quiet1

The other thing to keep in mind when looking at recipes is that often stock or soup has been used as a way of using up odd bits and pieces - so a recipe may call for bones or a carcass even though that isn't necessarily the best ingredient if cost is no object.

Right, with horses these days I know people who have taken college level courses about equine nutrition in order to make sure they are feeding the animals in their care correctly, and have testing done regularly on the local grass and on the hay they bring in (to supplement the pasture - some areas don't support grass enough of the year for horses to be only on pasture, or the type of grass that will grow is not nutritionally complete, etc. Various reasons for feeding hay even if there is ample pasture.) And many of these folks are just people trying to provided good care for a companion animal, not people trying to make a living in the industry. Given that, I can't imagine that how to feed up meat livestock like cattle is any simpler a proposition - your livelihood depends on the animals maturing as expected into acceptable quality meat, without having too many problems along the way which require vet care, since vet visits cut into the bottom line. (Note I am not saying people would not get cattle care, just that it is in the best interest of the farmer or rancher to manage things in a way that reduces the chances of needing extra vet care beyond the routine stuff they can budget for in advance.) Then you add to just wanting to keep them healthy the idea of finding a market niche by being able to reliably produce a certain characteristic in the meat, which often occurs due to diet, and you end up with a situation where I am sure a good cattle farmer could talk your ear off about feeding options for beef cattle, and which you would choose when and why. Don't get me wrong - I do think we need to get away from factory and intensive farming methods where subpar care is corrected by just giving the whole herd antibiotics and other similar interventions - I much prefer my meat to have had a decent quality of life before it ends up on my plate, and an environment in which medications are required because the keeping method itself basically makes the animals sick seems pretty unlikely to be a good quality of life situation. I just doubt that good care and keeping practices for all herds in all places are the same in terms of what they need nutritionally, be it grass or grain or hay or a commercial feed product.

I wonder how far away the dinner spot needs to be for this to be effective... One thing I miss in terms of kitchen waste is having pet rats - they were quite happy to have things like chicken bones and broccoli stalks and the like (I'd just throw anything that needed to be cooked some before they could have it in with whatever else I was doing in a way that made it easy to fish out - like quartering the broccoli stalk and setting it on top of the rest of the broccoli to steam.) My area doesn't collect for compost and I don't have the required energy to maintain my own compost pile ATM, so I often feel bad as I end up throwing away scraps that I know the rats would've consumed happily. (I know that sounds a bit odd, maybe, but they were good pets and 4-6 rats worked out well for 2 humans in terms of consuming edible scraps as a supplement to their commercial food. If we had something large like a roast where there would be too much to give them at once, I just portioned it into a freezer container and their had their own section of our freezer.) As far as other things - my housemates are kind of Bay Area hippie types so we do try to minimize use of disposables. Mostly for putting away leftovers we have glass with plastic or silicone lids, though we will also save and reuse particularly sensibly sized jars instead of recycling them. That said, we do have a stash of some plastic containers (the semi-disposable type) and plasticware and paper plates. Some is from when we had no hot water while waiting for a water heater replacement, but some we keep just because if you are taking something on the go, particularly as a last minute plan, it is far easier to take something where if it does get misplaced or thrown away, it isn't the end of the world. One of my housemates is a nine year old boy, so forgetting to bring things home from school is just a thing that happens occasionally. One way I try to offset that a little is by keeping my eye out at church sales and the like for plates and platters and bowls that can be used for gift giving or taking food to a party - I don't have to worry about getting it back, and most of the likely recipients will either use it themselves or re gift it in the same way, so it is better than using plastic stuff that is thrown out after one use.

I have to concur - exact cuts available seems to vary slightly, but all of the beef I've gotten at Costco has been really quite good. I picked up a tenderloin for Wellington for Christmas dinner and even though it ended up overcooked a little (first time doing Wellington) it was delicious, and provided you are willing to do a bit of butchery yourself and can afford the initial expense, I suspect the cost would compare quite favorably to filet mignon steaks purchased from your standard assortment of high end supermarket type places, which is mostly what folks have access to.

