Kim Shook

I'm hoping to be able to participate in this thread next week. Adjacent to downtown is a New Zealand influenced (I don't know if they are actually from NZ) sweet and savoury pie shop called Proper Pie. The plan is that one of the days that Mr. Kim is working from the office (generally 3 out of 5) he will go by on his way home and pick up what I order. Stay tuned!!!

Welcome to eGullet, @George441!!! I am very interested in hearing about your food experiences. I've discovered through @Duvel that I love German food.

And, to be honest, I'm betting that most of us responding are NOT African Americans. That can't help but limit our responses. Because TRUE soul food is found in homes first. I was lucky enough to grow up summers in NC next door to a black family. My granddaddy had an unused house on his farm and liked to let young families use it for a while in order to save towards building/buying a home of their own. The men would help him with some farm projects and the women with house work. One of the families that lived there for a few years when I was a little girl was African American. My grandmother worked in an office and my grandfather had the cattle farm and his own machine shop, so I spent a lot of time with that family. The food was very, very simple. Pork and vegetable forward. I remember a lot of hog jowls and fatback. And stacks of white bread on the table to wrap around a piece of meat. Other than tomatoes in summer, I don't remember any vegetable served raw or "crisp-tender". No casseroles either. And that was a big difference between white and black. The white families that I ate with in small town NC ate a LOT of casseroles in the 1960's. Even at tent revivals, I never saw casseroles. Lots of pork, a few folks would bring fried or baked chicken, pots of long-cooked vegetables, cornbread, biscuits, not a lot of desserts - maybe a few pies or cakes. All of it slightly moist with condensation from being covered with foil during the revival - you didn't eat until you were saved. But these memories are limited, too. I was a little white girl spending a little time with ONE black family and a VERY little time with a black church community.

I looks and tastes like that. But the texture is a little lighter than that would be. There is almost a fluffiness when you actually take a bite. So good and crazy easy.

Mr. Kim has Zoom poker tonight, so he stopped at the same sub shop we stopped at last weekend to get sandwiches for us tonight. He got the Buffalo Chicken sub: He was very happy with it but said I would find it too spicy. I got the Italian this time – ham, Salami, and Capicola: Unfortunately, the capicola was spicy (was not listed as such on the menu) and I had to pull it off the sandwich. Good sandwich otherwise.

Just went to abebooks.com and ordered a copy. $5.99 and free shipping!

Made @caroled's chocolate pie tonight. She says it is @racheld's favorite and I completely understand: Yes, there should be a scoop of good vanilla ice cream on top of that slice. According to my freezer inventory, we had some. Turned out to be not only freezer burnt, but SUGAR FREE😖. I added good ice cream to my shopping list and tossed that in the garbage.

So, this doesn't get cooked in sauce (like braciole does)?

See, he's armed and still people managed to fob off 17 zucchini on him.

I agree with @heidih. It is so hard to distinguish between "southern" and "soul food". Is African American food stuff that servants and enslaved folk cooked for white folk? Or food they cooked for themselves? Both? Is soul food and "country" or poor white folk food the same? It is a BIG subject. I'll add to @heidih's good suggestions reading what Michael W. Twitty has to say and recommend. He's a wonderful, insightful writer about food, race, and history.

Treated myself to these two for the table when we are eating casually: I have some really pretty ones that will still go on the table when we are "dressing up", but they hold table salt and coarse grind pepper. This way I can put Maldon salt flakes and peppercorns on the table. I collect green Depression glass and display it in the dining room, so the salt cellar is perfect. The pepper grinder a 5 1/2-inch Mincham.

@Shelby – I detest squash in any guise, but if you set that carpaccio in front of me, I think that it’s beauty would convince me that it was delicious. It just LOOKS sublime. @Robenco15 – you are making some beautiful pizza! If I were eating with you I would wish for some anti-crust kids so I could have extra crust! I liked what you said about the cheese melting, but not overly. I don’t like when the cheese forms a crust. But it is hard to get a good, charred crust and a melting, gooey cheese in an oven. @Norm Matthews – beautiful brisket. I showed it to Mr. Kim and now he has that look in his eyes! @liamsaunt – how I would love that sandwich buffet! I’d unashamedly snag one of each! @alwaysdrawing – that’s a nice looking crust on your chicken. I love how well it’s adhering – even though it’s sliced. I love all manner of lobster. Being on the east coast, I’ve mostly had Maine, of course. I remember when @Ted Fairhead was dating my mother, he took us out to dinner and told me to order anything I liked. I was 8, so I’m sure he expected something very ordinary. I asked if I could have a lobster. He gulped and asked Momma if I really knew what it was and would I eat it. She replied that he’d be lucky if I left him one bite😁. When we were in Bermuda a few years ago, I ate lobster. It tasted different from what I was used to, but so good. What kind would that have been? (I’ve been carrying on with stories a lot lately! Hope it is ok with y’all!🤐) Last night started with…ta da! Salad: I had leftover miso after making the monkfish last week and decided to use it to make scallops (what the original recipe calls for). I took a chance and got a 12 oz. bag of frozen US wild caught scallops for $15. I thawed them and put them between layers of paper towels for a couple of hours in the fridge. They seared beautifully: This recipe (which was recommended by @nakji many years ago) calls for the scallops to be dusted with flour after rubbing with garlic and salt and pepper. I think that I slightly overcooked them because it made them stick to the pan and I nearly burnt the sauce because of the flour in the pan. I think that next time (which is going to be Saturday because I have leftover sauce), I am just going to salt/pepper/garlic and sear them in some ghee. I was really pleasantly surprised at the flavor of these scallops. They amply fed the two of us, too. Topped with mustard/miso sauce and served with ramen noodles and butter bean (leftovers that needed to be eaten): And a little ciabatta to sop up the sauce:

