Kim Shook

Back when it was finger lickin' good Kentucky Fried Chicken, it was actually pretty good stuff. Now that it's KFC "So Good", it is terrible. If I don't feel like frying a chicken, we can get much better chicken at Wal-mart! When every grocery store in town beats your restaurant, who's raison d'être is FRIED CHICKEN, maybe it's time to step back and rethink things.

Lovely breakfasts! Mine wasn't nearly as interesting as everyone else's! Not too exciting, but we’ve got a day’s worth of raking to do and need to get outside SOON!

YES!! Before I got my vacuum sealer, I used this all the time! And I just sent my meat hammer thing (I can't think of the real word, but you know what I mean) to Goodwill because my improv - a very small iron skillet - works so much better.

Scott – lovely, lovely Valentine’s dinner! What a lucky lady you have. Ann – thanks for the link to the corn recipe. I’m making it tonight. And that beef is absolutely GORGEOUS! You and Marlene are my beef goddesses! David – I love the looks of your trout dish and the combination of flavors sounds wonderful. Bruce – PICTURES!!!! The drumsticks look lovely and sound really easy to do. I’ll have to try that method. Dinner night before last was Salt & Pepper Fried Shrimp, fries, slaw w/ a creamy Vidallia onion dressing and corn bread. The shrimp was my version of a recipe from The Little Saigon Cookbook by Ann Le. The dredge was rice flour, cornstarch, pepper, sugar and garlic powder – very crisp and light. We liked this a lot. The sauce was a mixture of coconut cream, soy sauce, hot Chinese mustard and plum sauce.

Well, we'd settle for only you, if we HAD to . And we have been planning to come to DC soon - got some Christmas presents that need to be delivered, but unfortunately, Jessica is finally moving out next weekend and since the last, aborted move out (read all about it here), her friends are reluctant to help again. So it will likely be just the three of us, plus whoever we can guilt into it. Actually, come on down if you get tired of all the fantastic food ! Can't wait for the report! We've been to Central (and loved it), but not to Citronelle, so I'm interested to see your opinion.

Jerry! Nice to see you here. Wish we could drive up and join you for some of this wonderful food. I haven't lived in Washington for years, so I don't really have a lot to offer. I've always really liked the Stage Door Deli at 1324 King St. in Alexandria. No, it's not up to NYC standards, but you don't live in NY. We liked a lot of places in NY and NOLA that locals tend to scoff at (that whole Country Mouse thing, y'know?) and I think you'd enjoy it. It is just a few blocks down from the Metro station. Love to my girl!

Mr. Kim was out at a focus group taste testing gakky lasagna, so I indulged in corndogs for dinner. They were great.

dcarch – your razor clams are just amazing! What was the sauce? It looks rich and dark! Rico – I’m jumping on the bandwagon about how wonderful your pictures are getting. The pastrami picture, especially. Great colors and composition. It’s very ‘vintage’ looking, somehow. Not to mention delicious looking. Shelby – you are sighing about your weather and I am green with envy. I would give anything for a REAL blizzard! I would also like the cats, the pizza and those wonderful frizzly onions! Miss Ann!!!!! - so glad to see you at ‘the table’! As always, your photos and food are gorgeous and delectable! That corn custard looks amazing. Any chance of getting the recipe? kayb – that pissaladiere!!! What gorgeous color. Bruce – missing your beautiful pictures, but still love your food! sheepish – well, this is odd. My comment on your dinner was “what a lovely meal – start to finish.” Then I read Ann’s response. Great minds, I suppose! The cheesy custard is staring at me. Wow. I have been a giant slacker in the kitchen lately (actually not just lately – I’m dying to get in the kitchen on a regular basis, but sh*t keeps happening). If you’d like to see Mr. Kim’s take on what has been occupying our time just lately, check out this blog post. I have cooked a little this week, nothing very exciting, though. The other night we had chili dogs, fries, slaw and baked beans: Tonight I thawed some of Mr. Kim’s chili: To go with it, I made a pan of cornbread: I served it with some leftover slaw from the other night:

