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Based on what I heard that does not surprise me 😂. That said they had a singalong of some of their other songs at one point and we could hear everyone singing the words so I guess they do have a fan base, even if it’s small. People definitely came in just to go to the festival.

I had dinner guests last night and spent most of the day playing in the kitchen. I don't have pictures of the entire spread (appetizers, slow-cooked pork ribs, green salad, and wine are all out of the photo collection) but I do have photos of the Two Grand Experiments. Yes, I experiment to some degree with company, especially these particular friends. I've been wanting to cook a Washington Post recipe for Roasted Tomato Pie with Cheddar-Parmesan Crust. I had some lovely-looked heirloom tomatoes to commit to the recipe. My gift articles from the Post don't usually seem to work here, but here's the link anyway: click. For good measure, here's a PDF of the document. Roasted Tomato Pie With Cheddar-Parmesan Crust Recipe - The Washington Post.PDF This was a lot of work, but delicious. Next time (and I do think there'll be a next time) I'll either use a smaller pie plate or double the filling. I'll also be sure not to reach into the food processor bowl with my bare hands to check the dough consistency. I'm not used to using a food processor for pie dough, and my thoughtless action slowed me down. The other experiment involved making a peach pie using pie filling I'd made and frozen a couple of years ago, when the peaches were particularly good. I suspect I got the idea here someplace. Now I have to find my notes on what, exactly, I put in there: peach chunks, sugar, no doubt some lemon, and either flour or cornstarch. After I made the crust using my mother's standard recipe, not the cheese recipe from the pie above, I put the barely-thawed pie filling into the shell, rolled out the top dough and put it atop everything. I remembered to cut vents but forgot to use liquid to seal the bottom and top crusts. I also didn't think to put an egg wash on the top layer, though maybe it didn't matter. I think it's been at least a decade since I've made this style of pie! You can see in the photo that some of the juices leaked out through the unsealed edges, but nobody complained. There was plenty of good flavor in that pie!

Coffee Ice cream.

I will never again reach into my food processor (NOT running) to check the consistency of pie crust dough. That blade is SHARP. Fortunately I have plenty of bandages and finger cots so I could contain the blood. Seriously, folks: if the material in the processor bowl isn't too runny, tip it out onto a work surface and remove the cutting blade before feeling around the dough. If it is runny, use a spatula.

Then I might as well link this (now 2 year old) article on Phil Ward: https://www.grubstreet.com/2023/10/long-island-bar-phil-ward-martinis.html Since Long Island Bar is 2 blocks from our home, we sit at the bar reasonably often and talk with him while eating food that's far better than it needs to be. He's more of a people person than he likes to let on.

I've got a couple of heirloom tomatoes (Prudens Purple, Gold Medal, and Brandywine Yellow) sitting on my countertop waiting for something to use them with. I'd follow your lead on the breakfast BLT but I had a 1/2 ham and cheese omelet left for yesterday. Probably have a simple tomato sandwich for lunch and maybe a caprese salad for dinner.

When I ate HD more frequently (can't recall when I last had some), the pints of vanilla with chocolate covered almonds were a favorite. There was almost always a pint or two in the freezer. Devouring a pint with my sweetie was a ritual-like weekly event. We'd sit in the back yard looking out over The Bay, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge and pass the container between us like Chinese takeout at a study session, feeling lucky and content. The NY Fudge Chunk came quite a bit later, and was equally enjoyed.

I think "teenage dirtbag" was their only hit...

They sell little bananas at my local supermarket called “nino” bananas which look similar, I found that the skin got a deeper shade of yellow but didn’t develop spots like the Cavendish variety.

In my young adult days living in NYC, my friends and I had a Saturday (mid)night ritual: NY Times crossword and Ben and Jerry's NY Super Fudge Chunk. It's still a favorite (along with Haagen Daz Chocolate-Almond coated vanilla bars).

The Apple Cider Donuts are great! I buy 'em every year ...

