Franci

Second box delivery. Wonderful. And mea culpa, I finally managed to go to the island market. Only one stand but much better than my old neighborhood. I can stop complaining 😁

Despite being from Puglia my orecchiette skills are mediocre. It takes a lot of practice to make something acceptable, because it’s all in how you hold the knife, the angle and the pressure exercised. They need to come uniform, thin, no holes, not super thick hedges. I often cheat and use a cavatelli machine (on the flat side, no ridges) and open one by one to get something similar to strascinati. This seems tedious but I can assure you it is still less tedious than trying to make 4 people portions when you don’t have the hand for it. I learned to make acceptable orecchiette when I went to university and I wanted the fresh taste. Nowadays you can buy packaged fresh orecchiette in the refrigerated section of any supermarket in Italy. Still not as good as the properly made one.

I just checked, also these guys have the mahachanok mango…I saw I can get the mix box, 6-8 pounds for $30. I will get next week. I am all happy now, at least fruit wise. The owner told me that they sell more vegetables in the fall. For now I got zucchini and butternut squash.

I opened the mango and it was very juicy and sweet, also the goldfinger bananas super good! Thanks @weinooyour research was fruitful, for real 😁

Finally my first order from Fruits ‘n Cahoots arrived. It looks promising

Not at all, unfortunately I am stuck here for a while. Not now that he has found the perfect solution for the kids school. But hopefully travel is becoming easier and I can finally escape 🤣

Good to know! Thank you, KennethT.

🤣 I honestly wish but my husband is all determined to stay here, let’s say that I prefer the dirty streets of Brooklyn to my tropical island, might sound crazy to some but it’s true 😁

Awesome, thank you @Kenneth. Edit to add: thanks again @KennethT just joined, very interesting.

I’ve seen that Imperfect doesn’t deliver to my address, Misfits ye, I will try and see how it goes. Meanwhile local CSAs will start again in November, although I am not huge fan of having a set box. I could try in the future. Meanwhile I want to see how it goes the order I just placed for this week.

Thank you @weinoo! The first link is for Coconut Grove mkt, my old neighborhood, compared to NY market, no interesting to me. I went there the first week and left wondering what was all fuss about this market. I went through all your links! Many CSA are not starting until November but I did find a very interesting one. Fruits and cahoots, not huge selection but it was what I was looking for, organic local produce and prices don’t look out of this world. I already placed my order. I will let you know guys.

@gfweb I am getting frustrated with supermarket too. Since September that we moved on the island is even worse. It takes me 15-20 minutes to get off the island, here we have only Winn-Dixie. I do not like their fruit and vegetables. Whole Foods is still better than other supermarkets but I have the old habit of getting the best from each store and shopping has become so difficult. I feel I have to drive tons to get to different stores. Definitely these days missing so much my French farmers market from Monaco, walking distance, 10 minutes in the back of my house 🙁

Hello. I couldn’t find an old thread on this. Since we moved here to Florida, compared to NY, I feel our fruit and vegetable consumption has decreased. It is so important to our diet that we still consume a lot but I often miss the quality and variety I was able to find in NY. I am thinking of ordering online but I don’t like the idea of a box where I have no say in what I am getting, I like the idea to customize my vegetables. Do you have any suggestion where the ratio quality and price is justified? Also, any of you buy fruit boxes? I am tempted by the Georgia peaches for example, but the pugliese in me still cannot get over the prices. I mean, in my mind I have the couple euros a kgs for the most nice smelling peaches, vs the 60-70$ for 12 peaches, really? So tired of throwing away tasteless fruit.

I will go that and take to a center as Heidi suggested!

The brick bed are open underneath, they go directly to the soil.

Glad the herbs and lemon trees are in good shape

Hi guys, so the only thing that survived the iguanas were the green beans, definitely we are terrible gardeners 🤣🤣🤣they were doing fine until the leaves turned yellow, not sure it’s too much sun, not enough fertilizer or what 🙁

🤗 lucky with it! But I am sure you have much better fruit and vegetables.

Tuna of yesterday, with ratatouille. It could have been a little more raw but it was actually perfect for my taste.

This was yesterday dinner, not a clue of what we are eating today beside a pizza😂 the neighbors suggested to buy a paleta from a friend, we got also fuet (absolutely delicious) and got as a present these picos, what a cool name. Duck breast definitely not d’Artagnan. For sure tonight some jamon. Edit to add:making some tofu, emergency food when I don’t know what to cook 😊

It’s a fried food night. Fried artichokes, a few pieces of baccalà extra from making croquettas de bacalao, some shrimps chips just because my husband likes them. Salad, giant black bean from Rancho Gordon with tuna and a little plate of bruschette, eggplants.

Pasta and baccalà

In the mood for something fresh and light. Husband ate tu tuna raw, yellow tail is going to be dinner

@Smithy, sure I don’t mind. I put the potatoes under the rack and the duck on top. I normally start only with the roast for the fist 20 minutes so the duck, chicken, whatever I am roasting gets a nice color and start dripping some fat (I also add a little bit of water or stock and also some wine sometimes at the bottom so the oil doesn’t burn and it doesn’t produce too much smoke). First 20 minutes at 410-420F, I take out the pan from the oven, carefully remove the rack with the help of a tong and add the potatoes shaking them well in the fat, put the roast back and lower the temperature to 400. At the end, when I take out the meat and let rest, I might broil slightly the potatoes if necessary

I did this time because I added the potatoes later toward the end of cooking so I just wanted to cook them faster...but I don’t think it’s actually necessary when I cook with a roast. The end result is more of a soft potato. Differently if I am cooking potatoes on their own on cast iron or blue steel. In that case, I always parboil drain well, dry with a towel or paper, preheat the pan, then add oil and potatoes and roast. Also with a roast I alway go with yellow potatoes and if I roast the potatoes on their own more often I use russet or Idaho.