Kim Shook

For my birthday gift, Jessica took me to the Jefferson Hotel for afternoon tea. Mr. Kim went, too. Menu: Jessica and I had the Jefferson blend and Mike had the Richmond blend. I adore Hotel Silver and would start a collection if I weren't trying to pare down my others. Tea goodies: Cucumber on pumpernickel, chicken tarragon salad, cheese-arugula wrap and country ham rolls: All really good, but the chicken salad was a standout. For me, it is really easy to find tarragon overdone, but this was perfect. Savory scone – sun dried tomatoes and cheese: Savory scone, sweet scone, chocolate and yellow slices and a cookie: The sweet scone was an abomination – they had put mini M&M’s in them. More sweets: Macaron, strawberries, lemon curd mini tarts with blackberries and blueberries and a little chocolate mousse filled tart. Everything was delicious, but the strawberry and the mousse proved that you shouldn’t choose festive-ness over flavor. Those little sprinkles have a flavor – actually, a fairly strong one and they compromised and cheapened the pure flavor of the fruit and the chocolate. Since it was my birthday celebration, they brought out a lovely cupcake: The cake was excellent – like a poundcake, really. I’m not a big fan of buttercream and since the cupcake had been refrigerated, the frosting was pretty stiff. What a lovely gift for this Anglophile!

Look what Mr. Kim got me for my birthday: Now I have to read this whole frickin' thread!

I love that hot dog. What a dumb idea. Like Chik-fil-A deciding to replace their delicious slaw (oddly it is hard to find good slaw either in a store of restaurant) with the so-called "Superfood Side salad". No thank you - when I am eating fried chicken sandwiches, I want SLAW.

I've never made the cake, but I have a recipe for Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins that uses 1 c. of Miracle Whip in place of any butter or oil and they are really good and moist.

Kay, I'm sorry for your loss. Pear trees remind me of my grandparent's farm in NC. I thought you might like this pear story.

Happy Birthday!!!

Me, too! Don't know how I missed it! Thanks so much for taking the time to share your trip. Ok. I wondered if we were just going to ignore this. Or if I was the only 10 year old in the bunch.

Wonder which is more environmentally friendly? Most places in the US you can recycle glass, but there a lots of places where you can't recycle wax coated paper cartons. I like the carton, though. Only problem might be determining how much you have left.

Last night - The Salad: 😉 Wegman’s “fresh” linguine with sauce: Of course, it is not really fresh, just refrigerated and not dry. But it was really good, with a great fresh-like texture. Certainly, better than dried pasta. And some incredibly good garlic bread: It is an ATK method. You split the loaf and spread it with garlic butter (a mixture of melted and soft butter and garlic powder and pressed garlic). You bake it at 450F for 3 minutes, turn it over so that the garlic butter side is against the baking sheet, put another baking sheet on top and press it down slightly and bake an additional 8 minutes, leaving the baking sheet on top. Super crisp on the garlic side, but tender inside. Definitely the best garlic bread I’ve ever made.

Corn, cheeseburgers, Jessica’s delicious deviled eggs, fixed up Kraft, Leah’s baked beans, hot dogs with Skyline chili. Then fireworks on TV watched through the fog of our food-comas.

I would love to have seen the inside of that pork foot. And I think your daughter is doing well! Jessica, at 34, eats many more foods than I do, but she still isn't up for snails!

PM's????? Brain is at low power.

