Kim Shook

RWood – Happy Birthday! That cake is gorgeous! Just exactly what I’d make for myself if I had your skills! Paula – what a beautiful macaron! And the flavor combination is one of my very favorites. I’d give a LOT to be able to taste one. I tried out emmalish’s chocolate snaps recipe this week. I’m making cookies for an Episcopal Church Woman’s board meeting that our church is hosting in May. I wanted a recipe that made lots of cookies and could be frozen: I took them to this week’s ECW meeting. Everyone loved them. They are thin and full of chocolate flavor and very ‘snappy’. I’ve got some in the freezer now to see how they do, but I imagine they will work fine.

Thank you, William! I should have said (since I couldn't post my pictures) that the ceramic liner is there. Do you think just a good wash with hot water and dish soap is enough?

I found a Keystone ice bucket at an antique shop in the Outer Banks. We paid $25 for it. Based on the research I’ve been able to do, I’m not sure it was a great deal, but I love it. I’d like to actually use it - how would I make sure that it was sanitized fully? I don’t want to use anything that would leave an odor behind that would get into the ice. Having trouble with pictures - flickr has changed and I can't figure out how to get the pictures to actually show. Funny how often "improvements" complicate once simple things, huh? Anyway, this is a link to an online picture of the piece: http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-keystoneware-ice-bucket-art-129860752

Thanks to everyone for the help! I did have better luck this time thanks to following the suggestions from Mjx and Melissa. I also periodically thwacked the ends of the logs as I was rolling them to ‘contract’ them. I only got a few holes this time when I sliced the cookies. I’ll be posting the cookies on the Daily Sweets thread later.

VA would be country ham, certainly. But you can't forget Brunswick stew. I've been to lots of BBQ restaurants in VA that have only so-so BBQ, but fantastic stew. There is even a really good canned stew made in our area - Mrs. Fearnow's. NC has to be BBQ pork, of course. IN - pork tenderloin sandwiches.

Whenever I make slice and bake cookies (from scratch), I always have the same issue - when rolling up the logs, there is always a fissure that runs through the middle. I can't seem to manage to get a solid log. Then, when I slice them, the cookies have a ragged hole in the middle. I have to squeeze each one to mash it back together and end up just wishing that I'd just scooped and flattened them. Does anyone have any techniques that will help me avoid this problem? Thank you!

I made the mistake of reading this thread today. I wasn’t even hungry. But then I began to crave eggs and bread and PORK! If I had had any patience, I’d have had sausage gravy, but this was FAST: Egg, cheese and sausage on a buttered and toasted scali roll.

robirdstx – that is some gorgeous pulled pork. Mr. Kim is dying to do one – if it will ever stop snowing here! Paul – what beautiful halibut cakes. Halibut is crazy expensive here, but you’ve got me craving some. Soba – your salad is beautiful and, as always, I envy you the ability to obtain such varied and lovely greens. And I agree with you about the green salad. Often, that’s exactly what I want – just tender greens with a light vinaigrette! dcarch – thank you! Beautiful leftovers! And I love the char on those greens – just perfect. Were those romaine hearts? Norm – your corned beef dinner is gorgeous! Makes me wish I had some plans tonight other than leftovers! Bruce – wonderful looking pork. Please tell Mrs. C congrats for me. And I love, love, LOVE that you served it on white bread – the perfect foil. Steve – good lord, MORE fantastic looking pork. I need to visit our butcher! Had a potluck lunch at church yesterday. I made Rachel’s (some of you will remember racheld) chicken salad, Michael Ruhlman’s rolls and a Coca-cola cake with coconut cream filling: My cooking mojo is still a bit off, as the rolls were very tough and coarse (but tasted good). The chicken salad and cake were fantastic, though.

emmalish – I love the orange coconut cookies! They are going in my ‘to try’ file. Most all of the cookies in that file are from you! I’ve got a big regional church ladies’ meeting that I have to make cookies for in May, so I’ll be testing out the chocolate snaps since the recipe makes so many. Do you think that they would freeze well? Made Coca-cola cake with coconut cream filling for a church potluck lunch yesterday. I missed getting a shot of the whole cake and it’s too bad, because it was really attractive, for me! This is the chocolate cake that the folks I used to work with called "That Cake". When they requested "That Cake", I knew they meant the Coca-cola one! People were scrambling to take some home!

