Smithy

That probably would have worked. My usual sprout treatment is much like yours when I'm doing the sprouts as a side. Adding pasta was a new take. Thanks for the confirmation about the tomatoes.

The youngsters I have in mind may come to exactly that, unless they decide to try the knots on their father or mother instead. They're both a bit young for knots yet, though, so I have time to play with the book first. I did a lot of macrame in my younger years, including a watch band of my own design, made from tatting thread, that took the better part of our family's 2-week camping trip to make when I wasn't water skiing or driving the boat. I wore it for years, until it wore out. I've always loved knots and knotwork, but there are very useful knots that I have to think too hard about: the trucker's hitch, and this hitch that is quite solid if you pull on one end and that immediately unties if you pull on the other. Hmm, is this the hay bale hitch? I forgot to mention that I purchased a couple of packages of coffee at the general store in Death Valley: an Italian roast and a French roast, both by Blind Dog Coffee Roasters out of Gardnerville, Nevada. I'm drinking some of the French roast right now. It's winier and less harsh than most French roasts of my experience...it could become an expensive habit if I had ready access to it. Last night was a skillet dinner that was another attempt at creative and delicious uses of brussels sprouts while working through refrigerator stock. We both liked it, but the sprouts were superfluous to the rest of the dish: not quite a jarring note, but not really belonging either. We like sprouts with bacon, with or without cheese; we also had some hot Italian sausage in there that I think went with the sprouts. I can't imagine the pasta being the problem. i suspect the tomato sauce, made from ElainaA's Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce recipe and stored in the freezer all this time, was what took the flavors at right angles to the sprouts. A brighter sauce, say with a touch of citrus, might have played off them better. Ideas, anyone? At any rate, we now have a bunch of leftovers from the last few meals, still have space in the refrigerator and freezer, and are running low on some important supplies. We'll be going to a grocery store tomorrow or the next day, and then no doubt we'll be right back to an overfilled freezer and refrigerator.

I've read that the frost free freezers work by heating enough to thaw frost and eliminate it, then getting colder again. The result is that the mild freeze/thaw cycles contribute more to freezer burn than a constantly deep freezing temperature. If that's an urban myth, someboday please correct me.

Impressive job, Kerry. I do like taking advantage of very, very cold weather to store frozen foods while a freezer cleanout is under way.

