Smithy

Somehow we've completely missed the Desert Rain Café on our travels through Sells. As you note, it's on the way between Tucson and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, but Sells has been no more than a wide spot in the road before now. We'll have to rectify it the next time through; that looks like a delightful stop! Thank you also for the link to the book. You're right that it's pricey, but it looks beautiful and interesting, and I get the idea that the proceeds go to help the community. In a simple scan through the preview I see more ideas for dried ciolim (cholla buds) than I'd come up with. I bought them on impulse, tried one simple thing, and they've been looking at me since. It looks like some of the squash recipes should be tested for the eG Cookoff #71: Winter Squash topic.

Here's what the flap meat looked like after I'd seasoned it and before I started cutting: The entire piece. What do you think? Is this sirloin tips before being cut? Closeup of the texture It was delicious meat. If we get there again I'll take more photos and ask more questions. Today at another market I saw a package of chicharróns and saw them translated as pork cracklings. They were deep fried, dry (no doubt crispy) and packaged in a room temperature bag like potato chips. Not the same treatment at all! I had asked him about the meat and he'd said that sometimes he does beef and sometimes pork. Our sample tasted beefy to me. I agree they'd be wonderful in burritos, tacos, enchiladas, salads, or simply eaten out of hand.

I think the meat costs less per pound than in surrounding stores for the same apparent quality. The ribeye we bought would easily cost $1 - 2 dollars more per pound. That's a good question about the flap meat. It wasn't at all like sirloin tips. Honestly, I assumed it was akin to flank steak or plate steak, but it may have been too thin. Are you saying it might have been peeled away from an inner cut? That would make sense. It was thin and very strongly grained with easy separation. If I can find my photos of the unwrapped meat I'll post them for discussion.

Two Thermapens - one for the house, then when I found how much I liked it another for the trailer - and a better IR thermometer than I had before. Whether that last is really valuable remains to be seen, but it's fun to point at things and see how hot they are. It'll be useful for campfire cooking in a couple of months. @Okanagancook, that IP topic is a really good read. You can probably afford to take a peek or three. I haven't succumbed. Yet.

We found a new market in Tucson! We spotted this place on E. Fort Lowell Road: Hmm, we should investigate. We walked around to the front: and wandered in. The interior is neat, clean and nicely stocked with basic groceries and Mexican specialties. Mariachi music was playing on the radio - loud enough to be heard, not loud enough to be intrusive. It drives me crazy to go into a market where you have to talk loudly to be heard over the music, and major grocery stores are frequent offenders. We wandered over to the meat counter. "May I help you?" asked the young man. Well no, we weren't really looking to buy anything, but he was happy to answer questions about what he had. "Have you ever had chicharrón?" he asked. "Would you like to try some?" Oh, my. These trimmings from their meat cuttings are nicely spiced, cooked, salty-but-not-too-salty, with a pleasant blend of fat, crunch and meat. I swooned but forgot to ask how much it costs. We bought flap meat and a ribeye steak instead. As I paid for our purchase, I asked the young woman at the counter about the market, and the meat-counter man came to help with the conversation. The market has been open for 9 months now. I think this is their first commercial venture as a couple, and I hope they make a success of it. We walked out with our meat, then I walked back inside and told them about eGullet and this series of posts. "May I take photos and post about your place on the web?" They were happy to let me do so - right until I pointed the phone at them. "Oh, no!" they laughed, and turned camera-shy. Photos of the interior were fine, but not of them. This purchase of a rib-eye steak and the flap meat cost us all of $12. Later that day the flap meat became part of our dinner burritos. I didn't bother with photos.

Have you checked with See's Market in Visalia? They're out on Ben Maddox Way, just a little south of Houston Avenue, or they were the last time I visited. They had an amazing selection of Oriental foods and might be able to tell you whether they can get this for you. The Mee Chun Canning Company that makes this still seems to offer it - but you're right that the Red Food Dye #2 might be a problem in this country.

Mitch, can you give an idea of what you mean by "astoundingly cheap"? I'd love to have access to a place like that, too.

@GlorifiedRice, I think you need to test the devices and compare them...and then, of course, report here on your results. I purchased a spiralizer on promo sale at one of my favorite kitchen stores earlier this year. It sat in its box, in the shopping bag, and glared at me for nearly 2 weeks before I took it back without putting it through its paces. I'm impressed with some of the dishes that have been posted on this topic, but decided it was more likely to be an impulse buy that would not get much use in our kitchen. After I took it back I made lot of similar vegetable dishes by thin-slicing with my mandoline...right up until I thin-sliced a finger instead.

