Smithy

"So few stomachs" is never a problem in our household when the ripe tomatoes (cherry or otherwise) are rolling in.

Those look delicious!

I've never seen an okra flower before. It's very pretty! Would it lend itself to stuffing and frying like a squash blossom? Add me to the list of readers who are staggered by the size of your garden. I'm looking forward to seeing how you handle it all! :-)

I love the creative names. Exploding Stomach, indeed! What is Brake (Good luck Vegetable)?

Huiray, you shop the way I want to. I end up overly challenged to use it all in time, and have been working toward more realistic quantities (for our household), but it's difficult to restrain myself at the height of the season. I *think* your photos give me vicarious satisfaction instead of leading me into temptation, but I can't be sure. What did you think of the Saturn peaches?

They are indeed pretty! Rancho Gordo has information on cranberry beans here, including a video snippet on Pasta e Fagioli, a description of Sopa Tarasca for a Mexican take on them, and another suggestion to serve them up with poached chicken. I'd expect that with fresh beans you could play up their creamy texture and flavor nicely with minimal cooking, but I don't have direct experience with them. I think I'd try lightly cooking them, tossing with olive oil, parsley, a touch of lemon and some sage. In your part of the world you might prefer a less pricey oil.

Chris, does the book talk about the region in which a particular flavor profile might be found? I'm curious about the artichokes.

Darienne, that is an amazing photo sequence. Thank you for posting it! Franci, I hope your parents are duly impressed by your accomplishments. If I lived near you, I'd be hangin' 'round your doorstep like some perpetual trick-or-treater, hoping you had extras.

Thank you both for another lovely trip, with inspiration as as well as laughs. I'm going to be boggling for a while over that last shot of the Closet o' Fun Stuff! :-D

From the article: "By classifying kimchi as pickled goods, the Chinese government basically blocked all imports of the product from South Korea. Kimchi is fermented and has high levels of bacteria. As such, it did not pass the hygiene standards normally applied to pickled goods, which are sterilized and have low amounts of bacteria." Are pickled goods normally sterilized, at least in China? If the kimchi were to be sterilized, how would that affect the flavor and/or texture? Is the fermentation finished by the time of packaging? I'm missing something here.

Getting back to Chris' question, I suspect it has to do with the solubility of CO2 in tonic water as opposed to soda water or typical soft drinks. What factors (other than temperature) would affect that?

That looks old, Shel. And very useful. I take it there are no identifying marks as to company or even country of origin?

That is a delightful cup, liuzhou.

I spy an eggplant amongst those lovely tomatoes, Shelby. Whatcha got in mind for that beauty?

My mother used to make a cake along the lines of the Dump Cake referenced above, but it wasn't quite the same. The base was boxed yellow cake mix, put in dry, with margarine I think as a binding layer (dotted? melted and poured?) and cherry pie filling poured over that. The baked result had a firm crust and a glossy, well-set cherry top. She probably served it with ice cream instead of garnishing with whipped cream or Cool-Whip. There was never pineapple, and the crust was on the bottom. Does anyone remember that one? I've been through her recipe boxes and found the chocolate-wafer icebox cake (if anyone's interested, I'll post it) but not the cherry recipe. I don't know how likely I would be to make it, but I remember it as being tasty, and of the appropriate time period.

Welcome! Glad to see you here!

I have routinely wished that I'd kept a bunch of the chem lab gear when it was cleaned out of our company's water lab "because we don't do that here anymore". Old beakers and flasks that would have been perfect mixing and storage containers, a magnetic stirrer or two...and yes, there was probably some sort of flask stand or support pole that I could have taken. What a waste!

I was specifically referring to having prices posted but being charged extra as a tourist, either because they don't think we can read the (Arabic) signs or because they claim it's 'last year's price'. I've only had a couple of attempts at that sort of rip-off, but it's annoying. Bargaining, on the other hand - I don't expect to do as well as the locals, but if we all go away happy and have had a good time, that's good enough. The food from the resort on Koh Samui looks so fresh and tempting! That looks like a great way to relax. Is there a flavor difference between sawtooth coriander and the cilantro we normally see here? (I think I spotted some of that cilantro in the steamed fish photo.) What does morning glory taste like? I've always thought of it as a farmer's nemesis. Never occurred to me to eat it.

CharlieDi, you make me wish I had a trip planned to Madrid! I have a question about Casa Lucio: what, in this context, are Broken Eggs? I'm none the wiser after looking at their photos. I'm reasonably sure it isn't what happens when I try to juggle. :-D

Please tell more about the peanut salad. Your chickpea salad also sounds great, but I think I can figure that one out from your description.

In my Egyptian cookbook it's just called "Salated Betingaan", i.e. eggplant salad. (Good luck with the spelling! ) The ingredients are loose and the proportions forgiving. This cookbook is Flavors of Egypt from City and Country Kitchens, by Susan Torgerson. She lists 2 medium eggplants, roasted 2 ripe tomatoes, chopped 2 cloves garlic 1 tsp salt 2 tb finely chopped fresh parsley 1/2 tsp chili (pepper) 1/2 onion, finely chopped 3 tb lemon juice or vinegar 2 tb olive oil I generally make at least double the dressing (which begins with making a paste of the garlic and salt) for the amount of salad, and I often use more eggplants and/or tomatoes, depending on what's available. I favor Meyer lemon juice in the dressing when I can get it. Another fine salad from that book is called "Salated Mashwy" (grilled salad). The ingredients are onions, potatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, a hot pepper, tomatoes, and capers if you wish. Everything but the capers gets grilled to char and cook through, then peeled if appropriate and chopped. A lemony salad dressing similar to the one above, but with sumac instead of chili, dresses the lot. This is another very flexible salad. Sometimes I'll add chunks of marinated chicken, lamb or beef to the grill and include it in the salad for our one-pot dinner.

One of our favorites is an Egyptian eggplant salad with roasted chunked eggplants, chopped tomatoes (sorry, is it that you don't like them?), a bit of chopped onion and parsley, all tossed with a lemon garlic vinaigrette. I could eat that salad for days. I think it gets better if it's allowed to sit for several days, but it never lasts that long. Fattoush: a wonderful way to use stale bread, pita or otherwise.

Those are adorable! What flavor is beneath those charming coats?

This is all a wonderful view into another world, and I thank you for it. Have you noticed a tendency to charge more because you're foreigners? I spotted that a few times in Egypt where the price was clearly marked in Arabic but they'd (try to, at least) charge more when an obvious foreigner was buying.

The last of the potatoes? Already? What do those plants do for the rest of the growing season? (Please tell me your growing season is not already at its end.)