Smithy

When you show the pattern she was trying to make, are you referring to the white spiral, or to the straight but ragged-lipped slash across the top? The spiral wasn't made by cutting. The straight slash was.

I'm in awe of the entire trip, and glad you're posting about it. Many thanks! If I were to see those glasses, that plate and spatula, I'd have to take them home too. Have you blown your luggage weight limit yet? What is the ambient noise like? It looks like you're frequenting pedestrian malls so there isn't much traffic noise. Do I have that right, or is it your skilled photography that makes it so? Do you have to shout over others' voices, or over blaring music, to order your food?

Persimmon is so full of pectin that if you mash it, cook it and let it cool it'll set up like a pudding on its own. I've done that with just a little cream added, and thought it was pretty good. Those look like Fuyu persimmons, which are sweet and not at all tannic when ripe (unlike the Hachiya persimmons that were our only option when I was growing up) so you can also eat the ripe ones out of hand. I've done that, and I've added them in fruit salads. If I had a lot of ripe Fuyu persimmons I'd also give a go at charring slices of them over the grill along with a selection of meats and vegetables. I've never tried that but it seems worth trying. As for the unripe persimmons: I'd try a pickle or a chutney with those. Somewhere I have a bunch of persimmon recipes from the 1940's that I always intended to post here lest they be lost. If I can find them(!), I'll start a topic on it.

@paulraphael, I just discovered this old post. Would you elucidate, please? I'm not sure whether you meant that the tart can be taken off its bottom plate and put directly on a griddle for rewarming, or put plate and all on the griddle. If it's to be taken off the plate, do you need a special piece of equipment (say, a very large spatula) to move it around? I'm envisioning a tart that's 8" - 10" diameter, and that sounds unwieldy unless it's still on the plate. Or are you talking about small, hand-sized tarts?

I Do Not Need Any More Cookbooks. I keep saying that, and acquiring them anyway for one very good reason or another. $0.25 at the library book sale. One quarter of a dollar! Well, of course I couldn't pass it up. (Payment goes into an honor box. Since I'd just spent 3 very comfortable hours using their electricity and air conditioning I overpaid a bit.) This book looks like fun. Chapters are by month; subchapters are holidays or parties or festivals. There are plenty of photos and descriptions of each occasion, followed by recipes ranging from the savory (Pecan-Crusted Rabbit with Wilted Greens and Creole Dressing) and spicy (Jalapeño Corn Bread) to the sweet (Chocolate Chess Pie, Chocolate Coeur à la Crème, and Three-Chocolate Bark with Spiced Pecans and Dried Cherries are under Valentine's Day). Name a southern US party occasion, and you'll find a food to fit. Heck, I've already gotten my money's worth out of it, for the entertainment of looking through it.

*bump* When this topic was last active, frittatas were unusual enough that many of us had never made them. In rereading this topic I see discussion about what defines a frittata, and how the definitions are different in Italy, its original home, and the United States. That was 10 years ago. The food landscape has changed greatly, thanks to the expansion of the internet and TV. Last night I used a frittata to rescue cooked collards that I knew wouldn't pass muster in the household - not because they tasted bad, but because the other household human objects to cooked greens on principle. (I can't claim credit for the idea; thanks go to @kayb.) It was a delicious way to make refrigerator space as well as rescue those collards. Frittatas are going back into my regular rotation of food. How about you? How common do you think frittatas are now? Do you cook them often? Do you use a recipe, or a general formula, or just throw things together?

It really is a good book, kayb. It's the sort of book that is entertaining to read regardless of whether one cooks from it. The few recipes I've tried from it have been good. I'm still having trouble cooking from an ebook and tend to use it less than I might if it were a physical book. Thank you for the frittata recommendation! It was a good opportunity for a one-pan meal on a night when it was raining(!) and blowing and cool enough for us to appreciate having the oven on. Asparagus, roasted peppers, onions (two types), bacon and the collards, surrounded by eggs, milk and cheese - what wasn't to like? It was a one-pan meal except for the prep dishes, and we both loved it. The collards were unobtrusive but added a nice flavor that I could detect because I was looking for it. We'll have the leftovers sometime today. Edited to add: leftovers for breakfast. Here's a better photo of the finished product.

