Alex

From NerdSnacks, this week's Meme of the Week:

OK, I know there's a lot of unwarranted and overheated concern about GMOs, but this one, I dunno.

Flavedo was M-W's Word of the Day on May 28. It's defined as I also learned its literal flip side, albedo, which is I knew that word only for its primary definition:

Dijon

It was a "Judge John Hodgman" column. Here's a shareable link.

And if it ever asks you for a companion, you can get it this one (which I do have; maybe we can arrange a play date and see how it goes).

From the New Yorker:

I've made Jeni's Roasted Strawberry & Buttermilk Ice Cream with great success.

That's a panisse you see here, from our recent dinner at Bulrush

Thanks for the report about the boulangerie. I went right by there a couple of weeks ago but it didn't even register! Foo. I even had a snippet of conversation with my Airbnb hosts (he's a retired -- for now -- restaurateur) about the lack of excellent bakeries in DC save for Bread Furst.

The bread wasn't part of the meal. He included the recipe because one of our "parting gifts" was a little packet of two watermelon seeds (I forget the varietal) for us to plant. The first course was my favorite, with its unusual and unexpected flavors, construction, and presentation. The smoked catfish ice cream was the most challenging course. It worked, but I don't think I'll be making anything similar (Great Lakes smoked whitefish around here) at home. The only dud, imo, was the short rib dish. It was Rob's riff on Ozarkian meat and three, but it was a bit of a snoozer for me—although compensation was provided by the accompanying Syrah from the Languedoc, Monsieur Petit Myrmidon 2019 (not Myridon—a typo in the menu). Here's the rest of the handout that was in our parting package:

May 7 it was...

Pray tell, what is so horribly risky about eating the occasional -- and properly prepared -- deep-fried food?

beurre orange And amen to chromedome's salad dressing.

Good article in The Atlantic

All I did was quote the author. That's why the recipe was in a quote box. Perhaps you should send him a message instead of me.

Farokh Talati, in Parsi, says:

Yes. Or with Manchego and fig jam.

Or this Fiat 500:

G-f doenjang is available. This is the one I use.

And, after all, it's the Land of Oz, where metric reigns.

C'mon, don't be obtuse about baking instructions.

No kidding. Just yesterday I picked up a copy of David Chang and Priya Krishna's Cooking at Home (from the library), and a startling number of pages have white type (albeit large) on a mustard-yellow background. Grrrr.

Ants in DC! (and grasshoppers) Tom Sietsema's review in the WaPo

The AI program "Midjourney" is still unclear about how to eat spaghetti. There are a bunch of pictures on the website; this is just one of them.