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I am humbled if I have inspired you in any way. I’ll just sit here quietly and bask in the glow (while also smiling/laughing at the lunch ladies showing you their appreciation of YOUR appreciation by piling on the love, er, I mean, food. While my husband was unloading the food at the fridge this past week, a young man (30s, I’m guessing) gratefully took a bag with two meals in it, and started in on one of the plates immediately (forks are included). With a very pronounced southern drawl he told me that for two weeks he’d been trying to get there when we dropped off meals and he was happy he finally made it (he came by bicycle). He complimented the food several times, telling us how hungry he was and that we’d done a good job. I told him his accent let me know that cornbread dressing was right up his alley! Oddly, he seemed suspicious that I thought he had an accent. 😆

A while back I did a brisket that Ronnie had cold smoked ( 4 hours at 150F )--I SV'd it for 24hrs at 155F. Dry dry dry (the first time I did it this way it was excellent). We decided this brisket must have been way more lean. Anyway I did one for dinner last night (3.11 lbs and pretty lean). 155F for 16 hours. Perfect.

Kombu … (part of the sweet soy stock, too)

@Duvel algae?

Reconvalescence dinner #3 for DW: Sukiyaki (Kanto style) 🤗 I can’t tell you how much time it took to slice up some 700 g of chuck eye roll (the most marbled beef you can find in Germany) into thin slices. And it still looks like a mess … Veggies, tofu, algae, mushrooms - all nature has to offer to offset the beef … Udon for the finish … “Fry“ the beef in a tare based on sweet soy sauce … Mix up some raw egg … And start dipping the barely cooked beef with all the sweet soy clinging to it into the raw egg. Heaven 🤗 After the meat, all the veggies get cooked … And finally the udon noodles are stirred into the concentrated juices … Some shichimi togarashi and the conclusion of the meal is ready … No complaints - none at all. And DW is getting better quickly 🥳

Welp. My Ninja has failed me. I honestly haven't even used it that much. I drug it out recently and was really liking the non-stick pot better than the ones in my IP's. Anyway, last night I was going to cook some bacon, sauté some onions and then pressure cook that with some green beans. Pushed the sauté button and it said VENT. I didn't have time to mess with it (I was immersed in my Broncos game) so I tried to figure it out this morning. ChatGPT walked me through all the trouble shooting tips. I cleaned a sensor, cleaned the magnet sensor, did all the unplug etc. Still stuck on VENT. So Chat said that the lid sensor has failed on CLOSED and that means the unit permanently thinks the pressure lid is present so it will never allow me to sauté again, I can only air fry and pressure cook. Apparently it's a very common thing to have happen to this model of Ninja. So. There are much worse things to have fail. I did send an email to Ninja describing everything. We will see if they get back to me--I'm sure it's not under warranty anymore so I'm really not sure why I took the time to write them. I guess I wanted to vent. Get it? VENT haha. Sigh.

Best.Meal.Ever. I once had a government job in Mississippi in which I was miserable although I didn't exactly recognize that this is what I was feeling. It had a cafeteria in the basement which served chicken 'n dressing every Thursday, by these old ladies (cue old Mississippi, cooks, central casting . . .). Their dressing was flavored mostly with chicken jus, no sausage. Y'all. After about two weeks those ladies recognized just how much food I could put away, and just how critical their food was to my coming back to work every day. They were not particularly friendly or even chatty -- but they would pile so much extra dressing for me into that styrofoam, it barely held. I responded with strict and humble devotion. Seriously, the only time I ever left the building for lunch was on the day when this other cafe was serving their nominally superior blackberry cobbler, which me and my boss tried to eat every single week. It was a year-long gig, and that year featured excellent dinner-style lunch. Anyway. Patti, baby, you are burnin' down there. That's what my old folks used to call this kind of spread: burnin'. Re the bolding -- girl. At this point, none of your fridge's patrons is even bothering to look at the label, once they recognize the packaging . . . . Meanwhile, I have some leftover roast chicken and I'd plumb forgotten about chicken salad, so guess what is happening in this kitchen this afternoon . . . And finally, you've inspired me -- I serve at a soup kitchen pretty regularly, but 2026 may be the year I try to get moved onto the prep side.

