Eden

If it's anything like Tuesday Morning & Marshalls, where you also find the seconds fairly often it is a hit or miss thing. Marshall's at least also has Staub seconds, and TM had a bick stack of LeC when I was there 2 days ago... Thanks for the info re the outlet mall up north. I'm hoping the additional presence of a Coach store will be enough to convince my friend we need to stop on the way home from the Opera

Somebody recently mentioned that they thought there was a LeC outlet store somewhere north of seattle. I thought the nearest one was down in Oregon. Anyone know anything about this? It's not on the LeC website, but they could be behind the times... Thanks for any leads.

As I understand it, the romans ended up replacing the sylvium/silphium with asafoetida in their cooking, but considered it inferior. Yes indeed "forgotten" foods are frequently just a regional phenomenon. I grew up in California eating loquats off the trees in my neighborhood, but here in Seattle, nobody had even heard of them & I was beginning to think I'd imagined their existance, when I came across some in a market in Italy. The vendor thought I was a lunatic because I was so excited, but it was wonderful to taste that tropically-apricoty flavor again after SOOO long.

One (tardy) warning re cooking really large birds: If you don't have a really good quality oven, you should be prepared for it to be too heavy for your oven rack. I had a 20+ pounder (stuffed) bend the rack so it crashed down to the bottom of the oven I couldn't find any bricks to put it up on at the time, so we inverted muffin times (to allow some air ciruclation underneath) propped the turkey pan up on those & let the lazy racks take the day off.

This is wonderful! That beet is beautful, and I'd love to know more about the "medieval variety of cabbage". I wish more farmers were growing these out-of-favor veggies, and making them available to the general public. I was very fortunate on one visit to my favorite French restaurant here in Seattle: the chef happened upon skirrets from one of his vendors, and knowing that I was coming to the restaurant and would appreciate them, he bought enough to make me a small side dish. It was an incredibly thoughful touch, and a cool opportunity for me, because while I had read about them & seen historical recipes calling for them, I'd never actualy tasted skirrets before that moment. Likewise I've had fresh cardoons in a cooking class from the same chef, but only seen them once at the local farmer's market, and then they were being sold for decoration rather than food (I've found canned cardoons occasionally, but been afraid to try them!)

It's almost the end of the month, so it's time to ask: What's next?

That is an excellent explantion of the hows & whys of a kitchen schedule Lucy. When I do larger projects I always make one. (and I always try to leave breaks in it where I can either relax, or catch up if something has gotten off course.) Being a geek girl with terrible handwriting, mine are done in Excel, and on bigger projects they are color coded for stove, oven and even food processor use so I can see if there will be a bottle-neck in my equipment usage that could cause a problem. I also like to add a line at the bottom listing which serving dish will be used for each recipe. All of this also makes it much easier to let other people help you in the kitchen impropmtu. If someone walks in at 4pm with willing hands, you glance at the chart to see what needs doing that's not too specialized, and then ask them to prepare the beans for steaming while you focus on the raviolis

speaking of nutcrackers, can anyone reccomend one that will crack walnuts without destroying the shells? I want to have two perfect halves to glue back together after the meat has been removed. I've done this in the past with the classic V nutcracker, but as I recall you get maybe one out of 4 nuts in good enough shape to use...

sorry, somehow my flag on this thread got lost so I didn't see that there were any replies. re why Bill doesn't like Japanese: he just says it's "too salty" but eats other things that I find saltier, so it's obviously just one of those weird husband things thanks for the suggestions.

If nothing else at least make sure they get preserved and handed down in your family. Historians/archeologists of future generations will bless you for passing down your special insight into the daily life of our time. I am in love with your tortiere! Have a wonderful day.

If you poke around there are several previous discussions, with details on which models are best etc. but basically Yes, they're useful, we had one for about 5 years before we upgraded to the freezer unit model & we knew we could justify the fancier model based on how often we used the old one. The main caveat, in my opinion, is that you have to make small batches of icecream, because the freezer unit can only do one batch & then needs to go re-freeze overnight before it can be used again (plus you MUST chill your mix before attempting to freeze it.)

I'm impressed that you managed to create a wonderful family and friend filled day even from afar! And yet another interesting treatment for celeriac, yum!

It's very weird here chez Eden. I'm not cooking anything. We've been invited to a friends for dinner this evening, and Bill has made a batch of pumpkin ice-cream to take, but that's it. no turkey in the oven, no potatoes to peel, nothing. It just feels wrong, like maybe it's not really thanksgiving yet.

Curried cheese biscuits. easy to make and more snacky than lunchy.

peeling tiny onions=evil! Sunday we had pearl onions boiled til just tender, then dredged in flour & browned in butter. quite good, kind of like a grown up onion ring, but much lighter because it's not an actual batter... they're better if you slice them in half afer boiling (we did a mix to compare) I lke the idea of sticks & stones!

I am a pinapple fiend, and on my one visit to hawaii I ate entire pinapples at a shot several times. The mouth damaging enzyme was in full force so I don't think it's a case of closeness to the source. I wonder if it's something in one's individual body chemistry that makes you more or less sensitive to this problem? I must try the brine tip when we go back to Hawaii next year.

My wonderful husband invented eggnog & pumpkin ice-cream floats for dessert last night Sorry I didn't think to take a picture till it was too late.

Our local burrito shop has a little sign in the window telling you "Don't want Gordito's on Tuesdays", so of course I always get a craving for their food on Tuesdays

We have T-shirts??? And I didn't get one? well they must include either this picture from her last blog or the blettes in this posting both of which I really want to print and hang in my kitchen! Lucy, the Ballard/Seattle chapter of your fanclub is SO pleased to have you back blogging again! Have you finally settled on a new butcher?

We used a mix of grocery store ricotta and fresh mozzarella, with both fresh and powdered ginger in it. (My friend Nicole's brilliant idea) It's SO good! makes a great breakfast too

Medieval ginger cheesecake From the emminent Maestro Martino of 15th century Italy we made a torta Bianca on Thursday. The orignal text says roughly "mix fresh cheese with egg-whites, sugar, butter, milk & ginger, bake it in a pie crust, then sprinkle it with sugar and rosewater when it's done" those chunks on top are the garnish of candied ginger. here's a photo

same basic idea, but toss in a little parmigiano and put it in a crust, for a really lovely tart.

A little detail I noticed last time they handed me a "wish list" for a food bank, was that they requested the peanutbutter in plastic jars, and I think this would hold true for any other jarred items as well. I assume that they want to be able to toss everything in a bin without worrying about breaking glass...

Don't worry Abra, it's not just you, my cooking group's garage always looks like that after any event too (and worse!) Good luck with the dinner!

I don't know about Poulsbo, but across the water here in Ballard (originally a swedish/norwegian neighborhood of Seattle) we still have a shop that does all sorts of Nordic food imports and also has a bakery counter with all sorts of sweet treats including lefse. It's about a block from the Leif Erikson Hall Can't wait to see how your dinner turned out Abra!