A woman after my own heart! I adore these, but Mr Kim and Jessica detest them - even the smell makes them ill. So I have them for an occasional lunch treat! My mom and my dad - @Ted Fairhead - and I all loved them and we embarrassed ourselves once at a wedding reception by haunting a punchbowl-sized bowl of them. I am not cooking very consistently lately. Lots of restaurant, take out, pizza, etc. My mom has been in rehab care for almost a month and can no longer live alone, due to her physical health and worsening dementia. So, July 10th, she is coming home to us. We’ve been crazily trying to get things here ready for that and to clear out her apartment. So, I’ve got a backlog of meals that I’ve thrown together! They go back almost a month! Hamburger helper, butter beans and cinnamon apple sauce: Guilty pleasure/comfort food. And this one: - pickly stuff: And my attempt at one of @HungryChris' amazing looking sandwiches: Needs some work, but it was good. Along with vegetable soup: @HungryChris – how about a little tutorial on the subject of sub/hoagie making? For instance – do you use lettuce or cabbage for your gorgeous shreds? Snack before dinner one night: Another sandwich attempt: Still not quite right. Served with succotash: The usual salad: Grilled brats on Kaiser rolls w/ sauerkraut and fixed up Kraft: A friend came over to help pack up my mother’s apartment. I made a quick/easy/cheater BBQ chicken pizza: It was actually not bad. Pillsbury crust (I wasn’t about to wrestle with pizza dough while packing up the kitchen), Montgomery Inn BBQ sauce (our favorite), Mozzarella and Provolone cheeses, chicken, and bacon. Getting tired of these yet? I am: Chicken cutlets with a Pierre Franey lemon-thyme sauce that was SO easy and good: Ok corn: Some beet/feta/spinach salad thing that was on the food bar at Wegman’s: Mr. Kim liked it a lot. And some cheese toast made with Wegman’s bakery cheese bread: Dripping with butter, it is irresistible. Another night, we started with some cheeses we got at Wegman’s for a snack: Top: an Appalachian cheese from Galax VA. Bottom: Organic Bleu Auvergne from France With crackers and some fruit, they ended up being dinner! A different take on salad - with provolone and salami: Mr. Kim brought home a recipe for me to try. He doesn’t do that a lot, so I try to comply when he has a special request. It was for Lemon-Cilantro chicken – basically an oil-poached chicken. This dish completely surpassed my expectations. I wondered if it wouldn’t be too oily and too heavily flavored with cilantro (it calls for ONE CUP of cilantro to 2 chicken breasts). It was neither. The chicken turns out incredibly moist and tender and the cilantro is very mellow. Even cold, the chicken is wonderful. Starting to cook: Cooked: Served with fixed up boxed PastaRoni: That is one dull looking plate, huh? But, we practically licked them clean! This past week, Jessica requested Taco Tuesday. Chips and salsa: Meat and fixings: Grilled pineapple: Plated with fixed up refried beans (canned, but with added salsa and cumin): Mr. Kim went to a farmer’s market near his office and came home with lots of strawberries. So dinner was strawberry shortcake. I fixed up frozen biscuits with butter and turbinado sugar: Perfect summer meal. Between Mr. Kim’s farmer’s market foray and some shopping that Jessica did, we are awash in fruit, so that’s what started dinner last night: Berries, grilled pineapple, yellow watermelon and cherries. And then a mishmash of leftovers and newly made stuff: A beet and feta salad (both from the farmer’s market), long grain and wild rice, fish, chicken and hush puppies (last three were leftovers from after church lunch out).

For coffee hour at church I made this coffee cake: It's called Lois' Best Coffee Cake and it was the subject of @maggiethecat's lovely eG essay "Swans and Streusel" 10 years ago. I've been making it ever since and it is always a success!

Some recent breakfasts - Benton’s bacon, sausage and English muffins with strawberry preserves. Egg and cheese on a soft roll. Father’s Day: Biscuits with Edward’s country ham and L'Epicerie fig syrup.

Not cooking a lot lately - eating mostly at restaurants, for lunch especially. Got a special request from Mr. Kim, though - chicken salad. So we had croissants for lunch: Walmart is selling all-butter croissants now and I thought it was worth a try. Surprise, surprise they are NOT croissants. The flavor was decent, but the texture was all off, of course. But my throw-together chicken salad was pretty good!

That looks familiar! 😉

Well, we were invited to a friend’s house, but I somehow got strong armed by Jessica into doing it at home for just the three of us. With my mother moving in next week from the rehab facility, Jessica believes that we won't ever have "just us" time again. And since I am filled with guilt about neglecting Mike and Jess in favor of my mom all the time, I caved. 🙄 So, the menu is: Chili/cheese dogs Burgers Slaw @caroled's Baked Beans Deviled eggs Mac & Cheese Corn Chips and dip Watermelon

Me, too. For years, I have suspected Mr. Kim and Jessica of doing things badly on purpose to get out of the job. Now it's my turn. LOL

Oh, WOW! I'd love those without the chili flakes!

We had a wonderful lunch and a wonderful visit! As always with eG folk, our talk ranged far beyond food. We are a well rounded group! Thanks for sharing your vacation time with me, @robirdstx!

Wow! I wouldn't eat it (don't care for most of the toppings), but that is one of the prettiest things I've ever seen!!!

Welcome home!!!! See you tomorrow!

Ohhhhhh! I'm very envious! We went to Bermuda in 1989 and fell in love. Nicest people I've ever met. The only place I remember eating was the Hog Penny Pub. We tasted the chowder everywhere we went and theirs was the best. But, of course, that was almost 30 years ago. Please report back!