Susan in FL

Yes, always salads as part of dinner growing up, and usually tossed salad... However, my mom never used bottled dressing or made a vinaigrette! She always splashed on some oil and vinegar and tossed it in a great big bowl. Maybe it was an Italian thing. I do that quite often now. The lettuce was often iceberg, and sometimes romaine and/or arugula -- only they called the arugula roquette when I was growing up. Usually there were cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, onions, and maybe olives, chick peas, or a special addition in it also. Salads were usually eaten after the main course, and that's what Russ and I do now and did when we were raising our kids. More times than not, we have a salad as part of our dinners now. One thing that I guess is rather weird about us now is that we like iceberg lettuce. It's not the usual, but at least once every couple of weeks we get a head of that and either have it as part of a tossed salad, or have it with tomatoes, onions, blue cheese, and a vinaigrette. Sometimes our salads are fancy, with mixed baby greens or whatever, and sometimes they are as simple as sliced tomatoes. The addition of toasted pine nuts is pretty common for us, too. Salad habits, what a cool topic! Remember chopped salads? They appear regularly at our house!

Awesome, everybody. Some awesome things are going on here, too. We are five hours into dinner now. We started cooking, eating, and drinking at 2:30 this afternoon. Except before that, hours ago, I started a demi-glace making project. This is fun -- the main activity of our afternoon, evening, and most of the night. If you count the pre-dinner snacks, it's seven courses, and it's a Pinot Noir Dinner. We have two good bottles of wine, and we decided to have a glass of each before us throughout rather than what we had planned, which was going to be one bottle with the first half and the other bottle with the second half. We are comparing a California Pinot Noir and an Oregon Pinot Noir. The California wine I bought while on my recent trip, after tasting it in the winery: 2003 Wild Horse Unbridled, Bien Nacido Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley. The other Pinot Noir, from Oregon, I never heard of before I saw it in the store. It is 2003 Cricklewood, Willamette Valley. The Oregon is less than half as expensive as the Wild Horse! Our before dinner snack was the liver, gizzard, and heart of the duck that Russ cut up, and some nice crispy cracklings, and a Mojito in a Pinot Noir glass. Gotta go... We're in between courses, and duty (pleasure) calls... I'll be back!

I am reminding myself that the only stupid question is the one not asked... Kris, what does bento actually mean? And bento boxes? Clearly it's a lunch box/packed lunch, but does it have more meaning than that? In my favorite sushi restaurant in this area, there are two entrees that are called bento dinners or something like that, and I've never been sure if they are primarily for take-out, or if it's proper for eating in the restaurant.

Good morning! I was wondering what the "morning after" was going to be like.

And speaking of food photos I love to look at, there are Percy's eggs-and-whatever shots. Yesterday I ate breakfast for a second weekday in a row. I tried to cook my egg so it would look like Percy's, and taste like what Percy's look like they taste like, and get a close-up picture like Percy's. It definitely doesn't look like it was cooked by Percy, but it tasted good. We love fish and eggs for breakfast and this was a great leftover to reheat, potato-crusted mahi.

WOW!!! Beautiful! I could just sit and stare at some of your food photos, and these are two of them. I wish I could reach out and grab a bite.

That's the attitude! We all know that being a good planner, which you are, is an advantage for eG Foodbloggers, but who woulda thought that your flexibility and adaptability would be such an asset? Kudos to you. This continues to be great, and maybe the one with the most suspense ever.

Pre- and post- sunset porch dining, so happy to be where it's not turning cold ..... Something I've always wanted to do, I did last night, lemongrass from our yard as skewers. We had citrus and herb marinated shrimp and scallops as a starter, followed by pork tenderloin that was dry-rubbed with garlic, ginger, S&P, and cumin; potato gratin with mushrooms and sweet onions; and salad of spinach, pear, pancetta, and blue cheese.

This is an adventure in eating, for sure. Too cool! I would love to do it. Are you at liberty to say how much this 60 day flight pass costs?

Well, that law is a new one on me...

Kathy, again thanks for the recipe. I have to muster up the courage to make something like those beignets, unless Russ will do it and I'll just be the helper. I did not make this. I couldn't resist one of these cream cheese croissants at the bakery I discovered last night and I saved it for breakfast this morning.