It's windy and cool today - not cold by any stretch of the imagination for this time of year, but the wind is gusting over 40 mph so that it feels a lot cooler than the ambient 58F. The trailer rocks and howls occasionally in the stronger gusts. All told, it's a good day to sit inside and write, with the occasional break to go walking. I'll finish the Death Valley story. I mentioned in my previous post that Xanterra has a primitive camping area with the enticing name Fiddlers Campground. We wanted to spend a few days in Death Valley to wait out some bad weather, see what changes had been wrought, and maybe do some sightseeing between bouts of storm. (We also wanted to eat out and let someone else do the cleanup, but I've already told what happened there.) We knew that the federal camping facilities were closed because of the current government shutdown, but that the private campgrounds were still running. We found room at Fiddlers. Fiddlers is a big dirt lot, but the campsites are around the perimeter and there are campfire rings - large, group-sized campfire rings - in the middle. Perfect for a jam session or a gab session. During our stay, we sometimes found ourselves with reasonable elbow room and sometimes with near neighbors - but many of them were interesting. There were hardy tent-campers amongst the trailer-campers. I could admire them without envying them. We - that is, mostly I - shopped. The new general store at the Ranch at Furnace Creek has a larger selection of everything than before: souvenirs, clothes, books, novelty foods, jewelry. Their selection of fresh and frozen staple foods has expanded. It's expensive, of course: the souvenirs because That's Just The Way Things Are and the groceries because they travel a long and little-used route. (I'm sure that also influences the restaurant prices, and they claim to use sustainable food sourcing.) Six-packs of beer that would cost $10 - $12 at home ran more like $16 - !8. We bought some anyway, to sample some local labels and to satisfy our thirst for beer. I looked over their wine selection and was especially interested by this label: I like malbec. I considered buying a bottle. Then I looked at the price. $55! Nope. I satisfied myself with some inexpensive jewelry and a tea towel. I'm a sucker for that 1950's artwork. The official, federal Death Valley Visitor's Center at Furnace Creek was open and staffed, thanks to a donation from the Death Valley Natural History Association. They get their money from membership fees, donations, and proceeds of sales in the Visitor Center gift shop. I looked hard for cookbooks that appealed to me, but I seem to have exhausted their supply. (Not that I've exhausted the content of cookbooks purchased in past trips, mind, but I couldn't find any others that appealed.) I found these, however, and scooped them up. Maybe I'll get around to giving the knot book to some children I know in a few years. It's better than mine, and I figure I'll give it a good workout first. The "Days on the Road" account includes discussion of food they found along the way, and will be good reading for me on days that I'm feeling fed up with trailer life and need a kick in the perspective. Back at the trailer, the aforementioned $40 6-oz ribeye in a mushroom-merlot sauce had put a bee in my bonnet. So had the $34 rack of pork ribs. One cool day, I baked those ribs in a low and slow oven that helped keep the trailer warm. The ribs had been tagging along since we left home, the last of a special purchase from Amor Pork in Battle Lake, Minnesota last fall. Amor is a small family farm that sells directly from their shop. They claim sustainable and humane practices. I haven't checked the farm out in person, but their meat is good. My sister had given me a selection of meat rubs for Christmas; I chose the "Kansas City Barbecue Rub" for this batch. The final result: We've been disappointed sometimes in restaurants when ribs were overcooked to the point of being dried out, or quickly cooked to the point of toughness. Who knows how The Last Good Word Saloon does them? We didn't find out, because we had this. The steak with mushroom-merlot sauce took more research on my part. After flailing around in various cookbooks (I was sure that my Western National Parks' Lodges Cookbook had something like that - but no!) I turned to the eGullet Culinary Institute, and found just what I needed: the excellent course on Non Stock-based Sauces. I used that as a basis for making the wine sauce, using dried wild mushrooms and a cabernet sauvignon that I mistook for merlot until it was open. Yes, I kept notes. Yes, I'd do it again. The steak was more done than either of us preferred, but not too badly so. And it was a LOT more than 6 ounces per person. And it cost no more than $40 for both of us. And there were leftovers. Oh, one final note about Fiddlers: on the day we were packing up to go, a new friend came over to visit. Then, and only then, did we discover that we're all musicians and could have been enjoying making music together! Well, we can hope for next year.

@Ann_T, I swear I gain weight just looking at your photos. What glorious meals you produce!

