Kouign Aman

FWIW, Boiling wont really help with botulism. The bacteria themselves arent the toxic agent, its the toxin they excrete, and that is very heat-stable. You would have to boil for rather longer than your tastebuds would approve.

Last year, the potatoes just wouldnt get started. This year, I have 4 volunteers from tiny spuds that accidentally got left in the ground. The carrots have sprouted, and the basil refuses to. The gophers got the last remaining rose bush. The lavender decided to revive.

What's with all the freaks in this country who put ketchuup on their chips? Bloody uncivilized, I call it.

Yellow cake, dark semisweet chocolate frosting, garnish with lemon peel.

The munchkin dug up the basil sprouts. Round II is in progress. The carrots have sprouted. And the weather got hot. It will be interesting to see if I can keep them damp enough to survive. Anyone grow strawberries? We have a plant, its sent out two runners. Once those root, do i cut them free from the mama-plant? This weekend, the munchkin and I just beat a raven to the one ripe berry. It smelled & tasted like strawberry candy.

They'll rot, but they will stink to high heaven for a couple/few weeks first. How badly do you hate your neighbors? Maybe someone knows if covering them with soil will control the smell? Rinse - if they are covered in salt (like old bay seasoning or something), you would want to rinse that off, but otherwise, I cant see why you'd rinse.

That sounds so delicious. There you go again, composing publication worthy photographs! Thanks for tackling yet another blog.

We wanted rather a lot of strawberries for a mid-April morning party, so we placed an advance order with a fruitstand on Del Dios highway in San Diego. When we came to pick up the fruit the morning before the party (if we could, we'd have waited til the day of, but time did not permit), they told us they'd left the fruit in the field an extra day before picking it for us. We could taste the truth in that. It was also evident in the decay rate of the fruit. Worth it. Without question.

Canned cream doesnt taste like fresh cream. Heavy whipping cream might be a better sub. You could make your own clotted cream. Its slow but requires little attention, per the various recipes I've looked at.

Beautiful, and so clever. Blue edges for the waterlilies, to blend them into the water - oh my!

The ones sold in Staples office supply store, and only there, so far as I can tell.

I knew, but I never thought about practical applications. Now I'm seeing the benefit of having a mini-fridge in a child-equipped house, for storage of beverages and snack fruit/veg. I wonder how quickly it would pay for itself (purchase price and electricity vs cost of open big-fridge door).

Cream-puff swans. Ya gotta make the dough, pipe em (bodies and necks), bake em, cut half to make wings, fill em (can use icecream here), stick necks/heads on em, and pipe eyes on the heads. LOTS of work, very showy. Everything except filling could probably be done in advance. If you like the hot sugar idea from a croquembouche, you could use sugar threads to accent and add sparkle/crunch, or to make nests for the swans. The swans look best with VERY skinny necks, and nice round bodies, IMO. That also makes them more difficult to do... I dont know where we got the recipe we used. link to recipe/instructions

I too like the scanning idea. We have one recipe card (photocopied) from my husband's grandmother. It would make a nice black & white print, and that would help ensure we didnt lose it. It would need a lot of cleaning up... its for a chocolate cake and it shows that its been used. Thanks for the idea. When can you post pix of what's already in place? (the stuff that's going away).

I found three cans of different asian mushrooms in the cupboard this weekend. Now what? Pot roast? Stirfry? compost heap? At our house: Thanksgiving leftovers become turkey soup, turkey stew and turkey sandwiches, ending with turkey stock. In myu freezer, the turkey stock then sits in happy little cubes getting ever frostier, because I dont much like turkey. Desserts get eaten for breakfast til they are gone. Veggies get mixed with spuds and fried up as a sort of hash in the morning (bubble and squeak with whatever is left over). Left over appetizers either get eaten the next day, or rot in the fridge til I clean it out for the next feast.

Cool! And when you are doing/dying, would you please ask about how the plants handle SoCal coastal conditions (medium hot, cool down to the 40s, dry & windy alternating with fog)? I've got space in the yard for a shrub, but it needs to be happy here. Its not gonna get babied for long. It would be such a fun thing to have!

We used to call those fevers the "24-hour flu". Same as Susan's FUO.

Chocolate eclairs are classic, delicious, and have the shape you are looking for, and then there is the filling... Because they are classic, guests who choose not to notice the salient features can ignore them easily, and those who are looking for a salacious giggle can comment on them. Plus, they have chocolate. You are talking about a party for women. Chocolate is mandatory.

Little green baby tomatoes! Basil sprouts! Tiny baby limes! Wheeeee! Last year's sweet orange peppers survived the winter as leafless structures, and are throwing out leaves now. Its interesting to watch.

I would expect the freeze-dried bananas to start self-rehydrating very quickly, and lose the crunchy texture, once they come out of the container. That has been my experience with freeze dried strawberries, rambutan and mangosteen. The strawberries can get quite limp in a matter of 10-15 minutes. The other two are a bit thicker, and hardier, but still get leathery pretty quick.

In Spain I had peas cooked with fatty ham til the peas were super soft, and full of rich (greasy) wonderful ham flavor. I tried it at home with bacon and it worked ok. Takes a while. Wish I could remember what it was called. I ended up ordering two plates of it. My original dinner, and one to share with the table, so that I didnt starve for all the sharing.

Smooshing up fresh basil well enough to mix w/ mayo for that sandwich would be a pain. I think the pastes offer a whole new way to herbs, based on Anna N's post.

Oh, wonderful! <editted to add:> And now that I've read thru to the end: fresh rainbow trout tastes soooooo good! Thank you so very much for blogging. It was wonderful to see the food slice-of-life view. Not a single thing you served (except rice and noodles) looked like anything I put on our table, but the use and updating of leftovers, etc were very familiar. I wish your son a quick and easy recovery, and that your daughter is immune. I wish for you that your son is good natured in his illness, and for all of you that your wife recovers and rejoins you in good health and spirits.

Tile = Slippery, omg yes. Moving a colander between the sink and stove creates a nasty hazard. I keep one towel ready for floor mopping at all times. Drink spills are easy to clean, but scary until then. We have a textured tile, not especially shiny. When wet, its like walking on wet ice.

Modus .... I'd wear flats for that! What is with San Diego and its early street-rollup? We couldnt get seated at 10:10 on a Friday night, after the show. Ended up at City Deli in Hillcrest, which is nice for a sandwich but not at all what we had wanted. On weekend nights, I miss Miami.