Smithy

I've been thinking about this too, since my sorrel bush is flourishing this year. Salmon with sorrel sauce works for a grilled or pan-fried salmon. Somewhere I have a recipe for salmon that's been coated with crushed pecans and something else, and a sorrel sauce as an accent. Another of my favorites is a panade from the Zuni Cafe cookbook, where fresh sorrel is mixed into the bread, cooked onion, cheese and broth mixture. If either of those sounds interesting, ask and I'll summarize the recipes. While I was looking for the salmon with sorrel sauce recipe, I stumbled over this untried but interesting-looking recipe at the Splendid Table's web site: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/splendid-table/recipes/fish_salmonbenedict.html One caution: make very sure you devein the big leaves! I ignored that cookbook advice and found my food riddled with sharp little spears from the larger veins. The smallest "capillaries" aren't an issue, but the central veins and (as I recall) some of the larger side veins are.

1) From what I've seen, the standard Nutrition Information Label on products sold here provides portion size in English volumetric or weight - as in "cups", "tbsp" or "oz" and then gives the metric equivalent in grams. Thereafter, the component information (fat, carbs, protein and so on) is given in metric units - g and mg. 2) That seems like a specialized level of detail. Nutritionists might care to that level, but I wonder how many others would. I myself find it mildly interesting from a laboratory perspective (how did they get these numbers) and too fussy to be useful...but I am neither nutritionist nor food scientist.

Oh, my. My, my, my! Got any leftovers you'd care to send me?

Around here at least, "cottage fries" are just sliced and fried rounds of potato. No wedges, no crinkles, no cubes or fingers.

I'd eat it in a heartbeat! But if I were serving it I'd be sure to include plenty of raspberry coulis and whipped cream (as you mentioned) to pretty it up. I also like the idea of a chocolate ganache. Could you, say, split the flattened cake into 2 layers, put raspberry and whipped cream between, then cover the lot with chocolate ganache? (Easy for me to say, when I'm not the one due to present the finished dessert in a few hours.) The recipe reminds me a lot of Reine de Saba (aka Queen of Sheba) torte, minus the raspberry liqueur or kirsch. That's one of my favorites. Am I missing something, or are these close kin?

We have a relatively new Bob's Big Boy here in central California. The building they're in used to be a Baker's Square until that chain fizzled out. When they first opened, the Bob's had a small statue of Bob out front which promptly got stolen. There was some local angst & drama until the teen who took it was finally caught. I believe the statue was moved into the lobby. Mustard cheeseburger? That sounds painfully dull. Having grown up on the left coast, lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayo (sometimes onion) were always the norm on the more elaborate burgers (Jumbo Jacks, Big Macs, et al) but the basic (cheap) burgers seemed to have only mustard and ketchuo plus some pickle chips. I grew up in California and always assumed that a burger came with lettuce, tomato, mayo and usually pickles. (I always specified "extra pickles" and "no onion" to be sure, although the onion wasn't a given.) Imagine my surprise when I moved to Minnesota and found that the default burger only came with mayo and mustard. Whenever I ordered a burger and asked for mayo, lettuce, tomato and pickles the waitperson would say, "Oh, you want a California burger with pickles." Sure enough, there it was on the menu, for anyone to see: California burger. To this day, my Minnesotan husband wants mustard and onion and none of that other frippery with his all-beef patty on a bun.

Here are my considerations for your question: 1. Your largest existing pan (12-1/2" diameter) leaves only an inch of clearance to the control knob. If you put a 14" pan on that same burner you're down to something like 1/4" clearance. Can you manage control with that? 2. How big is the biggest burner? The size of the pan with respect to the size of the burner is a factor for determining whether you can cook with high heat (as in sauteing). The heat conduction of the bottom of the pan is also a factor in this equation. Consider a very large pan over a very small burner. If you crank the heat up high you'll get hot spots inside the pan, and scorched food in the center. If the pan has a heavy bottom and efficient heat conduction so that the heat spreads uniformly along the bottom instead of passing through to the interior, you'll have a greater range of flame sizes you can use without developing hot spots. However, you may never be able to apply full heat to the bottom of the pan if the flame is heavily concentrated at the center. 14,000 btu's sounds like a lot of potential to produce hot spots if the pan is too big for the burner. To summarize: I think you have to look at clearance to the knob and at how much of the large pan would be excluded from direct heat. I used to watch my 13" All-Clad saute pan over a 10" burner (electric, but the principle is the same). No matter how I tried, I could never get the heat to be as even as with the 10" pan over the 10" burner. For electric burners the rule of thumb is something like no more than a 1" overhang. That's probably a good guess for gas as well.

