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Somewhat deeper and more complex flavor, a little fruitier, a bit more intensity but yet subtle. It doesn't hit you in the face. That said, once I discovered and compared the d'Ville pepper, I never went back to the Espelettes. That was several years ago. It should also be noted that I was never sure how fresh the Espelettes were, whereas I always knew when the Boonville peppers were harvested and processed. The Espelettes may have been older and past their prime. I had a fruit salad on June 24th at a local French-influenced restaurant, and they put some Espelette pepper on the fruit. I found it lacking - duller - compared to what I had at home.

I reached out to Krissy at the Booneville collective and asked about fresh and whole dried peppers. I'll probably hear from her after the weekend. I tasted a fresh one once at the ranch of an apple grower in Philo. If you want fresh peppers, you'll have to wait until harvest, around October-November.

There was grower at the Berkeley Farmers' for several years that sold fresh Piment d'Esptete peppers. They were delicious. I haven't been to the BFM in several years so I have no idea if those people are still there.

To respond "like" means the sun has not stated to set. That's just lovely.

Rare duck is stomach-cringy. But so is any rare poultry, as far as I'm concerned. I love that hanging Chinese BBQ duck. We used to make Bahn Mi with it. And also duck noodle soup. Now long gone, there was a great restaurant in Oakland Chinatown that served Duck Leg Pho. So good.

We had gone into Victoria this morning and had planned to have lunch when we had finished shopping. I couldn't think of anything that I actually wanted or a restaurant I actually wanted to go to. So decided to just come home and make an early dinner to eat while watching our Blue Jay's play the Yankees. Tonight's dinner. Chicken Cacciatore Roman Style (no tomatoes). With addition of Cremini Mushrooms. Love this recipe that @JoNorvelleWalker shared. Served with new potatoes and spinach sauteed with garlic and lemon.

I made something similar for our monthy "ladie's lunch" yesterday. 4-6 of us get together about once a month for lunch. In the warm months, we go to a local winery. They have picnic tables overlooking their vineyards and bringing your own food is fine, so we usually all get a flight or a glass and bring finger food. I was going to make stacked feta and watermelon bites but my feta was a bit too crumbly to slice into neat sqaures so I pivoted and cubed the watermelon and feta into small dice and layered them into 250ml mason jars. I added mint, a bit of maldon salt and aleppo pepper. They were well received.

How would you compare the flavor of Piment d'Ville with Piment d'Espelette? A farm near me also makes a version of this from their peppers but it sells out in a flash when they offer it each fall and I’ve never managed to snag any.

Watermelon Salad with Piment d'Ville and Feta I was expecting a delivery of Boonville Barn's Piment d'Ville, and I knew what I wanted to try it with first, so all the ingredients were on hand and at the ready. Diced up a pretty good, but not great, watermelon, sprinkled it with with a dash of local, fruity EVOO, some lime juice and just a hint of salt and added the spicy version of the pepper. Then I added some coriander leaves, and dried and crumbled TJ's brined feta. Being a mild feta, it was a perfect adjunct to the other ingredients, with the spicy Piment d'Ville highlighting the dish. The pepper shone through like the star I hoped it would be.

Nice ! It does sound like a classic winning combo. I could imagine some leek oil in there, too. With the cracker-like crust it sounds a bit like an (unleavened) Flammkuchen, and potato & leek fits right into this. For white pizza’s I fell a more sturdy, sourdough bread type base is better suited, especially with potatoes. But then the appetizer idea is gone, of course …

Pizza Night by Alexandra Stafford: Breakfast Pizza with Sausage, Eggs and Pickled Banana Peppers p 223 made with the Neopolitanish Dough p 223 Raw Snap Pea Salad with Radishes and Mint p 196 dressed with the Lemon Vinaigrette p 37 With a hot Italian sausage, pickled peppers and plenty of cheese, (all of which the header notes encourage adapting to taste) I wouldn’t restrict this to breakfast alone. The egg layer is pretty thin but melds everything together nicely. On its own, I’d find it on the heavy side but accompanied by a big salad, it was just the ticket. The book pairs this pizza with a raw asparagus salad but I knew I wanted something bright and crunchy and had everything on hand for this one, including the lemon vinaigrette - it’s called for in at least 8 salads in the book - and I was not disappointed. What a great, simple salad! Not sure I’ve eaten a salad with this much mint but it really worked.

