Priscilla

Nice pizza on the old pizza stone, pesto & thinly sliced self-styled heirloom tomato & mozz atop. Crispy salad mix with Balsamic & olive oil. Barolo. (Edited to add: And, later, Korova cookies from Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets, as indicated in Ling's cookie-dough discussion. What a treasure to have in the fridge. Among the Best Cookies Ever. Simultaneously elegant and homely -- an excellent combination.)

Adam, your blog has been such a pleasure to read. Thank you!

Last evening, easy-peasey lemon-squeezey, nice little chicken which had been butterflied and salted/peppered and left to dry in the fridge for a couple days, cooked near the top of a quick oven. Landed atop crunchy Romaine dressed with olive oil & Balsamic. Il Fornaio ciabatta. Saltylicious Tillamook butter. Rose of Cotes du Rhone.

You mean "101 ways with mince"? Usually, serve as is tonight, but if I have guests I will make papadelle to go with it. Or I will use it to make lasagna, stuff cannelloni or Moussaka. The lasagna is either a Northern Italian version or a more free form Sicillian "shitty lasagna". If I make Moussaka, as there are two of us I mostly make it in the form of Papoutsakia (little shoes/slippers) like this: Or sometimes I alter it into a chili or other such thing. Edit: Obviously I don't use the same flavouring for all these. In this Papoutsakia for instance, I used oregano, all spice cinnamon and a tiny bit of pine honey. ← You may call it "101 Ways with Mince," if you like, provided you do so in an arch, ironic, post-modern fashion. Moussaka, eh? Looks delicious, and I like the very cute, imam bayeldi-esque presentation. Occasionally I use some of a batch of ragu to make risotto -- I think you have said you are not the risotto cook in your house, though -- and that's nice too. You inspire me to a little leeway in ragu making. Usually I feel Marcella Hazan's presence quite strongly in the kitchen when making this sauce, and she is a very stern taskmistress.

I know I know I know I just find simple stupid mistake more irritating than big smart ones.

Great piece, great placement, etc.! Only, wowee but what was with the leaving out of the word? Newspaper of record. Pfui.

Aaaah ragu. Even with so much to cook in the world, (I always say, too much to cook! I'll never get to it all!), a worthy biweekly exploration. Adam when you get a chance could you discuss the favorite ways you use your ragu.

Aaah I love the Marcella chicken method. Looks just beeyootiful, Susan. Last evening, tostadas. Nice flour tortillas fried crisp. On top: Homemade refried beans, nice beef braised 'till way falling-apart done with ground New Mexico chile, also some Penzey's Chili Powder Medium they sent me as a free sample with my latest order; a good way to get some cumin in, and not bad overall, as blends go. Chopped farmer's market tomatoes. Delicious Hass avocado cubed. Shredded Colby-Jack. Finely shredded cabbage. Homemade green salsa, whose tomatillos, cilantro, and jalapenos were from the same nice lady at the farmer's market. Crema. For the grownups, icy Sapporo, Japan's Oldest Beer.

Two more, on purpose, both related to recent eG reading, both long overdue! Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets, and Totally Hot! by Charles Perry & two co-writers.

Thanks! Seems like if the salmon were nicely coated and dropped into a hot enough medium, activating the interior fat, the contrast between rich inside and crunchy outside could be very good. Perhaps I will finally give this a try here before salmon season is over.

LMF I have often contemplated battered fried salmon, but never have done. Can you elaborate on the preparation? Last night when the temp began to drop a little just NY strips grilled over mesquite, baked potatoes with butter, sour cream, chives, loads of s & p, lovely Romaine salad bracingly dressed with the not-at-all-bad supermarket Colavita Balsamic and ex. virg. olive oil. Baguette from the Vietnamese bakery. (So nice to have chives back in the garden. The stand of years-old plants mysteriously and in concert packed it in last year. Burgeoning new plantings are a pure joy to see. And eat.) Been years since I had a regular old baked potato -- mmmm good. More essential than the steak, I thought; a minority opinion of one against two.

Let the blood go through, as opposed to out? If through means through, the idea being that the blood not going out but staying in gamifies the taste of the non-wild duck? I like that little cook's aside at the end, "...and you will not know the difference."

