Kim Shook

I appreciate so much all the interest and good wishes! @Smithy – the salad at Edelweiss was dressing in their house dressing – just a basic vinaigrette. The greens were so flavorful that I used very little dressing – something I almost never do. And, as far as I could tell, their Bavarian cabbage was a very flavorful braised cabbage – caramelized, but still a little crisp and not as strongly spiced or sweet as red cabbage. And thanks to @Jim D. for posting the link I’ll be trying that brûléed cornbread soon, I hope. I love your Hearst castle story, too. Gotta love a tour guide who loves their job! @Jim D. – thank you for the link to the cornbread recipe. I will absolutely be trying that. We even went out to the farm in Waynesboro and bought a couple jars of the jam to go with it. And I have to agree about The Shack – I’m afraid that with such a limited menu, I’d end up paying a LOT of money for a bunch of things I wouldn’t eat and a few I would. There are lots of restaurants that do a tasting menu that I wouldn’t go to for the same reason. We considered it but decided it just didn’t make sense. I would like to go to the grocery next time we’re in town. I think @kayb is familiar with The Shack because I got their recipe for deviled ham from her. @ElsieD – I don’t think that there is any way of telling if a catfish is farmed or wild without it saying it on the packaging. I know in the US packers are required by law to label the fish about the country or origin and whether the fish is farmed or wild caught. @kayb – you’ll be glad if you visit Jim D. Not only for his chocolates either. Every time we’ve picked up candy, we’ve had a wonderful, chatty visit.

@MaryIsobel - I don't think you are being persnickety, either. Noting the obvious deficiencies in one thing doesn't make you any less grateful for the people and care you received in everything but nutrition. I find that, once again, our clickable emoji comments are insufficient to your post. I could use the "sad" one for the fact that you had an injury and were subjected to a hospital stay. Or I could have chosen a "like" for the fact that you are home and on the mend. What I really wanted was an "angry" one -to react to the awful waste of food and the lack of care and the willful ignorance of the importance of good food to healing and both mental and physical health. I am truly sorry for your troubles and hope you will mend quickly and completely!