Like Davebr, I had an awesome meal at Cypress. It is fresh and interesting, but about the not expensive part, it depends on your budget. I thought it was reasonably priced for such quality and delicious food.

Tonight I went to the markets and a new bakery and bought the fish that was freshest, and the produce and other ingredients that looked best, and came home and put it together. The only thing planned ahead was to make a rice salad with leftover rice from last night. Dinner turned out to be potato & garlic crusted mahi; sunburst squash, zucchini, and baby carrots cooked in chicken stock with a splash of verjuice at the end; the rice salad with arugula, scallions, Kalamata olives, pine nuts, etc.; and bread & butter; with little fresh apple tarts for dessert. Sometimes when we plan to be spontaneous it works out very well. It was all good.

What a good idea. Looks delicious!

Thanks for the recommendation of the Kashi mini wheat type cereal. I'll try it. Our cereal taste buds are also related, Susan.

Welcome home, Wendy. Yummm..... You came back in style! My camera has stayed alive and well for a while longer, I guess. So at least temporarily, I'm back to picture taking. Last night's dinner, first night home from California: Roasted Lemongrass Chicken featured lemongrass from our backyard. To go with it, I made a broccoli stir-fry generally following this recipe, but using regular broccoli -- love that Thai yellow bean sauce -- and Jasmine rice cooked the Hot Sour Salty Sweet way.

Sounds good, Susan. (We ended up with regular broccoli, too.)

Same here, Wendy. In fact, I had never heard of it, pre-eG. I have to cook this because it is so pretty, if for no other reason!

I can't believe you are thinking about cooking an Asian-inspired chicken and stir-fried broccoli. I planned to do this recipe and a stir-fry of broccoli (unless Russ could find Chinese broccoli) for dinner tonight! The Susans are on the same track.

It really looked like infomercial-style copy, or like those ads detailing one person's personal experience with weight loss that they are now willing to share with you if you cough up some money. I do think he could benefit from more professional looking copy and layout.... ← Yes, definitely. I've gotten two or three Rosengarten newsletters with links to these infomercial-style, unprofessional-looking sales pitches of his. It really disappoints me about him since I am a Rosengarten fan.

The citrusy hops, mostly. Maybe the bottle you had wasn't the freshest? ...Or maybe it's just not your cup of tea. My own word for the kind of hops flavor that I am drawn to is "zesty" citrus. That might not be descriptive to anybody but me, but it comes to mind when one hoppy beer appeals to me more than another. This was interesting to me also because the citrus seems more lemony than many that we are able to buy. I suppose some might think this beer is too one-dimensional. Has anybody tasted the Mojo IPA?

...No! While I would not buy it, I would never consider someone who does -- especially someone belonging to eGullet -- stupid for doing so. I am really looking forward to hearing about it. All the better for you, if you actually really love turkey. I don't hate it; a whole turkey is just something that I prefer way less than just about everything else available. I do cook one once or twice a year, and like the tradition part of it. We brine it and sometimes smoke it. I've also got a recipe that loads it with rosemary and garlic, and we enjoy that. But, pay that for the turkey... If I liked turkey like you do, I would; however, I am in the hell no contingent. I am one who would pay that much for a prime rib roast and have! Please keep us posted.

It has been fun watching Hide grow during the time from one blog to another. The time difference is a cool feature of this Tag Team Foodblog. We get to be entertained round the clock! Sweet Dreams, Kris. Good Morning, Susan .....Hope I got that right. I returned home from California last night, only a three hour difference, and I'm having a hard time keeping myself oriented to time.

I was a bit curious about "is sweeping North America" too, since I had never heard of it. This is so far removed from something I would do for meals in my home, I guess I am ignorant of such things. However, I'm sure several moms where I work, etc. would appreciate such a service, and I imagine it has good potential to be a successful business. JGM, I can see trying it out for the reasons you did. Interesting, thanks.

Ahhh... The entrance to the home of my all time favorite beer. Thank you so much, Percy! It's good just seeing that picture, and I look forward to the spin-off thread on Victory Brewing Co.! And thank you as well for the entire blog. It was wonderful.