Smithy

3 miles south of Columbus, just the other side of the US / Mexico border, lies the town of Palomas. Today's weather was cool, and it threatened to rain, but we decided to go visit The Pink Store anyway. It's quite the place: painted a shocking pink outside, and colorful with wares inside. The sights begin at the door. When we arrived, a musical trio was serenading the diners with lively music. We enjoyed listening to them while we browsed the store. The place is packed with goods from Mexico and Central America, and one could spend hours looking if one wished. It's important to look up and down as well as at eye level. There are, of course, dishes and table linens as well as decorative doodads, lights, clothing, purses, toys, pottery...miniatures and immense sculptures. I have some drinking glasses and a large salad bowl of the style shown above: clear glass with a blue rim. A few years ago I passed up the opportunity to buy some matching small salad bowls. I've never seen them since. If they'd been available today, I might have bought some. As it was, there wasn't serious temptation to buy anything. (When I said so to my darling, he checked my forehead to see if I had a fever!) We sat down in the restaurant. It's been expanded quite a bit since our last visit. We were treated to music after we ordered. They asked if we had any requests. In my broken Spanish, I asked them (at least, I hope it's what I asked them) to sing the song they most love to sing. Much to my surprise, they trotted out "Cielito Lindo". I like the song, but would have guessed it to be such an old standard that they'd be sick of it! We pondered the menu and noshed on chips and salsa and pico de gallo. Eventually we ordered: chiles rellenos for me, hamburguesa con rajas (green chile cheese burger) for him, guacamole for us both. Margaritas for each of us. The portions were generous. The margaritas were decidedly moreish. We resisted. We won't need to eat much, or cook anything, tonight.

We intended to go to Hatch, New Mexico, while we were staying in Columbus this week. I'm getting low on Hatch chiles and have counted on the trip north to get more. We also wanted to go to a recommended restaurant for their take on green chile cheeseburgers. Our pickup had to take precedence: an error message that appeared when we were leaving Tucson wouldn't clear on its own. We made an appointment in Deming, about 30 miles north of Columbus and some 60 miles southwest of Hatch. The plan was to go to Deming, get the truck fixed; go to Hatch, have lunch and get more chiles and chile powder; return to Deming and get groceries, and go home. That was the plan. It became the plan-gone-awry. The truck repairs took much longer than we'd expected. When they finally got us in, an hour after our appointed time, we accepted their offer of a shuttle to Walmart for grocery shopping. That wasn't where we preferred to shop, but it was the closest possibility. We picked up Subway sandwiches while there also. So much for Sparky's burgers in Hatch! By the time the truck was repaired, the wind storm was so furious that the nearby freeway was likely to be closed. We didn't need the freeway, but we were concerned that the road south, back to Columbus, would also close. We stopped at Pepper's, our preferred grocer, and grabbed things we couldn't get at Walmart. I got this consolation prize: A 1-pound bag cost approximately the same as the 5-pound bags I got in Hatch at the last visit. I forgot to look for ground Hatch chile powder while we were there. I also picked up a couple of interesting-looking bottles of wine. Here's one. We headed home. Here's what it looked like - in town, going south, and at sunset. The gusts carried dust from plowed fields and dirt roads, so heavily that we nearly had to stop a couple of times. (A local told us they call it "swapping land" because all the dirt blowing to the next county will come back when the wind reverses!) We could see the reduced-visibility stretches easily enough before we got into them. We made it home safely, and were glad to be there. The wine tasted darned good with dinner that night. It blew like that for 3 days. We haven't done much sightseeing. I made broccoli salad (you've seen that before) using my new-favorite technique for cooking bacon (microwave). I also made a Cauliflower Mascarpone Mash from the Cauliflower Power article in the latest issue of Fine Cooking. They claim you'll never miss mashed potatoes once you've done this. We'll see!

Thanks very much for that link! The recipe specifies lemon marmalade. Had you already made that? Did you do something else instead? I think I want to try this before the rest of my hoarded lemons go south.

Dried beans, stock (chicken and pork, especially), rice, cheesecake, casseroles such as enchilada casserole. Last year I'd have listed yogurt as a most-frequent use, but I've gotten away from that for no particular reason.

@blue_dolphin - that is a beautiful cup and saucer. I have my grandmother's chocolate set! I always wondered whether it was REALLY for hot chocolate, as she said, because I'd never heard of chocolate sets from anyone but her. Guess I know now. Let's make a deal: I'll come by for hot toddy next time I'm in the area, and you come up for an equally decadent chocolate drink at our place!

I'm curious about this, and have a couple of questions in the interest of troubleshooting. Can you identify what it is specifically that you haven't liked about them - the one above, for instance? To what degree do you use processed / prepackaged foods to do this? For instance, have you tried it with the shredded potatoes that contain onions, and then tried again without? Is it possible that, say, the onions don't get cooked enough, or crushing the corn flakes would make a textural difference, or a different cheese would help? This is idle curiosity alone, unless you're interested in trying to find a recipe that you do like. You make so many delicious-looking things that one less rich recipe probably won't leave you feeling short-changed.

