Kim Shook

Soba – we just got back from our trip and what a lovely surprise to see you blogging. I always love your food and your pictures and can’t wait to see what you have for us! I am just amazed at what you accomplish in such a small space! I love the nasturtium flowers – one of my first forays into ‘high gourmet’ was planting them 25 years ago. I got probably 3 blooms (I am NOT a gardener), but thoroughly enjoyed that peppery flavor on a salad. I am completely jealous of the market! I remember visiting during my last trip to NYC and I mourned that I didn’t have a kitchen to cook in!

Actually, that picture is very well composed, my friend! And I love seeing real handwriting. There is a thread somewhere here about shopping lists and one of my favorite things in it was seeing people's handwriting! Please explain konbu ponzu?? Is this a ready-made sauce, or something that you make your self. That really looks delicious!

I love Swedish fish! I actually prefer the texture to that of 'gummies'. And I never expect candy to taste like actual fruit. I find that one enjoys it more that way. Do I expect Wild Cherry Lifesavers to taste like cherries? Of course not - they taste like 'RED'. And so do red fish. I'm ok with that.

Thank you everyone for the reassurances (and the compliments)! Not a new camera, but I've been trying to be more careful with lighting and perspective lately. And that note? Thats what we've taken to calling the 'Death Note' -it's a list of things that Jessica needs to know, just in case . Well, dern, Prawn - I was gonna slip up to Birmingham one afternoon ! Have a great trip.

We are trying to eat down the fresh food that we have before we leave for England on Friday. Dinner tonight was salad: And omelets: Mr. Kim’s with bacon, onions, cheese and siracha. And mine: With just bacon and cheese and a side of hash browns. I’ve begun to notice how ‘junky’ my pictures always are. The best light in the house (at least at dinner time) is on the island and it is always piled with stuff. In the edges of my pictures there is always a book or a cellphone or an ashtray (lovely) and tonight piles of English and Euro coins. I really need to tidy things up before I get the camera out. Maybe one of those tri-fold screens to give a blank background for the food to stand out? I have the most cluttered pictures on eGullet .

toolprincess – your tacos look wonderful and I really like the addition of radishes. That is something that I wouldn’t have thought of, but now it sounds perfect! menuinprogress – what a gorgeous plate and that sausage looks delicious! Borgstrom – oh my goodness! I really, really, really want a bite of that sandwich. RRO – that salad is positively beautiful! Prawn – your tart is so lovely that I would love to try it, even though I don’t care for beets. Dcarch – everything is just beautiful and delicious looking, as always – but that duck skin???? Oh, dear. I believe that would have been tempted to keep that as a cooks treat. That looks astonishingly good. What is the sauce on your lamb? Robirdstx – I like your ‘moatless’ hummus and Mr. Kim would adore the addition of sirachi. Must remember that. Mother’s Day dinner was actually tonight. We were all too full from our late (and mainly horrible) brunch to do justice to the meal that Mr. Kim was going to prepare, so Jess came back tonight and we had it. Mr. Kim prepared the whole meal and it was great! Both of his recipes were from Eating Well magazine, so they were not only good, but pretty healthy. I brought home some salad from a work lunch: This is one of our favorites at work. Just romaine, Granny Smith apples, cashews and shredded mozzarella with a poppy seed dressing. Mr. Kim’s dinner: Hoisin and Blueberry Roasted Chicken, Sauteed Spinach with Red Onion, Bacon and Bleu Cheese and corn. It was supposed to be cranberry in the chicken, but we couldn’t even find frozen ones. The blueberries worked pretty well, we thought, but we do want to try it sometime with the cranberries. We really liked the chicken – the hoisin didn’t overpower it at all and the spinach was fantastic! The cheese melted into the spinach and made this wonderful sauce. Close up of the chicken: We decided that we wanted to try this recipe with boneless thighs, too.

Thanks, Margaret, I've put it on the map!

