Smithy

Happy spring! I realize it's a few days after the Equinox, but I was away in San Diego on the actual day and I don't have any worthy food photos from my visit to share on this blog. We ate Thai takeout one night and home-cooked goodness the rest of the time. I've commented before that spring is arriving late here, but the flowers are at last showing themselves. We were talking this morning about how the pandemic has allowed us to spend more time here than usual, because we haven't made the long traveling/visiting loops we'd normally make. In a normal year he'd have been more restless to move around and I'd have been more anxious to visit people. With the simple expedient of a car rental, and with certain socially distanced events, I've been able to get the social contact I needed. It has also helped that this winter has been cooler than usual. A few years ago I was expiring from the heat by March. This year it's been too cool and windy for us generally to want to sit outside, with or without a campfire, to cook. We still hope to do a bit more fire cooking before we move on for the season. It's very windy again today, so once again we aren't likely to have a campfire. I have beef thawing and ready for a marinade (preferably for skewers and campfire cooking) and chicken thighs thawing for a Peruvian treatment that will start using the jar of aji amarillo paste I've been carrying around. The candidate recipes for the latter are this recipe for Aji de Gallina from The Spruce Eats and this recipe for Peruvian Chicken from Fifteen Spatulas. I just remembered that I don't have the cilantro recommended in the Fifteen Spatulas recipe! Oh, well. It looks easier and I'm leaning toward it anyway. Yesterday was a blustery day, entirely unlike the forecast. Again it wasn't good for cooking outside, but it had its own compensations. We settled for grilled cheese and ham sandwiches on sourdough bread. "Settled" is the wrong word. "Luxuriated" would be closer.

Score! A friend's neighbor in Yuma is gone for several weeks and invited anyone interested to help themselves to the citrus harvest. I picked half a dozen each of pink grapefruit and some mandarin orange variant. The mandarins are delicious. The grapefruit have yet to be tried. A single orange blossom is perfuming my room as I write.

Left-handedness is a huge issue with certain equipment and setups, it's true! My mother was a leftie although she grew up at an time when it was actively discouraged in school, so she wrote right-handed. She preferred some left-handed setups in the kitchen, and I still tend toward them. That said, I'm a rightie. As you surmised I needed my right hand for the camera, but before that I needed it for the knife and chopping, so the left hand managed the board.

You're welcome. I'll post one more photo anyway, since it's a good one and some other reader may be interested to see it. (I may have been misremembering my preferred handle angle. )

No, it doesn't. It must be up slightly to make the board lie flat... you can see the hinge running across the board, near the handle. I like raising it to almost a right angle, but right now I can't remember why I thought that was useful. Also, the handle has a lengthwise curve, I presume for a more comfortable hand fit, and that prevents it from lying flat. The upshot is that this board won't fit into a very flat space like a drawer. I think the depth of the handle curve is about an inch. I can measure it and post more detailed photos if you'd like.

Oh, I say! The more I use this new cutting board the more I like it. I just finished the latest batch of breakfast fruit salad. The board got a workout as I chopped and poured citrus, pineapple and dates into the bowl. I'd say this was $10 or $11 well-spent at the half-price blowout sale. If I were to buy it at full price I still might think it was money well spent, except that I'm a cheapskate. The only question now is how well it will last. Here's a (fuzzy, sorry) picture of the back, so you can see the non-skid strips and dots, and the flex joints.

Basically, yes. I measured mine at 18-3/4" x 10-5/8". That length includes the handle, by the way. The actual cutting surface is 14-1/2" x 10-5/8".