I’ve put myself behind the 8-ball a bit because I let so much time transpire before getting this trip recorded. The dates were 3/18-3/21 and I somehow forgot that I hadn’t written it up. So, I’m having to work with photos, memory, and FB. I’ll hope for the best! We decided to go to Staunton VA for something new. Not a lot of big plans, but we knew there was a huge antique mart there. And some good or good sounding restaurants. 3/18 Off we go: First stop was D&L Doughnuts which were completely out of doughnuts at 10AM! So, we ended up at a place called Kathy’s for what ended up being a really great breakfast. This is a family owned and frequented restaurant – lots of locals and older folks (just my type of place). Mr. Kim had the eggs and country ham with biscuits, potatoes, and grits: That was one gorgeous slab of ham. Thick and juicy and not at all overly salty. I had over medium eggs, sausage links, grits, biscuits and gravy: We judge grits by flavor and whether you can eat them with a fork or not. If you have to use a spoon, they are too thin. These were perfectly forkable grits. Our next stop that day was The Factory Antique Mall just up the interstate from Staunton. Advertised as the largest antiques mall in the US, it is certainly enormous. We figured that we got about 1/4 way through before stopping to share a chili dog at the café: For what amounted to a snack bar in the middle of an old-fashioned peddler’s mall, they serve a fabulous dog. We reckoned this was a Costco dog – it was about that size and more than enough to share. It was perfectly grilled and topped with a chili that I’d guess was someone’s grandma’s secret recipe. It was wonderful. Found lots of food related stuff – nothing that we were specifically looking for – including this fun looking pamphlet: …from 1952. I wasn’t willing to spend $12 on it, so it got left behind. Dinner that night was at the Byers Street Bistro. We started with some gorgeous Brussels sprouts and fried green tomatoes: Flash fried with bacon and candied pecans and dressed with a honey/thyme vinaigrette. These were panko breaded and served with a corn relish and pimento cheese. I’m stealing that pairing – it was perfect. For my main, I had fish and chips: The fish and slaw were good, but I wish they’d been chips. I just don’t like waffle fries. Mr. Kim, weirdly, I thought, chose pizza: I was wrong. This was surprisingly good pizza. 3/19/2023 When we’d been disappointed at the doughnut shop the first morning they suggested that we call them early the following morning to place an order and they would set it aside for us. We got up bright and early and called. So, finally we DID get our doughnuts: No clue at this point what kind they all were but based on our tastes at least one of those top ones is glazed, one is lemon filled, and one is black raspberry. One of the chocolate ones has to be Boston crème – Mr. Kim’s favorite. My creaky memory is telling me that the one with the crumbles on top is some kind of toffee? The black raspberry one: This was just our pre-church snack; we also had brunch. We went to a service at Trinity Episcopal church – so beautiful and welcoming. Large congregation, but folks seemed to know each other and were very chatty. Lots of outreach and community involvement. We went back the 21st to really look at everything and take pictures. They have some gorgeous Tiffany stained glass windows. Brunch was at Zynodoa. I didn’t get any really trusted recommendations for restaurants in Staunton like I usually do – we didn’t decide on it early enough for me to do any in depth research. So, I relied on Yelp, menu reading, and the city tourism website. Overall, it worked very well and Zynodoa is a great example of that. Excellent food, great people, interesting menu and beautiful surroundings: Their focus is local procurement, and they have a chalkboard listing their partners: The list has many places we recognized including our @Jim D.’s Santiago chocolates. Our drinks – I was the boring ice tea and Mr. Kim was the spicy Bloody: We started with this amazing duo: Brûléed cornbread and Wenger’s grape jam. Doing that to cornbread was something that never occurred to me and serving it with grape jam certainly never did. But both things were incredible. I’m not even sure how I would go about brulee-ing a cornbread, but I’m definitely going to try. And I’ve been a Welches’ girl all of my 63 years, but this stuff was SO good. We even drove back to Waynesboro a couple of days later to pick up a couple of jars from the farm that makes it. Mr. Kim had the Farmer’s Breakfast: Edward’s Surry sausage, Autumn Olive Farm bacon. Walk About Farm scrambled eggs, homefries, and a biscuit: Looks a bit of a mess, but it was delicious. I had the Eggs Benedict - poached eggs, hollandaise and Edward’s ham on an English muffin with home fries: The one thing that was not excellent were the potatoes. For such a great place, with food that was so carefully collected and prepared, they were a