Smithy

This gathering sounds like so much fun. I wish I hadn't had to pull the plug on coming. Have fun, everyone! I hope we see lots of pictures afterward!

I'll let you know what I learn. The broken vial's contents were the "Sarawak White" peppercorns. Judging by the delightfully pungent aroma wafting from our wastebasket, I'd wager they were quite good...but I'm not going to risk the glass shards to be certain. There are 7 other intact vials containing different varieties and mixtures of peppercorns. The company wasn't interested in getting them back. I bought this selection largely to ensure I could get Brazilian pink peppercorns, but I'm also intrigued by the Chinese long pepperscorn and the green peppercorns. My sister has always been a supertaster and she doesn't think it's necessarily a blessing, for reasons you describe. She is particularly good at picking up "bitter" and has no use for less-than-fresh green vegetables as a result. I have a good sense of taste and smell, but probably not that finely tuned. My DH is at the other end: quite definitely incapable of tasting rancidity or early fermentation, so I have to clean the refrigerator periodically to clear out unintentional biology experiments.

My peppercorns arrived today. I hate it when packages like this rattle. Now I'm trying to navigate the Amazon maze to see about getting a refund or replacement. When I click on "return package" I'm informed that this item can't be returned. It used to be that there was a Customer Service Chat button, but - to show how long it's been since I had a problem - that seems to have disappeared. I've sent an email to the seller to see what can be done. eta I found the link to customer service, and they've issued a refund. no muss, no fuss. Bless them.

I didn't know this had been debunked, although I'm generally too lazy (and frugal with the ice, depending on my circumstances) to take that step. What does he say about it? What has been your experience?

That was my take on it, based on this review. Excerpt:

This is what happened to me as well. Our family used MW (and margarine) when I was growing up, and I didn't like mayonnaise then. I'm not sure when my tastes changed, but now I find MW much too sweet. In the last year or two I've also noticed that MW has a peculiar (to me) consistency: smooth with a slimy/slick cohesiveness that mayo does not have. A little MW goes a long way, in both senses of the phrase. My DH quite definitely prefers foods sweeter than I do, although he doesn't have a sweet tooth as such. We keep MW around and I use it to make his sandwiches. His potato salads, cole slaws and bottled salad dressings are all safe from me...and the reverse is true as well.

I now have a set of 3 WonderSky pepper mills (thanks to @andiesenji for the recommendation!) and a sampler pack with 8 types of peppercorns on order. I'd have gone with the sampler pack also recommended by Andie, but their web site still says they're out of the pink peppercorns and I haven't tried checking with a live human to see if the web page is simply outdated.

What do you plan to do with those strawberries, Kerry? It looks as though you're macerating them for a 'next step'. I'm pondering whether to do some sort of small-batch preservation or baking before the berries I bought go bad, or just continue eating myself silly.

That all looks good, but I'm still stuck on "peas and crackers" as an item. Why are those paired together? Does anyone here know? Is it English pub mooshy peas that one could scoop onto the crackers without dropping them?

What a fun haul! I've never seen a folding roller cart like that before It's a wonderful find. Other random thoughts: Once again, you make me wish I were a Costco member, but since the nearest is over 150 miles away it's better that I remain a virtual member. My freezers would be even more full with things I'd eventually have to cook. I have a stainless steel bowl exactly like that, that I picked up at an estate sale some years back. I am a sucker for bowls anyway, but there's something especially pleasing about the rounded corners and nearly straight sides of this one. I couldn't make out the title of the cookbook with the white cover, so I went on an interesting excursion through the internet looking for Dani Patterson. There are a lot of them, even with the addition of the word "cookbook". I arrived at Coi: Stories and Recipes and figured I'd found it, based on this 2013 review on Eater. It looks like fun. I think I understand what you mean about having no intention of cooking from it. I'm not sure I can make out the price of those milkshake cups, but they look like they're double-digit. Are they really $47? Gives new meaning to the 7-11 store chain's drink name, 'Big Gulp'. I had to look up "vadouvan seasoning" also. Now my mouth is watering.

A favorite meat market offers whole pork briskets with a fairly spicy coating, and we have had one waiting for the right day. Today was the day. We parked it at one end of our gas grill, put a container of wood chips at the other end, closed the lid and carefully regulated the temperature to around 250F. This "careful regulation" of the temperature was more like a tarantella for the first hour: trying to get the wood chips to smoke but not catch fire, trying to keep the chamber temperature between 250F and 270F. At last I got the burners and air flow set properly, and the meat could tend itself while the chamber held a steady 255F. We deemed the meat done about 5 hours after the first flame, when the internal temperature had been 163F for some 20 minutes. The result was gratifying: deep brownish red exterior, with juices shimmering on the surface. The slices were tender. He had an ear of corn, his favorite summertime vegetable, as an accompaniment. I had a tomato/cucumber/onion salad per a recipe from Milk Street magazine. We're happy from dinner, and happy that there's leftover meat for sandwiches.

That looks like quite the stock of meat! Mostly pork, it appears. Does this fill out the shopping list that you were working on before we got to the great scientific condiment debate? I see that the butter is as local as it can be. Does it have any distinguishing features other than that - say, extra richness? I want one of those ice cream cones.

Would you be willing to say more about your own pimento cheese over here, please? I started exploring recipes and methods last year, then got distracted by other projects. I'd like to see what yours is like (other than too big unless company is coming).