I never said it was good for them, just that in my experience livestock generally prefer the taste of grain type feeds to all but really good grass - so if you offer them both, they are quite likely to opt for the grain, in the same way as a child would often opt for candy or cake over spinach. Livestock does not really consider the overall effects of what it is eating overly much, they only care if it smells and tastes good. Their digestive systems might prefer grass, but if it is free choice between the two the thing making the decision is their taste buds. As I said in my original comment - lots of grain isn't any good for horses, either. But give one a chance and it'll probably be in the feed room with its head stuffed into the grain tub. It is up to the people caring for livestock to make sure the diet is appropriate for the animal. (Usually with horses this means primarily grass/hay of some variety, with grain added in small amounts as needed to make supplements palateable - some areas the grass is naturally deficient in some minerals so you add those back in as a supplement at amounts determined by testing your grass/hay supply every so often. More grain may be added for horses who are doing a lot of work or have trouble keeping weight on, but in modern horse keeping practices it would be very unusual to see a horse on a diet that was actually primarily grain. I imagine something similar is involved in farming cattle - the exact diet provided is determined by making a proper evaluation of the needs of the animal and the nutrition provided by the grazing and/or hay and other forage available, combined with the end goal in terms of what meat you end up with. It is highly unlikely to be the best possible diet for the cow if you let the cow choose for him or herself based on taste. Cows just aren't that smart.) (I suspect this is going to be moderated since it is getting off topic for the thread, but as a semi-related note, I would never ever eat horse meat sourced from the US or Canada, were I enclined to eat the stuff at all, which I am not. But we have no meaningful system for tracking the animals from birth to slaughter, and there are a huge number of medications used in horses as companion type animals - riding, etc. - that are absolutely not suitable for human consumption. There is supposed to be a waiting period before slaughter to allow some medications that may have been given recently to process out, but it is my understanding that there are some common medications that do not clear the system reliably. No thanks.)

Butter has very very little lactose in it if made properly - lactose is milk sugar and butter should be pretty close to exclusively milk fat. People who are lactose intolerant can sometimes eat very well aged cheeses, too - the cheese bacteria eat all the milk sugar while making the tasty cheese. My mother has also had some success in trying goat and sheep milk products. (As I understand it, goat still has some lactose, but less than cow milk, and for some reason it is often better tolerated. No idea why.) Some people are also okay with cream but not milk - again due to the fact cream should have less milk sugar in it since the sugar is in the watery bit of the milk, not the fat. On the subject of raspberries, when I have an excess I like to make a raspberry-lime sauce and freeze it. Then I have something nice and bright and summery to use on cold days when it feels like the winter will last forever - I use it warmed on pancakes like a syrup, or over some kind of cake. I've never tried mixing it with sparkling water but I will now next time I make it, because that sounds promising also. My favorite bakery does a nice cake with a raspberry buttercream filling, too, as an idea for future raspberry excess. Though I think I'd add either fresh raspberries or a drizzle of raspberry coulis between the layers also, to give an extra dimension of raspberry flavor.

I have a cast iron grill pan and I've used it couple times (on gas) then basically gave up. It just doesn't do anything that impressive for meat, IMO. Most recently I just used it for "grilling" hamburger buns and also sometimes I'll throw vegetables on it. (It is nice in that way for reheating some types of vegetables, as the grilled bits give some more interest to the leftovers.) But for meats I just use a cast iron skillet. Grill pan doesn't get enough heat to the meat itself in the right way or something.

I don't often warm plates, but I will warm the serving bowls and platters as necessary. A large room temperature bowl in the winter can suck a lot of heat out of something like vegetables or pasta in no time at all. Yuck. If I have the oven on and space, I put them on one of the back burners of the stove while I finish cooking, as that area gets pretty warm. Otherwise I just fill with hot water and leave to sit, then empty and dry right before use.

If you are going to think you know better and ignore what someone says about what they can eat (even if you deeply believe they are full of it) then just don't cook for them - everyone will be happier all around. I don't know why some people insist on doing that. (Not the folks in this thread, obviously, or they wouldn't be asking, but in general.) I also wanted to add - be careful of how much soy is in a diet as replacements for things. If you aren't keeping an eye on it and soy is allowed, you can get very soy heavy (soy milk, soy cheese, soy fake meat, soy who knows what else) and that itself can cause some people problems. (Development of an allergy, or hormone issues, etc.) So better to just be mindful about using it and try to vary your diet. Variety is better for you anyway, particularly when you are quite limited - it maximizes the nutrients you can get from food sources. If you only ever eat the same thing all the time, chances are you will find it is deficient in some useful nutrient or another.

