Smithy

That is beautiful, @ElsieD! We're still carrying around the reworked persimmon puree / cream / etc from last fall, but haven't had occasion to fire up the machine because it hasn't been warm enough. I need posts like yours and @blue_dolphin's (and many others, sorry for leaving you out) to convince me to give the machine a whirl!

Let me add my welcome to the others'. My best friend and her husband spent 8 or 10 years in Capetown and I was able to visit there. Beautiful! I'll love reading about your food, cookery, and perhaps how it changes with the seasons.

I think Heidi answered it well. There's crazy stuff all around this country, but it doesn't seem to be as widespread as one would think from the news. (To be honest, I feel safer in the country than in cities! But that's my upbringing.) There are places we wouldn't consider camping, but the places we camp at seem safe - and everyone we've ever met has been delightful.

The pork roast just came out of the oven, and if it's beautiful I'll post a picture of it. Otherwise, I won't bother; you've seen it and had the cooking method described before. On the other hand, the latest iteration of fruit salad for his breakfast is a work of art, don't you think? 😁 I even chopped dates for it. Never let it be said that I leave him without provisions.

Tonight was supposed to be his turn to cook: the last half of the pork shoulder roast I bought in December that's been taking up freezer space. (As a rule I'd try to reserve it for souvlaki, but we haven't much wanted to do campfire cooking yet, so I relented on its use. Besides, I'll be leaving him alone for a few days and he's feeling a bit of food insecurity. If you could see the refrigerator and freezer you'd know how preposterous that is, but he wants what he wants.) Then the weather was nice, and the roast wasn't thawing fast enough, and we spent a good deal of the afternoon playing music with a neighbor, so it came down to quick dinner instead. I can now give a side-by-side comparison of the two kinds of frozen fish we have in the freezer: Van de Kamp's Beer Battered Fish filets, and Gorton's Crunchy Breaded Fish filets. Both fish are pollock, although I had to look harder at the Van de Kamp's package to figure that out. I'll admit that right off the bat I'm prejudiced: the shorter ingredient list is the reason I bought Gorton's in the first place. Still, he picked out the beer battered fish. He doesn't read ingredient lists (or corporate ownership labels), and marvels that I bother. One issue with a side-by-side test, when cooking them in the same pan, is that Gorton's was supposed to get a few minutes' less cooking. I didn't think to add them to the pan after giving the Van de Kamp's a head start. In the collage below, you can see the difference in color. On the left, the uncooked filets; on the right, finished. The panko-coated (Gorton's) filets were easier to turn; I could use tongs with them. The Van de Kamp's were flaky and tender and prone to falling apart. They demanded a spatula. This was a quick dinner to prepare. Once the oven was preheated, the filets cooked in 20 minutes. In the last 10 minutes, I cooked broccoli and cauliflower on stove top, with Berbera spice mix and butter and enough water to steam them until tender. Dinner: You can clearly see the difference in the fish color; the difference in texture is more subtle. The panko-coated fish were firmer as well as darker. Would the fish have been more comparable, if the beer-battered fish had been cooked longer? It will be worth finding out. In both cases the fish was flaky. This is the best pair of photos I could get. We liked the flavors. At first I preferred the beer-battered (Van de Kamp's) fish because it seemed just a touch more flavorful, but after a few bites I began to think the extra flavor was mostly salt. He preferred the panko-crusted (Gorton's) fish from start to finish, much to his surprise. The upshot: we'll be happy with either, for a quick nobody-feels-like-cooking dinner, but we're more likely to keep Gorton's around. There are other brands, and other treatments, so we'll probably try them. I draw the line at fish sticks, though!

