Kim Shook

@weinoo – that was an awfully nice looking egg sitting on top of the rice. Was it basted? @liamsaunt – the egg croissant sandwich made me commit the sin of envy! Just gorgeous. And the BLT on the soft white is also delightful looking. @Shelby– oh, MY. That lovely, lovely tomato sandwich. Confession time: sometimes when we have really good tomatoes I’ve been known to make 2 halves of a tomato sandwich – one with toast and one with soft bread. It’s so hard to decide between the two. Re: the dyed hair. I’ve never done an unconventional color. Unless you count the time in college that I was playing a Mexican lady. I am a glow-in-the dark white girl with reddish/light brown/blondish hair. I accidentally dyed my hair with permanent dye instead of washout and chose “midnight black”. 😳 Anyway, Jessica DID dye her hair blue in HS. She was an acolyte at church and when some of the more staid members of our congregation expressed disapproval to the priest he said, “I’ve got a teenager who shows up every week, excited to serve her church and her faith. I’m not saying a word to her and neither should you.” 🥰 Some recent breakfasts: Toast, some lovely peaches from Charlottesville VA area orchards and scrambled eggs. My birthday was the 9th and Mr. Kim went out early for bagels: Egg and bacon ET bagel. Yesterday: Good tomatoes on toast for breakfast brings back my childhood. Except back then it was Miracle Whip instead of Dukes. Momma never liked mayonnaise. And that GREEN RINGED egg looks awful, but it tasted good. Too much natural release in the IP. Today: A hot crusty roll filled with too much butter is another childhood favorite. This was from Wegman’s bakery, but Momma used to get the Pepperidge Farm ones in the bread aisle. They still make them, but now they are called Artisan French rolls and are frozen. Not the same to me.

I know that everyone knows about the wonderful tomato-peeling properties of the CSO, but have you tried peaches? I did the other day when I needed to prep about 8 for freezing before they went south. Worked perfectly. I carved a little "X" in the bottom of each peach, put them in the pan "X" up, and super steamed them at 400F. for a few minutes (I think it ended up being 7). What a joy not to have to deal with the pot of boiling water and pull the peaches out only to find that they haven't been in long enough.

Happy Belated Birthday, @kayb! The garden “gifts” have begun – zucchini from my SIL: 10 cups total. Another SIL brought us some Charlottesville VA peaches – prepared for freezing:

For my birthday, Mr. Kim got me a bread machine. He told me ages ago that he was going to, but I completely forgot: A KBS MBF-010 Bread machine. It seems to have a lot more functions than my old one and is intimidating me a little. The directions are obviously translated and are a little odd: For instance, I have NO clue what this all means: 😳😳😳 I thought it would be a good idea to make one of the recipes that come with the machine before setting out to experiment with my old recipes. Almost all of the recipes call for powdered milk and it took us 4 grocery stores to find some in stock. Apparently powdered milk is the new TP. I am planning to make a simple loaf this afternoon. I’ll update later.

Very quick question. I'm making @Darienne's Margarita Pie and the recipe calls for gold tequila. I only have silver. We are not big tequila drinkers, so would it be alright to use the silver? Thanks!

🤣🤣🤣As I used to say to my English stepdad when he offered me some of the sausages that his mum smuggled over to the US, "No, thank you. I prefer my toast on the side, not IN the sausage". 😉

Welcome to eGullet, Louis! If you were intrigued by Modernist Cuisine, you should find a lot here to interest you. We will also love to hear about your daily food and what you are learning.

I will keep an eye out at Big Lots, Aldi, Lidl, etc. for a Belgian waffle maker. I have tried the hashbrowns on my regular waffle maker. I did it back in 2016 and these were my thoughts: "Not sure I’m enthralled like everyone else seems to be. They got too dark no matter what I did. It doesn’t come out in a nice, one piece ‘waffle’ really – much looser than that. And in the end, you have a hard-to-clean waffle iron to wash instead of a simple-to-clean sauté pan." I only tried it once, though - YMMV.

This is the first time I've seen @Toliver's old post about the waffle iron tot thingy. I only have a regular waffle iron. Looks like I my need a Belgian waffle iron. They ought to make an iron that does both!

Oh, man, we really need a "Wow" button!

Welcome, @Ronald N. Tan! Lots of folks here who love Indian food, so you should be in good company.

I just wish that they would come out with one that disassembles, so that I could blend gooey things in it and get them out. I've given up using it for anything sticky and thick.

@liamsaunt – what an incredible fried meal! That is my favorite shore meal! I’ve only ever had whole belly clams twice – both times in a restaurant in Jacksonville FL. We went two times in the week we were there, and they were so good that they were the only thing I ordered both nights! And those onion rings look absolutely perfect. It’s hard to get anything but batter dipped rings anymore, but much prefer the crumb coated. Dinner last night included the wonderful gazpacho that Mr. Kim made from a lot of our produce stand haul: Rice flour/beer batter fried shrimp, beets (for Mr. Kim), naan, and cocktail sauce flavored with this stuff: Mr. Kim was able to order two bottles of this limited edition of hot sauce. It is perfect with seafood. Also tomatoes and corn:

The great thing about REAL Tres Leches is that it isn't overly sweet. The whipped cream on top was barely sweetened at all.

