Kim Shook

Looking for a little guidance on our upcoming trip to NOLA. We are arriving very late Thursday night 3/19 (staying at the Place d'Armes), so we've got Saturday, Sunday, Monday and a partial day on Tuesday (we have to be at the airport by 3pm-ish). Below is the itenerary we've put together. We have made reservations for Luke and Cochon, but we're open to suggestions. If you notice that we're going to be in an area and have missed something there, I'd be happy to hear about it. I've never been and Mr. Kim has only been once on business, so he didn't get to do too much. Saturday French Quarter walking tour (from a guidebook)- including: French Market Boutique du Vampyre Maskarade Collectible Antiques Lucullus Antiques Leah's Candy Marie Laveau's Voodoo Authentica Historic NOLA Collection Lunch @ Galatoire's Try Central Grocery for 2nd lunch . 8:30 Dinner at Luke Music on Frenchman's Street Sunday - Mid City/Esplanade - Day of the Dead Canal St. streetcar to Cypress Grove and Greenwood Cemetaries City Park - Storyland and Train Garden St. Louis Cemetary #3 Lunch at Parkway Gelato at Angleo Brocato's Back to the Quarter Acme or Felix's for dinner Monday - Garden District & Magazine Street Breakfast at Surrey's St. Alphonsus and St. Mary's Churches Garden District walking tour Magazine Street including: Aux Belles Choses Sucre Lunch at Casamento's (maybe) La Boulangerie Dinner at Cochon Tuesday - airport at 3pm Breakfast at Elizabeth's Cake Cafe Ferry to Algiers Point Mardi Gras World - if time permits Central Groc. if not done before Lunch at Willie Mae's on the way to the airport, if time permits Thanks so much in advance!

I second this. I've had the VERY expensive mail-order ones from Wms-Sonoma and these are SO much less expensive and every bit as good.

Another run of the mill breakfast yesterday morning started with these: Just biscuits – I have no idea what would cause the splits that occurred in the top of some of them. With the biscuits we had scrambled eggs, Benton’s bacon, and sausage. I used almost the last of my lovely Little Scarlet strawberry preserves on my biscuit and Mr. Kim had Toast Dope:

meredithla – gorgeous brisket. Mr. Kim got a smoker for Christmas and is assembling it right now (more cussing than tax prep day!). I am urging a brisket as one of the first experiments, but until he does, I think I’ll give that Hazan recipe a try! And that onion, Gruyere and cauliflower tart is beautiful! Blether – I’ve noticed the same thing about the pages on the dinner thread, but didn’t miss any of the posts I remembered. Since sometimes the pictures seem to change sizes, I thought that might be the reason. I would love a wedge of that seafood lasagna and it’s only 9AM. Mark – I know you won’t be here at eG today, but congratulations on the marriage! menuinprogress – lovely looking and SOUNDING clams and sea bass! A recent dinner started with some wonderful minestrone soup that our daughter saved us from a client lunch at her company: I don’t know where it came from, but it was so good! I made a kinda good chicken and cornbread dressing casserole: The recipe came from someone at another website on which I participate. I screwed it up a bit – I halved the chicken part of the recipe, but forgot to halve the topping ingredients. So it was ‘top heavy’ . It needed some work on the spices – maybe some sage and onions. It was also a little too sweet. Basically a good starting point. But the really odd thing was, according to the recipe, it should have taken 45 minutes to cook. At the end of 45 minutes, my chicken was completely raw. It took about twice that long. I can’t figure out how she got fully cooked chicken in 45 minutes . I also served broccoli w/ hollandaise and some tarted up Sister Schubert frozen yeast rolls:

Oh, it sounds so wonderful. I need girlfriends! Before eG's Meredith married eG's zeemanb and moved away, she and I met for lunch a couple of times and had a blast. I'd give anything to have someone to lunch and shop and cook with! You are lucky folks to have eG folks close to you! I hope to hear lots about your gatherings on this thread.

For my birthday party with friends a couple of years ago, I made MY OWN cake. Chocolate cake bombe, filled with two chocolate mousses: milk and dark, covered with 70% ganache, with white chocolate shavings on top. 'Partway through the massacre' ps. Kim, I hope someone is reimbursing you for all the expenses.... Darienne - that is gorgeous and EXACTLY what I'd love for my own birthday. No, they don't reimburse, but that's my choice - it was offered, but I refused. It gets me out of contributing to a gift and I would be cooking and taking stuff in anyway. Mr. Kim and I are always trying to eat better, so 'goodies' go to our offices once we have a taste. I love to cook and experiment and if we ate it all, we'd be rolling around the house like Tweedledee and Tweedledum!

Prawn – do they still say ‘gobsmacked’ in England or is that just in the old novels I love. Anyway, I am always gobsmacked by your cooking. Beautiful, thoughtful, delicious looking and, as always, gorgeously presented and photographed. I really run out of superlatives when I look at your posts. Dinner tonight: Pintos w/ ham, chowchow and onions, collards and corn fritters. A nice meal for a cold night. Close up of the fritters: They really turned out well tonight.

