Kim Shook

Yep. I belong to some vintage and thrifting groups on FB and am constantly astounded at the things that the younger folks (I'm 63) are thrilled to find - Corningware, 1970s "art" glass, all manner of 1970s harvest gold/avocado/mushroom-themed kitchen decor, etc.

LOLOL - your tortilla press story reminds me of my pasta machine experience. Jessica says stop showing off with those amazing looking taco shells - 😄 . Man, I wish we could get that brand - looks amazing. I remember Chi Chi's very well! When I was a teenager Chi Chi's was the "nice" Mexican place and Jessica chose it for her birthday dinner a couple of times when she was a little girl and we lived in Charlottesville VA. And I still buy their salsa in the grocery store. Thanks for the link to the recipe. I hope to try that soon. One question: lobster base???

Great! I think it would be great to post it with the Recipes- then people who browse have access to it. Will you post a link to it when you've done it?

The last thing in my post is a reaction about a restaurant we ate at night before last. It is very long, and I understand if it’s just too much reading for you! @Shelby – I’d love to know what you do to make the seafood enchiladas. And do you make your own taco shells? They do not look like the store-bought ones I’ve purchased. @Smithy – your tomato, bacon, and cornbread invention sounds delicious! @mgaretz – somehow the salami on your pizza read as some kind of pink icing and with the mushrooms, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what you were doing 😄. @Dejah – How lovely to celebrate the happy occasion and to be able to see some far-away folks, too! @CookBot – Wow! That ham dinner! I’d love to have the recipe for sweet potato spoonbread if you share! Breakfast for dinner last Thursday. My MIL gave us a bag of buckwheat pancake mix: This mix was not all buckwheat – it included corn flour and AP flour. I’d never had buckwheat before. The pancakes were delicious – light and fluffy and they got a nice rise, too. Pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, and (canned) peaches: Friday night dinner started with a salad: We had a luncheon at church earlier and brought home some leftovers: The meatballs and the little sandwiches were leftovers and Jessica added mini-corndogs and tots. Saturday night we had a taste for Chinese, so our regular place it was. Hot & Sour and Wonton soups and egg rolls: I had lemon chicken and Mr. Kim had the orange beef: Dessert back home - Jessica made brownies: Just Ghirardelli with added chocolate and PB chips, but MAN are they good. Meals have been a little hit or miss lately. The three of us hungry at vastly different times, running errands, etc. Dinner for me Monday was cobbled together from taco night leftovers: Jessica and I were out thrifting all afternoon day before yesterday and ended up in Ashland (small town just north of us). Mr. Kim met us at a new to us BBQ to finally give them a try. It started off great but ended up being kind of a disappointment. Possibly the second-best onion rings I’ve ever had: And definitely THE best Ranch dressing I’ve ever tasted. The rings were battered, which is never my favorite – I find that the batter layer is usually too thick, and that the onion tends to just steam inside. This was different – the batter clung to the onion, and everything was crisp and sweet and incredibly good. Jessica got the ribs, fries, hush puppies, and mac & cheese: Mr. Kim got the brisket, pulled pork, slaw, hush puppies, and applesauce: I got the smoked chicken, mac & cheese, hush puppies, and collards: The mac & cheese, collards, and slaw were all good. The applesauce was just like they’d poured it out of a jar. The hush puppies were very good. The fries were strange looking but tasted good. But the BBQ, the raison d'être for this place? It was sadly ordinary. They had two sauces on the table – one tasted like bottled “Italian” dressing and the other was a very heavy handed and overly thick tomato-based sauce. The latter was what everything came to the table sauced with. The ribs were the best thing, but not by much. The brisket was like falling apart pot roast soaked