Caramelized Leek and Potato Pizza with Chive Cream p 113 made with the Thin-Crust dough p 26 Shaved Fennel Salad with Parmesan and Pomegranate p 182 made with the Lemon Vinaigrette p 37 I’m calling this chip & dip pizza. It’s really a great combo of textures and flavors. With the cracker-thin crust, this one would fit right in to an appetizer spread for wine o’clock. The crisp and simple salad, dressed with the lemon vinaigrette was a good partner with bonus points for being pretty! As the header notes suggest, this is a perfect pizza-palate cleanser! I don’t usually comment on portion sizes and don’t expect a cookbook author to know who’s eating at my house and how hungry or picky they might be but two and a half pounds of fennel is a LOT for 4 servings. Use your best judgment!

Broccoli Rabe and Smoked Mozzarella Pizza p 135 made with the Neopolitanish dough p 22 and Roasted Tomato “Butter” p 36 served with the Farm Share Harvest Slaw 136 made with Apple Cider Vinaigrette p 136 I’ve never used smoked mozzarella but happened to spot some at Sprouts the other day so I decided to try this pizza. I thought it was OK, not great. I liked the sweet, roasted cherry tomato sauce with the bitter greens but I didn’t really love the flavor of the smoked mozzarella. Maybe half smoked, half regular mozz would have been more to my taste? One recipe oddity is that it calls for 8 oz of broccoli rabe and it’s not until it’s cooked and you’re topping the pizza that you’re told to put half of the cooked greens on the pizza and put the rest in the fridge or freezer. Why not just call for 4 oz? Whatever. In my review of the book, I said it encouraged me to have a big salad and small piece of pizza. Here's an example: The slaw has radishes, turnips, carrots, cabbage and scallions and is the official partner for the broccoli rabe & smoked mozzarella pizza. It’s a good pairing. On its own, it’s not amazingly interesting, but there’s plenty of crunch and color so it it’s a good no-mayo side or sandwich filler.

Not yet... but it looks very tempting! Thanks for the review, and I look forward to what you produce from it!

A chocolate chocolate cake rimmed with chopped pistachios and chocolate. Having made a lot of fruit filled cakes over the past two weeks, we needed a bit of chocolate for a change of pace. Looking forward to a slice later this evening.

Two recipes based on favorites from Bar in New Haven, CT: Mashed Potato and Bacon Pizza made with the Thin-Crust Pizza Dough, served with Bar’s Mixed Green Salad with Candied Pecans, Blue Cheese, and Pear with the Red Wine Vinaigrette. I loved the contrast of the thin, crisp crust with dollops of soft mashed potatoes (made with Yukon golds and buttermilk) crunchy, salty bacon and chewy mozzarella. The salad also offers lots of texture and flavor contrasts. I made this a while ago and it’s really a perfect fall salad with the juicy, ripe pear, tangy vinaigrette and funky blue cheese with lots of fresh greens and would complement almost any meal. This was the first recipe I made with frozen dough. Per the instructions in the book (hidden in the appendix on p 248) I moved it to the fridge the night before and then proceeded as usual, letting it sit out at room temp before shaping.

its a shame BBQ ( slow cooked over embers ) bologna is so rare. and yes, bologna isnt the most healthy item on any menu . but tons of ( regular ) bologna is sold , not just because its cheap but also because there is a taste profile to it , that's not bad. BBQ whole bologna seriously amplifies that . and just requires low and slow cooking for embers and smoke.

They've kind of been slammed since the minute they opened. Lots of social media presence, and I guess because this is 11th or 12th year of their shop, they know a lot of people in that town. I keep saying that our niece will probably be the mayor one day. Yeah, mine too.