This is the one we have: Vidalia Onion Chopper (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I'm not sure whether the brand matters so much as the technique; we broke the first one that my parents gave me after some time of abuse. It takes a fair amount of pressure to push the chopper lid down, and for me the best way to do it is to give the lid a sharp whack. However, it's imperative to hold the hinge end down firmly with one hand while smacking the open end with the other. If you don't keep pressure on the hinge end, then eventually the leverage of the stuff you're chopping will break a hinge. (If this doesn't make sense, ask and I'll post photos of what I mean.) It's also helpful to cut things into, say, 1-2 cm thickness before chopping so you aren't trying to push through too much at once. The thing we learned about cleaning is that onions leave debris that must be cleaned from the grid, but potatoes don't - and they'll clear most or all of the onion debris from the grid. If we only have to chop an onion, I'm likely to use a knife and he's likely to skip it - or else chop potatoes for the next batch of hash!

Clarification, in case it's needed: my friend and I are talking specifically about the kitchen implement that I know as a "mandoline". (She wants me to bring it when I visit in a few days.) She says she's seen it callled a "madeleine" on many a web page and she asked me which was the correct word to describe the tool in question. I was shocked, I tell you! Still, I thought I'd doublecheck with the assembled masses here in case our language is mutating. As it does.

Maybe you're my husband's long-lost sister!

My best friend says she's been seeing the word "madeleine" used on different web sites to describe the wicked-sharp precision slicing implement we know as a "mandoline". I can't find a dictionary reference to "madeleine" as anything other than a specific pastry or, thanks to Proust, something that evokes a memory. Are these bloggers corrupting the word and showing their ignorance like restaurant critics who say "restauranteur" instead of "restaurateur", or is this a definition of "madeleine" of which I was not previously aware?

I love it that you wrote "textural contrast". He simply says "crunch". 😄 You are a precise wordsmith, sir - a necessity in profesional writing. (I did understand what you meant with regard to when you want toast. He's much more hard-core about it. The rare exception is with chili or soup, which requires crackers instead of bread to provide the textural contrast crunch.)

It took me at least 15 years of marriage to start getting the obligatory toast into my long-term memory. My paternal grandfather was a "toast with dinner" person, but my father wasn't. I like bread with dinner if it's fresh and integral to the meal (garlic bread with pasta, or fresh warm bread to soak up a sauce) but otherwise just don't think about it. I can't tell you how many times I'd have dinner waiting, both of us sitting, and then realized I hadn't put bread in the toaster! Last night it was our version of tuna noodle hot dish. It's funny: I've been deciding that I simply don't need as many shapes of pasta in this trailer as we've been carrying around, and had decided to eliminate some. Egg noodles was one of the shapes to go. He says that his Bedouin guide always and only used elbow macaroni, no matter the dish, including this one. Besides, I reasoned, we have a pasta maker. I could make fresh noodles if I wanted. Last week I said "nertz" to that idea and bought egg noodles again. Extra wide. Perfect for our hot dish. I'm glad I did. I'll eliminate some other shape instead. Can you tell he was hungry? This morning's sunrise: more moisture in the air than yesterday.

Different flavored brats would absolutely work. Since you aren't in a hurry for tonight, I'll wait until he's around so we can make sure I have it all right.

When there are leftovers, he'll cook an egg with them in the morning. The potatoes are never still crisp, though, so he's working to cut the batch size down and eliminate leftovers.

I'll be sure to share your praise with him. He'll be delighted! Incidentally, you could whip this up in a heartbeat. Got onions, potatoes and some sort of sausage? Want the proportions?

This morning's sunrise was lovely in both directions. We could see the sunlight crawling down the shrubbery, and I was able to catch them still halfway in shadow. Last night, he edged even closer to his Gold Standard of hash. The potatoes must be crisp and golden, but (please, say I) not charred. The sausage must be lightly browned. The onions must be crunchy, not soft. There must be enough oil to achieve all these things, but not enough to give an oily feel. I'd say he hit the mark last night. He was very proud! The final two keys to hitting his target seem to be: (1) Dicing the potatoes, not slicing them as he did all those years. In order to dice them, he slices them into rounds and uses an alligator chopper. That was last year's revelation. (Incidentally, if he also has to dice onions he does that first, because the potatoes clean the grid nicely.) (2) Measuring all the ingredients, INCLUDING THE OIL. It's taken me months to persuade him to try it. I think he's finally convinced!

