that!

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@Saregama Thanks for the welcome! Yes, a gazillion years ago, I looked at all the cookbooks on my shelf and wished for a community of folks to test recipes with. I made a suggestion in CH, and the COTM format was born (CH sent me a spatula and an apron that year, which I have since lost). Since then, I’ve rarely posted but often looked up recipe reviews in cookbooks (and bought many more, thanks to COTM). I’ve definitely benefited. Glad to see it still alive and well here.

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Welcome aboard! So sorry that you no longer have an accent. I hope you don’t sound too much like a Californian.

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What do Californians sound like? :slight_smile:

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@johntannerbbq The funny thing is, I never had a strong Southern accent. I think because my parents were immigrants and did not have one. The area of Louisiana where I grew up has gentle Cajun accents, as opposed to the much more pronounced accents in neighboring Texas and Mississippi. I don’t have a Californian accent, but I did marry a Californian, so I hear it all the time.

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Love the origin story of COTM! I hope you will join in here — it’s still nascent with the move, but hopefully we can keep it going!

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I think the cultural and geographic differences from San Diego to Crescent City, for instance, are so vast that the idea of a singular California accent is kinda meaningless.
But a pretty funny idea.

I’m wondering if it’s not so much an accent, but the things many big city Californians say. I don’t think most people who are not familiar with what things are like outside of the big cities realize how different parts of California can be.

I watched “Bobby Flay and Sophie on the Coast” yesterday and Sophie says to Bobby something like. "We don’t do plastic. This is L.A. "

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Most people who have an accent don’t notice it until someone else brings it up.:slightly_smiling_face:

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Well everyone has an accent. But in huge diverse states, there’s more than one. People in Beaumont don’t sound the same as folks in Amarillo or El Paso.
Edit:
I wrote the above before I found this.

I can still hear my aunt call me little Billy which seemed completely normal since my cousins were called little Libby and little Helen.
And always with the y’all.
:cowboy_hat_face:

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:slight_smile:

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People tell me I have a “New York” accent and I have lived in California longer than I lived in New York.

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“…raise their voice at the end of a sentence so that the sentence sounds like a question…”

I find that mildly annoying, but didn’t think it was particularly associated with California.

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I’m glad I don’t have an accent. Everybody knows that water rhymes with order/

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