Susan in FL

This is a great thread. I was so busy with blogging the past week, I missed it until now. Thanks everyone, for the input, advice, and interesting discussion about definition and authenticity. Now I'm ready to soon make Carbonara for dinner, and also Eunny's Egg Ravioli as a first course some evening.

Sorry! I just realized you provided a link. I was so excited, I didn't notice that at first. Thank you!

I want that. Eunny, would you please give the complete how-to? Did you make the pepper pasta dough?

I am enjoying this so! What fun, to get a glimpse into the life of another couple who loves food and drink and cooking together. It's fun to read the foodblogs of people whose lives are different from ours, and it's fun when following someone's whose lifestyle and food tastes are similar. In this case, it's the latter! I'm happy for the two of you, and I love it that you took the opportunity you had to be unemployed during your first year of marriage. Sounds like bliss to be. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home married woman, more than I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom after kids came along! We have heard so much about Salumi, and now we have seen it... such a cool way to start your blog. And I like the looks of your kitchen! It looks warm and inviting, and I would love to take a seat at your bistro table and watch you cook. For those who don't know the process of who blogs when... Sometimes bloggers are scheduled in advance, and sometimes the current blogger picks the next from a list that Soba provides. We feel proud to have passed this baton to Wendy!

I agree with you, and especially on this, which is the case we often encounter...

I wish we could make the smilies great big, because that is what's on my face in anticipation of your food blog. You know I'm looking forward to this. It's already delightful. Have fun!

We are glad you all enjoyed the blog from the beach, and again thanks for the kind words. We had great fun doing it, every sunshiney day. Got up this morning, we're not blogging, and there was no sunshine... It's the first cloudy, rainy day we've had for days and days. But our spirits will surely be brightened by this! Click here... see you there!

To everyone: You're welcome. It was our pleasure as well, and thank you for the support and comments throughout.

Susan from Minneapolis, thanks. As much as we loved devoting most of our life to our kids just a few short years ago, we longed for the empty nest, and we so enjoy that now. I'm glad we could give you a "preview" of what's to come to you! And we're keeping our finger crossed that you soon have some venison to cook!

We decided to go out with a BAM!... Well no, not really... but here is the recipe we did not follow. First we had the hard-boiled quail eggs. Anybody who is familiar with shelling these little buggers will know that I put the ugly ones underneath the others in this picture. We used three salts for dipping, the black salt (stinky stuff, but eggs are stinky stuff, and they were good together), toasted sesame seed salt, and toasted cumin seed salt. I added that toasted cumin seed salt because there was cumin in the risotto. Then, on to the main course... We made quite a few changes to Emeril's recipe. We used pork tenderloin and sauteed it with our cumin seed mixture at the start of cooking, instead of pork shoulder and marinating it. I did toast and grind cumin seeds (with a little garlic) and slightly browned the pork with that. Then I took that out and set it aside, and browned mushrooms. I took them out of the pot, and then sauteed chopped onions in olive oil, and then did risotto like I usually do. I like Arborio rice a lot, but in my opinion we have refined our risottos even more by using Carnaroli. We order it from Lotus Foods. It's good. When the risotto was about done, I added back the pork and the mushrooms, a shot of cream, a chunk of butter, and the herbs. Then we topped it with the quail eggs which Russ so kindly fried. For the salad we had beautiful watercress, and wanted to feature that, so in the vinaigrette we put tomatoes, cucumbers, and scallions. We topped watercress with that and toasted pine nuts. The wine we had and this dish was the best wine match of the whole week. It was Rancho Zabaco Sonoma Heritage Vines, 2001 Sonoma County. As for the affordable Rancho Zabaco wines, this is better than the Dancing Bull and worth the extra three or four dollars. It's great with many foods.

I love these cute little eggs. What you had in Spain sounds so good. Another idea I have seen which I would love to have is truffled quail eggs... they are boiled, shelled and halved, and served with a thin little slice of fresh white truffle... oh my. I think the eggs have a slightly more precise and delicate eggy taste, but Russ thinks I'm full of it, when I say something like that. It's hard to say. I think they do taste fresher or something, but it could be just the notion of it all, and how cute and pretty they are in the shell. Great sorrel input, thank you so much. I know what you mean about the color... The last time I made the fish and mashed potatoes and sorrel dish, I put the sorrel in at the very, very end, and it kept the bright green color. It was great. We want to try your Zuni Cafe Cookbook recipe. Yes, oh what a case for turning the lights down low. Good luck with your meal photos. I am surprised when I get complimented on my pictures, because I'm still not satisfied with my food photography. Thanks.

