Priscilla

Last night panko-crusted scallops on way-done, very soft cabbage braised with onion and a little garlic, the scallops brown and crispy, barely done in the middle, plenty of salt and pepper. Beautiful giant head of cabbage from one of the organic guys at the farmer's market, big as a Replogle globe, the cabbage, not the guy, couldn't resist it. I'll make good use of what I didn't braise. The Magic of Panko. (Similar to, but much paler in power than, The Magic of Bacon.) Priscilla

Col Klink, short ribs seem ideally suited to smoking. Course I am thinking this just now because you introduced the concept. But I already think about short ribs in general, don't I? Wilfrid, you've mentioned Nero Wolfe, but I can't remember if you investigated his (well, Fritz's) shad roe preparations or not. Also, I know he's unfashionable, but Craig Claiborne, RIP, wrote quite a bit about shad roe. His series Craig Claiborne's Favorites, collections of his NYT columns, is interesting historically, and just, how you say, chockablock, with useful information. I like all his books. Stellabella, that is just what I do, run the sponge thingy and the drain stopper through the dishwasher when they appear to need it. I think Martha Bitch Genius would support us in this, although in so saying perhaps I am just projecting a craving for validation from an Unattainable Celebrity. Jinmyo, the flavor profiles of your meals are absolutely mind-blowing--and make perfect sense. I can think about them all day long. Priscilla

Cooked, from Richard Olney, braised lamb with unpeeled cloves of garlic. I added mint and sage I found outside, sauce later forced through a sieve and returned to severely deglazed pan. He Richard Olney was adamant about not ending up with too much sauce, no more than to coat each piece of lamb, and I followed him all the way there and concluded that he was correct in this. Simple and good. Quite homely. The lamb was shoulder, cut into thick chops by the clueless but pleasant meat guy, good form for the long braise. Broccoli, cooked (through), at room temp, dressed with olive oil and vinegar and salt and pepper, large croutons with Lurpak butter and cheese melted over. Priscilla

Hey, Wilfrid, the Consort follows the one-shaker-per-person rule, too! (I suppose it's kind of a civilized-sized shaker, but still.) Sometimes I do take a little one hopes ladylike hit off his hands, Negroni is truly a beautiful and delicious drink, but yowsa, there IS that knocking-sideways thingy, helped along by that magical alchemic easy-drinking quality that belies its 100% alcohol content. Not that I have anything against alcohol content, mind. What do you eat with Negronis? We always seem to require strong-tasting somethings, like canned smoked oysters, even. Priscilla

Usually it's Campari & soda for me, when Campari is indicated. But the other evening when my Consort was having a Negroni I tried the grapefruit juice/Campari recommended and vetted previously here, and it was great! Fresh-squeezed juice from local dark-pink grapefruit. Convenient to get one's Vitamin C and bioflavinoids during cocktail hour. And someone here might well know the answer to this: Is that other Italian liqueur, Cynar, with the beautiful artichoke label, basically the same as Campari? (Allowing for proprietary formulas, of course.) I seem to remember it being even more bitter, in a good way, but I haven't had it for a long time. Must investigate. Priscilla

Last night I roasted a chicken, priming the pump with Lurpak butter, a cultured butter from Denmark that is sold at my local Persian market. Chary about imported butter in general on account of the rancidity thing, but this was fresh and fragrant. Also roasted asparagus, beautiful organic asparagus from the guy at the farmer's market, among the best-tasting asparagus ever, we thought. This seems to be a good year for asparagus. During basting sessions I also basted the asparagus with the butter and rendering chicken fat. Sourdough bread and apricot preserves and more of what remained in the chicken roasting pan. Carved chicken served on a few leaves of lettuce sprinkled with tarragon vinegar. Plenty of salt and pepper, from beginning to end. I would dearly love to see this compendium get large and unwieldy! Gives a person hope, doesn't it, in addition to making a person hungry, imagining all this cooking going on all around the world. Priscilla

