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Cabbage stir-fried with fennel seed, cumin seed, sesame seed, sliced onion, habanero and long red chiles, and red Hatch chile powder, finished with garam masala. I usually add a squeeze of lemon but forgot. Topped with an over-easy egg.

Kill me now, @Pete Fred. If you don't have a guest room I'll sleep on your couch.

GORGEOUS!! 🙌

Inspired by PartrickT and Elsie, I baked seeded loaves last night. A sourdough version. Didn't follow a recipe. I just used half whole wheat and half my bread flour. 350g of each. Added a small "scrapings in the jar" starter, along with 1/2g of yeast. Just a pinch for insurance. I bought small amounts of seeds at the Community farm store. Mixed together 2 tablespoons each of the 7 grain, black sesame seeds, flax seeds, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds and oats, and let soak in 250g of water. I don't usually add sugar or sweeteners to the breads I make, but I did add 2 tablespoons of honey to this dough. Mixed everything together with another 240g of water and let it rest for an hour and then finished with a number of stretch and folds over the next two hours. Left the dough out on the counter from 8:30 until 3:30 aM this morning. Shaped two loaves, one baked on the stone and one baked in a loaf pan. Sliced so I could sample before leaving for work. Buttered the heel. Moe and Matt really liked it and Matt plans to have a sandwich.

Go for a BAFTA. When King Pumpkin Head (and I'm being very polite here) declares himself CEO of the Oscars, you don't want to be there.

It is my sense that Driscoll, like Sysco, has a menu of products that differ by quality and price, so that while berries shipped to different locales can be branded, they may indeed be of different quality. But in the end, time from picking to sale is the biggest determinant/detriment. Having grown up in strawberry country, I was brought up on berries literally hours from the field. Even now, I am reluctant to buy from farm stands because they often pick too ripe, resulting in a fruit lacking that burst of fresh flavor.

@Pete Fred wow . I had to look these up https://www.seriouseats.com/choux-au-craquelin enjoyed the video on this link . lower R side. bet there were no leftover of these .

Choux au craquelin... The filling is a Grand Marnier crème légère.

Except for this:

Agree with all. I hoped to make clear that I was basically referring to the large, commercial operations, like Foxy and Driscoll and maybe Naturipe (which I see a lot at Traders). Anything local, small-farmed, etc. is going to be better than the styrofoam, which are basically crap.

You've automated the egg-cracking and cooking, but not the loading of the eggs or the cleaning. Is time actually saved? What happens when there is a bit of shell in the eggs? As much as I respect the effort you put in...and I'm awed by it...I don't see a market for this thing.

Congratulations on your thrift and creativity, @Maison Rustique! Nice "save" on the strata!

In restaurants the types of eggs are over easy, over medium, over hard, sunny side up and basted. And I would say that that is pretty much the order of the popularity with the majority being over easy. Your machine could also make basted eggs by simply adding a few drops of water and putting on a lid.

Even the Driscoll strawberries from FL tend to be okay. I had some for breakfast. (The CA ones are awful, at least by the time they get to chicago. I assume this is because Driscoll grow strawberry shaped Styrofoam blobs, instead of fruit, because they ship better. Other growers from CA are better, but tend to have more damaged fruit.) There also tends to be a very brief moment when they're shockingly cheap.

I was doing most of the cooking before my wife was diagnosed with cancer. She was an executive at a company and rarely had time to cook. At one point before her diagnosis, I had to travel and as a joke, I bought her a package of those individual cereal boxes (https://www.amazon.com/Kelloggs-Breakfast-Cereal-Single-Serve-Variety/dp/B07MTSNGHP) that she laughed at hysterically. Anyway, when she got sick I still did the cooking but had to change things up a bit. I had to put more thought into her nutritional needs. Tastes changed, lack of desire to eat, etc. One thing I learned was that you can't just keep making her favorite foods - she will fall out of love with it. I had to fortify things that she could eat adding eggs to clear broth etc. When she lost her battle, I found myself not cooking as I did before. My repertoire now is simple meals that I can cook quickly and have cleanup be simple. It's rare that I will cook an elaborate meal. Mostly when I have guests for the holidays.

Thank you so much! Unfortunately, I developed a gluten sensitivity, so no more pastina for me. Ms. Alex, who grew up in Detroit, had never heard of pastina until I mentioned it to her five minutes ago. (She did eat pasta stars.) Fortunately for her, I'll be in NYC toward the end of this month and can pick up a box, if she likes.

Recently, I got a frozen pizza from my milkman. I baked it a few days ago. I doctored it, but it was still dreadful--dry and no flavor. I tried a second time with leftovers and I still couldn't like it. Trying hard not to waste food, yesterday I cut it into pieces, Put in a baking dish with more olives, tomatoes and onions, and poured over eggs, milk and copious seasonings. Topped with mozzarella about halfway through baking. A pizza strata. Not the best strata I've ever made but it was vastly better than the original pizza.

酸菜鱼 (suān cài yú), literally sour vegetable fish, is a Sichuan classic. Fish stew (usually grass carp) in a spicy broth with pickled leaf mustard. Fuchsia Dunlop has a recipe in her The Food of Sichuan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link).

Sausage gravy, steamed lacinato kale, and pan friend plantain, over cheesy grits

I'm booking my flight ticket for next year's Oscars!

It works fine for me. It doesn't automatically open, but downloads to my downloads folder and offers me the option to open it. Do you have a PDF reader on your browser?

Brilliant, @liuzhou A performance of great range and depth!

I must be doing something wrong. Nothing happens when I copy that link and try to open it. I am interested in the report.

A couple of days ago, I posted my Liuzhou Luosifen Lunch on the lunch topic. I alluded to there being a bit of a story behind it. I was, in fact, eating lunch for a movie. Well, a three minute video. A team of local medics and science types have been studying the health benefits of the city’s signature dish, now the top selling instant noodle in China. Not that I was eating the instant version, but the authentic 16 hour recipe. One of the team is one of the people I’ve known longest in Liuzhou – she is now the Director of the city CDC. She’s in the video wearing the white medical garb. No idea who the jerk in the yellow hat is! I have attached the English translation of their report for anyone interested. spicy-food-consumption-reduces-the-risk-of-ischaemic-stroke-a-prospective-study.pdf

The closest KFC is 9 miles away. I could order it via UberEats or DoorDash but I don’t want it that badly (I tip per mile). My mom might be up for making me pastina. It would probably make her feel better to do something useful for me, instead of my hiding. Thanks for the idea.