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That’s what I really loved about my golf club restaurant job. The chef was really good. A big cut above most anything in the area. The place had gorgeous views and did a lot of catering for weddings, brunches, luncheons, dinner events, etc. so he was constantly working on custom menus that he’d try out on the kitchen staff. It was interesting to get to taste everything but also to hear the feedback and troubleshooting about stuff that might look and taste great but be a nightmare to prep or plate. Might have been uncommon for a chef to be so collaborative but fun to watch.

Hostess at Marie Callender's Denver (that's how we answered the phone). My mother had directed me to get a job there as a Strawberry Girl, which was the job where you cut strawberries all day for pies. At the interview, I was informed that the hostess job paid a little more, so I took that one. I was 12. Later, after I got my driver's license, I took a second job with a catering company on weekend nights. I liked that job a little better because the workers ate for free. Mostly I was a server but sometimes I worked in the kitchen prepping, which I liked better -- both the labor that was entailed as well as the coworkers on that side -- but no tips. I wanted money. I wanted to go farfaraway to college, and I wanted money. At least that's what I remember thinking at the time. In reflection, though, I think I just wanted to get me some of the kind of food that was served in restaurants. I wanted to work around food so that I could eat more restaurant food.

First frost this year was on October 9th (slightly later than average), and the second was just last night. Not much still going in my garden, but I might actually get a few late florets from my poor broccoli plants, and the greens are finally producing (now that the days are short, and they won't grow briskly). I harvested 460g of kale and chard last night (just over a pound); we ate the chard with dinner and today I'll blanch and freeze the kale. There are still tomatoes to be stripped from the vines, especially the cherry tomatoes, but the grandkids have worn out on 'em. I may only plant one vine next year, we'll see how I feel in spring. I have a couple of my cherished Black Krims that died on the vine while I was away in NS, but I'll have the sense to preserve seed from those ones this time instead of ordering them from the seed company (duh). A couple of pics for your amusement: my lavish harvest of (respectively) melons and buttercup squash. The green one is a Sugar Baby watermelon, the bottom one is a hybrid that looks like a honeydew but tastes like a melon. Part of the latter had gotten mushy (hence it's cut up and incomplete), but it was fully ripened and tasty. The itty-bitty watermelon wasn't quite ripe, but at least had begun to taste like a watermelon. The squashes were slightly larger than the melons, though still tiny as you can see. One of them came "quality tested" by some garden critter, but to judge by the sugar warts on the lower one, they may have chosen poorly. I still haven't cooked these, though I will at some point in the next couple of days. On the upside, our nicotiana is blossoming and looked quite pretty. My little hydrangea also tried to blossom for the first time, but it was too little, too late. Not gonna complain, though. It almost died during its first winter, and took almost another year to bounce back and show some signs of growth. This was its third year, and it's finally flourishing.

It's baby quail time again, first batch from the new incubator (we've learned our lesson, and got the extended warranty). Forty-odd hatchlings at present, with more still coming.

I found this beautiful little vintage clay Chicken roaster on our local FB Marketplace. I was working yesterday and the seller was kind enough to drop it off to me. I had a sourdough in the fridge for three days. Took it out of the fridge at 8:00 last night and shaped it at 4:00AM this morning and baked two boules, both in clay bakers.

Yeah, I finished the bag after posting and found a couple peas, they had only had that sweet batter-flavor like the rest of the things. This tastes fairly good and I can see where it would hit a particular craving, but when I want a sweet snack, it's usually cookies, so me personally I probably won't buy it again. Edit: if you look at the bowl picture I posted, about 630 there is a wasabi pea in the milk, just found it hahaha

I’ve had this recipe for a lemony tuna salad sandwich marked to try for quite a while and finally got around to making it. The tuna salad is made with celery, lemon zest, Kewpie mayo, Dijon mustard, a bit of toasted sesame oil, S&P. It’s spread on a ciabatta roll, topped with a layer of sliced pepperoncini, followed by a layer of salt and vinegar kettle-style chips. Not my mom's tuna salad which is a go-to comfort food but I quite enjoyed it and would make it again.

We drink a lot of Chenin Blanc; this is a lovely, crisp, easy-drinking wine.

This is how I feel about sour cream I've had in Romania (Brasov, in particular), and Russia in general. So much more 'something' than what I was used to eating in the US.

I actually did not eat this last night, but needed to cook the green beans. Will have tonight with some warm bread and butter. Or maybe garlic toast.

