Smithy

We lost faith in Rudy's after comparing their brisket and ribs to those from the one-off joints, but I must say this makes me miss their sausage!

I'm curious too, and worried. I grew up in the Central Valley, in a citrus farming family. I still have friends who do that. Water is a problem. The answer so far, after the water conservation changes made a couple of decades ago, seems to be to drill deeper wells - which they have done. We know that can't continue forever. I wonder whether there will be a reverse Dust Bowl episode that will drive 'my' people back to Oklahoma and Arkansas? @kayb, the latitude is not the only issue, as you know; the climate is also a factor - and of course, that's changing. Can citrus and stone fruits do well in your area? I have only heard of satsumas in Louisiana, but I may not have paid close enough attention. The article in SLB's link is a good one, and agrees with what I've heard with regard to the Resnicks.

I'm pretty sure I've done pita on the stove top before, but never on the campstove. It took a while to get the heat adjusted properly. Whether it was the overnight rest or the temperature of the skillet, or something else I haven't considered, these didn't puff into nice pockets as they should have. I think I've had this problem before when I stored pita dough overnight in the refrigerator, but I don't know why it should make a difference. Didn't hurt the flavor, though.

That's funny about the cold fried chicken and the cold schnitzel. I'd never thought of eating leftover schnitzel cold, but of course we did that with fried chicken all the time! Thanks for the Melissa Clark article. I'll be trying that recipe with my chicken cutlets. One thing I have trouble visualizing is how to swirl the pan enough to wash hot oil over the top of the cutlet(s) without getting oil all over the stove and me. Does anyone have tips on how to do that? Is this a case where a straight-sided skillet might be better than one with curved or sloped sides? Is the answer to how to do that swirling as simple as "very, very carefully"?

General Tso Cauliflower. Hmm, interesting concept. I'd have wanted to try the Buffalo Brussells Sprouts, but IIRC you are averse to that vegetable. Did you happen to see any served at another table?

No, this is a free-for-all: folks can share their own recipes and techniques, show what they've cooked from books (with proper credit given, of course), ask and answer questions. The point is to learn something new, or help others learn something new!

I'm glad to know the HamBeens soup mix should be readily available. It's something worth keeping around, IMO. @Thanks for the Crepes, thanks for clueing me in about where I probably found it in the first place. Last night was fairly typical of our volatile dinner plans. I had thawed chicken thighs the previous day and run out of inclination to cook them. Yesterday morning I put together the marinade for a Chicken Adobo recipe from the Cooking Light Diet for which I signed up (but so far have only used for suggestions). By having the thighs in the marinade and the vegetables for stir-frying already cut, it should have been easy to start dinner. I also got a batch of pita bread started, to be cooked on the outdoor stove. Well, it's still all uncooked: The marinating chicken thighs (which are covered and refrigerated, and have spent the night that way) The pita balls, which spent the night in the refrigerator and are now losing their chill The chopped broccoli and asparagus (no photo) which admittedly are good raw snacks Instead, we had leftover "Bedouin-style tuna noodle hot dish" (my darling's invention). This is comfort food for us, and it's dead easy, and a batch makes a lot of leftovers for easy dinners. Breakfast this morning, while I've been writing: It's time to light that stove, roll out the pitas and get them going. I told my best friend last night about my efforts to simplify my cooking. She scoffed, "Nancy, you don't know from simple!" She's right. On the other hand, last Friday night we just had popcorn.

Oh, good! I have a couple of chicken cutlets I've been saving for just such a purpose. My breading technique still needs some help, so I'll be interested to see how others do it.

Too bad you don't like chickpeas, @ElsieD! With all the other beans you might not notice them, but I realize that's like the line from the Monty Python "Spam" skit: "There's ham, eggs, sausage and Spam...that doesn't have much Spam in it!" I feel the same way about lima beans, and as I read the ingredient list I see there are both baby and large lima beans. Incidentally, I'd forgotten that a holiday ham bone was also simmered in that soup until all the meat scraps were claimed and the joint was softening. I realize the ham bone is the traditional bean soup/pea soup meat provider, but we added the andouille to make sure there was enough meat to suit us.

Yes!! Thank you!! How did you make that leap, and where did you find that soup mix?

