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@Kim Shook, Yes, I should have said before that the cream cheese is lightly flavored and not terribly sweet. The cookies go great with it! All your other choices look great!!

I finally made it to Trader Joe's. It's less than 5 miles from me, but the area is so congested and full of giant SUVs that I avoid it until I have multiple places that I need to shop before going. I picked up my usual Unexpected Cheddar and green onion pancakes. I bypassed the frozen sea scallops until I have some freezer room and resisted the always alluring fresh flowers. I got a couple of new-to-me eG recommended things. One was a great success and the other I haven't completely decided about. @Maison Rustique recommended this peach cream cheese, which I tried on a sesame bagel: This is the thing I'm not sure about. I think that the sesame bagel was the wrong vehicle - it was SO strongly flavored that the peach flavor got lost. I think that the cookies were the right choice, @Maison Rustique! I'll report back when I try that! The other product was this: @OlyveOyl mentioned this awhile ago and I put it on my TJ list and finally picked it up. I used it on some cod. I smeared it on the cod and then pressed panko crumbs into the pesto (the sauce on top is not the pesto, but some broken lemon/butter sauce): I loved the pesto – though I’m not sure if I’m going to be creative enough to figure out how to use the entire jar before it goes bad😁!

More French toast... This one was from a Jun Tanaka recipe. The brioche gets fried in butter, warmed through in the oven, then sugared and bruléed. At his restaurant the brioche is sliced into crustless rectangular bars and all sides get flashed with the torch for a nice caramelisation I preferred this to yesterday's. The flavour of browned butter from the pan was more familiarly French toasty, and the custard used whole eggs which lent more egginess (pain perdu is also known as eggy bread in the UK). The bruléed top added a nice caramel note and a delicate crunch. And looking at the pictures just now, the custardy inside and crunchy caramel exterior had a hint of cannelé about it, too.

So many gorgeous breakfasts. I would love to sit down to so many of these! As usual lately, health issues are getting in the way of my eG activities – too many doctor’s appointments! But here are a few recent meals. Benton’s bacon, eggs, and cheese on a toasted bun: Raisin toast, Benton’s bacon, and strawberries from the produce stand (that’s a little Splenda, not mold). Another breakfast started with this sad “English Muffin”: Oh, Aldi! But it improved with the addition of some Edwards country ham, fried eggs, a few leftover tots, and some fruit salad: Twice in the past couple of weeks, Jessica has shown up with doughnuts from our favorite local place. Another morning was an old favorite - beans on toast: A slightly over toasted croissant with cheese, egg, sausage, and ham: and an elderly, but tasty peach. Toast and a boiled egg: This is great bread that I’ve been buying lately. It is in the Kroger bakery section (but not baked there). The slices are large and have a great texture and the bread is not sweet. The women of my church do a monthly breakfast potluck and last Saturday was the day for that. I made some no knead bread, honey butter, and some of @Tropicalsenior’s microwave lemon curd: Second rise: Done: A slice: This is good, but not great bread. It’s a little stodgy and slightly moist. It makes great toast. Everyone seemed to like it – there was almost nothing left of 2 one-quart loaves. And the lemon curd and honey butter were very popular. I took a bunch of little jars of the curd to share. Vanilla yogurt with bananas, honey, and granola and toast: Sesame bagel served with bacon, ham, and sausage: Egg and sausage on one of those silly Aldi no-nooks-and-crannies English muffins: Still tasted pretty good.

if this thin TJ's vanilla wafer were used for communion wafers they would ' Pack the House ' any denomination what so ever . you could make one up ,

There's a topic for it here. Some is discussion of making a DYI Pimm's substitute but there's quite a bit of cocktail discussion as well.

A successful waterfowl season and crap weather this weekend means I'll be making a batch of jerky over the next few days. And yes, I said waterfowl. Not everyone in my house is willing to eat medium rare breasts so, jerky it is. Specifically from these guys (Thats a Canada goose for those unaware.) I make several batches over the year, usually when I realize I need more freezer space, and we eat jerky year long. Any trip one of us goes on, we take jerky- vacation, fishing, snowmobiling, hunting. I'll do my best to capture all the steps this weekend and share as it happens.

