Smithy

Even when the weather cooperated enough for us to travel the Gulf Coast, the "fresh shrimp" we got at stores was almost always flash frozen. When I asked in one small shop about really fresh shrimp, the clerk gave me the "you've grown a second head" look. He explained that the shrimp was always flash frozen on the ships to maintain freshness. He stressed that it was vital to do that with the shrimp caught far offshore, like the Royal Reds. That said, I have fond memories of spotting small trucks along the roadside with shrimp...truly fresh shrimp, just caught that day by a small local fisherman, still in the shells, possibly swimming an hour before. I could pay a little extra to have them headed and shelled, or do it myself. I don't remember the price differential, but for short-term expediency I think I went with the whole shrimp. That was the most work and the best flavor. It's been some years since we went that way, so I don't know whether those trucks are still around. I hope they are. Hmm, maybe that's why my Shrimp Bolivar has never been repeatable.

About this time last year, we got into a discussion about stuffed jalapenos. (Yes, I'm back to armadillo eggs and their ilk!) @FauxPas linked to this recipe, and perhaps made it. @blue_dolphin showed her results here. @chileheadmike showed his ABT's here, and @ElsieD showed her results from the linked recipe here. I finally decided to try the baked version of jalapeno poppers that blue_dolphin and ElsieD had done. I did this after thawing a bunch of bacon in preparation for wrapping it around the jalapenos. The spendwithpennies version has you slice the jalapenos in half, stuff each half, top with a panko/melted butter mixture, and bake. It sounded like a great Friday evening dinner. Success! Instead of bothering with the bacon, I added finely-chopped Genoa Salami from a roll my sister had given us for Christmas. I'm beginning to the think the meat and stuffings don't need to be very specific, unless you're trying to roll it around a stuffed pepper. This treatment was delicious, and think the recipe must be very forgiving. Next time maybe I'll try the spendwithpennies verion of Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Poppers. Maybe they won't be very different from chileheadmike's Atomic Buffalo Turds, although I notice something extra in the filling. @chileheadmike, what is that nestled between the cream cheese and the bacon in your photo here?

I think I've noticed the periodic random rearrangement of our local Fry's, but it hasn't been frequent enough to be an irritation for us. To be honest, I prefer it to the larger Foothills Fry's (what I call the East End) that I showed above. Although the selection isn't as good - and I can envision making a special trip for truly special stuff like that mustard - I find the smaller store easier to navigate. This collage shows the entire selection of rice and most of the shellfish at the local, smaller store. Incidentally, I happened to be back at the East End Fry's today and noticed that they even had live littleneck clams at their seafood counter. (Note to @ElsieD: everything at the counter is "guaranteed sustainable" but no information is listed about the source. Hmm.) Wednesday was our "stocking up" grocery day because senior citizens get a 10% discount on the first Wednesday of each month. That's on top of the savings from having a Fry's card. Thanks to that double discount we got some great prices, and spent more money than we might have otherwise. No doubt that's what they intend. Since I wasn't alone I had less leisure to take photos, but I still managed to snap some of the produce area and deli counter. If you go back to my post about the other store you can see the size differences. Unlike the larger Fry's, this one has an indoor eating area. It was utterly bare. I guess that answers the question about eating in!