disappointment. I’m pretty sure they were just boiled and then deep fried – very plain and uninteresting. The breakfasts would have been perfect with griddle or pan-fried potatoes and onions. Dinner that night was at the Edelweiss Restaurant. We think we’d eaten there years before when we lived in Charlottesville, but aren’t positive. It’s German, of course, which we love, but we thought (and our German friend agreed) that this was not fantastic and that there are better German/Bavarian restaurants in the area. Good, but not great. I started with a really nice salad, though: For dinner, I had the wiener schnitzel: This tasted pretty good but the coating didn’t adhere to the pork at all – the more I cut into it, the more fell off until I ended up with a pile of coating and naked pork cutlets. Mr. Kim had the rindsrouladen: This was very tender and tasted good, but the gravy was a bit gelatinous. The sides are served family-style and were all very, very good: Green beans, Bavarian cabbage, spaetzle, and red cabbage. 3/20/2023 Our 41st Anniversary We took a long ride through the countryside in the morning and stopped at Mrs. Rowe’s for lunch. Just outside of Staunton, it has been in the same family for over 75 years. Just good, homey American food. They do all their own baking – breads, pies, cakes, cookies, etc. Nothing very elegant, but very good. I had this inelegant, but delicious hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes: Mr. Kim had the meatloaf with pintos, collards, yeast rolls, and mashed potatoes and gravy: This is the kind of “meat & 3’s” place that you can order just the vegetables and have a fantastic meal. We were too full for dessert, but we got some cookies to take with us. We spent the afternoon touring the American Shakespeare theatre. The “group” was only US, so it was like a private tour. Once the docent discovered that we were (former) theatre people he regaled us with stories and showed us all over the place. The tour is supposed to take 45 minutes and I think we were there for about an hour and a half. We’re looking forward to going back for a show sometime. Dinner was at Blu Point Seafood Co. I started with calamari with horseradish dip: This was really excellent – very sweet and perfectly tender. Someone in the kitchen knows how to cook this! Mr. Kim started with their version of Oysters Rock – made with kale and Parm: Very good. They didn’t overdo the Parm like so many places do. For dinner, I had the Captain’s Platter – fried shrimp, bay scallops, and haddock with hush puppies: …and the most enormous onion rings I’ve ever seen: The quality of the fish was good, but the breading was too heavy and not for me. I really prefer a thin, brittle crust on seafood. Mr. Kim had the blackened catfish with black eyed peas & rice and Cajun cream sauce: He enjoyed this very much. He suffered most of his life from family and neighbor-caught muddy tasting catfish and only in the past decade or so has discovered the joys of sweet, fresh tasting farmed catfish. So, when it is on offer, he’s most likely going to have it. 3/21/23 This was the day that we went home. In the morning we toured and photographed the church we’d attended on Sunday: Then was lunch at Wright’s Dairy-Rite which I’ve mentioned a few times before. Just a classic, old-style burger, fries, and shake place. I had their Super Burger – their version of a Big Mac (except Wright’s came out before McD’s) and their incomparable onion rings: Mr. Kim had a big cheeseburger, fries, and a malted chocolate shake: Everything was fantastic except, sadly, the fries which were lukewarm and flabby instead of hot and crisp. On our way out of town, we stopped at @Jim D.'s for a nice visit and to pick up a box of his delectable Santiago chocolates: Every time we open a box of his chocolates, we discover a new favorite. This time Jessica’s was the passionfruit ganache molded in white chocolate. Mine was the chocolate and buckwheat honey ganache enclosing a toasted hazelnut. Mr. Kim’s was the crème brûlée – crunchy bits of dark caramel, vanilla buttercream molded in dark chocolate. He also gave us a chocolate bar with pecans and the best candied orange peel I’ve ever tasted. The three of us fell in love with that. Going home – one of our long-time road trip traditions: Pretty much any time we are going any real distance in the car we stop and buy two Good Humor bars – one strawberry shortcake bar and one chocolate éclair bar – and share them. When I was a kid these two were alternated with Toasted Almond and Coconut bars – both sadly discontinued now. Since it was just the two of us, we only had one bar. I have to say that, as good as most everything was, the theme of the trip as far as food went was “It could have been hotter”. Almost every single thing we were served was cooler than optimal. It was very strange. Not cold enough to send back, but cool enough to notice and so pervasive that we started giggling at it and competing to see who said it first.

