Kim Shook

I need a birthday gift for my world traveler BIL who will be living in San Diego for the forseeable future in between trips to Argentina, Portugal, etc. He's late 40's, single, a bit crunchy (drinks green smoothies for breakfast) and very adventuresome in his tastes. Casual is fine, but probably not a real DIVE. It has to be somewhere that will sell us a gift certificate online or on the phone since we are in VA. In one of the posts Costa Brava is mentioned and sounded interesting. Thanks so much for the help!

sherrid – those pancakes look lovely and very familiar to me. My stepdad is English and those pancakes were a favorite of mine. I loved the slight crunch of the sugar and the spark that he always made with the lemon peel and a match! kayb – what a GREAT idea! I’ve done a French toast ‘bar’ with fondue pots for a brunch, but never thought to do pancakes. Hmmm – only have one griddle, would need to borrow more . Have a wonderful visit with your family! Breakfast this morning: Scrambled eggs, Benton’s bacon and THE Cinnamon-Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Coffee Cake. My layering technique obviously needs some work (seriously – how hard should it be to figure out HALF of something?), but this was delicious!

minas - I don't have any advice to offer, having never made anything but the simplest boiled break-apart candies, but I have to tell you how utterly lovely your candies are and how impressed I am with them. Good job!

Bruce – thanks for the information (and the compliment!). It must be pasta week (see below)! We had spaghetti with meat sauce tonight: Just a tarted up jarred sauce – but it cooked most of the afternoon and tasted so good. We needed some comfort food after watching our Rams lose to Butler in the Final Four ! I also made garlic bread with some excellent crusty bread from Costco and, of course, a salad:

Kerry suggested coating the Pop Rocks with cocoa butter to save them from melting. I'm not really sure what to do about the flavoring. I used the Lorann liquid and it was not like any cotton candy I've ever tasted.

Thanks for the cooky love. Kerry gave me an idea for maintaining the Pop Rocks power, so I'll be trying them again! The shrimp recipe is Dianne's - a member here at eG. They are a favorite of ours - such an easy preparation that I make them a LOT! Here is the recipe.

rarerollingobject – those roasted grapes look seriously amazing! Bruce – the stir fried salmon meal looks fantastic. I am stealing the cabbage/snow pea/mushroom idea. And how in the world do you stir fry salmon without it becoming hash? Dejah – beautiful scallops! What a perfect sear you got. Jem – you bet that’s a keeper – I can tell that even without a picture. I’ve saved your directions and description and will be trying that. Between you and Genkinaonna, I’m inspired to get out my pressure cooker and get busy. We had Mr. Kim’s mother over for dinner last night. I love cooking for her because she is so adventuresome and likes almost everything. We started with a chilled curry apple soup that an online friend who lives in China recommended: Served with Monica Bhide’s curry leaf bread made as rolls: And some goodies to spread: green olive tapenade, tomato jam and hummus. The jam and hummus were purchased, but I made the tapenade. We had a version of this at a party awhile back and the caterer told me what the ingredients were – I took her list and added some anchovy paste – very, very good! The main course included Dianne’s Garlic Shrimp: delicous, as always. With some crusty bread for sopping, of course: Couscous with shallots, currants and hazelnuts, cooked a different way than I usually do: The method was one from the February 2011 issue of CI. Instead of the standard – bring the water/stock to a boil, add the couscous, cover, let sit and fluff – you toast the dry couscous in the pan with butter for about 5 minutes and then add the liquid, which boils immediately. Then you cover and let sit. I’d never done it this way and it was a huge improvement over the other method – nice, separate grains and not too dry. A simple salad: Just greens with olive oil, orange muscat vinegar and S&P. Dessert was cookies. The (very) good: And the not-so-much: (Explanation here)

Thanks again for all the advice. My rolls worked perfectly. We had my MIL over for dinner last night and I wanted to make them ahead of time and freeze them. I made them on Tuesday night and thawed them yesterday morning. The dough worked out very well as rolls. Great crust and a good interior. Close up: I really love the color that the turmeric gives the bread.