I think there is just more going on than a simple study done by something like a tv show is going to identify, for sure. I don't know about other reactions, but my migraines are not necessarily instant as soon as the food touches my lips. Mostly what I get from the studies that have been done properly is that if there is something going on, it is not as straightforward as the studies that have been done so far have been looking at. Studies are generally limited in scope to keep them practically manageable - once you start adding in things like external factors influencing reactions (ex. Migraine triggers) and the possibility that it's actually a food combination issue going on where it isn't necessarily msg alone but msg with something else, and the possibility of differences in how people handle different chemicals... I imagine we will be poking at this one for a good while yet, in the science and medical arenas. (Or possibly something will pop up whole they are studying something else - people who have a documented poor response to drug X have a higher reporting rate of MSG issues, and some bright spark pokes around and finds a link, etc.) As far as cooking goes, I tend to think it's like most things. If you are hosting, part of being a good host is respecting the people you want to have around for dinner enough to respect their food requests, even if you personally think they're weird. If you can't do that, go out for dinner instead, so they can manage their own meal with the restaurant staff to their satisfaction and you stay out of it. People do have intolerances, and allergies, and medication related food reactions, and eating disorders, all of which may require some understanding as a host. If you don't want to do that, don't invite people over. (Or at least don't bait and switch or leave them in an awkward position on purpose. If you really want to have a dinner party serving Y, invite people to a dinner party where you will be serving Y, and be truthful about how you plan to prepare it when they ask. Then they can gracefully accept or decline and everyone has a good time with no potential health issues because someone decided they knew better than someone else about what they can or should eat.) The meal I mentioned, there are usually plenty of other yummy things also that aren't seasoned the same way or that I make myself to share with the table, so as long as I know who prepared the dish that has caused issues, I can make an informed choice for myself if I want to risk being triggered or not. If I chose not, I can still have a nice meal, and no one minds me skipping the one dish because it is better than no one seeing me the next day or so because I'm stuck in bed feeling awful.

One of the complicating factors with studying things like migraine triggers is that it seems like it isn't necessarily a binary response - you get a migraine or you don't - but rather some kind of additive thing going on where multiple different triggers combined together are necessary to get a migraine. So some one with a sensitivity to glutamates might be fine one day, but another where there are other things going on (stress, presence of other food triggers, hormone levels, etc.) and bam, migraine. It isn't really the msg exclusively, just that it was enough to push things over the edge. Or so goes my understanding of recent thinking about migraines, anyway. Certainly my own seem to behave better if I consider what else is going on before indulging in certain food items. (Mainly because of the possible triggers, food intake is one of the easier to control. If I've been very stressed and suddenly the stress is gone - a very common time for me to get a migraine - then that is probably a bad time for me to have some aged cheese or whip out a bag of Doritos, no matter how tasty.) (I imagine there is some degree of flexibility in amount of exposure before the trigger is significant in some people, also. I once had a meal prepared by family on two separate occasions that were of approximately the same degree of my general levels of stress, etc. one meal was fine and very tasty. Second time, bam, migraine. Questioning revealed that the recipe was the same except the second time the person preparing it used a very generous hand with the msg as that was her tendency. Everything else should have been the same, so my best guess is a little is fine but a lot was just too much.) I'm impressed they manage to get people with migraines to participate in studies about these things, though. I see the value of science and medical research and yet I'm not sure I could bring myself to line up to potentially have intentionally triggered migraines For Science. (We have identified some folks with genetics that make them react in strange ways to medications, too. It's just a very small group so it took a while to identify that there was something consistent enough to be worth studying and then a while after that to pin it on the genes. So for all we know in a few years time we will find that there is some small number of people where glutamates are not all processed equally or something. Human bodies can be weird.)

Oh yes, I do 2 with sponges also, every so often. You often get two for one value from that because the steam from the damp sponge loosens up any splatters that people neglected to clean up promptly, so you can just do a quick wipe and have a clean interior again, no scrubbing.

Really? When I lived in England I never encountered anything American English muffin like, regardless of the name, and none of my friends were aware of such a creature either. I did not particularly go searching them out, to be fair. I seem to recall muffins of the type you'd expect in the US, like blueberry and so on, being sold as "American-style" muffins or something similar. Likewise in the freezer section you could get chips but also "American style French fries" which kind of amused me.