Monoprix and Carrefour are both excellent places to look for take-home items. Mustards in many flavors, confitures, candy, sauces. Many of these supermarkets have special aisles of "local products", excellent quality, beautifully packaged and very well priced. That's good to know, Margaret. I think that the nearby Carrefour will be a great place to pick up gifts to take home. Thank you.

Thanks so much for all of the information. I was picturing us wandering around Paris with our chins on the ground in awe and just eating whatever smelled good. (Actually might be a good method to try sometime ). Between the help here and emails from eG’s Forest (who we are meeting for dinner one night), I think we are good now. We only have 2 reservations – cave de l’os a moelle for dinner on Thursday and Mon Oncle for dinner on Friday (that is where we are meeting Forest). So the plan below is mostly flexible. What I haven’t listed is all of the food shops and stores that I’ve highlighted in Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris, which we plan to use once we know where we are at any given time. Lots of these are places that you also recommended Daisy! These are the restaurants on our probable/possible list: Café Constant parc aux cerfs le gallopin The shops and stores include bakeries, patisseries, chocolate shops, cheese shops and charcuteries, so we’ll have lots of opportunities for ‘pick up’ meals. There is even a market on Friday very near our hotel – not to mention a Carrefour market within a couple of blocks. Pierre Herme is definitely on the list. I will certainly be doing a food report back here and probably multiple blog posts on my blog. Thank you all again – SO much!

I am sitting here GREEN with envy over your amazing selection of fish and, mostly, lunch with Miss Cali!

robirdstx – the crust on that chicken marsala is beautiful. And I love your hummus moat! Genkinaonna – your pot stickers and rice are exactly what I would like for dinner 3 nights out of 7! nikkib – I love falafel and yours looks fantastic! Dinner tonight was chicken enchiladas made with the Philadelphia brand Southwestern cream for cooking. I did the chicken last night and it made a very quick weeknight dinner tonight. Just chicken, onions, cheese, canned tomatoes and the cream for cooking: For me, these were pretty spicy. Mr. Kim didn’t find them so at all, of course. We are very incompatible when it comes to heat tolerance. I liked them a lot, though. A peek inside: Served with fries, slaw and raw vegetables:

You are some lucky ladies! How much I would love to have lunch with any one of you! And that Anna, Kerry and Marlene got to meet for lunch sounds incredible to me! Not to mention that incredible lunch!! I would have loved the squid and the lamb sandwich. And when I first read the name of the soup, I read it as 'spilt pea soup' and thought, It certainly was!.

I posted here in August 2010 about our May 2011 trip to Paris, asking for ‘pen pals’ who would answer all kinds of questions and got lots of lovely messages offering help. Now our plans are pretty much finalized and it’s time to work on the FOOD! Since I’m asking for specific help, I thought giving an idea of our itinerary would be useful: May 25 – we arrive at Paris-Nord at 1pm – then to our hotel – the Familia Hotel in the Latin Quarter. We have a 9pm sightseeing cruise leaving from the area of the Eiffel Tower, so we thought that we’d spend the afternoon and early evening in the areas of the Arc de Triomphe, wandering the Champs-Elysees, Hotel des Invalides and the Eiffel Tower. The cruise only lasts 1 hour, so we will be off the boat by 10pm. May 26 – plans for this day include Notre Dame, Le Crypte Archeologique, the Catacombs and Jardin du Luxembourg May 27 – plans for this day include wandering the Palais Royale, Montmartre (including Sacre Coeur and the Cimetiere Montmartre) We leave on the morning of May 27th. We will need breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks - basically every hour of the day and night . Not to mention things that we can take back to the US for gifts. I have a copy of Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris, which we will take with us. I think that the best way to describe the kind of food we are looking for is classic bistro food. Duck confit, bœuf bourguignon, apple tarts, excellent bread. We also love anything that comes out of the water. Although we love all kinds of foods, for this trip we want FRANCE – not Moroccan or tapas or trendy or NEW. Also, while we’d love to go to someplace truly FABULOUS, we do have to watch our expenses. Over the two weeks that we’ll be in England and France we’ll be spending a LOT of money, so moderately priced places would be welcome. Any advice on restaurants, food shops, etc. would be very welcome. And if you recommend a restaurant, it would be really helpful if you could let us know if reservations are needed and what the basic ‘dress code’ is. Thank you so much for your help!