It seems to be this Joseph Joseph Chop2Pot, size Large (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). My measurements are slightly different than they advertise, but it looks like rounding error. I wouldn't call them non-skid "feet" as the advertisement does, so much as non-skid strips or rails along the bottom of the board. Based on my limited experience so far, I think it's pretty good non-skid. It's certainly better than the flimsy plastic cutting boards I'm replacing.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm afraid there won't be much Irish about this post or the food we eat today. Yesterday I was in Yuma at the farmers' market for music-making. We played a fair amount of Irish music in honor of the day. I celebrated after with tacos. I kept my sparkly green "good luck" bowler on for the day, and received a surprising number of compliments in town. My counter briefly wore green the other day when I tested out the new cutting board. It folds even more neatly than I'd realized: if the handle sides are folded in, the board sides fold with them for easy pouring/scraping into a bowl. If the handle is folded at right angles to the board instead, it flattens the board. It's a nice design. The first "chopping victim" was the boned chicken leg meat we bought in Calipatria when we made that small road trip. After I'd cut it into bite-sized pieces I marinated it in one of the packaged marinades I bought way back here in Tucson. Those packages have been sitting in a cooler since I bought them, and it's time to decide whether I want more if we go back that way. That afternoon and evening were yet another in a series of windstorms. Usually even the strong winds die down by evening, but not in storms like this one. The wind was gusting to nearly 50 mph. I could see the glides pushing inward from time to time in the gusts. There was no question of skewering the chicken and cooking it outside over a campfire. I cooked it in the Dutch oven instead, roasted some brussels sprouts in olive oil and tossed them with salt, and cooked pilaf as well. We both liked it, although it was salty. "Try some white wine Worcestershire sauce on it!" he insisted. It gave the sauce an extra tang that I can see why he liked it. Something in white wine Worcestershire sauce (now known as Lea & Perrins Marinade for Chicken, if you're wondering) goes a very long way with me. I think it's the sauterne. Will I get another packet of Turkish Taouk marinade, given the chance? Maybe. I could make something like that for much less than $4 but there's the convenience factor. That night we felt the trailer rocking and rolling until 2 or 3 in the morning, and congratulated ourselves on having reoriented it earlier in the day. We had gone to Gold Rock Ranch for one more trailer dump before we head out sometime in the next few weeks. The store is still closed, but the residents are still around enjoying the "El Rocko" golf course. Unfortunately the swimming pool that was once there has been filled in, an irrevocable loss to the community as far as we're concerned. (The owner made more camping spots a few years ago and overreached her water allowance. She had to choose between the new spots or the swimming pool.) This area needs rain - it fell on the coast, but not here. Nonetheless we're starting to see more flowers.

It goes on the kushari. The kushari joints we visited always served up the bowl without the seasonings. At the table there would be a bottle of garlic/lemon sauce (the Egyptians call it "limoon") and a bottle of hot pepper sauce ("shatta" I think). We called it liquid blow torch. Holy smokes, that stuff was hot! I suspect that's the dark red container in the middle of your condiments. Although the red sauce was hot, it was also delicious at our favorite place, with a delightful piquancy and fruit as long as it was used sparingly enough that we didn't sear our taste buds. One year I bought 2 quarts' worth of it to bring home to the States. That isn't something they normally do, but they were happy to fill my jars. I closed the jars tightly, double-bagged them in Ziplock bags, wrapped them in dirty laundry, double-bagged again...basically gave them the hazmat treatment to get them home without wrecking our luggage or the airplane. Two weeks later all the sweetness had gone away, and there was nothing but savage heat. What a shame! What a surprise for our Egyptian food party!

I agree with @rotuts about the apparent selection in the GTA. I'd love to have been there with you! The menu looks quite promising. I can't say that I've ever had liver or calamari in Egypt, so I wouldn't have been able to advise you about that. What was wrong (in your opinion) with the kibbeh and the kushari?

@Porthos, that kitchen is coming along beautifully (despite flooring-timing issues)! I'd be reluctant to leave now, if it were my house. (I know that updating can be a necessary part of getting a house ready to sell. Still, it would be difficult to give up after all that work )

Think of all the steps you save! (But I too am impressed!)

Not to diss the food, but that plate is what catches my attention. It's beautiful!

That's a beautiful set! I look forward to the results. I asked this question a few weeks? months? ago, with an unsatisfactory although well-meaning series of responses. Now I'm going to ask you, directly: how do you control the thickness of the outer crust, whether in Dutch Ovens or on bread stones or whatever? I find that in my cast iron Dutch Oven the crust is beautifully caramelized - that is, almost reddish golden brown - but downright tough on the bottom. The sides and top are satisfying for a good crusty bread. I almost need a hatchet to cut through the base. I've had the same result, without as good color, with bread on a baking stone. What should I change so that the crust is the same thickness and texture at the base, where the dough has direct contact with a hot surface, as on the sides and top, where it doesn't?

