chromedome

Some late picking: Clockwise from front and centre we have a few of my yellow onions (the rest are still in the ground), a couple pounds of rainbow carrots, the usual "mess o' greens" for cooking (dandelion, chard, kale, turnip tops, three kinds of beet tops), the last couple of cukes, a handful of mixed baby lettuces from the third planting, perhaps the last spaghetti squash (we'll see...), the small handful of potatoes I planted this year, a few peas from the late planting, and some sweet little baby turnips. Most of this lot is destined for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner. Next time out I'll probably start harvesting some of the beets, and will be planting the garlic for next year.

Last week I spotted some absurdly huge rose hips on a large stand of roses not far from my home. I picked three pounds in about 10 minutes, from just around the edges of the patch (I was in shorts, and not minded to delve further in). I could have gotten more, but suspected (rightly) that this was as much as I'd want to handle for one evening. Most were the size of large grapes or cherries, with the largest getting to be plum size (larger, in fact, than the plums on my counter right now). I've peeled away the fleshy portions and have them drying in my dehydrator for rose hip tea over the winter. I suspect I could also pulverize them in my spice grinder and use them for a tart, fruity element in a dry rub, much as sumac is used. Since I was on a roll, I visited my neighbours a block away and harvested their quince bush (they're delighted to have someone take 'em away). I haven't weighed those, but I'd guess it's 12 to 15 pounds of them. Planning to do some quince chutney and maybe just can some in syrup for later tinkering.

I don't remember the brand's glory days, except for the always suave Ricardo Montalban* in the TV ads. By the time I came to coffee-drinking age I found it to be pretty poor (and this is well, well before coffee "snobdom" came along). My parents varied for decades between MH and Folger's, whichever was on sale, but now that I've spoiled her with other stuff my mom can't enjoy a cup of either brand any more. I should probably have mixed feelings about that, but I don't. *I saw a hilarious interview with him sometime in the 80s or 90s, where he told the story of a local deli he patronized at his home in New York. Apparently the owner was convinced his name was Mendelbaum, and treated him as a long-lost distant cousin.

One of my father's navy buddies used to order with the same "wipe its ass" comment, and if the server questioned this he'd amplify "Show it a match at 10 paces, and we're all good." My uncle used to amuse himself at KFC by ordering a Bachelor Pack. When the young lady at the counter raised an inquiring eyebrow, he'd explain "All breasts and thighs."

Many years ago in Vancouver I had a restaurant's entire (small) staff gathered around my table, explaining to me quite earnestly that ordering the congee was a mistake because Westerners never like it. In turn I explained to them about growing up eating porridge for breakfast, and how dried squid (shredded dried squid was the topping I'd attempted to order) was a common and much-loved snack in Newfoundland, where I'd lived as a teen. They grudgingly took my money, and were duly surprised when I scoffed the lot quite happily. I'm sure such a scene would never transpire now, nearly four decades later, but at the time I think the quest for authenticity (as opposed to all-you-can-eat buffet, or takeout combos) was in its infancy.

That would suffice.

Pie for breakfast was something I let my kids have on a pretty regular basis when they were growing up. I reckoned a homemade pie with fruit filling was almost certain to be healthier than what their friends in the surrounding houses were having for breakfast (ie, mostly bowls of Sugar Frosted Sugar "cereals").

My daughter doesn't have celiac disease but does have a severe (diagnosed) gluten intolerance, which basically boils down to all the misery but without the physical damage (so...that's something, anyway). She finds the GF cheese pizzas from Costco to be adequate to scratch that itch, though certainly not stellar. As mentioned upthread, she also keeps a bag of masa harina on hand for making tortillas (and/or corn chips) when she feels the urge. She's on a fixed income right now, which makes it impractical for her to just buy them. The gluten-free sandwich bread from America's Test Kitchen is the best my daughter knows of. You can make it with their custom blend of flours, or with any off-the-shelf GF all-purpose flour (it's best with their mix, though). It's paywalled at the ATK site, but a blogger who reviewed one of their cookbooks posted both here: http://tasty-yummies.com/gluten-free-classic-sandwich-bread/ I'm pretty sure I originally got the link from someone here, so thank you whoever you are. I've made it several times and it works well.

Also found on FB:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/09/26/651849441/cornell-food-researchers-downfall-raises-larger-questions-for-science

Found on Facebook:

“The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.” -Saki (H.H. Munro)

Those wild Spam are tricky to gut. The last thing you want to do is nick the bile duct...

