Smithy

When we camped in the Eastern Egyptian desert, our driver and guide were Bedouins. Haj Tofiiq, the guide, made ghors for us as the dinner bread on more than one occasion. He'd build a small fire on the sand, using some of the precious firewood that they'd scrounged along the way. As the fire burnt down, he'd take out his special sack of flour and make a little well in the flour, still in the sack. I think the flour had salt already mixed with it, but maybe he added that later. I can't remember. Then he'd pour a cup or so of water - measured to suit the number of people dining - into the well, and start mixing and squeezing it with his hand. Eventually he'd have a firm ball of dough that he'd pull out of the sack - with just the right proportion of flour to water. Next he pulled out his special piece of cardboard and used it as the surface to knead the dough and shape it into a flat round. By then the fire had burned down to embers. He scraped them away, scraped away the top layer of sand, and laid the dough round into the shallow hole of hot sand, then covered that with the sand and the embers. This was not a walk-away-and-leave-it proposition. Haj Tofiiq squatted or lay at his ease, watching the embers, rearranging them, poking and prodding and whispering the while, until he deemed the proper amount of time was done. Then he'd scrape away the embers and sand, remove the finished bread, and WHACK! WHACK! the bread with the cardboard to beat off the pieces of grit. Ghors just after cooking was good, elemental food. Next-day ghors was a bit firmer, suitable for soaking in one's soup or stew. Third-day ghors took a hatchet. But the sight of that lean old gentleman pulling a bit of dough like a magic rabbit from his sack, tending it so lovingly under the its hot sand, and then beating the heck out of it to clean it is a cherished memory. Allah rest his soul.

I had no idea one could buy whole, unhomogenized milk around here. I wonder whether Cedar Summit Farms sells in Duluth? Time to call the co-op and find out. This will be a fun week. Our gas grill is out of service, thanks to a bored dog's efforts to chew the gas line in two. ("Go out of town without me for 2 weeks? I'll show you!") We have a small portable gas grill, new, and an old charcoal backup, so if y'all do a grill-along this week I may be able to follow along. While Snowangel has just the threat of rain we have the actuality just a couple hundred miles north. Rain and fog. Fog and rain. At least it's spring. I'm interested in seeing all the things y'all grill. Grilled fruit and vegetables are a wonderful thing - but so is grilled meat. Marlene, in your teaser earlier I honestly thought you were going to make cinnamon rolls on the grill! ETA: Now I see you're talking about a smoke-along rather than a grill-along. I'll probably just enjoy it from the sidelines, as I have the smoking thread. Still intimidated by the time that takes.

I went to the Splendid table site and checked the recipe.... unfortunately those need to be kept refridgerated. Yours.... were they comercially produced or did your ex make them himself? I'm familiar with canning and preserving.... assuming I can do this with straight armagnac and heat to seal as ususal? ← The Splendid Table website recipe says they keep indefinitely. I didn't see anything about refrigeration.

Yea. I have never understood LC's choice for the lid handle. There's nothing quite like lifting up a 400 degree cast iron lid and having the handle slip off so you drop the lid on your feet. ← What's especially odd about this to me is that the earlier LC had metal handles. I have 2 French ovens picked up off eBay with cast metal lid handles. They're prettier than the phenolic because of the structural lines, and more practical because of the heat resistance. Does anyone know why they changed?

Thank you, thank you! I've been waiting and waiting for the report! Yes to the marsh marigolds. We've been admiring them around the house here; they're one of the earliest bits of spring color in the woods. As to the warmth: that's a surprise, given how cold it was down here on Saturday night. Either you were on the right side of that occluded front, or our Superior Refrigerator was working overtime. Take your pick. As to the sausages: I can't imagine any store-bought sausages doing justice to yours, now that you're becoming an expert, but if you want I'll scope out the Makinen Market selection next time I'm passing through. They have a lot of sausages, all good in my experience. I'm not sure they carry breakfast sausage as such. You would of course not have wanted to go that far off the route this time, but perhaps later in the summer... Frogs? Did you have a good frog chorus? Do you, around there? We're already into the third grouping by now. I scored a bunch of ramps today. Guess I'll have to try grilling some, based on your photo.

Sorry to be following up on myself, but I want to give a report on the melt-in-your-mouth green beans. I made them yesterday. They really didn't look like much - looked remarkably like the green beans my grandmother made for holiday feasts, in fact, but without the bacon and with a bit more green color still. (My grandmother's holiday beans, by the way, broke every rule in the book - thoroughly deflated, army drab in color, but oh, they were tender and tasty and wonderful.) This dish is very easy to make, by the way; the hardest part is trimming the beans and chopping the onion. The second hardest part is remembering that it's there in the crock pot, since you just walk away and let it do its thing. The dish may not look remarkable but the flavor is excellent. The dash of lemon for flavor is necessary. Today I'm using a vinaigrette whose chief acid constituent is lemon juice, and I'm having a mighty fine lunch of those beans. They're tender and flavorful, and the little touch of oil (present even without the vinaigrette) gives that extra little touch of...well, unctuous quality (sorry for being obvious) that really makes the dish. I will make these again. Next time, I will not forget that they're in the slow cooker until dinner is over. Well, they're supposed to mellow overnight anyway.

