Smithy

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?

'sall right, I made up for kayb by clicking on two books I'd already bought -- and then buying the pickle book, which I hadn't.

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I'm afraid I didn't measure the quantity of the finished sauce, but I remember thinking it didn't look like enough for the entire large head of cauliflower that I had cut into chunks. Since I was making substitutions anyway (and had overlooked the fact that I was to thin it with water, since water was in the instructions but not listed among the ingredients) I added salsa, ketchup and oil until it looked like enough and tasted good. I probably had around 1-1/2 cups. As far as the liquidity goes, it was thin enough to penetrate crevices in the florets and thick enough to stay there, with some dripping onto the baking sheet. As I recall it was slightly more runny than yogurt, but nowhere near as runny as cream. We liked the thick coating and relatively high ratio of coating to cauliflower. It gave an interesting texture and flavor to the cauliflower, which softened quite a bit during the roasting.

I know, I could also have posted this to the Food Media & Arts forum, but it's just cost me 2 new cookbooks (after I donated a few dozen to my library) so I figure it belongs here: A new wave of immigrant cookbooks celebrates America’s delicious diversity The first book listed, Heirloom Kitchen, has a great premise: the writer realized she didn't know how to make her mother's dishes because none of the recipes were written down, then realized that many of her friends from immigrant families might have the same problem. She collected recipes from mothers and grandmothers, observing and taking notes and cooking with them, and the result comes from many countries. I fell for it. The WaPo's link goes to the Kindle version, but I just bought the hardback. It should be here in time to celebrate the 4th of July. The other book that I couldn't resist is one that I thought to purchase a year or so ago. At the time the shipping was far too expensive. Together: Our Community Kitchen is a project of the Hubb Community Kitchen in London, England. I'll let you read about its background and philanthropic purpose in the article. Two other books are listed in the article. I've resisted them so far.

500F for 25 - 30 minutes, until lightly charred. I pulled mine at the 28 minute mark and that was almost overdone: not the cauliflower as much as the coating. The coating is (supposed to be) a mix of tomato paste, olive oil, tahini, hot sauce, cornstarch, salt and pepper. and water to thin it slightly. Mix it all well, then dredge the cauliflower chunks until they're thoroughly coated, then roast on a lined and oiled pan. The finished product is then garnished with cilantro, lemon zest and a drizzle of more tahini. As noted above, I was flat out of tomato paste! I ended up subbing salsa and a bit of ketchup for the tomato paste and hot sauce. In addition, I quite forgot the S&P, and I missed that water was called for. It was all still good.

I had time to try a couple of new recipes tonight. One was catfish coated with blue cornmeal, diced jalapenos and garlic, then fried, from a cookbook I picked up this spring. Meh. We couldn't tell that the blue cornmeal made a difference, and I really do hate frying in the kitchen! I might have been less disillusioned if I'd kept the mess outside. On the other hand, the vegetable dish was a smashing success: Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini and Lemon, from the July-August issue of Milk Street.* I ended up having to make several substitutions (how the heck could I have run out of tomato paste?) but it was good anyway. We'll be doing this again. And again. And again. Any time I can convince my darling that vegetables are good, as opposed to expedient, it's a hit. This could be a stand-alone meal. *I am easily amused: I've been looking at the July-August issue since early June!

Welcome! C'mon in and join the fun! So, what are lacto-fermented blueberries like? I'm getting a sweet/sour mental flavor.

I'm sure you've described a tava elsewhere, but please refresh my memory. Is it essentially a massive flat hot surface? Would my cast-iron flat griddle do the trick? Why was your skillet only a fair substitute? Thanks for the recipe. That bread looks delicious, and sounds dead easy. I want to try it. Will it puff the way pita does, or is it not supposed to?

I have finally recognized that, except for special occasions, I'm better off with a light and simple breakfast. Like you it's usually fruit and a grain or protein, along with coffee and water. That said, I drool over some of the breakfast feasts posted on these forums and will be pleased to see what you add! I can always enjoy looking and getting ideas.

Cooker, it looks like you have some good help offered! We will all be cheering you on. Please feel free to ask questions and document how you're coming along with your new skills, as you have time. If you make some frightful mistakes, you can laugh at yourself and get commiseration or laughter from others in the I will never again...(Part 4) topic. We have all made wild mistakes at some time or other, and that topic is good for helping us laugh at ourselves!

Thanks for bringing this up to the top again. It's clear there hasn't been much activity since 2013, but I know there are newer forum members who are interested and active in Indian cookery. @sartoric comes to mind, for one. I have made an Indian lime pickle - and then, much to my embarrassment, forgotten to use it! Do you have some Indian pickle recipes you'd like to share? When you've made them, how do you use them? Recipes and demonstrations of pickles and the dishes they accompany would be welcome.

Click here for a link to that recipe. I went looking for the recipe, thinking that butter tarts were the Canadian answer to pecan pies. I think I was mistaken.

I think stuffed celery can be a great appetizer -- or substitute for a full meal, depending on appetites and energy levels. That said, I'm curious about the stuffing. Peanut butter? Pimento cheese? Something else?