Smithy

I too want to know about the mortar and pestle sets, and what look like salad bowls with servers. Are those olive wood?

You are far more peripatetic than I've been. I think this is going to be wonderful! Thanks for laying out the ground rules at the outset. I already have a question that I hope isn't off-topic: what languages do you speak? Which, if any, did you study in school before starting to travel? How has your exposure to new countries changed your sense of what constitutes good food, good cookery, good food ethics? Okay, that's more than one question. I expect that the last will unfold during the course of the blog, if you care to address it.

This is interesting reading. I love, love, love olives and want to try out some of these methods. Unfortunately I'm the only one in this household who even likes olives, so at present I find it more practical to concentrate on sauerkraut and search the grocery stores for different varieties and cures of olives. To those of you who are curing your own olives, or posted here in the past, thanks for the vicarious experience! Please keep going on this!

I'll go look again. Thanks for that information.

I haven't seen Ferran Adria yet, and I'm into the review work (waiting for the labs to come back up to view). Could it be you're thinking of Jose Andres in one of the two introductory videos? Or am I missing a video yet?

I adore tempura. Yours looks wonderful!

"Eeyore's Requiem" - what a great name for a drink! Sounds like it could be a good fiddle tune, also.

Those are handsome bowls in the iMusa set. However, the largest of the bowls is only 24 cm in diameter - 9.4 inches. Taking a wild guess by the picture because they don't list the height or the capacity, I come out at a rough capacity of 1.8 liters, or less than 2 quarts. Maybe that's the 2L bowl to which Panaderia Canadiensa refers, but you should check. Is that big enough for your purposes? Panaderia Candiensa, is the 2L bowl to which you refer also your largest bowl of that type, or do you have bowls larger than listed in that link?

Not a typo! It's Shakespeare. Macbeth. Oh, good! I didn't recognize the Elizabethan spelling. I'm relieved to know that such a simple error was, in fact, mine.

Y'all are really funny! I've refrained from replying to this topic so far because of its stated purpose; I've never learned to like okra: not as okra in the USA, nor as "bamya" (just as slimy) in Egypt. There are some treatments uptopic that I'm willing to try. Maybe I too can become a convert. But here's the challenge: what does okra taste like, to those of you who like it? Does it taste like a pepper, a mushroom, broccoli, celery? "Tastes like chicken" doesn't count.

Ah, so it seems to live up to its promise! The Amazon preview feature is a lovely and enticing element of their web site, isn't it?

Dry fried green beans? They look really good! How do you cook them? Please give more detail than "dry fried" :-)

That does look like a swell book! I've just been admiring the lively writing style and the well-turned phrases in the Kindle preview on Amazon. (Alas, a typo jumped out at me in the second paragraph: "ravelled sleave of care" in an otherwise lovely sentence.) I can see this cookbook in my future, despite the fact that I'm currently weeding my collection because I Have Too Many Cookbooks. It promises to be a treat to read and an education in the kitchen. Nelson87, your copy should have arrived by now. Do let us know what you cook from it, and how you like it!

Clearly, you're in good company! I have to ask why the yard sales are coming to an end soon. Please tell me that it's because you're in a northern clime, instead of some impending zoning restriction...?

I'm glad someone is finally volunteering again!

I just tried making kale chips for the first time last weekend. The recipe called for deveining the leaves, cutting the flat greenery into smaller pieces (roughly 2"), tossing with olive oil and salt, and roasting at 275 until crisp, turning once. The results of that operation were so crisp as to be brittle; I'd be more concerned that the kale would fragment into tiny shards during the tossing-and-dressing stage than with their getting soggy. But yes, I think your idea of dressing the salad at the last minute is a good precaution. Maybe if the leaves are left larger - apparently what you are planning to do - you'd end up with a balance between crisp enough for good texture and flexible enough to allow tossing. Hmm. Maybe if you did have brittle leaves you could fracture them as a top layer over the rest of the salad. Kale croutons, anyone? Please understand I'm just brainstorming here, based on my miniscule experience of last weekend. By the way, I think the roasting time was about 20 minutes for my chips at 275.

How do you plan to roast the kale at the outset, without losing its crunch?

Thanks, RobertCollins! I think I'll be able to round that gear up without too much trouble.

So far I'm reading about using glass, crockery or plastic jars for the kraut. Would a stainless steel stock pot work, using the plate-and-weights-and-bags noted above with open-top pails? If not, why not? On the other hand: if I were to acquire a glass or crockery jar for the purpose of making kraut, how would I go about acquiring an airlock-type lid? I understand the checkvalve principal but can't think of where I've seen something like it. A beer brewer's store, perhaps? ...and RobertCollins, I'm really glad you resurrected this thread. Even if it does mean I've yet another book winging its way toward me...

At the risk of highjacking this thread, I too would like to know more about dcarch's success with dwarf citrus. My dwarf satsuma produced fruit that never had any flavor. My Meyer lemon, admittedly not a dwarf but grown from a seed from my parents' ranch, never produced fruit at all. It became rootbound despite repeated repotting and root trimming, but that may have been this amateur's mishandling. One or both suffered from whiteflies and I never could get them eradicated. Having said all that, I'll also say that the blossoms from both were heavenly. Back to the indoor herb gardening: Andie, thanks for that indoor hanging herb garden link - you're right, it IS brilliant. I'll have to give that a go next spring. My rosemary survives the low-light winter, but the annuals - basil, oregano, parley - take waaaay too long to get going around here. This is what I get for growing up in a Mediterranean climate and moving to the frozen north.

I like the idea of using a colored salt to affect the color of the pickle. That could be fun! Pink and white kraut, anyone? RobertCollins, did you ever try cooking or pickling with the saltwater from the spring near Boonville? It sounds like it could be a local's Secret Weapon. I can't help with any of your questions, but I too would like to hear others' experiences.

Wow! Thanks for that information; I'm signed up!

Those are charming cookie cutters! I think I like the safari set best, but they're all fun. MJX: do you mean, for instance, that I could make crisp chocolate chip cookies by leaving out the baking soda? Not sure I'd want to, especially in the case of chocolate chip cookies, but it would be a handy thing to know.

I'm sorry nobody has addressed this so far, because I'm curious to know the answer and don't have any idea. Meanwhile, I'm also curious about why you'd want to do this. What am I missing?

Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! And a whole lot more common than you think! Ha! The reverse can also be true, and just as frustrating. I have a cookbook by a well-respected author with a recipe for carrot cake. The ingredient list specifies the grated carrots, but the instructions never get around to stating where or when those carrots should be added! II've looked and cooked my way through that recipe many times. I have not overlooked the darned carrots in the instructions; that addition step is simply overlooked.. ...and yes...for those of you who are experienced bakers, this may seem like a no-brainer. But to this writer, it seems that "carrot cake" should explain exactly when the carrot should be added to the mixture.