Kim Shook

Welcome, Dave! Boston is somewhere I've never been, but would love to visit. Looking forward to your contributions!

Ham and cheese on toast, my Grandma Jean’s Easy Pickles, and chips:

@CantCookStillTry – cheese toast is one of my very favorite things in the world. I grew up eating it as a snack or with soup, but no one else I knew did. Mr. Kim hadn’t ever had it until I served it to him. Then a couple of years ago, I served it with soup to a British friend. He said “oh, good – cheese toast. I haven’t had this for years!”. My stepdad (some will remember Ted) was British and I’m wondering if it is a British thing? @Shelby – what did you do to your potatoes? They look great. Well, I made the trashiest thing in my repertoire last night – “Tamale Pie”. I’ve made this for years. I honestly thought I’d invented it when Mr. Kim and I were newly married and broke, but I’ve seen it in community cookbooks and on “downhome” websites, so I guess not😊. Canned tamales: Cheese (pre-shedded): Canned chili: More cheese on top and baked: Served with tortilla chips and slaw: The slaw itself was in a bag, but I did make the sauce.

@BeeZee – I really love the look of that shrimp salad. I’ve never thought to put all of that into shrimp and it sounds absolutely wonderful! Night before last was breakfast-for-dinner: Sausage rolls, orange segments, nectarine, and scrambled eggs with cheese. Last night: French dip w/ provolone and fried onions, fries and broccoli.

That looks gorgeous! And those eggs! A couple of questions - was that done in a regular waffle iron or Belgian? And do you think the recipe would work without the asparagus? I'm not an asparagus eater.

Everything looks delicious, especially those lovely onion rings!

For Father’s Day, I decided to try a Strawberry Ladyfinger Icebox Cake from Tasteofhome.com. I had some trouble with it and am still not sure was worth it. The springform pan lined with ladyfingers: All layered up with strawberries, mascarpone, and whipped cream. This layering is where I got into trouble. The ingredients list the strawberries as “6 cups fresh strawberries, sliced”, which SHOULD mean “measure out 6 cups of strawberries and then slice them”. That really is a bad direction. Strawberries can be all kinds of sizes – huge or as small as a thimble. I decided to prep the mascarpone/whipped cream portion and prep as many strawberry slices as seemed correct. That worked fine. But I was so freaked out about that that I think my attention wandered while I was doing the layering. The layering is supposed to go: ladyfingers, creamy layer, strawberries, creamy layer, strawberries, ladyfingers, creamy layer. I somehow missed the final ladyfinger layer. I was expressing my confusion and fears on the “absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions” thread here and everyone was sharing my frustration at the strawberry measurement issue. We were a bit worried that the lack of one of the ladyfinger layers would affect the stability, but it was actually fine: It was good. And impressive looking. But I guess I thought it would be kind of spectacular tasting and it just wasn’t.

So, the strawberry icebox cake turned out fine. I'll be posting pictures and comments on the Daily Sweets thread. Thank you all for your help and comments and laughter - it made the whole thing less stressful. I did go to the original recipe at Tasteofhome.com and voice my opinion! 😄

We hosted Father’s Day dinner. Started with cheese, crackers, trail mix and peanuts: (clockwise from top left) Mary Cambozola Black Label, St. Angel, Truffle Parano, garlic and herb goat, and honey goat. Bread, crackers, trail mix, and Old Bay peanuts. Ribs: This was a Cooks Country recipe and it very good, but not without a problem. The rub and sauce were very good (though I added a little extra sweetness to the sauce), but the method was the issue. They were supposed to be cooked in a slow cooker by cutting a full rack in half and putting the two racks sitting up in the cooker. I don’t know what size slow cooker they used (it wasn’t specified, unfortunately), but I have a large one and the ribs were too tall for the cooker. So, I cut them into 4 ribs each and that way they tilted against each other and fit. Hanover tomatoes (locally celebrated) and Duke’s: Pickly stuff: Top right are my MIL’s sweet pickled green tomatoes and middle right are the Jake & Amos pickled green grape tomatoes. Jessica’s gorgeous salad with mixed greens, crumbled Wensleydale & apricot cheese, candied pecans, crisped Prosciutto, pickled shallots and a balsamic/saba dressing. Marinated cucumbers. Cooler corn. I don’t know if anyone else does this method. It is a great idea for serving corn to a crowd. You shuck the corn, put it in a clean cooler and cover with boiling water. In about 30 minutes the corn is cooked and hot and usually stays that way for a couple of hours. Jessica’s hashbrown casserole. Her best ever rendition with Swiss, Cheddar, and Monterey Jack cheeses and mild green chilis. Spoonful: Jessica’s pineapple casserole. It went really well with the ribs. Monday was my grandmother’s funeral in Reidsville NC. After the funeral and the burial and speaking to people I haven’t seen for years – hearing how loved she was and how many people helped her when her niece and nephew and I couldn’t be there - and going back to the house and looking through pictures and telling stories, we needed supper before heading home. Where else but Short Sugar’s – the BBQ place that I grew up going to and have written about here before? I’m guessing I had my first meal at Short Sugar’s before I had teeth. Granddaddy probably had me gumming hushpuppies on my first visit to Reidsville. We just shared an assortment of stuff – a wonderful burger: When I spent my summers here as a kid, I ate a lot of these burgers. But as an adult, I haven’t spent as much time there and so, when I have the chance to eat there, I usually choose BBQ. The burgers are wonderful, though – just the right size and griddle cooked. Brunswick stew and hushpuppies: A chopped pork sandwich with slaw: And an order of pork rinds: One of which was as big as Jessica’s hand: Everything was delicious and as comforting as we needed it to be.

