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@blue_dolphin no blame , just credit .

All blame for this one belongs to me, though I may have been influenced by yesterday’s sandwich to include the roasted broccoli. Starting from the bottom, there's a smear of melted ‘nduja, topped with roasted broccoli, an egg and some Gruyère melted on to the top of the toasted ciabatta roll.

When I was a kid my family lived near the beach in Westerly RI, and my parents had friends who were fishermen. They would drop sacks of cull lobsters and extra clams off at the house for us often. I loved, loved, loved steamer clams. They were my favorite food. Then, one year, when I was about seven or eight, I ate three heaping bowls of steamers and two whole lobsters at a 4th of July family picnic. I got so sick! I have not really been able to enjoy steamers or lobster since. I still really love littleneck clams though. My husband orders steamers once in a while, as long as there’s someone to share them with — he had them at the Beachcomber last week. Yesterday we went into town to go shopping. It was crowded, and we bought nothing except ice cream. Last night we celebrated my niece’s birthday a little early with a sushi dinner at Bluefins. Sister’s cocktail Crispy tuna rice Platter of sushi rolls that my niece selected for us to share She had a bread pudding for dessert. It was too huge to finish! We stopped at the lookout at the beach next to the house to check out the almost full moon after dinner Chatham Light This morning we drove down to Chatham Bars Inn for Sunday breakfast. It was very foggy and damp. We have had great weather for the past few weeks so I cannot complain Niece had waffles with fruit Husband had the same thing he ordered when we stayed here a few weeks ago, poached eggs on sourdough with tomato and prosciutto I had poached eggs on spicy ratatouille with manchego cheese and sister had smoked salmon It’s pouring rain now, so not much on the docket for today. Sister and niece are heading back to our home this afternoon, and husband and I have one more night here before going home tomorrow. Dinner tbd.

@Dr. Teeth, My oven gloves have big fat LONG fingers, so I'm always sticking them in food; it would be good to find tighter gloves. Do your chemical clean up gloves protect your hands from hot surfaces? Edited to add that I have arthritis so my knuckles are too large for the gloves I wore when younger, part of the reason I have excess length. Chemical clean up gloves might be a bit stretchy, which would help.

Everyone has a different experience. I personally find the grip strength to hold a claw device closed and the nature of having a weight on the end of a lever is more demanding than picking something up with a glove that lets me hold it

Yes, he decided he wanted to do something after retiring, so this is what he chose to do. The best part was that most nights he'd come home with dinner. He doesn't cook much but when he does, it's usually delicious. He makes a mean Navarin of lamb.

For me, it is a matter of using it when you have a pan that is not easy to grip. If something doesn't have handles or you have a pan with no lip on it, it isn't easy to pull it forward and grab hold of it. At least not with arthritic hands.

My mother raised me that it’s rude to answer a question with another question. So please forgive me. But in the absence of a wet environment, like steaming, why would this be better than towels or a hot mitt? I have a few pairs or glassblowing gloves and chemical clean up gloves I bought for such things. Work better than stuff marketed to home cooks and cheaper too

Thanks for the reply. If I melt, temper and let it harden, can I then use it as "seed" when tempering a new batch?

Found on FB by my daughter, who definitely does this.

What, you don't like their geezer stockings?

I'll take one of those sandwiches. Just hold the broccoli, and anything fetal. And maybe the lychees, although I might trust your zeal on that one. Most all your breakfasts seem fascinating and appealing, or things I might make at a decent hour, like for dinner. As I'm sure I've repeated (geezer time!) I can barely push down the lever on the toaster anymore in the morning, so my husband makes my toast for me. It may be under or over toasted, but I'm learning to shut my mouth.

idk about @liamsaunt but I cannot stand steamers with big siphons. Give me little necks any day of the week.

Since last posting I've received the long delayed Chris Young predictive thermometer. I've had much success smoking a few hotdogs. The predictions were right on. It's interesting to compare set temperatures on the GE Profile to the ambient temperatures measured with the Combustion: Set / measured 107C 119C 96C 101C 118C 108C After smoking a few hotdogs to 62C, tonight I am smoking another pork shoulder. One minute still left to go. My target is 92C. Finally after six hours my meat is resting. I can report that after the six hour cook, this pork shoulder was better than the last. I could chew it but not easily.

