Kouign Aman

Getting the house tented in 11 days. All opened, refrigerated, frozen, and many other categories of food have to be double bagged for the event. My goal is to leave the fridge nearly empty (milk, cheese, eggs) to make the job easier (a perfect excuse for a huge shopping trip after). I went thru the freezer this weekend and found: cheeses, ham ---> quiche coming up beef roast, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms --->potroast chicken stock and a grand pile of parmesan rinds --> broccoli potato soup. chicken breasts, corn tortillas --> enchiladas to be Then it got hot. Everything is nearly 'pop in oven' ready, and I cant bear to turn the oven on! Here's hoping our typical May Grey returns tonight, or I'll be up at midnight to cook. We ate the first of three meals of the soup and it went down easily.

Now, why I didnt remember these guys 2 years ago when the thread was new?....? Fat Ivor's in Valley Center. Fabulous beef ribs, and a great story of fire, perseverence and customer loyalty to go with them.

How did they prepare that wonderful-looking egg?

Update on the cheap(er) eats? We'll be in Boston late June / early July, almost-4 year old in tow. Possibly no access to a fridge. Somedays we'll want an actual cooked breakfast. Other days, a picnic with bakery good and fruit will suit fine. Almost-4 is pretty good in restaurants. However, dinner is the hard time of day - tired, been in too many restaurants, had a day full of being told to behave, etc. Need a couple very child-friendly places, or takeout in the line up for those days when its clear we are just not gonna be able to sit still and keep the noise down for a whole meal. I took notes thru out this thread, and am wondering if there's any new recommendations you can share, these several years later. Thanks! For my own easy reference, I'm linking this Oct 06 discussion eating in boston with toddlers - esp last posts and this :Boston food scene - Nov 07

Four years later, what would you rank the best?

Any changes, or do the quadrivirate of Toscaninis Herrell's JP Licks & Christina's still stand as the best in town?

The Tenor's recipe: heavy cream Chocolate those Original Chocolate Wafers. Butter. Crush wafers, melt butter, mix, make crust, chill. (Springform pan is nice for this). Whip cream (stiff peaks), melt chocolate. Mix some unwhipped cream into chocolate to thin it and cool it. Fold into whipped cream. (Proportions to taste). Pour into crust. Stick in extra chocolate wafers here and there as desired. They'll soften and provide textural contrast to the mock mousse. Sometimes he makes a layer of them on top of half the mousse, covers it with the other half. Sometimes not so many of them. Decorate with wafers or dribbled melted chocolate. Chill. Slice, serve. The mousse gets quite firm, so you could drizzle in caramel and add nuts, or whatever, if you want to really goop it up.

That's a wonderful photograph. If "chips" are still the goal, freezedried fruits are nice and crunchy/crispy and light. Apples cut appropriately and freeze dried would do a good imitation of a french fry. They dont stand well. They start absorbing atmospheric moisture and getting leathery very quickly upon opening the storage container, so the dessert would need to be served right away.

Elsie, I've just been sitting here wondering whether to toss my old neglected batch or what, when I saw your post on sweet rolls. We dont eat much bread except for sandwiches, and I dont have time to bake much during the week, so even tho I love the bread, it was hard to use up a batch before the dough got tired. But... we love sweetrolls, and one can always share with the neighbors. Thank you for the idea. I shall reincarnate that bowl of goo when I get home tonight.

This is maybe out of the topic but now I now where Terry Pratchett (fantasy book author extraordinaire) got the name for one of the places/cities in the Discworld novels. ← I wuz thinking that very thing!

Hi! When in San Diego, where will you be based, and how long (time) are you willing to travel for food? I like Andiamo in Tierra Santa for Italian, and they do pizza too. Very family friendly, casual clothes just fine, but a nice place for a grownup celebration meal as well. They straddle the line very gracefully. This is where I first had gnocchi with browned butter and sage. The current menu is here:Andiamo Menu. Tierra Santa is aneighborhood a few miles east of San Diego proper - maybe 15-20 minutes drive time from downtown. If you search Kalypso's posts, you'll find chapter and verse on the best Mexican food in the area. On the days you go to Disneyland, you might try for reservations within the park at the Blue Bayou (or whatever its called), for one lunch or dinner. Its located within the Pirates of the Caribbean ride so its got a pretty high cool-factor for kids. I've never actually eaten there , but someone did a report on it not too long ago. I plan to make it part of our day when we take the little one eventually. Also in the park, if its still open (was remodeling on my last visit) is the Golden Horse Shoe saloon. They do burgers etc, and its a fun place to watch a show and eat lunch. The show is slapstick and melodrama. I dont know if they do reservations, if not - show up early and eat early. It used to get a grand great line outside that kinda spoiled things if one was really hungry. Outside the park itself, a number of us enjoy the Blue Agave in Yorba Linda. That's about a 20-30 min drive from Dland, depending on traffic.

