Smithy

In the interest of keeping old information alive, I'll note that we have two recipes for Pita in RecipeGullet, complete with discussion: There is also this discussion: Most of the participants haven't dropped by in a while, but I see some of them pop up from time to time. For those who want to see different takes on the same subject, dive right in!

Thanks for this report. I used to make pita frequently, usually with success, but for some reason never posted about it on this topic -- and it's been a couple of years since I made it at all. I'll have to get back to it, and try the recipe and method you've linked to.

@Shelby... wind or no wind, I'm moving in with you! It all looks so good... except the cauliflower risotto....

There's no Trader Joe's near where I live usually, or where I am now. It's strange, because both Duluth and Yuma seem big enough to support one, but TJ's hasn't seen fit to come. As for other wine stores nearby: I'll check as I have time. The grocery stores here can sell wine, so I may even find it when I go shopping later today.

My San Diego friends are inveterate declutterers, unlike me. They knew I was coming back to Yuma to a yard sale for an organization I belong to here, so they cast about for things to unload on me. Among the booty was a bunch of nut-meat (or crab meat?) pickers and some bottle corks from South Africa with hand-carved, beautifully smooth wood. My BFF says these things always sell better if you provide a little sign on a bundle. Her suggestion: "Drink your wine and pick your nuts"

I've spent the morning in a futile effort to find a mobile RV service that will come pump my holding tanks. There's a sewer hookup here, but it's so far from the trailer that I'll have to go buy (a lot of) extra hose to reach it. That means there will be (a lot of) extra hose to clean, rinse and store. But the alternative seems to be to take the trailer to a trailer dump. My darling and I used to do that periodically, at our desert camping spot. I'd rather expected I could avoid it given my current location. So it goes. While I make phone calls and rest between chores, I'm having a sandwich.... This would definitely be better grilled, and I do wish I'd packed the panini press. That said, there's nothing but sheer laziness to stop me from pulling out a pan and cooking it on a stovetop. The sandwich involves my usual favorite sourdough bread. However, I have other choices now thanks to my San Diego trip. I've sliced into the Kalamata loaf already. It has a lovely flavor and open crumb. I probably should put both of these loaves into the freezer, given the slow rate at which I eat bread these days. So far, they're out on the counter in their bags.

Yesterday I decided it was time to tackle one of the sausages I'd bought last summer in Luck, Wisconsin. I showed it to you before: it's one long coil, and when I realized that I hadn't taken time to thaw, much less cut it, I put it back in the freezer a couple of weeks ago. I had no clear memory of the seasonings. I remember liking it when I'd been fed it in a cafeteria, and that's why I'd picked up a couple of packages before leaving the area and coming home. But what to do with it? I chose a simple enough approach: uncoil it slightly; pack the interspaces with wedges of potato and onion; drizzle with a bit of olive oil and some dried herbs; cook at about 425F until done. By golly, it worked. I'd been afraid that the little sheet pan, which is the largest sheet pan in this trailer, would be too small. There may have been a bit of drippage onto the oven floor (my new, clean oven! *sob*) but the little pan did well. Dinner last night: (The corn was a nod to health, as well as whittling down the supply of frozen corn. My darling loved it. I dislike it almost as much as @liuzhou does, and am looking forward to the day I get shut of all the stuff.) it's a lot of meat. There were leftovers. Tonight's dinner involved some of them: There's still some left. It's good, but maybe I'll let the rest sit for a day or two before finishing it. Oh, and I think the predominant flavor of that Danish brand sausage is salt! The label simply lists salt, sugar and spices, but I can't detect any distinctive herbs or spices: no fennel or sage, for instance. It shall remain a mystery to me.

My San Diego friends introduced me to this; it was $9/bottle at Trader Joe's and I came home with half a case. As I understand the Marlborough-style wines from New Zealand, they usually have a more pronounced mineral flavor than this one does, but it's very nice. Crisp, slight minerality, flavor notes leaning more toward the citrus than the floral or tropical fruit end. I'll try not to drink it all at once. It's lovely stuff, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to get more.

I'm back from San Diego, where I had excellent meals and a couple of feasts. The Returning Peace Corps Volunteers of San Diego had their annual "Taste the World" event, and we ate ourselves silly sampling foods even though each serving was small. I especially liked a Peruvian Aji de Gallina (a spicy chicken stew) and was fortunate enough to get the recipe from the chef, so you may see it appear in these pages at some point. I also particularly liked a Mexican lime soup -- tart, tangy, delicious, with "add your own" cilantro and fried tortilla strips. That chef hasn't responded to my request for a recipe, at least not yet. When I Google the dish "Sopa de Lima" I find several different versions, so I hope I don't have to start trying to reproduce that particular soup without some guidance. But hey, I'll try if I have to! On another day we met up with friends at a little family-owned Italian restaurant, Cafe Luna. The sign at their door asked people to please keep their phones off, and I took that to mean I shouldn't be taking photos. Besides, the conversation was too brisk. But we all had variations on the soup and salad theme, where the soup was Italian Wedding soup. (Finally, I got to try it! Delicious!) The bread was fabulous, and they had a house-made dipping sauce that they called either Celestial Sauce or Celestrial Sauce. We practically went after that stuff with a spoon: it was unctuous, savory, tomatoey, slightly spicy. I can't remember whether the proprietor or her husband or father-in-law made up the recipe in the first place, but it's clearly a hit. The proprietor, who's in her 10th year of ownership now, was happy to list the ingredients. I didn't ask her for proportions. I foresee many happy experiments. The ingredients are olive oil, sundried tomatoes, anchovies, parmesan, roasted garlic, canola oil, salt and pepper, and Herbes de Provence. She said the canola is needed to keep the stuff from getting too thick. The sauce is blended but still has a slight chunkiness: not as smooth as catsup, not a coarse as salsa. If you're ever in the northern end of San Diego, go check out Cafe Luna. I hope to go there again, many times.

Porter Creek was one of our favorite wineries also, when we used to go touring and tasting there. I think it was the Porter Creek fellow running the tasting room who quipped, when we commented that we hated to waste wine by using the spit bucket, "No problems. We send it to the next valley and they sell it as Napa Cuvee!"

I bought a new fifth-wheel trailer recently, and hit the road in it late in January. Look what caught up to me in the mail! Yes, they're very good. Chocolate chip cookies. My favorite!

I do love Zinfandel. I'll have to keep an eye out for L.A. Cetto and, for that matter, Valle de Guadalupe, but I seriously doubt I'll see them where I shop. It isn't just that it's north of the border; it's also that many wines seem to have small distribution areas. Please keep us posted, though! We can be inspired and tempted! And some of us can cross southward and shop there! (I wonder if this would be available in Algodones, Baja California, for example. Any idea about that?)

Breakfast with friends. I often have yogurt, but rarely have the mixed nuts (Costco) and both fresh and frozen fruit to put on it. The yogurt is good enough plain, but this raises it to excellent.

That's quite the well-traveled chorizo!