Wayne

Thanks for answering my many questions. Forgot about the face numbing and the subsequent involuntary drooling . You're on the mark about commercial Canadian chicken but unless you raise your own or know someone we're stuck with them. Although I love rabbit I don't remember eating any. More than likely because eating Cuy was such a new experience.

I tried this and it worked very well. Thanks. I don't use much celery so this seems like an ideal solution.

Very evocative blog and again great photos. Brings back a lot of memories which trigger some questions. Apologies beforehand if they've already been covered. Is Cuy popular in Ecuador? I remember eating a lot of it prepared many ways. Coca leaves were almost always available in the Peruvian markets to be chewed as a mild stimulant with about the same effect as a double expresso or two. Always in the high altitude villages. Does/did the practice extend to Ecuador? Other things are the sheer variety of potatoes available, ceviche, great tasting chicken and the variety of soup/stew combinations. Sorry for rambling down memory lane Cheers.

Still worth doing, Tastes great a few hours after made. Won't get the acidic component from the ferment but still good.

Wise. Even if you're an experienced gardener it's a good idea. Every area has it's 'quirks' of climate, soil, diseases, problem wildlife...... Better to beat the learning curve. Mine are clayey poor draining soil, powdery mildew, squirrels and rabbits. Yet when I gardened 20 km. / 15 miles away it was well drained alkaline soil, deer and raccoons.

I leave mine in our 'pantry'/storage room which, when the heat is on, varies from 60-70 degrees F. over the course of 24 hours. It's slightly cooler when the heat's off during the summer. I do all of my ferments there and have never had a problem. The current batch is showing signs of working (CO2 bubbles forming). For a lactoferment the temperature range should be between 55 and 75 at the upper level. Cheers.

Sure. I use the same method but can vary the ingredients. Didn't use daikon this time though I do like it. The one thing I don't like in kimchi is carrot (which I've seen in a lot of recipes). For this batch: 1 4 lb. napa cabbage cut into bite sized pieces 1 bunch green onions sliced 4 cloves garlic grated 1 thumb sized piece of ginger grated 1/4 C. fish sauce 1/4 C. chili powder (I didn't use gochugaru as I grow a lot of hot peppers, dehydrate them and use those. This mix was 1:1:2 Naga red, Scotch Bonnet and cherry. Packs a lot of heat.). Method: Toss and massage the cabbage in a bowl with 3 Tsp. pickling salt, put a follower on the cabbage and weigh to press. Leave at room temp. for 4-5 hours (I lost about 50% of the volume and the cabbage was submerged in brine at the end. Drain the cabbage and squeeze out as much moisture as you can. Mix the grated garlic, ginger, chili powder and fish sauce together and add to the cabbage along with the green onions. Mix really well (I get my hands in there and really work the mixture in) then pack into your container (I used a 2 L. (8 C.) mason jar eliminating any trapped air. Put on a follower (I use a plastic food bag half filled with water) and leave in a cool dark place for 4-5 days (I start tasting after 3 days) although it can be eaten 'fresh'. Cheers.

Found some nice Napa cabbage yesterday so I've got a small batch of kimchi started:

My earliest sign that the gardening season is getting started.: garlic is coming along nicely.

Wow. What a fantastic market and great photos.

I am really looking forward to your descriptions and photos of the markets (and any market stall food). I spent a fair amount of time in Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela during the mid 80's and have not been back since. I can still remember some of the great meals I had (and on a student budget) at village markets, and in the villages themselves, and the great people, especially Peru. Peru got a little too dangerous after that for travel.

That looks like my garden work table. I've already received all of my ordered seeds and drawn a planting plan and a tentative planting schedule. New for this year (I'll try some new cultivars every year for fun): cocozelle summer squash, collards and asparagus or yard long beans. Already in the ground are fall plantings of garlic, overwintering sunchokes, perennial herbs and the asparagus patch. Cheers.

The link I provided is for Home Hardware. My local store had to order them in which took 2 days. My local Home Depot could not. Wood stove and fireplace retailers can also procure them however their quoted price was 50% higher. When using them in a conventional over I arrange them on a 3/4 sheet pan and place on a lower middle rack. The nice thing is they can withstand misting (which is how I cracked 2 of my pizza stones).