The Furnace Creek Ranch at Death Valley has gone through major changes over the last two years. I wish I had pictures for the "before", but after two days of looking I still can't find many. I'll do my best with words. I believe the Ranch, such as it was, dated back to the 1920's or '30's, when good roads and automobiles began to make it less difficult to travel rugged terrain. The cabins, shops and restaurants were all wooden structures, following a theme that would look familiar to any fan of American westerns. There is a stable with horses for folks interested in horseback tours. There is a Borax museum with fascinating artifacts and explanations of the geology and history of the area. There are also laundry facilities, a U.S. Post office, a golf course watered with recycled water, a date grove that is no longer commercially harvested (they leave the fruit for the wildlife), a warm-springs-fed swimming pool. (The nearby Furnace Creek airport, the lowest in this country, provides interesting ground school material for flight students.) In addition to rooms and cabins, the resort has a dry-camping area with the evocative name of Fiddlers Campground. The Ranch, while not inexpensive, always seemed to be more family-oriented and less fancy than the Furnace Creek Inn, a very swishy resort up the hill above sea level, where the movie stars hung out. Maybe they still do. We liked the casual western-style atmosphere of the Furnace Creek Ranch buildings. The bar had posters from movies and TV shows filmed in Death Valley. The restaurants had photos of the area in earlier times. The bare wooden plank floors added to the relaxed atmosphere of the place, and we could walk to dinner at night from our campground for beer and burgers or pizza, or steak or salmon at the more upscale steakhouse. Two years ago we enjoyed pizza and beer at the bar. We thought it excellent. During our visit two years ago we learned that the owner corporation, Xanterra, planned to raze the buildings and rebuild in a more Mediterranean motif. We were dismayed until we learned from a few employees that the existing buildings were miserable places to work: too hot in the summer, moldy (or was it mildewy?) due to the age of the wood, pest-infested. Okay, that made sense. We'd just have to wait and see what the new design looked like. In looking back over this topic I see that last year I didn't even bother posting about Death Valley, aside from a teaser-title "A Dearth in Death Valley". The restaurants and shop buildings had indeed been demolished. There was a new, large, open-plan cafeteria called The Date Garden Oasis set up as a temporary measure during construction. We walked in but walked out due to the long line and overwhelming din. We went to the 19th Hole at the golf course and found that their grill had shut down for the night. After a couple of beers by their fireplace we walked back to the trailer and ate something - I forget what - and hoped for an improvement by our next visit. We've just come from that next visit. The original stone entrance gate is intact. The Borax Museum and its exhibits are unchanged, to our great relief, with its old maps and artifacts inside and mining and railroad equipment outside. The new buildings and grounds are nice. I'd say the new design isn't jarring except in contrast to the earlier motif; it's more in keeping with the design of the posh Inn a few miles uphill. Note the rain chains in the upper-right photo of this collage. I've always admired rain chains as a clever way to channel rainwater from the eave gutters to the ground. The old firepit in the dirt courtyard outside the general store and restaurant is gone. In its place is a patio, complete with tables and chairs for relaxing and dining outside. It looks like one might be able to cook in this fireplace, although the management might not appreciate it. We went in to check out the restaurants and their offerings. I was determined to dine there one night, preferably where I could get a steak. My darling is much more the beer-and-burger sort, but will occasionally yield to my more extravagant tastes as long as he can get a beer or three. The interiors have continued the Western theme, although I think they went a bit overboard in the Last Kind Words Saloon. Alas, the schedule and prices aced us out. It isn't clear from these pictures, but the "Sandwiches, Burgers and Such" menu applied only from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Dinner began at 5:00 and went until 9:00, but no burgers, or sandwiches of any type were to be had at that time. The 19th Hole Grill, over at the golf course, would offer burgers - but only until 5:00. We eat later than that. The left side of the collage below shows the choices that would have applied at what we consider a civilized time to eat, usually around 7 p.m. We could have chosen from "Steaks, Chops and Ribs" or the "Death Valley Specialties" or the "Plate to Share" (appetizers, basically). A flatbread would have been the contemporary alternative to pizza, but that would be the closest we could get to pizza and beer, or any meal at the price range my darling prefers. I'm afraid that even I, with my extravagant tastes, balked at the prices for the full dinner I'd been advocating. (Go ahead, snicker if you wish.) Those prices may be right in line with big-city dining and are considerably less than I've seen posted on eGullet from very upscale restaurants. But I shied away from spending $40 on the 6-ounce ribeye with mushroom-merlot sauce that had caught my eye. I kept thinking, "it's so small! and what if the steak isn't cooked properly?" I can do a lot of experimenting for that kind of money. I'd rather save my splurge money for exploring new cuisine or techniques. Xanterra has put a lot of money into the new setup and needs to recoup it. That's business, and I wish them well. However, unless there's an adjustment that allows dinner past 5:00 without blowing the budget they'll be recouping it without our help at the restaurants. I'll show in another post how we spent our money instead, and what we ate at "home".

How much of a frying mess do they make? Could you do them in, say. a wok (for minimum oil) or an open Instant Pot (for the high walls)?

I need to be following your lead, @blue_dolphin. It isn't that I have a new shipment of beans coming, but I have a great variety and quantity of beans idling, waiting to be used. That felafel looks especially good, since I've a bunch of parsley that also needs to be used.

@kayb, thank you for a fascinating view of all that work. By the time I was old enough to pay attention, the canning activity in our family was down to canning fruit and making jellies. I don't know whether my grandmother canned vegetables such as beans or tomatoes in her earlier years, but I'd guess she did. What did you do about canning the less-acidic foods such as green beans? Did you add acid of some sort?

