Smithy

Thanks for that reminder, Okanagancook. I have her Complete Asian. I'll pull that out before looking for more Thai cookbooks.

My husband and I continue to be disappointed in country-style ribs, which I assume are the same as your "country ribs". I'm disappointed because I've never thought them wonderful BUT WE KEEP TRYING THEM and he's disappointed because he used to think they're wonderful. SO WE KEEP TRYING THEM. Braised in sauce, roasted in the oven, grilled...all attempts have yielded dry meat because there's no fat in it. So if you have solid advice about how to pick 'em and how to cook 'em, I'm all ears. Sous vide is especially appreciated, in light of this topic.

They're coming along. DH and I each had one tomato from this cluster. Sweet, tart, tomatoey goodness. There are 3 plants, all in pots, all taller than we are. This cluster promises good things to come!

Holy smokes, @dcarch. How dense are those tomatoes? Watery? Firm and meaty? They look scary good...or should I say scary AND good. I'd be disappointed to cut one open and find disproportionately large voids. As they're photographed here I'm downright envious.

Nancie McDermott's Quick & Easy Thai - Everyday Recipes was recently recommended to me by several friends (including @Jaymes) on another forum. Jaymes reports that she and her son cook regularly from it and like the results. So far I can only pass along the recommmendation, though. I borrowed the book last week (via Kindle) and then forgot I had it. That's another disadvantage of electronic books!

@CantCookStillTry, you put many more confident cooks (myself among them) to shame with your creativity and delicious-looking results! That's a beautiful stir-fry above.

I too like that method of poaching chicken, but the convenience of sous vide is I can have it essentialy "poached" for a long time before using it. The consistency comes out about the same. At any rate, I think I'll try that persimmon for a Mexican-style salsa, and see what it does with the chicken. If it isn't a total disaster I'll report back. Maybe if it is a total disaster I'll still report, for the comic effect. (Thanks for the Wilshire Bullock's article. I used to love driving past that building. The fashion show lineup in one picture is hilarious!)

I am about halfway through Pierogi's foodblog and remembering just how funny and energetic she was despite the RA that plagued her even then. Now I want to make comments on the blog, or at least post "reactions" (which the software didn't allow back then) and of course either would be useless. Thank you, Heidi, for posting the link. As I look back through the blog, I keep seeing cookbooks we have / had in common, and inspiring posts. I don't see making pierogies any time soon, but the next time I consider it I'll remember her tutorial. Or her tutorial on short ribs. Or her tutorial on the treatment for Polish sauerkraut, which is different from the way we usually treat it at home. I've missed her voice for a long while, but always hoped we'd be seeing her back. I'm sorry we won't. Rest in Peace, Roberta. Thanks for the laughs.

I love the pun, cross my heart. I occasionally go for chicken breast in the interest of reduced fat. Then I undermine the whole thing by mixing it with heavy amounts of mayonnaise and various seasonings to make a chicken salad, or slather bread with mayo for chicken sandwiches. My latest sous-vide chicken breasts are still sitting in their unopened package, so I have some to play with for this. It might even be lower-fat!

As it happens, I just stumbled over a container of frozen persimmon pulp in my freezer. I like the idea of making a salsa with it. Persimmon pulp, charred onion, a bit of chile for heat...what else should go into that? Garlic and/or oregano as above? And would it be better with chicken breast or pulled pork?

I'm quoting both posts deliberately to add that my comments above don't apply to blending it after thawing. I'm pretty sure I never thought to try that!

It goes grainy and never regains its original creamy texture, in my experience. It curdles, in a sense: not that it changes flavor, but it's useless in coffee. If you can think of a good way to use it in something that freezes well (ice cream?) I think you'll be better off.

Guilty pleasure, when lunch is usually a salad and the summer tomatoes are so good: instead, taking a slice of that tomato and piling it on a sandwich with baby greens, mayo, mustard, cheddar, salami, all on toast. I'll worry about the calorie count somewhere else.

Well, what the heck. How could I turn down a book by Nathalie Dupree that has a preface by the late, great Pat Conroy? I clicked on "Mastering the Art..." wondering whether I'd already purchased it. No, I hadn't. (I have now.) What I HAD already purchased was her biscuit book. In 2012. Yeesh.

