Kim Shook

So many lovely lunches! Yesterday was Father’s Day and Jessica was the main planner of the day. We had lunch at a BBQ place in Williamsburg called Old City BBQ and then toured the Copper Fox Whiskey distillery where Mr. Kim did a whiskey tasting and bought a bottle of rye. Our BBQ lunch - we started with Fried Brussels sprouts with a cilantro-lime vinaigrette, cotija cheese, and candied peanuts: We love them and they are on seemingly every menu, so we’ve had our share. These were some of the best Brussels sprouts we’ve ever had. Jessica’s main course: Taco sampler – one pulled pork with slaw, smoked bean puree, and bread and butter pickles, one pulled chicken with cilantro jalapeno slaw and cotija cheese, and one green chili brisket with the cilantro slaw, cotija, crema, and pickled red onions. Sides were poblano mac & cheese and fries with garlic queso. No discernable poblano or garlic in the last two items. I had the Brisket Dip: Caramelized onions, Swiss cheese, horseradish aioli, and jus. Served with “Smoked Stout” beans. This sandwich was probably the best thing on the table. The brisket was really good and the jus was not just beef bouillon like so many places use. I also ordered a salad, which I should not have done as it was enormous. It was supposedly a half portion, but all three of us nibbled at it and didn’t really make a dent: Romaine, picked red onions, cotija, creamy garlic dressing, and cornbread croutons. Not a ton of flavor from the dressing, but the croutons were fantastic. Mr. Kim had the three smoked meats platter: Pulled pork, brisket, ribs, cornbread, and collards. The pork was a little bit too spicy for me and the collards were WAY too spicy for me. The ribs were fall off the bone (which we don’t care for – we like a tender bite, not mush). This plate hit on two of my pet peeves. One is the spiciness. I have no problem with restaurants having spicy items. Their food, their choice. But TELL me on the menu so I’ll be making an informed decision. When a BBQ place has multiple sauces on the table, I kind of expect the BBQ to be mostly flavored by the cooking, not injected or sprinkled spice. Unless you tell me different. My second pet peeve is that everyone seems to be doing “pulled pork”. I grew up with little family BBQ joints and cafes in NC and VA that offered three kinds of pork – sliced, chopped, or minced. There is a difference that I miss. Short Sugar’s, the BBQ place in NC that I grew up going to still offers this choice and I love those sandwiches so much. It seems like the BBQ competition circuit has influenced the restaurants in this way. I don’t dislike pulled pork, but I especially love having the choice of chopped. Another issue for us was that everything that was “smoked” (all the meats, of course, and my beans) had this intense, almost metallic smokey taste. Mr. Kim was pretty sure that they were using mesquite for everything, which we thought was a mistake. He also thought that things were over-smoked. It occurs to me that we may overthink BBQ in this family. After lunch was the whiskey distillery. Mr. Kim had a blast – neither Jessica nor I are fans of dark liquor, but we had fun watching him enjoy it all. The still room: The bottling room: His flight: Copper Fox Original Single Malt Whiskey-XO 96 proof, Copper Fox “Port Style Barrel Finish” Single Malt Whiskey 100 proof, Copper Fox “Port Style Barrel Finish” Rye Whiskey 100 proof, and Copper Fox American Whiskey 96 proof. He decided on a bottle of the rye: Jessica had a very mild cocktail with just a splash of rye, and I had a kids menu lemonade:

This morning: Tomatoes on toast with Duke's.

Our first visit to our favorite produce stand this year: Both the peaches and the plums are from the stand. The lone nectarine is from Food Lion, and it smells better than any of the others. I don’t know how they do it, but our Food Lion provides the best stone fruit every summer and has for the past 20 years.

Yes! Stale! Always. But these were fresh - maybe the first fresh ones I've ever tasted in my life.

