Ktepi

I'll always be grateful to Varmint for introducing me to Corned Ham, which in turn made me order Seasoned in the South, one of my favorite cookbooks.

Oh oh, and this Shain's of Maine ice cream is awesome. Got that at Lull's too. I know it seems like I pimp them a lot -- I live at Hollis Crossing and my mother, my bank, and the nearest post office are all in Hollis, so I pass by Lull's a couple times a week.

Lull's has Mirai corn, which is really good and sweet -- I'm told it's a hybrid of sweet corns, so that it's more tender than most super-sweet corn and sweeter than most tender corn. It definitely has more "corny" flavor than most of the sweet corn that's been so popular the last few years. Less happy with their melon. The muskmelon isn't very flavorful, and the one I bought the other day was so soft I could poke my finger through the rind the next day (I tossed it). I had the same low-flavor complaint about a cantaloupe I bought at the Pepperell Farmer's Market (though I really recommend the raw honey from same). I did get this little baseball-sized melon at Lull's that's very nice, though -- the sign said Sunshine Melon and described it as being like yellow watermelon, so I think someone moved the signs around; although it was smooth-skinned, it was more like a cantaloupe (with the web of seeds in the middle instead of interspersed like a watermelon's). Very nicely flavored, though -- you just don't get much, a small serving per melon. (Hannaford's has nice melon selection, but I like to get local stuff whenever I can.) Oh, and I went to C&S Pizza in Pepperell the other day for the first time in ... well, probably since about 1990. I've had take-out from there since then, but hadn't actually been in person. It's the pizza I grew up with, so I'm completely biased in its favor -- if anything, it's better than I remembered, because spending so many years in the rest of the country got me used to settling for not-so-great pizza.

Persian melon is the sexiest fruit I've eaten. That's my #1. #2 would be Crenshaws in Indiana -- the ones they have at the supermarket here aren't so great, and I haven't seen them from local farms, so maybe they don't grow well in New England. I've been disappointed with watermelon this year -- it doesn't seem possible to find non-seedless anymore! The supermarket only has seeded melon in the form of those expensive mini-melons (with rind too thin for pickling), and my local farmstand only has seedless and then bowling-ball-sized seeded hybrids. The latter have been good, but they're so sweet and so watery that there's not much actual flavor. I miss that deep red watermelon flavor that reminds you where the Wacky Wafer people got their inspiration. In general, I'm pretty happy with any muskmelon/netted melon.

Well, usually I'd expect it to be a little less sweet than this was, but I associate it with summer-fresh vegetables, so it's always sweet in that sense. For me, succotash is always corn sauteed with cooked (but fresh!) lima beans -- anything goes as long as those two things are in place, and I might add onion or pepper, especially if I have some left from something else. It's one of those dishes that's simple and just relies on the quality and freshness of the ingredients -- between this and okra & tomatoes, I could practically be a vegetarian this summer. (And yeah, I do that too -- I've made curried scrambled eggs a lot thanks to the breakfast thread!)

Succotash: fresh lima beans, Mirai corn, orange strawberry tomatoes, a little milk and a little salt. This is my first time using Mirai corn, and it's almost TOO sweet for something like this -- this was practically a dessert succotash.

What I wouldn't do for good black pudding. And nothing says I can't shake a little Tabasco on top!

My girlfriend and I were talking the other day about how neither of us particularly likes sweet breakfasts despite liking sweets in general -- I'll occasionally make pain perdu on a Sunday, and if I have donuts or something, they're dessert, not breakfast. But the exception for me is unsweetened yogurt with fruit and/or honey (or maple syrup etc). It helps that it's far less sweet than, say, a Cinnabon. The best, though, is homemade soft strawberry jam on unsweetened yogurt with a chiffonade of basil or mint. I have to wait for next year for that, because the jam I made this year wound up being eaten with yogurt for breakfast or ice cream for dessert. But ordinarily, yeah, I'm much more in the bacon and eggs camp, preferably with some spiciness involved.

Fage Total yogurt, fresh apricots, honey, birch syrup.

I haven't tried the strawberry or boysenberry, but I've yet to be disappointed by American Spoon, which have no corn syrup. The "spoon fruits" are sweetened with fruit juice, and although they aren't a jam as such, I think you could substitute them for jam in most cases. (I can't get sour cherries up here, so American Spoon is my go-to place for sour cherry preserves.)

Oh my gosh, Brenda.

I don't know how I haven't posted to this thread before. My friends know me for my "skinwiches" -- which I actually first mentioned in a novel with a chef character, and then decided to make myself, since I'd made them sound so good. Originally it was just a BLT, L optional, with super-crispy chicken skin. I've made them tons of different ways -- turkey skin sandwiches with leftover stuffing and a schmear of cranberry, on Thanksgiving Friday -- but these days if I'm making them for myself, I just put crispy chicken skin on lightly toasted bread with a little pimento cheese, a little hot sauce, and a slice of very fresh tomato if they're in season. Peppadews are really good too. Or broccoli raab. Or this salsa verde I made with garlic, ramps, ong choy, fresh Thai chiles, and a little oil.

Has anyone had Clear Creek's whiskey? None of their products are carried here (in fact, this thread made me realize that the NH liquor stores do not appear to carry any eau de vie), but I have a friend in Portland who's going to pick up a few of their items for me in the fall.