in sauce, the pork was stringy and dry, and the chicken was like baked chicken with BBQ sauce added on top. And very, very dry. I tasted some for lunch the next day and after a couple of chews I was able to use my tongue and mash it to a paste on the roof of my mouth. The funny thing is that the onion rings and Ranch were SO good that Jessica and I said we would absolutely go back for those and a salad. Maybe we’ll try a burger. But we tried everything they smoke (except for turkey) and I don’t think we need to do that again. The side portions are small (fine for Jess and me, but I think Mike could have eaten more) and it was pretty pricey. Mr.Kim's Yelp review: Finally got to Jake's Place. We are always anxious to try a barbecue joint, and there was no excuse not to stop in at one that is only 10 miles away. There were highlights and meh-lights. Let me start by saying that I am reviewing this at what I consider to be BBQ restaurant standards (since some of you who know me personally know I am a competition judge.) I am not comparing this food to competition Q, that is a whole different realm, and volume alone can drive differences in cooking in a restaurant. So, looking at it as a restaurant: Setting: -- Atmosphere was family-oriented. The staff clearly knew a lot of the patrons, and treated everyone well. -- Service was friendly and attentive and accurate. We could not have asked for better treatment. Drinks were kept filled, several check-backs on anything we needed, prompt take out boxes and check when requested. Food: There were some real stars on some of the plates. For starters, the onion rings were about the best I have ever tasted anywhere. Fresh cut and dipped in a light batter and crumb coat, just once and not double dipped as some places do, made for light crunchy rings without the onion getting steamed to death inside. A real treat! Pro tip -- ask for ranch dressing instead of ketchup for these rings, it is a great combo! Also in the spotlight were the side dishes. Small side portions but good nonetheless, we enjoyed the collards, the potatoes, the hushpuppies, and the mac and cheese. The slaw was a perfect BBQ slaw, not too wet and just the right touch of seasoning (celery salt in this case I think.) The apple sauce was off-the-shelf okay, but served its purpose in breaking up the flavors of the meats I got (more on that in a minute.) Sauces: There are two sauces on the tables -- one was a vinegar based sauce that I supposed was intended to be eastern NC style, but was so thin and single note that it may as well have been Kraft Italian salad dressing. (There was no label on the bottle, so it may well have been intended not as BBQ sauce but salad dressing. hmmmm.) The other sauce, in an identical bottle but with a label, was a smoky red sauce. I was reminded of a specific commercial sauce and was afraid the smokiness would be too strong but it paired well with the meat, and the sauce was needed. Great barbecue doesn't need sauce, and bad barbecue can't be rescued by it. But average Q sometimes needs a little help with flavor or moisture or both. Among the meats we ordered, the ribs were the star of the show. Well-seasoned, cooked perfectly, the half rack we ordered went down easily and will be my order the next time I am in Jake's. The yardbird (smoked chicken quarter) was just on the verge of overcooked; a bit dry but had good flavor. Red sauce ended up helping moisture after the Italian sauce didn't. The pork and brisket were very dry. The brisket crumbled apart like stringy pot roast, and it needed the sauce the kitchen had topped it with as well as what I added at table to augment the fat in adding the yum factor. Not a bright spot. The pork was also dry and needed help, but the flavor of the pit was definitely there. Better than crock pot / slow cooker pork, not as good as average backyard smoker fare for tenderness or taste. So all in all, it was an average barbecue restaurant experience. I will go back and try things again; it was an acceptable meal in a friendly place. But I hope for better. You see we aren’t in complete agreement on everything. I think he’s being more generous than I am.

