Susan in FL

Oh, yum. How beautiful is that.... Thanks for reviving this thread to share your etouffee experience!

Kathy, I'm at my son's house in Lemoore right now, and I'm flying home tomorrow. Damn I wish we had planned in advance. But, I'll be back! I'll PM you. More details to come, on other threads... California food is great. I've never been sure how to describe my style of cooking, but whatever it is, I can now add "with California influence" to the end of it.

I like David Rosengarten's taste in food, his recipes, his food writing, and I used to watch his TV show, but I can't imagine spending this much for a turkey, even if he does say it's good, and offers a money back guarantee. Would you pay this much for a turkey? I've turned some turkeys into good food, but I'm not that crazy over it, or in such hot pursuit of one that I will love, that I would pass up many other food items that $125.00 would buy. I am interested to hear if there are any turkey lovers who plan to order one, or have any experience with purchasing such an expensive turkey. Do you think he'll get any orders?

I just finished a 2005 Sierra Nevada Summerfest (at last!), and am starting a New Belgium Blue Paddle Pilsener Lager. It's the first of each of these for me; I'm in California. The 2005 Summerfest was what I was hoping for, and tasted as good as I remember other vintages. It has nice hops flavor for a lager, along with being smooth and refreshing. This is my kind of light beer -- not to be confused with lite beer.

I haven't been here for a while, first because I was Blogging, and after that because I was enjoying eating and going places without telling anybody and most recently because I've been here in California visiting my son and wineries. I was catching up on what I missed and as I read through the posts and looked at the great photos, ooohing and aaahing, I was clicking Add Quotes on those I wanted to compliment. I soon realized that I was accumulating a long Reply full of Quotes of almost every post. So, I'll just comment that this has been an awesome, impressive streak on the Dinner! Thread for the past couple of weeks, everyone! Yesterday as we were visiting wineries my camera died, or so I thought. It has been terminally ill recently, so it didn't come unexpectantly. However, today it has come back to life. Maybe it's in purgatory. I wish it had reincarnated and come back to me as a brand new Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D. So anyway, therefore, there are no pictures from last night's dinner that I cooked for my son, his girlfriend, his roommate, and myself in my son's kitchen ...using all fresh California ingredients and local specialties. I made guacamole to start, for dipping some good Mission corn "strips" that I don't recall seeing in Florida. On the way home from the wineries yesterday, we stopped at Harris Ranch for a tri tip. We can't find that cut of beef available in Florida, and I've heard so much about it. I marinated it and my son and I grilled it. I steamed baby red potatoes and roasted asparagus to go with it. The salad was mixed baby greens with the most beautiful raspberries I've ever seen, toasted pistachios, and balsamic vinaigrette. The wine was Dover Canyon's 2003 Alto Pomar, Alto Pomar Vineyard. This is one of the lovely wines made by our own Mary Baker, aka "Rebel Rose" and Dan, at their Dover Canyon Winery. One of the other wineries we visited yesterday was Iron Horse, and there they were giving out free heirloom tomatoes. We had a plate of those sliced with dinner, too, which was a nice touch. California is quickly becoming my second home, my second-to-Florida favorite place to be.

Ditto

Pardon my language, but holy shit. Your eggs rule. Yes, these photos are what we love about you on the breakfast thread. This one single post should be eG award winning, if there were such a thing. Oh Percy I love what your breakfast posts do to me!

We've been enjoying Hazed & Infused, a dry-hopped ale, for the past week or two since discovering a package store near our home that actually has a half-decent beer selection. The Boulder Beer Company has a new website, so I thought this would be a good time to start a discussion about the beers. The store we found has a couple of other Boulder Beers, including the Mojo IPA, and I'll certainly try that. Impressions?

Ouch. Would you care to elaborate by sharing some other observations of that beer site? As for the beer itself, I can't speak to that because I don't like many pumpkin/spiced beers.

Helena, your beer tastes and mine ususally run pretty closely together, but this is one where we part some. Brent put it beautifully. For a pilsner to have that pack of flavors and the crisp clean finish is what appeals to me. Keep trying, when you have the opportunity, perhaps with just the right food...

Percy, my thoughts are with your aunt and you, as well. Do you have other family in town? Your blog is wonderful, but know we understand that you have another priority to tend to also this week. I am in California following your blog! I went nuts for over 24 hours when I couldn't get access. I kept wondering what I was missing and needed a fix from your food porn pictorial. Now I'm caught up and I feel better.

It was going to be a surprise...but OK ← Awwwwww.......... Sweet!

Percy, I just thought of something. It wasn't among your listed choices, so I'll make it a write-in vote..... Could you/ would you stop into Victory's brew pub some day this week for a Hop Devil on tap and take a picture of it, pretty please?

