Smithy

What about samke harra, spicy grilled fish? FoodMan was good enough to start a thread on this a while ago. It was pretty darned tasty. It calls for a milder fish than salmon.

What do you think of Ghirardelli chocolate?

Are you sure? How many fingers did you see when you held up your hands? That lamb looks wonderful. If you were to make a walnut tapenade, how would you go about it?

ObMeToo: your late-night "slurred" typing is waking me up faster than my morning coffee! (Don't even think of editing it today.)

Well, fie. My carefully-worded and thought-out post just disappeared, confounditall. First off: I'm extremely impressed with the both of yez - your creativity, your zest, your capabilities. Add me to the folks who didn't realize the courtship going on! Hooray for you! Now, to the scores, based on creativity and presentation: Creativity: both sets of dishes blow me away. It's a tie there. If the total of 10 points is 5 points for creativity and 5 for presentation, you each get a 5. Presentation: this is pretty subjective stuff. While I can admire minimalism, I personally favor the lush, luxuriant roll-in-the-flowers full-bodied sensuous celebration-of-the-senses attitude of life, food and living evoked by IC#1. - Avocado foam? How interesting! And isn't that a beautiful setup! - Wowwowwow, look at those ribs. That's gorgeous! Would I savor that slowly or devour it greedily? I don't know. I'd love to find out. - I WANT that tartlet. Now. And the whole presentation is stunning! The mint ice cream might be just the right touch to set it off. With each dish, I keep thinking "what's next?", and then the "what's next" comes along, and I'm even more blown away. And I WANT that tartlet. Now. IC#2 did beautiful work, but in each case it's more like "how interesting". (To be fair, pulled pork isn't a photogenic dish under the best of circumstances.) As others have noted, the dessert course doesn't look like enough. This dessert is elegant and restrained, compared to IC#1's firecracker finale. I'll leave out the fact that corn anything or barbecue sauce, even a mock barbecue sauce, leaves me cold as an idea. I tried to ignore that in favor of creativity and presentation, really. But I lust after that tartlet. Please come hold your next competition at my house? Pretty please? IC#1: 9 IC#2: 8 Edited for spelling. Really, I didn't change my vote or add more points for attitude displayed as I read more into those presentations, or for the fact that I want that tartlet.

Gosh, that sounds good. Oz I know, but what's Enz?...

'Sfunny, when I look at your photos of the lobster roll and tuna roll, I remember again the conundrum of that bread: it looks terrible; I wouldn't buy that kind of bread on a bet; I adored the lobster rolls up there on Cape Cod and at Martha's Vineyard. It somehow works, that cheapo bread with the luscious lobster bound with just the merest hint of mayonnaise. I've never tried or heard of a tuna roll, but out here in the Midwest that might actually be possible to do. We're fortunate that your sister appreciates the need for journalistic integrity. P-town was quite the experience when my boyfriend-of-the-time and I visited there. The scenery was beautiful - you're capturing it brilliantly, by the way, complete with funky diners and beautiful beach - and the culture was new to us. We blew our mad money on dinner at some upscale restaurant with dim lights, velvet curtains, red-flocked wallpaper and excellent food. The waiters all flirted with my boyfriend and ignored me. It was hilarious even before we started in on the wine. Thanks for a great tour. It's not everyone who can pimp a photo shoot of a grilled cheese sandwich and tuna roll. ...and PJ! Oh, PJ! If you get a chance, show us a shot of PJ feeding Momo, please?

Our local grocery store (Cub Foods) sells freekeh in its Middle Eastern section. Paula Wolfert referred to it as green wheat. Does that sound like the same thing? Edited to include link to discussion.

The Lindsay plant story is more or less true. I don't know that it turned into a Superfund site, but there was a lot of remediation to be done from the brine leaking from the leaching ponds. I presume the new plant uses steel vats. I'll have to ask about that some time when I'm 'home'. I still love those black olives, and I assert that they're as "real" as any others. The others are great: kalamatas cured in vinegar and packed in oil and vinegar are a particular favorite of mine. It was a pleasure to branch out and begin learning the different results obtained from different olive varieties and different treatments. Nonetheless, I keep Lindsay Olives (black ripe, green ripe and Spanish style) on hand and they're a staple with my cooking in places where a kalamata would be too sharp.

My Cuisinart ICE-50 works pretty well, and my mother's Krups works brilliantly. Both have the canisters you have to freeze first. I really think Cook's Illustrated has the right of it in this case: your freezer must be very, very cold (very close to 0* F) to get that canister cold enough. I'm not sure my freezer is quite cold enough. They also recommend, as Megan does, chilling the batter well before putting it into the ice cream maker. I still prefer the results I get with my ice-and-salt ice cream maker, but I haven't given up yet on the Cuisinart. My major problem is getting the recipe adjusted to the smaller size machine, with getting the stuff frozen being a secondary problem. For those who haven't been able to read the article yet, I'll augment what Megan said: the article only reviews home ice cream makers with built-in compressors. The article notes that all the makers are heavy, noisy and expensive. I wonder about the refrigerant used and how well those compressors will work over the years.

I just found out from a few of my colleagues that this is not such an unusual occurence. It seems that in some instances, the bride and groom eat somewhere prior to getting married. Usually, they are given a basket of leftovers or fed a few minutes after the wedding. ← If Israeli weddings are anything like Egyptian weddings, it might be because they won't eat until after midnight, by which time they'll have been on their feet for hours. What would be the likely wedding and party schedule of the people in your photo? Thanks for the linguistics discussion! I'd been wondering the same things about your use of Inshallah. Once again I'm surprised at how much cultural mixing there seems to be in Israel. You may need to repeat that, with examples, a few more times for it really to sink in.

