Smithy

Does anyone else remember Grapefruit Alaska? It was the rage - the magic dessert - sometime in the late '60's or early '70's in our corner of the world. 1. Cut a good, sweet grapefruit in half and prepare it as you would for eating, with the segments cut from the membrane for easy spooning. Cut a bit off the base of each half so it will sit level on a baking pan, and put the halves cut face up on the baking sheet. 2. Put a scoop of ice cream at the center of each half, on the citrus flesh. 3. Cover the ice cream and exposed grapefruit flesh with meringue. Cover it thoroughly; there must be no breaks in the coverage. 4. Bake (or was it broil? probably bake) until the meringue is browned. 5. Serve with spoons. Wait for the gasps of surprise at the icy-cold ice cream inside the hot, browned cap of meringue. My mother did this with vanilla ice cream, since it was the standard in our house. I wasn't crazy about the combination of grapefruit and vanilla ice cream, but it wasn't bad; if I were to try this now, I think I'd try something like cardamom seasoning in the ice cream,or perhaps I'd try a complementary sherbet instead. What was fun about it was that the meringue insulated the ice cream so there was a nicely browned meringue top (as one would find over a lemon meringue pie) with a cold ice cream and that luscious grapefruit underneath. Physics in action. Cool, man.

I'm trying to imagine bittersweet vs. dark chocolate with orange (probably both good) or grapefruit (er, I'm boggling at both) but without chocolate around for experimentation, I'll have to let someone else answer that. I agree that the orange peel would seem more likely to crisp uniformly on a screen that on parchment paper.

I don't think it's the water so much as the milk she included with that water. The casein in the milk would help seal pores and small cracks (if any - but there shouldn't be) in the bottom. The liquid would also help keep the base cool while it baked. I don't remember doing that when I cured my tagine, but it's a long time ago.

It's been a lot of maintenance and non-culinary rambling in the last few days. One day I had to break down and go to the grocery store for "just a few things" (see notes above) and got lost in Indio trying to find the store that we usually go to. On the plus side, I found the location of the annual Date Festival (and Riverside County Fair) referred to earlier. The grocery store itself was bewildering - couldn't find things, unusual (to me) layout. I did, however, come away with some of the most toothsome and flavorful green beans I've ever seen, and the celery was also quite nice. The green beans worked their way into a meal last night, as did some oranges and salmon. I've posted more information on them in the eG Cook-Off #68: Citrus Fruits topic.

I've posted in the Camping, Princess Style topic about the riches of citrus available where I grew up, in the San Joaquin Valley. Part of what we came away with is a lovely variety of navel oranges: the standard Washington navel and the new Cara Cara variety. Do not confuse the Cara Cara with a blood orange! It is truly a navel orange, but with a slightly sweeter taste and lower acidity than a standard Washington navel. Last night I put the juices of these, as well as lemons, to good effect. I started with fresh green beans - washed and trimmed - sauteed in olive oil with a touch of garlic. After they'd browned slightly I added a bit of water, covered and simmered until tender. (I thought I'd added a squeeze of orange juice, but if I did, my notes don't reflect it.) Meanwhile I'd made something akin to gremolata, or perhaps it would be more nearly a parsley pesto: 2 bunches parsley leaves, 3 or 4 garlic cloves, 1/3-1/2 cup olive oil and the juice of 1 Meyer lemon, whirred together to a fine paste then whizzed up with grated Parmesan. That sauce dressed the finished beans. Salmon with orange vinaigrette over wilted greens was another experiment. I dusted a filet of silver salmon (with the skin on) with cumin, Aleppo pepper, and a bit of paprika, then browned it in butter. When the fish was browned on the flesh side it went onto a metal plate and into a low-temp oven to finish cooking. Into the skillet with the leftover oil and juice went chopped garlic; when it started to turn golden I deglazed with orange juice; when the garlic burned I threw the lot out and tried again . This time the steps were: a film of oil into the pan, without garlic; a brief saute of the sections of a Cara Cara orange; a deglazing with the juice of another orange and a touch of balsamic vinegar, and the lot cooked down. By this time the fish was, alas, slightly overcooked. Nothing to be done about it. The fish went onto a bed of chopped greens, the vinaigrette and orange segments went over the lot, and dinner was served. The flavors were good, but the dish needs tuning. The dressing didn't wilt the greens, possibly because there wasn't enough oil in the dressing and possibly because Romaine lettuce is too firm. The thicker parts of the fish were dried out because of kitchen disorganization. I kept notes, and will try it again. I invite others to join me!

Thanks for those clues on what to do with forgotten hummus. Mine is not forgotten, but is sitting taking up space in the fridge as I try to work out how to liven it up. Spread on bread with more lemon, with more vinegar, with salt, with cumin, with all of the above....it's okay, but not great. I'll try olive oil next.

