Smithy

That sounds like a great reason for a festival, sooner than the harvest festivals that happen around the time of the harvest moon. Moon cakes, moon pies, melons cut into moon crescents, what else would go along with a Supermoon festival? A luminous drink of some sort?

Well, working backward because one should always do dessert first: that chocolate cake looks fabulous, but it isn't what I think of as a fondant. I thought fondant was a glossy coating akin to frosting? Educate me, please, or else I'll resort to Google later. Those candies are truly glorious! Definitely WOW-worthy. How did the walnut-raisin bread turn out? It was obviously edible. Was it as brickish as feared, or did Anna save the day with it? Those fries look like something I absolutely, positively want to make at home. [i ignored the ketchup, but thanks for the warning! ;-)] Methods, please? Anna mentioned an oil blanch for starters. I'm looking forward to your contribution on the rhubarb topic. We northerners need to keep that one going, it seems. Finally: Jacksoup, welcome! It's good that you came out of lurking; you chose a worthy first topic for the event. Here's hoping you post more.

Blether, thank you for posting the proportions and ingredients. I don't think I can get pork belly so inexpensively here (you're right, that's a good price) but if I can, I'll give this sausage recipe a try.

It probably is oxidation, aggravated by loss of moisture at the surface. Do you have a freezer? If so, perhaps you could portion some into smaller containers and freeze it, either in smaller, dedicated containers or else in chunks that then get consolidated into one container in the freezer. (I often freeze surplus lemon juice this way, using a spare ice cube tray; then I have small blocks of a tablespoon or so readily available.) It might separate after thawing again, but you should be able to stir it to remix. My other idea is to put a layer of plastic wrap over the surface in the jar, if the opening is wide enough to allow you to smooth it over the surface. I can't think of a liquid that you could use to cover it without affecting the flavor and consistency of the mustard.

Blether, I'd invite you to breakfast - or the other way around - if the trip were shorter. Around here, pork belly is rare enough to be an expensive luxury - too expensive to grind into even the loveliest sausage. Is it less so on your side of the pond, or were these very special luxury sausages that you made?

Welcome! We'd love to learn more about what you cook and eat, too!

That sounds like a *great* cake, ChocoMom. If you ever feel like going to that trouble again, I'd love to see photos!

...and if so, how? Smoked olive oil is new to me, and something I'd like to try. I love Wensleydale cheese, but it seems to me to be better without anything in it. I've been disappointed in Wensleydale-with-something cheeses, although I'm not necessarily averse to other cheese-with-something: for instance, cheddar cheese with embedded cumin seeds.

Stuffed squash blossoms! What a great idea!

Hmm, I wonder if that trick might disguise zucchini enough to get it past my darling. If I showed him Shelby's basket he'd shriek and flash back to his youthful days of forced gardening. He swears that neighbors used to leave bags of zucchini on each other's doorsteps in the middle of the night. I can bring home yellow summer squash (saute in butter or oil, with garlic; add dill and possibly tomatoes; toss with pasta and grated parmesan) but NOT the green stuff. :-D

Perhaps it isn't intended to be a light, airy loaf, but rather a good, dense chewy bread instead? At least, that can be your claim. ;-) It sounds like the perfect accompaniment to some good cheese, spread atop like cream cheese or eaten on the side. This was the perfect opening for me to add my voice the chorus that says, "keep on posting!" You two have my rapt attention, and it's clear I'm not alone. Blog on!

Don't ignore the possibility of Valencia oranges. They're in season now. I don't know whether they'd be making their way to your markets, however.

Like heidih, I'd like to know what kind of fruit. It makes a difference. Assuming that you're taking advantage of the stellar stone fruits and berries available in your area right now, I think that adding much in the way of dressing is gilding the lily. A light drizzle of Cointreau, or of good aged balsamic vinegar, wouldn't be amiss. At most I'd use one of the interesting bottled sauces from your local wineries, like Hop Kiln's fig sauce. Another way to "dress it up" would be to accompany it with some slightly sweetened crunchy pastries, or else serve it in small pastry shells. However, that isn't what you asked about. ;-)

In addition to the plastic twist style, we have silicone ice cube trays like these: www.amazon.com/dp/B000QIU7X6/ref=nosim/?tag=egulletsociety-20 The silicone trays come in a variety of cube sizes. Their advantage is that there's no wasted space as with the tapered sides of the plastic twist trays, so if you're trying to maximize the ice generated per space taken they're great. The disadvantage is that, at least in my experience, the cubes often have to be poked out (from the base of the tray) individually. Sometimes I can twist or flex the tray and get multiple cubes out, but not often.