No repeats that I know of, but I started out making them just for the few girls that I work with, but now I am expected to make them for the whole office (about 15 people). They really appreciate it, though, make a big deal of it, and I love to cook, so I don't mind. On my birthday they got me a grocery store cake - dry, tasteless and tooth-achingly sweet. I guess it would be rude to suggest I'd rather just have a Cadbury bar, huh?

jenc – those cookies are lovely. I tried to find them in Richmond, but no luck – tried what was called “Asian Bakery”, but it was all Bahn Mi and pho (really GOOD Bahn Mi, though, I’m glad we found it), so I will wait and see if Ilana has any luck with them and I might just try them myself, too! Dakki – I’m so glad that your cheesecake worked out this time and even more glad that you persevered! ManhattanLawyer – I love the look of your cobbler and like the idea of cream biscuits as a topping. And that is an amazing looking shortbread – where in the world did you get such gorgeous strawberries in February??? A couple of recent cakes that I made for co-workers’ birthdays: A jumbo red velvet cupcake: And a carrot cake:

judiu - it's 9 oz. (a whole jar). I tasted the sauce with only half a jar since I really didn't want it to overpower the beef and it just wasn't enough.

My Italian grandmother couldn't cook a lick, but this is her to a T!

Blether – the sea trout and clam dish looks so wonderful. I am a big fan of creamy sauces with seafood. robirdstx – gorgeous pizza! Bruce – those shells and sausage look delicious, but what really caught my eye was the beautiful red cabbage. I love your idea of using the raspberry vinegar! Meredith – thank you! I am completely converted to the NY Times method of lightly packing the ground beef – the texture is wonderful. Dinner last night was fabulous. Jessica came over to eat with us and said that it was one of the best things that I’d ever made! We had a really good hoisin sauced short rib dish on Valentine’s Day 2010 at a restaurant and I thought that I’d like to try something similar. I have another recipe for a hoisin sauce that is really good, but it is a little too strong, so I used beef broth to lighten it up. These were luscious and rich, but the beef flavor came through, which it really doesn’t with the other recipe. I served this on grilled grits cakes. Here is a picture of my progress: This is actually neater and more coherent than most of the notes I make when I’m trying to develop something ! The reduced sauce: With the short ribs before baking: Grits cakes before: and after: Plated: It doesn’t look like much, but boy, it was GOOD. The flavor and texture were EXACTLY what I had in my head. That is a very satisfying feeling. For sides, I just served leftover cauliflower and collards from yesterday: We drank this with the meal: Screw top Merlot, but we liked it.

menuinprogress – your Huevos Rancheros look absolutely delicious! Pam – your ‘conventional’ breakfast looks wonderful to me. We are planning a trip to England next year and I hope all my breakfasts look as good that! Darienne – I work, so I only make breakfast on the weekends. And I usually only make it one of the weekend days – we usually eat breakfast out one of the days before shopping. Most of my breakfasts are fairly ordinary – eggs, bacon or sausage and some kind of bread. Sometimes I’ll do grits or potatoes, but I save the ‘all out’ breakfasts for company or special occasions. Weekdays, I have a purchased yogurt smoothie or a couple of pretzels with my morning pills ! Speaking of ordinary, yesterday’s breakfast: Eggs, grits, grapes and toast.

I hope I don't sound like a commercial, but I swear by a combination of a Spray 'n Wash stain stick and OxyClean powder. I rub the spots with the stain stick and use the Oxy Clean in the washer with at least warm water. If they are really bad spots, I fill the washer and let it agitate a minute and then stop it and let is soak for 25 minutes. This has even worked on cranberry sauce on a white tablecloth.

I’ve certainly changed my feelings about some foods – some of it was growing up and having a more mature palate, some was having the foods prepared correctly and some was just repeated exposure. I never assume that just because I didn’t like something the last time I had it, I will hate it forever. I try things again and again. I have no patience with people who assume they won’t like something and, consequently, won’t even try it. I have had supposedly full grown adults verbally gross out about something I was eating and wanted to slap them. I didn’t tolerate that in my daughter – when she was growing up, she had to try everything. If she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to try it again the next night when it was leftover. But, if I served it two weeks later, she had to try it again. And if someone served it where she was a guest, she had to eat a small amount. Now she eats a wider variety of things than me! Of course, I’m only human, so I do have aversions, but mine are mostly textural – if it’s gelatinous, it better have some fruit and mini marshmallows in it, sinew is what Indians made bow strings out of and gristle gives me the shivers .

Lovely breakfasts all. Can someone please explain exactly what I am looking at? Thanks. I wasn't the OP, but I'm thinking that those are crisp, bread-type cones filled with a cream cheese based filling and topped with salmon roe (or those bubble things the molecular chef types make). How'd I do, Pilori?