We rode in the heat one day to a campground with a small store, interesting history, and quirky architecture. One resident has cobbled together a fence from downed wood found along the washes, with occasional junk decorating the top. I had a bee in my bonnet about getting a Klondike bar before we leave the area for the year. There arose a terrible dilemma: what flavor of Klondike to pick? I didn't know they made Rocky Road, Caramel Swirl, Cookies'n'Cream...in the end, we both chose the classic. The ocatillo are blooming, about a month later than usual. The blossoms look like birds of paradise perched atop every branch. The hummingbirds love them. Campfire cooking has been the order of the day, for many days. Papa's pan has been instrumental in vegetable cookery over the fire. A grill basket has done yeoman's work for grilling chicken, burgers, or - in this case - pork steaks. These steaks weren't quite done enough, and it was a shame because they were gorgeous in the package. A little microwaving took care of the doneness, but didn't help with the texture. The solar 'oven' has been in use for light vegetable cooking, vegetable rewarming and defrosting. Last time we went to the grocery store I overbought vegetables, and a bunch of collards has been reproaching me from the refrigerator every time I looked in. The outer leaves were starting to yellow. I knew I wouldn't soon be ambitious enough to do the dolmades described here by @blue_dolphin but couldn't bring myself to throw them away without at least trying to do something with them. Yesterday the green leaves (stemmed and cut into squares) went into the solar cooker with a touch of water, some onion and oil. The result: Okay, it doesn't look pretty but they're nicely wilted and taste reasonably good. I'm not sure I'll get them past my darling without further disguise. Got any suggestions about what to do with them? I can spice them up as in the gingered collards discussed here but that still won't get past the "Eww! Cooked greens!" reflex. Mix them into a pilaf or an omelet, perhaps? Fry them up with potatoes, my original thought? Or is this a lost cause? In other news: the heat finally broke today and I defrosted the freezer again. Look at all the space! It would be nice to arrive home with so little to move back into the house, but it will probably just mean more room to load up on shrimp if we make it back to the Gulf Coast. Note, also, that I'm not showing the contents of the refrigerator.

This may not be new, exactly. I've seen and read about things like this before and thought they were bound to be useless. However, earlier this week I was in Bed, Bath and Beyond with a 20% Off Entire Purchase burning a hole in my pocket. I was looking for, oh, a food processor or kitchen scale that I couldn't resist. I didn't find anything big or even pricey, but I found this: Huh. $5. Worth a try. (No, I did not use the wonderful coupon to bring it down to $3. I still have hopes for that coupon.) 5 bucks seemed a small enough risk for another gadget that might or might not work. It made short work of the parsley for that night's dinner: much shorter than my painstaking finger technique, and much neater than my slapdash knife technique. Next time I have kale or collards, I'll post about it here.

@sartoric, that Charmaine Solomon cookbook has an interesting set of cuisines: Thai, Indian, Asian and ... Cajun?! She really jumped the ocean there, didn't she?

To see the discussion about the Fasta Pasta microwave pasta cooker, please go here.

Over in this topic, @ninagluck said: I've noticed for the past few years that pomegranates are available in very off-season months (i.e. summer) in Duluth, MN, far from where they're grown, yet they disappear promptly from the California and Arizona markets that I visit right around Christmas. I don't understand it - they're grown in California, harvested in the fall and presumably available for storage and later distribution, but they aren't to be found. How about the rest of the USA? Are you seeing pomegranates right now, in March? Am I just visiting the wrong markets in California?

Only the pomegranate molasses, without any fresh pomegranate added? Did you make the molasses yourself?

Did you make that fesengan sauce yourself, @ninagluck? I'm always looking for more things to do with pomegranates, although it will have to wait since our season is finished.

Welcome!

"Lady fingers" =? Are they some type of banana?

Can you scrounge up phones from friends for the event? Do you have tablets, or older backup phones, that could be pressed into action?

Yesterday the solar oven proved to be handy for thawing a jar of frozen sauce (herbs, citrus, and a bit of oil). It went from solid to liquid in under an hour. Leftover green beans also reheated handily in about 15 minutes, though the only picture is of them in the 'oven'. Lunch, aside from aforesaid green beans, was a salad of chopped cukes, tomatoes, spring onions, parsley and cheese, dressed with a citrus vinaigrette. Dinner: salmon over the campfire, with the handily-thawed sauce. I sprinkled half the salmon with corn flake crumbs; it wasn't a good fit, either in taste or texture. More of the salad accompanied it. Here's some more desert color. The Desert Five-Spots are beginning to bloom!

Thanks for that information. I'll keep it in mind for future developments. This was just a test run using easily-found and -disposable supplies - something I won't mind 'losing' at the next trash drop. Even this bush-league setup is working well for quick thaws and rewarming food, though: the glass jar of frozen sauce was thawed within an hour, and my leftovers were plenty warm in 15 minutes. It is probably relevant that the deck that the rig is sitting on is well over 100F.