I don't think I've ever oiled my pestles, but they have dried out over time and use. Just as with cutting boards, it might preserve the integrity of the wood to oil the pestle.

I too have wedge-shaped Lazy Susans on my cabinet shelves. I like them. I haven't bothered with wedge-shaped canisters because rectangular canisters can be packed so that there's room for circular objects in the corners between them. Here's a photo of the bottom corner cabinet.

As I recall, Garrison Keillor referred to being in his "extremely late 40's" all the way through his 50's and maybe his 60's.

That, and Rosa's Thai Cafe. The explanation of ingredients alone is worth $0.99.

Last night's dinner was worthy of the Freezer Challenge topic, and I posted about it there. Still, I'd like to crow a bit more about how well it all turned out. My tortilla casseroles in the Instant Pot have been all over the map - some good, some more like soups - since we discussed it last fall and it was too dry. However, I'm starting to have some confidence in my ability to do enchiladas in a baking dish. I filmed a pan with cooking spray and gently browned the flour tortillas, one at a time. After each tortilla was browned slightly (one got almost crunchy, but I saved it) I rolled some of the stuffing into it tightly and laid it into a baking dish. I think I'd filmed the dish with spray too. Once the dish was full of tightly-rolled tortillas, the remaining pepper stuffing went in at the ends of the dish to (a) fill the space and (b) save my having to refreeze a small amount. The enchilada sauce went over the lot; the grated cheese (a mix of that chipotle gouda and cheddar) went over it all. I baked it at 350F for maybe 1/2 hour, covered, then another quarter or half hour until the cheese was browned and we were ready to eat. This was gratifying! Not only did I eliminate two freezer containers, but this was one of the rare times we didn't need any embellishments at the table. I'd set out sour cream, salsa and more cheese. None of it was needed. A green garnish (chopped cilantro or parsley) might have made it look prettier, but we didn't think it would taste any better. Best of all was the crunchy crust at the bottom and edges. Now, if I can duplicate that stuffing, this won't be a one-shot wonder.

I eliminated two freezer packages and most of a package of tortillas yesterday evening. The cheese wasn't a leftover, but it was taking space in the refrigerator. The leftovers from a stuffed-pepper dish last winter got rolled into tortillas that had been barely-browned in an oiled skillet. The rolled tortillas went into a baking dish; the sauce went over them; cheese over that. It all baked at 350F, covered for maybe a half hour, and then uncovered for another 15 minutes until the cheese had browned. There was a wonderful crust on the bottom and edges of the finished dish. I can actually see to the back of my freezer!

I'm not kayb, but here are topics for TWO eG gatherings at Bulrush coming up: PLANNING...an eG Gathering in STL for Bulrush PLANNING: chocolatiers dinner at Bulrush (I assume it's also open to non-chocolatiers )

For those who don't understand the reference, here is a picture of the newly-painted wall at @gfron1's soon-to-open restaurant, Bulrush. Fried chicken was part of the work crew's meal. I think these chocolates have a gorgeous pattern, just as that wall does!

What a great story! Thanks for that, and thanks even more for the pictures!

Alas, it's no longer available at the sale price Toliver posted.

I finally got around to trying the recipe for Great-Great Grandma Anna's Romanian Eggplant Spread (Potlagel) to which @heidih pointed me, way back near the beginning of this year's trip. This can be done in a food processor or by hand-chunking, according to the recipe. As it happened I had a plastic container of fire-roasted, peeled red peppers from last summer that had cracked when it fell out of the freezer thanks to some especially rough road. It needed to thaw in a container. I opted for the easiest container. The rich, savory smell of these peppers was tantalizing as soon as it began to thaw! Not shown is the similar container (not cracked) of cooked, peeled eggplant, also from last summer. Where I went wrong, I think, was in using already-chopped sweet onion that had been sitting in the fridge for a couple of days. This is the second time we've had half an onion sit in the refrigerator, already chopped, for a couple of days and then regretted using it. Man, that onion was hot! It overwhelmed everything else. I was going the lazy route and whirling everything together at once, rather than chopping the individual ingredients and tasting as I went. I added more vinegar, and salt, and prickly pear juice and prickly pear balsamic vinegar to tone it down. This morning it's tamer, but doesn't taste of the individually delicious ingredients. My darling thinks it's all right. Next time, I'll use fresh onion and I won't chop the pieces so finely. It looks a lot prettier in the Food52 article - but then, that shouldn't surprise anyone. Questions: 1. Has anyone else experienced this business of sweet (Walla Walla, or Vidalia, for instance) onions losing their sweetness within a few days after being cut, even though they were refrigerated? 2. What do you do with something like this dip to tone down rampageous heat? Sour cream or other dairy didn't seem the right way to go.