Bruce – Kudos to Mrs. Bruce – that is some fantastic looking BBQ! Christine – thank you – I will use some oil next time. I thought at the time that it might be a good idea, but I followed the recipe like a good girl. You’d think that at age 51, I’d learn to follow my instincts, huh? For dinner tonight I tried two new recipes. We got some lovely pork chops at our butcher shop and I did orange glazed chops – browned the chops and simmered with a sauce of mandarin oranges, brown sugar, cinnamon, catsup, vinegar and mustard. Very good. I also tried a Potatoes Anna recipe from Cooking Light. It was…ok. Not crusty at all and a little dull tasting, actually. It had bacon, Locatelli, onions and garlic and should have been very tasty, but somehow wasn’t. Potatoes before flipping: After flipping: It was nicely layered, though: Plated:

djyee – I printed out the recipe for the lentils and the confit and your notes. I really, really want to do that soon! Dinner tonight: Romaine lettuce w/ pears, mixed nuts, dried fruit and shredded provolone and mozzerella. This was a really good salad – very different from my usual lettuce/cuke/radish/carrot combination! Veal Milanese, egg noodles and green beans. The veal was a crazy good buy – around $4 for enough to easily feed 6. It was tender and delicate, but the recipe didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. The breading wasn’t very crispy and it was overdone on the last few pieces. The recipe called for using all butter, but I think that some oil would have been a good idea.

I can smell them on my hands for a whole day afterwards, no matter how hard or often I scrub my hands with anti-bacterial, lemon juice, water or anything else. I wear disposable gloves to prevent this issue; works very well! I use gloves, too. And I de-vein with sharp scissors rather than a knife or special tool. Then I rub the cut edges with a paper towel. Quick, easy and efficient.

Shelby – your crisps look fantastic and I LOVE your little ramekins! An angel food cake with orange glaze that I did for a work birthday: I love citrus glazes on angel food cakes.

kayb – thanks for the recipe. I really want those ribs – perfect for a winter night! And the pizza looks wonderful! Bruce – love the pork fried rice. Did I mention that I’m back on rice? I’ve been slowly reintroducing it to my diet. A year ago one bite was almost too much. Now I’m up to a normal (for me) serving. I can eat as much rice as I can potatoes (probably 1/2 cup). And almost all of the rice I eat is FRIED !!!! BTW, the ginger chicken sounds amazing. Shelby – that smoked turkey is gorgeous and those sandwiches !!!! OMG, girl, I’m on Orbitz.com right now booking a ticket. Save me one!!! Dinner tonight was the NY Times burgers. I realized that I hadn’t made them in almost exactly one year. When I put them in the pans, I remembered why: This is what the kitchen looked like after the burgers had been flipped. It was much worse at first! My exhaust fan is crap – it isn’t connected to anything – it just sucks the air up the bottom of the microwave and blows it out the vent at the top. Seriously, what is the point of that? Mr. Kim took the battery out of the smoke detector, opened a bunch of windows and the attic door and turned both bathroom exhaust fans and it helped a bit, but I really think that this is a warm weather only recipe. I can put the skillet on the grill burner and then just run it into the house for the oven part. That said, the burgers were fantastic and my house will smell great for a week! Frizzled onions: Toasty onion buns: Cooked in the onion pan. Plated burger with slaw and fries: The fries were frozen, but a brand I hadn’t seen before. They were Nathan’s (like the dogs) and VERY large. Crisp on the outside with a lot of fluffy potato goodness inside. Close up: The cheese was Saga Bleu Brie – a cheese we like a lot. The only thing missing was bacon. I forgot that I was saving the cooked bacon for burgers and put it all on ET bagels with cream cheese this morning!