Thanks, Jake. These ex-northerners cannot say they would like to be back up there shivering with you all. Take a look at these beauties they had in the Love Whole Foods Market this weekend! What a find! Russ and I didn't plan dinner ahead for today. We decided to leave it open. We thought of going to the store at the last minute to get what looked good to us and coming home to decide what to do with it. But then the quail eggs came along, and we knew we would want to do something with them. I've been in touch with him on the phone and we're still deciding exactly what, but we have a couple of ideas. Actually, I'm sort of thinking out loud right now to help me decide. I think a small starter of hard-boiled would be good... with some sesame salt, black salt, and maybe a third salt of some kind, for dipping... We're going to cook a dish that is garnished with some of them fried. (I can't wait to see what frying the little babies is like. We've had quail eggs raw and hard-boiled, but not fried.) .... If we do eat at least one raw, we would have Quail Eggs Three Ways. I'm drinking an iced coffee, and will proceed to plan dinner. I did kick it down a notch and I'm using milk in it instead of the half & half or cream. It tastes just as good. This is a way I can save a few calories.

The herbs we're using this week come from our herb garden, which is spread all over our backyard. Some are in pots and some in the ground, and some double as "landscaping." Besides the basil, chives, and sorrel shown above, we have parsley, thyme, and mint in pots. Here is a pot of that wonderful Mojito ingredient. Oregano, sage, bay leaf, lemongrass, and rosemary are in the ground. This bay leaf tree has almost died and come back many times. It belonged to my parents (Delaware) who both died in 1996 when I got it. I'm not sure how long they had it, and then it was much bigger, so it is probably going on ten years old! The lemongrass and rosemary grow like crazy and fall into that almost landscaping category. Rosemary is all over the place, front and back.

Judith, I'm glad that you have enjoyed this (and that Daytona holds a special place in your heart ), including all the "visuals." It's probably obvious that I am quite a visually-oriented person, and I was hoping this blog would have that kind of appeal and enjoyment for all. So, on to even more illustrations of our food life... Brunch earlier was Maytag, Cheddar, & Provolone cheese, a pear, some of the left-over frosted grapes, part of a bagel, and sparkling water. I thought of some bread after I shot the picture, and found out that the bagel left over from yesterday was still nice and fresh.

Eunny, I've always been a bit puzzled by why that recipe would suggest spinach as a substitute for sorrel, unless it is just to get the color. It would surely change the taste. There is something in your brain telling you right. It can even taste downright sour when you eat a plain leaf of it, but it is just a pleasant tang when an appropriate amount is used in a recipe. I can imagine that with buttermilk, etc. it would be a nice tangy dressing/sauce/dip, as Behemoth described. To keep the flavor of it in last night's dish from being too strong or sour, I used the youngest of the leaves, but I did use more than two tablespoons. Right now ours is at its best, with the warm temperatures. The hot sun of the summer time usually prohibits it from growing this well. It is one of the herbs that we grow in pots, and here is some alongside basil and chives. This has reminded me... As I've picked herbs to use this week, I've been meaning to post where they're coming from! I shall return with some more pictures.

M., that sounds like an awesome beer event, and what a great write-up! Thanks for taking the time from your busy schedule to post (I bet attending was an enjoyable respite from that schedule of yours). I was drooling at the idea of Maritime Pacific's XPA Hop Harvest, as you might imagine.

We appreciate that, especially after having enjoyed your blog so much, Anna. And yes, today is our last day of blogging. It's back to the weekday routine, after some wonderful indulgences over the weekend! Russ has gone to work. I'm fortunate to be off on yet another beautiful day, and after this I'm going to have coffee and yesterday's Sunday paper on the porch. Both of those ideas are appealing, and I have all the ingredients on hand now. Thanks! I didn't know what that was and so I looked it up. One of the pages I found was especially interesting, this recipe. Is this like what you are familiar with? Any advice?

The mango creme brulee for dessert was yummy. We had a glass of Dominion Millennium barleywine with it... wonderful beer. Cold Case was real good tonight. The Dallas reunion show is terrible.

Dinner was Sea Bass with garlic mashed potatoes, tomato-sorrel sauce, and mushrooms & zucchini. We drank 2003 New Zealand Sherwood Estate Pinot Noir, Marlborough. It was a real good wine, but not the greatest match with this dish. Between the darkness and the candle we used, I had a hell of a time getting a good photo. As you may have gathered, when we cook from recipes, they are often from Bon Appetit or Gourmet. So was the case tonight. It was adapted from this recipe. I have made this using Halibut. Either is delicious. We have some great sorrel now, and a lot left because this recipe uses very little and it really needed cutting back, so if anybody has any good ideas for using it up (other than soup, we did that recently), please let us know.

Good idea, but no... If we are separating eggs for the whites, we keep the yolks for the same uses that you save the whites. The yolks are definately our favorite part! Sometimes we separate an egg and add an extra yolk to scrambled eggs or omelettes. If there were an upcoming use for whites, we would! Maybe we should plan to have lemon meringue pie the night following creme brulee.