We went for water and fuel today, and got rid of our trash. When we got back I had a chance to compare and photograph the citrus squeezers we've been discussing above. I need to note that @andiesenji gave a tutorial on the use of the standard (I'll call them "Mexican") citrus squeezers way back in 2011, here. Those posts clued me in to the idea that I was using mine wrong, and that the cut face needs to go down as noted by @rotuts and @lemniscate a few posts back. The question at hand was whether the new squeezer needs to have the lemons oriented the same way. I was also curious about which of the two squeezers is more efficient. So, the setup: I had 7 lemons. I weighed them all and found 4 lemons relatively close in mass: 134, 136, 140 and 143 grams. I processed the largest and smallest in the new squeezer and the two middle sizes in the older one, so that nearly the same mass of lemon was being squeezed by each. (This was to compare the juice squeezed by each method as an efficiency estimator, but it assumes the same ratio of peel to pulp and that may not be a good assumption.) I began with the new squeezer with the rotating reamer. I cut each of its lemons in half. First, I tried putting the cut side up so that the reamer made direct contact with the pulp. The pulp got pretty well reamed out this way. It conformed to the reamer beautifully so that I had to pull it away after squeezing. Next, I tried cut face down. I got a rather pretty citrus "flower" out of the deal, thanks to the rib in the base that catch the seeds and juice! Since the lemons are shaped differently at the stem end and the blossom end, I tried one of each way: stem half of one lemon face-up; stem half of another lemon face-down; same for the blossom end. The results were the same: a more efficient reaming, it seemed, if this squeezer had the lemon halves placed cut-side up. Next, the traditional "Mexican" squeezer. I used the same methodology: two lemons cut in half; the blossom end placed face-up one time and face-down the next; same for the stem end. Right away I remembered my troubles from 10(!) years ago trying to figure out how to work this thing. If the cut side is up, the juice can't get through the holes easily, and it spills over the sides instead! The picture doesn't quite capture the spillage properly, since it's difficult to do the pictures one-handed. The face conformed pretty well to the rounded squeezing surface. When I put the cut faces down, as is proper, it all went better. Note that the lemon half is almost turned insde-out. I didn't get around to trying the spiffy method lemniscate pointed to in this video, where you cut the ends off the lemon and then put the cut face up with this squeezer. In the video, the juice SHOOTS out through the bottom holes. Gotta try that next! I wonder how much practice it takes to learn how much end to cut off? In the meantime, I'm pretty well satisfied: although the lemon should be put cut-face down in the handheld squeezer, it works better to be placed cut-face up in the new countertop squeezer. Which was the more efficient squeezer? The new squeezer got 77g of juice from its lemons. The old squeezer got 100g of juice from its lemons. When I used it on the remains of the lemons squeezed in the new one, I got another 12g. So maybe the smaller, handheld squeezer is more efficient at getting the juice out. It's easier to clean. Still, I like aspects of the new squeezer's design: it sits stably on the counter and collects the juice in its own tank, and doesn't require as much hand strength. Besides, it's fun to mess with new toys.

Breakfast this morning: yogurt, half of an excellent avocado, and the new batch of granola. The usual these days. The granola is better. I like the crunch; the sweetness is about right; the raisins aren't too intrusive. (He would say the same about the cranberries.) But I'm still getting mighty tired of yogurt for breakfast! Its benefit is that it's easy, quick, healthful...and probably lower in calories than the avocado toast I might otherwise have. The scales this morning told me that something has paid off in weight loss, so I'll stick with it a while longer. This morning's walk took me out across area that I haven't gone on foot yet this season. I was rewarded with a string of mallow bushes that are starting to blossom. Everything here needs more rain, but we'll take what flowers we can get. I was also rudely reminded that one needs to watch one's footing even out in the open. Ouch! Next up: lemon squeezers.

All your posted dishes look delicious, but the top photo here is flat-out gorgeous. Maybe "gorge-ous" would be a more appropriate way to spell it in this case. I just finished my November batch of LGD ("what's that stuff?" asked DH, but he thought it was okay on whatever I used it for) and I may have to make more soon rather than later. Our cookery and eating at home have been very pedestrian lately. Thanks for the inspiration to explore more.

Our vaccinations were cleverly scheduled for yesterday afternoon, so I could do some fun things in the morning. If you believe we had anything to do with the scheduling, I've another story to tell you. Nevertheless it worked out well for me: I could go make music with friends in the morning, and run errands on the way back before picking up my darling and heading for the clinic. Like a moth to the flame, I was drawn back to the kitchen store with the going-out-of-business sale. I had some specific purposes for going, but also gave myself permission to peruse without massive sales resistance. The back of my mind was yelling about More Stuff. The front of my mind firmly told it to shut up and let me have fun. I didn't buy that wooden tortilla press! It was there, same price, looking lonely - but I still don't know where I'd put it and y'all convinced me that I didn't need it. I also didn't buy any party lights, though I picked them up and put them back down more than once. Here's what I did buy: A folding cutting board, more substantial than the flexible plastic sheets one finds everywhere these days. This also has a non-skid base, unlike those flexible sheets. I've been thinking this looked like a good design ever since I spotted it, especially after the 50th time I'd tried to scrape finely-diced onion into the cooking pot and had some land on the floor instead. (Yes, I know that's the "beauty" of those flexible sheets. But they warp in the dishwasher and skid around on the counter unless there's a towel under them, and then they aren't very firm. I don't like 'em.) The board is dishwasher-safe. I think it will fit in the dishwasher, but won't know until we get home. A jalapeno topper / corer. Too cute to pass up. Small, pretty. I hope it works. If it doesn't, I'm only out $4. A bread knife. I don't really need another bread knife, here or at home, but I decided it's either a good backup or a good gift for some friend. Besides, I like this shopowner. For his smile and silly jokes I'd have been tempted to buy out the remainder of his stock! Finally...taDA! They had one more citrus squeezer like the one I bought last time. I scored! No, I don't want two. I bought this for a friend. I just realized that I owe y'all a series of tests and photos comparing the operation of this squeezer with that of a standard squeezer, and which lemon orientation works best. That discussion began here and went on for several posts, but I didn't have lemons at the time. Now we have lemons. As soon as I work out what to use them for I'll start squeezing and photographing. Anyway, that was my little shopping haul.