No. It means French Chicken, but the dish was invented in New York. It is Italian-American.

Chicken Francese for supper. It's an Italian dish. Wondering about the name Francese...named for a lady chef? It was quite nice, with just a hint of lemon in the sauce. A friend introduced us to Mustard Pickles. She had given us a couple of jars and we really like them. So I made my own batch last week. The pickle goes well with chicken pork, hot dogs. That's the yellow stuff on the lower left.

I broke into another of the packages I bought back here: this time, the Papas Rellenas: mashed potatoes around a beef filling, with a crispy outer coating. I hadn't planned far enough in advance to thaw one of the other treasures i'd purchased. These are to be cooked from frozen. The cookery is easy enough, as you see from the package instructions. I fired up my Cuisinart Steam Oven (which still needs to be cleaned so it actually produces steam) and preheated it, on convection bake mode, to 350F. Then I put in half the box's worth, i.e. two spuddy thingies. I wondered whether it would be enough, but I had already been pecking away at snacks and sandwiches earlier. Besides, I wanted the other half of the package to sit in reserve in case I could think of refinements. Not bad. The coating was indeed crisp, and the mashed potatoes inside the coating tasted good. I think I'd prefer a higher ratio of crisp coating to soft interior, as in mashing them to get a flatter surface. That might not be practical for this packaged food, but gives me ideas about how I might could do it better at home. I found the filling itself rather disappointing. Sure it was ground beef with seasonings, but I thought the onion was overpowering; also, some spice (they don't list cloves or allspice, but it's along those lines) wasn't to my taste. If I'd especially liked the beef filling I might have been disappointed in the ratio of beef filling to potato coating, but as it was I didn't mind. For my tastes, a dab of salsa improved the flavors. Here are some attempts at cutaway photos, to show the interior as well as the exterior. I still have half the box's worth: that is, another package of two. I'll have no trouble eating them later, but I wouldn't bother getting these again. On the other hand, they make a fine template for something to try making from scratch!

@ElsieD - what an absolute delight! I could wish we had something like that nearby, but I'm pleased to read about your pleasures. I never knew John had culinary training.

Le Cordon Bleu here has special menu events from time to time which they hold in their Signatures Restaurant. Tickets are pre-sold for these events; today's was sold out, the capacity seemed to be about 40. This event was called Boulangerie Delight and so it was. Below is the menu and pictures of the courses. The servers, cooks etc. were students in their final year with the head chef supervising. There must have been 14 of them roaming the tables, but they were never obtrusive. The food was mostly good, though the carb cakes could have been hotter. The coffee was cold, but cheerfully replaced. As you can see, the last picture is of the desserts, 5 each. As we were leaving, take-away boxes in hand, one of the students came over to tell us that there was an extra box waiting for us. That turned out to be a duplicate times two of the third course, so we came home with 18 assorted pastries! John shared a brief memory with the head chef about his time at Cordon Bleu when he took Cuisine Basics. They both lamented about banging their heads against the overheads above the work stations. Not meant for tall people. John is just over 6'3" and I'm guessing the head chef is the same. A nice change of pace for us.

You had me at steamers sticking their necks out of the sand. Your crowd never seems to order them, Doesn't anyone like them? Of all the things I miss from the east coast that's almost at the top of my list. I just love them. And of course there are none here on the west coast. It's mostly a clam desert except for manilla clams, which are okay but tiny and can't match the little quahogs.

Carpano Antica is a favorite. I love it in summer just over ice. I also like the Cocchi di Torino but can't remember the last time I had it or how. I love the amaro bitters, but surprisingly I don't like compari / or a negroni. My mother always had a bottle of Punt e Mes around in her dotage. Needless to say she didn't have a drop of Italian blood, but she did have an Italian boyfriend.

I haven't used it yet but my plan is to use it in peach frozen yogurt and ice cream along with peaches to bump up the peach flavour. I'm trying the same thing with strawberries. Maybe smoothies or protein drinks?

This may be OT, but peach powder sounds like it could be amazing! How do you use it?

@Shel_B, as I recall, they worked just fine.

I have these: (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)