I understand exactly what you meant, @BeeZee. I think you are talking about expectations (as a matter of fact, that's the word that you used) and not hard and fast rules. I don't think you needed to be chastised and told what eG is supposed to be about. I think that your point brings up an interesting conversation and this topic even mentions "defining" in the title. And I think that gochujang makes perfect sense. I don't think I've ever made a cheese sauce without adding a little Frank's hot sauce - so much rich gooeyness needs something to punch it up a little and gochujang would, of course, do the same thing in spades!

Wow! Being on the land settled by your own family gives you a truly unique perspective on food and the gathering/preparing of it. Can't wait to hear/see more.

Welcome to eG, @KingDuckford! I think you'll find lots of information and lots of fun and good people here. Can you tell us a little about where you are from/have lived? I always find that interesting. Like others, I'm looking forward to your contributions.

Someone brought an almond Kringle from TJ's for coffee hour after church Sunday. She had bought it at Chrstmas time and frozen it. It was delicious. Our German friend practically swooned!

A couple of nights ago was take-out. Caesar salad: Completely crappy Cheesy Garlic Bread: Barely warmed, cheese not fully melted and no garlic flavor at all. Pizza was decent, though: Last night was date night at a new (to us) place called 21 Spoons. It was named best locally owned restaurant in VA by Southern Living magazine this year. We really enjoyed everything and will definitely be back. We started with cocktails: Cirrus vodka & tonic and a Three Crosses bourbon – both companies are local. This place really focuses on local goods, as much as possible. And I’m madly in love with my glass and the swizzle stick: I found the swizzle sticks on Amazon and put them on my wishlist, but no luck so far with the glasses. We had the bread service: Farmer’s loaf, zucchini, and honey beer. The beer flavor could have been more pronounced and the zucchini bread was the best either of us has ever tasted. I had the Bacon wrapped duck breast, sautéed Swiss chard, roasted and smashed red potatoes, with a pear gastrique: The gastrique was absolutely perfect and elevated excellent potatoes to extraordinary. The chard was the best preparation I’ve ever tasted. I rarely order duck breast because of how weird some chefs are about cooking past medium-rare, which I detest. It literally becomes like a wad of wet paper towel in my mouth that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot get down. But this chef was happy to do medium. And it was perfect: I was heating it up for lunch today (4/22) and nibbled on a cold piece and it was STILL tender and moist. Amazing. Eating the leftovers, I’m thinking about how good duck and roast potato hash would be. Mr. Kim had the house made pappardelle noodles, pan seared shrimp, local mushrooms, asparagus, basil, pea-shoot pesto, and shaved Parmesan: It sounded a bit overreaching to me. Like there was too much going on. I was wrong. This was perfectly balanced and the thinness of the mushrooms and asparagus made them almost a part of the pesto – more flavoring than substance. And the mushrooms were very mild, so it didn’t taste funky to me. But there were enough larger pieces of both that it pleased Mr. Kim. My only issue is the flower. I mostly find flowers decorating food to be dumb. Dessert was roasted strawberry panna cotta, but I knew I couldn’t eat it, so I ordered it to take home: We had one bite there: It was sublime. I make a roasted strawberry cheesecake and it had a similar flavor.

@rotuts & @gulfporter – I grew up on fried bologna sandwiches – thin slices of deli bologna with four slits cut into it so that it spread apart and resembled a Celtic cross. Two slices with a piece of deli American yellow cheese in between and grilled between two buttered sliced of white bread! Heaven. Then, a few years ago on our trip to Memphis we had the BBQ bologna at Payne’s and our lives were changed. I still love Momma’s fried bologna, but I’ve been chasing that Payne’s sandwich ever since I tasted it! @Ann_T – that lamb shank looks delectable. My favorite cut of lamb. I’m not an eggplant fan, but I’d even try that in order to get that shank! Lunch yesterday was leftovers from take-out pizza the night before: It was better than it was when it was fresh.

@Ann_T – your scones are lovely. I went looking for something sweet midmorning and those would have been so welcome. Much more so than the handful of jelly beans I settled for! This was my giant breakfast yesterday: I was HUNGRY! Two pieces of toast, 2 pieces of bacon, a small apple, and some caramel sauce. Today: English muffin and sage sausage.

Good Lord! I can't imagine I'll be making this very often!

Jessica's Boston friend brought this to us as a thank you for hosting her (which was very sweet as she staying in a hotel and we fed her once - she and Jessica did lots of things, though): I've looked through it and found many, many recipes that sound great and that I want to try. I love the Sterns. They were actually my intro into the world of food writing and food focused travel. Before them it never occurred to me, as much as I loved eating in restaurants, to research the "food scene" of places that I was traveling to. I think I discovered "Square Meals" first and that led me to "Roadfood". Along with David Rosengarten, they uplift and appreciate classic American cooking. I love that attitude. I think that I'll be cooking from this a lot.

This is good to know about China. I've read a lot in the past about Europeans looking down on Americans for doing this. I found this blog post from 2008 from an American heaping contempt upon her fellow citizens for "doggy bags". I think (hope) things are changing in Europe and that's good. I have to say that I love when a restaurant packs up my leftovers for me and presents me with a neat package. I mean, if we are trusting them to cook our food, can't we trust them to wrap it up? Mr. Kim and I recently had this discussion - I really find it ungracious and unwelcoming when a restaurant hands you a container and a plastic bag and basically says, "go for it". I end up contorting myself trying to get the food into the container with a dirty fork and not getting it on me or the floor. I end the evening feeling ungainly instead of taken care of. My favorite thing is when they whisk it away and bring you a claim ticket and you pick up your bag when you leave.

I've only ever had the little steamed burgers - Little Tavern, White Castle, White Tower, etc. - never tried a regular sized one. I love the little ones. so I'm guessing I'd like the bigger ones, too.

Repurposed my breakfast from yesterday: Still good!