Welcome to eGullet! I think you are going to fit right in! Your desserts are lovely - I agree with @Smithy: you are going to answer as many questions as you ask! As far as Philly goes, I've only been once (and loved it and am hoping to come back some time), but because of friends I am familiar with Stock's Bakery. I don't know about anything but the pound cake - I'm posting about that today - it is the best I've ever tasted, so I can recommend a trip there for you!

I love fried dill pickles, so I'd try them. Hamburgers, hot dogs, topper for potato salad. I make fried dill pickles for Mr. Kim's BBQ pork: and I think I'd try the packaged kind there, too. I'm actually getting interested now. 😄

That's wonderful! Sexy picture, Rob!

I would also like to see the cornbread recipe. I'm a Jiffy girl and it is my shame as a GRITS that I've never made really great cornbread.

I love cottage cheese. Well...maybe not as much as bacon. 😉

By request for Father’s Day – whomp biscuits and Father’s bacon: He cooked his own bacon last night and I put the biscuits in the CSO this morning. I don’t think he actually prefers whomp biscuits to mine, but I think he suspected that with 9 coming for Father’s Day dinner tonight and going to NC for my grandmother's funeral tomorrow, I just couldn’t manage them this morning, God bless him. My poor husband - he's such a wonderful support with my mom who has dementia - I should send him up to @Ann_T for his breakfasts! 😉

Oh, definitely. I think BBQ places especially do huge portions. Half of my sandwich is sitting in the fridge right now. Mr. Kim will probably eat it for lunch.

Thanks so much. I've printed out your comments to put with my recipe, so I'll have them handy next time I make them.

Lunch at Smoke Pit BBQ grill - a local BBQ place we like a lot. Mr. Kim’s starter: Andouille and cheese stuffed jalapenos. Mr. Kim had the pulled pork, slaw, and beans: I had the smoked chicken, slaw, and hushpuppies: The pickles are housemade. Everything was very good.

Yes!!! That is the whole concept of "Bowl Cake" - sailing through disaster with your head held high!

Well, looking at the picture and the directions again, I still screwed up - just not the way I thought I had. The second layer of ladyfingers go just UNDER the final layer of cream. Jeez, I even screwed up TELLING about my screw up. LOL I did have leftover ladyfingers.

Well, I screwed the damn thing up. The layers were supposed to be ladyfingers, cream, strawberries, ladyfingers, cream, strawberries, cream. You notice there is a middle layer of ladyfingers? Yeah, I missed that and I'm guessing that they add some much needed stability. 🙄 We'll see tomorrow, I guess. This could end up being Bowl Cake (that's what we call cakes that fall apart and end up being served in a giant glass bowl). Sigh.

Dinner tonight was a couple of pizzas from some friends of Jessica’s that do a once a month pop-up. Homemade Italian sausage, red onions, and fresh mozz: White pizza with lemon zest and arugula: They were both delicious, but the crust was a little overworked, I think. Kinda tough and not enough bubbles.

OK, so, back to that damn strawberry icebox cake recipe again (this better be worth it) - the directions say "In a large bowl, beat mascarpone cheese on low speed until fluffy. Add cream, sugar and vanilla; beat on medium until stiff peaks form." Now, normally I would beat the mascarpone, add the sugar and vanilla and then beat the cream to stiff peaks in a separate bowl and fold that into the mascarpone mixture. Will I really get stiff peaks if I do it their way?

I am enjoying this so much, Beth! The videos are so great and I love hearing your voice!

I love these and also use them a lot. Except for goopy things that have to be scraped out - those are too much trouble. Not to make anyone feel bad (because God knows, we've replaced many, many appliances way too early over the years), but we have an almost 40 year old Montgomery Ward freezer that we got from Mr. Kim's grandparents when they went into assisted living. We've gotten so much good use out of that little dynamo that we won't feel at all bad when it finally does go bad. (Knock on wood)