Vegetarian Wellington Filet with Red Cabbage Salad - the puff pastry was filled with a duxelles/farce made from cremini mushrooms, onions, garlic, walnuts, hazelnuts, parmesan, mustard and thyme and topped with portobello mushroom caps. Served with a simple salad of red cabbage, parsley, olive oil and verjus

They do chunky ones too. I chose these deliberately. 串 (chuàn) are from Chinese far western Muslim province. The Chinese character is a clear pictogram. They are very different from the Greco-Turkish type (mostly Cypriot) you find in England. They are cumin and chilli heavily spiced, whether "stingy" or chunky. Usually the lamb meat is interspersed with chunks of sheep's tail fat.

The skewers look really stingy - probably because I'm used to chunky shish kebabs.

A delivery lunch. A bit of a screw-up on the vendor's part. I ordered 5 lamb skewers and 5 beef skewers, but they delivered ten lamb. The fries came with tomato ketchup sachets but no salt. As usual. No worries, I have plenty of salt. Four types, in fact. I didn't use the ketchup. Never do with fries.

香港式蛋挞 (xiāng gǎng shì dàn tà), Hong Kong style egg tarts. Not to be confused with 澳门式蛋挞 (ào mén shì dàn tà), Macau egg tarts And certainly not 鸡蛋布丁 (jī dàn bù dīng), egg pudding.

Saturday my sister, niece and I stopped by the other breakfast restaurant in town, called Brekkies, which I think is an atrocious name. I really don’t like going out to breakfast, but they do, so I went along. Here’s the inside. Sister’s pancakes Niece’s waffle We really needed to charge our car, and the closest level three charger is in Provincetown, so we ended up back there. We charged up, spent the afternoon at Herring Cove, then went for an early dinner at Front Street. Fried zucchini blossoms to share Calamari with garlic sauce Shrimp scampi Puttanesca with shrimp Zuppa de pesce Calamari fra diavolo Gnocchi with truffle cream sauce Niece had a bread pudding for dessert We made it back to Herring Cove just in time for sunset Today my husband and I did our usual harbor walk at low tide. I took this panorama of the houses on the beach. We’ve stayed in most of them at one point over the years. We then went over to the ocean side to walk there. I tried putting my feet in but it was way too cold for me! There were a decent number of people swimming. They are hardier than me. Dinner was at Mac’s Shack. It was even more crowded than usual because there was a music festival on the nearby pier tonight. Oysters Spicy tuna mango martini Halibut turadito Fried clams Fish and chips Toro poke bowl and tuna roll with avocado, mango, and cream cheese for my niece scallops with bacon on corn bisque We walked down to the pier after dinner to get some ice cream and check out how crowded the festival was. The sky looked pretty The house we are renting is very close to the pier, so we walked back and listened to the concert from the deck. The headliner was a band called Wheatus. I thought I didn’t know them, until they started playing. Now I have “teenage dirtbag” stuck in my head 😂

Husband made a beef stew which we had with broccolini and mashed potato. He makes the stew with loads of onions cooked even longer than the beef till they have melted down to form the ‘gravy’. I made an old fashioned apple pie.

Yes. For banana bread I usually wait till my local supermarket decide the unsold bananas are beyond redemption and give them away for a token payment.

Just to be clearer, the name I gave is the name used in Thailand for the specific cultivar known internationally as pisang awak . Also, the transliteration I gave is the standard Thai. The English name is not indicator of nationality of origin any more than 'English muffins' are from England. It is an indicator of the cultivar. They are grown in many countries. Of course, Thailand has other banana varieties including Cavendish. However, กล้วยน้ำว้า (kl̂wy n̂ảŵā) is by far the most common.

They look pretty close to the little bananas that I get here in Costa Rica. They probably aren't quite ripe yet but they will be in two or three days. The riper they are the sweeter they get. You can wait until they get quite dark before you use them. I found that the easiest way to mash them is just put them in a zip top bag and squish them.

I would.

Just to be clear, pisang awak = nam wah (nam wa, namwah), alternate names for the same banana. There are other names for the Thai banana depending on location, and there is more than one variety of the Thai banana.

Thank you. From what you said, i should wait to use them until they turn yellow? The picture shows them as being more yellow than they are.

Did a bunch of grilled veg (I had salmon fillet brushed with hoisin, DH had a strip steak). Corn salad for tomorrow’s dinner, leftovers of the grilled eggplant/zucchini/red bell pepper/red onion warm salad that I make a lot over the summer.