Pilori - amazing looking breakfast. I can't imagine any place around here that we could get something like that! Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Our Valentine’s Day breakfast was French toast stuffed with sweet cream cheese and either bananas or sautéed pears, scrambled eggs, Benton’s bacon and sliced bananas w/ yoghurt and honey. Pears: French toast: Plated:

robirdstx – lovely soup! You make me want to get out the stock pot and start some chicken soup myself. Mr. Kim would faint away, though, since I made it recently and I NEVER cook the same thing twice in 6 months ! Mark – I agree with Bruce – that salmon sounds fantastic! Bruce – Wow. My make do meals NEVER come out so lovely! And carbonara…I need to remember to make that soon. I love it and haven’t made it in years. Dinner tonight was salad: just iceberg w/ bleu cheese. I actually think that bleu cheese dressing is really good on cold, crisp iceberg. Sorta Fajitas :lol: : I asked for advice on another board about using flat iron steak and two people suggested fajitas. Someone else suggested a sour orange marinade, so I put the two ideas together. I mixed up a fajita rub and added some Penzey’s dried orange peel. I sliced the meat and rubbed the pieces with the mixture and let it sit for a couple of hours. About an hour before cooking, I added sliced onions (I didn’t have any peppers but would have added them if I had had some) and some orange champagne vinegar. It turned out very well. I served the “fajitas” with baked potatoes: I also made Michael Ruhlman’s Buttermilk Cluster Rolls: They were delicious.

Sounds great. We do have an Asian bakery here, so maybe I'll go by and see if they might possibly have them.

The only time I've ended up with lumps is when some of the cream cheese from around the edges of the bowl that didn't get mixed in with the batter, makes it's way into the cake when it is poured into the pan. This will not melt into the cake but remain as a lump. Is this a possibility? Ding, Ding, Ding!!! I never thought about it, but that's happened to me, too! That really could be the culprit!

Here's Pille's recipe on her blog and here's the recipe on my website.

Bruce – I love the looks of the shrimp in the tomato cream sauce (and, of course the forbidden – to me – rice). Shelby – ok, I’ll ‘fess up. Those pierogies are frozen. Mrs. Somebody's. I just cook them like frozen potstickers (yeah, I use them, too ) – plunk in a pan with a little water and oil, cover and cook until soft and then uncover, turn up the heat to evaporate the water and brown (sometimes I add a little butter at that point). But I did caramelize my onions for-EVER! robirdstx – we did manage to get out of the neighborhood to go to work on Monday. I’ve lived here on and off since 1978 and I’ve never seen this much snow here. Since I am a snow freak, I am actually jealous of Washington DC ! Last Sunday, we went out for a little while to do some shopping, but didn’t stay out long. I spent the day making soup: My mother’s vegetable soup and beef vegetable. Most of the beef went next door to thank the neighbor who dug us out of what the plow dumped in front of our driveway (before we even got up!) We didn’t go anywhere for game watching, so I made us a treat: two little lobsters. I tried out two versions of lobster rolls – cold w/ mayo and celery and hot with just butter. We preferred the cold, but I’m thinking that if we’d been able to get REALLY good lobsters, we’d have liked the hot better. Our ‘feast’: Lobster rolls, various chips and dips and trashy old meatballs w/ BBQ sauce and apricot preserves. Last night’s dinner was some of the vegetable soup with some Parmesan shavings: And a lovely little bread, egg and cheese concoction called Grilled Swiss Toast (or “Šveitsi võileivad”) that Pille posted some time ago: This is basically just bread, hard boiled eggs and cheese baked in the oven until the cheese melts. Delicious and perfect with the soup.

Prawn – your gravlax is gorgeous! Can I have some directions, please? ThisRedHead – oatmeal cookies are a perfect breakfast (and the only way oatmeal passes my lips). Breakfast last Sunday: I think that you can figure this out. The bacon is just regular bacon. There is Benton’s in the shed freezer, but no one wanted to venture out into this: to retrieve it!

Dakki – sorry your cheesecake wasn’t perfect, but I LIKE your attitude ! I don’t think that overmixing is your problem, either. I can’t figure what would cause lumpiness, though. Did it TASTE good? If so, you have a little problem, not a big one, after all ! jenc – your cookies are adorable! What is the texture and flavor like? I am totally ignorant of Asian sweets. I made a chocolate/chocolate cake for a work birthday: Sometimes just a plain old chocolate cake with chocolate frosting is really, really good!

Shelby – Hi! I missed you! Both of those dishes look wonderful. I wish I had access to wild goose (cleaned and all, I mean). Blether – beautiful ravioli and what an intriguing sounding filling. And the chicken pie is just fantastic looking. robirdstx – gorgeous pizza! That would be a great meal for today, if I could get out of the house to get tomatoes and cheese! kayb – what a great idea for the meatloaf! The topping is my favorite part, too. I’ll have to try that. Mark – that soup is absolutely beautiful and I’m really impressed with the wontons. Dinner last night: Quick pickle of cukes and radishes with rice wine vinegar and Splenda Kielbasa glazed w/ honey mustard and apricot preserves, pierogies w/ caramelized onions and sauerkraut. I made a loaf of wonderful banana bread yesterday, so that was dessert.