Not to mention weddings! I went to one where they'd gone all out and gotten silver coated ones (like dragées) in little mesh bags. Everyone was afraid of them, so I scored about 20 bags for myself. LOL

@JoNorvelleWalker - is that mousse of some sort? @blue_dolphin - Jessica was sitting behind me when I pulled this page up and noticed your Parmesan bread right away. We decided that was the perfect go-with for lasagna! Mr. Kim ordered some goodies on the road while we were out of town and they arrived yesterday. They will be providing snacks for days to come: Jordan almonds, paper shell pecans, and corn nuts. We saw NO signs for pecans at all in GA and were reminiscing about the great paper shells we used to get at the roadside sheds years ago, so he ordered some. They weren't terribly "papery" - it took squeezing two together in your hands (I couldn't do it) to break them open and even that was difficult. But they were moist and tasty and came out in perfect halves. The Jordan almonds from nuts.com are the freshest I've ever had.

I'm gone a week and so many delicious breakfasts! I'm putting together a little trip report of our Florida/SC visit and hope to post when it's ready. One of Jessica’s friends brought us a couple of cronuts from a guy who works out of a community kitchen in the city. One cinnamon sugar and one glazed: These were absolutely delicious, but as Jessica said, “A hole does not a doughnut make”. They were honestly more like a Kouign-Amann than a doughnut, but I guess when chef Ansel invented them, they thought people would “get” the mash-up name for a croissant doughnut but wouldn’t know what a K-A was? Anyway, they were great – maybe needed a little more butter in the lamination, but that’s being extra picky. Next time we’ll order and pick up our own – Jessica’s friend said when she got them this morning they were still warm!

This is probably not what you want, but thought I'd chime in. The recipe that I use most often is actually called Onion Garlic Soup because it calls for both sautéed garlic and a head of roasted garlic. I know that it must have come from an early 1980's issue of either Bon Appetit or Gourmet because it was my company "go-to" starter when we first got married (1982) and subscriptions to both those magazines were given to me as shower gifts. It calls for half chicken and half beef stock and Chablis (very 1980's 😁) and is brought to a certain point in a pot and then baked at 350F for two hours! It's then divided up into bowls for serving and, oddly, topped with a beaten raw egg and some Gruyere and returned to the oven for 10 minutes. I don't think I did the egg business more than a couple of times and then switched over to a really cheesy crouton topping. To me, that is arguably the best part of the soup - the soppy bread and stringy cheese. This is the Onion Soup that Jessica was raised on and she believes that no one else's holds up to mine. That makes me happy.

I can vouch for this. Best linguini with clam sauce I've ever made.

Tuesday night was fixed up Mrs. Fearnow’s Brunswick stew (local company), saltines, and crudité: Trying to eat what we’ve got and not shop since we’re going to FL on Friday. Last night (and most likely tonight): Rotisserie chicken from Wegman’s, Ukrops’ (local prepared food distributor) Duchess potatoes, Cheddar roll, and green beans. I realized walking around Wegman’s getting stuff for our trip and wondering what I could serve for dinner that wouldn’t be soup and a sandwich (too much like last night) and remembered that the last time I made turkey gravy I’d made extra. Dinner flowed from that one little container of frozen gravy. With the gravy: Jessica made some requests for things that she wanted while we’ll be gone that apparently only I can make 😄. Sausage gravy: Fixed up Kraft Deluxe: Egg salad: Green beans: I also made some BBQ slaw to take to our friends in Florida. Mr. Kim is taking some of his BBQ and they are providing the rolls and broccoli salad:

@Ann_T – my whole family wants that BLT! @blue_dolphin - lovely looking banana pudding. I grew up believing that I didn’t like banana pudding, but it turns out that I don’t like vanilla wafers! I don’t see any wafers in that! I am very envious of your ability to get such good, hot radishes! It’s funny, but I detest spicy foods – anything with peppers or even some BBQ sauces. But I love hot radishes and a strong cocktail sauce with lots of horseradish. Someone once suggested that what I couldn’t tolerate was sustained heat and that the heat of horseradish (and hot radishes) wears off very quickly. Yesterday: We are making do with Skippy since our beloved Jif was recalled. In what may be an excess of caution after the recall of some Jif jars, the stores seem to have cleared out ALL of the Jif. Today: Cheese roll and sausage.

