Kim Shook

A couple of days ago: Bacon on a toasted cinnamon-raisin English muffin, pear, and scrambled eggs with catsup. This morning: Watermelon and toast w/ butter and Tiptree’s fabulous Little Scarlet strawberry preserves.

@Tropicalsenior - I'm looking forward to trying that mandarin cake! I made the pineapple cake that you posted: It took less than 10 minutes to mise and put together – one bowl and one spoon. And it tastes wonderful – so moist and rich: Thank you so much for sharing the recipe!

How about just doing two sets of bunk beds - one for Mt. Dew? My great grandfather lived with my grandmother and she used to say you could shout directly in his ear and he'd never hear you, but go into the kitchen at one in the morning and open the refrigerator and he'd be looking over your shoulder in a second.

Welcome to eGullet, @tcdo! I did the same thing many years ago. I bet I lurked for a couple of years before taking the plunge and I've always been glad that I did. I'm looking forward to seeing your contributions. I have friends in your area and hope to visit some day.

I swear I'm drooling. Two of my favorite foods in the world - lobster and rib roast! I'm planning to finally try the SV then fry method for fried chicken tomorrow. I've got seven drumsticks that I sucked and froze last month. Got them thawed and will follow Kenji's directions to prep them. One thing - his directions indicate that you fry the chicken right after taking out of the water bath. Can you cool the chicken before frying and should you dredge it while it is hot or can you wait to do that, too? Thanks!

I just wish someone would make a waffle maker that made regular and Belgian waffles. This morning: Bacon on a toasted cinnamon-raisin English muffin, pear, and scrambled eggs with catsup.

@mgaretz – re: the Costco orange chicken. Sounds like something we’d like. Was it frozen or refrigerated and how spicy was it? Costco has a tendency to stock regionally, so I might not be able to find it, but I’d like to try. @Norm Matthews – that’s too bad about your ribs. They look SO good that it must have been especially disappointing! Glad the next batch turned out well. Did you find something to do with the disappointing ones? @Shelby – I completely get what you said about meal planning – my attitude towards cooking lately has been a lot of “what, again?” 😊. @Ann_T – Happy Birthday to Moe! That meal looks exactly like what Mr. Kim would choose if his birthday was in Spring rather than Summer! @Dejah – thank you for the kind words. I passed your mention of the BBQ on to Mr. Kim and he said he’d love to cook for you. We are hoping to road trip around the US and Canada if he ever retires, so you never know 😄! Also, those ribs look amazing and I’d love to try them. Jessica made a wonderful dinner one night last week. Started with a spinach and arugula salad with a lemon/balsamic vinaigrette: She made this excellent bagel dish with a side of hash brown patties: This was inspired by a recipe by Hajar Larbah at her blog Moribyan. It is basically a stack of cheese, cream cheese, and bagel top with a hole cut in the middle of it and ham (coppa, in this case) and an egg dropped into the hole. Everything is baked until the egg is how done you want it (ours had firm white and jammy yolks). They are baked on parchment paper so they don’t stick. They were then topped with hollandaise, as was the hash brown patty. Dessert was paletas - this one was yogurt with fruit: Late dinner one night after our regular telephone double date with friends in Florida was a bunch of the meats and cheeses left over from our charcuterie dinner with our friends: …on a bolillo roll. Mr. Kim played poker Friday night so, Jessica and I had a mommy/daughter evening with dinner at the Korean chain Bonchon and then home for Russian car crashes on Youtube (we like odd entertainment). Seasoned fries: Bulgogi tacos: Soy-garlic wings: Potstickers: Korean doughnuts: With what we’re sure was just sweetened condensed milk. These are new and amazingly good. Close up: We love this place and get the same things pretty much every time we go. The wings and potstickers are the best I’ve ever had. Saturday night was Taco Night: The taco shells were so incredibly tight that it turned into Tostada night: We literally couldn’t fit the fillings into the shells! Jessica made some really good Taco Bell copycat potatoes with frozen diced hash browns, enchilada sauce, cheese dip, and sour cream: Last night: As close as I can get to smash burgers, potato salad and macaroni salad (both purchased), fixed up baked beans, watermelon, and corn (tough, but tasted pretty good).

Mr. Kim says that he binge-watched the first season a couple of years ago and didn't realize that there were more seasons. He really liked it a lot more than so many other cooking competition shows - particularly Pitmasters (with the ever irritating Myron Mixon). He found Showdown more "real" and the judges and contestants more engaging and, like you, would really have loved to taste the food. He said "thank you" for mentioning the second season since he didn't know it existed and will now watch.

