Priscilla

New York strips in the big old Griswold outside on the butane burner. Oven-roasted yellow potato cubes, crusty and brown. Skinny asparagus. Sourdough bread. A little mayonnaise for condimenting, traditional with these items (except the bread) among the Russians I know. (Best Foods orange-top mayonesa did admirably.)

Wow the convergence of dates -- very very serendipitous! Can't help but bode well for this blog, Susan! The prospect of duck and risotto bears this out already. Good work on the b.d. dinner choosing, Russ!

I thought that might a dumpling on the side of Percyn's Budapest sausage plate... looks very yum. Last evening, with 2 hours of Stargate SG-1 looming, pizza definitely indicated. Two pizzas, one with a thick schmear of pesto made with basil from the garden and mozz, and the other with delicious supersmokey uncured bacon, tomato from the garden, and thinly sliced raw onion, mozz & a little mild cheddar. Nice redleaf salad bracingly dressed with Balsamic and olive oil. The nearly-14-year old additionally had a banana with Alton Brown's Cocoa Syrup, which is quite like the Hershey's it is meant to evoke. The grownups had the rest of the wine.

Last evening, nice pizza topped with slices of eggplant grilled earlier in the week, a shower of thyme leaves from the garden, very thin-sliced raw onion, mozz. Redleaf salad bracingly dressed with Balsamic and olive oil. Some kinda inexpensive vin d'Oc from Trader Joe's, pretty good.

Just an ass-kicking piece of writing, Charles. The imagery is startling in its familiarity and intimacy, the slightly too-loud guests taking their leave, the near-24-hour window from tomato-foraging to dish-doing, the idle consumption of ends of cheese and bread and wine. Wowee. Surely a little room-temp mineral water kicking around too, a hedge against dehydration. Best thing I've read in ages and ages and ages.

People, please: Martha's going-home poncho is crocheted, not knitted. Signed, Inveterate Crocheter

Wow beautiful photos Adam! I think it speaks exceedingly well of Hydra that its port cats are so fat and sleek. Not always the case! I like those garfish. Don't they also get huge?

The night before the first day of high school, cheeseburgers were the request. Fresh-ground from chuck (fresh-ground already tastes so good; much better even when ground just minutes before shaping and cooking). Into a superhot pan until very rare in the middle, Colby-Jack on top, excellent heirloom tomato, crispy lettuce, sweet onion, pickle chips for those who like that sort of thing. Lay's Original and MST3K's Sidehackers on the side.

Last evening, homemade pasta, fettucine, with a blue-cheese sauce based on the old favorite Gorgonzola one in Marcella Hazan's first book, only made with the rest of the St. Agur. I had hatched this plot way back on Saturday afternoon, standing in the cheese store having just that moment tasted the St. Agur, realizing instantly it would be perfect for this sauce. Also a lovely tomato salad made from a giant very ripe oxheart tomato sliced and dressed with a big shower of chiffonade of basil and olive oil and balsamic, s & p. Crusty LBB baguette, saltylicious butter.

Sunday's dinner was the fruit of Saturday's visit to a new cheese store (Artisan Cheese Gallery in Studio City, nice little store, friendly staff, well-cared-for cheese). We came away with five varieties, including two blues from Auvergne neither of which was the eponym for eG's Bleudauvergne, but Fourme d'Ambert and St. Agur. And a CA sheep's milk cheese about whose name I am ambivalent, Lamb Chopper, and an English Derby with elderberry wine. One other I ferget. Il Fornaio ciabatta and LBB crusty multi-grain, saltylicious butter, a couple of very good tomatoes, and thinly sliced Columbus dry black pepper salami. Bottle of Bonny Doon Splendido Segaro that'd been kicking around. Very nice. (Edit: Errant hyphen. AND the u Heather reminded me of.)

Lovely illustrative pix, Moby. I look forward to trying your method, it seems so straightforward compared to others I've followed over the years. On the pig blood front, here in Southern California Asian supermarkets have it ... maybe the same is true in the UK.

