Smithy

Thanks for bringing us along!

My early exposure to the Spear of Spring was as dismal. When I was growing up, my mother also only did canned asparagus. To complicate matters, she considered it a splurge-treat because she loved asparagus, we could only get it canned, and those cans were terribly expensive. Yecho! My sister and I detested it. Your comparison of canned vs. fresh is spot-on. Some time during my high school years, fresh asparagus would occasionally reach the local grocery stores at what my parents considered an affordable price. My mother occasionally splurged on it. Alas, as I recall it just wasn't something that she knew how to cook. I grew up thinking it was inevitably a bland or bitter, army-drab cylinder of mush. Sometime after I flew the coop, probably after "nouvelle cuisine" hit California, I learned that asparagus doesn't have to be cooked that way. Heck, it doesn't have to be cooked at all! Grilled, steamed, raw, blanched - yep, that's good stuff. Better still, we actually have the wild stuff growing around where we live. I've been keeping my eyes peeled for it, but it isn't up yet. Asparagus, ramps and pancetta with pasta, per Paula Wolferrt. Asparagus with smoked salmon in a pasta alfredo. Asparagus souffle. Asparagus with a lemon-caper sauce. Asparagus used as a conveyance for aioli. What's not to like about asparagus? I'll be joining this topic with photos soon. Keep the ideas coming, folks!

Those bowls really are gorgeous. They make me want to take up chocolate-making, just to buy one or three - or else figure out another dipping use. (Sauces for fondue, or tempura?) But I'd also have a terrible time choosing a color!

I agree with the others . I've never seen that amount of fluctuation with my Anova, and I can see the water circulating. Your new unit sounds defective.

Yes - like the Pillsbury flaky biscuits. I haven't made them in a long time, but it's fun to whomp that spiral-cut tube on the counter to get it to open.

I can't find the end date on their own web site, but when I Google Thermoworks the advert that comes up under the name says the sale ends May 20.

Thanks for the report. I note that your original plan had been 145F for 36 hours. Did you unintentionally extend the cook, as I so often do? If it was intentional, what was your basis for the extension? I'm asking because I bought some country-style ribs at our local meat market a couple of days ago and want to try carnitas with them. Sous vide looks like a better option than simmer-and-fry because of the low fat content of this particular meat.

My ramps haven't even started coming up yet.

Thermoworks announced a sitewide Spring Sale today: 15% off everything.

You picked the entrees at Bayona that I would have picked. They looked intriguing on the menu, and beautifully done in your photos. The creativity of the associated sauces is impressive. I'm looking forward to more of your visit!

I ran across an announcement today that the IP MAX is about to be released. It will do 15 PSI. Here is the sneak peek at the MAX (not released yet) on Hip Pressure Cooking. I leave the question of your mental status for another conversation.

Either way, it relieved me not to find yet another well-respected carnitas recipe, when I was trying to sort through the possibilities for my first attempt.

Well...I've never had carnitas either, but mine (also not well thought-out) happened tonight too. Since sous vide was not involved, I posted about it here. Based on what I've read, your duck carnitas were much closer to the 'real deal' than my pork!

*bump* Without having worked my way through this entire topic, I'd say I have a qualified success to report. Qualified, mind you: flavors could stand adjusting next time, but there will be a next time. I started with 2 pounds of a pork shoulder roast - a nice, fatty-looking porky shoulder with a Duroc Heritage Pork label, which may or may not have made a difference. I more or less followed @Jaymes' instructions here, along with the discussion that followed about stirring from time to time and not throwing away the peppers, onions, and (in this case) celery. It was looking pretty good. But it was also getting late, and the meat was quite tender already, and I was none too sure about dirtying up a sheet pan to spread this stuff out in the oven and brown it. I left the whole shebang in the Le Creuset Dutch Oven in which it had started, kept cooking it down to brown and caramelize until I flirted briefly with burning stuff on the bottom (but managed to rescue it all), and then turned off the heat. Here's a collage of the process. In the meantime, I tried my first-ever pot-in-pot batch of rice in the Instant Pot. 1c basmati, 1.5c chicken broth and water, 6 minutes on high, natural release for 12 minutes. Success on the rice! Results: I think the method of simmering the pork until it's done, then crisping and caramelizing it, is probably genius. I got as far as simmering until the liquid was boiled off. The texture of the meat was excellent. The flavors left something to be desired. I didn't measure as carefully as I might have, and as much as I love citrus I think I'd have done better with more tequila and less lime. There were also chicken broth and a touch of apple juice in there, but I couldn't taste either. We both grabbed for the salsa to adjust the sweetness. We both wished for more liquid with the rice. Next time, I'll keep the meat and the vegetables separate and try to crisp the meat. I'll also be more careful with the citrus flavor. I may even plan to put it all into tortillas. That actually had been the plan tonight, but in the end the bowls seemed easier.

Welcome, MaryLouise! Capetown is a beautiful place - at least, it was when I was there a few years ago before the drought situation was so dire. I liked the food there too. Keep in mind that the Cook-Offs are always open and additions to them are welcome, no matter how old. If you get your gnocchi to your satisfaction, you may also wish to help revive the Perfecting Gnocchi topic.

The Instant Pot Ultra is now on sale at Amazon (and, through tomorrow, at Sur La Table) for $99.96. I keep looking at that adjustment knob and wondering how much temperature adjustment it provides. (We're still looking for a slow cooker with more temperature control than low/med/high.) Has anyone tried the Ultra yet? If so, can you comment on how much temperature adjustment the knob provides? Got any other comments on this latest version?

I bought a small pork shoulder roast for the purpose.

How are the Del Rio Carnitas made, please? I've been reviewing the Carnitas topic, trying to decide where to start with a small pork shoulder roast I bought for the purpose.

That's prettier-looking than it was on the website. The team effort has had a beautiful result!

@ElsieD, that loaf is flat-out gorgeous. Congratulations!

If you'll check out and try this topic on carnitas, I will.

Apricot trees! Oh, lucky you!

I meant to ask also whether you think the leftover food is thrown away (as is legally required in the US) or goes surreptitiously to someone fortunate. You may not have a way of knowing, but if you do, I'd be curious to know the answer. As for the rest - yes, it sounds almost exactly like what we've experienced.

I was going to ask whether the good bread in Vietnam was due to the French influence, but it apparently isn't that simple. Is the bread in Vietnam generally better than in China, or only in some larger cities like Hanoi and Saigon/HCMC?

That meal at Nahm IS a lot of food for two people! It looks delicious. I'd be waddling when I left, and then have more than the usual difficulty avoiding the traffic. Those street scenes, and your descriptions, remind me of Egypt during the years we went. The specifics are all wrong, of course - goods, people, vegetation all very different - but the essential congestion and cheerful disregard for anything like traffic rules seem to be the same. The colors of the food and the scenery are so vibrant, and the food looks so fresh, that you make me wish to put Thailand on a travel itinerary. Thank you for bringing us along.