Just finished Little House in the Big Woods. Over and over, as I was reading, I got a feeling of slight shame. A realization of how easy my culinary life really is. And how, when it is difficult, it is because I choose to make something new or complicated. The first part of the book seems to be all about food – finding it, prepping it, preserving it, and enjoying it. I am food obsessed and so are the Ingalls, but in completely different ways. I would eat just fine without my obsession. Without theirs the family would starve. As I read the part about maple sugaring, I was again slightly shamed. I feel superior when I bake a cake from scratch rather than using a mix. These folks not only make their own maple syrup and sugar, but have to fashion all of the implements (buckets, etc.) for collecting! The cooking that Ma does is really subsistence level cooking. They eat almost entirely what they can grow, hunt, glean and make themselves. Almost nothing is store bought. And yet, there is an appreciation of beauty and specialness in the preparation. There are special molds to make the butter pretty. And for Christmas morning breakfast, she makes pancake men for each of the children. None of these things are necessary – there really isn’t time in Ma’s busy life for anything but practical hard work. And still she takes the time. Part of this is explained by the fact that Ma is not really a pioneer woman – she comes from back East and was raised in affluence compared to how they lived in this book. But, time and time again, I’ve come across that yearning for a little bit of beauty in an otherwise mundane existence that country women every where and every time seem to have. On a completely different and much less philosophical note: Towards the end of the book Laura, Mary and Ma go out collecting nuts. She mentions walnuts, hazelnuts and hickory nuts. I wonder why hickory nuts are so uncommon now? I know that they are available online, but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen them or even tasted one. And just like everyone, these books make me HUNGRY! I want to taste molasses candy and maple syrup candy and Ma’s hoop cheese. For some reason, the item that always gets me is the pan of beans. I can smell those beans, slow baked and rich with molasses, as I always imagine them.

I am just amazed and impressed with all of the macarons that I’m seeing – even the ones that you folks are saying aren’t right. Jessica and I are dying to try them. We’ll have a macaron Saturday soon – I’ll be reading up on all of the pointers here at eG! Genkinaonna – your cake is fantastic! Shelby – no apologizing. Your cookies look great – very tender and delicate! Chocolot – gorgeous! That sheen is just incredible! Jessica requested a ‘Turtle Cake’ for her birthday. The plan was to make my standard chocolate bar cake, put dulce de leche in between the layers and on top, ice the sides with glossy chocolate icing and top with candied pecans. I got as far as putting the layers together with the dulce de leche and putting the pecans on top and covered the cake while I made the chocolate icing. I came back to this: All I can think is that with the dulce de leche and pecans piled on top, it was just too moist and heavy. Later, the large part of the cake fell to pieces, too. So I crumbled the whole thing up in a bowl and topped it with the icing that I had microwaved to pouring consistency and served it like that. We went out and bought a cake at the Fresh Market so there would be something to put the candles in, but my Mistake Cake turned out very good and everyone seemed to prefer it (or else they were remarkably polite). Of course, it could hardly be bad – good chocolate cake, the BEST dulce de leche I’ve ever found and ganache icing made with dark chocolate and whipping cream! Mistake Cake:

robirdstx - there is NO more perfect breakfast than that combination! Breakfast this morning: Fried eggs, bacon, croissants and some fantastic local cocoa chevre. It was perfect with the croissants!

I love the gingham pattern on your books! I'm on the second book now...I swear I could just veg out and read for days.... On a completely un-food side question...am I the only one that ever wonders when Ma and Pa get some "alone" time? I wonder about that whenever I read anything where the characters live in such close quarters. I guess people just got over any privacy scruples that they had. This boggles me - seeing as how just having the cat in the room can make me feel embarrassed!

I want to get in on this soon. I'm finishing up a Nero Wolfe book right now (talk about food fiction - fantastic food in those books - and WAY ahead of his time), but will probably start rereading the Little House books in order tomorrow or the next day. Here's my set: I am completely on board for the LMM books, too. Anne with an E was my favorite girl ever. I reread them every few years.

Breakfast on Sunday: pannetone French bread and link sausage. My sister sent us some gorgeous Boudin pannetone for Christmas and instead of sharing it with company, I selfishly tucked it away in the freezer for JUST this breakfast!

Prawn – so sorry about your ouchies! Obviously all better now judging from your gorgeous meals! Nice to have you back in the game. aschall – I agree with ScottyBoy - beautiful omelet! kayb – I love the sound of your short ribs. How are they done? Dinner last Sunday: my grandmother’s beef stew and yeast rolls. I tried out making yeast rolls with hot roll mix. I can’t find the thread, but someone started a topic about hot roll mix and I hadn’t tried it in years. I wasn’t terribly impressed. It was wonderfully easy, but bland. The OP used Pillsbury mix and this was Fleishman’s, though, so not a true test!

