Smithy

I'm glad to see you wandering into nuts, whether they're truly nuts or drupes. Two observations, with related questions: 1. The walnut shells you show here look much smoother than I'm used to. Do you suppose the varieties are different? Or is it a vaguary of photo processing? Or are they much more polished in the shell? 2. You don't mention anything about dyeing pistachios red. I personally think it's an abomination, although I'm a native Californian. Have you encountered that phenomenon? It was all the rage when I was growing up: pistachios had to be dyed red.

It certainly looks pretty!

I don't know when or whether I'll get around to that holiday baking, but I will give a preliminary report on petits fours. I ordered a bunch from Swiss Colony -- some to share and some to test. I'm not as disappointed as someone had suggested earlier in this topic. Maybe I'm just a cheap date. 🙂 Here's a sampler box: ...and cross-sections of five of those. I was surprised to discover that the lemon petits fours have a delightfully tart flavor that plays off well against the frosting layers. The strawberry flavor leaves me unimpressed, as I'd rather expected. Ditto the ones with coconut. Overall, I think it's about the firm frosting (fondant, I think) with tender cake in between. I bought a batch of Chocolate Lover's petits fours for a friend, and discovered yesterday that its chocolate frosting layer is rich and fudgy. These are good enough for me (as I said, maybe I'm a cheap date) and I doubt I'll go to the trouble of making them. The Bavarian tortes or other confections from Kaffeehaus, now...maybe those will be a challenge for later this month.

Earlier this week I was in our local Co-op and admiring the selection of artisan breads. We have so many more good local bakeries (where local = within 50 miles) than we did even 5 years ago! Two loaves caught my eye: and Lake Ave Restaurant is one of our better restaurants, but this loaf brought me up short. Focaccia? Really, that fat thing? That's what they call it. Here's the label on the back side of the bag: Well, I was in the mood for good bread and experimentation, and the ingredients look good for both these loaves. I bought one of each. The Coco Artisan Breads focaccia had a fairly oily surface, but an open and tender crumb: The Lake Ave "focaccia" has a fine and tight crumb. And that loaf is fatter than I associate with focaccia! Alas, I wasn't quick enough to use or freeze the Coco focaccia. It made a couple of fine sandwiches, but as of today the rest is feeding the birds due to mold growth. I've been working on the Lake Ave foccacia: sandwiches, closed or open-faced. I may use some of it for panini. I may use the rest for croutons. The flavor is...okay...a little too strong on the pepper and roasted garlic for my tastes. I won't get it again. I will get the Coco focaccia again, until and unless I get back into making my own. I'm surprised that both of these loaves are labeled as focaccia. What do you think?

This article has been occupying a tab in my browser for a day or two now, tickling my funny bone. Really, a truck fire and spill isn't funny. I know that. But this commercial driver had no business taking the road he took. (I know, I've been down that road.) Nobody was hurt. And the Park Service had an excellent response: Full story here.

It was very good, and very (to me) unusual. The Russian woman who brought it seemed to suggest it was a common dish when she lived in Russia.

These two photos don't show the splendor of the fully loaded table, but it groaned with good food. I brought potatoes dauphinois in my largest Le Creuset gratin pan. Other guests brought an excellent cranberry dish that to me had just the right balance of sweet and tart; a very interesting and tasty Russian salad of roasted beets, sauerkraut, capers, kalamata olives and some herbs all tossed with olive oil. The hosts provided 2 wonderfully roasted chickens, gravy; roasted sweet potatoes, and an excellent green bean dish made with bacon and a very nice vinaigrette dressing; bread. The whole shebang began with appetizers: chicken liver pate, cheeses, olives, dilled asparagus; crab dip, and crackers and potato chips. We finished with pecan pie, pumpkin pie; apple pie; and krumkake made by one of the guests and accompanied by whipped cream and raspberries. Plenty of wine with dinner, and choices of other drinks afterward. Somehow we were all taking photos at the same time, so the plates hadn't been loaded up yet and half the seats are empty in these photos! This is a mere taste of an excellent evening.

Georgia Dunn made me laugh in this fine Thanksgiving post today. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! https://www.gocomics.com/breaking-cat-news/2024/11/28

Looks excellent, as always. Is that a new bowl? I like it. Don't remember seeing it in your photos before.

Problem is, the menu you posted is from 1899, so the 1930's origin suggested in that article can't be right. Maybe Peaches Hothouse has been around that long?

I've always wished we had "smell-o-rama" (or, more entertainingly, "aromarama") or its taste equivalent on this forum. Interesting that someone's getting closer to the concept. Thanks!

What fun!! What do you suppose "Hothouse chicken" is?

I'm surprised they held together too. Is Gertie a seasoning or a recipe? I'm guessing it isn't your wife, since she is referred to be "Mrs. C." shortly after this.

This unseemly mess is the result of my determination to do something with a package of frozen peas that would make them edible in my estimation, along with using a package of frozen walleye (aka pickerel) filets from a year ago. Mind you, I like walleye -- especially when it's in the frying pan shortly after being caught and dispatched -- but I don't much like frying in the house, and it's too to fry cold outside, and there were those darned peas. I had 2 packages of the precious walleye filets in the freezer, and decided to risk one. I sprinkled cornmeal and Italian bread crumbs under and atop the (still frozen) filets, topped them with half the package of peas, dotted all liberally with butter and a Dusseldorf-style mustard, and let 'er rip in a hot oven until the fish was thawed, the butter was melted and the peas were starting to brown. I was surprised that the mustard stayed in its individual dollops and browned in place, rather than spreading out. Actually, it wasn't bad. The peas weren't too obnoxious. The walleye is mild at best, but fared well with the butter, crumbs and mustard. I did add salt at the table. Lemon would not have been amiss. Would I do it again? Only if I had to dispose of more peas*. Still, it wasn't bad as a last-minute-got-no-time-winging-it-NOW dish. It was not an insult to that fine fish. *Actually, I still have half a package. But looking at this photo, I think I can accomplish the same thing with potatoes, and save the fish for better purposes.