Last night, a nice top sirloin which had been soaking in ex. virg. olive oil, some sliced garlic, rosemary, sage, mint from the garden, cracked black pepper for a couple of days, cooked in a hot oven with convection as an experiment, an experiment that worked! Rested and sliced thinly and arrayed over red potatoes mashed with sour cream and chives and butter. Il Fornaio ciabatta. Caprese salad with basil also from the garden, and fresh mozz.

I think about New Orleans often. I think about walking from the streetcar to the Audubon Zoo and being lucky enough to see the white tiger sitting up on his elbows all perfection in Sphinxocity, and then a moment later he was crouched like a cucaracha, convulsively horking up a hairball just like any old kittycat. I think about happily slogging through otherworldly humidity, drawn into the Old Absinthe House by the music coming out its open doors -- blind Brian Lee and the Jump Street Five! They were incredible! The nice cocktail waitress hustling to bring vodka gimlet after vodka gimlet and Old Fashioned after Old Fashioned. I learned in New Orleans that if it is humid enough and you keep moving, you can drink vodka gimlet after vodka gimlet. Course I was high in other ways too. We grooved on Brian Lee and Miss Maggie and his incredible musicians a long while but eventually hadda go, and I learned in New Orleans that one can get her last vodka gimlet to go in a plastic cup if she do desired. I think about getting in on the train and running straight to the Central Grocery for a delicious muffeleta, because of having ripped through Calvin Trillin's food-related books shortly before. I don't know what it's like nowadays, but the guy made our sandwich right before our eyes, plenty of olive salad, and we pulled a Dixie beer outta the machine, and it was all so good. We found we liked Felix's better than Mr. Trillin's beloved Acme for oysters, although nobody's gonna be kicking Acme outta bed for eating crackers neither. We just found it so comfortable to sit at Felix's and accumulate a tippy stack of dented bent aluminum trays, from dozen after dozen after dozen. And maybe a soft-shell crab po' boy in there, too. Like Chris, I remember the oysters being ridiculously cheap. And also like Chris, I had gone deep into Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen before getting the chance to go to K-Paul's, and, (like Chris) once there, against all expectations, it was the bread basket that blew my mind! I love the jalapeno cheese, but I sat there at the table extra happy, because I knew, I knew, at home in my copy of the book was the recipe for those rolls made from Paul Prudhomme's Mother's White Bread in our bread basket, which were something like the Platonic ideal of white bread rolls. Ineffable. Sharing our table (all tables were shared, and no reservations accepted, at that time at K-Paul's) was an American girl and her French boyfriend who lived together in Paris, where we had recently visited, and so conversation flowed, even though they insisted on informing us about some pesky self-imposed dietary restrictions I can't remember clearly, but which the Old Man and I did not let rain on our parade. Turns out over there in Paris this girl was also cooking wildly through CPPLK, which was why she brought her boyfriend there this evening. And, our sweet young very-pregnant waitress told us her husband was one of the Neville Brothers. I ate mirlitons with andouille and Cajun béarnaise, and the Old Man feasted on blackened prime rib, a dish we'd seen Chef Paul prepare on PBS sometime earlier and which had sorta seemed like a dream, and was now a dream come true. One day we had arranged to meet a friend of mine from school who worked for the museum there on Jackson Square, and he emerged wearing a by-God blue seersucker suit, and took us to Mr. B's where I think I had soft-shelled crab and I think it was fabulous. Before we got back on the Sunset Limited to go home, we bought Zapp's potato chips and the Central Grocery's olive salad and another sandwich for the trip, and garlic-vapored up our small compartment like mad.

What a dinner! That sure was Japan Day for you. ← At our house we strive to have Japan Day as often as possible! (Forgot to say, we also watched Dotchi cooking show that evening.)

Hiroyuki, thank you so much for the pictorial. You inspired me yesterday to jettison my original dinner plans and make yakisoba instead! (I posted about it over on Dinner!) Yay!

