Smithy

Go without delay to the nearest library or bookstore. Pick up a copy of Jeffrey Steingarten's It Must Have Been Something I Ate. Look at the chapter on potatoes dauphinois. Follow the recipe exactly, right down the the "eat immediately; every second counts after it comes out of the oven" bit. I promise you, you'll want to buy the book, not only for the treatment of potatoes and the fine result it brings, but also for the writing alone. His obsessive attention to detail might be frightening if it weren't so funny and if it didn't produce such delicious results. ...and if that just doesn't work for you, I can describe the process, more or less. But it won't be as good.

Are skirt steak and flank steak enough the same cut? If so, I recommend the West Coast Broiled Flank Steak with a marinade of lemon juice and zest, sugar, soy sauce, oregano, pepper. Sliced onions are layered with the meat in the marinade, and the onions will be cooked down as a topping. It's an old family favorite, and thanks to Google I see I'm not the only person to have saved it. The link above is one of many, and apparently it was republished in Ceil Dyer's The Best Recipes from the Backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars. My flank steak is in the marinade as I type this. If the rain lets up I may try grilling it instead of broiling.

Good on you for starting the project! You know, if this takes off, there may be another topic series on cooking through cookbooks, akin to the eGullet Cookoff thread. You may even become the first thread tsar. Look up above at your post, and you'll see that the Amazing Amazon did it for you...and, what's even more amazing, got it right. (That's not intended as a slam. I've just been amused at some of the inferences the 'bot seems to make. I still like the idea.) I just wanted to repeat that line. It's worthy of being someone's .sig. ETA: there was a flamingo-pink link pointing to Cradle of Flavor, and now it's gone, in the time it took me to post this. Wha' happened? Anyone?

Once again I learn how far behind the times I am. Just 2 weeks ago I had a wonderful salad of mixed spinach and spring greens with dried cranberries, sweetend crunchy pecans and some cheese - feta? - dressed with a cranberry-orange vinaigrette. I thought it brilliant and innovative. I now learn I was only half right.

I have to say though, as lovely a tradition as it sounds, I interviewed several of my Indian grad school mates, and they all paint pretty bleak pictures of the women in the family virtually chianed to the kitchen -- there're barely done clearing up breakfast dishes, before they've to start prepping lunch, and then dinner! ← I hadn't thought of that. Suddenly, sandwiches sound much more appealing.

nonblonde007, I'm missing something. Why do you have so much lemon rind? Is it from the lemons you squeezed to add the extra juice to your preserved lemons? In other words - please tell me your preserved lemons actually do have rinds. If not, then you should pitch the rinds into the preserved lemon batch. Assuming that you're talking about the rinds of the extra lemons you squeezed for juice, then another way to treat them is to zest or grate them, then pack the grated peel into small containers and then freeze. It's a variation on what Kouign Aman suggested. The advantage of this method would be longer keeping time because it would be all packed together before freezing. The disadvantage would be a tougher time getting it apart (because it would be all packed together before freezing). You could figure on packing the grated peels into portions of a few ice cube trays so that you had little frozen chunks of approximately a teaspoon each. You could also try mixing some lemon zest with salt (and pepper, if you like that flavor combination) so that you have lemon salt ready to use at a moment's notice. Welcome to eGullet!

There was a piece about the Mumbai lunch deliveries from home on The Splendid Table sometime back, too. I think in that piece they were called tiffinwallahs. Can't find it in the archives, without more search time than I have. It does sound like a great system.

There was the Julia/Julia project a few years ago, in which Julie (?last name?) set herself to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking - all of it - in a year. She blogged about the experience. I think the blog has become a book. I understand the project has led to a different, presumably more satisfying, career for Julie than her previous career. As for myself: I've thought about cooking through an entire cookbook but never attempted it. Such a project would take more discipline than I have about cooking, but that isn't the only issue. I'm not sure I've ever seen a cookbook in which I'd like to taste, much less make, every single recipe.

Right, yes. But I'm more interested in recommendations regarding the great selection of olive oils that Middle Eastern grocery stores seem to have. Are some of them really good? Are some just to be avoided? Also, why does "Holy Land" have a random link to a book on Amazon? I don't think that I did that...at least not on purpose. -- S.L. ← Hello and Welcome, Slow Lorus! I don't know of particular olive oils in question at the places you visit, but I can recommend one to watch for. Have you run across Mustapha's Moroccan Olive Oil (Extra Virgin, first cold press) yet? I picked mine up at Crate and Barrel, but I've seen it at other shops (and other prices). I like its spicy, peppery flavor - it's very different than my usual extra virgin olive oils. If you can't find that one around, perhaps you could talk a proprietor into an olive oil tasting? We'd love to get recommendations back... As for the pink links, you're right that you didn't do it. The eGullet Society has set it up so that Amazon somehow automatically builds links to products sold at Amazon. Click here for more information about the Amazon Context links, provided in eGullet's full flaming Flamingo-color. As noted toward the bottom of the post, the system is still in development and sometimes Amazon picks up a phrase or name and attaches an entirely irrelevant link to it. Hey, nobody's perfect. Welcome to eGullet!