You enabler, you. Soon I'll have a copy too. My grandmother and her people came from the general vicinity of the Ozarks, and I'm sure it influenced her cookery as well as her speech. Dad talked about how she'd make chow chow from the last of the summer's green tomatoes, but he didn't remember what-all went into it.

I don't know when or whether we'll ever get Houston into our travels - certainly we won't be towing our trailer through there for a culinary visit - but if we should downsize our rig, we'll have more flexibility. Please elaborate on your favorites!

This post isn't about Death Valley. Rather, it's about a wonderful thing to do with citrus if you have it: Citrus-Marinated Roasted Chicken is one of my favorite ways to roast chicken, when I have the oranges and lemons. Right now I have plenty. This recipe comes from Fine Cooking, Issue 115, and it's been a family favorite since I first tried it. The marinade consists of orange and lemon juice and zest; garlic; oregano; honey and soy sauce. Tuck the chicken in with slices of lemon and orange. Let them all get cozy for 6 - 12 hours (in truth, I did about 3). Roast: first at high heat, to brown the skin, then at low heat to finish the chicken. The bottom half of this photo shows the beautifully bronzed result. Strain the sauce, defat it, boil it down and serve. If you have two whole chickens and a big enough pan, cut them up and roast them both to ensure plenty of leftovers. I only had chicken thighs, and wish I'd fit more into the pan. My darling liked the sauce not only on the chicken and rice, but also on his salad! The pictures above don't convey the extent of the dinner. Between the sauce in the pot, the chicken, and the salad, there wasn't much room left on the table. The rice cooker is in the other room. Here's the whole spread. The perspective is skewed because of where I had to stand; the sauce pan is NOT bigger than the dinner plates! And now for a change of pace: I know a lot of the country is under storm watch of one sort or another. @Shelby is hoping for snow; @rotuts is hoping that Shelby will come out and shovel his snow; folks in the L.A. Basin are celebrating the rain storms but, in some cases, dodging mudslides or working to avoid traffic accidents. The rain that's been pounding the West Coast has even made it to the interior deserts, and the wildflowers are making the most of it. Here's a bit of color for you. The sky has been pretty, too. This was yesterday's sunset and moonrise:

I have been googling that idea, and you're right - it IS gorgeous. I especially like the philosophical aspect of accepting and accentuating "flaws" as part of the whole. Thank you! None that I see. @andiesenji, may have some ideas. This. I was raised never to underline books, to keep things in as near-new condition as possible. I've decided that the attitude is fine as long as it doesn't interfere with the original purpose of the item in question. Some of my books - those that are old and considered collector's items - are unmarked. Cookbooks have gained character with notes. And if a dish gets broken during use, I'lll be upset but it will still be there in my memory, associated with good times. A friend of mine who lost her husband at much too young an age learned the lesson to Use the Good Stuff whenever possible. "Look at the good china! What was I saving it for?" she raged one evening. (She has gone on to remarry and live a happy new life. As far as I know, she Uses the Good Stuff now.) You are so correct about the law of dish breakage! Making it into an ornament is another good idea that I'd never thought of, and I thank you. Right now I'm leaning toward the kintsugi treatment as a first option to explore. As Kerry suggested above and @caroled has confirmed, this plate will look beautiful with gold veins and patches in it. I'm so glad I didn't throw the pieces away! (The treatment will probably cost more than the plate did, but it will have a whole new story to tell!) OK...has anyone here done kintsugi repair? Any ideas about how I'd go about it, or should I send it to a professional?

That sounds like a worthy idea! I'll do some googling on that.

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement. There were too many small chips - and even some powder, from the very center, to be able to glue it back together. However, I have the chunks with me - wrapped carefully in a paper bag to avoid having sharp corners pierce the garbage bag. I wrapped it all up that way, placed it at the bottom of the garbage bag, and then - the next day - fished it out again. Maybe there's a way to embed the fish portion in some mortar to make a decorative tile.

