Smithy

Is there any chance this is whale baleen? The market photos are fascinating and bewildering to this Westerner. Thank you very much for the tour, and thanks also to @liuzhou for chiming in with additional insights.

Harrumph.

They say that app is coming, but it isn't developed yet.

I've learned that our libraries are closed on weekends! Didn't buy it today, but if my route takes me past Barnes & Noble tomorrow, well....

@rotuts, their email address is help@tastyshop.com. I just asked them another technical question (basically, whether the power can be controlled to maintain a certain internal temperature without that app) and they acknowledged my question within a minute. The (auto)response says they typically respond within 24 hours..

My tomatoes are similarly puny. I haven't checked our farmer's markets yet, but the neighbors' plants seem behind schedule as well. Am I simply impatient this year, or is our summer weather really later than usual? The latter, I think.

It seems simply to be called "Tasty". Here's a link to a page with a link: https://m.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/ and here's a screen shot of the page in that link: I'm really rather sorry I watched that video. Darn, that looks like a neat gizmo.

You and Shelby are both shameless! I'm off to the library later today...and thanks for the reminder about that mayo. Anna, nice to see we've kept you awake.

Smoky corn soup, please! I'm still using up last year's corn, as this year's rolls in. That soup sounds like a fine candidate, and I'd like to see how you do it. (Shelby can pay me later.)

The pictures are fascinating. I'm curious about the slaughtering process. It's easy to see why chickens and other small creatures are brought to the market live and killed there, but what about the larger creatures? How far away would the cattle or pigs have been slaughtered, and how would they be transported to the market?

You are an Enabler of the First Water. I probably will, but there's this to consider: Thank you for that reminder. Out here in the country, with occasional trips to town, I forget about that beautiful asset although I regularly borrow its audiobooks, and support it with donations. The library is a good way for me to find out. Thanks, all. (Wipes sweat from her brow, and puts her wallet away...for now...)

I did more or less the same thing last week, with a slightly higher temperature (122F, 45 minutes, based on the Joule app) and also ended up with slightly too mushy salmon. I thought it tasted good, but I wasn't crazy about the texture. My darling isn't a big salmon fan unless it's seared, and this was too tender to do anything but flake it after the water bath. I wondered whether it had to do with the texture of the raw salmon (already flaky when I removed the pin bones), or the variety (sockeye) and the time of year. The good news was that I got to eat the leftovers; the bad news was that it didn't do justice to that rather expensive fish.

This book is so lovely, and your posts so enticing, that I feel myself weakening. I have the Kindle version of this book. I Do Not Need More Physical Cookbooks. And yet...I wandered into Barnes & Noble the other day and held it. It's beautiful. Anna N is correct that it's huge and heavy. Yet it's beautiful, and I have a tendency not to cook much from e-books. It's $40 at B&N, my local brick-and-mortar store; it's $28 at Amazon. Oh, dear.

Shrimp, rice, and ...? That dark round stuff looked at first like oversized chicken hearts or livers, but they're a bit too round and a bit too large. Fruit of some sort?

That looks wonderful - the food, the weather, the view.... When I see seafood dishes done like that, I wonder why I didn't think of it. Mind you, I don't have ready access to scallops or lobster, so an attempt at scallops Rockefeller or lobster ravioli might be terribly expensive with little payoff - but oh, what a triumph if it works! I thought lionfish were venomous, so i assumed they were not edible. Is there more than one type of lionfish, or is this the sweet revenge of knowing how to kill and cook them with no ill effect?

I used to reach the point, periodically, where I'd say to myself "either clean the place, or take a match to it". These days I invite company over as a spur to preempt such a drastic choice. I agree with lindag about the looks of that cheese. The combination sounds intriguing, but the appearance might have put me off. I'll be interested to see what Kerry has to say.

The meal looks delicious, and I'd be interested to taste tripe done that way. My tripe experience is limited to menudo. What's the deal with smacked cucumber? liuzhou referred to it recently. Is it just that the cucumbers have been softened to take on more sauce? Discovery Bay looks very clean and orderly! It looks very inviting, from the housing to the South Plaza with its food choices. Going back a couple of posts: It's good that you and liuzhou live far apart. It would be confusing for the locals to have two men known as "the guy who takes pictures of every dish he eats".

Did that glaze start with fresh apricots, or with nectar?

My turn: what's the line after "add diced garlic"?

"cumin whole" eta ElsieD has quicker fingers than mine. :-)

What they all said! I am very impressed with that kitchen and with the well-packed organization. Shelby already asked about the red-and-blue item, so I'll ask about the bowl in the refrigerator. Is that the mixer bowl that was later put to use making the Leberkaese? If so, do you usually store the bowl in the 'fridge, or was the photo taken when you already knew you needed a chilled bowl?

This blog already promises to enlarge my culinary world. What would be the protocol for eating the breakfast you show above? Would one eat a small bit of each dish (except the miso soup) using the chopsticks, alternating among the various dishes? Would one mix them? Add them to the dan dan mian? Why are the eggs square? It all looks fascinating to me, but if I were presented such a meal I'd be looking furtively around in hopes of seeing how someone else ate it. The yasuhatchi boxes are charming. I'd be delighted to receive a gift like that, even if the cookies turned out to be abysmal.

...and it's started! Please join us as Duvel shares Tales from the Fragrant Harbour.

If it was a food-safe plastic I might have left it on; the sous vide bags are a food-safe plastic. Otherwise, I probably would have removed it out of general caution.

Here's the last teaser photo, which makes a lovely lead-in to the foodblog proper... "...Welcome to the Fragrant Harbour!..." Given the difference in time zones, I'm not quite sure when @Duvel will begin, but I'll post a link to his topic when he does so.