I haven't had both. Sounds like a nice excuse for a taste test someday!

They appear to be understaffed along I-8, but yes - they're there. Thanks for the info on the white flies. It doesn't sound like something I could have done inside my house, either. At any rate, those large potted plants are gone and the only living things are a couple of Christmas cacti and a peace lily that thrive under the care of our house-sitter.

My mother once poured hot coffee into her cereal instead of her cup. She had the grace to laugh. 😄

I didn't know Trader Joe's carried them. I've always gotten them from Lehman's Danish Bakery, who claims to have been the first in Racine to provide them. Gosh, it's been years since I bought one! Maybe I should change that. Does Trader Joe's usually carry them?

It could be the insect that carries Citrus Greening Disease (HLB) instead of Medflies. The friends who bought my parents' ranch have been worrying about that for several years, watching it progress closer to Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley. "Please," they begged us, "don't bring citrus up from Southern California or from Florida when you come visit!" We wouldn't, of course. How did you get rid of the white-fly? I've given up trying to keep plants alive in our house, since we started traveling during the winter, but they wrecked my young Meyer lemon and a dwarf tangerine / orange / something (I've forgotten). I'd love to have known how pruning could help.

We've been eating a lot of slaw, and occasionally sandwiches or leftovers from dinner, for our midday meal. Today I decided to switch back to lettuce salads for a while. Part of my motivation is to use items that have been trundling along in our refrigerator since we left home. Last August we had the opportunity to go shopping at a huge Middle-Eastern food store in Minneapolis. Holy Land Deli is a great place to visit, once you're there, but a pain in the neck to get to due to the traffic. I don't know that I'll want to go again. But I picked up a bunch of olives, some of their tahini, and some cheese that we can't get elsewhere until / unless we go through Tucson. Problem is, my darling isn't a big olive eater, so we've been carting these things around with me occasionally picking at them. Ditto the lebnah w/ chili. Actually, if we think of that we eat it, but it's been sitting forgotten in the back of the refrigerator. The chili gives that tart cheese quite a kick! At the bottom of the "family photo" above are two salad dressings I made: at left, a buttermilk ranch dressing from the cookbook Buttermilk & Bourbon (eG-friendly Amazon.com link); at right, a Meyer lemon vinaigrette I made from lemons I harvested last December. The finished product: Now, here's the weird part: the buttermilk ranch dressing has an unpleasant bitter note (perhaps because I used dried dill?), the Meyer lemon vinaigrette has something not-quite-right (too sour because the lemons are old?), the Lebanese green olives with lemon have an unpleasant, rather bitter taste, and the lebnah is just a bit too hot to please me. I brought both salad dressings to the table, not sure which would be more compatible with those olives, and that's when I rediscovered the bitterness of the ranch dressing. Wonder of wonders, the mixture of all those ingredients is a mutual redemption! Somehow, the tart lebnah and/or the Meyer vinaigrette cancel the bitterness of the ranch dressing; the chili heat from the lebnah brings something wonderful to the party, and the entire mix is delicious. I have left the components separate still, but may start experimenting: mix a lebnah ball into that ranch dressing? Mix the ranch and the vinaigrette?? Sounds horrible, but I've just had an enjoyable and surprising lunch!

This is fascinating, stuff! Thank you very much for the photos - bewildering, intriguing, delightful.