On Wednesday, I CSO’d some leftovers from dinner at our local Chinese place the night before: Mu Shu pork and crab Rangoon. A couple of days ago: Applesauce, half a bologna and half an egg salad sandwich.

@OlyveOyl – your strawberry and ricotta crostini looks and sounds incredibly good. @Ann_T and @blue_dolphin – the two of you made me crave egg salad this week. Jessica made a batch and I’ve been making fold-overs and egg salad saltines all week! Lots of bagels this week – the freezer was stocked up. A sourdough ET from one of our favorite places: Another morning, another bagel place: …and Minneola orange wedges. This bagel is from the European market that sells bagels flown in from NYC. Spread with chive cream cheese and only gently heated in honor of @weinoo !

Happy HAPPY Day, Anna with an 'N'! 🎂

Thank for posting this! Just cream cheese icing? Or something else?

A little bedtime and eG perusal snack: Just some cookies from Lidl. Lidl is German and their German goodies are quite good. We've just been through Italian Week and French Week and those are less so. The little cubes are German Dominos - layers of cookie dough and jam and marzipan. The adorable chocolate ones with the stars are Italian Pan di Stelle. And the other cookie is a French Palet Breton.

@kayb – Good Lord your potluck meal sounds delicious! And I’m so glad you made your own Shoney’s pie – I know it was so much better than theirs! And I love all the deviled eggs in the middle of the table that you posted. Though I have to say that all the purchased bread makes me a little sad. I can remember southern reunions and homecomings with skillets full of biscuits and cornbread and loaves of yeast bread and float-off-the-plate tender dinner rolls. (I know you said that your folks didn't do yeast breads, but they did in VA and NC when I was a kid.) The subdued competition among the ladies for the lightest biscuits and the watching out of the corner of their eyes for people pinching up the last crisp cornbread crumbs. Sigh. I completely understand the why of it, but I miss it a lot. @liuzhou – Happy Birthday! So glad you were able to enjoy that lovely meal at HOME!! @liuzhou and @Dejah – thank you so much for the information on Chow Mein. I told Mr. Kim all about it over our Chinese dinner tonight. I read what you all had said and showed him your photo, Dejah. He grew up with his mom making the awful La Choy canned stuff, so he didn’t know anything else existed until I told him tonight. We both wonder now if any of our local Chinese restaurants serves proper Chow Mein and we just don’t know because we wouldn’t have ever ordered it – assuming, as we would, that it would be that crappy version. We know that his mom still sometimes orders it because she’s mentioned that one place or another does a good or a bad job. I’m going to ask her what she gets when she orders. We’re willing to give it a try if it is as you two described it! @Senior Sea Kayaker – I believe that scallop sausage would make me completely lose my mind. I can’t imagine just how good that has to be. Thursday night dinner was leftover onion rings from our lunch at Shoney’s (I told about that in the Lunch thread) and the classic sandwich I brought home to have for dinner: The “Slim Jim”. One of my old teen years favorites. Ham, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, and 1000 Island dressing on a sub roll. Growing up, I actually frequented a Big Boy restaurant rather than a Shoney’s so the bread was slightly different, but this was as close as I could get. And it was good. Friday was pizza night – this time from a different place than last time (which was pretty ordinary). I made a salad: And set out some of Jessica’s never ending pasta salad leftover from our Mother’s Day picnic: Mr. Kim got cheesy bread and sausage and onion pizza: And…it was pretty good. Not great. Better than the last place at least. I would never say that growing up in the Washington DC area, I grew up with great pizza. But it was SO much better than anything I’ve tasted in the Richmond area. Between the suburban Italian restaurants in Alexandria, the slice joints in the District and summer time pizza at Ocean City MD and Rehoboth Beach, I find myself being a bit of a snob about southern pizza. Mr. Kim did his best-ever smoked butts this past week. Some coming together of the perfect cut of pork, the perfect time and temperature, and maybe magic. In our experience usually when you “pull” the pork you get a lot of well-cooked meat that is easily pulled and a decent amount of pork that you squeeze and it just melts out of your grasp – not mushy, just perfectly tender. Then there’s always a little bit of meat that is stringy and hard to pull – you really have to work at it and you hope for as little of it as possible. These four butts were probably 80% melting and 20% easily pull-able. No stringy stuff at all. Just amazing. So that was dinner Saturday, along with some canned (and local) Brunswick stew. The BBQ: And this is what I do with it: Which I believe grieves Mr. Kim 🤣. But growing up eating central NC and VA BBQ, I can’t help it. I never heard of “pulled pork” until I was in my 30s probably. It was either sliced (which NO ONE got), chopped (my family’s choice), or minced. My sandwich with slaw and stew: Dinner last night was a charcuterie-style spread with some dear friends at their house. We brought the meats and cheeses and they had the crackers, fruits, veggies, pickles and dessert. The spread: From upper left whiskey and pear preserves, Gouda, mustard, leberkase, kabanos meat sticks, Havarti, salami, coppa, prosciutto, ham, and Cheddar. A couple of plates: There were also pita chips, goat cheese, brandy/cherry jam, Brie, and some dessert bars (lemon, chocolate, and 7-Layer) and paletas. Jessica is out overnight tonight pet sitting, so we had an impromptu date night. Mr. Kim suggested dinner at Yen Ching and I am incapable of turning down Chinese food. Soups: Wonton. …and hot and sour. Mr. Kim got an egg roll and I got crab Rangoon: Which was probably a mistake. We both only ate half of these, but we were too full to each much of our meals. We ended up bringing a lot home. I got one of my standards – Mu Shu Pork without mushrooms: I have no idea why the sweet and sour sauce and the hoisin look like they have Sterno fires burning in them. And Mr. Kim got the barbequed duck: In all the years we’ve been coming here we’ve never tasted this. It was very good.