I managed to overspend, too. A week or so ago I finished Elizabeth Bard's Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes, which I had purchased for $2.99 thanks to Toliver's post here. What a delightful book! I decided to see whether Ms. Bard had published more since then, and was pleased to see that she had. Maybe it was because I wasn't wearing my glasses, but it was only after I'd hit the "buy" button that I realized I'd purchased her Picnic in Provence: a Memoir with Recipes for $9.99 instead of the $0.99 I thought I was paying. It wasn't on sale after all. Oh, well. I love a bargain, but I also like the idea of helping support a writer.

Our visit to Death Valley began with a bang. One of the hazards of trailer travel is that things get jostled. Airlines warn passengers to open overhead luggage compartments carefully because "contents may have shifted during flight". The same principle applies in the Princessmobile. As a general rule we remember to open the refrigerator and cabinets gingerly after setting up at a new location. Sometimes we forget, and a measuring cup or plastic canister of cat food jumps out at the unwary door-opener. We've never had breakage, though - until now. How this plate came from the depths of the dish cabinet to the very door so it could jump out at my darling is a mystery. We had gone over a mountain pass - up roughly 4000' and then down nearly 5000'; as we recall, the roads were smooth. We didn't do any serious braking, but the grade must have somehow allowed the plate to roll toward the opening. The first year or two that I had this plate, I stowed it in a cushioned shipping envelope for travel. I stopped because our current arrangement of racks and dish storage seemed too stable for anything from the back to make it to the front. No matter pondering "why" any more; it happened. Stuff happens. It could be worse. I bought this plate in Feb. 2015, at a little antique/junk store near where we'll be camping soon. My darling, thinking it could be replaced and feeling terrible about the damage, offered to buy another - two, in fact! Alas, this particular plate was a one-off: older than I, and a lucky find. I could have left it at home, parked in the china cabinet, but we wouldn't have had the pleasure of using it on the road. We have other good dishes. This just happened to be my favorite, in part because it was unique. So here is my lamentation for a favorite plate. In the grand scheme of things this is trivia, but it was a sad start to our stay there. I'll get back to the travelogue later today, or tomorrow, now that we have a good internet connection again.

I haven't, and I am also resisting, so I'm not answering your question either. However, I am curious about the first sentence quoted above. What were you looking for? In what way were the cruffins you made deficient?

Please tell more about this. I'm a big fan of dill pickles, and might want to try this soup!

I know you said pasta is done and done to exhaustion, but what about mac and cheese balls on a stick? Somewhere - probably here on eGullet - I've seen little balls made of macaroni and cheese that were rolled in breadcrumbs and then deep fried. Not exactly the most healthful option in the world, but poker runs aren't usually about good nutrition. This is a gimmick that, if tasty, would make extra points.

@Jacksoup, I'm glad you're asking questions about the Meyer lemons because I also have a generous lot of them to use up. I'd forgotten about Meyer lemon curd, and the vinaigrette noted above also sounds excellent. Thanks for eliciting those tips! When I have Meyer lemons available and mild fish to go with them, I like to cook them with a very lemony sauce with a bit of mustard. My husband and I invented this dish based on what we could remember from a favorite Egyptian hotel, and named it Roadway Inn Fish in a pun off the New Radwan Hotel. You can see a picture of the dish here. A few posts later is the recipe. I believe you have a bumper crop of other citrus as well? If so, then citrus-marinated roasted chicken might be just the ticket. In fact, I think I'll be doing that in the next week, now that you've reminded me. This post has a link to the Fine Cooking recipe. Here's how it came out that time.

I'm late to the party due to being offline for a week or so, but I want to follow up on this. We've heard recommendations for Sparky's as an outstanding burger place. What do you say, now that you've been there? Is it worth the drive up from Columbus?

Good for her! Thanks for posting that information, and please wish Loretta luck on our behalf, next time you see her!

We could have a lot of fun transliterating our ancestors' language into modern parlance! For now, however, I'd like to know whether the "Irish potatoes" were always of the same type. If so, what general category (if you know)? I don't recall seeing anything other than russets in my grandmother's cookery. I can't know whether that was her choice or a matter of availability in the area to which she'd moved. We never discussed the potato spectrum from waxy to starchy.