dcarch – I think that I could taste that crispy pork skin you showed back on 3/2. Out in the country in the south you can sometimes still find a little café that serves fried hog jowl. Like bacon on steroids, it is pure fried pork. If it is deep fried, you get that crackly, hard to bite intensity that I remember from the pork of my childhood. My English stepdad and I would fight over the crispy cracklins. THAT is what your pork skin reminded me of. Robirdstx – beans and cornbread!!! I have a bag of great northerns and a hambone. I think I know what I’ll be making next week! Franci – everything that I said above to dcarch about his pork skin goes for your delectable belly skin! Shelby – pheasant livers sound so good! Never had anything but chicken, goose, duck and rabbit. Ann – beautiful gougères! I’ve only made individual ones. I’ll have to try the ring for company sometime – it looks really impressive. mm – I admit that I am so jealous of your beautiful, perfect pommes soufflés! We had them in NOLA and I was determined to reproduce them. I read everything that I could find on preparing them and completely failed. Not ONE puffed up! We ended up having homemade potato chips that night! The last time I posted a dinner was March 1st. Apparently, I haven’t cooked a meal in 2 weeks. That can’t be right, can it? I guess it depends on what one means by “cooking”. We’ve certainly eaten. Our clothes aren’t falling off our bodies. The refrigerator is disconcertingly full of Styrofoam clamshells. And there are lots of soup cans in the recycling bin. I’ve even thawed and heated up (homemade) spaghetti sauce and chili. But today I actually cooked – sautéed and simmered. Tasted and added salt and pepper and oregano. Chopped vegetables and sliced meat into chunks. And it was very good. Good to taste and good to DO. I don’t have my ‘mojo’ back yet, but I think it’s coming. Dinner tonight started with…wait for it - Salad : Lamb & Lentil stew: I haven’t made this for years. But I found some beautiful leg of lamb steaks on sale at Kroger. They were about 1-inch thick with just one little curl of bone in the center (like a ham steak) and were perfect for cutting up into stew meat. As good as I remembered! Served with crusty rolls and a meltingly soft brie: Nice to be doing some cooking again – even if my vegetable chopping hand is a bit sore tonight .

I'm with Bruce on the World's Best Braised Cabbage. Thanks to his recommendation this former cooked cabbage hater now loves it. Here's a link to the recipe: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/VEGETABLES/Worlds_Best_Braised_Green_Cabbage.html

Emmalish - thank you! I think I'm going to stick with the bare sides. I like it and Jessica thinks that if the sides are iced, it will be too much. Anna - I am a fairly accomplished home baker and the cake that always gives me trouble is pound cake!

I did a recipe test today for a possible Mother’s day dessert. I tried a recipe for an embellished angel food cake that I found online. It was angel food cake with coconut whipped cream and grapefruit syrup. The whipped cream is made with the solids from a can of coconut milk. I decided to garnish it with candied grapefruit peel. Finished cake: The whipped coconut cream didn’t make enough to ice the sides, but I’m kind of liking the look of the un-iced sides. Grapefruit syrup: This stuff is delectable. I could eat it with a spoon. Slice with syrup drizzled over: Seriously delicious. Just the right balance of sweet and bitter. Definitely going on the Mother’s day menu.

emmalish – thanks for the recipe link! And then you post two more cookies that look and sound so incredibly good. I’m printing out those recipes (and cakewalk’s notes) now!

robirdstx – I have become addicted to English muffins lately – sometimes with eggs and sometimes just with about a half a stick of butter ! Ann – beautiful sausage gravy! It looks absolutely fantastic, as do your biscuits. And I agree with Ashen – that breakfast is perfect. The toast is a thing of beauty. gfweb – those potstickers are lovely. I love how thin the skins are. Mr. Kim’s breakfast yesterday morning: Salami & Cheddar omelet. I had a slice of a local bakery’s fantastic pecan ring that I only buy when we have company because I will eat one in a day .