One of our missions here at the Society for Culinary Arts & Letters is culinary education and information exchange. Since 2004, members have developed and/or attended courses and workshops, then reported on them. This index of courses and workshops devoted to confections and chocolates should assist people in finding the topics. Thanks go to @Kerry Beal for suggesting that an index be developed, and to @curls for actually developing it. Workshop Reports 2009 workshop Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada 2010 workshop Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA 2011 workshop Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada 2012 workshop Woodbridge, Virginia, USA 2013 workshop Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada 2014 workshop Las Vegas, Nevada, USA 2015 workshop Merrifield, Virginia, USA 2016 workshop Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2017 workshop Las Vegas, Nevada, USA 2018 workshop Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada 2019 workshop St. Louis, Missouri, USA (2020 workshop Buffalo, New York, USA – postponed due to COVID-19) 2023 workshop Buffalo, New York, USA (at last!!) 2024 workshop Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2025 workshop Cedar Park, Texas, USA Workshop Planning 2010 workshop planning Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA 2011 workshop planning Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada 2012 workshop planning Woodbridge, Virginia, USA 2013 workshop planning Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada 2014 workshop planning Las Vegas, Nevada, USA 2015 workshop planning Merrifield, Virginia, USA 2016 workshop planning Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2017 workshop planning Las Vegas, Nevada, USA 2018 workshop planning Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada 2019 workshop planning St. Louis, Missouri, USA 2020 workshop planning Buffalo, New York, USA – postponed due to COVID-19 2023 workshop planning Buffalo, New York, USA 2024 workshop planning Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2025 workshop planning Cedar Park, Texas, USA Outside Courses Attended and Reported on by Members 3-day sugar class w/ Anil Rohira, 2005 Andrew Shotts Class at Notter School, 2007 Norman Love at the French Pastry School, 2007 Gourmet Chocolate confection class given by Richardson Research labs, 2008 Notes from Callebaut workshop, 2008 World Pastry Forum World Pastry Forum, 2004 World Pastry Forum, 2005 World Pastry Forum, 2007 Jean-Pierre Wybauw Advanced Chocolate Class with Jean-Pierre Wybauw, 2006 Wybauw Class, 2007 Ongoing Topics Santa's Spectacular Tonawanda Workshop, 2016 - present Andrey Dubovic online classes, 2018 - present Chocolate Classes - what have I learned, 2017 - present eGullet Culinary Institute (eCGI) Courses on Confections and Chocolate Confectionery 101, 2006 Q&A: Confectionery 101, 2006 Demonstration Topics There are also many topics demonstrating techniques! @gfron1 compiled a fine index of them during his tenure as a host. Be sure to check them out in this index, which includes but is not restricted to chocolate and confectionary techniques. Demo Topics

I want to report on the bread I made back here. The buns that I made are okay, but tough on the bottom. The loaf, however, is a joy: flavorful, dense enough to slice easily, soft and moist enough to make good sandwich bread. It toasts nicely. Here's the money shot. Now the question is how repeatable it is. Sure, I was using a recipe, but the choice of milk (I used mostly canned condensed, but not entirely) and flour (I'll be out of the stuff from Tucson) makes a difference. If it's repeatable, we'll be saying "Move over, Dave's Killer Bread!"

Well, those of you who guessed potatoes cut more easily than onions in that chopper were right. Like DesertTinker, I expected the potatoes to be tougher because of their tighter structure, and because of the difficulty in slicing them lengthwise with french fry cutters. My darling reports that the onions were tougher. Apparently their walled-and-water structure is stiffer, firmer than the potatoes' structure. It's important to note that the potatoes were already sliced to get the right depth, so the chopper only had to deal with about 1/2" depth per slice. We have to slice the onions too, although maybe not quite so thinly. Now that he's tried dicing potatoes this way, he says there's no going back. First, it's easiest for him; second, he much preferred the way the diced potatoes browned for his hash. He's always sliced them into half-moons before.

My darling is the Ph.D. in Egyptology. It's actually titled "Ancient Studies" but he did all his research in Egypt. When we met, he had just finished doing a walk sponsored by the National Geographic, going from the Nile to the Red Sea, following a Pharaonic trade route. When I refer to things like "Bedouin-style Tuna Noodle Hot Dish" I'm referring to dishes he invented or learned, or I learned, during trips there. I might never have gone to Egypt if we hadn't met, and I certainly wouldn't have gotten the view of its land, people and food that I did by going with him. Anyone(?) keeping track might remember that I've mentioned we're both pilots. Well, he's one of those who has enjoyed working and retiring so many times that he's had several careers. His Egyptological research was later in life.