Last Thursday, Jessica and I went to Shoney’s for what could be our last meal there. For those that don’t know Shoney’s, it was a big chain restaurant similar to Howard Johnsons or Hot Shoppes; a family place with table service, basic, solid filling food. Across the river from us on the other side of the city is the last one open in Richmond and more are closing all the time. They aren’t great, but they are part of my culinary history and so a trek was in order. I got something to take home and the buffet (they have surprisingly good fried chicken and collards): Looking at what I ate, this was certainly a “cheat day” – two kinds of potatoes and collards. We shared onion rings: Jessica had the chicken fried steak and a baked potato: And then the REAL reason we drove all the way across the river: Their hot fudge ice cream cake is a family tradition. My grandmother and my mother loved it. As a little girl Jessica would request it deconstructed – she liked to add the hot fudge herself little bit by little bit. And I love it. When Momma was living with us. she and I would go for “lunch” to the Shoney’s that was near us. In order to eat the enormous (they’ve started making them smaller) hot fudge cakes, we’d get a large order of onion rings and dessert and that would be lunch. Friday: Some of Mr. Kim’s chili from the freezer and slaw. Saturday I pulled the last of the mini ET bagels from the freezer. One got smoked salmon cream cheese and the other just got toasted and buttered:

@Ann_T – and I, on the other hand, would give a lot for those potato pancakes of yours 😁! @Anna N – I saw that you got that Penzey’s Mural of Flavor. I like and use that often. I tend to use it instead of seasoning salt. Friday: Lidl croissant and some deviled eggs. Saturday: Lidl chocolate hazelnut croissant. I very much like this croissant, but I wonder why there is such a large cavern for such a small amount of chocolate? Monday I stopped at Europa Market, my favorite new discovery, for some meats for a pot luck charcuterie spread we were doing with some friends that night. They have breads, deli, grocery items, candy, local meats, etc. etc. I got their ham, egg, and cheese ET bagel: The bagel is flown in from NYC, the eggs are local, the cheese is Cheddar, and the ham is freshly sliced imported Polish ham. It was the best bagel sandwich I’ve ever tasted. This morning: I woke up wanting an over-medium egg. Silly me. Apparently, what I really wanted was scrambled 🙄. Plus, sage sausage and cinnamon raisin English muffins with extra cinnamon sugar.

Thank you so much for this topic. I grew up with a grandfather who raised beef cattle, but who managed to be off the farm on one errand or another when the man came to collect them for their destiny. He loved his creatures. He wasn't sentimental about them, but he just couldn't watch them taken away. They were all born on his farm and he used to say that that was the first time they would have been frightened in their lives. But when the meat came back in neat little packages we all ate it and didn't really think strongly about the animal we had known. And I love that the animals we consumed had a good life and a quick death. Not a lifetime of misery and a terrifying death. I wish I could afford to exclusively eat responsibly raised meat.

