Kim Shook

Hi, everyone! I have been sans computer for almost a month now and the stupid public library blocks egullet ! And the stupid computer guy won't be getting the stupid mother board from the stupid Dell people until July 9th . I am at my daughter's apt. helping her pack for moving back home after graduation and thought I would sit down for a second and say hello. Since this is where all my favorite cooks congregate, I thought this was the proper place ! Just wanted to say hello, that I miss everyone and can't wait to have a few days to sit and catch up on all of your wonderful meals and also, to post the meals that I have been cooking! I was so sad to hear about fifi and I did take the time to read the responses on the thread about her. It is so amazing to me how well we get to know one another in this 'anonymous' medium. Best to everyone, Kim

Yay!!!!! Megan's back <happy dance ensues>!!!! You and your cukes were seriously missed here - now if we can just get Daniel and Ling (and some others I can't think of at this exact moment) to do some posting! Gorgeous meal, btw! Kim

I don't have a thing to offer, but I have been reading the posts here lately and drooling. I have to let you all know how wonderful everything looks! GTO - I love your little trifles! What a great idea. I'm going to steal that ! Joe - your chocolate squares look like the love child of a brownie and a chocolate sheet cake ! Beautiful and seductive!! Mark - I see what you mean about the goopiness of the pie filling, but the cake itself looks wonderful - nice, tight crumb. Could you possibly PM me the recipe - it looks like something that I would like for my lemon/coconut experiments ! Bruce - good God! Those strawberries are fantastic looking! I really, really hope that the local strawberries will be good this year! Becca - your tart is gorgeous! I am so envious of your skills! Chufi - oooooh! I think I need to make a mess soon ! Thank you all for sharing your wonderful skills! I am so grateful for the folks here! Kim

OOOOhh! Could you explain more for me (I am not terribly knowledgable ). This sound intriguing!! What is gelatin water? Just a mix of gelatin and water? In what proportions? I like the sound of this!!

tracey - your glisteny skirt steak made Mr. Kim and I drool! Ann - the pavlova is gorgeous and, as usual, your roast makes me want to run straight to the butcher shop! Rocky - the medianoches OMG! That looks so amazingly good! The crust is just absolutely perfect. I want one! What all is in yours - and how does medianoches differ from a Cuban sandwich? David - I love shrimp toast and yours is so pretty. I love the concentrated scatter of sesame seeds. lucylou - when we went to Florida in April, our friend, Stephanie, made these meatballs. I agree with you - they rocked! OK, now after looking at the last couple of days, all I can think about is strawberries and shrimp ! Mr. Kim made dinner last night. It was great! He did a Spinach and Citrus Salad: And Giada's Chicken Parmesan: You know, every Giada recipe we have ever tried has been really good. There is an idea for a thread, maybe - TV recipes that work and that DON'T ! Kim

I love the look of decorated cookies, but personally I think that they are all lacking in flavor compared with the type that you could put in the pretty bags. I make these Dream Cookies a lot and they are the best cooky in my repetoire - tender, buttery and rich. Everyone who has ever tasted them has loved them. And they couldn't be simpler. I'd go with the pretty bags. Let us know how it works out! Kim

Idiot savant? ← Ding, ding, ding! I think we have a winner! This was the grandmother that, when asked for a cooky, would offer me a Metrical (60's version of SlimFast) cooky - gack.

I actually do try to do this. I keep a kind of food journal with meals I serve including guests, menus, photos and how things went as far as the food - I almost always try out new recipes on guests and beg them to be honest - I figure the worst that can happen is we have to order pizza ! Also in the journal is a record of meals eaten in restaurants - again with menus, photos and critiques. Only special or travel meals - I don't bother noting an after work stop at Cracker Barrel (one of my many guilty pleasures )! Kim

Congratulations, Daniel! I enjoy your writing here at egullet so much - I'm thrilled that I can read you elsewhere, too! I also just added your book to my wishlist! Kim

My personal opinion is that anyone who puts bell pepper in a crabcake doesn't understand the nature of crab meat. Kim

Chicken Nut Puffs are great for tea. You can jazz them up with some curry powder and serve with chutney. They freeze great, can be served room temperature and are very Southern and 'ladies-who-lunch-ish'! Another thing that I have made is Firecracker Sandwiches. These do not dry out and are easy to make ahead of time. You can cut each one in half so that you have nice small little finger food and press parsley into the ends to make it 'nicer'. The version with country ham is especially good. Hope this helps! Kim