While I'm on the subject of gadgets, I'll show you the alligator-style onion chopper that's been around since, oh, the dawn of "As Seen on TV" I think. You've probably seen them already, but here's one to be certain you have. It comes with two blade-plates, one with a finer dice than the other. My parents gave my sister and me choppers like this one long-ago Christmas. I used mine a few times, thought it okay but more trouble to clean than it was worth, and put it away. When my darling came along, he discovered it and decided it was the ONLY way to do onions. When the original broke, we replaced it. When we forgot it for the winter trip, we got one for the Princessmobile. A couple of days ago it was his turn to cook. He's been jonesing for hash. He decided he wanted to try diced potatoes rather than sliced potatoes as he usually does them. Maybe they'd cook more to his liking. He asked me whether the onion chopper would work on potatoes. We, a Ph.D. in Egyptology and M.S. in Physics, had a lively discussion about the cellular structure of onions vs. potatoes and the potential difference in effort. He decided to try it while I was out. This was the night's result. So, what do you think was easier to cut: the onions or the potatoes? I'll give you all time to mull that over and respond before I reveal the answer.

Here, as I promised, is the juicer in action. My mother rescued this venerable Wear-Ever citrus squeezer from a military family that was getting ready to move. They were going to throw it away! It's been in our family longer than I have, and I recommend it for its simplicity and effectiveness. They can still be found on eBay from time to time. The juicer is intended for lemons and limes, but my mother thought to try it on pomegranates one time when she was making jelly. Juicing those babies is/was a real pain. She never looked back. As for myself: I love the look of pomegranate arils, but I'm only good for one or two fruits before the seeds take the fun away. Juice, on the other hand, is delicious and seed-free, and considerably cheaper than store-bought Pom Wonderful juice. There are probably more efficient juicers for this purpose. I'd guess the vertical geared juicer one sees in bars would do a better job, but this one is more compact and works well enough for me. The glass is holding one pomegranate's worth of juice, about 5 oz in this case.

I use my favorite citrus juicer. I'll post a photo or two, tomorrow or the next day, depending on how our shopping goes tomorrow. You really did live in an upscale area! 😃

I peeked down the aisles and saw some gaps, but not enough to make me worry. I think the shrimp were a mix of wild caught and farmed, but to be honest I didn't pay enough attention. We're really trying to work our way down through freezer contents, so I didn't want too much temptation!

Since I had even more wait time 😠 than expected, I went back into Fry's for a more thorough tour, and to use some of a Starbuck's card on coffee. You've seen coffee in a cup. I won't bother with a photo. The short version: there is no place in this store for dining, even from the deli. I mentioned that the aisles are wide and selections large. I didn't see much difference in the meat offerings, but the gaps were surprising. It may be because Arizona is on another Covid-19 surge and the panic buying is starting up again. They have a fairly nice meat counter, fka butcher counter. It also has supply gaps. There are home meal kits that I haven't seen before at the other place. Several aisles are devoted to kitchen gadgets, dishware, small appliances. I think they carry the entire line of Instant Pot gizmos. The Asian and Mediterranean offerings may be more complete than in our store. I especially love this mustard. I didn't buy any, but probably will do so sometime this winter when I can justify "stocking up". Ditto for their rice offerings. This made me laugh, in light of ongoing discussions in these forums about what constitutes "hummus". The bakery counter was particularly arresting. Look at the colors! I especially love the luster on the cupcake frosting, and said so to the woman arranging the wares. She was very pleased... she was the artist! Bulk foods are prepackaged. The only unwrapped goods, aside from fruits and vegetables, were these bagels. I think that's all for this tour. If I think if something else I'll post. Feel free to ask questions

I zipped in and out as quickly as possible too, but I didn't see any place set up for eating in. Maybe the Starbuck's had a table. I'm sitting in the parking lot. Maybe I'll mask up and stroll back in for another look. If so, I'll get more pics. 🙂

The buffet food was served to me, from behind glass counters. The same is true for other deli selections and sandwiches made to order. The salads and cheeses I showed, and sandwiches to go, were all wrapped and in the open so anyone could grab them.

I'm cooling my heels in town today for non-culinary reasons, and I'm getting to see how "the other half" lives. In this case, "the other half" is the newer, eastern end of Yuma. The town began at the Colorado River, and as it grows it's sprawling eastward toward the mountains. The newer housing developments and RV parks are out here. The Fry's grocery store at this end of town is HUGE: 2 or 3 times the size of the Fry's we usually frequent, with massive selections and very wide aisles. Here's a peek at their produce area: Their deli area has salads and sandwiches to go, and an extensive cheese selection. They also make sandwiches to order and offer the usual complement of cold and hot dishes. I happen to know their fried chicken is excellent. I opted for the Chinese deli today. After much dithering I decided to splurge and get 2 entrees so I could compare their spicy sesame chicken with their regular sesame chicken. I had no idea how generous the portions would be! This came to the princely sum of $7.99. It's much more than I can eat, or want to eat for lunch, so the leftovers will serve us well. It's good, too. Not too spicy, not too bland.