Another excellent run of dinners. Wow, SO glad to get a better look at Bombdog's rack of lamb. Beautiful! Susan, I notice amidst the carapaces that the Sierra Nevada PA level remains the same. Surely a coincidence of photo-taking. Yesterday, after seeing Hiroyuki's instructional pictorial over on the Japan forum, ran out to the Japanese market for what we needed and experienced success with yakitori at home! A perfect dish to cook outside over the butane burner. We also had a sashimi selection from the Japanese market. Broccoli florets with a touch of Kewpie mayonnaise on the side, and my homemade cabbage pickle. Icy Sapporo beer. Yum.

I had made bagels, so we had a platter of smoked salmon, big old sliced tomato, nice sweet onion, cream cheese, saltylicious butter, half-sour pickles, oil-cured olives.

Nancy, your blog is great! There can never be too much detail about such interesting things. (Your big pale tortoiseshell cat is beautiful. Of course the others are too!)

Susan, could you detail your grits preparation? What made these sososo good? The whole shrimp & grits category is such a rich trove.

No crashing necessary, MarketStEl ... everybody's welcome! Esp. if they bring nachos. Last evening, lovely pale bockwurst from the German sausage maker. Mild German mustard. Boiled buttered parslied yellow potatoes. Sturdy delicious slightly sour rye bread cut from the gigantic loaf at the sausage maker's shop, with saltylicious Kerrygold butter. Bonny Doon Pacific Rim Riesling. Salad of beautiful butter lettuce whole leaves with a beloved dressing, Nero Wolfe's own (from The Nero Wolfe Cookbook), the one that he says should take 8 minutes to make, at table of course. I made mine shortly before service as a meal-staging strategy, but it was still so good. Wonderful to have fresh tarragon burgeoning in the garden, to be able to make this dressing, and to anticipate putting up lots of tarragon vinegar. (Edited somewhat to revise Amazon link; the recipe is viewable with the Look Inside this Book feature, but I can't copy that exact link for some reason. It's on p. 209 of the current edition, p. 179 in my old Viking one. Searching for gherkins with the Amazon feature turns it up, too.)

Last evening, a thick slab of top sirlion which had been sitting quietly in the fridge for a day with rosemary, mint, sage, tiny bit of lavender, s & p added, on the old Weber over indirect heat. Cooked to rare, sliced thinly on the diagonal and arrayed with risotto made with light beef stock that'd been simmering during the day, few crumbles of gorgonzola stirred through & Pecorino Romano. Beeyootiful salad of butter lettuce with (olive) oil & (Balsamic) vinegar. LBB sourdough. Not-bad old-vine Zinfandel.

A couple of weeks ago I'd made a flourless peanut butter cookie from this Epicurious recipe -- excellent. The dough is delicious (I used my vanilla sugar rather than extract, and added a big pinch of salt too). The second time I made the recipe I rolled the dough into a log to chill & slice, rather than do the trad-looking individual cross-hatched balls as the recipe directs, and I liked the more elegant presentation, as well as the differentiation -- I have nothing against trad peanut butter cookies, that's for sure. With a log of Korova and a log of the flourless peanut butter in the fridge, a person could face nearly any challenge.

For various unserious reasons dinner plans were unsettled. Then all at once it became clear, it was SpagBol to the rescue. Had a ragu Bolognese in the fridge, having ground a nice tri-tip for burgers the other day and used some (ground again; I like it really fine for ragu) for making sauce. While not passing Marcella Hazan muster, fat spaghetti is really good with r.B. Nice crispy salad mix dressed bracingly with Balsamic and olive oil. Bread. Bonny Doon Cigare Volant variant. MST3K's The Pod People. Good save!

OK, having acted on Ling's commendation, I can report that the Korova cookies are easily among the Best All-Time. As dough, and baked as well, although the latter is off-topic in this discussion.(Edited to fix quote prob)

MtheC, YUM, in every sense of the word.