"Butter and sugar" corn. "Peaches and cream" corn. Are those regional names for what we in this region call candy corn? It's very sweet and the kernels on any given ear are a mix of yellow and white.

Here in Northeastern Minnesota we can't tell the difference. Well, at least, I can't. The truck stands are sprouting as always; the source of the corn is steadily moving northward from the state's southern border as the season progresses. My husband, who is the true corn afficionado in our family, declares it to be wonderful. The supply may be shorter, based on comments from some of the truck-sellers, but I'm not seeing it. The quality seems the same.

First off, I love the reference to your curbside find margarita blender. You seem to be an effective and diligent rescuer of appliances that need new homes. Good for you! Kerry Beal's lemon sorbet recipe from the California Culinary Academy series, upthread a couple of posts, sounds like it would be a good treatment for grapefruit too; you may need to adjust the sweetness a bit. I wonder whether straight grapefruit juice would work as well as mixing it with something else? If mixed, with what? Pineapple juice, perhaps? Glad you like the peach ice cream recipe, even if it seems more like sherbet to you. It's funny I never thought of it that way. To this day, whenever I hear the word "sherbet" I think of the commercially-produced and -cartoned orange sherbet or rainbow sherbet from grocery stores, or - worse yet - the popsicles that were orange sherbet wrapped around a center of vanilla ice cream. I know they were popular, but to me they were always nasty. I'll just keep calling my recipe "ice cream", thankyouverymuch.

Could be fun, and I'm glad to see it apparently coming to network TV. I hope they're fun and encouraging, even though it's a competition.

I agree with freezing the canister, in as cold a deep freeze as possible, for 24 hours. I read somewhere years ago (Cook's Illustrated?) that most home refrigerator freezers don't get cold enough to do the job right. That's small comfort if you don't happen to have a deep freeze, and it's never stopped me from making ice cream. Sometimes I just find myself having to do what you're doing: making the ice cream, freezing it harder, allowing it to partially thaw and finishing the job. Someday maybe I'll acquire a second bowl so I can churn the ice cream in the summer heat and transfer the product to the backup frozen bowl to finish the job. (The temperature / heat retention issue shows the advantage of the old rock-salt and ice method, but that method makes a messy disposal problem.) As others have noted upthread you're better off to start with a well-chilled mixture. In the case of ripe peaches, nectarines and plums, I've had good success with making the batter (lemon juice helps keep the flavor and color), chilling it thoroughly and then churning it into ice cream...if I have the time. Alternatively, I start with well-chilled fruit and make the batter quickly so it doesn't have much time to warm up. One more thing to be careful of is how much batter you put into the freezer bowl. We've already discussed overfilling: with too much batter the excess gets churned out the top and doesn't freeze properly, although it tastes fine. On the other hand, if you put too little in you'll end up with a very grainy icy ice cream because it will freeze too quickly for proper aeration during the churning.

Those look lovely. Boondocker, it looks as though the set for your building's 100th birthday party must have been served cold. Is that right? Was that mustard as a condiment in the corner of the tray? Boondocker and Scotty Boy (and anyone who answers later, of course): what do you do about sauces? Of the photos above, it looks like 2 sets have sauce and 2 don't. I'd think a sauce might complement the roulade, particularly in case the meat had gotten too dry.