(We didn't actually cook over the campfire tonight. We just enjoyed it, then fired up the camp stove.) Burgers and buns came out well. I'd have liked my buns to have softer bottoms (no snickering!) I'm looking for ideas. My best guess is to put the rolls on a screen atop the baking sheet, to allow air circulation and reduce the heat at the bottom layer. Suggestions, anyone?

My plans for the day changed entirely, and I found myself with time to make bread. Thanks to my best friend, I have discovered Yet Another Bread Book. Last week I visited her (yes, in San Diego) and we baked bread. The first effort was using my go-to sandwich bread recipe, from a Peter Reinhart class, adapted inexpertly to whole wheat and done without the use of scales. Can you say "brick," boys and girls? (I had kept protesting that I'd given up on using only whole wheat. I've never been happy with the results, and this was no exception.) The next day, we used what was once her go-to recipe. You'll note that (a) it uses volume instead of weight and (b) it uses a mix of whole wheat and regular flour. I'm so used to baking by weights that it seems odd to use volumes any more, but we liked the result. So I snapped a photo of the recipe in question, and my own used copy of the book is winging its way here. Today I kept notes on the weights that came out from my flour measurements, but I confess that if the bread tastes as good as it looks I may just go right on with volume measurements. The mass came together nicely. I used the last of some Tucson honey, and a combination of King Arthur Bread Flour and some of the artisan bread flour from Barrio Bread in Tucson. There's a relationship between dough temperature and rise rate. Most of us who bake bread have heard about it - perhaps even read the formula - but I've seen it in action now. Her neighborhood and kitchen are cool: maybe around 70F that day. Her oven doesn't have a pilot light. Mine does. Our trailer today was in the high 70's, maybe even low 80's, and our oven provides a natural warming environment on the back of the stove, where the oven vents. What took about 2 hours to happen in her kitchen took 30 minutes in mine! I punched down the dough after 30 minutes and let it rise again to double the size, then shaped and let it rise again, all in the time it had taken for the first rise in her house. This bottom pair of pictures is, I kid you not, 1/2 hour apart. (While the dough was rising, I established that the leftover salmon cakes are a fine carrier for mayonnaise and salt.) The raw and finished products. We needed both a loaf for slicing and buns for burgers. I need work on shaping, and the bun sizes could have been a bit bigger. Still, I think these will be good. Here's a comparison of the last Orowheat commercial whole wheat burger bun and the largest of my baking product for today. I think my efforts will do for superburgers and sandwiches.

I wonder where that leaves those of us with an active subscription? I still enjoy that magazine, although I rarely actually cook from it.

Grated onion? I've read through the recipe 3 times and still don't see it. That makes me wonder whether I got the right recipe. I very much like your "smooshed up by hand" idea. Much simpler than what I did, although of course I was starting from scratch.

Thanks, Elsie. That link takes me to a recipe search with more than one option. Is this the one you mean? It does look considerably easier than the one I tried, which began with poaching half the fish and mincing it all.

We are just over the California/Arizona border, on the California side. The nearest town of any size is Yuma, Arizona. It's still the Sonoran Desert, as you were in, but at a couple thousand feet lower and a few inches less rain each year the vegetation is quite different and much more sparse. There are no saquaro cactus here. There are prickly pear, cholla and lots of non-cactus like ocatillo and croesote bush but they are sparse enough that we can walk / cycle without worrying about thorns. I'll be including more landscape photos as we go along, assuming we stay here. None of that has to do with food, though! My darling is in charge of dinner tonight. It will probably be Superburgers for dinner and various leftovers during the day. I'm still working on my buck-apiece pomegranates and will indulge in some juice for breakfast. Squeezing one of them will probably be the fussiest food thing I do all day.