@liamsaunt – those scallop rolls you do always give me intense cravings. Jessica had a friend visiting from the Boston area (she lives on Nahant) and when I showed them to her, she flipped out. She’s not a lobster fan, so she was thrilled to find out she could do a scallop one when the rest of her family did lobster rolls. It had never occurred to her before! She’s the picky one I talk about below. @Ann_T – I would absolutely call that pizza ‘pretty’. I’d give an awful lot to have access to a pizza like that. @MaryIsobel – I’m so sorry! I’ve been in food slumps like that for weeks, even months at a time. Just stay with us at eG and you’ll eventually get inspired. @Shelby and I have found that looking back a few years or so at the topics that you post in helps, too. @Shelby – everything looks so good, but I especially want to know about the pork and vegetables. Was that done in a slow cooker? And was that a extra thick chop or actually a roast? Had to go out to the airport a few days ago to drop Jessica off to pick up a rental car and indulged in one of my no-so-secret guilty pleasures: I have loved Long John Silvers since college when my roommate and I would indulge in a once-a-month grease-fest. I like the fish and chicken with chips and slaw. Plenty of vinegar and an occasional squeeze of truly terrible tartar sauce (I think it is just Miracle Whip). This particular location has only recently reopened for inside dining and everything was surprisingly good. Hot and cooked to order and not overly greasy. Jessica has a friend visiting from Boston and she requested Mr. Kim’s BBQ one meal while she was here. She and Jessica ate out mostly, so this was our only time to feed her. She’s extremely picky. My planned menu was: BBQ Buns Slaw Sauces Baked Beans Jessica’s Mac & Cheese Chips and Dip Ice cream Sundae bar for dessert Well, it turned out when Jessica did a little digging that the only thing that she would be eating was the BBQ sandwich and ice cream. And the BBQ was iffy – she thought it SOUNDED good but wasn’t sure she’d like it. I suggested fries, which she said yes to and when I asked about vegetables, she said asparagus and broccoli. So, I added fries and asparagus to the table. Further turns out that when she said she liked asparagus and broccoli, she meant RAW. I roasted it. Sigh. She did eat a couple of spears, though. She ate a half a sandwich. I truly don’t know if she walked away from my dinner table unsatisfied or if she just has a small appetite. I have a horror of the first thing happening. Mr. Kim had a Vestry meeting Tuesday, and so Jessica and I scratched a very specific itch. Dinner at our favorite Thai place. We shared the calamari and crab Rangoon (with actual crabmeat): I had my favorite shrimp and pineapple fried rice: I’ve tried over and over to make this at home, and it always ends up a bit bland and too sweet. Jessica had the Tom Kha soup: Incredible broth. I just avoid the mushrooms.

Treated myself to my (not so) guilty pleasure of Long John Silver’s fish and chips the other day and had to share my pile of crispies/spaetzle/tenkasu: They were very generous. 😁

Yesterday: Sweet potato roll with sage sausage, boiled egg, and a Mineola. We have yet another situation of two few vehicles for our needs today. Jessica is starting a ‘can’t leave the dog for 4 days’ pet sitting job, Mr. Kim is working downtown, her friend from Boston is not flying out until later tonight. So, guess who is doing the car shuffle? I dropped Mr. Kim off at work, so that I could have the car. Jessica took the other car to pick up her friend and go to the pet sitting job – they’ll hang out there until later when I arrive to take her to the airport. I have no memory of signing up for all of this when I was informed this person was coming. Instead, I distinctly remember hearing, “It won’t be any trouble for you since she’s going to stay at a hotel” 🤐😄. ANYWAY, after I dropped Mr. Kim off at work this morning I treated myself to breakfast from an old favorite cafe, McLeans. Bacon, egg, and cheese on toast with their wonderful skillet potatoes: For some reason – hours, location, whatever – we forget about this place and go rarely, and we need to change that. This is the same place that I tortured Mr. Kim with when I was pregnant. I was sick basically 24/7 for the entirety of my pregnancy. Once every couple of weeks (after midnight, usually), I’d feel a little better and get a craving for biscuits and gravy. I’d convince him to get out of bed and take me to McLeans, which was then open 24 hours a day and near our city neighborhood. I’d plead with him to order food, too, even though he wasn’t hungry. I resembled Jabba the Hut and was too embarrassed to be seen eating alone. So, he’d order a cup of coffee and some toast and eggs. We’d wait a few minutes and the fragrant pillows of tender, flakey biscuits covered with creamy, sausage-y gravy would be set in front of me. The server would walk away and I’d look at Mr. Kim, my mouth starting to water (not in a good way), and I’d say, “Oh, God, I can’t eat this. Please make them take it away!” Have I ever mentioned that he’s an angel on earth and that nothing short of jail time would separate me from this man?