It depends partly on whether you have enough counter space. I've always admired the high-end electric kettles. By 'high-end' I mean they really boil the water, they'll maintain a boil instead of shutting off as soon as the water boils, and they have safety features like shutting off when they boil dry or get knocked over. Those are more expensive than the cheapos I've usually seen. In my kitchen I'd rather dedicate counter space to something else and leave the kettle on the stove top. Your mileage may vary. An electric kettle with a temperature setting: hmm. Would it do small-batch sous vide?

Those photos are great fun! Thanks for posting captions (small though they were) for each photo. I'd have been asking whether that was truly petrified wood otherwise. Now I'll ask, instead, how it got that glossy surface. Is it that highly polished, or is there a chemical surface on it? Are they commercially available somewhere? Every plate showed is beautiful. I'll bet it was as good to the taste and olfactory senses as to the eye. Thanks also for the funny stories. It's very cool that ABQ decided to use you to help kick off their downtown revival. Excellent trip report, gfron1. Thanks very much for sharing with the rest of us.

Wow! Those are gorgeous! I would look at one of those uncut cakes and admire the beautiful surface (looking as slippery as a Duluth sidewalk in January). After it was cut I'd be flat-out stunned by the beauty of the cross-section.

I think we'll have to have a Super Bowl party just so I can make this bread. Thanks, Anna!

I think I'd go with the smell test also. If they don't smell bad they're probably okay; if they do smell bad they may not be harmful but they probably won't be pleasant. I've eaten/used preserved lemons that had gone dark, smelled more like turpentine or old furniture polish than nicely perfumy briny lemons, and never suffered ill effects...but I didn't particularly enjoy the taste. Edit: I've realized since posting this that my response doesn't exactly address the mold question. I haven't enough knowledge for that. My suspicion, however, is that mold that grows under these conditions may be unpleasant but won't be harmful.

Yes, welcome! Don't worry, there are other people here whose culinary interest goes more toward eating than cooking. ;-)

Thank you for your kind words, Thanks for the Crepes! gfweb is right: there are pelicans in that picture, and may be a few gulls as well. I've been hearing lately about Duke's mayonnaise but hadn't known what's special about it. Now that I know it isn't sweet, I'll have to check it out if I ever spot it in a grocery store.

Welcome, Daniel! You've come to a good place for questions, answers, expertise and camaraderie. There are a lot of us who feel, as you do, that a lifetime isn't enough to learn everything there is about food and cooking. For some people, that's an expression of just how vast the topic is. Then there are the slow learners - like me - who are still trying to phrase the questions ;-) Come on in, wander around; feel free to ask questions, and we hope you'll join in with the discussions.

I like burgers very much, and this had good fixings (except for the dates) although the meat was overcooked for my tastes. I didn't think the dates complimented the burger. I prefer tart flavors with my burgers: dill pickles, for instance, instead of sweet pickles.

Lunch at the Oasis Date Gardens was huge, and when dinner time rolled around I still wasn't hungry. My darling was, and I left him to his own preference of the remaining bratwurst and potato salad from a couple of nights ago. I made a dinner salad, and topped a slice of toast with the last of some enchilada filling from a few more nights ago, melted onto the bread. I'll call it "enchilada bruschetta" until someone gives me a better name. It's a linguistic mutt, but well worth eating. We were both happy with our selections, but that didn't prevent him saying, "Can you cover your green salad while we're eating, so I don't have to feel guilty?" This is the other reason I didn't want to be inside, fussing over dinner:

If you drive south along California 111, through Coachella and toward Mecca, around Thermal you will begin to see date groves of every size and age, and along the right signs will appear for the Oasis Date Gardens. Lunch, a park, date shakes! Don't miss it! As a little girl I was fascinated by the sight of the place when our family drove past it. "Nope," said my father, "it's a tourist trap"...and at any rate we were on a mission with no time to stop. Times and drivers have changed, and now that we're glamping my darling and I have time and inclination to visit. They don't give tours, but they have a short video about date cultivation and harvesting, off in a little side room presided over by "Raul Medjool", a date-shaped mascot character that looks like a child's costume. Date production is a big deal in this area, and (according to their video, ©1990) the Coachella Valley accounts for 95% of the USA's date production. Local date production practices are incredibly labor intensive and water intensive. According to the video, dates require manual pollination via one of several various practices. Given that the date was considered a "tree of life" in ancient times, we think some information must have been specific to formal cultivation practices in this country; otherwise, how would the species have developed? There's a small gift shop with date products, books, and - best of all - a tasting table loaded with different varieties of dates and information about them. There are bins with dates of each variety for bulk purchase; you load up a bag with the variety of choice and pay at the counter. Prices for most dates are $4.50 or $5.00 per pound, but the ultra-fancy Medjool dates are $7.00/lb. You can buy dates already boxed, but it's more fun to sample and choose. They also have a lunch counter with burgers, sandwiches, salads, wraps, drinks; one can eat inside at a table or outside on the lawn, where there are picnic tables. Almost anything can be gotten with dates in it, but not everything has dates - you can get a club sandwich (Despite this current debate, I didn't take time to ask how they made it ) or a tuna sandwich. I was leaning toward a spinach salad with nuts and dates, but was persuaded by my darling to take a bacon cheeseburger with dates so he could satisfy his curiosity without the risk. I wouldn't do it again. Every meal is accompanied by a sample of their date cake - a chewy, dense, lovely concoction of nuts, dates, and probably a bit of batter. If you have a coupon, you can get a free sample of their date shakes also; otherwise you can buy one. I went with the free sample. It was consumed quickly before it could melt. Delicious!