I got a bottle of Pim's to make a cocktail with gin and lemonade; not something I cared for, however. Now what to do with the rest of he bottle? Any ideas?

Reminds me of when I moved to China. I was renting my London apartment out and, for various reaons, had to move in with my daughter for a couple of weeks before my departure. I was putting all my belongings into storage a week before moving to her place and she was helping me pack stuff. I asked her to clear out the kitchen drawer containing my eating utensils saying "leave one of each'. After she left I bought a Chinese take out meal from the local restaurant, went to eat it and found one chopstick. Totally her sense of humour! Don't know who she gets it from?!

Seen on Facebook: The one bean cracks me up!

This makes me kind of sad because growing up on the farm, one of my favorite animals was an old donkey that we had that was his docile as a kitten. It followed us around like a dog and we could climb up, over and around it anytime we wanted. Now if you were to say mule, that's an entirely different thing. I never met a mule that I liked. As far as I'm concerned, you can eat all of those that you want.

I'm glad you asked that question because it sent me to my friend Google and I found out that yes, you can freeze mustard for up to a year and they even recommend freezing it in ice cube trays. Most replies say that it isn't necessary to freeze commercial preparations of mustard because they have a long shelf life but I make a version of Gourmet Mustard that has eggs in it and invariably I wind up pitching some of it because I'm not sure about the shelf life of this.

Thank you! I really like rockfish, its quite mild and seems to play very well no matter how its prepared-battered and fried, simple saute pan like last night, fish cakes etc. Not to mention they are quite fun to catch-voracious eaters and seem to always be "on the bite".

Several times, I have expressed my predilection for the cooking and consumption of Equus asinus, the donkey. It is, in fact, my favourite red meat, just edging out its cousin the horse. Unfortunately, the restaurant which sold me the meat (and in which I also often dined) closed about a year ago when the owner retired. Recently I found a new vendor, again a restaurant which also sells the meat for home cooking. It comes in various forms. Most common, of course, is simply sold as 驴肉 (lǘ ròu), 'donkey meat'). Which part of the animal is not mentioned, though I suspect both tenderloin and rump are what I get, depending on the vendors stock at any one time. Leg however, is specified. 驴肉 (lǘ ròu) Donkey Meat Then it gets more interesting. In random order: 驴腿 (lǘ tuǐ) Donkey Leg 驴排骨 (lǘ pái gǔ) Donkey Ribs 驴尾 (lǘ wěi) Donkey Tail 驴肝 (lǘ gān) Donkey Heart 驴心 (lǘ xīn) Donkey Heart 驴杂 (lǘ zá) Donkey Mixed Offal 驴肚 (lǘ dǔ) Donkey Tripe 驴皮 (lǘ pí) Donkey Skin 驴肠 (lǘ cháng) Donkey Intestines 驴脑花 (lǘ nǎo huā) Donkey Brain 驴血 (lǘ xuè) Donkey Blood 驴鞭 & 蛋 (lǘ biān & dàn) Mr. Donkey's Reproductive Equipment All of these delights are prepared and served just like the same parts of other animals. All images except the first are from Meituan food delivery service app. The first is mine.

Thanks, KenT. I have a couple of hours tomorrow before leaving town. Will try to find Zyrtec at a pharmacy if things don't improve fast enough. The worst is probably over but it took a lot out of me. 6 hours have passed and I'm still in bed with pain. Thankfully I can breathe almost normally now. Had to forgo dinner tonight. Throat constriction, hoarseness, painful. I've been reading about jackfruit allergy. I have a huge chance of it happening to me. Jeez. I hope the pain will be less tomorrow. Thanks again. Don't worry.

Yes, it does seem to lose potency. Can you freeze mustard to extend that potency? Or would that lessen it even more?

I'm so sorry about this. I have a very severe food allergy to buckwheat - I have problems breathing and I also wind up spurting from both ends. Don't ask me how I found out while on the border of Brittany, France... In any case, do you have access to Zyrtec? I find it to be the most effective against a moderate allergic reaction. You can also combine it with taking Benadryl at the same time. If you get a severe reaction, it's important to carry an EpiPen - which will abate the symptoms long enough to get to a hospital. My brother has a severe crustacean allergy and has required the epipen more than once.