Just received my copy of 'Franklin Barbeque'. It'll be part of my reading material on next week's fishing trip. I borrowed an audio copy of 'Blood, Bones & Butter' from my public library to listen to on the 10 hour round trip drive to said fishing trip. I'm also bringing along Andy Weir's 'The Martian' which is not really relevant to this thread unless a hypothetical description of attempting to grow potatoes on Mars could be considered food related.

I picked up a mint condition copy of 'The Lutece Cookbook' by Andre Soltner et al for $1 a few weeks ago. http://www.amazon.ca/Lutece-Cookbook-Andre-Soltner/dp/0679422730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441810231&sr=8-1&keywords=the+lutece+cookbook Very old school French cooking ranging from complex recipes to simple preparations.

That is an excellent recipe. I've already made up two batches to enjoy over the winter. I've modified the recipe by halving the sugar, using 50:50 brown and white sugar and adding 3-4 Scotch Bonnet peppers to make it more of a savoury chutney than a sweet jam. It complements pork and poultry quite nicely.

Re: okra cultivation. I've had good okra results in my area of Canada. I use a short season okra such as Clemson Spineless (54 days). I've planted them directly in early June and have seeded them indoors to extend the season. Some of the tricks include creating a warmer microclimate such as along a south facing wall, using black mulch to absorb more solar radiation and having a windbreak to minimize heat loss through convection. Okanogancook: Envy your garlic. Mine is still underground under snow and the exposed areas are rock hard.

Let me add my thanks to others for posting this. It's highly unlikely I will ever get to travel in China so it's nice to do so vicariously. Great photography.

It's been the same on my side of the border in Niagara. Blight on the tomatoes and a very poor to zilch harvest of cucumbers, summer squash and melons thanks to the powdery mildew. On the other hand it's been a great summer for lettuces.

Great photos. Lots of tomatoes for the last 6 weeks. Besides eating fresh they are frozen, roasted then frozen, dehydrated then packed in olive oil and canned as salsa. End of season green tomatoes go into green tomato relish and as an experiment fermented green tomato pickles. Also had to write off 3 out of the 8 varieties I grow because of severe blight this summer.

There is not much difference IMO after the garlic has been cooked. The differences are much more apparent when the garlic is utilized as a raw ingredient. Other factors affecting the flavour profile (which are beyond the control of the consumer) include growing conditions, proper curing and storage conditions. I grow the different varieties and cultivars because each has a maximum storage potential and one year some varieties do very well and other do not and the next year it may be the reverse (however even failures make great pickles).

Kerry: Sorry I don't sell my garlic. I only grow it as a hobby and to supply my family. It's a long term project to find what does very well in my area and to maintain the integrity of the seed stock. If you go to the Grimsby Thursday afternoon farmers' market there are more than likely vendors supplying locally grown garlic.

It's been a long time since I've posted on eGullet. I've been growing my own garlic for about five years and it is one of the easiest garden crops. I grow hardneck varieties which do well in my growing zone. Varieties: Rocambole: Killarney Red, Svetlana, Spanish Andolini and Rioja cultivars. The Puslinch cultivar mentioned upthread is a rocambole and is also called Ontario Giant. Porcelain: Floha, Portugal 2, Romanian Red, Music and Georgian Fire cultivars. Marbled Purple Stripe: Bogatyr, Choparky, Duganskij and Metechi cultivars. The cultivars do exhibit sometimes subtle and sometimes striking differences flavour and 'heat'. Ashen's photo: Judging by the label printing the garlic came from Golden Acres Farm in Gadskill. An excellent supplier of organic seed garlic. The Stratford Garlic festival is being held this year Sept. 6-7. Here's a link to the site: http://www.stratfordgarlicfestival.com/ The variety Kerry mentioned upthread is most likely a Creole variety French cultivar named Ail Rose de Lautrec. I know there are a few growers attempting to adapt it to grow in Southern Ontario and I hope to obtain some of their seed garlic. Cheers.

Nubile female for dinner. A Boy and His Dog