Smithy

What Deryn said. I have lost track of the number of gadgets and cookware that I've added to my arsenal toolkit kitchen collection since I joined the Society. There are still more to come, if I can work out where to put them. I'm happy to report that my cooking has also improved. :-) Welcome out of lurk mode! If you have questions about the workings of the forum (how to add photos, for instance, or where a post belongs) feel free to ask one of us hosts.

I complimented the deli food but the true stars were the home meals. Those salads! Those meats! And I might even become a convert to paminna cheese if I were to try Rachel's version. Mr. Kim paid careful attention to how one gets perfect ribs in an hour over the grill? Can you share what you learned? Once again, thanks for posting. It looks like a lovely trip.

What a great trip! How nice to see old friends (and have them reappear here) and fun, and great food.... The deli offerings were especially photogenic, but all of it looked great. How nice of Caroled and C and Rachel to show such hospitality! I'm sure the camaraderie was the most delicious of all.

Welcome!

The rhubarb season has rolled around again, and our newspaper was good enough to send inspiration my way for Rhubarb Frozen Custard. (Although the link is to the web site of the Duluth News Tribune, the article is by Leah Eskin and reprinted from the Chicago Tribune.) The recipe comes together easily. Mix and pasteurize this custard of egg yolks, half-and-half, sugar, salt and vanilla extract: Cook down a pound of rhubarb cut into chunks, along with sugar and water, to make a sauce: Chill both; mix them together and churn. The result is creamy, tangy and delicious. I'll be making it again, but with a couple of adjustments: 1. They say to strain the custard but not the rhubarb sauce. Although the rhubarb melts down into a nice puddle, it still needs to be pureed, or possibly strained. Mine came out with strings, as seen in this photo: I pureed it with a wand blender, but still had to pick out a few fiber clumps from the finished product. A coarse strainer might have helped remove them. 2. The recipe makes 6 cups. That's too much to fit in my Cuisinart ICE-20 (1 quart) machine all at once. I've now marked this recipe as a double batch for my machine.

I think both articles were interesting. I too would like to know of the specifics. For instance, the first day requires 56% of the calories to come from fat. Does the type of fat matter? (I would think so, but it would be nice to read.) If I were to select fruits, vegetables and meats to fit the caloric and proportion specifications, would I be meeting the goal? I agree that it's nice to see "quality" emphasized along with longevity. The holistic approach in the USC article makes sense.

I keep dithering on the color (nice choices, even though they don't have British Racing Green ), then wonder whether this is a good purchase for me anyway. Does it have a quicker response time than, say, the Taylor or Maverick thermometers I can get for roughly half the price? Is the needle probe especially wonderful? The alarm functions are nice but these days I'm most concerned with oven temperature swings, and this seems to be strictly for food temperature. Have I got that right?

My mother and I used to enjoy the malitol-sweetened chocolates at a favorite shop out her way. As a rule I dislike any alternative sweeteners, but I thought these were very good. Is there a health issue with malitol, or is it simply a matter of taste? Edit: sorry, I just reread the topic and learned about one possible health issue. I'll ask 2 different questions instead: how common is the laxative effect? (We did not experience it.) Are there more potential health issues?

There are some amusingly-named items on the menu, but others sound scary. Are they really using hypodermic needles? What the heck is a "wellness shot"?

Save $50 on the Anova Precision Cooker in honor of Father's Day by entering the code "LUVDAD" at their web site. Now I don't remember whether the Father's Day special ends on June 21 or June 23.

I heard a related story on NPR, but missed some of the detail. Thanks for this link. I'm surprised that "breaking" (liquid) eggs are usually so much cheaper than whole eggs. Does the cost of packaging per egg so outweigh the cost of breaking, filtering and repackaging said egg? It's also interesting that H.E.B. restricted the number of cartons per customer because the commercial users were buying out their stock. I applaud H.E.B. for remembering their customer base.

I took this course in 2013 and found it immensely interesting and useful. The teachers are engaging, the tutors invaluable, the platform frustrating...ok, so it wasn't perfect, but it was good enough that I'm going again. (Maybe the discussion platform has improved since then.) It's free, although now they invite donations. The class starts June 17. Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science

Today's sourdough rosemary olive oil breads. I haven't had much time to bake lately, so I split today's batch into a boule, saved for later.... and a batard.... which helped form dinner: I've been working on proportions as well as technique. In past attempts I've added olive oil and rosemary in separate steps. This time, I mixed the olive oil with the rosemary, let it all steep for a few minutes, then added them to the dough. What a difference! It emphasized the rosemary considerably.