Deliciouslylekker – that cake is fabulous! I just love the slightly collapsed center and the contrast of the dark chocolate with the drift of confectioner’s sugar! I’ve printed out the recipe to try. Genkinaonna – I adore your cupcakes. They are certainly girly enough for me! I made a couple of different cookies for dessert last night. One huge success and the other – not so much. I made Deena’s Almond Joy cookies: A fantastic success. Delicious macaroon with a dollop of dark chocolate and toasted almonds. Rich and gooey. The dark chocolate offsets the sweetness of the macaroon perfectly. The other cooky was a bit of a failed experiment and requires a little explanation. I love those Lofthouse cookies that they have in grocery store bakeries. They are tender and soft and very cakey. I am also in love with Brewster’s Cotton Candy Explosion ice cream. It is cotton candy flavored with Pop Rocks mixed in. I somehow became obsessed with the idea of making a Lofthouse-type cooky with the flavor of the ice cream. A coworker makes a copycat Lofthouse cooky and gave me her recipe. I put a little cotton candy flavoring in the cooky dough and in the frosting and topped them with Pop Rocks. Then my problems began – the cookies are lovely and tender and the frosting smooth and not numbingly sweet (better, in fact, than the Lofthouse frosting). But the flavoring didn’t taste at ALL like cotton candy – just vaguely sweet and fruity. The Pop Rocks worked just fine when we tasted the cookies immediately after topping the cookies – good explosiveness. But they fairly quickly melted away to nothing. Sigh. I’m sure that Brewster’s gets some special Pop Rocks that will stand up to being wetted with the ice cream. They are much larger than the ones that I got. Oh, well. My next idea for the cookies is to incorporate toasted coconut, which I’m sure will work much better. I also overdid the red food coloring and they are rather alarmingly PINK:

I don’t have much to offer – my breakfast was eaten at lunch time and consisted of leftover garlic shrimp and buttered saltines! BUT, I had to comment on Moe’s breakfast and Deena’s coffee cake (again). Ann, that breakfast is, to me, THE quintessential breakfast. It has everything that is necessary to me – perfectly cooked egg, pork and potato (I’d probably add one of those bagels in the next picture, but I’m a double starch girl). I went and searched out a source for peameal bacon and hope to have some soon. They offer it slice or as a roast. Which do you recommend? And I am making Deena’s coffee cake tomorrow. All those pictures were just too much for me.

Just dipped into your cookbook and now see that you have enough cereal to make Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch Treats for your entire neighborhood. Indeed. Not to mention Crunchberry ones.

I have 4 GIANT boxes of assorted Cap'n Crunch cereals in my pantry. There was a rumor a couple of weeks ago that they were discontinuing production and in a panic, I stocked up. Oh, the shame.

judiu - I'm sorry - I should have said that that was also store-bought (in the interests of getting dinner on the table FAST). It was from Harris Teeter's deli section. We don't have a Harris Teeter here in Richmond, but found it in NC when we were at the OBX that weekend. It is one of our favorites and we always grab some when we get near a Harris Teeter. toolprincess - I love your meatloaf repurposing! I have the same infection and think that would be a GREAT dinner! Hope you feel better soon! Ann - Those halibut cheeks look positively succulent! Nick - beautiful pastrami. It looks so tender and perfect. robirdstx - I have been craving fish tacos lately and no one here has really good ones - those look fantastic and I love, love, LOVE the sound of the white sauce! Borgstrom - salmon souffle sounds lovely - I have the book, I'll have to look up that recipe! I am doing all of my food enjoyment this week vicariously - I'm battling an upper respiratory infection and trying to prep for a dinner party on Friday night. Last night I made two kinds of cooky dough and curry leaf rolls to put in the freezer and ate leftover Chinese take out! Thank you all for your contributions!

These folks need to be introduced to dcartch.

Thank you all so much. I'm going to be making these tonight and feel much better about my chances of success!

Thank you, ma'am!

I want to make this bread as rolls. Can I just shape them into rolls in step 7 instead of placing in a loaf pan and let them do the final rise? If so, do I let them rise for the same amount of time or less? Thank you!

Thank you everyone for all the information! We haven't completely figured out what days we are doing what, but as soon as I do, I'll plug in all of these ideas. As far as what type of food we want, for the more casual meals like I said pub meals, 'traditional British' (thanks for the fish and chips advice, John). Also, Mr. Kim loves Indian food and we are pretty adventuresome eaters. For the special 'thank you' meal the menu should include lots of non-red meat choices for our friend. He's not really super 'into' food, but loves French food and classic preparations. Jenni - I have a question about your recommendation for one of the Sofra restaurants. You said to go for breakfast, but the website only mentions a breakfast menu at the St. Christopher's Place location. Do you know if that is the case? Also - they look and sound nice enough for our 'thank you' dinner. Do you think so?