Late lunch a few days ago: The remaining thick slice of fried bologna from a sandwich that Jessica brought me the other day. On toast with BBQ sauce. I believe there were some Fritos involved, too 😉.

It's funny - because of my age and having been brought up most of my childhood just outside of Washington DC, my first exposure to Mexican food was during the 7 months we lived in the San Fernando Valley in 1970. I remember buying a tray of taquitos from a little stand across from the movie theatre. The place had a couple of booths inside where you sat if your parents brought you, but if you were tooling around on your bike or going into the theatre, you bought them through a little window. They were filled with shredded beef or chicken and topped with a mild, translucent greenish sauce and were very crunchy. I believe that I had those before I had my first taco.

Thank you all so much for the compliments! Setting a pretty table is always a fun project for me. The new thing that I really enjoyed this year can be seen best in the 3rd photo. That is a decorative paper vase cover. We found them at a little shop when we were on our anniversary trip. They come in a bunch of different designs and sizes (three different sizes come together) and you use them to cover up useful, but not terribly attractive "vases" for flowers. The largest one covered a tall drinking glass, the medium one covered a small canning jar and the little one covered a spice jar. They are very heavy, glossy paper and I'm hoping that they'll last a long time.

I guess I'm not surprising anyone when I say I love Taco Bell and the Crunchwrap Supreme is my go-to. I don't find anything creepy about food development on a corporate scale. There's lots of creepy stuff in advertising and in corporate structure, but figuring out the science of how food works for different modes of eating doesn't seem at all creepy to me. I will never understand the sectioning off of different versions of food. If I love an "authentic" soft corn taco with carnitas, I shouldn't like a crunchy corn taco with ground beef and iceberg lettuce. If I love NC pork, do I distain TX beef brisket? If I enjoy "authentic" Chinese food from the tiny little place in the Asian neighborhood in my city, should I stay away from my beloved crab Rangoon and General Tso? My mother insisted that blue crab should only be eaten plain - picked or, at most, in a crab cake. I used to tell her that she was missing a lot by policing her food so stringently.

You mean like this?: 😁

I knew that technically fried chicken shouldn’t have been at the Seder, but there are SO many cloudy areas (I found restrictions about matzoh balls and recipes for matzoh ball soup), that I just said the heck with it – no shcllfish, no pork and no leavening. LOL Funny to find so many rosemary-averse cooks at a food site. I’m one, too. I love the smell and don’t mind a tiny bit in certain foods, but a little goes a VERY long way, I find. Things got away from me this year (what else is new?) and I was just overwhelmed. I was still cooking and cleaning and decorating at 9am Easter morning and that is NOT me. Didn’t manage church because I still had so much to do – even after 2 almost sleepless nights in a row. But dinner was good and what our guests could see of the house looked fine. I posted the meal HERE on the dinner thread. The table: Each place setting had these little treat baskets: Jessica did really well with her food. She didn’t complain or resist making half recipes to cut down on our normally huge amounts of leftovers. She got the timing fairly well and she worked herself pretty well into my timeline. And we didn’t argue. Mr. Kim predicted we’d bitch at each other and embarrass him in front of his family (I grew up in two very loud ethnic families, so I embarrass him on a regular basis). We secretly agreed to prove him wrong, and we did. It was actually fun not fighting. Still on an about food note, my MIL gave me these placemats for an Easter hostess gift: Could not be any more ‘me’!

I have the one from @Smithy's post. Different name, but same thing. I have terrible arthritis in my knife hand and when it flares up, this device makes it possible for me to cook. Cleaning is harder than a knife, of course, and depending on what I'm cutting, I may have to use a good bit of elbow grease, but it gets the job done.