You're right. I have 3 sets of silver because I'm the only one in the family that likes it and is willing to polish it. One of the places we went to yesterday had a whole set of Limoges china (not my pattern) dirt cheap. Hard to see people going crazy over 1970s crap and donating their parents' high quality stuff to Goodwill.

Not much interesting with me lately. We had a luncheon at church last Friday and on Saturday, my lunch was leftover meatballs from that along with some brioche rolls:

A post church brunch (?) of beignets at a downtown place called Café Beignet. It was a Yelp event. Traditional and Blueberry Pie: They were both excellent – made when you order. Yesterday: Buckwheat pancakes, peaches, and Neese’s NC sage sausage.

Found yesterday while out thrifting with Jessica: These two covered serving dishes are Haviland Limoges France and coordinate with our wedding china. They were $10 each! I didn't really need them, but I couldn't pass them up.

Not THAT great! I've been going through past dinner threads for the last few days to try to get some inspiration. Here you go!

Someone here made these back a year or so. @Shelby?

I use a non-stick pan, a bit of butter, heated up over medium before adding the slices. Then I let them fry without moving for probably 3 minutes before flipping. Even with a non-stick pan, it wants to stick to the pan, so you have to use a thin spatula and really COMMIT to it!

Do you know the song?

Interesting. I hope not - cuttlefish at at risk in some bodies of water. Having a BBQ judge in the family is great. Except when you want to just go somewhere for ribs and have a nice dinner. Or when someone in his family has the temerity to give a party and serve slow cooker pulled pork. 😂

@Norm Matthews – that Salisbury steak looks great. I’ve saved that recipe. @CookBot – that Thai feast is gorgeous! It’s probably my daughter’s favorite food. The pad Thai is especially calling to me. @Tropicalsenior – I would really love to have the recipe for the Mock Snitzbrote. It is gorgeous! Last Friday Jessica and I had dinner at a local Thai place. She started with the Tom Kha soup: We shared some calamari and crab Rangoon: Both of which were delicious. The calamari was in flat pieces rather than rings and they had done something that I almost never see done with a breaded piece of squid – they had cut the little crisscross slices into the surface. The Rangoon was full of real crabmeat. We shared a shrimp and pineapple fried rice (our favorite and a dish that I’ve never been able to duplicate at home) that I forgot to take a picture of. Saturday: Long grain and wild rice, green beans with Italian dressing, fried shrimp, and frozen fish. Oddly enough the best things were the canned beans and the frozen fish 😟. I really like the Uncle Ben’s long grain and wild rice, but this was bag of “ready rice” – the microwave in the bag one and the flavor was completely different and actually unpleasant. The shrimp was just a fail. I got some rice flour, thinking it would give me a perfect thin, brittle coating on my shrimp. I soaked the peeled shrimp in a bit of buttermilk, drained it, and dredged in the seasoned rice flour. As you can see, it never crisped up and also it didn’t stick to the shrimp. Just a soggy mess. Served with a Caesar salad and a couple of sauces: Sunday was White People Taco night: Served with refried beans and the last of the amazing pears we got at Costco. Monday night we took some soup Mr. Kim made to his mom and ended up in Ashland (town just north of Richmond) looking for dinner. Our first choice was already closed, so we ended up at Cracker Barrel. It wasn’t bad at all. Jessica got the chicken fried steak, fried apples, mac & cheese, and the broccoli casserole: Mr. Kim got the beans and greens: With their fantastic chow chow. I got the fried chicken, pintos, and mashed potatoes: Maybe we were just starving (it was 8:30), but it all tasted really good. Those beans are ALWAYS good, though. Night before last was soup and sandwiches. Jessica made her wonderful grilled cheese sandwiches and Mr. Kim made some “BBQ soup”. “BBQ soup” is what he makes when he’s been judging a couple of weekends or days in a row and has a lot of BBQ. At most of the competitions the judges are allowed to bring home their own leftovers. Meaning the things that they tasted – so a decent pile of pulled pork, a number of slices of brisket, at least 6 chicken thighs, and some ribs. The thighs and ribs look funny because he’s taken a bite out of each one, but he only brings home his own. This past weekend he judged Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday. So, there was a LOT of BBQ. He just shreds/chops it up, adds some stock (I had some homemade in the freezer), a can of diced tomatoes, and whatever vegetables strike his fancy. Because of the rubs and the sauces that some folks use, the meats can be pretty sweet in a soup, so he usually has to add a good glug of vinegar, too. Different every time, but SO good:

Post church brunch with Jess at Chewy’s, our favorite bagel shop. Vegan pecan roll: This tasted good but was a little tough – I think it’s nearly impossible to get truly tender dough without butter. We also had sourdough ET bagels:

@Ann_T– thank you, ma’am. I’m pretty sure I’d also pick ham! I love both sweet and savory with breakfast, but if I have to choose savory wins out every time. I’d dive right into Moe’s French toast, though! Tuesday: Corned beef (canned), leftover corn muffins, and a fried egg. Yesterday: Leftover biscuits, the last of the canned corned beef and an ugly egg. I was so afraid that the egg would be awful. I did a dozen in the IP and lost track of time. They ended up languishing after the pressure cooking stopped for almost an hour. But they are fine. Just a little green around the yolk.

Jessica made a yummy cheesecake pie: Cheesecake is one of my very favorite desserts and she did a great job.

A good dad and a good son! Your family is indeed blessed!

Exactly. I got the distinct impression that he thought the confession had "mea culpa'd" him right out of being held responsible for being a horse's ass.

I'll add my welcome, @EQuinn! Do you mind telling us where (generally - not specifically) you are located? I'm always interested in where we all are. I'm looking forward to hearing more from you!