I have a single microplane (the citrus zester fine one) and a regular box grater. I mostly went to the microplane for fine stuff because it takes much less physical effort on my part, ime, to grate stuff on the microplane, which keeps the arthritis in my wrists a bit happier. Recently I also obtained the long term loan of a food processor with a shredding disc, so the box grater is getting even less use. Still, there are some things where you want the texture you get from one method over another. Potato pancakes, for example, I must make by grating with a box grater or else they don't turn out with the "right" texture - presumably because I'm expecting something like my grandmother used to make, and she only had a box grater.

I'm pretty sure my household would fall over and cease to function without a microwave. As much as folks like to cook, we have a variety of health problems and a kid, so sometimes reheating something as fast as possible is the best option for a meal. (Plus the kiddo has learned to handle hot plates from the microwave safely but has not yet been approved for unsupervised use of the gas stove or oven, so it lets him do more himself and participate in preparing meals when we do cook. Usually he is put in charge of using it to steam vegetables for a side, with help if the vegetables require cutting up since we are still working on knife skills and safety.) My housemates seem much more reliant on it than I am, though. The only "cooking" I do with it is steaming vegetables (I'll stick potatoes in to get them started before putting them in the oven for baked potatoes, too, just to shorten the cooking time) and occasionally stuff like melting butter. My housemates, on the other hand, seem to think that a microwaved egg omelette is acceptable. (No offense if you like them for some reason, but my experience has been that microwaving just makes meat and eggs go weird. Yuck.) Oh, and when I lived in the uk I had a microwave that was especially good at defrosting meat without cooking bits of it, so I did use that feature occasionally. Our current microwave is awful at that, though, so I don't bother.

The point about eggs is a good one - it can be incredibly eye opening to try eggs from different sources and see how much the flavor can vary. (And I mean still all chicken eggs, without even branching out into duck, goose, etc.) Just keep in mind if you are doing that you want to go with a simple preparation so you aren't adding stronger flavors that might hide some of the differences. If I get really good eggs, for example, I usually just do something very simple like soft boil or poach them, served with other delicate flavors (mild bread for toast rather than a strong rye, etc.) In that vein, there are some dishes that IMO aren't worth bothering with if the ingredients aren't right. If you've had a caprese salad (tomato, mozzarella, basil, and maybe a slight drizzle of balsamic and some salt and pepper) and your reaction was "meh" then I strongly question if the proper ingredients were used. It is just not a dish that works if you don't have good creamy fresh mozzarella, bright fresh basil, and perfectly ripe tomatoes. It isn't usually BAD with blah ingredients, it's just utterly unexciting and uninspiring and boring. There are other dishes like that also - so even when you are ordering food out, try to be aware of the season. Even with international shipping, you are extremely unlikely to get something like a properly fresh ripe tomato in the US northeast in the middle of winter. (Heck, even stuff that can be shipped in - a lot of it will suffer in flavor because they have to select varieties that travel well, and those are not necessarily the ones that taste best. So if it is a dish that depends on certain ingredients being really good to work, and it isn't the time of year for those things, you are more likely to be disappointed. Save your money and order something that uses ingredients more seasonally appropriate.)