We're doing some dinner prep, and here's some of the work on dessert. I'm probably preaching to the choir by sharing these tips with you, but I thought I would mention a couple of techniques that are especially helpful to me. How to peel a mango is something I was happy to learn, since when I first moved to Florida and was peeling a mango for the first time, I promptly cut myself. Cutting the ends so they are flat, and then setting it on the cutting board like so, and then cutting downward really helps with the slippery slimyness of mangoes. After this part, we carefully cut slices off, parallel with the flat seed, and then if they need to be cut more than that, take it from there. How I like to separate eggs, rather than cracking the eggs and transfering the yolk from one half shell to the other is to crack the egg and put the yolk in my hand, and let the white seep though my fingers. I have broken some yolks using this method and ended up with a handful of yolk and white dripping all over, but I think this is fun. The eggs I used for this making of mango creme brulee were good... the yolks easily withstood this process. I'm especially enjoying tonight's dinner prep. We've started enough in advance that we're cleaning up as we go. I'm really taking my time and being the slow person I like to be. We want to eat at around 8:00, so we can watch Cold Case over dinner, one of our favorite shows. Then, we will go to separate TVs. I want to watch the Dallas reunion, and I'm sure Russ will not want to. But anyway, I'll be here in my office, where I have a little TV, blogging.

I think you're right, about the confusion with the word affluence, and in this point. Thanks for clarifying that for me!

We love Sunday brunch. Today we tried a new recipe, Poached Eggs with Roasted Tomatoes and Portabellas. We forgot to buy Fontina when we were shopping yesterday, so for the cheese we used brie, and otherwise followed the recipe. That was a fine substitute. We had bagels and lox and trimmings with it. I had Mimosas and Russ had his bubbly straight, which is usually his preference over Mimosas. We had a sweet treat of frosted grapes, which I had made to garnish last night's dessert, but then recalled that they need to sit for a couple of hours and dry, before serving. I did them like this, except I didn't keep the grapes in the clusters. We enjoyed our morning coffee in the new mugs we bought at the art festival yesterday. I shop at art shows and festivals the same way I go antiqueing. I am usually drawn to culinary type things... something for the kitchen or food/dining-related. With art, that often means the ceramics medium if not something decorative. We saw these at the very beginning, and proceeded throughout the festival just in case we found something (affordable) that we liked better, and then we came back to this artisan. Put it all together, and brunch was served. Now we're having a fairly lazy afternoon of football and racing after a little yard work and a not overly strenuous workout.

I was not going to post any more in this discussion because it is on topics like this that I get myself in trouble. It is interesting to read the differing opinions, but also, I'm not eager to argue a point with an attorney. Even though I am in a professional field that studies human behavior and all the causes of obesity and such conditions -- psychological, social, genetic, chemical, etc. -- and can back up my arguments, yes, I am intimidated out of debating it here. I do want to comment that, Carrot Top, you are making some very good points. We agree with the observation that obesity is often more prevalent in rural and/or less affluent areas with lower ecomomic levels. My husband who has educational and professional background similar to mine and also has personal experience with this issue, including living in Appalachia, explains it by saying that often cheap food is highly caloric; and a large part of this population, in addition to being less educated about what to eat, when hungry fills up on large quantities of what costs the least and what is readily available. This is another example pointing obesity to environmental factors, but against the explanation of higher affluence. There are genetic tendencies and biochemical causes and all that, but less than we may want to believe or what some studies would lead us to believe.

Smithy, we wouldn't recommend Crabby Joe's if it's important for good beer to be available, unless he considers canned Corona poured into a plastic cup good enough. Giving a recommendation for good seafood isn't a problem, but finding good beer in this area is a problem. The Oyster Pub we do recommend to out-of-towners if it need not be fancy. At least they do serve their Coronas in the bottle. They have Bud, Bud Light, and a few of the usuals on draft. I guess it depends on what he considers good beer! There are some pretty good seafood places at Ponce Inlet and on the way down there, which is at the southern most tip of the Daytona Beach area's stretch of A1A. If your husband is unfamiliar with the area and isn't sure where that is, and is interested, let me know. If by seafood, he is interested in good fish dishes in a little more upscale atmosphere, he would probably like Stonewood's. They have a decent wine and beer selection and they are in Port Orange and Ormond Beach. Up in Ormond Beach there is the Charlie Horse restaurant, where I've gotten the best all-you-can-eat crab legs. If he is staying in the Ormond area (north of Daytona Beach proper), he will probably find better restaurants than right in Daytona. There is a place on Beach Street that has good fresh Bass Ale on tap, and for this area that may be the best beer. I've never ordered seafood there, though. But they have great onion rings! Email or PM me if you would like more suggestions, and we'll think some more on this.