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Sounds delicious! We are in the lounge waiting to board now. We are going to London for a few days first. Our London schedule is pretty packed with tourist stuff, and our Paris plans are, shall we say, more fluid. I will report on where we end up eating in both cities.

hmmmm indeed!!! interesting... TBH, my knowledge of Thai food is not very much anymore, but I do still remember some of the language which is why I called it out...

Last's night's dinner was some of the planned-over panade, and a couple of bites of steak before I gave it to PJ. 🙂 I'm not sure what my dinner plans will be. A few days ago I bought another rotisserie chicken and, after eating a bit of it, pulled the meat from the bones and put it all into a container. The plan was to make the Peruvian chicken stew (Aji de Gallina) that I've been rabbitting on about, now that I finally have all the ingredients. Well. It's hot outside. Really hot. 98F, and don't bother telling me that it's okay because "it's a dry heat". Although I have air conditioning in the trailer, I'm still disinclined to make a nice hot stew. So just now I chopped some of the chicken meat up with chopped parsley, capers, lemon juice and mayo. It made a nice chicken salad. Even better atop Triscuits. This may be dinner as well, along with some good lettuce salad or some of the broccoli hanging out in the crisper drawer. Seen on this morning's walk: Back in the day, only a few years ago, I was interested in harvesting prickly pear tunas and making prickly pear syrup from them. I'm pretty sure I still have some of the commercially prepared stuff from that time. When I noticed a cactus along my walk that had the fruits, I briefly considered asking the owner whether I could harvest some. Then I decided not to bother. Now look at it. Starting its new blooms; nobody ever collected the tunas. No, I'm not sorry that I didn't bother. I'm sorry to see them wasted, though.

Yeah, I remember that ad from the 90s. (This YouTuber says 1997. Sounds about right.)

I found the menu for our visit to Soces on February 8th this year...

Good food for thought. I buy most of my produce at the farmers market. They aren’t affected by the grocery store regulations and still offer plastic bags. I limit my use of them but still use some occasionally. In particular for collecting food scraps and waste that must be segregated from the regular trash but oddly, in my area, can’t go in a compostable bag. The Wirecutter found the reusable bag best at keeping veg fresh were the towel-like Vejibag that you dampen and re-spritz when they dry out. Just the ticket if you want your veg to have a spa experience. They’re also expensive and bulky but some less expensive draw-string top cotton bags also performed well. Edited to add that a nice feature of those bags for use at a grocery store is that each has a little tag with the tare weight stamped on it. I might rifle through my stash of kitchen towels (or pick up some new ones from TJs) and try stitching up some drawstring bags of appropriate sizes. I know the towels tolerate washing in hot water and bleach as I’d want for something like this. And as others have said, I routinely wash greens and store them wrapped in damp towels. I’ll report back on how this works.

the day after Thanksgiving was The Event @ Filene's basement . people changed into items they wanted to try on right there in front of the counters.

I know lots of people have big Easter parties or other spring gatherings and might want a bunch. They’re pretty inexpensive compared with similar paper bags. They’d make an OK reusable lunch bag but beyond that, I couldn’t come up with a “need” for them. My mom lined up in the wee hours and bought her wedding gown at a Filene's basement event. She was very thrifty but would likely have passed on these little TJs bags!

Here , limitless . I understand that is was indeed yesterday they were introduced here. and sold out before noon , perhaps . then restocked for today . dont see the point of buying 20 0r so. good luck e-bay-ing them for @ $ 250 each. we do live in unusual times . thank you , Internet , Soooo much

As @rotuts said, they’re quite small. Appropriate for a little gift bag. Given the pastel colors and timing on this release, I suspect many will be used for lEaster baskets. They showed up at my TJs yesterday, unbeknownst to me. When I arrived, close to 9 AM, I noted more cars in the parking lot than usual. Inside, near the entrance, there were 2 staff members standing in front of a big bin of these bags, enforcing a limit of 4/customer. Everyone in front of me got some. I did not. Most got 4. By the time I'd worked my way through the produce, meat, cheese, and dairy, I heard a big cheer from up front, indicating they had sold out.