Thanks for the concern, everyone. I wasn't trying to throw a pity party, although it may have sounded like that. It's just taken a long time to feel as though I could say something about our travels without letting my internal SuperGrouch get at the keyboard. My darling fell and is still recovering from a wrenched back. We both had bad colds (or mild flu?) and felt like sleeping much of the time. There are certain household chores that can't be slept through - especially with animals, especially with an energetic puppy (who, btw, neither understands lassitude nor believes in snuggling without wiggling) - and living in a mobile situation adds the complication of having to pack up and move. We kept the chores to a bare minimum and holed up when and where we could. (And yes, @suzilightning, I'd much rather be at home when I'm sick!) In a fit of pique I started throwing away spices that I haven't used, and opening and using (or binning) mystery ingredients that I bought on impulse, simply in an attempt to be able to find things. As with many overloaded rooms and refrigerators, the dent isn't visible yet. Dent or no dent, I have had a few wild successes with the "open it and use it, and don't dirty up so many dishes!" approach. Simplicity is the target, at least until I regain myself. One pot is better than two. One success involved a package of somebody's Cajun 15-bean soup ("feeds 10!") that has been riding around in our 'pantry' for at least 2 years. I threw in some andouille sausage I'd bought when we were feeling better, let it all simmer a very long time, and used potatoes to thicken it up. Over the past month it's been a good pinch-hit-I'm-tired-comfort food, and we've gotten more than the alloted number of servings thanks to the added ingredients. There's enough for at least one more dinner. This soup cries out for cornbread, and I'm saving the last servings until I make some. Now that I know how good this soup mix is, I wish I'd kept a record of the particular soup brand...so I could stock up on it again. Edited to add: I forgot about the ham bone! A holiday ham bone that had been cluttering the freezer was also simmered in this soup until it gave up all its meat scraps and collagen.

Does the "Notes and Highlights" allow notes from more than one book at a time? I've seen the "Your Notes" section and the "Flashcards" but maybe I haven't experimented with them enough.

"Adventures are not all pony-rides and May-sunshine." --J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit Just so: trailer travel is not all it's cracked up to be. When you're mobile, the usual support networks that you've established at home, if you're fortunate, aren't there. Something breaks and needs repair. (There are 7,000 trailer camping spots in the immediate vicinity of Pismo Beach, California; and they're ALL FULL at New Year's!) The factory warranty place may be a few hundred miles away. The mobile repair folks will come, but they have a call-out charge and may not be able to get to you, and get parts, as quickly as your schedule demands. Something human breaks, and you have to find a doctor...and later, a pharmacy. A pet needs attention, and you have to find a vet. And it all takes scheduling. I don't think it could be done without a good mobile connection. I'm sure I wouldn't be willing to do it. Whinging aside, there are also good things about trailer travel, and I try to keep them to the fore. Over the years I've established favorite people and places to visit and foods to stock, and I have to remind myself that I'd be depriving myself of those things if I were to stop this winter travel. I have to get photos in order to tell the stories better, but here are some previews: A plethora of persimmons (and a slo-mo explosion) An avalanche of avocados A sufficiency of citrus A dearth in Death Valley An update on dates ...and some fun shopping trips and visits, and how illness and lack of energy have changed my cooking strategy.

I'm bumping this up to get an update and to see how others deal with a problem I'm having. First, the update: if you participated in this topic before, has your attitude changed since then? If so, how? (Folks who haven't participated before are welcome to join in to the original question, of course.) Second, my problem statement. Thanks in large part to the Crazy Good e-Book Bargains topic, my cookbook collection has burgeoned to the point that I have trouble deciding among several recipes that I'd like to try for a particular food. With dead-tree books I can pull all out the candidates, flip through them, find and mark the best-looking recipes, and keep them all open together until I make my selection or, more likely, come up with a hybrid. With e-cookbooks I seem able to have only 1 open at a time. I open one, look through the recipes, bookmark the likeliest candidate(s). Maybe I take a screen shot. Then I have to close that book, open another, repeat the process of looking and bookmarking. I can have anything open at any given time, but I don't have a good way to compare. I find it much more cumbersome and less satisfying than having several physical books open at once to compare recipes and photos. A printer is not an option at present, nor is the use of multiple tablets. Has anyone else found this to be a problem, then satisfactorily solved it?

Chris, can you comment on how this sourdough compares with true (that is, made in that area) San Francisco sourdough? Every time I think I have it right, I get a chance to taste the local stuff and realize how far off I am.

Welcome, Luis! It's nice to see another lurker come out of the shadows. You probably know already how the forums are structured and how to use them, but if you need assistance feel free to contact me or another of the hosts. Look around and join the conversations, when your busy schedule allows!

