Susan in FL

This is just too cool for school. I'm laughing too hard right now to formulate a response. I love it. There. I've calmed down a bit. I'm a left to rightie, and not that I've thought of it before, but now that you mention it, I can imagine the ding at the end of the row. Plenty of butter and salt for me.

I'm looking forward to your blog, too. Thanks for taking the time to do it... It's just been for the past month or two that I've been following the blogs so closely, and I am impressed, and appreciative of the time and effort that goes into them. Have fun!

Thank you, Abramer. I have bookmarked that site. And welcome to eG.

Last night, rabbit ("ranch raised" here in central Florida) for the first time... First we had the pate' that I made with the giblets, and then pasta with a black truffle cream sauce. The rabbit was marinated in olive oil, a little lime juice, salt and pepper, and lots of fresh thyme. It was started stove top, browning it and getting to use some of its yummy brown bits in the black olive and balsamic sauce, and finished on the grill. 2001 Bleasdale Shiraz-Cabernet, Langhorne Creek went well with the rabbit. Tonight was grilled beef tenderloin steaks, served over a red wine reduction/butter sauce, homemade french fries, sauteed mushrooms, and arugula and watermelon salad. The 2001 Blackstone Merlot, Napa Valley was real fine.

I'm loving all these watermelon facts, as well as all the magazines and newspaper food sections that are covering the topic these days. A really wierd fact I read about in one of our local newspaper's food columns is that we here in Florida are nearing the end of watermelon season because the heat is so bad, sometimes in the fields if not picked already, they explode!! Actually, from a distance that is, I would like to see an exploding watermelon. We've had some very sweet seedless ones recently, although they weren't truly seedless; they had those teeny tiny tender light-colored seeds.

I wish that would happen to me sometimes.

He loves my cooking, and comments often on how lucky we are as a family to have such good food available all the time. Right now he's busy doing the dishes, his part of the food preparation split when I cook. When he cooks, I clean up, and when one of us is sick the other does both. Works out pretty well. We used to cook together quite a bit, but now it's a bit easier to corral the boys while one of us makes the food. Thankfully he loves food of all sorts and we have similar tastes, so I am free to make just about anything and know that it will be happily devoured. He's a good cook, though methodical to the extreme (he's an Engineer, what can I say?). He admires my ability to throw things together without a recipe and come out with something delicious, and I am in awe of his ability to follow a recipe without changing even the tiniest thing. We complement each other well . Awww, that's nice... The four of you could vie for the eG Culinary Family award. (I just made that up. )

The 3 Floyds Gumball Head American Wheat beer sounds like my kind of wheat beer. Like you, john@thebar (...love that name!), I'm an ale drinker, so it's good to hear your endorsement as well. RP, or anybody up there, if you're following this thread... might I be able to find some of this when I'm in Philly?

Yeah, how 'bout that... First time with crabs, and I tried it since we had a limited quantity. If we're eating a half bushel or so, I usually drink lager of some kind, or even -- plug up your ears my beer friends -- a few Coronas. This IPA was very good with them. It was the Shipyard, single hop (Fuggles). I just love the taste of Fuggles hops. The clams for sale around here taste wonderful. They are nice and salty, but are usually too small. DE has it all over FL for clams. In fact, clams are one of the things we stock up on when we're up there, if we're driving home not flying. Copps in the area between Long Neck and Lewes is who we bought from for years when we didn't go clamming ourselves. If you're traveling south, come on down...!! You can be our guest chef and play with our I-still-consider-it-new monster grill.

Simon, we buy it already smoked. There's a local fish market with a guy that smokes it on the premises. It's really good, but other than that, haven't eaten it.

We did the Friday night happy hour thing last night, and so tonight after work, we just went for one drink. Then we came home and stretched dinner out for 3 or 4 hours, as usual on the weekends. First up was a sampling (as opposed to a feast) of hard-shell crabs, already steamed at our favorite seafood market. They were cooked and seasoned very well. Then we had raw clams... so good, just wish they had been bigger. Main course was grilled mahi with avocado and melon salsa, asparagus risotto, and some grilled fresh pineapple. Nice blend of flavors.