The strawberries are here! The strawberries are here! Well, technically they're coming from central Wisconsin, 100 or so miles away from me, but the farmers' representatives are starting to drive them up for sale here. I'm buying and eating them as fast as I can. I was so excited that I posted them in the Breakfast topic this morning, and my breakfasts are usually not photo-worthy. I snagged a half-flat of them (about 3 quarts) a couple of days ago and am storing them in the outside refrigerator, bringing in what I'll need for the day. The other eagerly-awaited bounty is decent stone fruit, currently from California. My darling doesn't care if he buys a peach-colored piece of styrofoam from Chile, but I do. These nectarines and peaches actually smell and taste like nectarines and peaches. Oh, we are lucky at this time of year!

The strawberries are here! The strawberries are here! Well, okay, they're still being driven up from about 100 miles south, but that's much closer than California. I've been able to snag some and I'm eating myself silly with them. I do love summer fruits! Breakfast this morning was red, white and blue: almost-local strawberries, good grocery store blueberries, and yogurt.

IMO ketchup on anything is an abomination. Same for Miracle Whip. Ketchup* as an ingredient in a sauce can be an exception. We have a still-nearly-full bottle of ketchup that I bought 1 or 2 years for such a purpose, and if history repeats itself I'll keep it another year or two before pitching it, the way I did with the bottle I bought for guests years ago. My darling also doesn't use ketchup on anything, but he prefers MW. He professes not to feel as strongly as I about most foods, and would take exception to my use of the word "abomination"...but you should see him flinch when I say we're having lamb for dinner! *or catsup, but respelling doesn't change my attitude

I like smoked fish in general but am particularly fond of smoked salmon. Mackerel I've never had. Does its reputed oiliness come through after the smoking? What was the texture like? All those cheeses sound lovely. I had a wonderful time exploring the local cheese selection when I spent 6 weeks living in Yorkshire. Will you be able to take cheese home with you?

That is almost always my problem! So many enticing things to do that there isn't enough time to do them all. I have trouble choosing too. This is why my cookbooks are festooned with stickers flagging must-try recipes, sometimes for years until I find those stickers (or old letters, or post cards, or photos) in a book that I'm considering for the donation pile. I only know Sudbury as the city on the highway with the Giant Nickel, and with the stunted vegetation due to years of uncontrolled emissions from the smelter there. (That information is a few decades old, so maybe the vegetation has recovered.) I also remember it being a sizable town compared to the surroundings, but still rather small. I'll be interested to see what the shopping choices are there - and any scenery from the ride in, and shops you go into, after your trip. Meanwhile, that bacon looks amazingly crisp, a delightful foil to the melty cheese beneath it. I thought I'd worked out the perfect way for me to do bacon, but if I had a CSO I might have to rethink that assessment.

You lost me at the Miracle Whip. The rest of the sandwich, and the bacon preceding it, look wonderful!

I was blessed to have my father until he was 86, my mother until she was 88. I still miss them. I'm very glad you were able to go help celebrate your mother's 90th, and that it was a successful surprise party. Thank you for sharing the joy with us! Enjoy the rest of your visit!

I'm in the United States, currently Minnesota. Thanks to flash-freezing and refrigerated trucking, I can get good salmon and shrimp without necessarily traveling to an ocean coast, and during the summer many good stone fruits that I grew up taking for granted in California. It was a different story when I first moved here, 3 decades ago. How I missed the peaches and nectarines that summer! Southwestern chiles. We get chiles up here, but the selection is different in the Southwestern US. There is always the behemoth Amazon to ship nearly anything, for a price. I travel during the winter and stock up without their help. My best friend spent much of her career living in various African countries. Now that she and her husband have moved to California, they can't bring themselves to purchase pineapple or bananas because they simply don't live up to what they should be.

I am so stealing that lin! Too funny about the kid taking the order! (I once got a BLT with the lettuce on the side because they weren't sure I wanted lettuce. Small town deli, trying to be accommodating.) I owe you too! Surprised there isn't freshy chopped onion in it, but the flakes and juice may make it work. My darling loves the stuff.

Re: Milk Street: I currently subscribe to the magazine, as it was offered at a steep discount (it can happen, @rotuts) and I was curious. So far I enjoy it and have enjoyed the recipes I've cooked from it. However, for reasons discussed above by some of the rest of you, I've been disinclined to buy the book. I may see whether our library carries it. Our library system actually has Mail-a-Book! I recently used to to borrow a tome that would have required a trip to town for Inter-library-loan request, and this way I got it from a library 100 miles away for free. I am delighted.

Welcome! I've never been to Madagascar but it sounds like a fascinating place, and like the others I'm looking forward to seeing it through a (new) local's eyes. I'm pretty sure we have people around here who can speak to the question of fresh rabbit and mango achar...and with a bit of patience, someone may even pop up with eel recipes. 🙂 Feel free to start topics on mystery ingredients; no doubt you'll get lots of suggestions. I'd be curious to know the status of the vanilla crop, if you know. The storms - was it last year, or the year before? - put a serious dent into the crop then. Have the farmers recovered? If you have any questions about how to use the forums, or where (or whether) to post something, feel free to ask a host (I am one) by PM, or by email. It's lovely to see a long-time lurker come into the open!

That's good to know. What (approximately) do you think the ambient temperature is near the bowl, and how steady do you think it is?