I guess my cooking coud be called undisciplined contemporary Australian cooking. Although, not in Australia as it sounds a bit poncy. I come from Melbourne, which is incredibly multi-ethnic. This is an easy term to use, often people talk about in relation to London for instance, but on a per capita basis, Melbourne has much more diversity. Anyway, I am comfortable with lots of different types food and I like to cook. So although I have ~ 300 cookbooks, only two of these are chefs books, the vast majority being along the lines of "The cooking of SW-France", "Imperial Mongolian Cuisine", "Sicilian cooking" etc etc. So the best advise I have is cook, read, vist markets, talk to people about their food and cook some more. A very good place to start bookwise is with Grub street publishing (scroll down to 3. World Cookery Series) for instance. * edit: Just to be clear, I have nothing against Chef cookbooks, just explaining my experiences. Infact, I would like more of these books as they are strong on technique, which is what I and many of my cookbooks lack. ← Adam, aside from your constant and thoroughgoing research, it is exactly this continual, enthusiatic evolution that makes you such a fine cook -- makes me think of Madeleine Kamman's preferred term "personal cuisine," rather than a label like "nouvelle" or "fusion" or whatever. It's vital for any cook to be able to openmindedly examine everything that crosses his cooking purview, judging its applicability independently. Even when attempting an accurate historical rendition of a dish this attitude makes all the diff, keeping things exciting rather than stodgy. You know what I mean?

Adam, do you photograph all your kitchen mishaps? I love the oxtail photo, looks like some undersea creature. Await its transformation as you impose your will upon it.

Last evening, after a hot day working in the garden, chicken grilled not too fast on the old Weber after being skinned & marinated in Golchin brand chicken kebab seasoning. Tomato & onion salad with mint, lemon, olive oil, s & p; wonderful farmer's market tomatos and deelicious sweet CA high-desert onions. Eggplant from the same nice lady at the farmer's market, sliced grilled dressed. FoodMan's perfect Rice & Vermicelli (in RecipeGullet), with the addition of a couple of T. of rich chicken stock I had kicking around. A nice flatbread I'd made a couple of weeks ago and stashed in the freezer which had Turkish Aleppo pepper, little bit of Pecorino Romano, crunchy salt on top, heated over the dying embers. Cold pink wine, rose of Cotes du Rhone, so good.

Hee! Chufi, such situations are one of dessert's major reason for being, I think. Last evening, sashimi selection, seaweed salad (from the Japanese market), nice rice from the old cooker. Individual okonomiyaki with sliced belly pork cooked crisp, and a quail egg broken on top after the final turn. (Kewpie mayonnaise, Otafuku okonomiyaki sauce.) Pocky for dessert, three flavors: Fhncy Choco-Banana Decorer, new fave of the 13-year-old and his Dad; Almond Crisp, not too bad; Coconut, toastylicious.

Gorgeous presentation. But but but ... how does one forget one's spouse hates monkfish. It is not a favorite of mine, either, but I am open to being convinced by a preparation that controlled for textural issues.

Adam, wonderful meat and fish purveyors. Just enviable. Have you ever taken advantage of the brining service? What is commonly or popularly brined? And, you chose, um, monkfish? I trust you'll be detailing its preparation. What about veg. Your kitchen is beautiful! Please detail materials, reasons for choosing, etc.

Last evening, a big Cobbish salad, which was only composed for a couple of minutes before being tossed so does not qualify for inclusion in the current eG cookoff. Looked very nice for those moments, however. Leftover grilled chicken, tomatoes, applewood-smoked bacon, excellent Hass avocado, small mountain of crispy Romaine. All reduced to strips and tossed with homemade chunky Gorgonzola dressing. LBB sourdough bread. Cold pink wine.

The fruit becomes bright orange/red and very sweet, kind of a weird watery seedy texture but very cooling. I do remember eating the paddles, blanched in a salad. Very similar to the mexican dish, actually. Both the fuit and paddles need some heavy cleaning to get rid of the thorns. ← Sure would love to know the Lebanese preparations!I love cactus salad. I have cut and cleaned the paddles myself, a treacherous task indeed, so always consider it a special gift when the nice lady at the farmer's market has bags of prepped paddles for sale. The fruit on the variety growing in my Southern California canyon ripens to dusty grapey purple, but the flesh inside is lovely intense magenta. Excellent for sorbetto. The fruit are more difficult than the paddles to clean, some of the worst spines are of hairlike thinness, nearly invisible.

Beautiful travelogue, Behemoth. How are the cactus fruit used? Are the paddles eaten too, as in Mexican cuisine?

Looking forward to the fruits of this blog, DtheC. And, possibly relevant: Aren't you the man to ask about brining shrimp? As in, do you? And, more pointedly timely, will you be? I have a dedicated needlenose pliers for pinbone removal, although when I saw the surgical nurse around the corner whipping 'em out of an Arctic char filet with a hemostat I became envious. Please show them in action if the situation presents itself.

As soon as the hot weather breaks I will be on the lookout for fish to revisit this dish. I have had to pass up some good candidates during the course of this discussion because of avoiding oven cookery ... frustrating!

Last evening, late, hungry. Almost as if by magic I was served a delicious bacon cheeseburger by the man of the house. My contribution was pouring the inexpensive Syrah. Later, brandy and Ritter Sport biscuit.

Oh not being able to cook is the worst thing about really hot weather. In the market the other day very nice lamb shanks were mocking me -- "Wouldn't we be lovely braised for hours and served with orange-rosemary gremolata? Hmmm?" But it was Italian sliced meats, bread and cheese instead.