In the same idea of just trying things - do look at local cooking classes. I know you're not sure you want to learn to cook, but at least around here I am aware of two types of cooking classes - one which is very hands on where you prepare much if not all of the food yourself, with guidance, and one which is kind of more like a live cooking show, in that a chef demonstrates how the food is prepared while the class observes, and then you all eat. The latter seems like it might be a good experience in simply expanding exposure to food and to talking about and thinking about food, which may help in your desire to branch out because you will have better ideas about why you like some things but dislike others. (For example, I am not overly fond of sushi, and one reason is I dislike the texture of nori. If I am talking to someone about new ingredients or a new dish - sushi or otherwise - and I can tell them I don't like the texture of nori, that then tells them something about how likely or unlikely I am to like the new dish if it has anything similar to nori in it. They may even warn me - this element is like nori, but you should try it anyway because even if you eat around that part, it is very good.) In addition, such a demonstration cooking class will more than likely be full of people who are willing to talk about food with you, who may have knowledge of the local food "scene" that will help steer you to new things you might enjoy, and since you will have access to the chef, you will be able to ask any questions you might have about why something was prepared in a specific way, or about a taste in the final dish you can't identify, etc. So it may be quite useful for you even if you don't actually learn how to cook anything yourself. I don't know your area at all, but another thing to look for might be a restaurant that offers some kind of seasonal or daily menu changes that are more than just "stuff we ordered too much of and want to sell before it goes bad." For example, in Pittsburgh we have an Italian place called Lidia's and one if the items on the menu is a three pasta arrangement where the actual pastas of the day change depending on what is seasonal, what looked good from the suppliers, etc. Quite often when we go there we end up getting the three pastas because it is an easy way to sample a wider variety of pasta dishes and it is very rare that any of them are actually BAD even if something might not be a flavor profile you enjoy. It helps that I think they use the three pastas to rotate in some things that may not be popular enough for the regular menu, meaning you also get to try things that you might only otherwise get in someone's home kitchen because it isn't appealing to enough clientele to put it on a regular menu. I'm not saying you have to search out Lidia's specifically, just that if you can find places in your area that have those kinds of specials - seasonal or less mass market appealing than what they'd put on a regular menu - it's an opportunity to expand your eating experiences and develop more knowledge about what you like and dislike. (In addition, if you become a regular at such a place, unless they have high staff turnover, often the waitstaff will become helpful in suggesting if you might like something new or not, once they have an idea of the things you've had in the past and enjoyed or disliked. Just make sure you tip well.) On the more adventurous side, which may be too much for you, my dad (who would laugh to be called a foodie but does enjoy trying lots of different tasty things) has frequently had good luck at ethnic places just by asking if there is anything that isn't on the menu that they would make for themselves, or for regulars. This does tend to result in dishes that are perhaps a little intimidating to mainstream western expectations, but he enjoys that and it works out pretty well for him. (I think it helps to have a good tolerance for spice, though, since sometimes things won't be on the menu because they are spicier than the local population of restaurant goers would tolerate.)

Since it sounds like you are really quite new, another avenue for information and ideas might actually be TV. As much as I dislike reality tv in general, I have actually started watching some of the better cooking shows in the house with the housemates' kiddo because of the way the judges discuss the food. It seems to help give the kiddo ideas about what he can be thinking about when he eats things, and when he is deciding what he likes and what he doesn't. It's helping him develop a vocabulary, which in turn helps to figure out where to go next in trying something new. ("I didn't enjoy the texture and felt it needed something crispy" is much more useful in tweaking a dish or teaching him how to tweak it than "it was icky.") You may not agree with what the judges are saying about something, but you can still learn from how they're assessing it. (With the caveat that I'm sure they have to find problems with this or that dish for production reasons. But they still usually don't say anything totally ridiculous.) When the kiddo is a bit older, I also plan to introduce some of the Jacques Pepin shows to him - some of them may be a bit dated in terms of food style, but even if you're not interested in cooking yourself, sometimes knowing why a certain skill or another is important gives you another tool for considering the food you're eating. (And also understanding what you're going to get when you order a dish from a menu. )

This was my experience when I lived in the UK, as well. I liked to keep a can of tomato paste on hand also, though - in a pinch it helps thicken things up faster and adds a little more richness of flavor if the passata is particularly uninspiring. So I'd start with the passata and only turn to adding tomato paste as needed. (I now cannot remember what on earth I was making with it, I just remember buying it on multiple occasions for various things. Huh. Must've dropped some recipes out of rotation when I moved.)

... Do these people know cows? I don't know cows, but all the horses I've ever met have preferred grain to hay/grass. I think grain is sort of the livestock equivalent of tasty tasty junk food. Much yummier than boring old leafy things. (Not necessarily healthy, of course, but the horses for sure didn't care about that part of things at all. )

We lucked out on a good deal on some very tasty cherries recently and they are sitting in the fridge waiting for me to do something with them. One lot I plan to make a sort of compote with, to go with Greek yogurt, but I also want to make some kind of dessert. I'm drawing a blank on inspiration as to what, though - I tend not to like cherries in pie, so I've been thinking more a cobbler/crisp type concept, but that still hasn't grabbed me as the perfect thing to do yet. So I thought is throw it out here on egullet and see what folks like to do with fresh cherries. I do want to keep it pretty simple - my kitchen is pretty basic at the moment and my wrists are not up to whisking tons of egg whites or whipped cream by hand. (I may also have some stash leftover of good quality dark chocolate for baking that a guest recently brought from Switzerland.) It has also been pretty warm here and the kitchen is not air conditioned, so I don't fancy fighting with anything super temperature sensitive, and I think also because of the heat I want to stick with something a bit light feeling - a rich chocolate layer cake with cherries and ganache, while likely quite tasty, seems too heavy for the season.