I checked Prune out of the library and I'm glad I did. I certainly wouldn't want to own it. I found the "cutesy" fantasy that we were seeing her private instruction to her staff complete with "handwritten" notes and admonishments extremely irritating. The pages are even designed to look like they are torn out of a loose leaf notebook. Definitely not for me.

That was fantastic! Thanks for posting. I didn't find her annoying at all. And it depends on what I'm putting on my bagel whether it gets toasted or not. Cream cheese - a fresh warm bagel just gets split. Butter - gotta be toasted for me. Most bagels get toasted because they need the flavor boost - I'm quite sure these do not. But I'd still have a buttered one toasted.

Here's that last photo of Mr. Kim's dinner at the German restaurant on Mother's Day: I guess I reached my limit with that massive post!

As I said on the breakfast and lunch threads I am SO behind in posting my meals. I’ve been busy with other stuff and I was trying to get the mini blogs about our anniversary trip and Jessica’s belated birthday trip posted and things got a bit out of hand. Unfortunately, that means this post will be much too long and I apologize for that. I’ll try to stay caught up as much as possible from now on. Another thing is how restaurant heavy the past few weeks have been. I really have no idea why that would be. But, as we were required to buy a new car (Mr. Kim wrecked his car – he was fine, car was not) recently, that should change. @C. sapidus – I’m a little late to the party, but I’ve been using the same red cabbage recipe for about 30 years and I’ve never found a reason to change. It’s from The New Basics Cookbook (remember that one?) and includes onions, red wine, apples, raisins, caraway, and thyme. @Dejah – could you please help me with understanding something? Your chow mein looks delicious. Growing up that and a egg roll were my grandmother’s only choice at the Chinese restaurants we frequented in the Washington DC suburbs. At that time (1960s) that meant crunchy fried noodles and white meat chicken in a gloppy, glutenous sauce with some onion, celery, and maybe a few bean sprouts – not dissimilar to the La Choy canned version. My mother and I didn’t like it at all and preferred to get other, more interesting (to us – more weird to my grandmother 😉) dishes. In later years, what I’ve read – not to mention what you showed a picture of – indicates that that is NOT proper Chow Mein. I’ve heard that the crisp noodles are: wrong; alternately that they are right, but shouldn’t be really crisp. I’ve heard that flat egg noodles are right. I’ve heard that the noodles should be stir-fried – NO! they should be steamed. What is correct? Or has it been taken so far from the origins that there is no “right” way? Thank you, ma’am! @Shelby – I really need to try to make that gyro meat. It looks so great. @mgaretz – good luck with the house. Don’t forget St. Joseph goes upside down 😄! Back a bit dinner was iconic (😄). We happen to be among those who share a shameful love of the McRib. I actually missed getting one on its recent so-called “farewell tour” (Mr. Kim, the bastard, had one without me). So, I bought a package of frozen “rib” patties in BBQ sauce and made my own. In all its nekkid glory: (They are thin, so you have to pile them up for the correct effect). Dressed with dill pickles and red onions and served with broccoli: Also, salads, slaw (homemade this time) and pickles: Another night was drumstick Shake and Bake with Mambo sauce: The sauce is a Washington DC tradition – a sweet/tangy tomato-based wing sauce that is great on most meats and even fish and shrimp. Everyone thinks that Buffalo invented wings, but poor folks (including lots of African-Americans) have been eating the wings, backs, and necks forever. I don’t remember the first time I tasted Mambo sauce, but I’m betting it was at a late night joint in a neighborhood my parents wouldn’t have approved of on pre-Buffalo wings. I also remember it being on the table at little seafood places near the Wharf (when it was just an area near the river and not a billion dollar destination) to dip fried goodies in. I also served Jessica’s mac & cheese, slaw, raw veg, loaded fries, and quick garlic toast made with garlic powder and Penzey’s Green Goddess dressing mix: One night was takeout pizza and salad from a place we frequent because it is close and pretty good. The last few times the pizza was really subpar: Pretty ordinary. I did make a few meals – this was a big salad with roasted shrimp and some leftover crabmeat: I had a bottle of Penzeys’ Green Goddess salad dressing mix that I’d never used and made it to go on the salad. It was great – I’m glad I finally tried it: One night dinner was pretty random. No one ate at the same time, so we all got our own. I was in the mood for sardines, grilled cheese, and soup. Boneless, skinless w. crackers: Grilled American and mozzarella cheeses with Dijon mustard: Plain old Campbell’s chicken and rice: This was the day that we bought the new car. We were exhausted after being at the dealership for HOURS (they had ONE new car of that model available and it still took forever). So, we relaxed and celebrated at one of our favorite Chinese places. Pupu platter: This is one of Jessica’s and my favorites (the owner at our regular place calls us his “Pupu Ladies”) and this place, Tiki-tiki, has better than usual offerings. Jessica decided to make a meal of appetizers. Crab Rangoon: With the sauce that tastes inexplicably of whiskey. Made with real crabmeat, this is one of the better versions of this dish. She also chose their delicious ribs: Sticky, sweet, and meaty – perfect ribs to me. I had the shrimp fried rice: Mr. Kim had orange chicken: We have a bit of a debate about Chinese restaurants in our family. Jessica prefers everything at Tiki. Mike prefers almost everything at our regular place (Yen Ching). For me, it depends on what I’m ordering. By and large the appetizers are better at Tiki. The soups are better at Yen Ching. The mains that we’ve had are slightly better at Yen Ching, but there are things that Tiki has (Chow Fun and Orange chicken) that Yen Ching doesn’t have. So, it’s a bit of a toss-up! Jessica requested a hot dog meal with all fixings and the proper sides. The dogs: The four on the right at mine because I like a bit of char. My plate: A Carolina dog (chili, mustard, and slaw), fixed up baked beans, kraut, my grandma’s cheater pickles, and some fruit (including a couple pieces of forbidden banana – SO dern good). I had a fun night and dinner combo a week or so ago. For my last birthday (July 9th), Mr. Kim gave me