I think you're really asking whether the "regular" price has been marked up to make "25% off" seem like a deal when it really isn't. I can't answer that question -- maybe someody else here can -- but have you looked at Camelcamelcamel.com for their price tracking? It's supposed to be an Amazon price tracker but it also comes up with 3rd party prices. Maybe it will help you. Camelcamelcamel Falk cookware query

I too wouldn't think of ciabatta because of the likelihood of the very firm crust. If I use a burger bun at all, I generally go for something less sweet than the standard (whole wheat, for instance). However, I think the idea of cheese, bacon and olive in a burger bun sounds delicious. I'm in the USA. I pronounce "ciabatta" with an initial ch sound, and have never heard it pronounced as "sh" before. That said, I'll also admit that I pronounce the i and the initial a, so it comes out like "chyuh-BAHT-tuh" and have never been corrected on it. I may have picked that pronunciation up from a cooking show. Or it may have been my fertile pronunciation imagination. I also can't imagine and have never heard that final "tt" pronounced as "d" but it may be a regional thing. Ciabatta. Ciabatta. Mmm! May have to make some soon.

I'd go for those! Please give us an interior shot when you cut into them! (Unless it's already too late? 😉)

That looks delicious! I had the idea that olive oil was rare in China. Is this a specialty bakery item?

This photo of what's left in the skillet may not look great, but the dinner was a triumph of luck and inspiration over poor planning. I arrived home late from a gratifying but later-than-expected afternoon to the usual mayhem of evening chores. A few days ago I'd bought a pork tenderloin with every intention of perusing cookbooks and doing something interesting with it. This evening and hour, it was down to "winging it" or doing something else for dinner altogether: probably a grilled sandwich. For the third evening in a row. Little time for perusing cookbooks, and the most promising recipes I'd spotted for pork tenderloin required things not present in the house. I diced a russet potato and began frying it in a bit of oil, then diced half an old onion, then began slicing "coins" off the tenderloin and quartering the larger slices. When the potatoes were nearly done I added the onion and the tenderloin slices. Dusted everything with smoked pimentón and Trader Joe's Mushroom Umami Spice Mix. Flipped things around until the meat had began to brown slightly, then added the last of a package of Passage Foods Tikka Masala Sauce (which I will not buy again) that's been languishing in the refrigerator, and a bunch of yogurt to smooth and tone down the sauce. You see the result above. It would have looked prettier with a garnish -- say, a sprinkling of chopped cilantro -- or more liquid in the sauce. It actually did look better in the bowl, since it hadn't started to dry out yet as it has in this photo. But you know what? That meat was not by any stretch of the imagination dry, as has been a frequent complaint in this household during the Good Old Days. The flavors were good, once I added yogurt to that sauce. And I've used up half of an old onion, and finished a sauce packet I really didn't like the first time around. And I have leftovers for another meal, and yet more tenderloin to cook when I've more time to think about it. I'm pleased.

My neighbor shot a bear this year and brought me a pound of the ground meat. It's still frozen. He advised me that it's dry, and I'd get the best results if I mixed it with a fattier meat -- perhaps ground beef. I've been wondering about mixing it with Italian sausage vs. ground beef. On the one hand, I'd like to be able to taste the bear meat. On the other hand, I don't want such a dry experience that it's disappointing. I could make meatloaf, for instance, or meatballs -- but maybe something like a pasta sauce is a better choice? What do you suggest, since I'm not likely to get this chance again any time soon?

Broccoli and pitted olives, tossed with olive oil (and salt, for the broccoli) and then roasted. Garnished with a bit of rotisserie chicken. Mighty easy, mighty good. The olives are an old can from Graber Olive House in Ontario, CA. I didn't know they'd closed during the pandemic shutdown and haven't reopened. I'd say I should cherish these two cans, but they're already old. The olives are very, very good though. This Wikipedia article suggests that the olives themselves would have come from Porterville, CA, near where I grew up and the source of my other favorite local olives.

If you survive, be sure to report back! I have a huge backlog of Trader Joe's jarred products, so it's silly of me to wish I had ready access to a TJ's. Nonetheless, I do.

My guess, and it's strictly a guess, is that it's a matter of taste. If you like the seasonings in the rub and think they strongly complement the meat flavor, you'd add a lot. I find that not all beef has a lot of flavor, incidentally, so the rub may be more necessary for certain cuts. An example, drawing from the sauce side: my husband loved the flavor of barbecue sauce, and he tended to drown his pork and beef in barbecue sauce even as he claimed to like the meats themselves! I find that most barbecue sauces overwhelm the meat they're on unless they used sparingly. Clearly, our mileages varied.

@Dejah, would you adopt me? 😀

My husband was the same! He liked a little egg with his pepper at breakfast! And we nearly came to blows, early in our marriage, over the amount of pepper he put in his split pea stew! I, however, rarely reach for the pepper grinder. I still think it's cumin for me. And yes, this is a fun discussion.