I don't have any experience with the cookware, but there was a lot of discussion about it a couple of years back. Here's a link to that earlier thread.

I wish I'd seen Pam R's post before starting, and I might have tried that road first. Thanks for the suggestions, folks. What with distractions, multitasking and equipment failures (mostly distractions) I ended up doing something that was a little like the first two suggestions and a lot like none of the above. The result was fair. I brined the bird for an hour or two (having poked holes in the skin first), while the smoker was coming up to temperature. Someplace along the way I realized that both my thermocouples had failed (note to self: get sturdier thermocouples) and I'd apparently thrown away my old-fashioned analog meat thermometer, so I had to go by the smoker's qualitative (cool - ideal - hot) hood thermometer, time and guesswork. I don't like lifting the hood more than necessary, since that just lets out heat. The duck smoked at the "ideal" range (no, I've no idea how hot that is) for 2 - 3 hours. At the end of that time it had a beautiful mahogany color to the skin but a lot of blood-colored fluids inside - I hadn't spatchcocked it - so I moved it into a 225F oven for a while while the smoker went to other uses. At this point distraction and multitasking took over, and the duck stayed in the oven for, oh, probably another hour or two. When I got back to it, I didn't dare try cooking it hotter to crisp the skin. The result was deliciously smoky, very flavorful, and only slightly dried out: the duck on my dinner plate Saturday night hinted at dryness but was quite tender and flavorful; today's smoked duck sandwich, with mayonnaise and mustard, had no hint of dryness at all. The skin wasn't rubbery but also wasn't as crisp as it should have been. Lessons: since I'm most tuned in to temperature when I'm learning how to cook something, get the thermometers fixed or replaced. Next time I'll pay more attention to the final cooking time (I always say that ). Next time I'll try the duck directly in the pot in the smoker, and see how well that works. All in all, it was an encouraging first exercise - but I'm glad I hadn't had friends over for dinner that night!

Fresh sumac berries have a sticky, acidic exudate that is soluble in water. This part is what give sumac "lemonade" its citrusy flavor. Don't pick the berries from trees that grow by roadsides because the sticky stuff picks up road grime and exhaust particles. I've never seen fresh sumac berry clusters for sale anywhere so you will probably need to find yourself a tree. Make SURE that it is sumac with RED berry clusters that you pick. Other sumac varieties are poisonous. [Edited to add this link for further reference.] ← Thanks for that link! I had no idea that the sumac that populates northern Minnesota is edible. Here I've been buying ground sumace at the Middle Eastern store, when I could have been making my own harvest. The link really helps set my mind at ease that I can distinguish between the poison "sumac" and the real deal. Abra, that link suggests there might be an edible variety of sumac up your way. It's been too long since my last visit to Washington for me to be sure, but it seems I used to see it up there.

I used this method to good success with some old Anasazi beans I've had sitting around. The beans took a bit more time (age, no doubt) to cook, but they cooked up nicely. I liked the results. Husband thought they were rather bland. He changed his tune by the time the beans had been added to roasted chicken, garlic, olives and oven-roasted tomatoes. Yum.

That is a great report! I hope someday to visit Turkey. In the meantime, I have to make do with my cookbooks, and with people like you who post from The Real Deal. Did the chef make all those foods, or does he have helpers? Please tell more about the sherbets. When I think of sherbet I think of a frozen dessert - like ice cream but without the dairy product. Your descriptions of the flavors sound like they'd make great frozen desserts, but you described these as drinks, and they looked like drinks. Is this a different meaning of the word "sherbet" than I'm used to, or were these drinks more solid than they looked? Finally, about those stuffed peppers. What type were they? What might be a close equivalent in the U.S. for stuffing peppers like that?

This was a great read, and it was very educational. For instance: if you've already hit 30C, I shouldn't deride your climate so much! I'm sure we're still a month - or more - away from that temperature in Duluth. I'm glad you got the obligatory cat photo in - and you look pretty spiffy in a kilt! Thanks for showing us around!

Hmmm. There should be a way to test that...hmm.

I've only made gravlax once. It was a several-day preparation, complete with the weights and days in the refrigerator, and mustard-dill sauce. Although I liked the result I've hesitated to invest the time to do it again. It never occurred to me that it could be expedited that way. Did you also add liquid, or just the salt and sugar? I'm a great one for side-by-side comparisons. Thanks for doing that, and providing the comments on the results. Both the results made tasty-looking hors d'oeuvres!