a gift certificate to a cooking class. I was finally able to find a class that worked for my schedule and that I was interested in. This one was tapas and was a lot of fun. He had us separate into groups and work on all the dishes. My group did chorizo and shrimp empanadas – before going in the oven: Baked: These were delicious and I wanted to eat a LOT of them. They were a bit too spicy for me and the shrimp got a bit lost. When I make them (and I really want to), I will probably halve the chorizo and double the shrimp. And I’ll use mild chorizo. There was also arancini: This was delicious but sat so long that the cheese got firm again. Still tasted wonderful. This was Watermelon-Cucumber Gazpacho with ginger and lime and topped with a mixture of brunoised watermelon, tomato, cucumbers, red bell pepper, cilantro, scallion, and hot pepper: Needless to say, I had it without the topping and it was SO good. I think it would make a great cocktail. The other tapas was a grilled ratatouille with whipped ricotta. It was never going to be my favorite with eggplant, zucchini, and bell peppers, but I gave it a try. Grilling the onions: This is actually a George Foreman standing grill. The chef told a story about how years ago his girlfriend made sandwiches on one of these and he was so impressed with the quality and speed that he put one in the kitchen he was working in and he’s had one in every kitchen since. It certainly did a great, quick job on the red onions. Assembly: Plates: The finished dish included a topping of tomatoes, olives, anchovies, garlic, basil, oil, and vinegar and a quenelle of ricotta. This was delicious. I tried it all – the eggplant and zucchini were inoffensive – kind of bland. The bell pepper was terrible, but since it was all cooked separately, they didn’t pollute everything else. I could have eaten the topping and the onion with a spoon. I overlooked the announced dessert. I’m such a savory loving person that a flourless cake with strawberries and whipped cream just didn’t sound terribly interesting. I was SO wrong. The Tarta de Santiago, Galician almond cake: This was amazingly delicious. Incredibly tender and so flavorful. As much as I loved most of what we had, this was the thing I came home and talked about most. Last week I did a sheet pan dinner with chicken sausages, apples, and shallots: This was good but needs a bit of adjustment. The apples are supposed to go in at the same time as the onions and this didn’t work. The onions were perfect at the end of the cooking time, but the apples were almost nonexistent. I also used the wrong sausage. I’ve made this with both Italian sausage and brats and both were very good. This time I used chicken sausage with feta and spinach. If I’d used the chicken and apple sausage, it would have been fine, but the feta was just wrong. I had some frozen pirogues and tried baking them in the CSO. I’d always boiled then fried them, but noticed on the packaging it said you could bake them. So much easier and I gave it a try. It worked great: Plated with the pirogues, slaw, and kraut: Our Mother’s Day dinner was disappointing. Mr. Kim and Jessica spirited me away for a picnic lunch and a drive to Fredericksburg (about an hour away). Dinner was at the Alpine Chef (formerly the second location of our beloved Bavarian Chef in Madison VA). We’ve been there many times in the past when it was still part of the Bavarian Chef family. It was purchased by the chef and his wife that had been running it for the family. This wasn’t recent, and we’d heard good things about it from people who should know, but we hadn’t been ourselves since before the pandemic. Everyone is wonderfully friendly and ready to help. It is a lovely place. And the menu SOUNDS very good. But every single table that was not occupied (including outside tables) was covered with dirty dishes that needed busing. They were only removed when they needed to seat someone at the table. The servings are large, and we had stuff we wanted to take home and were subjected to one of my pet peeves: “nice” restaurants that bring a bunch of take out containers and dump them on the table for you to deal with instead of taking the dishes away and doing it for you. We were all dressed nicely and our table was covered with dirty dishes. We ended up trying to carefully fill the containers and stacking the spent dishes on a nearby table. I hate when restaurants do this. So ungracious. We started out with what they call Swiss raclette: Three cheese fondue, potatoes, walnuts, apples. This tasted pretty good but suffered from an overabundance of apples and a big, practically impenetrable, blob of cheese on top. Jessica had the tenderloin filets with peppercorn sauce: This was oddly butchered or else it wasn’t really from the tenderloin. It was cooked to the proper temperature and tasted fine but was much tougher than it should have been. It was also not very hot. Her sides were very good. The little potato pancakes were the best thing on the table and the glazed carrots, while not hot, tasted good. I had the sauerbraten with a Burgundy wine sauce and red cabbage and creamed corn: My sides were truly excellent. Maybe I just haven’t had enough different versions of sauerbraten to judge, but I’ve never had a sauce this intense and red and I found the fall apart texture of the meat more like pot roast than any sauerbraten I’ve eaten or cooked. Mr. Kim’s was the prettiest plate on the table – and probably the best tasting: (For some reason I can't seem to upload this photo to eG - I'll try in the next post) Bratwurst, bauernwurst and weisswurst with sauerkraut and German potato salad. The sausages were delicious, but all three were room temperature, at best. However, everything really did taste very, very good. I know that it seems stupid that we didn’t send things back. And we should have, but it was just about EVERYTHING on the table. And it was not just a matter of food temperature. I think we just realized that sending stuff back wouldn’t really improve Jessica’s or my meals. And that after a long drive and with another one getting home, we just weren’t up to figuring out what else we could try. And would a different dish really be any better? Obviously, there was no one in the kitchen who either knew or cared what was being sent out. And we all felt so bad that these lovely people were having to serve such sub-par food. I’ve looked at their Yelp page and it offers some hope that we perhaps caught them on an exceptionally bad day. They have overwhelmingly GOOD reviews and 4- and 5-star ratings. We MAY be persuaded to try it again, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