Similar ingredients, quite different flavor: Brown-fried onion, chile, and garlic with chorizo. Added 5-spice powder, fish sauce, spinach, and most of a bunch of cilantro. Finished with shrimp, crumbled feta, and diced avocado. Apparently I am on an anise-scented food kick lately

add a bit of vanilla, rum, lime zest, or caramel

There’s a local take-out BBQ place that always offers a layered banana pudding. Given the cost of ingredients, and the fact that every gets it, I suspect they make more profit from than than the meats 🤣 They use a Biscoff-type cookie and I really prefer that to a ‘Nilla wafer. My brother uses Pepperidge Farm Chessmen. I like them better than ‘Nilla wafers but not as much as the Biscoff flavors.

I also love a ribbon bookmark and was delighted that Good Things included one. Especially handy in a book like this that includes a lot of condiments. Other than the Time-Life books @SLB mentions, my only books with 2 are the recent Ottolenghi’s - Simple, Flavour and Comfort - and they each sport a pair of 2 different colors that coordinate with the cover graphics. I must also share this exchange: ❤️❤️❤️ Indeed they do!

Crab cake with caper aioli, an arugula fennel apple and pistachio salad, and roasted asparagus

Clementine tart, inspired by Alex Croquet... Prettier than its apple cousin, but I think I still prefer the OG. The clementines weren't the best or particularly firm, making it difficult to get thin, regular slices, resulting in a fraction too much bite in some of the peel. If I can crack that, and adjust the sweetness better for the fruit, then it's a winner. There's a couple of videos of him making them, if you like watching that kinda thing (in French).

I'm sure they add to the production costs, and hardbound books have heavy competition. Still, they're a nice touch and for my tastes they add value, both utilitarian and aesthetic.

I think two ribbon bookmarks should be standard in cookbooks. The Time-Life series has them and they are really very useful.

I bought jumbo shell-on, head-on shrimp at Costco. Simple lemon/garlic short marinade, grilled on gas grill 3 minutes a side. Reserved marinade doubled as finishing sauce. Served with cheesy pinwheels I made with puff pastry, jack cheese, cream cheese, green onions and Spanish pimentón. Entire meal eaten sans utensils. Messy but tasty!

Chili crisp shrimp stir fry.

I now use this all the time and even gave some to family/friends. Thanks again for sharing your recipe!!

Kind of … salt with spices. My version can be found here 🙏

Once again I forgot I’m back posting here. So here’s a catch up. Things in a bowl with miso chicken, rice, baby pak choy and the last of another bag of bean sprouts. Roti canai using potatoes instead of chicken, smashed cucumber on the side. A cheat, seafood risotto at the local tavern which was sooo good I forgot to take a photo until partly demolished. A mixed veggie dal with rice, cucumber salad and a pappadam.

I need more info, are we talking chicken salt here ?

Nilla wafers have already been perfected, just buy them. Then focus on the pudding part, that's the part where you can make a big improvement with minimal effort. Stella Parks is a good place to start for Classic Americana I know she has a recipe in her book Bravetart but here is a recipe of hers I found online https://www.seriouseats.com/warm-and-creamy-banana-pudding Another option is to steal the filling from Christina Tossi of Momofuku Milk Bar fame. \http://diaryofastudentgourmet.blogspot.com/2014/10/momofuku-milk-bar-banana-cream-pie.html

There are a number of food-related bits in episodes 2 The Land, and episode 3 Home. Not too surprising since the land is mostly focused on agriculture. I learned what a rabbitoh is, aside from the name of the South Sidney National Rugby League team (it's a person who catches rabbits and sells the meat). Food is of course important to Home, as we all know. They did a good job weaving the Hills Hoist clothesline and box wine to get to the Australian drinking game, Goon of Fortune, and to talk about the often excessive drinking culture. For those not familiar, you attach the bag from a box wine (the goon bag) to the 4 sided rotating clothes line. Everyone stand around the Hills Hoist and you give it a spin. The person where the goon bag stops has to drink. I don't approve of drinking games but it is pretty amusing that someone came up with this.

So we had family game night tonight. Went pretty well, and I brought some banana pudding. Nothing fancy, instant pudding, Nilla wafers (trier to make them from scratch, but it didn’t go too well.), banana slices and a baked meringue topping. Tasted great! But I would like to kick it up a notch in the future. Any thoughts?

Well. I love the look and layout of this book, and one of the small details that I find charming is the ribbon bookmark. Except I wish there were at least 2 of them. (I already have Post-It Notes (TM) sticking out of a bunch of pages. On the other hand, her earlier book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat doesn't have ANY ribbons. I wish it did.