Kim Shook

@shain – gorgeous color on that crust! @Ann_T – the fish and lobster are gorgeous! We just received lobster tails for Christmas. Could you please tell me the temp and time for the CSO? @liamsaunt – thank you for the information. I am looking forward to making the fish! And that is one beautiful chicken. I’m afraid if I was alone in the kitchen with it, I’d peel off ever inch of that skin😁. Dinner last night was something we saw Molly Yeh make on Food Network. It started with meatballs: It called for pork only, but I happened to have some already mixed beef and pork for meatloaf in the freezer, so I used that. I also baked the meatballs instead of frying. I don’t get frying meatballs – messy and you end up with unevenly cooked meatballs. More ingredients: Rolled out biscuit dough, some cheese and a meatball: Then they are wrapped up like a dumpling and fitted into a square pan: When they come out, they are topped with a butter/olive oil/garlic mixture, Parmesan, and parsley and baked for another few minutes: Served with a side of marinara: A cross section: I was afraid that the bottom (where all the dough was gathered together) would be too doughy and dense, but it was fine. These were like meatball stuffed garlic knots. We liked this a lot. Hoping they reheat well in the CSO. Also some salad:

This morning: Perfect eggs on Dave’s Killer bread.

The nice UPS man brought this today: A lovely gift from my cousin and his family.

All three look really good, but I especially like the looks of the sprinkle ones. Is that just regular sugar on the white ones? It looks like snow! Would you share the recipe and method, please?

Those moms who keep getting caught on their kids' computers during remote school should do this. And blowing on it every so often is good, too.

Bless you, my dear!

You know, I'm sure it won't be now that I think about it. The article you linked to was talking about a shoulder/butt and another article was talking about a hock. I'll be getting a loin roast (I think). So, on a rack, 500F until it "chicharrones"? I've read in a couple of places that it's important to salt and dry the skin for a couple of days in order for it to get really crisp. Is that true? Does that mean that SV is not a great idea?

From what @heidih posted and the other reading I've done, it sounds like what I will need to do is remove from the water, take it out of the bag and pop it in a 500F preheated oven and keep turning until I get the popped crackling effect. Does that make sense?

I finally got this one and love it. It seems to spread the force equally across the piece of meat. And it is very satisfying to obliterate garlic cloves with it.

I've ordered a smallish (about 3 lb.) pork roast with a good fat cap and skin from our fabulous lady butcher (she was a Chopped winner). It will only be the three of us on Xmas Eve, so I want to make it really special. I have a vague, but wonderful memory of pork roasts that my stepdad, @Ted Fairhead used to make when I was young and he could get a good pork roast from the grocery store. They had an amazing piece of fat and skin that turned into beautiful crackling when done. I would very much like to sous vide it and then do whatever I need to do to get a good crackling. Is this possible? I've used @gfweb's method of SV'ing pork roasts and plan to use the same method for this. Assuming that I can SV and afterwards get my crackling, if someone will assume that I am a complete imbecile and tell me step-by-step how to get the crackling, I would be eternally grateful.

Great memories! This is my favorite thing about eG - the stories and memories that come with cooking and eating.

Hot dog with melty American cheese, extra dark pretzel splits with honey mustard, and tiny sweet pickles:

Welcome to eGullet, @Elkyfr! Those are beautiful and very professional looking. I like the "bunny ears", too! 😉

@russ parsons' description of Bourdain: "a much-liked crank..." is priceless and perfect.

I looked and the closest Del Taco to me is in SC and, in these no-travel days, that might as well be California! I don't remember if I ate restaurant tamales in California when we lived there for 8 months in 1970 when I was 10. I grew up on Hormel canned tamales and what I particularly remember are taquitos with a thin, mild green sauce that I've never come across again. Keep in mind that we didn't have anything like that in the Washington DC area where I grew up. We didn't get Mexican restaurants that I remember until a couple of years after we moved back to VA.

@liamsaunt – thank you for the directions. That is definitely something that will go over well here! One additional question: how many servings of fish for the recipe? Dinner last night was hot dogs w/ BBQ sauce, chips, sweet potato fries (frozen Alexia brand), and kraut: The Ghost of Dinners Yet to Come: Mr. Kim, while shopping at Kroger, came upon these beauties at $5.49/lb. One was 5.3 lbs. and the other was 6 lb. There were more, but we didn’t want to be greedy (and we only have so much freezer space😄).