Dutch potato seasoning mix, purchased in Sudbury and noted in a couple of blogs. You kinda have to know where to look. :-)Edit: Thanks, Anna. I didn't see you were working on the same question.

In that case, I also recommend Richard Sterling's Dining with Headhunters: Jungle Feasts and Other Culinary Adventures if you like food from Southeast Asia. One or two of his stories brought me to tears; more made me laugh out loud. I insisted on reading the funniest one to my darling, and we belly-laughed together.

My sister gave me a copy of The North African Kitchen: Regional Recipes and Stories, by Fiona Dunlop. It's a charming description of 8 modern home cooks in Marrakech, Fez, Tunis, Carthage, La Goulette, and Tripoli, with insights into their lives followed by recipes. There are beautiful photos (of the area as well as the food), and discussions of cultural influences and history. She quotes a Moroccan king as saying that Maghrebin cuisine is "rooted in Africa, watered by Islam, and rustled by the winds of Europe." The book makes for fun reading, and the recipes look promising.

Thanks for that, Mick. I'll make a point of daily refreshing; refrigerator space is likely to be an issue for a while. I'm getting it down to a quick routine now, so that feeding the starter isn't as big an operation as it was at first: 1. Set a new, clean container (I have multiples of the same type) onto a scale and set the tare; 2. Pour starter from the current container into the new container until I get the amount I want (I've been doing anything from 50g to 100g); 3. Reset the scale to zero to eliminate potential mental maths errors, then spoon the appropriate amount of flour in; 4. Reset the scale once more to zero and add as much weight of water as I did flour, then stir the mix; 5. Take a deep breath and throw away the remaining starter. This is the most painful part, so I've been learned to keep the quantities down, but of course I don't want to come up short when I'm ready to bake. :-) It's taken longer to spell out these steps than it does to do them, so I should be able to keep it up on a daily basis until the refrigerator is a bit less cramped.

gfweb, you raise a really good question. (That's shorthand for "I dunno".) My question is whether the rising heat is supposed to be taken into account when sizing range hoods? I assumed, based on industrial experience, that it was related to the volume of the air being treated (surface area of the stovetop, distance to the air intake) and a certain capture efficiency coefficient, rather than counting on a 'boost' from the range heat. Lucky you! Planning a new kitchen is fun, and using it when finished is even more fun. I didn't think much of the in- between steps .

I've been traveling a lot over the last few months, and my sourdough starter is changing...not for the better. For various reasons I've just been feeding it (equal parts starter, flour, water usually; sometimes 1:2:2: starter, flour, water if I thought I'd get a chance to bake bread.) My starter has been getting thinner and, well, more sour smelling. The thinness surprises me, and I wonder what - if anything - I can do about it. Hooch starts appearing after 3 days, but the smell is pretty strong after only 2 days. I feed it almost every day to avoid the smell and try to keep it boosted to a "normal" (by my experience) viscosity. I have no control over the water, unless I start using and carrying distilled water. I think the water we started taking on a couple of weeks ago has more dissolved solids and is harder, but I don't have a way to measure it. I haven't been taking pH measurements along the way, but the pH at home (where this starter was born) is around 8.7, so the alkalinity here shouldn't be unusual. The flour - well, I was faithfully using one brand but most recently I've had to explore other brands; all have been unbleached flour but it's possible the variety of wheat was different. My maintenance has been regular and frequent feeding of the starter, but I've had to step up the rate. I wonder what's going on with it. It's sitting out at room temperature (no room in the refrigerator). Any ideas? Is it dying?

Kim, what was so much worse about cleaning the Vitamix for this vs. the food processor?

Welcome. You've come to a good place to learn; the members here range from brand-new cooks to seasoned (heh) professionals. You may find useful information also in the short courses offered in the eGullet Culinary Institute: how to cook various cuisines, make soups, sauces, and so on. Depending on the degree and manner to which your wife has become disabled, you may find useful information in courses offered there on Cooking With Disabilities. Part 1 assumes the cook is working with disabilities; Part 2 addresses cooking for someone with disabilities (mostly for an impaired child, but some information may be valuable to you), and Part 3 discusses sensory issues such as dealing with nausea and medications.