We wandered the nearby town of Rodeo, NM yesterday for a short time. This town was a railroad stop until 1952, and it's unclear how the town has stayed alive since then. It is clear that the town's struggling (my darling said "dead") but the not-too-old paint jobs, and faded murals on closed store fronts, show that efforts to revive the town can't be more than a decade old. The only places we found along the highway that were still open were a hotel/RV park and a second-hand store. A new grocery store / restaurant has opened recently, a few miles out of town on the way up to the mountains. We met friends there for dinner a couple of nights ago, but I didn't take pictures. I may get another crack at it; we'll probably drive past on our way up into the mountains today or tomorrow. It's windy and cool here: typical high-desert spring weather, I'm afraid. Yesterday afternoon was a good time to cook a ham. Now we have ham for sandwiches, and possiby ham 'n' mac 'n' cheese, and definitely my darling's favorite split pea soup. We'll have to get more split peas first, since we cooked them already. (He has no such recollection, and insists that the gremlins hid the peas!) I think the potatoes are the best part of this dish: soaked with all that ham juice, they mash easily and have excellent flavor. My darling says to publish this rule: whenever something is to be roasted, don't put it on a rack despite instructions. Put it on a bed of potatoes instead!

This makes me wish I had a Costco membership - and a Costco (or Costco Business Center) near where I live. Nice find!

We did! I got into a terrible dither there. The idea, of course, had been to see what was on the factory-seconds shelf since we wouldn't be there for the First Saturday factory-seconds sale. I found one Mimbreño salad plate. I'd more or less decided that I wanted china dinner plates, and possibly another platter. While I was walking around, holding what I REALLY wanted and telling myself that I didn't need them, they weren't on sale, my darling doesn't care for breakables, no room, and on and on, I spotted another pattern that was slightly lower in price. DH was eyeing them too. "What do you think of these?" he asked. "I like them," I said, "but I'm not sure I'd like them after a month or two of use." He bowed out of the discussion. Eventually, as I dithered, he bowed out of the shop. When I had finished dithering, I had TWO large dinner plates of the Mimbreño pattern and TWO dinner plates of the other pattern because it had kept growing on me. He was pleased at the other dinner plates...and not terribly surprised that I'd come out with more than I'd intended. I took some consolation in the fact that I wasn't the only one dithering. Another woman was having trouble deciding between two different desert-themed patterns for her home, and whether one was too kitschy. While I was waiting to pay, three or four of us had a fun confab over the pros and cons of the designs. I'm telling myself that I'm done with that factory now, unless we manage sometime to be in Tucson on the first Saturday of the month. We'll see. I wouldn't mind getting a match for that breakfast plate that you commented on above.

I am amazed at how well the chicken breast I sous-vided back here has held up. I waited a week to open the package once the breasts had been cooked, because I counted on it to be pasteurized before it was opened. Still, yesterday marked the 10th day since I opened the package. There was a little less than half the package left. (I mentioned before that the breasts were huge!) I decided I'd best use it before it went off. I don't think I could count on supermarket-deli chicken to hold up this well. A low-temp circulator has earned permanent real estate in the Princessmobile - whether it's the Joule or the Anova remains to be seen. I need to play with the Joule more while we have shore power, to see whether I can work out the issues I've been having. It had a firmware update the last time it was on, so it may behave differently than it did when I was kvetching about it.

As promised above, here's the Barrio Blonde. It's the last of that six-pack, and it would have gone well with dinner, except that it was finished during the preparations. Dinner used the last of our medium-heat Hatch chiles from last year, and a few of the hot chiles as well. I'll know during the next visit not to get as much of the hot chiles. They've been hard for us to use up. I'm coming to the end of our oranges, too. There are plenty of lemons and limes left, but I'll miss having an orange, or its juice, for breakfast. We're far from the citrus groves now!

Yes, thanks for the closer-up shot. The earlier pic didn't show the noodles clearly; at least on my screen that pile of noodles looked more like smoke!

I've taken the liberty of cropping your photo, posted above, for a closer look and for clarity. The mesh basket in the foreground has what looks like the perfect handle-bend so it can rest on the rim of the pot. Is that to allow drainage back into the pot once an object has been fished out? My question is about the size and intent of the mesh basket, and what sorts of objects would fit in it. I'm used to seeing broad, shallow scoops for things like tempura. What would this be used for, and how big is it? In the background, at the right: is that the rack you're describing to rotuts as being for cold noodles? I thought sure it was a grilling rack!

What fun! Is the plastic thing with the ruler, at the bottom right, a combination measuring/cutting board? My first thought was that it was a binder insert such as one might use in school, but I bet it has a cooking use. I love your yen/yen word play.