I don't know anything about sea buckthorn, but white miso can be incredible on sweets. We recently had ice cream sundaes with a miso caramel and it was fantastic.

Welcome, @Anu Prabhakar! I'm looking forward to your posts and perspective!

@Shelby – again with the fantastic radishes! And everything else. I’m now craving lasagna. And your fried chicken gravy looks luscious. And those strawberries ❤️!!! @Ann_T – It all looks delicious, as always. But your battered fish is positively stellar! And would you be terribly affronted if I surreptitiously removed the asparagus from the goat cheese tarts? Because I really would love one of those 😁! Saturday night we tried an Italian restaurant that I’ve been wanting to go to across the river. It’s called Frank’s. Jessica and I had excellent Caesar salads: Mr. Kim had an ok Greek: We shared the burrato appetizer: The wonderful thing about this was the fact that the restaurant owner was born in Italy, so has an authenticity that informs his recipes and food choices. But he is Richmond enough that that gooey, balsamic drizzled cheese ball is sitting atop and perfectly prepared FRIED GREEN TOMATO! It was genius!!! Mr. Kim had his usual baked spaghetti: Which tasted very good but had a disappointing amount of watery residue. And that didn’t develop after sitting awhile – someone let it come out of the kitchen that way. Jessica had one of the specials – lobster ravioli with shrimp in a creamy tomato sauce: This was delicious. I had the meat filled cannelloni: Which always makes me think of David Ross who was kind enough to type out the entire Time-Life recipe that he used for the pasta, sauce, and meat filling for me when I asked about it. It is the only recipe I use now, and this was close. All in all, though this was good, it was about on level with a nearby place called The Grapevine which is so much closer and run by Lebanese folks. I rarely crave Italian, so when we go Mike gets Italian and I get Lebanese and we’re both happy. Plus, the fact that the two best things we had were specials. Sunday - this was supposed to be an afternoon snack, but ended up being supper: Last night: Chicken Kiev, couscous, green beans, sweet potatoes, and collards. The Kiev is frozen, but Barber is a good brand - the chicken is raw, and they use real butter. And, yes, a bunch of other stuff that I can’t necessarily pronounce. Honestly, if I waited until I made it from scratch to have Kiev, it just wouldn’t happen. Kind of an odd combination of stuff, but we’re heading out of town on Friday morning for a few days and are trying to not shop and to use up what we have.

On Sunday, we had our post-church brunch at our favorite deli – Boychiks. We shared a chef salad and an egg salad on white bread like the old married couple we are: They make the absolute best 1000 Island dressing. Perfect for a chef salad.

@rotuts - no luck so far finding the sausage. I'll try Wegman's when we get back from our Florida/SC trip next week. @blue_dolphin – That egg sitting next to the asparagus is just PERFECT! @Annie_H – love the bacon mats! What a great idea. On Saturday we did something fun for breakfast. A friend mentioned that it was so great that Richmond had three really good and locally owned bagel places. I thought it would be great to have a taste test, so Jessica went to Chewy’s, Nate’s, and Cupertino’s early that morning and got two bagels (an ET and a salt) from each one and brought them home. She even recorded our tasting for FB. Cupertino’s is our neighborhood bagel place - only about 3 miles away – and is consequently our usual go-to place. Nate’s and Chewy’s are down in the Fan district, so more than 20 minutes away – also, long lines and parking are always an issue. So, unless we are down there anyway, we tend to go to Cupertino’s. Which are good. But are they great? That’s what we tested. We decided to test the salt (Mr. Kim’s usual) – on the left - and the ET (Jessica’s and my usual): Obviously, Chewy’s is the looker. It turns out that most of their bagels are sourdough and they are just prettier. The ETs: They were all good. But Chewy’s was, by far, the winner. Their bagel had a lovely sheen and a sticky crust (if that makes sense – it was sticky both in the sense that the garlic and onion are sticky rather than dry and dusty and the “skin” of the bagel is slightly tough, and the sheen is a little sticky on your teeth. The flavor of everything was just elevated in these bagels. Next up was the salt bagels. I should confess that I never order a salt bagel – I find them too salty and there is a tongue burn I associate with them (the same with an overly salted soft pretzel): The Chewy bagel (upper right) won this round, too. The taste and texture issues were the same – they just chewed better, and the flavor was better. The difference in the salt was interesting. The salt on the Cupertino’s and Nate’s bagels was, from what I saw and tasted, was just pretzel salt. But the Chewy bagel was chunky sea salt. The flavor was so much more delicate and gentle. This was a fun experiment and one I’d love to try again with other things. Yesterday: Toasted super-seedy bread from Aldi.