I hadn't thought about that. Maybe we can toss candies out of the second floor windows - like a stationary parade. 😟

@MokaPot - sorry! I do them every year and forgot that some folks might not have seen them yet. Just pickling cucumbers, onions, apple cider vinegar, LOTS of pepper, and sugar (I use Splenda as we are diabetics). The liquid is ALL vinegar at this point. They will sit in the refrigerator all summer - I'll be adding more cukes, onions, seasonings, and vinegar as needed. They do lose a lot of liquid as time goes by, so I have to keep topping up with vinegar. @heidih - yep! Those are the ones. I couldn't find that thread! Thank you!

Did a couple of things in the CSO today and yesterday with mixed results: Beets – There are multiple directions for beets. I tried 40 minutes at 400F super steam – still crunchy. Another 10 minutes – still crunchy. Tried 450F bake/steam for 15 minutes – finally done. I’m thinking that the fault was in the beets and not the CSO. I’m guessing that beets in July are somewhat elderly vegetables. They all had the greens cut off and my MIL says that indicates they are older. Sorry for the lousy picture! Between the blur and the glare I think I've triggered a migraine 😉 ! Skinning tomatoes – there are two different directions for skinning tomatoes in the CSO PDF – one says steam at 210F for 5+ minutes. I tried that and got up to 10 minutes with no looseness at all. The other says super steam at 400F for 9 minutes. I did this for 5 minutes and it was perfect. I have a suggestion, though. The directions that call for super steam are at the beginning of the vegetable section instead of down with the tomato directions. I just happened to catch sight of the word “tomato”. Could someone move this down to the other tomato directions?

Cucumbers started: (I'm not at all sure that this is where these belong. If not, I apologize!)

Our produce stand haul from this weekend: Mr. Kim has plans for gazpacho later today. The corn is from Florida, but was incredibly crunchy and fresh tasting. I always check the stem ends and they were very damp. This corn was shipped properly.

@BonVivant - I don't know whether to thank you or curse you for those fabulous bread pictures! 😁 Tried a new place for lunch on Sunday - Bocata Arepa Bar. Jessica had a carne asada arepa with cheese, and coleslaw: And a cheese Capacha: A corn cake stuffed with and topped with 2 kinds of cheese. Mr. Kim had the Pepito – a sub with steak, avocado, tomatoes, guasacaca cheese, something called Pink Sauce (ketchup and mayo), potato sticks and ham: It was a monster – that’s a very large dinner plate. I had a shredded beef empanada and a chicken and cheese arepa: We shared a very large order of fries: Sauces – hot sauce and garlic sauce and one single packet of ketchup 😂: It was fine – we had plenty of ketchup at home, but we had to laugh. For dessert the three of us shared a slice of tres leches: Everything was so fresh tasting and delicious. Even better than the place that Mr. Kim and I ate at on Saturday and it is just around the corner from us instead of 20 minutes away across the river. And an actual home made lunch from today: Aldi Pane Torano bread, toasted with Dukes and tomatoes.

No excuse for that. Such an easy thing - really good sausage (they don't even have to house make it) and decent all butter pastry (again, they could purchase it). Breakfast this morning: Fried egg on a buttered and toasted Hawaiian roll and a mandarin orange cup.

@Miriravan – your baguette and cheese memories are quite like mine from college. Back then, my cheese would have been a couple of Laughing Cow wedges – cheap and filling and not bad tasting at all! @gfweb– I really, really like the idea of an apricot upside down cake! @robirdstx – LOVE that broccoli salad! I just put it on my menu list to go with some meatloaf soon. Cross your fingers for me - Meatloaf and I have a very checkered past. 😁 Pre-dinner snacks for the 4th: I did ribs in the IP for dinner (talk about “Blasphemy Ribs”). I usually do St. Louis ribs but chose baby backs in case the IP wouldn’t hold the larger ribs: The little pile on the upper right is the ENTIRE membrane on the back of the rack which I pulled of IN ONE PIECE. I am inordinately proud of that. I rubbed them with Penzey’s BBQ 3000 rub overnight. Out of the IP: As you can see from all the visible bone, they were slightly overcooked. It was 23 minutes and I think 20 would have been better. They were not mushy, just a little too soft. We do not aim for that “fall off the bone” nonsense. Brushed with BBQ sauce and broiled: Salad: Just an ordinary salad, but with @Norm Matthews China Coast dressing which everyone loved. Plate: IP Ribs, fixed up canned baked beans, fixed up boxed mac and cheese, and Jiffy cornbread. 😂😂😂 Dinner last night was dinner was a mishmash of all the leftovers in our refrigerator plus some beets done in the CSO for Mr. Kim: And the dessert I had planned for the 4th: Stocks pound cake from Philadelphia (the best I’ve ever tasted), strawberry ice cream, and chocolate sauce.

Oh, MY! That is gorgeous. I've done gingerbread waffles before, but not the broiled fruit. Just lovely looking.

So weird. They’d go out and buy them in a store or have them delivered by a complete stranger, but wouldn’t take them from someone they know? People are odd.

Can’t you find someone to give them to?