@Paul Bacino– that is an absolutely perfect poached egg! I am envious. Day before yesterday: Chips and salsa and peppered turkey and lettuce on white bread. Yesterday - Cheesy pretzels: Fried bologna and cheese: Grilled

BBC reports that a fishmonger in Kuwait was putting googly eyes on his fish to make them look "fresher".

@pastameshugana – that sandwich looks like an eat-over-the-sink version. And then you get to wipe up any yolky goodness with the end of the bun! Lovely! @blue_dolphin – I am in need of a reminder that goat cheese goes equally well with sweet and savory things. What a gorgeous breakfast that peach/chèvre/banana bread is. And I like the look of your tuna salad bahn mi. I wish I could find such beautiful bread. What are the vegetables in your sandwich – cucumber, carrot, and…? “How I found eGullet” is such an interesting topic that I’m sure there is a thread somewhere with that topic. If anyone knows, I’d love a link to it. As for me, my memory is that I followed Steven and Jason over from Chowhound. It was obvious to me that this was where the cool kids were going to be. Characteristically I think I lurked for at least a year before joining. I built myself a nice breakfast sandwich this morning. Foundation: Warmed up Off the Bone ham: A nice, tidy round egg: Served with a hash brown patty. And, as you can see from what happened when the top of the English muffin was smushed down, that egg was PERFECTLY cooked:

What I wouldn't give for a shop like that near me. I don't mind salad cream on some things. Excuse me if I've told this before, but when my English stepsisters came to the US back in the late 1960's, that was the only way they'd eat salad. When their Nanny came over from England, she brought some with her. I tasted it on a salad and remarked that it tasted like coleslaw. My mother tasted it and agreed and bought some Marzetti slaw dressing. They loved it and have used either that or Kraft coleslaw dressing ever since. We can get salad cream now, but it is crazy expensive.

Yeah. My MIL promised me this about turnips and beets when I met her. 🤢

I will never get over my disappointment of visiting a friend who actually lived in Chelsea and waking up in the morning to Lender's bagels from the freezer for breakfast. 😳

When I was 4, my parents convinced me to eat peas by showing me that the can had "English" on the label and said that that meant they were the ones that the Beatles ate. I choked them down for a couple of years until I wised up.

God, where do I begin? ANY kind of squash. Eggplant. ANY kind of pepper. Are peas and asparagus summer or just spring? Chard. Kale. I'll stop there.

and the bagels?

Yep! Us, too. That's why we're going to slip back up to Wegman's today and get some more of that gorgeous creamy cheese. We have more of everything else.

To put in my two cents on the broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts issue – I am that weird person who dislikes SO many vegetables but loves all three of those and always has! I ended up with an embarrassment of riches last night: I bought a carton of figs (the white ones) at Wegman’s when I was there on Friday. Then when Mr. Kim went by his mom’s after work last night, she gave him the others. I made a pre-dinner snack that ended up as dinner. Naan, our favorite creamy dolce Gorgonzola, sliced figs, and toasted almonds: 425F for a few minutes and drizzled with local honey: And topped with some dressed arugula: Just amazingly good. I said to Mr. Kim that I need to go through all my recipes (Ha!) and pull out all the ones that call for fresh figs and file them all together. Fig season is SO short and when you buy them you only have a couple of days to use them. It always seems to sneak up on me and I have a pile of figs to deal with and I’m not at all prepared. I end up candying them all. That’s delicious, but I’d love to do more actual cooking with them!

I would love to have this recipe. The zucchini inundation hasn't yet begun, but I know it will and fritters are the only way we can bear it. This morning: Store-bought ciabatta and scrambled eggs.

You say that it came with no box. Came from where? Did you buy it at a store or a yard sale or what? And where did you get it (geographically)? My everyday stainless is Gorham - I have no idea of the pattern, but I know I got it at Costco. I would guess that it was made for Costco to sell and I wouldn't expect it to be available anywhere except maybe ebay.