That would be an adverse result. What was I thinking? I'll try it in the 5 1/2 quart LC. My main worry is that with the same amount of meat and liquid in a smaller pot, the braising liquid would be too high. Am I right to guess that I don't want liquid more than halfway up the meat? Edited to add: Can anyone recommend a good side dish/salad/accompaniment from the slow med book to go with the lamb shanks? Something that requires minimal last-minute preparation would be great. ← In general, you're right about limiting the amount of liquid in the braise so that the meat isn't covered. That might also be a factor in the pot size: if you can't put the meat in a single layer, then you need to split the meat between 2 pots, and split the liquid accordingly. How critical that is for something like this, where you're cooking it low and slow, and separating it, and then rewarming it, I really don't know. As to the side dishes with minimal last-minute fuss: there are so many great-looking sides in this book that it's hard to pick. I'd lean toward the slow-roasted stuffed tomatoes, the asparagus baked in parchment, the melt-in-your-mouth green beans, or the leeks braised in olive oil. Or a gratin. Not much help in selections, am I?

This gets close to one of my favorites. Score a half-avocado to allow the juice to soak in more, squeeze fresh lemon juice over it, sprinkle liberally with Spike, and enjoy. This works either eaten directly with a spoon, or spread onto a cracker or bread. It's a breakfast fave. It's a lunch fave. It's a snack. Heck, sometimes it's dinner or dessert. Dude! I totally agree...if you're going to bother to make a BLAT (with Summer advancing rapidly, why not add some nice tomato) make sure it's a nice thick cut maple bacon in there. And toast that bread...use something that gets nice and crusty when toasted. As you eat this BLAT sandwich the textures alone will put a smile on your face that will last all day. The avocado puts it extravagantly over the top. Word. ← What makes this sandwich even more perfect is dill pickle. BLTADP on toasted bread - with a nice layer of mayo - and the world can't get more righteous. With those uses, and simply adding an avocado to my salad, the other uses listed above have never crossed my mind. Stuffing with crab? (Oh, racheld!) Frying? Those sound so fine, I may have to try them. If I can refrain from eating the avocado long enough. I prefer a good ripe Haas.

Thanks for that recipe recommendation and comment. That sounds really good. I'm not sure you need to worry about splitting the braise between two 5 1/2 qt LC's rather than the recommended 7 qt LC. I suppose you could do that, but you'd have considerably less braising liquid in each pot than you would have in the one larger pot (proportions wouldn't be the same). Without having compared a 5-1/2 qt vs. a 7 qt side by side, I think they're similar enough in size that you could probably throw everything into one pot and get good results, unless you ended up overfilling the pot. I would be inclined not to do halve the recipe. I think you'd have a distinct adverse result on the recipe: too few leftovers. Otherwise I think it would be okay.

I didn't know about controlling the rate at which they dry, but this makes sense. Thanks for adding that information.

I think you'd need to have them cut into thicker pieces first and then allow them to dry well before having them planed into the final chopping/cutting block thicknesses. They'll warp and/or split as they dry, won't they? I'm thinking at least 6" thick (maybe even 8") for a 3 to 4" thick final block. You should give careful consideration to saving some slabs deep enough to have them turned down into bowls, too. Turned wooden bowls are lovely, and with that much wood you could have a selection of sizes, shapes and depths.

We did resort to the grill a lot - preferably up on the barge on the reservoir, but we couldn't do that every evening, so out in the yard otherwise - during the summer days. You could also consider non-cooking or little-cooking options. For instance: large green salads with only a smidge of meat, or none (spinach salad with crumbled bacon is one of our favorites); cold soups; sandwiches and fruit salad. Fresh peach ice cream for dessert. You probably even have access to someone's peach tree, you lucky duck. Have you considered a solar oven?

I guess that lets out the motion-detector switch, then. I think using a different switch style makes a lot of sense. I've also seen switches oriented horizontally for the disposal, vertically for everything else. I think having a switch inside a cupboard cabinet would be a major, major PITA, and I think you should use every dirty trick in the book, if necessary, to avoid that. FWIW I can't really see his side of the issue, unless you figure there will be children's hands involved with switches and disposals. In that case, put the switch well out of reach. But not in the cupboard!

I'm sorry I missed this show. I'll have to keep an eye out for reruns. As for needing more food - didn't someone hunt? If not, why not? Even busy ranch hands probably kept guns with them to take care of varmints.

I do believe you stayed at the Wagon Wheel, and that the restaurant is the Route 89 Smokehouse Diner that I wrote about above. ← You do believe correctly. Thank you for providing those names!

My wand blender has a stationary casing on the outside, reaching down to below the blade level, with side cuts to allow liquid in and out. The blade can't touch anything except the material that comes in through the side windows. I wouldn't hesitate to use this blender in any container. I would be sure to hold the glass in question, though, to make sure I didn't send it flying across the room.

