viva

I feel like this thread has allowed me to enter a secret Pork Porn club. Alas, my Butt has already been depleted. So easy to make another though...

That's why I chopped the skins into the preserves. (A) pretty purple color from the muscadines and (B) love the flavor!! I think that's where all the musky loveliness resides. I eat them whole...skin, seeds & all.

I finally have a Butt to behold…my half-size Apartment Butt. I can’t join the ranks of those with Smokin’ Butts, given the apartment situation, so I opted for a brined, slow-roasted butt (at 275 for 6 hours), covered in a little mustard, paprika, brown sugar & garlic. After pulling… On tortillas with pickled onions & carrots and some hot sauce… Someday… a Smokin’ Butt will be mine…

Scuppernong and Muscadine grape preserves! A bucket o’ Scuppernongs along with two pints of Muscadines for purple. Easy on the sugar, a few ground cloves and some cinnamon. Plunge in boiling water to slip off the skins, innards through a sieve to remove the seeds, skins chopped and everything back in the pot to simmer. I love this stuff. My whole apartment was filled with that wonderful musky perfume while the preserves were cooking. Excellent on a biscuit with a slice of bacon. (The two jars on the right with the pretty purple-brown color are the grape preserves… the guy on the left is a fig/raspberry/zinfandel jam that rocks pretty hard too.)

This sounds really good. Like... enough to make me want to go buy a big hunk of parmesan for the rind so I can do it. I've been on a flavored-oils-on-crusty-bread-with-sliced-tomato kick lately.

Wow. I normally lurk in the foodblogs without comment, but I had to say that Pille, you are making me want to fly over to Estonia immediately. Very beautiful pictures and descriptions. Thank you!

Crushed red pepper, like many other folks, and kosher salt.

Tomato vinegar? I'm intrigued. How does that work?

Mmm. Figs, honey, goat cheese on toast. Mmmm.

Can't hurt to try. Gotta give it some time. Some sites on vinegar recommend just buying one of the unfiltered cider vinegars with the mother (Bragg's) to get started. If I can get a couple of vinegar crocks going, anyone can. It's a nice way to use up bottle dregs.

Doesn't it depend on the bread and the dimensions of the loaf? Baguette - straight up & down Wide loaf - straight up & down, cutting the width in half (because if you did it on the diagonal the individual sandwich triangles would not be isosceles triangles) Standard grocery store square loaf - diagonal (eating the triangle with the top crust first) Open faced sandwich - no slice at all And I, too, am a sandwich re-assembler. Shocking how many places put the fillings in the wrong order and in the wrong ratio.

It doesn't really matter to me either if a tomato is an F1 Hybrid or an "Heirloom"! Early Girls taste good. That's all I care about!! They're gone for the year already <sob>. But thanks for the information. That's why the heirloom designation bothers me... an Early Girl might not be described as heirloom, but that doesn't make me want to buy it any less. "Heirloom" is just as crap of a descriptor as "organic" or "free range". I love the "ugly tomato" bin that one of the farmers has at her market stand. Cheeeap... like $1 per pound. Makes it possible for me to buy more tomatoes. I know her tomatoes well enough now that I can pick the cultivars out that I am particularly fond of... I'll take a scarred Carbon over a pretty Trifele any day of the week.

I particularly hate the generically labelled "heirloom tomato". I see this most frequently at the supermarket and occasionally at the farmers' market. I want to know the name of the freakin' tomato varietal! Is it an Early Girl or a Better Boy? A Cherokee Purple, a Black Krim, or a Carbon? A Pineapple or a Dr. Wyche's? Don't give me some generic term like "heirloom" which then leaves me to judge what varietal it might be based on appearance. <grumble>

Marie Antoinette asked "why don't they eat brioche?" when told that the protesters had no bread. Velveeta is, of course, readily available in Viva's North Carolina. And in South Carolina, where maps are reputedly so scarce. But its a mistake to think that it must therefore be easily available worldwide. I had to research to discover what this miracle ingredient of US-style macaroni cheese actually was, as it was recommended so frequently on the dedicated m&c thread - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A262414 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velveeta and to discover that there is no real substitute for that cheese substitute, which might possibly be available in Germany, but is prohibitively expensive in the UK as 'vanity airfreight'. http://www.chowhound.com/topics/423685 Sorry, but its right up there with the brioche... ← I was actually thinking that Velveeta would easily survive the shipping process.... having a half-life and all... North Carolina Velveeta purchasers stand ready to help their European colleagues!

I use gruyere and cheddar in my mac & cheese. The gruyere gives that gooey, melty texture while the cheddar gives me the salty sharp taste. I would think gouda would be a good substitute for the cheddar. You could, of course, use Velveeta.

You might have to get out the needle-nosed pliers to "de-quill" it!

Hmph. I just thought y'all got more interesting stuff in Minnesota... Having said that, the "Porcupine" elk meatballs sound kind of tasty.

For me it's all about the piping-hot, salty, herby garlic butter the escargot are served in... something about the snails just makes the butter so good!! Edited to add: it's definitely love. I will order escargot at every opportunity in which they are presented.

Great photos! I might have chosen the Pedal Pub, myself, dealing with those crowds. How was the Elk Burger? I wonder what a Porcupine Meatball tastes like... That boar has a very large...protuberance...at the back there. I have to wait until October 12-21 for the North Carolina State Fair. I can't find any food details online to map out my strategy. <grr>

I was drinking my weekend GT's... and noticed a jelly like substance floating around in it that looked for all the world like my vinegar mother. I assume this was a kombucha "mother"? Or am I being optimistic and it was something less benign?

Nice! In my poor college days, I used to just add slices of American and cans of tuna and/or some tomato paste to my mine.

There's a little disclaimer on the label about the alcohol, but it is minimal. Maybe that's why I like it

But there would be something sooo comforting about that 79 cent tawdriness in conjunction with a well made chicken pot pie, echoing the Swanson's of yore...

I like both Velveeta and Green Bean Casserole as individuals... but together? Yeesh. Only cheap cream of mushroom soup has a place in my green bean casserole... not cheap "cheese"! I also think a distinction needs to be drawn between the Velveeta Mac n' Cheese in a box vs. homemade with the big ass block of Velveeta made according to the good old Kraft recipe. The latter is clearly superior.

I thought the tea had the fungus.