To be perfectly honest... there is rarely a time for me that, even though scorching hot, I don't want to turn on the stove or oven. I guess I'm used to it, and used to having the air conditioning set accordingly. Using the stove or oven doesn't make that much of a difference in our house. We've been having quite a heat wave, and were talking about this at dinner tonight. We cook according to the season, more than according to the weather. Right now we're doing lots of grilling, which is actually hotter than cooking in the house. We're often fixing salsas as part of our meals, and using the fresh vegetables, tropical fruits, and seafood that's readily available, but also grilling or roasting chicken, grilling steaks or chops, and the like. Tonight we had an avocado and melon salsa with grilled mahimahi. Another seasonal difference for us is that now we're having many more cold soups and uncooked pasta sauces than usual. It's quite infrequent that we don't use the stove for something that's part of our dinner. Then again, it's even more infrequent that I don't feel like cooking. Still, it's nice to hear the ideas... Good topic!

Tejon, your boys are so cute. I'm the mom of three boys, now grown, and your blog brought back memories of when we centered our cooking more around them than our own cravings. What fun times (then, and now)! I do like the family aspect of your blog. What part does you husband play in this? Does he enjoy what you do, and do you two cook together?

Basilgirl, you're welcome, and I'll keep you posted on my mission to find out about the dressing. Cocoa is an hour from here, so this shouldn't be mission impossible! Jinmyo, yesss.... I love your notion about how to satisfy the need for those large molecules.

No, but I am trying to find out. I'll be on the look-out in the specialty food stores I go to. Or, do you know... does she buy it in FL supermarkets? I did find this recipe:

We have also brined steaks, but only "'lesser' cuts," as Dave put it. We use just plain salt water, if we're brining rather than marinating.

I do, and almost always have duck and goose fat on hand, since we cook each, whole, quite often. And yes, love the fingerling potatoes cooked in it...

We sometimes make our own dressing, but most often, rather than make a salad dressing separately, I take the free-hand route... drizzle EVOO and vinegar on a bowl of salad and toss it. Usually if I make a dressing, it's a special salad recipe. We do have three store-bought bottles of dressing in the fridge now, though they might not be edible. We keep some on hand for when we're expecting our kids to visit. They really like ranch. We have some "Just Too Good" from when we were calorie counting. And, there's a bottle of blue cheese in there that we must have used to dip celery in once with Buffalo wings. That is the one that has probably turned into a science project. I know I have made blue cheese dressing several times since that was opened.

Badgers, yet another reminder of the many worlds out there that I don't know about! ...Enjoying your blog, Tejon.

A no-recipe night... Grilled skewered pork, chicken, shrimp, and pineapple, with a mango-pineapple glaze; A saute' of cooked rice, peas, seeded and diced tomato, onion, garlic, ginger, cumin; Caesar salad; Pinot Noir.

Thank you... just what I was wondering about recently. I have printed out the article for our next trip to Miami.

I had no idea what badgers are until I clicked the badgerbadgerbadger link and googled. I felt like somebody was telling a joke and I didn't get it. Maybe I still don't get it completely... Food badgers? Are you talking about those animals or a kind of cartoon? Thanks!

We love the Whirly Pop, too! I'll take free pizza any day... looks good.

Mmmm.... looks good. I have that cookbook! I will check it out.Tonight I made a clam chowder - like pasta sauce, starting with pancetta, minced onions, garlic, carrots and a little celery, sauteed in olive oil and butter with a tiny bit of lemon zest, ginger, and basil. Then I added a shot of red wine, seeded and sliced tomatoes, and a bit of tomato paste, before adding the clam juice and at the very end the clams. Real good one-dish meal, with Chianti.

That. Is. Awesome. ...You hottie, you! I have really enjoyed your blog, and I must say, you opened my eyes to Atkins in a way I didn't know it before. Not to mention how much I enjoyed the connection with my former home, the First State. Thanks. And... I have got to have the recipe for that shortcake/custard!! Looking forward to more of your posts... Take care.