I ordered Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott mentioned by @Matthew.Taylor a while back. I thought it sounded like my kind of bakery book, and looking over it I wasn't wrong! I've tagged 17 recipe to try. I made the first one in the book on Saturday. It's called "Classic Pound Cake" and it really is - a pound each of butter, flour, and 10X plus 6 eggs and vanilla extract (I used Fiori di Sicilia): I thought it turned out beautifully. The crumb is great – there is just one little area near the top (at the crack) that seems to be overly dense. The recipe makes 2 cakes. We'll eat one ourselves this week. The other went into the freezer. We are taking a few days at the end of the week (fingers crossed that our state gets an acceptable budget for both the governor and the General Assembly - if not, Mr. Kim is going nowhere 🤨) and visiting friends in Jacksonville Florida for 3 days and then coming home through Charleston SC for a day and a half. We'll take the other loaf to our friends.

We have to go all the way to the Norfolk/VA Beach area (a couple of hours through stressful traffic on a good day) to get to Filipino. But once we do, there are an incredible number of good places to try.

Well, then, you could take it off and deep fry it and eat it as an appetizer. 😁 I treat all loose skin at a cook's treat.

How about rubbing a little baking soda on the skin before browning?

Nope. They are basically shortbread cookies.

Everything I found was ancient, so I thought I'd try starting a new thread. Mr. Kim and I are going to be there next week for a day and 2 half days. We'll be doing Rodney Scott's, Callie's Hot Little Biscuit, and Codfathers. Other possiblilities include Hyman's, Hannibal's, Bertha's, Camme's, and Martha Lou's. Can anybody give me any up-to-date advice or guidance? Thank you!

@btbyrd – those sardines look wonderful! Day before yesterday: Strawberries and a mortadella with pistachios (sorry, @rotuts 😁) sandwich.

@Duvel – how do you make the sauce for your fried noodles? I have tried to do fried noodles before but had trouble with the sauce ending up in a pool on the bottom of the dish and the noodles being high and dry. Your sauce seems to cling nicely to the noodles. Dinner night before last was just plain hot dogs, fixed up Kraft, and some delicious IP collards: Last night was the lazy woman’s version of the ham and egg salad sandwich I fell in love with in England – mayo, mustard, and ham: Add sliced eggs: The seediest bread I’ve ever had: It’s from Aldi and it’s fantastic. But this pisses me off all out of proportion: 😠😁

I haven't ever tried the Jones roll of sausage - I've added it to my shopping list and will try it next week. I grew up on the Jones link sausages (the raw ones, not the precooked ones) but they are impossible to find, at least in my area. I have never tried souse. I'm ashamed to say that the look of it gives me the shivers. My granddaddy used to eat it - cold. Gave me the horrors as a child. Scrapple, on the other hand, seems normal and is something I want to try. We are planning to go to Philadelphia at some point in our future and I was saving my first taste of scrapple for Reading Market! This morning: English muffin – butter and strawberry preserves, and some pre-cooked Jimmy Dean sausage. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before this sausage was a winner on one of the ATK tastings and I actually like it a lot.