redfox

I've finally managed to obtain a bottle of maraschino (Stock) and have made my first Aviatons, using the 4/1/1 proportions advocated by slkinsey. Tanqueray gin. I wonder how it would be with Plymouth. Too fruity? Garnish is a homemade maraschino cherry following those NY Times instructions featuring frozen organic cherries and maraschino liqueur. I too find that there is an excellent merging of flavors such that it would be difficult to pick ingredients out -- though I don't think I'd go so far as to say that it's not recognizably a gin drink. Anyway, it's really delicious.

My favorite way of pitting olives is simply to lay them on a board and whack them with a heavy frying pan. Thwack! Then they crack and you can easily pop out the pits. This is especially effective for brined, rather than oil-cured olives.

What a brilliant idea, growing those greenhouse plants right in the bags of compost! Is that where you start them as seeds, or do you transplant seedlings in? And what proportion of your harvest would you say you wind up eating yourselves?

The other thing to keep in mind, counterintuitively, is that adding more oil (obviously, only up to the point of what the yolk can keep in emulsion) is actually what makes the mayonnaise thicker.

I once had a syrup that contained lime, lemon verbena, and lemongrass, which I drank mixed with soda water. It was wonderful. I also love lemon verbena but find myself with a pot of lemon balm instead. It seems as if it would be nice in all the same places -- is this true?

How about inasmuch as not sneering at it behind their backs?

Last night we had a giant pile of sauteed mushrooms, turnip greens, and garlic topped with scrambled eggs, with a nice big salad. (In the salad: various lettuces, basil, yellow bell pepper, walnuts, and fresh mozzarella.)

That does sound delicious, and I have some lovely corn tortillas in the freezer, made for me by a friend. Sounds like a plan.

Guacamole tacos! Make guacamole, heat cheapo taco shells in oven, put guacamole in tacos, consume. A perfect food.

I don't actually know anything about it, but I can't imagine it will be terribly soon, as there's no demolition or construction going on at any of the corners of that intersection right now. (I was there this morning for a doctor's appointment, so this is a very up-to-date report!)

I just wanted to pop back in and say thanks again for these suggestions. Now that we have a slightly better idea of where things are, we're going to pursue checking out more of them. We have plans to go to Mustard Seed Market later this week, and will probably do the drive up Mayfield, browsing at markets like a cow in clover, next weekend. On a related note, we recently discovered Abba's on Cedar, around Warrensville Center Road -- the kosher market is nice enough, and we enjoyed our sit-down deli meal, but the main attraction was the pita. Holy COW, was it good! The texture is excellent and it is tangy in a way I've never encountered before. Is anyone here familiar with this bread? I wonder if it involves sourdough leavening, or yogurt in the dough. I'd go again and ask (and maybe I still will) but I was too shy when we went before.

This week I did carrots and leeks tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Just before they were done I took them out and dumped them in a bowl with lemon juice, minced garlic, and whole cumin seeds, then tipped them back out onto the roasting pan and put them back in to finish up. Very, very good.

Lately I have been in the habit of spending my Sunday afternoons prepping produce and making dishes ahead that will appear in lunches or alongside a la minute things during the week. But by Sunday night the last thing I want to do is apply heat to any more food. So we had a kind of picnic of several cold things, many of which came from the pages of Paula Wolfert cookbooks: Vegetarian kibbe of red lentils, onions, and tarragon White bean salad with walnuts, scallions, and parsley Roasted carrots and leeks with garlic, cumin, and lemon Green beans, tomatoes, and onions stewed in olive oil (so good!) Hard-boiled eggs broken up and tossed with sauteed red peppers and feta Marinated cracked green olives

This is wonderful reading. It is very nice of you to remember me -- I was indeed a student in Maryland (and still am, but have followed my dissertation director to Cleveland). I wish I'd done a better job of connecting with DC area egulleteers while I was there. Alas. But speaking of this: That looks wonderful. I wonder if the place is still there! Do you remember the name?

I adore Maldon's -- it's the salt that cured me of thinking that all this talk about the merits of different salts was something I'd never appreciate. We also decant ours into a salt cellar. Taking it directly from the bag-in-the-box is indeed a recipe for frustration.

The fried okra looks SO good! I wish I didn't find deep frying too much of a pain. What tools do you like to use for frying? When I was living in DC, Takoma Park actually, which was until very recently, I got my okra at Whole Foods, and in season at the farmer's market.

I concur with the above remarks! Several methodological variations seem to work just fine. We have frittatas all the time -- I do mine in a heavy nonstick pan, and once the eggs begin to set, pop it into the oven at 400 degrees F. or so to finish. I like to saute the vegetables until they're fully cooked (undercooked onions are the WORST) then dump them into a bowl. Seasoned eggs into the pan (no need to clean it out) over medium-low heat, give a gentle stir or two (I don't feel the need to stir continually, by any means) and wait a couple of minutes. Add the vegetables evenly, wait another few minutes, until things are beginning to set up visibly around the edges. Then into the preheated and waiting oven it goes. If I am feeling lazy, though, I will just pour the eggs right over the vegetables without the little shuffle. Potatoes are excellent, though that is one case where I feel they should be, yes, cooked in plenty of olive oil (mmm) but then put directly into the waiting bowl of eggs. Let them soak up a bit of the egg and pour the whole lot into the pan and proceed.

I don't think I had had tater tots since my elementary school cafeteria, where I found them unappetizing. But we had something of a failure to get around to dinner tonight, and then finally got hungry. Went to the drugstore around the corner and there were the Ore-Ida minis. I thought of this thread and took the plunge. Now I am eating a veggie burger (or, as we call it, a "food disk") and the minis cooked within an inch of their lives. So good! I love the proportion of crust to innards.

Lately, Sundays have featured a full afternoon of cooking components of dinners for later in the week. By suppertime, I have become a lazy loafer. We had brie and crackers at around 6 and headed off to a movie. When we got back, S. just had a bunch of dry-roasted peanuts; I heated up one of a stack of flour tortillas a friend made for us and topped it with a couple of scrambled eggs, a few strips of sauteed peppers from the fridge, and some Sriracha sauce (AKA Magic Rooster). This was followed by some Wavy Lays. Fancy stuff! Edited to add: Oh, yes, and bourbon. Maker's Mark on the rocks.

Aha, got it. And then you just have to be smart enough to cut your cake to the right width.

I have been very much enjoying catching up with your week, Wendy! I love your descriptions of the work you do, and the photos are great, too. The joconde cylinders are super cool -- I went and looked at the other thread where you explain how you use the tubes to form them, but was a little confused at how the acetate sheets work. Are they precut to the perfect size to fit the circumference of the tube?

I'm not sure what the pronunciation of Ikea, Hermes, or Bjork has to do with it -- I think it's a fib because it's not at all in line with what she said before, and it's not funny enough to be sarcastic humor about the original argument; it just seems like an evasion.

I definitely think she did not want to get into it. I don't think the Ikea explanation was sarcastic humor, though, just a big fat fibola. (But what do I know?)

Because the reason restaurants (and I) only use a brush is that soaking mushrooms in water makes them mushy and nasty?

Aha! That clears up yet another mystery. I've tried the tasting on the tip of the tongue method with limited success. The bread & butter method never occurred to me. Thanks very much for the suggestion. It wil be fun to try this. Pat W. ← This is especially true because the texture/shape of the crystal really does make a difference in the flavor experience, and you can get that much better in the bread-and-butter scenario. PS. Maldon salt is my favorite!