We swear that we can taste the plastic that the prepped salad greens are packed in.

Deena – what an absolutely gorgeous pizza! Rico – congratulations on your new toy! That chicken looks beautiful! With the England trip coming up, we are trying not to buy a lot of fresh stuff and eat up the freezer and pantry. Tonight was some of Mr. Kim’s chili from the freezer. He had it straight with cheese and jalapenos: and I had chili-cheese fries:

Gorgeous farmer’s market. I live in the south, but my town just doesn’t have a really great market. And I love the sound of those cucumbers. We have a bowl of them going in the fridge all summer long, but I’ve never thought to add OJ – that is a great idea!

Thanks for the compliments on Jessica’s Easter dinner – I’ve passed them on and she was very pleased. She peeks in here occasionally and knows what good cooks you all are! Mark – Actually, I’m glad to know that you did your char sui with such a small piece of pork – we are only two here and I love having things that don’t take too long to use up (not a big leftover fan). The stir fry is gorgeous! Djyee – I’ve printed out your notes on the soup and will be making that. Mr. Kim adores soup and kale and I adore black eyed peas – that soup will make both of us very happy, I think! Did you use chicken stock to ‘soup it up’? Emily – I’ve also printed out the recipe for the shrimp cakes – they sound fantastic and perfect for summer. We’ve been getting an amazing deal on shrimp lately and my freezer is stuffed with them. Chris – the roast chicken looks wonderful – all that glorious golden juice. I’ve gotta get my copy out and try that. David – I really like the sound of your slaw. Yet another recipe I’ve printed out this morning! Sound like I’m due for a spell in the kitchen! Lola – Your Easter tea is lovely! The cookies are adorable and are those Cadbury mini eggs I spy on your cupcakes? I am absolutely stealing your cooky decorating techniques! We will be in England in less than two weeks and I plan on stuffing myself with English Cadbury while we’re there! For dinner last night we started with our ubiquitous salad: And then we got real trashy: Sloppy Joe casserole (Sloppy Joe mixture topped with cornbread batter and baked) and CANNED all day Italian green beans with side meat.

RRO – those sweet rolls are gorgeous! I DO have a sweet tooth and I’m so glad that you posted the link for the recipe! Breakfast this morning: Fried eggs, hash browns and Benton’s bacon.

I'm very excited to see you blogging and can't wait for everything!

dcarch – I haven’t had dinner yet tonight and after seeing that beautiful array of seafood, I KNOW I don’t have anything in my house that is going to satisfy me! Paul - Braciole! Oooooh! I haven’t had that in WAY too long. Ann – thanks for the peek! I use food coloring a lot for cake decorating and such, but I always feel like I can taste it and I’ve never enjoyed Red Velvet cake for that very reason. Mark – your char siu is perfect! How long will it take to use up what you’ve made and how do you store it? Chris – that lamb looks insanely good – like BBQ! I saw that pile of lamby goodness and started thinking “lamb sliders on garlic rolls”! RRO – I think your carnitas look wonderful. When I finish cooking the pork to the desired point of tenderness, I can never get cubes anyway – it always turns into ‘pulled’! Dakki – all this lamb makes me want to go shopping! Shelby – Brats? Where? Are you sure you put them on the bun ? Everything looks great, but I have to go off-topic a bit and say how much I love those plates you served Easter dinner on! They are really special. Easter was Jessica’s first holiday in her new apartment and so she invited Mr. Kim and me for lunch. HUGE success – everything was delicious! I was amazed and proud. Her timing was a little rough and she could have done a better job getting things prepped ahead of time, but I do that all the time STILL and I’ve been cooking for over 30 years! Pre-dinner nibbles: Cream cheese with pepper jelly and fig preserves. And: Sweet and spice rosemary cashews. Dinner included a perfectly roasted chicken: Stuffed with lemons and herbs, roasted heads of garlic and bacon (very English). A prime test of a cook and she really nailed it. A gorgeous salad: Romaine, endive, red onion, dried cranberries, candied pecans, pears and a lemon/olive oil/herb dressing. Asparagus and corn salad w/ feta cheese: Roast potatoes with pine nuts, bacon and Locatelli: Pasta with two cheeses and spinach: I contributed (by request) deviled eggs: Yes, this was all for THREE people. She also needs to work on amounts (but I cook that way, too – so she comes by it naturally). We took dessert over to my MIL’s to share.