Thanks for that additional information, Russ. Now, this makes me wonder (I hope it isn't too far off-topic): at what point does a plant part cease to be a fruit or vegetable and begin to be an herb or spice? Is it strictly a question of whether the use is as a seasoning or as the main food? Does the nutritional value (or lack thereof) come into play? Where does French sorrel, for instance, fall? Herb? Vegetable? It depends? This may be like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...but I'm curious. By the way, I've asked my mother to check on the strawberry variety that's working out so well in Visalia, but I haven't gotten an answer yet. Pontormo, that's an interesting web site you've found, there...

I acquired a smoker a few weeks ago and am planning to have fun with it this weekend. So far I've used it once to smoke chicken and a pork loin. Both were wonderful - as unctuous as everyone's promised, and my kind of weekend cookery: putz with it a bit, then walk away while it cooks itself. My only complaint was that the smoke flavor was a bit too intense: perhaps I had too much hickory; perhaps the hardwood charcoal was the culprit. This is an upright smoker with dual grates and a water pan. I plan to use it on a Very Large rack of pork ribs as well as a largish duck. We have a lot of threads out there - including the eGullet Culinary Institute class on smoking - that I've spent some time studying, but I haven't found discussion of duck yet. Does someone have any tips for me? What kind of wood would be good for this? Am I tempting fate to smoke both those meats at once? Will I regret not having the duck fat for later? Can I collect it somehow? How about seasonings, rubs, anticipated time? I think the preferred temperature for this smoker runs around 225F but I can't swear to it.

"Has-beans"! I love it! I'm also curious about your lupines, to repeat MarketStEl's question. Here in Minnesota we get beautifully intense blues (almost purples), pinks, near-magentas, and whites. Sometimes the colors are solid, and sometimes they're variegated. In Coastal California last weekend I saw yellow lupines, which I'd never seen before. What color(s) do you get up there?

Is that Ray Stevens' "Ahab the Arab"? That Fatima, whom he snuck off to visit in the middle of the night, had a powerful appetite. I don't remember the chitterlings, but the rest sounds right.

#4: Isn't it good? Norwegian Wood...The Beatles Also, for the record Eat a lot of peaches is, in fact, John Prine, Spanish Pipe Dream. One of my favorites from him. Give my stomach to Milwaukee.. is also Prine (Please Don't Bury Me Down in the Cold, Cold Ground) Clickin' by your house... is Tom Waits' Ice Cream Man. I love the song but confess I really wanted to use Swordfishtrombone... Can anyone get the rest? ← The others listed here have been gotten, or at least partially, upthread. Here's a summary, with a couple of gaps filled in: #1 is "Junk Food Junkie" - I had that - author/singer was Larry Groce. #2 is "Summer Wine", Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood (not Lee somebody as I'd written earlier) #3 is "Ode to Billie Joe", Bobbie Gentry, already stated upthread (by others) after several near misses.

This is my biggest surprise so far, with the monkfish's appearance a distant second. Your veneer smoker wrapping was brilliant! Do you yourself like to cook or eat Lebanese or Greek food? You mentioned upthread the possibility of a lamb tagine (which is neither, I realize). I'd be all for that. If you have time and inclination to show some of the Middle Eastern influence up there, that would be great too. Your photos show off the area to its picturesque best. I don't envy you your location - especially given how short your days must be during the winter - but oh, that seafood! I'd love to have access to fresh lobsters and crabs such as those. I'm enjoying the blog. Thanks for doing it!

We stayed at the Hotel La Rose in downtown Santa Rosa last week. I missed out on the wine country tour that the others went on, but they had no trouble touring around the Sonoma Valley during their day trek. The hotel restaurant had excellent food (with excellent wine and service to go with it), and there were other restaurant options within easy walking distance. The rooms were inexpensive, although that might have been due to some company connection that I'm not aware of. This was my husband's second trip out there. The place is in the historic downtown area, across from the railroad museum. If you click on the link and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll see the "Carriage House" across the street from the main hotel. We actually stayed there instead of in the main hotel. There's a private, quiet courtyard with fountains and lovely plants. The rooms have balconies overlooking the courtyard. When we have time to go back and stay a while, we plan to go back to the Hotel la Rose if possible. I'd recommend it in a heartbeat.

It'll be a couple of months yet, but when the tomatoes finally come in here then it's an orgy of tomatoes, basil, onions, chives, lettuce, you name it - with meat that can be grown or fish caught locally. Wild rice and potatoes are the only local things I know of that could pass for starch (wild rice is a stretch) in this area. I'm not willing to give up rice or wheat flour or nuts, much less spices or wine. Given those caveats, one of my favorite summer meals is chicken meat (thighs or breasts) boned, rolled and stuffed with basil pesto, sauteed with garlic and good sweet tart cherry tomatoes until they're just warm and bursting, with the pan deglazed by white wine or vermouth, then cooked down to a good sauce consistency. Given that there aren't walnuts, pine nuts, olive oil or parmesan cheese produced within 100 miles of here, I make no bones about cheating with the pesto. Tough. It makes wonderful use of those tomatoes.