Bill – welcome! Gorgeous tenderloin! Ann – thank you! Wonderful looking pork belly. Steve – a lamb po-boy sounds so delicious! One of my sisters came down for a couple of days and she and my mother came over for dinner tonight. Bibb lettuce salad with creamy chive dressing: Spaghetti Bolognese: And a version of Ann T’s Italian Bread w/ Gorgonzola: Except with mozzarella since my sister doesn’t eat Gorgonzola. Really good variation!

At one point I had THREE copies of 'Ratio'. I have so many cookbooks, spread out all over the house that I could't find it and put it on my Amazon wish list - TWICE!

I love that you and your granddaughter IM about food!

Ever have one of those weird nights where leftovers didn’t get used as quickly as you anticipated and what you planned to cook can’t be refrozen and needs to be cooked? That was me tonight. So we ended up having basically TWO meals to choose from tonight. I used the last of the pot roast leftovers to make soup: Then with the thawed cube steak, I did smothered cube steak, rice and green beans: Very similar meals and LOTS of carbs .

I'd love to have the crunchy one, too, please ma'am!

emmalish - beautiful cookies! Especially the Valentine's heart cookies. I've been on a quest to find a sugar cooky that will hold it's edges when cooked and these sound perfect. I've printed the recipe and can't wait to try them. Your decoration is lovely, too!

Bruce – those Camarones a la pimiento look great. I’ll bet if I did them with roasted jalapenos, I could eat them! Would you mind directing me to a recipe? Shelby – that pastrami is fantastic looking! I’m totally impressed. Ann – both of those turkey dishes look outstanding. Open-faced hot turkey sandwiches are a particular weakness of mine. And I could eat that prime rib dinner once a week forever. Well, except for the peas…you could keep them . Basquecook – are those crispy sprouts roasted? I love the crusty edges. Franci – that deep fried snapper looks so great. I really need to try that method sometime. Kay – love your pork chop dinner! German potato salad !!! Aren’t you the one who shares my dislike of regular potato salad? gfweb – arancini look perfect. Plantes Vertes – I can vouch for Ann’s corn custard. It is a favorite in the Shook household. Night before last I made CI’s Simple Pot Roast from their 20th Anniversary All-Time Best Recipes publication: For years, I’ve made what we think is the world’s best pot roast. It’s called Italian Pot Roast and it’s from Ronald Johnson’s book Simple Fare. I’ve wanted to find an alternate beefier recipe for a while now. We still love the Italian pot roast, but occasionally want something different. This was really good and pretty easy to make. I’ll add more garlic next time, though. Served with parsley noodles, Brussels sprouts and Parker House rolls: Last night the pot roast leftovers made great French dips: Served with green beans, baked potatoes and, for Mr. Kim and Jessica, mushrooms:

I think the Crunchwrap sounds good - I'll probably give that a try. The idea of syrup and eggs touching is completely gross to me, so no waffle. Hardees is the only decent fast food breakfast in my area. Their biscuits are good and their sausage actually tastes like the kind I cook instead of some pre-cooked and frozen patty. It would be nice to have an alternative to Hardees for a quick breakfast.

What gfweb said. And, honestly, does anyone believe that half the host on Food Network say 'marscapone' because that's how its pronounced in their region? Is there a regional variety of pronunciations of mascarpone in the US?

Completely agree (in large part because we live in more or less the same place, and disagreeing would force me never to say "earl" again). The thing that bugs me is not regional variation, but incorrectness due to ignorance. If you want to say "mask-are-poan" instead of mascarpone, be my guest. Just don't say "marsk-a-poan", because then you sound illiterate. Thanks, Mike. This is more what I meant, but couldn't seem to get to! I am from the southern US and I have lots of words that I pronounce in a southern way: oil, mayonnaise, etc. I'm not going to change and neither should anyone else. AND I was really making the point about food professionals who are in a position to inform and show us something possibly new and unknown, not about US !