I just shared this review of Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Alexandra Stafford over in the Cookbooks forum and thought I’d start a topic here to share actual cooking from the book. The first pizza I made from the book was this Sicilian-Style Veggie-Loaded Pizza made with the Pan Pizza Dough. I mixed up a half batch of the dough and used a quarter-sheet pan instead of a half-sheet. I used whole grain bread flour from Cairnspring Mills. This is a very wet, 90% hydration dough and I need to use flour my hands and the counter to shape it into a ball before going into the fridge overnight but after that, it’s just shaped in the pan. I don’t love a lot of tomato sauce on this style of veg pizza so I opened a can of cherry tomatoes and spooned some on. Otherwise, I used the recipe toppings of mushrooms, bell pepper, red onion, pepperoncini and Kalamata olives. Baked in my regular indoor electric oven with a pizza steel.

I’ve cooked quite a bit from Pizza Night: Deliciously Doable Recipes for Pizza and Salad (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Alexandra Stafford and thought I’d give it a bit of a review here. The book contains recipes for 52 pizzas and 52 salads, so you can conceivably have a pizza night each week of the year with no repeats. The recipes are arranged seasonally to take advantage of fresh produce. I think this would be an excellent book for anyone wanting to make pizza at home but not ready for a Modernist Pizza-level investment. I also like Marc Vetri's Mastering Pizza. He spends a lot more time on flour types, dough structure, chemistry annd niche Italian pizza styles. And Ken Forkish's YouTube vids that go with his Elements of Pizza are priceless but I think Pizza Night might be a more approachable option. Plus, the salads are great and often encouraged me to have a big salad and small slice of pizza instead of a pizza pig out 🙃 I started a “Cooking from Pizza Nights” topic over in the Cooking forum to share actual cooking but here's a bit more about the book. There are three basic dough recipes with variations for using a sourdough starter and instructions for both regular and dedicated pizza ovens. Most dough recipes make enough for several pizzas with instructions for freezing and thawing tucked (buried?) in the back of the book. All are no-knead and there are step-by-step photos for shaping each type. The Neopolitan-ish dough has the classic thin crust with a puffy rim. The thin-crust dough is rolled out quite thin, resulting in an almost cracker-thin crust. The pan pizza dough is for the thick, airy pizzas: Sicilian, Grandma, Detroit and cast iron skillet style pizzas. There's also a gluten-free dough that uses Antimo Caputo Fioreglut Gluten-free Pizza Flour which is FDA-approved for those with celiac disease but not safe for those with a wheat allergy. When it comes to salads, there are a few dressing recipes up front that are used in multiple salads. The lemon vinaigrette and apple cider vinaigrette are quite nice and versatile. Some salads follow a pattern: there's a wedge, a chopped salad and a Caesar variation in each season, dressed with Italian vinaigrette, blue cheese, and Caesar dressings respectively. Others are one-off combos. Not sure if this will be readable (maybe click to enlarge) but it should give an idea of the recipes included. I highlighted the listing to mark the different dough types. There’s certainly no requirement to stick with them but I find it handy when I’m skimming for ideas. Anyone else have this book?

It’s actually a pretty great product. Unlike almost any other kind of barbecue it’s almost impossible to screw up. You can do a rub or not. You can do a mop or not. You can do a finishing sauce or not. And after it’s done you can slice it thick like a burger patty or thin. Thank you for the article Rotus. I learned a ton from it

It's striped bass season, and the tomatoes are starting to come in so.. Pasta with uncooked tomato sauce and basil Roasted striped bass with Mario Batali's Sicilian lifeguard sauce (made with fresh tomatoes). The recipe is originally meant to be served with calamari, but it's basically impossible to find calamari here, even in the fish markets.

We are not going to the Cape for the 4th this year in the first time in forever. I miss it already. I bet the business will be really slammed this weekend. The weather is great after so many rainy weekends. I was talking to the guy who cleans my house on Wednesday and he said that Provincetown is completely sold out for lodging--the only thing he could get was a bare site for camping! Luckily he enjoys camping. That would be my husband's nightmare.

Piment d'Ville, Espelette peppers grown in Boonville,CA These arrived this morning as a gift from my sister. They are the same peppers as the Basque peppers, but grown in Boonville, California, about 120 miles north of San Francisco. As far as I know, the area around the village of Espelette and the farm in Boonville are the only places in the world that grow these flavorful peppers commercially. Many cooks and chefs feel that the Boonville Barn Collective peppers are more interesting, and I'm inclined to agree.

While I've certainly had rare duck that was tender and palatable, I just think it tastes so much better when it sees some fire.