I like your kitchen. Light and airy. You've made it very cheerful with the brilliant rug. One caveat - that is the smallest sink I have ever seen in a kitchen and it would drive me nuts. What are the white strands above/behind the sink, that look loosely knotted together? I second the applause for czocholate.

Most of the tomatoes are potted: 4 early girl, 1 mr stripey, 2 kinds of cherry tomatoes (sungold and ?), one yellow med sized, 2 beefsteak. Seeds I've got in soil : one brown version, currant tomatoes from Santee by way of Bakersfield. Fingers crossed for germination (the first set didnt). One germinated giant pumpkin - more seeds starting. Sunflowers - round II Corn - any day now I'll know if it germinates. Yard-long beans - trying round II again. The dill came back up by itself. What a nice treat! Sage is looking good, and some is flowering. Very pretty. Cilantro came up over the weekend. A year's worth of kitchen scraps, dumped into a pile, lightly covered with dirt and left for a year - just looks like dirt now. I hope the plants can tell the difference. The lemongrass is going gangbusters. Gotta do something with some of it soon. My cubie mate and I were talking about ginger lemongrass icecream. I wonder if one can espalier a Meyer or Eureka lemontree?

Oh Prague! I'd love to live there for a year or two. I was only there 1 day and two half days, and learned to love the public transportation system that quickly.

Oh my, Kim. Oh my! Its been a wonderous week, full of adventure and color and attention to detail. Thank you for all the hard work, care and love you put into this blog. (and thanks for showing how to make tangerine beef - one of my long time favorites. How can deep-fried sugar-coated beef be anything but delicious (as long as its properly made)? Thanks to Dejah for any coaching. Those look like tutorial photos.)

Thanks for all the extra effort in showing off the lovely colored glass. My first thought was "Blue Pitcher - that is fabulous!", and then I noticed a pink ceramic pitcher that looks like it might go with the bathroom-wallpaper-stripe bowl. It must be just like a table full of tulips when you use all that pink and green glass together.

We grew up calling tapioca "frog spawn", as our mother taught us. And we all liked it, mother included. I also admired the pink bowl echoing the pink lav wallpaper, but others beat me to posting about it. It looks like you mostly have colored pressed glass running around the top of the dining room walls - yes? I'd love to see it more closely, if you can stand that many more pix. In your "before" pic (which I saw before I read the text), I thought "what a lovely cool and floaty outfit. That lady looks so spring-time lovely and perfectly turned out with the hat and dress together so nicely. " Then you got all down on yourself! Congrats on the weight loss and on successfully managing the aftereffects of GB. You good in the after pix too, of course. Surgery didnt remove your sense of style, eh? Editted to add all that I meant to put in originally: julienne - oh mama! I expect that salad tastes good in chunks, shavings or whatever, but you made it so elegant!

Seeds are sprouting, hurrah! Slow and few between, but they've started.

Recent new cheeses for us (nothing wildly exotic): Castel Bleu - I ate it all, with a fork. Port Salut - this one could be a pretty frequent visitor to our house. I like the sharp richness, and it looks like it might be a good melting cheese. If so, it might be tagged for a trial mac'n cheese starring role. Either way, we like it for nibbles.

I'd be tempted to put some in a liqueur glass and sip it. Seriously.

When we visited Germany, the waitress/waiter knew the contents of the breadbasket when it was delivered to our table, counted what was left, calculated how many pieces we ate, and charged us by the piece. Other than being surprised by the foreign custom*, it wasnt a problem. In fact, it encouraged some of my fellows to save their space for the food they'd ordered. *aint travel grand?

No Waitstaff in this restaurant Whaddya think? Wave of the future? Cute gimic? As long as the food suits, who cares if the waiter/ress is human or steelrail? Or hell no, I wont go? I'm curious about clean up - the article doesnt address who / how the dirty places and dishes are handled.

Rob, what a wonderful idea for a gift! Please pass my compliments on to the originator. >70 eggs! Wow. That has to feel good! Are you going to try blowing those eggs, so you can save the decorated ones? Or will pix suffice?

Perhaps the most honor you can do any of the three is to prepare them with care, and give a heartfelt sigh of pleasure at their deliciousness. Curious - why do you want the majority of the bison meat ground?

Engineers - god love you all - you are indeed a group apart. Thanks for taking time to blog! If you can combine pork and chocolate in one meal, its a good day! You did get me wondering if a mole-inspired cure would make good bacon.