Mitch, that salad looks like the essence of summer.

Sorry, CeeCee! Let us know how it turns out (and that you didn't burn your house down)! What do you plan to try doing first?

Building further on rotuts' answer: tomato sauce in my experience generally is plainer than pasta sauce or ketchup. It can be used over pizza; it can be the basis for a homemade pasta or pizza sauce or something else altogether. If it has chunks of something added (mushrooms, sausage, cheese, garlic) then it generally is no longer called tomato sauce and is likely to be called pasta sauce instead (as in rotuts' second link) although there are counterexamples. Contadina, for instance, makes Italian-seasoned tomato sauce. Ketchup is generally sweeter and thicker than tomato sauce.

The faces and, to some extent, produce are different but the layout is very much like what I used to see in Egypt on their market days. How do these vendors and buyers feel about being photographed? Do some of them grant permission and then try to demand money afterward? How is the sanitation in terms of food safety and parasites? Do you have to take special precautions to clean greens or fruit that you don't peel? Are those bananas or plantains in that picture? They look shorter and yellower than what I'm used to seeing, but that may be my inexperience. My friends who've lived in banana country won't touch the stuff we get in the USA because it's so underripe.

Well actually, I thought Ontarians referred to potato chips as potato crisps. Have I got the wrong part of Canada, or the wrong hemisphere? :-)

I'm glad to see you have access to Valencia oranges, FrogPrincesse. I remember them as being wonderfully sweet and juicy - and very convenient since they were available when the Navel oranges had all been picked - but farther north in the San Joaquin Valley they're being replaced because there's no market for them. Perhaps that trend is beginning to reverse. How did you prepare the golden beets? I've been exploring beets a bit, and have a couple languishing in the refrigerator (where they probably don't need to be) while I decide what to do with them. Your salads look like a good option.

Huh! I never thought of putting potato chips on a sandwich. Adds nice crunch, and a bit of salt, I imagine. Do you have to eat quickly to keep the chips from getting soggy?

Smoked trout! Oh, what a lovely treat! I look forward to seeing what you do with it.

So many photos, so many questions I have! In the first fish photo, it looks like they're lying (beautifully arranged) out in the open air. Arethey lying on a bed of ice? Can the supermarket plan to sell that much in a day? What happens to the unsold fish at the end of the day? (Taken back into refrigerator, covered, left as is...?) There's a fruit photo with what looks like oranges next to something that looks like polished coconuts. The relative sizes make me think I'm wrong about one of them. What are they? Is this a typical supermarket in your area? Thanks for the photos!

I can't believe what I'm seeing there. Were the Le Creuset Heritage Oval Gratin dishes for $25 and $35 really enameled cast iron? I think I paid about that much for the used LC's of that style that I bought on eBay, years ago! The only new LC's I've seen for that price have been stoneware, but those look like the good metal. I have a long-handled basket setup with latching lid and with holes similar to the ones you showed, although mine is more symmetrical between top and bottom. Fireplace popcorn popper? I use mine for grilling vegetables or meats that need frequent tossing.

That chutney looks much nicer than the sauce I made tonight, David. I tried a rough approximation of this recipe: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/19949-rhubarb/?p=920007 with a pork loin roast. The "rough approximation" bit comes in because I didn't have any parma ham and I did decide to temper the lemon flavor of the rhubarb with the sweetness of dates. Overall the sauce was nice, but we both felt it was a bit too fruity for our tastes with the pork. (We aren't big fans of applesauce with pork, either.) We remedied the problem with a good grainy mustard. Overall the combination was good enough to experiment with again, but not necessarily a keeper to pursue obsessively. Meanwhile, the combination of rhubarb, dates and pork juice conspired to make a brown sauce that looked a lot like gravy, especially after I took an immersion blender to it. Your chutney is much prettier. Revelations: I was surprised at how readily the rhubarb collapsed during cooking. It seemed to turn almost transparent, not at all retaining its structure the way celery would. I think today was my first time actually eating rhubarb out of hand. What a lovely surprise! Its sourness was much more akin to lemon than I'd anticipated! I can see why rhubarb could be substituted for lemony flavors to good effect: rhubarb and raspberry, rhubarb and blueberry, rhubarb on fish, perhaps? I liked it. I got a bit of that oxalic acid gritty feeling on my teeth (no, I wasn't eating the leaves) but I can easily see eating this stuff as a snack.