Well possibly brunch as it was 11.30am A Spanish chorizo omelette with baguette toast.

Dinner was noodles, broccoli and Hungarian goulash with sour cream. We have small tubs of sour cream here in Australia, but nothing as delicious as the tubs of sour cream available in US … well at least California where I have done my most grocery shopping when in US. I first tasted US sour cream in the 80’s when visiting my girlfriend who had moved there, Woodland Hills, and at her home she produced a tub of sour cream. ” Taste this” she said, I did and my eyes opened wide ”I know” she said. It was so good.

Some quick googling shows they sell non-alcoholic vanilla "flavoring" in the US and it appears that some of this may be labelled or at least advertized as extract

Meatloaf with Pork Tenderloin Filling and Mustard Sauce from an essen & trinken recipe - meatloaf is made with a mix of ground pork and beef, bolillo roll soaked in milk, shallots, garlic, egg, mustard and tarragon. When you form the meatloaf you incorporate in the middle some strips of pork tenderloin. The meatloaf is baked in the oven for 45 minutes. The mustard sauce is made with shallots, brown sugar, port wine, vegetable broth, heavy cream, potatoes and bay leaves, pureed and finished with regular mustard and sweet mustard. Served with roasted diced, roasted potatoes, frisée salad and pea shoots.

By law in the US vanilla extract must contain at least 35 percent ethyl alcohol by volume, although it may also contain glycerin. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-169/subpart-B/section-169.175

Tonight I assembled the above mentioned Electactic juicer in hopes of making carrot soup. I ran out of energy and instead of soup, dinner was cheese and crackers. Meanwhile this afternoon I ordered another vertical slow juicer: (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

I’ve found that the Furikake Snack Mix varies widely in the percentage mix of ingredients from bag to bag. There have been a small number of wasabi peas in each of the 5-6 bags I’ve had so far, but you’re not missing much. There’s very little wasabi taste, if any.

I think, and this is just my opinion, that this is one of the things that make wine so much fun.

It's quite possible that I didn't taste "the right" (for my tastes) zins when I was there. Years ago, my darling and I and 3 other couples liked to get together for wine tastings and dinners at each others' homes. One of our members, by far the wealthiest and best-traveled, asserted that no wine was worth purchasing, in his opinion, unless it cost at least $20 and was from France. His sole exception was Ridge. By the time our group got around to zinfandels, we'd begun doing blind tests: one host member would bag the bottles and the other host member would number them, so that we could all enjoy the mystery of ranking and tasting. Our zin testing set included Sutter Home at $4.99, Ridge at, oh, $28? and two zins priced in the mid-teens. We all ranked them according to our preferences. I forget which one was got the most votes for "best" but I think it was one of the mid-teens bottles, probably Seghesio's Old Vines Zin. I knew at once the Sutter Home; ro me it tasted like Buzz Saw in a Bottle. But THAT one was our wine snob's favorite! He was very gracious when the bottles were revealed and he saw he'd picked the cheapest of the bunch. 😆

I think Ridge still makes some excellent zins. As you note, the prices are on the high side and they make so many single vineyard zins that vary quite a bit in character that you run the risk of paying that premium price for something less than stellar. That’s no fun!

I wouldn't say it's even particularly American. It is common in France. My grandmother served it in the 1950s, probably much earlier before I was around. It is also known in Italy and Germany. Indeed, the ancient Romans used it, too. Probably brought to the USA by German immigrants. China also developed the taste, probably separately.

Sausage and peppers

Western maybe, but not Montana. My mother used to do that same salad, using iceberg lettuce. i don't know whether she brought that idea with her from Florida, where she'd grown up, or learned it in California, where my father grew up and where we lived.

I don't know how much coumarin tonka beans contain, but I would definitely check the recipe against recommend maximum daily coumarin intake per kg body weight. I'd really like to replicate a sweet woodruff sherbet I got at a restaurant in Berlin several years ago. I even planted it in my backyard last fall, but once I started to look into the amount of coumarin in sweet woodruff, it turns out I can only add a few grams of the stuff to a whole Pacojet beaker in order to keep the coumarin at a safe level... I will still have to try it in the spring, but if the flavour of the ingredients can't be maximized due to safety concerns, it might not be worth it 🤔

My mom did that same version, although she used whatever lettuce my dad was growing -- usually red leaf or Boston as I recall. Both my parents were from Montana; I wonder if it's a Montana thing.