I, too, enjoy a very mustardy vinaigrette...finding nice, strong mustard sometimes becomes the problem, and once it's opened, it loses potency over time. Wild gulf shrimp. Anson Mills' grits.

Had to go back to the central market to buy a few things and when I was done thought I'd take a quick walk through the fruit section one more time. The partner spotted the "jackfruit" (cempedak) hidden behind a pile of pineapples. The daughter of the stallholder spoke English just fine and helped me with slicing, explaining, giving info about fruits in Sabah and their seasons etc. I ate some of the fruit on the spot and we chatted for a long time. The "jackfruit" itself had little smell on the outside, but once cut open you could begin to smell it. It's a very sweet smell. It became stronger as I ate. I guess chewing the flesh help release more aroma. Very, very sweet. With an unmistakable fermented taste but then again, sweet. The flesh is soft, almost like durian. Not "pungent" and the smell is not comparable to durian, which is intensely aromatic. I would say the smell is quite strong but not on the same level of durian! Absolutely not. However, after eating a few lumps (the insides are just like jackfruit but less of those stringy trips) my throat and eyes started to feel itchy. My throat hurt more and more with every passing second. The pain quickly spread down my chest. Some difficulty with breathing made me stop eating at once. I put the rest in a bag and took it with me. We went to eat lunch and then I decided to find out if the allergic reaction would return. It did and even more intense. I gave the bag to an employee at the lunch place. She said she liked this fruit. Well, now I'm back in my room waiting for the symptoms to subside. I have multiple (potentially serious) allergies and looks like my days of adventurous fruit eating are coming to an end soon. Last year in Mexico it was another fruit that made my mouth bleed and now this. Can't risk it any more. It's a nice fruit, but unfortunately, I won't be able to eat it again. :(

@weinoo don't know about TJ's NYC , re : prices . Id find out if your Local has ' yellow ' tags for exclusives ( cheaper ) and ' white tags re ' more expensive that Total Whine . look for the HH , id say , but it might be a NE item ? one nice thing about Stormalongs : on the back of the can there is an indicator of Dry // Sweet : they mention the apple types , but please who remembers what a Baldwin apple taste like ? and their description : leave a lot to new desires : mo oak whatsoever . apparently , the place is very near to me this one: https://www.stormalong.com/cider/mass-appeal was a bit sweet . however , ice cold , w a bit of added selzer to cut the sweetness , one of those little umbrellas a small plastic ' sword ' w stabbed pineapple , cherries , mango etc on a hot humid day : would do very nicely. https://www.stormalong.com/ is very near me OIll have to stop by. take some pic. etc

Interesting description - “Mark Wiens of Migrationology.com says that it “makes a durian smell plain,” describing its bouquet as “intoxicating…a cross between honey and fermented urine.” ”

I used silicon mold. For the velvet surface, I sprayed melted chocolate and cocoa butter with spray gun.

I love eating the infamous durian. Smells incredible to me. In Thailand, back in 2000, I stored the leftovers in a plastic package and then in a plastic bag and put it in the mini fridge in my hotel room. Was blown away when I opened the fridge the following morning. Imagine the visual effect in a movie when something explodes and a person is blown away due to the impact. Back then there was no sign stating certain fruits being banned. Mangosteen leave stains that are impossible to clean. Then there's a problem with ant infestation. The "jackfruit" one is actually Cempedak (Artocarpus integer), in the jackfruit family. Looks very similar but a lot smaller than jackfruit, and the shape is longer rather than rounder. Apparently it has no English name so they use the term "jackfruit". The smell is very pungent, comparable to durian. I found it yesterday by sheer luck. Going back later today to eat it on the spot and find out for myself.

We had some nice rockfish in AK, and your looks delicious!

Lemon pepper rockfish (caught by one of us in AK), broccoli and a lemon sauce. (White rice added for partners plate)