We finally found weather nice enough to make cooking outside pleasant, and set up the camp stove for the event. Way back in Alabama, an excellent grocery store meat clerk convinced us that - despite our small shopping list and still-full refrigerator - we needed to check out some of the local products. We had come away with 2 types of sausage, both made within 50 miles of our location, and a bottle of "Southern Seasoning" that she assured us carried the flavor of true Alabama-style barbecue. I can't say we've been excited about the seasoning blend, but the sausage has been good. The DeRamus sausage is long gone. Now we opened the Conecuh to make hash out on the camp stove. There isn't anything elegant about this meal, but it's good camping comfort food. By the light of the lantern we sipped our beer, enjoyed the clear skies, and gave the pan contents an occasional turn: Those of you who followed along last year may remember that DH never thought the potatoes crisp enough; the eGullet consensus here seemed to be that the pan was too crowded to get proper crisping. We've had a running disagreement since then about how many potatoes and onions to cook for two people: he wants the pan filled to capacity, to maximize leftovers; I want enough space to be able to spread and turn the contents. I won this time. He complained that there wasn't enough, but the texture was just right.

@Shelby, did you accompany those oysters with any sauce? If so, what kind?

So do I! It looks as though your Pannetones are in bakeable paper. Is that something you're able to purchase easily where you are, or do you have to mail-order it from the States? Or do you make it yourself? I'm ogling the King Arthur Catalog and wondering where I could have something sent as I travel. Maybe I'm making a bigger deal of baking in paper than I need to.

WOW! Shelby, that's a wonderful gift indeed! I hope you'll post about what you do with more of those beauties.

You mean the filling was dried out? It wasn't in my batch. If you mean it didn't taste like that uber-rich sweet frosting to you, well, our taste buds are calibrated differently. :-)

That's interesting advice about the Twitter feed with a foraging hashtag bringing in new people, and reserving your domain now. It sounds sensible.

I returned to the service station and wandered into the office. On the counter were large, heavy (my scale says almost 4 pounds) plastic bags full of local pecans in the shell. They looked beautiful: well-cleaned, no dust, good size. The price: $10. What a deal! When the shop owner came in from working on our tire, I asked to buy a bag. "Cool!" he said, "this is *my* money" (instead of the shop's). These pecans came from my tree! I almost bought 2 bags, just for that smile. Now, what shall I do with all these pecans, once I shell them? I have some favorite uses, but I'll bet I can get new ideas here.

Shelby, the ice wasn't bad enough to freeze the door shut. The problem came with stepping out onto the icy metal steps. We managed, carefully: I went gingerly down, and he gave me helpful advice about what I needed to do outside. Fort Davis, TX is a town of slightly more than 1000 souls. It is also the county seat, and despite its diminutive size it seems to have a vitality that many similarly-sized towns have lost in this country. In a very small area one can find a decent supermarket, a number of hotels and RV parks (at which we've never stayed), a couple of very good hardware stores, and several historical sites. One also can find the Stone Village Market. Even given the disproportionate vitality of the town, this place seems unlikely to succeed. Yet it has succeeded, as far as we can tell, for at least 6 years. Maybe it's their quirky nature. Maybe it's their offering of organic foods and whole grains, or their deli case with cheeses and meats not to be found anywhere else within 100 miles, or their extensive selection of coffees from the Big Bend Coffee Roasters: I think it's a bit of all those, but I also think it's their deli menu and staff. We were stopped in town for tire repairs, and I had time to stroll through town, visit, shop and order sandwiches. The gentlemen working the place were delighted to chat, answer questions and have photos taken. Over the years I've seen shopkeeper attitudes range from 'no photos - can't control what you post' to the Hollywood attitude that 'there is no such thing as bad publicity'. These gents were in the latter camp, and I'm grateful to them. The breads could be selected from half a dozen different loaves of commercially-packaged sliced bread, or from housemade bread rolls. I selected a 7-grain roll and a sourdough roll, and let fly with a combination of chicken, pastrami, roast beef and salami - I forget in what order - along with cheese, lettuce, tomato, condiments and (on one) green olives. While the sandwiches were being made, I perused the rest of the store and selected packages of coffee. If I had needed any grains or flour I could have bought them here, but I'm still backlogged. Our sandwiches were works of art. The checkout clerk and I chatted about the town while he was ringing up my purchases and I was finding other things to buy. (Chatting is a good way to keep the customer shopping, isn't it?) We talked about what a nice town Fort Davis seems to be. "It is," he said. "I moved here from Dallas and suddenly found myself part of a community instead of a bunch of strangers living together." I paid for my purchases. He walked to a magazine rack, came back and slipped a small magazine into my shopping bag. "Here's how it starts," he said. "Find yourself a little piece of land that you like, put some money down, and come stay a while. That's how I found myself here." I enjoyed looking through the Real Estate ads during our next drive.

Oh, but the recipes!

Very nice, Shain! What are the greenish garnish things? Pepitas?

I don't usually like peanut brittle, but I'd give yours a try. It looks delicately crunchy and beautiful!

Some of those flowers have beautiful coloring. Could you grind them and use them to season sauces, or steep them for the same purpose?