Our neighbors have cleared out, and the areas several miles south that resembled RV sales lots have only a few camping units remaining. We had to go to town today to get propane. The highway southbound toward the freeway had the heaviest traffic we've ever seen. I tried, and failed, to get a photo. It was almost like rush hour traffic! This deal was too good to pass up during our last grocery shopping expedition: I've had a bee in my bonnet to make salmon cakes, preferably Thai-style, and this promised to scratch that itch. Or swat that bee, if you dislike mixed metaphors. I finally settled on following this recipe, more or less, for Thai Style Salmon Cakes from The Food Fairy Blog. I say "more or less" because the recipe suffers from poor editing: it calls for 3 T soy sauce, and 2 T soy sauce, but never gets around to saying why it's all divided. Everything gets mixed together. Probably a typo. I showed 'em! I forgot the soy sauce altogether, until it got to the table! We liked it, but agreed it was bland. Soy sauce helped. Salt helped. The "5-alarm Fire Sea Salt" my sister gave me helped even more. Brussels sprouts provided the greens. Itch scratched. Bee smashed. This dinner wasn't a bust, but there are better ways to spend my time.

Happy New Year! There hasn't been much foodworthy activity around here since the last post. Some local folks moved into our little area, a decent distance away, and we've visited at a safe distance a couple of times. I've learned that this little area USED to be heavily occupied for Christmas, New Year's and the intervening week. They said some 50 trailers would ring the entire perimeter, gather and have grand times. Many are / were locals. Over the decades the attendance has dropped as people aged. The Covid-19 pandemic discouraged the survivors except for 3 people in 2 trailers. I've been told that there are still barbecue barrels buried around here somewhere, as well as some people's ashes. Nice to know that there are traditions. We've never been here past Dec. 20 so weren't aware of the usual routine. The skywatching has been beautiful. I got some pretty good photos of the Dec. 21 sunset and superconjunction, but had to use a good camera to get them and haven't transferred them to the computer. The phone caught a good Christmas Eve sunset. Christmas dinner was an almost complete rerun of Thanksgiving dinner, except that I didn't bother making bread. We had phone calls and Zoom calls with family, but it still isn't the same as being together. I couldn't muster quite enough holiday spirit to include bread in the food activities. For the record, the menu was prime rib with potatoes roasted in its juices; scalloped corn; green beans with bacon; cranberry relish (not shown). Standard sliced-bread toast for him. As New Year's Day approached and another long weekend started, a new bunch of revelers rolled in to the general area. The 4-wheeler enthusiasts' camping areas are packed as densely as any RV dealer lot we see from the highway. If you look closely at the bottom two pictures you'll see herds of 4-wheelers parked atop the dunes, waiting their turns; you'll also see some vehicles going up or down the dunes. They're having fun. They're miles from us, so we're having fun too. New Year's Eve was also a quiet affair, but the most noteworthy food I've eaten or made in some weeks. Well, not the popcorn we ate while watching Fiddler on the Roof (a perennial favorite, but an odd choice for NYE) but the Shrimp Creole Dip from George Graham's web site, Acadiana Table. Holy man, that's good stuff. I took some liberties with it and it's still good: started from already-cooked salad shrimp, used already-mixed horseradish mustard because I didn't have enough horseradish or grainy mustard. Oh, and like many others in this forum I refused to use green bell peppers. Red bell worked just fine, thank you. This is an excellent dip, and if it's wildly different from the taste he would get we'll never know. It's also easy. It's worth adding to your recipe files. As his web page notes, it's good right off the bat but even better after it sits in the refrigerator and firms overnight. His serving suggestions don't pair it with avocado, but I'm here to tell you that the dip, with avocado and tortilla chips, makes a fine breakfast.

I've been leaning toward spinach and feta baked in puff pastry - basically spanikopita turnovers (nod to @Darienne on that) - but I also very much like the sound of crab-filled pastry. How would one go about that, please? I have a package of puff pastry begging to be used.

Was this a second or third bowl of the salad, or did nobody try any of it? If that salad all went untried, what a travesty! Except that you are in a position to enjoy it now. Oh, and I'd like details about that salad. It happens that I have all the ingredients mentioned.