I dunno, y'all may be way beyond my family's simple recipe, but we had many years' worth of what we thought was excellent peach ice cream using nothing more elaborate than peaches, eggs, lemon juice, sugar and a bit of milk or cream or half-and-half. I posted the recipe back in 2005. Here's the link: http://egullet.org/p1696659 Two caveats: first off, any leftovers will freeze very, very hard, and you have to let it soften to scoop it. I'm sure something like corn syrup could help that, but I haven't bothered to figure it out. Second, the recipe makes about double what will probably fit into your ice cream maker. Our hand-crank job called for 2 blender jars' worth of peaches, cut finely and packed in; that made about 3 quarts of ice cream. My ice cream maker makes about a quart, maybe 1-1/2 quarts. Cut the recipe as I posted it in half. Otherwise you'll get overflow pooching out the top of the ice cream maker, and you'll find yourself having to rescue it with a spoon. What a hardship. The recipe allows for mixing of fruits, too: nectarines, peaches, plums, or a mixture all work well. You can see a photo of the process and my results here: http://egullet.org/p996048 Enjoy your new toy! What a find!

That's really pretty, Chris. It really does depend on having the best ingredients, doesn't it? A winter BLT just isn't right, because the tomatoes won't hold up their end of the show.

That last meal looks wonderfully tasty, and that table setting is beautiful: simple, connecting nicely to the summer outdoors. Thank you for sharing your week with us!

I want to know all about that fried fish, too! My other question is about the water gates in the photo with the kids crabbing. What are the gates regulating?

Does no one else add dill pickle slices? My BLT's absolutely must have that to be right. Whole wheat toast, best possible tomato and bacon, Hellman's mayonnaise. If I'm making it at home, sometimes I add avocado. I like the idea of arugula or basil, but hadn't thought to try it.

By the way - your photos are excellent! They give me a strong sense of being present with you, looking at the bread or the market or whatever. I went back to look at the cabinet joinery in the tomato house and could see what good work went into it.

The fish and chips question is an interesting one: why you can't seem to get good fish and chips there, even on the coast. That reminds me: does Denmark have a tradition of preserved fish, along the lines of pickled herring or gravlax or lutefisk? If so, what's the preferred method?

Lovely! and you're a woman after my own heart with this comment: "Why not turn any meal into a hefty research project?" :-)

I too am interested in the answers to questions already asked: - What is hokkaido like, and how do you use it? - Why is there such a great market for peeled potatoes? ...and pretty much anything you see fit to tell us! Funny, when you wrote about elderflowers it was "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" that came to mind for me!

What type of chocolate is the bread chocolate? Dark chocolate? Milk chocolate? Sweet, semi-sweet, or a variety?

I'm loving this blog! Your photos are great, with and without contortions. The pasta dish from directly above this post looks delicious, and strikes me as similar to the kinds of things I throw together from whatever happens to be on hand. Was it an improvised dish on your part? Do you tend to be more of an improvisational cook or a follow-a-recipe cook? Pheasant sounds very exotic to me. I've had it and enjoyed it, but it isn't commonly available here - at least not in northern Minnesota, unless I go hunting for it myself. Is it easy to find there? I hope you'll follow through on the "game" part of your title, and discuss how one comes by game there! I envy you your apparent fluency with Danish, Italian and English - and who knows how many others. Do you consider yourself to have one "mother tongue" that comes most easily? Any insights to Danish culture that you can throw in will also be appreciated. For instance, the "honor system" shop surprised me only a little; the security cameras surprised me more. Oh, finally (for now) - I just acquired lovage in my garden. I like its flavor but have only begun to explore its uses. Any hints you have about when / how your use that herb would be appreciated.

Citrus mold seems to be peculiar to citrus. I grew up on an orange ranch and still come home from visits with boxes of oranges, lemons, tangelos or whatever happens to be in season. Like heidih I can detect it with one short sniff. My means of stopping it, once started, are to remove the fruit until I find the offender, remove it and all the fruit touching it, discard the moldy fruit and use the good-but-touching fruit immediately, or else wash it and put it in the refrigerator to be used soon. My means of preventing the mold in the first place is to make sure all fruit is washed (I hadn't thought of bleach), THOROUGHLY dried, and then stored with plenty of air circulation. I still sometimes lose an orange or two, but that's out of a couple of boxes' worth over a couple of months. The mold is disgusting, and by the time it's visible the affected fruit is already shot. However, I agree with the others that it doesn't seem to affect any other produce.