It’s been some time since I’ve posted, so this is a bit long winded! And it is definitely restaurant heavy. Not really sure why that is, but since we were obligated to buy a new car, that will almost certainly be changing. @kayb – that is a great idea about smoking the bologna. He did 4 butts yesterday but I completely forgot to get one. I need to remember that! @OlyveOyl – that lemon cake looks so good. I love that the recipe used lemon in so many ways – I love a punched-up lemon flavor. And the plate that it’s on is gorgeous. An April post-church lunch at our favorite lunch counter place. Navy bean and creamy chicken noodle: House made and excellent, as always. The chicken noodle is more like chicken and dumplings. Mr. Kim had the club: And I had the patty melt and onion rings: Perfect: Another after church lunch. Solo this time at a fairly new place – the Lakeside Deli: My first visit and I’ll be going back. This was a delicious chopped cheese sub. Great food, really nice people. Funny looking lunch: Leftovers from Mr. Kim’s BBQ judging the weekend before (ribs and brisket) and slaw. The bites taken out are ONLY Mr. Kim’s. Cinco de Mayo – done up right at Taco Bell! LOL: Actually, we love Taco Bell. Afternoon snack that day was a piece of my favorite kind of cheesecake – dense and rich: We stopped at a Giant grocery store when we were up in NOVA and got a couple of pieces. Their bakery makes perfect cheesecake. A post church lunch at our favorite deli. Mr. Kim had a cheeseburger: We almost never get those here, but they’re really good. I got the half and half – half a chicken salad sandwich and half a tossed salad (not pictured, but HUGE with their housemade 1000 Island dressing), plus some rings: For lunch last week (and for the freezer) I made a batch of BBQ soup. The meat is samples that Mr. Kim has been bringing home from BBQ competitions. Some states allow the judges to bring home what they (and only they) have sampled, and we’ve been stockpiling it in the freezer. I just added some beef stock, wine, seasonings, and a bag of Veg All. Depending on the BBQ it sometimes needs a splash of vinegar because it is sweeter than I want. Always good and always different! A few days ago I had to take Jessica to have some dental work done and sat in a Wendy’s during lunch time. Chicken, apple & pecan salad: This was surprisingly good. Except for the gelatinous vinaigrette. I took more than half home and put Penzey’s Green Goddess dressing on it for dinner and it was SO good. Out running errands on Saturday and we stopped at a Mexican place we hadn’t been to in many years. We were surprised at how good it was. Mr. Kim had the carne asada burrito: I had two tacos; one was a hard taco with ground beef and the other was a soft flour taco with carnitas: On Mother’s Day Jessica and Mr. Kim took me for a picnic lunch, a drive to Fredericksburg and dinner. We stopped at a nice little park in Ashland for lunch. The menu: Deviled eggs: Cheddar cheese and water biscuits: The water biscuits were Food Lion’s store brand and were every bit as good as Carr’s (and were $1.27 instead of over $4). The sandwiches: The berries and the pasta salad: Someone’s plate: The desserts (which we actually didn’t get to until the next day): From a favorite local bakery. From top left: their take on a cannoli, berry cheesecake macaron, vanilla latte macaron, blueberry lemon macaron, blondie, and chocolate chip cookies. The macarons are enormous and yet the texture and consistency are perfect: This was disappointingly lacking in flavor. Mr. Kim was off for a couple of days this week and we went to a sub place we love for lunch. My cheese steak and fries: Mr. Kim’s pepperoni cheese steak: Sorry this was so long - I'll try to keep up better!