Last week I went to what's become my usual laundromat, and (as usual) found myself getting peckish. It was time to explore the eating establishments in that strip mall. The first thing I learned was that the taco place I'd been eyeing is no more. I don't know its story, but we can probably blame the pandemic, at least in part. This place has also caught my eye, many times, so I decided to check it out. I've never been able to see inside because the windows are specially coated and have a perforated black screen to block out most of the sunlight. At this time of year it may not be necessary, but for much of the year it would be. I'm sure it's a good selling point. The interior looked dark and inviting. Unfortunately for them - fortunately for those of us still trying to maintain some sort of distancing - there weren't many customers. One or two tables' worth came in while I was there. The place is clean and nicely decorated. The TV screens over the bar were playing sports shows but the sound was off. The TV screen in the dining area was playing the Country-Western version of MTV. I don't remember its actual name, but some of the pieces were hilarious ("I love my job with the Highway Patrol, you better not be speeding" with all kinds of driving shenanigans) and some were beautiful and touching. None was intrusive. I hate loud music in restaurants and bars. This was just loud enough to hear if I wanted to listen. Oh, the choices!! I'm not sure how I managed to miss the Desserts, sorry. It was all academic to me anyway; I had no more than a half hour. I selected the Crab Cakes appetizer. Go back and look at the sign out front on the window. A-HOOAH! They weren't joking! The remoulade sauce had a sneaky-Pete element of horseradish that kicked in about 3 seconds after taking a bite. It was wonderful. The crab cakes were excellent, the sauces great, and even the greens under the crab cakes were nice. The horseradish bite was so delayed that I wondered whether it was the greens underneath: arugula, perhaps? But they said no, those were just baby greens. I think they enjoyed my reaction and questions. I ate every bit of it, gave them a generous tip, and got back to the laundromat just as my wash loads were finishing. I'll be back, I hope. For more information and better pictures, here's their web site: Zydeco Grill. (The web address says "Icons" rather than "Zydeco". I don't know whether that's history or a glimpse of the future.)

The wind came up in the night and rocked the trailer most of the day, so it was a good day to mess around in the kitchen. I wrote about it here in the Wings Cook-Off topic. Note to self: do not mistake 4t of salt for 4T of salt! Aside from that, it was pretty good. I just had to put in the joke here.

After @Steve Irby's post I'm almost embarrassed to show this...but today I went for the Peruvian flavors (minus the Asian influence) mentioned in @Duvel's post here. As it happens I *do* have Aji Amarillo paste, and pretty much all the other ingredients listed in this Serious Eats recipe he used as his basis. I learned some things, most of them good. As the SE recipe notes, the dipping sauce itself is a real keeper. I spent some fun time in the kitchen chopping the jalapenos, cilantro, and garlic, then measuring out the other ingredients and mixing them in the food processor. The resultant color was actually somewhere between these two photos - isn't it funny how light messes with the color balance? After I had that mess cleaned up I proceeded with mixing the rub and coating the last of the frozen "party wings" I'd purchased for this Cook-Off. I should explain that these wing sections come individually frozen and ice-glazed. The package says they can be thawed first or cooked from frozen. Last time I essentially precooked them in oil, then marinated, then dredged and fried. They were very crisp, very good, and a lot of work. This time I wanted to bake them from their frozen state. This rub: went onto the frozen wing sections, which were then baked at 400F for about an hour, turning once and trying to re-coat them in the rub that kept falling off the damp surface. This is how they came out of the oven: That hard crust on the parchment paper is the rub that didn't stay on the wings as they cooked. As it turns out, that was a good thing, because the rub was much, much, much too salty. I think I mismeasured. The other spices (cumin, garlic, paprika, etc.) were good to the degree we could taste them, but the salt overwhelmed everything else. My mistake, I think. (To be honest, I think I used tablespoons rather than teaspoons for the salt! ) Now, for the critique: The wings were wonderfully tender, and that dipping sauce is as excellent as the recipe implies. I'm glad we have a lot of that sauce to put over other things! I think the wings were as tender cooked this way as they had been from the previous method, with a lot less work. However, the skin was really quite soft. If I had wanted a crackling skin, could I have gotten it using this cook-from-frozen method?