Rocky - that summertime meal looks fantastic. Can't wait for good tomatoes so we can do some caprese! kbjesq - please, please do join in! I am the most ordinary cook in the world - I have a huge interest in food and love to cook, but I am anything but fancy and I finally got up the nerve and am now addicted to photographing my food and posting here! It is so interesting to me to see how people all over the world eat (make sure to read the blogs - they are amazing) on an everyday basis. Bruce - - ok, ok, no Mexican anytime soon - but I do have some leftover chorizo - can I freeze it until the ban is lifted? Wendy - this is so odd - I just last night bookmarked the Jacques Pepin recipe for Gnocchi Parisienne in some magazine (F&W?) to make soon. How were they - as easy as promised? Last nights dinner was another easy one: An odd throw together salad of Napa cabbage, my Dad's Caesar dressing and a topping of toasted ramen noodles, sesame seeds and almonds (all leftovers): A really simple marinara on some cavatelli that a friends mom sent us from Philly -it is Napoletano's Pasta out of Springfield PA: Garlic toast (Texas Toast brand - a guilty pleasure) and these wierd little things that Mr. Kim loved and I didn't. They were also from the friends mom in Philly. They were stuffed olives - homemade. They were huge green olives stuffed with a mixture of finely ground chicken, pork and beef - breaded. I fried them in hot oil to serve. The meat mixture was just a mush, but what I objected to was the extreme saltiness (and this is from someone who grew up sipping olive brine as a treat - another guilty pleasure, I guess ). I am sure that they were labor intensive and very fiddly to make. Anyone else know about these things? I am guessing they are Italian-American based on the lady who made them: Kim

Bruce - your flour tortillas with papas y chorizo look amazingly good, and that's saying something considering how Mexican-fatigued I am ! lucylou - that steak dinner almost sent us back out to go to a steakhouse when we saw it tonight! Wow. I am not even a huge steak eater, but the combination of that wonderful looking meat, the amazing onion and the perfect baked potato almost got us! rw - everything looked wonderful, but I really, really want to try making butter poached lobster. I think that is the most wonderful and appropriate preparation for lobster that I have ever heard of! DanielM - is that just prettily shaved cheese on top of your pasta? If so, what did you use to shave it with? Shaya - what did the red apricots taste like? I haven't had a truly good apricot in years! Thanks to all for your kind comments! Poor Mr. Kim did not have to eat tacos tonight! Breakfast for dinner, nothing too exciting - but it was good: Ham & Cheese Omelette (don't tell Mr. Kim, but I used leftover Mexican cheese ) and hash browns: Toasted Coconut Waffles w/ Raspberry Syrup and Whipped Cream: Kim

Everyone please say goodbye to Mrs. Kim. If I have to eat ONE MORE TACO this week, you're going to be reading about us in the newspapers. - Mr. Kim

Just hit the reply button under the box of the response that you want to quote. You can delete any text that you don't want to appear. Does that make sense? Kim

Thank you! They really were tiny. To give you an idea of the size, the spoons are little sample spoons from the deli where I work - about the size of Baskin Robins sample spoons. Kim

I have a similar example. One of my grandmothers couldn't cook at all. Anything she attempted was awful. Except for once a year. Her Christmas dinners were legendary. No variance in the menu - turkey, oyster stuffing, bourbon sweet potatoes and cheese stuffed baked potatoes. Other offerings at the holiday table consisted of canned peas and an awful fruit salad made with canned fruit cocktail and, of course, the obligatory brown and serves - often burnt. The last three dishes were up to her usual standard, but the first four were fantastic - and not easy things to make, certainly. Where would she fall on this list? Kim

What beautiful meals everyone has been cooking. I am just in awe! Bruce - your Banh mi is just delicious looking, I can almost taste that moist pork and crunch the vegetables! lucylou - I love that glistening pizza. little ms foodie - the salmon and asparagus are gorgeous and I don't even like asparagus! And even your freaking ice cubes are beautiful!! David - every time I see one of your posts, I am so glad that you joined egullet and started posting on the dinner thread. You are such a treasure! Chufi - as usual, your meals (even the healthy ones ) look scrumptious! The cheesecake is just exactly what cheesecake should be! I am almost embarrassed to post my pitiful contribution to this thread! I have not been cooking much at all lately. I am finally back to work after my carpal tunnel surgery and too exhausted with standing up all day to come home and cook. Plus, I have so much leftover food in the freezer. The party for my daughter's graduation from college was May 20th. I cooked for 70 (I am a notorious over preparer - typical Southern girl horror of having someone leave my house hungry - so probably more like 80), 70 people having RSVP'd yesses. Probably 45-50 showed up . The menu was: Tortilla Soup w/ fixings - Avocado chunks, Lime wedges, Mexican cheese, Fried tortilla strips, Cilantro Quesadilla/Tacos – Ground beef & Chicken w/ fixings A sample plate: This was an almost full 18 qt. Nesco of taco meat: Black Beans Spanish Orzo Tortilla Chips w/ 7 Layer Dip Cornbread Salad Key Lime Pie Shooters - these were my favorites - very cute and very well received! Brownies Poundcake Frozen Daiquiris, Margaritas & Cosmos The food was very good and appreciated by all, but there was so much leftover. I am so very, very sick of tacos and beans and taco salad and reheated crap! We retooled the bean into bean soup and gave it to a sick friend and sent home what we could with everyone and took stuff to work, but a lot is still lurking in the freezer - haunting me. One good meal that I served while both sets of my parents were up for the graduation was: Grilled Steak Rolls - a little odd looking, but very good. Just flank steak, marinated, rolled and grilled: Chinese Salad - just one of those middle America standards - Napa cabbage with a green onion vinaigrette and a topping made of ramen noodles and almonds (a version of a Paula Deen recipe, in fact), but everyone at my house loves it. Roasted Cauliflower and Artichokes - how many pictures of roasted cauliflower do you suppose are on imagegullet ? I always get converts with roasted cauliflower - this time it was my mom. And the artichokes were a great addition: Scalloped Tomatoes - Southern comfort food at it's best - this dish reminds you that 'maters are, after all, a fruit: So, there we are. Almost the sum total of my cooking for the last 2 weeks. I am so ashamed. And I can't promise it is going to get much better. I swing into full time at work this week and we are going to Savannah for a wedding at the end of next week. I think I have cooking-fatigue. I want to cook. I just don't seem to find the energy to do it. Blah. Cook on, my friends - I'll read along and see if I can get inspired by the wonderful meals that you serve forth! Kim