Genkinaonna – adorable cakes! You really do beautiful work. I can see why the pirate cake was so much fun, though! The waves are awesome! Darienne – the blood orange cake sounds fantastic! Jeff – your lemon tart is just beautiful. The filling looks so lovely and creamy and I love the burnt edges on the meringue. Pierogi – I agree, that coffee cake looks like perfection! Deensiebat – congratulations on the macaron success – I love the color! Dessert was my domain this Easter. I made the cake: This is the Lemon Coconut cheesecake from a Fine Cooking publication called Junior’s Cheesecakes. Junior’s is a restaurant in NY that specializes in cheesecakes. I don’t know how good the restaurant is, but the menu looks wonderful and the cheesecake recipes are legitimate. This is actually Key lime rather than lemon because I had some Key lime curd and extract that I wanted to use. It is a layer of cheesecake and a layer of sponge cake filled with whipped cream, coconut and curd – all frosted with stabilized whipped cream. The only thing is that the directions for assembling the cake were completely counterintuitive to me. It calls for starting with the sponge cake on the bottom and spreading with whipped cream, sprinkling with coconut, then carefully spreading the curd over the coconut and topping that with the cheesecake. The sponge cake is very light and tender, so it didn’t make sense to me to have it under the heavy cheesecake. And fiddling with trying to spread the curd OVER the coconut seemed unnecessarily difficult. So I basically flipped it. I started with the cheesecake, spread it with the curd, sprinkled with coconut and spread with whipped cream and then put the cake layer on. It worked just fine and I didn’t have to try maneuvering the cheesecake around. Slice: This was just delicious. Everyone said that it was one of the best things that I’d ever made. Today I took in some cupcakes for a luncheon at work for a coworker going on maternity leave: Just yellow cupcakes with homemade fondant ‘bib’ decorations. This was my first time working with fondant and I really enjoyed it. It was so easy – like working with Play Doh! I had always heard about how awful fondant tastes. I thought it was a little bland, but not unpleasant. Seeing as it is only marshmallow, white chocolate, butter, cream, vanilla and 10X, how bad could it possibly taste? Also, these were very, very thin. Some details:

Soba – that breakfast is positively gorgeous! What a fantastic photo – I swear I can taste those eggs and tomatoes! RRO – lovely scones! I’m so looking forward to a real cream tea when we go to England next month! Easter breakfast: Scrambled eggs and croissants with this amazing stuff that the Easter Bunny put in my basket: It is chocolate/raspberry jam from Spain. Just incredibly good and rich with a deep chocolate and fruit flavor. I can’t describe how good this stuff was on a croissant! Not to mention, our eggs:

I love sardines but my family can't bear even the smell (same with smoke oysters, which I adore), so I don't indulge often. I like the ones that you mentioned with a little drizzle of sherry vinegar and a sprinkling of finely minced shallots on a water biscuit. For a really trashy lunch I love the ones with mustard all smooshed up on a saltine!

Gorgeous, Ann! Can we have another picture when you 'crack' them open? Happy Easter to all!

Pam – I am thoroughly enjoying this week with you. I love that you work with your family – this would be a dream come true for me, especially if it centered around food. I am just amazed at your stamina – a week like this one with the added work of a blog and on top of all of that you are actually cooking at home, too! My heroine! I, too, covet access to a band saw.