This has been on my list to try for a while. I just made a small batch, using the recipe linked above. I have no Persian limes - the type we usually think of as limes in this country - but I have a number of Mexican limes, so that's what I used. It'll be interesting to see what we think in a few days. @sartoric, @blue_dolphin, and anyone else with experience: when you experiment with the pickle recipes, what adjustments do you make to compensate for varying sweetness of the fruit? These Mexican limes aren't as sweet as Persian limes.

I like the persimmon curd idea. I've been thinking that persimmon puree would be a nice cheesecake topping if I could make it stiff enough (persimmon and sour cream, perhaps?) Persimmon curd would have a better texture.

I want to thank everyone for the suggestions. I ended up using cardamamom, coriander, ginger (including crystallized ginger in place of raisins), a touch of saffron and a pinch of Berbere seasoning. My persimmon bread went over very well - but, in fairness to dcarch, I must admit that one person thought it was ginger bread and another knew it had fruit but wasn't sure what type! Maybe I could have worked out a way to intensify the persimmon flavor. I still liked it better than our family's classic persimmon bread, which is seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg (but not, as I'd previously thought, cloves). I think it's the nutmeg that put me off. I have more puree, frozen, with which to experiment.

The Harvey House Cookbook, by George H. Foster & Peter C. Weiglin. It has a lot of recipes from that restaurant chain, and from the later employee cookbooks. I don't know when I'll get around to cooking from it, but it's interesting to read about the chain of restaurants built and run along the Sante Fe Railroad, and Harvey's influence on the westward expansion in this country. It also has some nice turns of phrase. For instance, when the Fred Harvey organization took over the newsstands in the train stations and the on-board concessions: "...the standards improved immediately. Candy and tobacco were fresh, and the vendors were trained not to be."

OK, I'm in. Maybe. By which I mean I've signed up (your menus look so good!) but haven't figured out yet which meals to plan and which to change out. It's surprising to me to see how generous the breakfast and lunch allowances are. We usually have very light breakfasts (the same, as a rule - which is boring to write about but easy to plan). Back in the days when we were eating lightly and losing weight we had the habit of salads for lunch. Sandwiches were a splurge. The plan as presented to me uses fairly generous sandwiches for several days this week. It'll be interesting to see where this leads. I like that they allow an easy opt-out from automatic renewals by offering a button that simply says "Stop automatic renewal".

Thank you for this, @ElsieD. I almost 'bit' on an advert for this diet a couple of days ago but have hesitated. On the one hand, I need to do *something* to get my weight under control. On the other hand, I have ideas about cuisines to explore when I have time and energy, and I'm hesitant to invest money in a plan that may make me choose between my hard-earned money and cooking what I wish. How much flexibility is there in the plan offerings?

If you should decide to splurge down in Visalia - and these would be splurges - I can recommend The Vintage Press, The Depot (which became The Southern Pacific Depot when I wasn't looking!), and Jack & Charlie's. Cafe India Authentic Indian Cuisine gave me much pleasure at a lower price point, and I remember Tazzaria as being quite nice for lunch. No cocktails there that I recall, but their food was fresh and good, and I always regretted not being able to extract their pita recipe from them. :-)

This place isn't in Fresno proper, but John's Bear Club in Reedley isn't far. My cousin took me there as a treat one time. Some of the best steak and wine I've ever had. Their salad and vegetables were also excellently prepared. The Cattlemens Restaurant in Selma is close, and a great place for pay-by-the-pound gluttony, even if they don't understand apostrophes. Another favorite place of mine is Bravo Farms, although you have to head south on 99 to Traver to get to it. There's indoor and outdoor seating, plenty of kitsch, cheese and condiments to buy and take home if you wish, and a good variety of food. (There's another Bravo Farms in Kettleman City, that makes a good stop on the way to/from the coast; there's also a Bravo Farms Smokehouse in Visalia, and what looks like a huge new place in Tulare, but I haven't visited either of them.) I'll check with my cousins to see what other recommendations they might have. They've moved from Fresno to the coast now and know Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo quite well. Are you looking for any particular types of food, or just trying to get a handle on what's available?

Today only, Thermoworks has a "Blue Moon Smoke Sale": $10 off for its yellow, blue and green smoker thermometer setups, from $99 to $89. https://www.thermoworks.com/Smoke