I only have 2 of them. I bought them to help fill out some coupe glasses that I only have 6 of and needed 8 for some reason. They all came from my favorite little antique/consignment shop (sadly closed now). I love them and feel so elegant when I serve cocktails in them - though usually they contain some dessert item! 😁

@Shelby – thank you, ma’am, I am finally starting to feel better! I’m hoping your recovery starts going a bit faster! Those bacon wrapped doves look so good – I hope someday I get to taste one! @Annie_H – that pizza you posted back on the 9th looked and sounded absolutely gorgeous! @Dejah – I join you and @Anna N and @CookBot in the love for liver. Beef or chicken. I almost never get it except sometimes one when I’m cutting up a chicken for frying, but much of the time not even then. No one here likes it. I hope everything goes well with your husband’s surgeries. I had CT surgery in both hands some years ago and am SO glad I did. The recovery wasn’t easy or short, but the relief and the return of dexterity and strength was SO welcome! @Steve Irby – Happy Birthday! That meal looks like I’d choose for my celebratory meal, too! @Dante – wonderful looking chicken noodle soup! I love how rich the broth looks. @Senior Sea Kayaker – I’m quite envious of your crab! Going back some because I’ve been MIA for a good bit. Not doing much in the way of cooking or even eating, to be honest. I’ve had a bad cold (tested twice – not COVID) and allergies and some unrelated medication changes and it’s caused a lot of general malaise including lots of fatigue! Starting to come out of it for the most part now, I hope. I dug some of his BBQ out of the freezer for Mr. Kim’s dinner some time ago – served with some roasted cauliflower and watermelon: The cauliflower never gets as dark as I like it. I cooked it at 450F for about 35 minutes this time. Last Friday, I picked up a rotisserie chicken at Costco. I knew we had some turkey gravy in the freezer. Served with rice, slaw, and probably the last of the good summer tomatoes. Mr. Kim’s plate: I decided on a hot chicken sandwich: And some past the point of perfect corn: It was ok, but not good August corn. We’ll miss that. On Saturday, we had the same just-ok corn, good bread, some truly fantastic pears we got at Costco, and comfort food Hamburger Helper. Except it wasn’t comforting at all. The antibiotic has messed my mouth up and it just irritated my mouth and was tasteless: Fresh Billy bread (a local bakery that sells through a few stores) – so incredibly good: I was sorry that I was so wiped out that I neglected to slice it and freeze it for future French bread breakfasts. Such a waste. I made a yellow squash casserole that Jessica wanted me to try. She hasn’t ever liked yellow squash but thought this one sounded good. It had cheese, sour cream, mayo, and a butter & crushed Ritz topping: She and Mr. Kim both loved it. Still tasted like squash to me. A friend recommended these Bao buns at Costco: I had them one night for dinner and they weren’t bad at all: The dough was really good. The stuffing was ground rather than chopped and could have used a bit of a flavor punch. Next time I’ll have a little hoisin for dipping. Tuesday night was leftover burgers from a cookout at church along with grapes and some of my macaroni salad from the same cookout: Night before last dinner was just a couple of sausage biscuits and some grapes: Last night was feta & sausage pizza and salad from our favorite pizza place for our annual viewing of A Nightmare Before Christmas:

This morning:

Here you go. Always happy to share! I honestly think that doubling the amount of chocolate or using dark chocolate would be a good idea.

@BonVivant – those Moroccan goodies looked so beautiful and delicious. I’m a huge fan of middle eastern/north African/Mediterranean desserts and sweets. Wish I could find those around here. Last Sunday at church there was a cookout/pot luck lunch. Mr. Kim grilledthe hamburgers and hot dogs and everyone brought side dishes and desserts. I made Classic Macaroni Salad: (Bad picture). There was no sign up sheet and this was one of three macaroni salads – but the only homemade one. So weird. I remember a time when that would never, ever have happened. People actually competed to bring their best dishes to potlucks – especially church ones. Our church even published a cookbook some years ago and it is full of scratch dishes. I confess it makes me sad. I’ve been fighting a cold/seasonal allergies and medication adjustments for the past couple of weeks and it has just been kicking my butt. Not eating or cooking much beyond what I have to have to take my meds. By this past weekend I was finally starting to actually feel hungry, so this was lunch on Monday: Ham and cheese sandwich, an incredible pear, and some pretzel sticks.