My most ambitious thing today may have been making another batch of granola, by tweaking the last batch I made. This time it was 2 cups oats, freshly purchased (Bob's Red Mill); 2T honey, 1T olive oil and 1 T vegetable oil - maybe a little more, to make sure all the oats were coated. Maybe 1/4 c coconut flakes. The oven indicated 350F but I didn't use a thermometer; nonetheless, I baked it all for 20 minutes, stirring at the 15 minute mark; removed the pan and stirred more, then gave it another 5 minutes, until it was beginning to look golden brown. After I pulled it from the oven I added 1/2 c each raisins and dried cranberries - less than last time around - and 1/4 c sunflower seeds and 1/2 c chopped walnuts. The initial taste tests are promising. I'll know more tomorrow.

The plants continue to sprout leaves, but there still aren't the flowers we've come to expect by this time of year. This morning it was 38F when we awoke! The flowers won't be in a hurry, since we seem to have returned to January. Oh, and the wind is blowing again! Or still. Take your pick. But we have had more lovely sunsets thanks to the unsettled weather. The weather isn't really much of an issue today. We're taking it easy by design, having gotten #2 vaccine yesterday. No major side effects, for which we're grateful, but we have been building a stockpile of planned-over meals. One of those meals was corned beef and potatoes. We wish we'd put more potatoes into that pot! The plan was to have one or two dinners from that, and use the leftover slices of meat in sandwiches. The meat was done to perfection: that jiggly texture that you get when a brisket is cooked just enough to start melting the collagen. The meat was fork-tender. I insisted that we had to have good vegetables to go with it; he would have been happy with microwaved frozen peas, one of his favorites. We compromised: I prepped asparagus and nuked it until it was tender-crisp. No complaints on either side. We could easily plow through that brisket in a couple of days! Yesterday we had half a sandwich each on the way to the clinic, but last night we took a deep breath and finished that green chile stew that just keeps getting hotter but losing flavor as we add more to it in a vain attempt to calm it down. I am definitely not buying packages of Hatch chiles labeled "medium hot" again.

I laughed at the food photo and description, but this is no laughing matter: This is Good News (IMO) and something I'd asked about earlier. I too will be interested to know how the mining company adapts.

What *I* want to know is why that split looks so lovely and delicious in your bread, and so like incompetence in mine!

All that talk about deserts and dust led us to reminiscences about my darling's research trips in the Eastern Egyptian Desert, and the times I was able to accompany him. That was tent camping, with someone else doing the (very minimal) cooking and washing up. We ate simply but well. One dish he was never able to convince his driver or guide to eat was what he dubbed "Traditional Bedouin Tuna Noodle Hot Dish". The moniker is outrageous because it was his own invention and none of his crew would touch it. Tuna and feta together, yes. Tuna and noodles together, sure. All three (and some onions) in the same dish meant he'd be eating it for dinner that night and all subsequent meals until it was gone. We love it. I have no idea where I bought these noodles. Some little farmers' market store, no doubt. Maybe the shop near my DIL's place. At any rate, I used it last night. The tuna cans are just visible above the cheese boxes, but you've seen canned tuna before. There's nothing complicated about this dinner. It makes what we consider to be good leftovers. The finishing touch is freshly-ground cumin. We love the fresh, citrusy scent those seeds release. I asked what he thought about the noodles. He didn't notice anything unusual about them. I thought they had a bit more toothsomeness, more bite if you will, than our usual noodles. Was it because they're genuinely better than the stuff we usually buy? Did I actually manage to cook them only to the al dente stage for once? It's a mystery. Maybe it's just my imagination. Seen around on our walks: years-old rock graffiti, desert lily getting ready to bloom, dirt patterns made by the latest wind storm. If you look closely at the center of that arc you'll see last year's plant skeleton. I don't remember the plant species, but there's a lot of it around and none of it has started to grow yet this year. Spring is late.

This, among other comments, made me laugh... ...and this is simply amazing: It's amazing because it's such a lovely gift and a treat that you have it, but also because somehow you had to get it UPSTAIRS and, I presume, will be taking it with you when you move. Thanks for the tour. Like Anna, I have trouble imagining things without the visuals.