That was my first thought, too, a subset of the Thermomix' capabilities at a much more consumer-friendly price. Gonna be interesting to see how it plays out.

I apologize if someone's already mentioned this and I simply missed it, but apparently Instant Pot's new product - a blender that cooks - will be a Walmart exclusive. Given the company's history with Amazon, that seems a bit odd. https://www.cookinglight.com/news/instant-pot-ace-blender-walmart https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/9/20/17882916/instant-pot-cooking-blender-walmart-exclusive https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/new-instant-pot-cooking-blender

No photos from yesterday, because it was a gray and drizzly day, but a good enough haul. Another big bag of mixed cooking greens (turnip tops, beet tops, several kind of chard, broccoli raab, dandelions), a lot of late lettuce, a couple pounds of carrots (I'm just harvesting those as needed), another 8 or 10 cucumbers, and one big spaghetti squash. My tomatoes have already gotten more of a chill than they can withstand, alas, so I harvested a half-dozen that were nearly ripe and another 18 that were at least full-sized. I'll probably fry a couple of the green ones, and let the rest ripen on the windowsill of my sunny, sunny kitchen. I have a patio tomato that's just about to start producing, so I'm going to bring that indoors. It's actually three tomatoes in one pot (a full-sized red, a full-sized yellow, and a cherry cultivar) so hopefully I'll be able to keep it happy through the cold months in the kitchen. I got no further okra. None of the pods have advanced at all from that photo three weeks ago. I think what happened is that the heat and sunshine failed just at the crucial moment, and that kept the plants from fruiting as they should have. The plants themselves still look healthy and flourishing, they're just not getting any further forward. All told I think that's encouraging, because in a normal spring I'd have been able to plant them 3 to 4 weeks earlier. I don't know if okra transplants well, but that's also something to look into before next spring. Next year I'll also cover my brassicas with netting to deter the bloody cabbage worms. I'm only out there once or twice a week through the summer, and that's not often enough to stay ahead of them by hand-picking.

As a longtime retailer turned chef, there are few things in this world that irritate me more than poor, negligent customer service. In retail stores, after being ignored at the cash for a while by gossipping staffers, I've been known to call out in a loud voice (and bear in mind, I sold hearing aid batteries for years): "I'LL JUST RING THIS IN FOR MYSELF THEN, SHALL I?"

In Atlantic Canada it's certainly popular, and especially in Newfoundland. Locally it's referred to as "Newfie steak."

Yup, me too. The version of corned beef hash I grew up with was that fried with onions and leftover mashed potatoes. I still make it up every now and again, when I'm feeling nostalgic. That, or a fried-bologna sandwich.

I kid you not, I've had people tell me "I didn't know you could make whipped cream from scratch!"

Just to apply some North American context for you, @Duvel, they sell frozen grilled cheese sandwiches and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches in the supermarkets here, for people who find those too challenging or time-consuming. Something they're promoting right now in supermarkets here is a reusable parchment bag that holds a grilled cheese sandwich, so you can drop it into your pop-up toaster instead of using a pan. The packaging proclaims "Grilled Cheese Made Easy!" ...because apparently, it otherwise isn't.

My mom's going to connect me with the young gent who bought their place in the country after my father died. The one thing I wanted to carry on was my great-grandfather's rosebush, which is growing in a corner of the property near the house. I took a few cuttings before the house sold, but none of them made it. It's just a scraggly old thing of no particular distinction, but it was my great-grandfather's rosebush, right? They'd trained it up an arbor at their old house in Halifax, and I have photos of my grandmother as an infant standing underneath it. The picture of my great-grandfather in uniform, the day he headed off to the Great War, is taken in front of that arbor. So is the photo from when he returned home, six months after the terrible Halifax Explosion, to find the arbor intact but the house somewhat damaged and patched. Communications left a lot to be desired in those days, especially in Halifax after the explosion, so for that entire half-year - despite his best efforts - he'd been unable to learn whether his wife and children were among the casualties. So yeah, I'd like to keep it going.

It looks like a bad decoupage project by someone who's watched too much Martha Stewart (or too little, perhaps).

Okay...how many times can you say "crisp corn crust" quickly, without tripping over your tongue?

If any Canadians should be reading this thinking "Hmmmmm....", I'll point out that Golden Temple brand atta flour is available at every Superstore.