The Duluth, Minnesota Farmers' Market is more about the food. There's almost always a small group of acoustic musicians playing in the center of the building. They're more about jamming together than about entertainment, but of course it's both. Among the market stalls are a few craftsman types who sell soaps or beeswax candles, but most of it is produce, flowers, honey, preserves and baked goods. It's open now but our growing season has barely begun.The Visalia, California Farmers' Market - downtown, Thursday evenings - is an open-air street affair with one or two electrified performers and a broader range of goods: cheeses, street food, artwork and crafts in addition to the produce and flowers. Thinking back on my last opportunity to go there, it was still more about the products than the performances. I'd sure love to get there again; there were excellent cheeses available.

I've had chocolate stout layer cake that was to die for, but I haven't tried making it myself. If anyone has a recipe that would be a good launching point, I'd like to see it.

Those crab burgers look great, liamsaunt. Is there a difference (other than the buns and accompaniment) between those crab burgers and crab cakes? I'm always on the lookout for good crab cake recipes. The prosciutto crunch is a great idea.

Welcome! It looks like you'll fit right in here.

Thanks for the writeup, Rob. It gives me some places to check out next time I'm down there with time to wander. I'm delighted to see Talmadge Farms' products distributed down there. Have you opened the beet pickles yet?

Everyone has certain preferences or dislikes, and to some degree the difference between being "selective" and being "picky" depends on the observer. (Per Bertrand Russell: "I am firm, you are stubborn, he is a pig-headed fool.") The point of the original post, as I understood it, was dealing with extreme examples: those (adults) who will eat only a very few things, won't branch out, won't try other things, and by association end up restricting their companions' food choices. If I have someone over for dinner who is a vegetarian, I'll serve vegetarian food so we can all enjoy it. But the person who is (say) vegan, gluten-intolerant, and won't eat anything yellow or red because it looks "icky" is likely to be more chore than fun.

Ranz, you have me thinking now about brai. Here. Soon.

There may be something to that, but I suspect it has more to do with a couple generations' worth of Americans who haven't had to do without. If you're truly hungry, you'll eat what's in front of you. I doubt there are picky eaters among the populations (even in this country) that don't know where or when they'll get another meal. Getting back to the original question: no, I couldn't live with a picky eater. I once had the dubious pleasure of hosting a niece and her family for the weekend. I'd been assured that the children weren't picky eaters and "would eat anything", but the truth was quite different. I had planned kid-friendly meals (macaroni and cheese, for example) with nothing too adult/unusual, but at every turn there was a wail from the 8-year-old: "What's this?...I don't LIKE it!" without even having tried it. It turned out in this example that she'd been raised on Kraft Mac & Cheese from the box, and didn't recognize the real McCoy. It's funny now, and she's turned into a lovely young woman, but it took a while for me to be able to laugh about that visit.

Given my lifestyle, starting from seeds isn't practical. I finally found live plants at a 2nd-choice nursery yesterday. My 1st-choice nursery only had garlic chives. The woman there expressed surprise that mine had died; she thought it was as hardy as mint. I hope these survive. I really needed chives a couple of days ago for my dinner. :-(

Beautiful dinner, Shelby. I'll bet you're glad to see the sun! Are those chives or spring onions chunked onto your enchiladas? My chives died and I've had them on the brain during a surprisingly long search for more plants...so I may have a skewed view of your photos.

That looks delicious, FauxPas! Very summery and simple.

My most recent attempt seemed like a good idea at the time. We had a package of smoked pork tenderloin from our most recent visit to Llano, Texas. I've been saving it for a special occasion. The Beer Cook-off seemed like just such an occasion. A smoked pork tenderloin sounded too strong to stand up to the delicate fruity flavors of the apricot wheat beer I last used. It needed something more muscular. Moose Drool Brown Ale is a heavy, dark, slightly sweet - malty? - brown ale from the Big Sky Brewery in Missoula, Montana. It doesn't quite taste like stout, but it has that sort of body, with a hint of chocolate at the finish. I thought it might compliment smoked meat nicely. The elements of the dish: chopped onions, diced potatoes, butter and oil for a slight browning, and the beer as the deglazing and cooking liquid. The tenderloin was already fully cooked, so it needed no more heat than enough to warm and brown. Meanwhile, I'd set up sourdough loaves using a starter inoculated with the apricot wheat beer. They look good, don't they? The practiced eye can probably tell that they were overrisen before baking. The slices looked like biscotti. The flavor was good, but I couldn't detect any apricot. That's what I get for not studying up on beer-batter loaves. Dinner: It doesn't look bad. It didn't taste bad. It just didn't give any hint of beer in the meal. The smoked pork tenderloin sounded delicate to us, but once out of its package it asserted its smoky porky salty nature like tartan at a ballroom dance. The muscular beer quite failed to assert itself. This leads me to wonder: what beer is a good compliment to ham? I don't think the smoke is the issue; I think curing salts overwhelm the rest.