Lazy day yesterday and hadn't really planned anything for dinner and didn't feel like going out. So, I pulled a 16oz Sterling Silver New York Strip steak from the freezer. Cooked on the grill and cut in half to share. Served with just a salad that I had been actually planning to make for two days. From an Italian cookbook, this salad had parmesan breaded mushrooms, served with a variety of baby greens. The steak was delicious and Moe really loved the salad.

Heh. No ginger in the recipe [Spicy Prik King Shrimp (Gkoong Pad Prik King)], from 'Dancing Shrimp' by Kasma Loha-Unchit. Recipe notes state that prik king means "chilli ginger", but also states that dried red chillies and galangal are the key ingredients. Yes, confusing. I have written in a note to add ginger, which I have done in the past. Edit: A quick check of David Thompson's 'Thai Food' shows a recipe for stir-fried wild pork with beans and green peppercorns (pat prik kink muu bpaa) that also uses galangal but no ginger (although it does have shredded grachai, but not in the paste). Hmm.

@Smithy they are really small . https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/mini-pastel-canvas-tote-bags-079986 the frenzied crowd was buying them by the dozen , very odd. a click-bait site suggested when out of stock , they were selling for hundreds of dollars on e-bay ?

This caught my eye at the end: My procedure, in my current living situation with a French press, is to pour enough water into the press to wet all the grounds, give it all a stir to make sure the grounds are wetted (sound familiar?) then pour the rest of the water over the spoon so it's rinsed. Voila, no dirty cutlery. 🙂 I suppose that wouldn't work in a commercial kitchen.

Thank you, this was exactly what I was looking for!

@rotuts, I've seen those adverts but I'm still mystified. Can you clarify the size of those totes? Roughly? The ad copy makes them sound too small for shopping and too bulky for, say, produce storage. But maybe I'm misreading.

Too many good options out there. Top of the list (or at least my brain): Unpasteurized French Goat Cheese (so many great producers) Vacherin Mont D'Or Tallegio St Agur Blue

Odd morning @ TJ's : people were lines up single file , 20 or so , a few minutes before opening. usually there are three or four people , w carts at the doorway , no more than that. the door opened and there was a feeding frenzy at a large table w really small Tj's tote bags. people were buy in dozens at a time. reminded me on my first thusday after Thanksgiving , visiting BOS for thanksgiving and the weekend: I was waling around DownTown BOS , empty , the saw a crowd on the sidewalk , walked past them but then got sucked into " Filenes Basement " nothing I could do . Heard about it later as I returned to the Bostonians I was staying with almoust like that for these tiny little bags. its pretty clear what the world has come to , for sure.

Halibut, asparagus, rice and unpictured brazi bites.

Was there any ginger? It's the highlight ingredient in pad prik khing! Since you added galangal, maybe it's pad prik kha....

I've previously shared articles about coffee research from a specific team of scientists. This time, they've turned their attention to improving pour-over coffee (link to the underlying study in the text, for those who want to geek out). https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/apr/08/secret-to-stronger-pour-over-coffee-with-no-extra-beans-unlocked-by-scientists

Another ludicrous mislabelling. This was identified as wahoo, which it clearly isn’t. Instead it is 竹荚鱼 (zhú jiá yú), horse mackerel, specifically Japanese horse mackerel, Trachurus japonicus. Also known in English as Japanese jack mackerel or Japanese scad. Despite the mackerel name and its similarity to mackerel it is a different, only distantly unrelated species. Also despite the Japanese epithet, they aren’t exclusive to Japan but are found in both the East China Sea and Sea of Japan and so are also landed in China and Korea. In Japanese they are マアジ (māji) and in Korean 전갱이 (jeon gaen gi). They’re nearly all wild caught, with a diminishing small number raised by aquaculture. Their resemblance to true mackerel is not only visual but extends to their flavour. Most are canned for export but are widely available in the three countries mentioned. This is one I’m rather partial to. Around $3.75 / 500g

I'm a Chef not a Chocolatier but I'd consider the 8 week clock started as of yesterday and maybe sell them at a slight discount if you were worried about moving them fast enough

My Mt Rushmore of cheese would be: A very old sharp cheddar Parmesean Gruyere Mozarella