Without having smoked food with it I can't be sure, but I can attest that the aroma from an orangewood fire is a wonderful thing. Go for it. It *gutted* me to have to leave a pile of such wood in the back yard of our old place, in central California where there are burn restrictions, with no economical way to get it up here to northern Minnesota where we could use the fuel.

I ate at the Blue Lion last year and posted about it here. I thought it was very good and very expensive. An off-season deal sounds pretty nice. I don't know about the other places you mention, and you've gotten a lot more help from the others. I will add, however, that the Snake River Brewing Company puts out very nice beer. We didn't eat at the restaurant but we got some of their beer - and then went out and bought more to bring home. As for breakfast - late or early - we ate at the restaurant associated with the motel we stayed at in town. I forget its name now, but it's right on the main highway coming through town. The motel buildings look more or less like bunkhouses, low-slung and strung along the river. The restaurant is closer to the road, has a deck and indoor dining and a 50's motif. Seems like the service was a bit slow sometimes but the food was fine. Sorry I can't remember the name.

I just looked at the prog charts for Friday. High pressure bubble coming down from Pam R's way. Cold, clear. Bring warm clothes, and bring on the soup! Better still - bring chili, shredded cheese, crackers, beer, sour cream. What could be bad? I am not suggesting that you eat this in the car, of course. But by the time y'all saw your way in past the fallen trees, you'll need something warm.

I don't know about that particular bee, but I do know there are bee keepers down your way - or at least, there used to be. You might be able to pursuade someone to bring a hive out your way for a while. On a side note, I remember last year reading about bee rustlers, of all things, up in the Central Valley! Congratulations, Kathy! I'd forgotten you were moving, although it was much-discussed in your last blog. How great that you've found a good gardening place.

Not only a record-breaking ice-out, but the earliest leaves I've ever seen here. I have NEVER seen the trees break out in leaf before mid-May, and the woods already have the watercolor wash. Excellent choice, even if it does snow tonight. (I think they're wrong, FWIW.) I've already picked off the first tick of the season. Tuna sandwiches for the drive north? I'm on a tuna salad kick right now. I like Marlene's ideas, too. Fried chicken, or rotisserie chicken; devilled eggs; lots of bananas.

YESSS! Your blog is still open! I've been catching up and having such a grand time with this lovely blog. Thank you for answering my question about slicing the waffel to put the stroop in. It sounds like something beyond my skills - and anyway, I don't have the waffel maker, so I'll just have to enjoy them when I can buy them. Some final thoughts and comments from here: Leidse kaas (cheese from Leiden) is another name for cumin cheese. They come in different ages, from very young and buttery to old, salty and crumbly. Then there's a cheese made in Friesland, nagelkaas, which is studded with either cloves, or cloves and cumin. ← I love cumin cheese. I've had it mixed in with cheddar. I've never had other types. There's something for me to look for. This insight is as true as a plumb-bob. My knowledge of food, and cookery, and little cultural things from all over the world, have expanded tremendously thanks to the web and places like eGullet. I'm so grateful for all the participation, and this week, I'm very grateful that you, Klary, have taken the trouble to invite us into your life. I was determined to have some fun myself this time. The dinner for Dennis was more hard work, than fun. It's interesting though. While that dinner was impressive, and guests were impressed, and I was proud of myself because of the achievement, I think at the end of the day, both I, the guests and Dennis will say they prefer the less ambitious gatherings like the one we had last night. Something to think about... ← Here is another truth that I need to take more to heart. I get all kerfuffled over trying to do elaborate feasts and not having the time or organizational skills, yet we seem to have a better time with the less formal operations. Thank you for pointing this out. A cream cheese layer in the brownies is yet one more thing I've never tried, and will have to try doing! But I'll have to be sure not to eat the trimmings unless I want to buy a new wardrobe. Happy birthweek, Klary, and thank you yet again. Here's wishing you many more years of looking fabulous in a black dress, and may you have many more years of agreeable messes.

Klary, I've been away from the computer several days, and missed most of the blog. Logging on tonight, back home again, I see shots of canals! thank you for that! and comments from people drooling over a birthday dinner that I haven't seen yet! and your rat returned! (I am so very glad your blog doesn't have to mark that particular sorrow) and so many good things...I wonder if I could find smoked eel around here? I'll be so glad to catch up, and so sorry I won't be able to comment on it or ask questions. The beginning and end of the blog are lovely, and I look forward to catching up on the middle. Thank you so much for showing us your world!

Agreed - I did a double-take (double-read?) when I saw that. It must be especially difficult if the waffle is hot off the iron and still a little bendy. ← I wonder about that. Perhaps the waffel is more like a pita, with a hard surface and edge, and soft inside? Then it would just be a matter of slicing the perimeter so that the soft interior would split. Klary, do you know? If you don't know, maybe you can go back and visit that cute guy again and ask him. Thanks for the harbor shot. I've seen that view, out the back of the station, but never taken the ferry. I always assumed it would take too much time.