That's fine - I really think that the fish and chips is a good idea anyway. Thanks also for the off-licence recommendation - I am not a beer drinker (though, Mr. Kim is) and I'm sure that I'll be drinking a lot of cider on our trip!

It looks and sounds great. Since we are leaving Dorchester that morning and planning to spend a lot of the day wandering the Forest, I think it will be perfect. Thanks so much, John!

ap - Steamers sounds perfect, but when I went to the website, it said that they were closed on Sundays. Maybe we can pick up that fish and chips you were mentioning and take it to her house. She might even prefer that. Jenni - thank you, ma'am! Sotanos is going on the list!

Thanks, Tim. I would dearly love to eat at your place!! I went to the website when I first asked for help and you responded and it looks truly amazing. I'm really sorry that it won't work out for us this trip. I've put The Perch and The Trout on our Oxford list - I went to their websites and they both look wonderful.

Our trip to England that I’ve posted about is finally SET! We have all of our transportation and accommodations and now I need to know where to eat. I have done lots of searching here and have gotten some good information, but our trip has gotten pretty specific by now and so I thought I’d post those questions. I am going to put a few different posts in with the same 1st paragraph to explain, but if I’ve made a mistake in doing that I’m sure that someone will tell me! We are going to be doing a lot of rambling – and will have a car (except in London), so we’d prefer places that are more casual (we’ll likely be wearing jeans or khakis/chinos – I don’t know what you all call them – tan trousers), that don’t need reservations. We’d love information on anything that we shouldn’t miss including pubs, pub meals, afternoon tea, fish and chips, etc. - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thank you all so much for your help! We’ll be leaving Dorchester in the morning and driving through the New Forest to Winchester. We’ll be staying at the Lainston House that night. We’ll only have dinner that night and then breakfast and lunch the next day before we have to drive back to Heathrow to return the car by 5:30pm. Does anyone know anything about the restaurant at Lainston House? Since we may getting into Winchester fairly late, it might be good for us to have dinner there that night, if it is worth a visit.

Our trip to England that I’ve posted about is finally SET! We have all of our transportation and accommodations and now I need to know where to eat. I have done lots of searching here and have gotten some good information, but our trip has gotten pretty specific by now and so I thought I’d post those questions. I am going to put a few different posts in with the same 1st paragraph to explain, but if I’ve made a mistake in doing that I’m sure that someone will tell me! We are going to be doing a lot of rambling – and will have a car (except in London), so we’d prefer places that are more casual (we’ll likely be wearing jeans or khakis/chinos – I don’t know what you all call them – tan trousers), that don’t need reservations. We’d love information on anything that we shouldn’t miss including pubs, pub meals, afternoon tea, fish and chips, etc. - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thank you all so much for your help! On Sunday, we’ll be driving from Dorchester in the morning through Lyme Regis and on to Beer. We are seeing my aunt, who lives in Beer. I’m not sure yet what time she’ll be available, though I suspect lunchtime – so any good places for lunch in Beer? She is elderly and almost blind (bright lights would bother her eyes) – so somewhere quiet. So depending on her availability, we could be in Lyme Regis anytime. We want to see the shore, so ideas off the track of ‘Dorchester/Lyme Regis/Beer’ in that direction would be wonderful.

Our trip to England that I’ve posted about is finally SET! We have all of our transportation and accommodations and now I need to know where to eat. I have done lots of searching here and have gotten some good information, but our trip has gotten pretty specific by now and so I thought I’d post those questions. I am going to put a few different posts in with the same 1st paragraph to explain, but if I’ve made a mistake in doing that I’m sure that someone will tell me! We are going to be doing a lot of rambling – and will have a car (except in London), so we’d prefer places that are more casual (we’ll likely be wearing jeans or khakis/chinos – I don’t know what you all call them – tan trousers), that don’t need reservations. We’d love information on anything that we shouldn’t miss including pubs, pub meals, afternoon tea, fish and chips, etc. - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Thank you all so much for your help! We will be driving from Cirencester in the morning going to Avebury and Stonehenge and then on to Salisbury. We’ll have almost an entire day in Salisbury – driving down to Dorchester that night.