Technically I cooked it on the 4th - had the brisket today for dinner and it was really good. Did not get a chance to get photos because it vanished so fast. It probably over cooked slightly by timing, but it was falling apart tender and still very flavorful. Even the ex vegetarian who doesn't like a lot of meaty textures (she dislikes steak of all kinds for example) had seconds. I will try to remember to edit this with the recipe tomorrow in case anyone is interested. (I do warn, though, that it is done in the oven rather than a smoker, so some folks might be offended. but I don't have a smoker set up and am not sure the household likes the smoked flavor enough to justify one.)

I didn't have plans but as usual I got drafted to help cook dinner (I need to work on saying "no" when housemates are being kitchen incompetent) which ended up being pretty traditional - burgers, hot dogs, fries, baked beans, and a random assortment of other things to round out the meal (some leftover pasta salad, some guacamole that I whipped up because the avocados were looking extra sad, etc.) Nothing terribly remarkable (definitely not my best work on burgers - I didn't buy the meat and I think it was too low fat content, burgers ended up quite dry even though I was careful not to cook them to hockey pucks) except for deciding that really the only use I can come up with for the cast iron grill pan I got on a whim is toasting buns (which it isn't even that great at) and giving a bit of grill char flavor to vegetables. (I like to steam them to mostly done, then a brief visit with a piping hot grill pan to get grill marks and a bit of extra flavor from the bits of browning.) At the moment we don't have a good place for a grill outside - plans are in early stages to add a patio area in the back and I intend to include some kind of cooking space there. (Alas not enough room for an actual outdoor kitchen, but I am hoping for some kind of arrangement that is nicer for cooking than just a grill plunked on the corner of the patio.) We did actually also make a very tasty brisket, but due to timing issues with the ridiculous oven that came with the house, that wasn't anything near done by dinner, so it'll be for tomorrow.

I feel like I should add my rhubarb compote adventure recipe, such as it was, since it was especially tasty with a good creamy plain Greek yogurt. 1 small bunch rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces. (It didn't have any stringy tough bits so I assume it was young.) 1/4 cup ish sugar Vanilla bean, slit Water Lemon juice (to taste) Strawberries (to taste - for color and texture) Rhubarb, sugar, vanilla, and enough water to just cover goes into a pot. Simmer until rhubarb breaks down, stirring occasionally and making sure it doesn't burn. (I think it was about 20 min - I did it during dinner and just checked on it occasionally.) At this point you could just add lemon juice if you feel like it needs a bit to brighten up the flavor, but since my rhubarb did not give me a nice color I also added some halved/quartered strawberries and put it back on the heat for a bit just until some of the berries cooked down, but before they all went to mush. (I forget how many - maybe 6-8 smallish berries?) Transfer to a bowl and cool. Serve over good plain Greek yogurt. I should've taken photos, I'm not in the habit of doing that as I experiment. It cooled to a nice thick syrupy texture - not as set up as a jam or preserve - and actually inspired me to experiment more with making my own fruit compotes to have with yogurt. We eat a LOT of Greek yogurt in this house, mostly as a snack, and compared to the rhubarb stuff the commercial flavored varieties now seem overly sweet in an unpleasant sugary sort of way. (Some things do need sweetness to bring out the flavor, of course. But the rhubarb compote was not so sweet that just eating it plain from a spoon was unpleasant - it was just even nicer with the creamy foil of the yogurt. I think a similar flavor combination but with less water and not cooked down so much would also have made a very nice crumble to be served with some plain or very lightly sweetened whipped cream. By contrast if you try many of the fruit mixtures included with commercial flavored yogurts, before mixing it into the yogurt, they are often very sweet to the point you wouldn't want to eat it plain.)

I'm looking forward to this thread. My dad loves rhubarb but I have no experience at all cooking with it. Recently we got some from a farmers market and I made a sort of compote with rhubarb and vanilla and sugar and a few strawberries, which I thought was very tasty but it wasn't rhubarby enough for my dad. (The strawberries were a bit of a last minute addition because the cooked down rhubarb was unpleasantly gooseberry colored.) I do have a pork roast lurking in the freezer, so now I'm contemplating some kind of rhubarb sauce for that - any tips on what savory flavors play well with rhubarb? I've only had sweet rhubarb like in a strawberry rhubarb pie or rhubarb jam.