I understand. I did find it on Amazon (US) under the name "sesame powder". I even found black sesame powder. I put them both on my wishlist. I know this won't help you, but thought you might have piqued the interest of some other folks.

In trying to punch up the flavor in my peanut butter cookies I really turned a corner when I discovered the powdered peanut butter. Subbing a bit of it (exact amount took some tinkering) for some flour gave me the flavor I wanted without changing the texture. They do make tahini powder - you might try that. I made a lemon pound cake for one of Mr. Kim's staff: The recipe made two loaves, so I kept one. It was pretty good – a nice enough crumb but needed more lemon flavor.

Sorry for this rather lengthy post (though not nearly as long as my dinner post is going to be😁). I’ve been unusually busy and have also been trying to get my last two out of town trips posted. Now that I have, I can try to get back to normal. @blue_dolphin - Jessica is sitting right behind me and spotted your mushrooms and asparagus on toast and she loved the look of that breakfast – a LOT! @pastameshugana – I love LOTS of maple syrup, but I don’t like soggy pancakes – my solution is a little pot of heated syrup for dripping. @Ann_T – I agree with @blue_dolphin - if I had access to bread like yours, breakfast would be all about the toast EVERY morning. The other day, I basically had breakfast all day long. Morning meal: Midday meal: Evening meal: I really don’t know how to explain this. Another day: Benton’s bacon and toast. Pancakes: We were out running errands one day and tried a new (to us) place called Eggs Up Grill. It is a breakfast and lunch chain. Doesn’t feel like a chain. I had a chicken, egg, and bacon biscuit with pepper jelly and grits: It was really good, but quickly became a knife and fork effort: Mr. Kim had the hash and eggs with rye toast: The serving was a bit paltry, but the hash looked house made and was delicious. Another day breakfast was a Nutella croissant from Lidl: And then the next day: Pain au chocolat from Lidl. And…farm egg: English muffin, cheese, and ham: Perfect: On Saturday, we had a breakfast meeting of the Episcopal Church Women at our church. We were supposed to bring a dish to share along with the recipe to go into our new church cookbook. I brought St. Paul's Cheese Souffle: This is more a strata than a soufflé, though it puffs up beautifully. It is devoured every time I make it, so I thought it would be appreciated and it was. Yesterday: Raisin bread toasted with PB and berries. This morning - packaged waffles from Lidl and berries: Waffles were very good.