Thank you, Wilfrid. I thought it was intelligent too, and hope it adds something to the growing body of thought on the subject. Growing here on eGullet, I mean. It's made fascinating reading. So many facets (and according to the article, so many ingredients!) to examine, and dovetailing with Fast Food Nation, a connection already cited here by others. I learned a while ago from vegetarian teeny neighbors that the In-n-Out Burger Secret Menu has an item for them: Grilled cheese, so-called, cheese and all the toppings except meat. I've been thinking since that this goes on at other fast food joints, too, but maybe not. In-n-Out is a particularly nice company. Priscilla

Sunday's Opinion section of my local Newspaper of Record included an article about the hapless BK Veggie. In this attempt to 1., be a good eGullet citizen, and, 2., participate in this what I think computerheads call "imbedding a hot link," I also ask forgiveness in advance for posting failure and/or incorrect terminology. So OK. Here's hoping. Priscilla

Last evening I served pasta with Bolognese sauce, sauce made hewing pretty closely to Marcella Hazan’s instructions in her first book, and also a very nice salad of BEAUTIFUL greenleaf from an organic grower at the farmer’s market. A few fresh favas with sea salt and olive oil so that my Consort (OK, as Tommy said hilariously elsewhere, now I've offended mySELF) would have something to look at and eat beforehand--a partial appeasement. He doesn't consider pasta a proper meal, all by itself. (Per consort, I think for me it’s going to have to be My Old Man, or something, you know, like the Hippies used to say. Hey, isn’t there an applicable Cockney rhyming slang? I know Trouble and Strife….) Tonight, (at this point in the a.m., anyways) my plan is to sorta riff on Wilfrid’s leftover-lamb thing from the other night and mustard and panko and sauté nice slices of already-roasted still-pink lamb. On more of the greenleaf. If including prep music would not go amiss: Zombies Greatest Hits last evening…you know, it’s good to remind oneself every now and then that Rod Argent WROTE those fantastic songs. Most times it is pleasant and so very easy to just lose oneself in the cloud of Colin Blunstone’s ethereal vocals and the aforementioned R. Argent’s keyboard, oh, let’s call ‘em stylings. Priscilla

I used to rely on Maille for all my Dijon needs. But for a long time now the only Maille available to me (here in California) is dosed with citric acid. A big detriment to flavor, in my opinion. There may well be different formulas shipped to different places, one imagines, if one also is imagining that one is being short-changed whilst the rest of the world fairly drowns in citric-acid-free Maille Dijon mustard. So I peruse mustard labels everywhere, and manage somehow. German markets, I can offer from experience, perhaps to no one's surprise, are good places to shop for mustards. Pizen short on the Dijons, though. Priscilla

I am (perhaps inordinately) interested in what folks cook in their own kitchens. I can pretty much WEAR OUT those who cross my purview quizzing them on the subject; not everyone is renewedly galvanized by the Search for Ingredients as I am, it seems, or, has even a superficial interest in those beatifying moments when raw materials and inspiration converge serendipitously. Would it be of interest to anyone else to have an eGullet topic here in Cooking about what we cooked for dinner? I am edified by the restaurant discourse, and of course home cooking finds its way into many posts already, I know I know I know, but what I am imagining would be a quotidian communal journal-type chronicle documenting what eGulletaires COOKED, for DINNER. Fancy, homely, good, not-so-good, hardcore full-on from scratch, or delicately supported by convenience foods. And then of course whether the sponge gets run through the dishwasher after cleanup, or not. What do you all think? And, what did you cook for dinner? Priscilla Management Note: The Dinner! topic proved over time to be one of our most popular topics, eventually reaching nearly a thousand pages and almost three million views before it had to be split up because the database could no longer handle it. It is now broken up by year: Dinner! 2002 (This topic) Dinner! 2003 Dinner! 2004 Dinner! 2005 Dinner! 2006 Dinner! 2007 Dinner! 2008 Dinner! 2009 Dinner! 2010 Dinner! 2011 Dinner! 2012