Welcome to eGullet, Tammy. Has your doctor given a list of items that you can eat, or nutritional guidelines? When my mother's kidneys began to fail she was given lists of good foods, foods to minimize and foods to avoid altogether. If you have a list of approved foods you might be able to get some specific and constructive help. As an example, you could post a list of approved ingredients in this topic: Create my meal - the game and see what folks suggest. You may also wish to peruse the offerings in The eGullet Culinary Institute for some good how-to classes. The courses are old, but still valuable. I like your line "I cook by smoke detector". Years ago, a friend gave me some napkins that said, "Dinner will be ready when the smoke alarm goes off". If you have any questions about where to find things or the appropriate place to post, feel free to contact a host by PM (personal messenger), or ask in the Moderation and Policy Discussion forum.

Everything was cut into pieces of about the same size ... and the piece sizes were inconsistent with wrapping it all into tortillas. The tortillas will have to wait for another opportunity. At the table, we spent a fair amount of time considering the Pointillists' influence on this dinner: eat a bit of this and a bite of that, and get an entirely different picture of the dinner than one might imagine from the individual elements. At least, that's what I think the conversation was about.

I won't sully Vivian's ingenuity and your wonderful posts with too much detail, but I will ask: do you think the collard greens would lend themselves well to dolmades with a more traditional profile but with her treatment of the leaves? I ask because the dolmades recipe caught my eye but I don't have most of the ingredients as specified in this recipe. Meanwhile, I have some aging collard greens (bought on unthinking impulse) that need to be used in the next few days.

*bump* Has anyone here been experimenting with solar cookery lately? I assembled a box with foil and plastic kitchen wrap before remembering that this topic exists. I'd have done things differently if I'd done more research first; still, in my current situation (lots of sun, lots of heat) I've got a solar slow cooker for cheap. This was just a smallish box picked up from a convenience store's stock of not-yet-crushed boxes. If it had been slightly larger I could have put my cast iron griddle on the base and improved the heat collection. (That's a dark brown plastic cutting board in the top photo.) I've tried it twice, both times using a clay pot. Oven temperature reached 186F the first day, but I didn't measure the temperature of the pot's contents. The second day I didn't get the oven temperature because I was gone most of the day, but as the pot's contents were cooling down I measured 155F. Both times I've succeeded in getting nicely cooked peppers (bell and chili) out of the deal. Not bad for a discarded box, aluminum foil and kitchen wrap! Next time I'll try some of the designs linked above. In addition, I'll be on the watch for a Fresnel lens.

I should have thought of this days ago. I plead brain addlement from the heat. A few days ago I remembered that I've had solar cookery on my list of things to try for years, and it dawned on me that we're in the perfect situation. If I'd thought of it sooner I could have collected enough Mylar from the balloons I pick up off the desert floor, but they've all gone out with the trash. (Ever wonder what happens to those wonderful balloons when you release them?) I acquired a box from the gas station/convenience store we last visited, and when we got back I went to work on it with a utility knife, foil, tape and clear wrap. After I assembled the 'oven' and before I put anything into it, I measured an interior temperature of 186F. I was a bit late getting the filled pot into it, and never saw quite such a high temperature after that, but we still had a nicely cooked melange of peppers and onions, touched with oil, by the time I was ready to cook. We didn't bother with a campfire. I cooked chorizo over the camp stove and added the pepper mix; I heated tortillas over another burner, and we had burritos. The photos got lost in the ether. Today I've been at it again. The same clay pot and glass lid, the same mix of peppers and onions, tossed with oil and salt, went into the solar oven at around 11 a.m. We ran errands. (Our pickup is fixed, o frabjous day! We' can move when we wish, calloo, callay!) When we returned in the late afternoon, the pot was quite hot to the touch. The aroma of cooking peppers is wonderful. The temperature inside the pot was 155F, and it was probably starting to cool. The vegetables don't look it, but they're soft. A little touch of fire will crisp their edges nicely. They'll be added to marinated chicken chunks cooked in a grill basket over a fire, with leftover potatoes and fresh asparagus. Tortillas for wraps again. I'll try to not lose the photos this time around. This solar cooker is a simple bush-league test of concept, but of course I found a topic on Solar Cooking here on eGullet - after I'd begun on my own. There are some good designs and comments. I'll be on the watch for a Fresnel lens, and I may try again with a better box design before we get home.

I still have several jars of jelly that my mother made, no later than 2004. I don't eat jelly often, but every once in a while I'll open one and use it. It's lost its vibrant color but tastes fine, and - well, the fruit came from the family farm.