I remember seeing this one and being utterly gobsmacked! You could produce this word for word and it would be a perfect SNL parody. She keeps referring to 'acorns' and they are obviously cornnuts. Ditz.

It is a capable dough-maker/riser, but a terrible baker. Do follow your instincts and bake in the oven!!! I got an inexpensive Black & Decker bread maker and I love it. It's being used primarily for dough making -- I don't like the big brown cube with a hole in the bottom. You don't have to have a very big hole in the bottom of loaves baked in a bread machine. Simply check the time and when the final "knead" has finished, pull the dough out of the pan, remove the mixing blade, reshape the dough so it is a bit neater and stuff it back in the pan. The shaft leaves only a small dimple in the bottom of the loaf. I don't know why people are always surprised when I suggest this, I got my first bread machine back in the late 70s and that routine just made sense to me. Brilliant! I never thought of doing this! Thanks for the tip!

robirdstx – gorgeous Gratin Dauphinois. And how did you like the egg roll wrappers subbing in for pasta? I’ve done that for a while now and love it. David Ross uses it in his fabulous Cannelloni. kayb – pastitsio is one of our very favorites! I’ve been making James Beard’s recipe for almost 30 years! Yours is absolutely gorgeous. I’ll have to make a batch soon. Shelby – good looking deviled eggs. Now I want some. But I only have really fresh eggs. Pooh. djyee – ooooh! Skate! I adore skate and don’t think I’ve ever seen it in the store. I’d snatch it up for sure if I did. Looks fantastic. Stan – hope you are feeling better soon. And using the oven isn’t cheating at all. Especially if you are sick. I ‘cheated’ yesterday and made some beef stock in the slow cooker (I did roast everything in the oven first). I doubt I’ll ever make beef stock any other way again – it was fabulous! Last Sunday I did one of my favorite meals – real Sunday dinner. This is the meal that I grew up with – roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pud and Brussels sprouts: The beef was a boneless prime rib that I picked up for a steal of $4.59/lb. Marlene suggested doing it in my rotisserie. I was really, really happy with the result. The potatoes were from a CI recipe in their new magazine: The Best of America’s Test Kitchen March 2011. They were fine, but a lot of trouble – and for all that no better than Marlene’s smashed crispy potatoes. So I don’t think that I’ll bother with those again. Yorkies were Marlene’s recipe – perfect, as always. So, thanks to Marlene, we had a great Sunday dinner. The other night we thawed some of Mr. Kim’s chili and served it with slaw and corn muffins: Mr. Kim’s with jalapenos and cheese. mine with macaroni, cheese and sour cream.

robirdstx – your homemade roll is a thing of beauty! Breakfast this morning – Mr. Kim’s: ET bagel w/ olive cream cheese and bacon And mine: Grilled fried egg sandwich

Just a quick look in on a crazy busy Saturday morning, but what amazing things I’m seeing! I want to peruse for hours!! dcarch – your mushroom forest is adorable! And the sauce on that steak is gorgeous! Shelby – good looking pizza! Rico – the canneloni looks fantastic and I like that you added a meat sauce on top of the spinach-ricotta filled pasta. I do that – a plain tomato sauce just isn’t strong enough for me! ScottyBoy – what can I say? What a beautiful photo essay (LOVE the B&W) and it looks like you got the best of that cheeky crab! nikkib – I want that entire meal! Fantastic!!! rarerollingobject – beautiful salad. I had a delicious, but atrociously plated salad last night and I wish that I could take your picture in to show the chef just how it should be done! I don’t know how much cooking I’ll get done this weekend. We have a house full of decorations that still need to be packed up and we are going with Jessica to look at an apartment today. The other night I finally tried something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: Korean BBQ beef ribs, griddled grits cakes and stir fried snow peas. We really loved the marinade for the Korean ribs.