Oooh, judging from Google, I think you're right. Will they table-ripen? Some of them have some red blush on them, and I'm undecided whether that was there when I bought them, or if they've ripened in the last two days. Right now they're very astringent.

Clockwise from nine o'clock: Kool Aid watermelon rind pickles (cherry); Smoked pork (tails, belly, and ribs) smoked in a Savu smoker bag, with braised greens (kale and chicory), barbecue sauce (tomatoes and garlic smoked in a Savu, pureed with brown sugar, birch syrup, chile pepper, and lots of malt vinegar), and pimento cheese (I'm normally a minimalist about pimento cheese, but in this case added extra hot sauce, a little mustard, and ramps); Home-made pork crackling, with a splash of Louisiana hot sauce.

... you limit yourself to buying one package of the mystery fruit, despite thinking to yourself, "But ... what if it's awesome?"

I bought these in an Asian market (Battambang in Lowell, MA) that also sells a number of Latin American items, so I don't know which this is. It was under a sign marked "green beans" and priced only as "fruit." For size reference, they're about the size of cherries. The little bag there was tucked into the package -- I thought it was chile salt, but I don't taste any chile in it. The fruits, whatever they are, are tart and astringent, which a texture like an apple or crabapple. Anyone? I'm guessing they're high in pectin, so I'm tempted to make a jelly. I'd candy them, even, but I haven't had any luck in candying apples or quinces -- I don't like the texture they take on. (The same market also sold fresh dragonfruit, frozen mangosteens, frozen custard apples, and frozen rambutans; I bought the first two and am in heaven.)

Tada! Kiwi-ish sounds right to me -- the combination of sweet, mild, wet, and refreshing reminds me of melon, too, especially since there's a little bit of crispness to the texture. This was the first dragonfruit I've had. My ex spent a year in China, and became addicted to dragonfruit and mangosteens but has had little luck with them here -- the dragonfruits she finds are too often over-ripe, and the mangosteens are "buggy." But I was exploring Battambang Market in Lowell, Mass., and they looked gorgeous and weren't too expensive for tropical fruit ($3.50 for this one).

Oooh, U toy sounds excellent, then. I love Chinese greens in general (I picked up others, these were just the only ones I didn't recognize) -- I may have those for lunch. The "green beans" aren't eggplant, they're definitely a fruit -- tart, astringent, sort of apple-like in texture, and sold with a small packet of what I think is chile-salt tucked into the package. I'll try to get a good photo of them -- they might not be Asian, they could be Latin American.

No eggs today: Fresh dragonfruit.

Yep, the tamarind leaves are fresh -- really fresh, by the looks of them. I don't know if someone is growing tamarinds here, or if they're imported. I love good Tom Yum, so a variant on that sounds like a good use! The Pork Fu is pretty tasty -- I just opened it up to try some, I can see how it'd be good that way. Cool, I thought that might be how it was used. Thanks for the help!

Hi guys. I've been reading this thread but haven't posted before. Bear with me here: I went shopping at a large Southeast Asian market half an hour away today, and because I knew I wouldn't be there often, I got a number of things even though I wasn't terribly sure what they were. I figured the internet would give me a hand, and most of them were so cheap that it was no great risk. I don't know that all (or any) of these are Thai -- Lowell has a large Cambodian population, and I don't know how much overlap there is there. This market also sells some Latin American items, which might be relevant to the produce. So. These are the items I don't know anything about: Bitter melon leaves Tamarind leaves Frozen mangosteens (I know what mangosteens are, but is there anything I need to know here, or can I just thaw them and have at it?) U Toy (some kind of green) Green beans (they look like green crabapples, the price tag says "fruit," the sign said "green beans") Shrimp fat in oil Pork Fu (dried shredded sweetened pork) Left to my own devices, my thought is to stir-fry the greens, or use them in hot and sour soup. The shrimp fat in oil, I have no clue about.

WOW -- Southeast Asian Restaurant was great -- my friend and I got the buffet, I'm trying to introduce him to more Southeast Asian food. $14 for the two of us, not including tip. Battambang isn't far away --not sure how far, because we got turned around, accidentally found the original (and apparently now closed) location, and then finally found the sleek and huge new location. Good Lord. I filled a shopping cart for $82. Whole pineapple, top cut off, $1.50. A pork picnic, just the right size to smoke, $4. And plenty of unusual items: tamarind leaves, kaffir lime leaves, fresh dragonfruit, pig tails, the works. I'll definitely have to check out Spice Center next, once I use this stuff up.

It turns out the Savu smoker bag does not make for a very smoky lobster -- in the past, I've always tea-smoked the lobster for this sandwich, but that sets off the smoke detectors, and I figured this was a good thing to try with the bags. Ah well. The other smoked ingredients wound up bringing out more smoke flavor than I thought when I first tasted the lobster. Sully's lobster roll: smoked lobster, super-crispy bacon, and a sauce of lobster stock, shredded smoked ham hock, peppers, onions, and hot sauce, thickened with butter and a little demiglace. Most of what you see there is the sauce, but there's more lobster than it may seem.

Just a little Louisiana hot sauce -- I fried the bacon, dumped out most of the bacon grease and fried a little onion in what was left, and then added the okra, tomatoes, and a shake of hot sauce, and simmered for 15 minutes.