See, I don't even know what the problem is here - I don't recognize Jaquin's - I assume that it is a low quality port and lowered the quality of the meal. I think that there are two things going on. One is truly crap food - the stuff that dividend refers to in the previous post. I can't imagine that anyone who bothers to post on egullet would not recognize it's 'crappyness' ! But the other issue is the sophistication level of one's palate - and even egulleteers are all over the place in that area. I know that I don't have a terribly sophisticated and educated palate. I'm not at all sure that I would have recognized the inferior quality of port that Meanderer mentions. I know that when I went to NYC awhile back, I ate at a couple of places that weren't held in high regard by NY egulleteers - and I loved them! I simply don't have the exposure to 'better' places and the discrimination to tell the difference, perhaps. Does anyone agree that there are two different issues here? And which one are we discussing? Kim

David Ross - both your onion rings and your Pommes de Terre Macaire look fantastic. I copied your directions for the potatoes and will be trying those as soon as I can! I am particularly envious of those gorgeous rings! I tried to make onion rings last week when I was staying at my grandmother's and it was a complete disaster! I did them the way I usually do, but they didn,t turn out well at all - they were limp and all the coating fell off ! And the duck was beautiful - what a gorgeous laquer he had! Alinka - your buns are beautiful (well that sounds odd, huh? ) - I would love to have one of those right now. little ms foodie - I love oysters rockefeller and those look perfect! Bruce - your fried rice looks so wonderful. I really miss rice so much (can't eat it since I had a gastric bypass), I do a lot with orzo as a replacement, but some things just need rice! Ann - what can I say. Every single thing that you posted was beautifully photographed and looked delicious! I am ready to pull up a chair. Well, as for us, one set of pictures will suffice for both last night and tonight as we had the exact same meal. I am so busy this week - the child is graduating from college on Saturday and Sunday we are having about 75 people for a sort-of-Mexican buffet. Southwestern Chicken Tortilla Soup with all the fixings, Chicken Quesadillas, Beef Tacos with all the fixings, Black Beans, Spanish Orzo, Seven Layer dip, Brownies and Key Lime Shooters for dessert. Plus both sets of my parents (regular and step) are arriving Friday and staying through Monday, so I have all those meals in between to prepare ! I really have no business being on egullet tonight, but I am multi-tasking by eating and surfing at the same time ! Our elegant dinner tonight (and last night): Chili dogs, bbq beans, slaw, oven fries and my daddy's fantastic Caesar salad (not pictured). Mr. Kim's plate:

Not a recipe, but a serving idea. My child is graduating from college on Saturday and we are having pseudo-Mexican for 75 on Sunday to celebrate. She requested Key Lime Pie. I am going to do Key Lime Shooters. Our local party store sells plastic shooter cups (probably double size - about 4 inches tall and as big around as a half dollar). I will layer graham cracker/butter mixture, key lime custard and whipped cream in the cups. Everyone will get a shooter and a spoon. I figure that each one holds about 1/2 a slice of pie. I am also serving brownies. Kim

Not to worry about the stroopwaffles! I was just glad you got your cookies before you had to leave! So glad to see you blogging again. I know exactly NOTHING about Malaysian food, so this will be a real treat for me. The market and Mother's day dinner photos are incredible! Can't wait for more! Kim

I got it (and some new crocs) for Mother's Day yesterday (does Mr. Kim know me, or what? ). I'll report when I get a chance to read it. Kim

molto e, we spend about $50. This wouldn't need to cover the whole bill - he eats out a lot and has plenty of money, but we do this to help him find new, cool places that he might not otherwise discover (he loves good food, but won't go to the trouble to seek stuff out like me). Thanks for the ideas and if you have anymore, pass them on! Kim

Oh! EW! I got the taste in my mouth just reading this! Not that I'd know what it tastes like to suck on a clean penny, mind you. ← I'll have you know that dirty pennies taste much the same as clean pennies! ← I had no idea there were so many penny-suckers on this board---we'll have to start a club. We can meet at my house. I'll be hostess, and you can all stand and tell of your habit, how it has affected your life, and the steps you're taking to get clean and sober. I've never tasted a penny; the scent on your hands after wrapping a few hundred is enough to put you off copper for life. But I did eat an ant once. It tasted kinda halfway between a flea and a lightning bug. ← Miss Rachel, you are a constant source of delightful & funny suprises. As long as you post, I pledge never to leave egullet (and I bet I'm not alone). Kim