There were some great guesses for the dessert I showed earlier! I never would have thought of eggplant parmigiana rosettes, but now I think that would be an elegant party food: well worth trying. I'll tell you about the rosettes at the end of this post. We arrived at Davis Mountains State Park, near Fort Davis, Texas, the day after Thanksgiving. One good thing about the rain and cold is that a lot of people left early or cancelled their park reservations, and that made room for us to visit. We drove through rain (what else?) but were delighted to see actual trees with fall color. That night we probably had leftover prime rib, but maybe we chose a more sensible set of leftovers for dinner. Whatever it was didn't seem photo-worthy. I'm not the one doing all the driving, but all the riding in the rain wipes me out anyway. The next morning we awoke to a winter fairyland: This is the sort of thing I miss when we leave for the winter and that he leaves in the winter to miss. This is also, incidentally, the reason we wanted to move to somewhere with electricity. It was a good day to mess around in the kitchen, and I chose to work on spaghetti squash. I cooked a huge squash, split it into two batches, and served the first batch with a tomato/vodka sauce from Stonewall Kitchens for dinner that night. The details, aside from the burnt toast, are in the eG Cook-Off #71:Winter Squash topic. The next day brought more rain, but not of the freezing variety; instead, we awoke to water in the nearby creek. We've never seen water there before. We have noticed that the streams in the Davis Mountains have flood gauges sticking well above the normal bank level. When we arrived we'd asked about flash flooding and been assured that it wasn't predicted during this storm although it can happen; last fall a small trailer was moved a couple of campsites' worth. We weren't worried, but we enjoyed the spectacle. We forded the stream ... ...and went to breakfast at the Indian Lodge, up at the high end of the park. I wrote about this place earlier this year. It's been rebuilt in its original style, true to its 1930's Civilian Conservation Corp depression-era roots. The interior is lovely rustic wood, with a mural depicting the history of the area. Our favorite waitress has retired, but the food is still good. If one can call it a rut with annual or semi-annual visits, I'd say we're in a rut: once again I had their massive breakfast burrito, and he had their very-generous plate of sausage, eggs and potatoes. Later in the day it cleared enough that the local wildlife came out from wherever they shelter. The park javelinas are entirely too bold, and make it mandatory that campers be careful with their food. Most other parks have signs warning that there's no such thing as a raccoon-proof cooler. This park's notice boards have photos of a full-grown javelina prying its way into an ice chest while the ice chest is on a picnic table. One would not say "Awww!" in that situation. Nonetheless, when I saw these babies (the rangers said probably a couple of weeks old) I said, "Awww!" And kept my distance. And kept my food safe. Remember the rosette I showed you? Or had you forgotten? When we checked out, the Ranger on duty had evidently been doing a lot of holiday baking. I ogled a tray of beautiful hand-sized rosettes. "Did you make those?" I asked. "I did!" she beamed. "There's coffee cake and coffee over on the table, too!" They do know how to make you welcome in Texas. "Are those apples?" I asked. "Yes," she said, and she looked a little sheepish. "They're supposed to look like little roses, but I didn't do them very well." I assured her that she'd done very well indeed, and took one for us to share. She said she'd found the recipe on YouTube. Based on her description, I think it was this one (caution, there's an advert first): Rose Shaped Apple Baked Dessert, by Cooking with Manuela I shared, but only with difficulty.

Thanks for the suggestion, Wayne. I'll keep that in mind. Firebrick *has* to be sturdier than a pizza stone. :-) ElsieD, I've seen them in hardware stores, although I've never thought of using them in my oven before now. Wayne's link (to what looks like the Canadian equivalent of our Home Depot) may be a help.

I'm definitely going to try kabocha, based on what I'm reading above. In the meantime, I still have several squash in my stash to work through. Most recently it was spaghetti squash. This particular squash was much larger than we could reasonably eat in one sitting, so a common beginning spawned two different meals. I split it raw, scooped out the seeds from one half, scored the cleaned half and drizzled it with oil, then roasted both halves, covered, until the squash flesh started to soften. I wanted to see what difference, if any, the initial treatment made. It's easier to scoop the seeds out when the flesh is softening, but I couldn't tell a difference otherwise in the final product. The freshly-cleaned half was also drizzled with oil, and both halves were roasted (covered) until the squash strands began to separate. At that point onions, potatoes and ground turkey were added, then the mixture went back into the oven. This was a convection oven, by the way. I think a microwave would have been much more efficient. Eventually it was mostly cooked, the squash was quite cooked, and there was free liquid to be boiled off. I wanted browning. I wanted the high heat of a skillet. When I had the desired browning, I set aside half of the mixture for later. The first night's batch had a jar of vodka/tomato sauce stirred in and heated. Dinner was wonderful. There were leftovers, and we were happy with those as well. A few nights later, the squash mixture that had been reserved prior to tomato sauce addition was given a curry treatment. Curry powder and coconut milk took it in an entirely different direction, and it was also good. Sorry, no pictures. It was yellowish, not especially photogenic, but quite satisfying.

That's a brilliant design, and new to me. I wonder whether those are still made - and if not, why not?

IowaDee nailed it. This isn't the first pizza stone I've broken, and I fear it won't be the last, but I think I set a record for short life for one; I bought this late in October. Here's a teaser from our next stop: Any guesses about it?