Confession time. I bought a tool like this in the fun and rush of an evening's cooking class. 2 years later, I have yet to use it. Perhaps we need a spätzle topic, with tutorial? Please help me justify this purchase. I love the sound of "SO simple and the perface "sop" for all good sauces!"

That's funny, and goes to show why we're lucky to have choices. When I tried a V-slicer (don't remember the brand..Oxo, maybe?) I found the apex of the V to be a pinch point. Stuff jammed in there. I took it back.

BLT is my favorite sandwich! I usually add dill pickles and sometimes avocado, but with really good bacon and such a tomato as that I might just stop at the basics and let those flavors shine on their own.

"Aurora peppers"? @TicTac, please describe them if you haven't already. My gardening is rather minimal. There are lush basil, rosemary and sage plants in a few pots. I planted 3 cherry tomato plants in pots, and they're starting to bear fruit. They're also huge: taller than my husband, in once case. That may have happened because we had that pot in a less-than-optimally sunny spot and then moved it, but all the plants are indeterminate. I was warned that they'd grow tall. They are. But oh, look at the first cluster, down near the base of one pot! There are many more such clusters, surprisingly symmetrical, along all three plants: they're young, but they're daily growing.

It's lovely drizzled over potatoes (baked, fried, probably latkes, probably scalloped). As @heidih noted above, it can sub for garlic and oil, although it isn't quite the same. However - if you can't eat garlic, can you eat this? How do you get along with onions, leeks or scallions?

I thank you, both for the summaries and the links to deeper explanations. I have a couple of observations and questions, after reading and considering this material. 1. On the one hand, my bread courses have all said that ideally salt should be added after the flour, water and yeast (or sourdough starter) have been allowed to sit together, because salt interferes with yeast growth and development. Yet these articles say that salt helps with the gluten formation. That seemed contradictory at first, but after some thought I think I've resolved the apparent conflict. Salt is necessary but timing is also important because of two opposing effects on two very different factors: yeast growth and gluten development. Do I understand those two issues correctly? 2. I'm surprised at the statement that a pH of 5 - 6 is ideal for gluten development, and this makes me wonder what commercial bakers do, if anything, to compensate. City water is generally controlled to around a pH of 7 (maybe slightly less) and the EPA drinking water standard is a pH range of 6.5 - 8.5. Do bakers simply give the gluten extra time and/or mechanical activity to compensate? Perhaps the optimal gluten development pH isn't that important because there are workarounds. Further insights would be welcome.

As prices go this is more in the "slightly more expensive" than "crazy good" category, but I want to point out a book anyway. I fell down the rabbit hole of eG Foodblogs, and found the fine 2006 entry divina: Over the Tuscan Stove. Judy/divina hasn't been around here since 2009, but her web site shows that she's still alive and teaching - well, will be when things reopen from the pandemic. And she has a cookbook out. Secrets from my Tuscan Kitchen, by eG member divina, is $3.99 in Kindle format from Amazon. I do not need another cookbook. I do not need another cookbook. I have another cookbook.

I forgot to ask: can you remember any of the flavor or texture notes? For instance, was the red sauce smooth or chunky, tomatoish or hot like a chili sauce or not like either of them? Could the white sauce have been the classic tzadziki, or was it something different?

I think of shawarma (other spellings around here include shwarma, schwarma, or even shwerma as I first heard it called) as being a Middle Eastern food, so it's interesting to think that there might be Russian variations on the sauces. I shouldn't be surprised, though. If you check out this topic on Shawarma you'll find a lot of argument discussion about the proper ingredients and it's clear there are regional variations. You may find something there that sounds like what you remember. Don't be shy about resurrecting that old topic!

I'm another fan of Better Than Bouillion, although I still have part of a jar of Wyler's bouilion cubes taking up space in the cupboard. I like the convenience of scooping out a spoonful of the Better Than Bouillion when I realize I need it; the Wyler's requires enough foresight for me to boil water to dissolve the cube!

Can you (or anyone else) explain this, please? I haven't run across this bit of information before, and I'd like a chemical explanation.