What is seabream like? Firm? Flaky? Strong flavored? Mild? Upthread you showed an eggplant salad that looked to me like baba ganough. Is that what it was? If so, is there any twist that Israelis give it? I've noticed (for instance) that the Lebanese version includes pomegranate seeds, whereas the Egyptian version doesn't. I've had a wonderful eggplant salad from a Hebrew deli in Minneapolis that goes by the name of chatzilim. It's very very garlicky, and I don't think it has tahina. I've never found it anywhere else. Is that an Israeli dish? Do you know how to make it? Your photos are beautiful, and I'm really enjoying your desktop tour of the country. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this, Mme. Spielberg.

What is "Big Flavors of the Hot Sun" about, Kerry? I'll ask this question online in case others want to know too.

With regard to the tahina: is it from roasted sesame seeds, or not? What makes it so special? Help us fill in the feel of the shuk with a sound track. Do all those people stand quietly waiting their turn? Is there a lot of haggling over prices? How loud does it get? A typical conversation, or play script, would be fine.

I'm going to guess that the restaurant specializes in Kurdish food. Chufi's been making me drool with that discussion!

I definitely want to see goose shwerma! Anything else you care to show us will be welcome as well! Are the orange groves in town disappearing because of population growth and development of housing? I remember that when I went away to college in Southern California, I could easily walk to orange groves my first year when I felt homesick. By the time I graduated the only groves left were far enough away to require a bicycle ride. Thank you for blogging this week, Michelle!

What does a panini press do for you that the grill pan and weight on the stove can't? I'm always up for more gear, but the kitchen is getting a bit crowded....

Could it be a lemon (or other citrus) juicer, instead? Take a look at these for comparison:

I've never thought of freezing the filling in the pie pan so it already had the right shape and dimensions. What a great idea!

I've left the skin on nectarines and canned them. Sometimes the skin comes loose from the nectarine, but usually it stays attached. Peaches are more problematic because of the fuzz; the skin texture isn't as pleasant after canning. It won't hurt anything, though. When you talk about canning the peaches without boiling them, do you mean putting cold peaches into cold jars with cold syrup and not boiling afterward? I don't think that will keep, especially not with a nice sugary (read: nutrients) syrup. Your choices are to get the peaches and syrup to the boil, then put them into sterilized jars and seal while everything's still hot, or to put the cold peaches into the jars and pour the syrup over them, seal and then boil the whole thing. I think the first method is called hot packing and the second method is cold packing, but I may have those backward. I can't see a reason in the world not to can peach halves, except possibly that you'll waste space. The beauty of slicing peaches into smaller chunks (I usually cut them into 8ths or smaller) is that you get more fruit into the jar.

Chufi, that looks wonderful. It's interesting that no extra spices were used or needed. Like you, I'd have been tempted to add things to the mixes - makin extra work for myself. I wonder, why does that work so well without the extra spices? Is it because the basic ingredients were of the best quality so their flavors were good enough to stand alone?

Gaah. Now you've got me wondering whether it would be worth trying to grow something up here other than raspberries (which do beautifully, all on their own). *Must* *be* *realistic* about my time! Have fun, Dean!

Welcome to eGullet, chef renu! I think you'll find a lot of folks around here who use culinary herbs. I grow basil, sage, parsley, coriander, mint...and then don't have enough time to use them during the summer when they're fresh! I'm especially fond of making a sauce with herbs, garlic, salt, possibly some lemon and oil, and drizzling that over potatoes or putting it under the skin of chicken before I roast it. That's pretty pedestrian stuff. What kind of herbs do you grow, and how do you use them in your food?

ObMeToo: I second what My Confusing Horoscope had to say. The university extension service should be able to help you pick a variety that will grow in your area and with your soil conditions. They also should be able to give you some general guidelines on care and feeding of your trees. It also wouldn't hurt to find out what variety of peaches your neighbors have. (Heck, you might even get to sample some, and find out that your neighbors are glad to share, thereby sparing you the trouble.) You could do what my father did when he was learning the citrus business: he watched his successful neighbor. When Maynard irrigated, Dad irrigated. When Maynard pruned, Dad pruned. Eventually they became good friends, and "Uncle Maynard" was always there to help Dad - or vice-versa. For what it's worth, Dad always cautioned me that fruit trees are very labor-intensive. There's the pruning, the checking for diseases, the irrigating (perhaps not an issue for you) and the fending off of, er, Varmints Not of Your Family. Those peaches will grow whether you're ready for them or not, and depending on where you have them planted you may have to deal with the windfalls. I think I'd still go for it, given the proper climate, but then I usually overcommit my time. Oh, yeah. Start finding out now about the reliable nurseries that sell good healthy stock. You don't want to be doing this from seed; you want to plant a sapling of the right size and age, and you want it to be healthy.

First of all, welcome to eGullet! Now, as to where this could be posted, there isn't really a thread for more complicated recipe requests. Usually, someone just starts a new thread about a particular dish unless there's already a thread started on a similar dish or ingredient. I don't think anyone's asked about cooking wood pigeon before, though. It surely doesn't sound like a stupid question. The other choice would be to post your question in the United Kingdom and Ireland subforum, especially if you remember the name of the restaurant. Sorry I can't help with a recipe idea. I hope someone else comes through so I can read about it.