In case she misses this, I'll link you to the recipe on my webpage. I wrote it with @Darienne's directions and also my own variation (I could never do a good job of getting the chocolate on both sides like she does).

Mr. Kim went to Kroger for hot dog buns last night and came home with these: They were $5.49/lb. One was 5.5 lb. and the other was 6 lb. I'm hoping that they will fit in a vacuum bag so that I can freeze them until I have time to cook them. My question is, assuming I can fit them in a bag, should I dry and season before I bag them? Or should I bag/wrap them and when I thaw, take them, let them dry out in the fridge for a few days and then vacuum and SV? Or should I not SV at all and go old school roast in the oven? I don't want to ruin these lovely things.

None of the fast food places that I know of sell them. Some of the Mexican restaurants do. Unfortunately the ones I've tried have been too spicy for me. I really need to learn to make my own and then I could make them mild and let Mr. Kim and Jessica add hot sauce to them.

Yesterday we picked up lunch at Popeye’s after my PT: Today:

Yesterday was an ET bagel from the freezer with cream cheese and Benton’s bacon:

All the beet talk got me giggling. I’ve always hated them and they are one of those things that people always say, “you just haven’t had them cooked properly”. That’s what Mr. Kim’s mom said. “Wait until you taste mine.” I hated them. I was polite to her and thanked her but said I still didn’t care for them, but later asked Mr. Kim if they were supposed to taste like that😄. This same woman tried to get me to eat mashed turnips by disguising them to look like mashed potatoes. Someone I once worked with used to tell a story on himself about turnips. He was eating his first meal at his girlfriend’s home. He took a big scoop of what he thought was mashed potatoes. After tasting it, he shouted out, “Don’t anybody eat the potatoes, they’ve gone bad”. He actually ended up marrying the girl. Still doesn’t eat turnips. @liamsaunt – the haddock looks so delicious. I think it is a Boston (or maybe NE) ‘thing’? We can get haddock – would you share your recipe, please? @Owtahear – love the look of that braciole! Does your butcher cut it for you or do you do it yourself? We have friends who lived in Philadelphia and it was just available in their local grocers in the city. They would bring us some whenever they came to Richmond. I miss that. Monday night it was breakfast for dinner: Benton’s bacon, biscuit (frozen), leftover cornbread, mandarin oranges, eggs, and hash brown patties. Last night was fixed up Mrs. Fearnow’s Brunswick stew (a locally produced brand) and sandwiches with Dave’s Killer Bread (which, being juveniles, we call Criminal Bread😊😞

@kayb - I love the idea of all those different brittles. I really need to do that sometime. I also love the look of your pecans. They look really deeply roasted. @catdaddy– thank you for the praline recipe. I’ll be trying that one non-humid day after the holidays. I’ve always wondered how pralines got to be the de facto city candy of NOLA. It is so hard to make that kind of candy when it is humid outside and New Orleans is seriously damp most of the time. Every year @Darienne gets a toast and a thank you from the Shooks and everyone we pack a goody bag for. She gave me her Engstrom-Style Toffee recipe a couple of years ago and we all adore it. Did this yesterday when it was sunshiny and dry: Happy Accident candy: This is just the shards leftover from breaking up the sponge candy mixed with melted Trader Joe’s chocolate. Makes a nice little two-bite treat. I am doing my PB cookies today. This is the ones that I roll in demerara sugar before baking and top with a Hershey kiss when they come out: Here are the Maldon salt topped kind:

As I've probably mentioned before, once every few months I inexplicably crave a Beef & Cheddar. I have no idea why, but somehow that combination of salty meat, onion bun, orange cheez goo, BBQ sauce, and horseradish sauce satisfies something in me. I grew up in Northern VA and we had Roy Rogers. Real roast beef, great fried chicken, and good burgers. There was one lonely Arby's that no one went to. I have to say, though, that their deli-type sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, and chicken salad used to be very good - I haven't had them in years.

These cookies from Aldi are even better than the other ones: And the picture doesn't lie - the backs of the cookies really have that many sliced almonds.