Franci

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.

Yes! I use this very heavy roasting pan that I bought at Costco almost 20 years ago, I have a round rack that fits perfectly and it sits tall enough that potatoes have some room

Roasted duck legs and potatoes, asparagus and salad

Rest of the garden it’s in progress, ah btw, the husband read your comments, he said that I didn’t clarify that the raised beds do not have concrete at the bottom, it’s open to the soil. Anyway we got a dwarf Meyer lemon (which I do not like but they told me are the one doing better here) and a Persian lime. Plus a mango tree. The other day we also got a small bay leaf and a rosemary.

I had some quinoa already cooked in the fridge but my mother in law has difficulties eating it, so I bake it. Also 2 duck leg confit, with potatoes and some sauté chicory

Long time I didn’t make gnocchi and these came out just right

my husband too...and it’s psychological, because if you cook just the outside doesn’t help, but after pulling a couple very long worms (from other fishes) I got a little squeamish. If we decide to redo the kitchen in a couple years, I am considering a blast chiller just for that

Thank you, @JoNorvelleWalker. For my experience, the cooking it’s important but not as much as people think. It’s the tuna that makes the difference. This was freshly caught, more often we get the black fin than yellow fin because it’s more common...huge difference. And I’ve cooked my share of previously frozen tuna from supermarket...for some, no matter how careful I was with the cooking the result was mediocre. Some were better than others, you realize when you defrost 3 pieces and cook exactly at the same time and depending on the where in the fillet the particular piece come from or just comes from a different fish and the result is quite different. This yellow fin, I might give different cooking times to some of the steaks, to make everyone happy at the table but still comes out juicy and not dry even when not super rare. So, my advice is look for a place where you consistently had better results. Frozen fish from Costco in my experience always better the Wholefoods for example.

Yellowfin tuna

Homemade cavatelli with zucchini, tuna and a spicy tomato sauce