These cook-off threads are inspiring whether one merely lurks or digs in with both hands. ← Well put!!

Oh my that Wegman's! I can only imagine what it's like to have an all-that-in-one store such as that. Where is the green with envy emoticon? I would love to have D'Artagnan goods without making a mail order online. The postage & handling makes it unaffordable to order on a regular basis. And truffles, where you shop! Wow. It is so nice to hear that it brought back happy memories. I see on the web site that the name is still the same. We had dinners there when I was a kid and we were visiting "Babe" or other Media and/or Swarthmore relatives. That was many years ago... talk about a walk down memory lane.... I wonder, too! Please do start visiting; both threads are beauties to behold and great for getting menu ideas.

Why thanks, I never thought of searching. Duh.

Your cabinets are the ones we had in our big remodeled kitchen in Delaware, or at least they look just like them (except some of ours had the glass fronts)! Are they QuakerMaid? Love your deck, of course, and your Man's Room and wine cooler, too... All of it looks beautiful. Speaking of Media, Percy and/or Kathy, is the Towne House restaurant still in Media? It was owned by a relative of my father's years ago. I have no idea if it is still in the family or even still there.

Yesss!! You know I've always wanted you to blog...! I am so looking forward to it. We have to see your eggs. You must include breakfasts. Enjoy!

Yes, that's right... if I can pull myself away from this Foodblog! I know the coming week promises to be mouthwatering. We'll all be drooling on our keyboards. And, what an attention-grabber that title is! The final compliments to this Foodblog are greatly appreciated as well. If I helped anyone forget about hurricanes for even a short while, I consider it a success. See you all here!

I hope this picture of the intracoastal I took earlier tonight can served as a small token of my thanks for your kind words, comments, and questions and most off all my appreciation to all of you for reading. I bid you good night and many good times to come. Cheers!

Tonight we used the new sparkling wine glasses I bought in that cool gift shop Friday afternoon after the manicure and pedicure. The salad was a favorite -- lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, and blue cheese (tonight Roaring 40's Blue) -- and the grouper on top was sauteed in our best non-stick pan (cast iron skillet).

To everyone thanking me, you are welcome! It has been my pleasure, truly. I appreciate the opportunity to share in the joy of something that is so much fun for me. I thank Russ. Given how slow I am in almost everything I do, this has taken a lot of time, and I wouldn't have been able to devote so much time to it if he hadn't done a good part of the cooking, and the dishes and cleaning up at night!!

I've been wondering if it's you! (Not if it's you that is a fool, but if someone finally persuaded you to blog and you are next) I know you won't say, if it is, though... I'll be signing on before work tomorrow morning to check.

We decided on salad and fish for dinner. We're going to put the fish on top of the salad. I went to Port Orange Seafood to see what was fresh, hoping that it was grouper, and it was. This seaford market is one of our two favorites. The other, Hull's, is bigger and always has a huge variety. When you need something in particular, you can pretty much depend on finding it there. You can rely on utmost freshness at both places. Port Orange Seafood is small in comparison, and is more of a "catch of the day" place. They carry some frozen items, but mostly, what's available is whatever fish or shellfish has recently come out of the water. This afternoon he was cleaning shrimp (chopping off the heads) that had just been caught off the beach. When he heard I was taking a picture, he came out holding this whole shrimp... and held a pen up to it to show how big. I got so excited, I couldn't hold the camera still. Sorry about that. Port Orange Seafood has had a specialty of smoked fish for many years. It's is so good. This is one of the Publix supermarkets we use. I didn't want this Foodblog to conclude without showing at least one of those. I also went to the other of the two produce markets I use the most. It's in New Smyrna Beach. The part to the right is a place called Banana Split Republic. I want to check that out! I have yet to do so, because like today, it's usually just before dinner that I'm stopping at the produce market.

We usually "lighten up" on Mondays, especially following weekends of more indulgence than usual. For Monday night dinners, we often have a pasta dish with a light sauce, a salad meal, fish, shrimp, or maybe chicken. On Mondays I frequently find myself craving fruits and vegetables, or something crispy like iceberg lettuce believe it or not. Today, while I was cleaning out the fridge and checking on what fruit in the basket is going bad, I made a platter of finger foods. I turned on the porch TV and watched the local noon news while I ate, in hopes that Mark McEwen would mention the wine festival, but he didn't. ...Cucumber, grapes, banana, broccoli, tomato, daikon radish sprouts, Minneola orange, and ice water. We're not sure about dinner yet. Hmmm... salad or fish are my ideas so far.