Kouign Aman

A crawling, chowing-down baby, a dog and fried food. It was wonderful. The party at the end was the contrasting crunch of the nuts on the top of the banana split. Thanks for blogging. Happy 1 year of parenthood.

2633 El Cajon Blvd - The Chicken Pie Shop Perhaps the ultimate in cheep eatz. <0 This place has been around a while. It closes early (8pm) and only takes cash. I've had my order delivered to the table in as little as three minutes, tho 5-7 is more usual. Chicken Pie Dinner $5.50, comes with coleslaw -crispy tangy finely chopped, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, veg of the day (from a large bag stored in the freezer) and a superb chicken-turkey pot pie, and dessert (pie - not the same crust as the pot pie. Not very good pie) & a big cottony roll. For ~4.50, you can get the pie with just the spuds or just the vegies or whatever. The gravy and the pie are very good, and I like the coleslaw. Today's veggie was corn, sweet and well drained, if not fresh off the cob. For $6 there are a variety of dinners available that include all the sides above plus a cup of soup - choice of chicken noodle (very good), veggie or split pea (I've never tried either of these. Not all options available on all days). The chicken livers are consistently well prepared - crispy on the outside and tender inside. Other points of interest on the menu: giblets, buttermilk. For non-birdlovers, they have a ham dinner as well. Its an amazing thing to be able to feed 4 adults to satiation for $22 before tax and tip. The inside is diner/cafeteria, and loaded with ceramic chickens, paintings of chickens etc. The waitresses are quick and the food comes wheeled out on carts.

The knife shape resembles a scalpel. Scalpels are designed for cutting. In fact, the whole point is that cutting edge, which is where Bryan is headed in general anyway. Visual pun on a place-setting.

PJ's definitely showing the charm! Straws rule. PJ makes two Caucasion babies that I know of.

One way to make meat brown is to let it oxidize (thats what happens to the outside of raw meat). Onions contain sulfer-compounds which can act as anti-oxidants. I wonder if that is why the meat stayed red.

If it werent that you (reasonably) desire to stay close to the hotel, I'd say drive out to Rancho Santa Fe for dinner at Milles Fleurs. Its a long drive (45 min). Same owner as Mr A's.

The orange peppers are ripe, sweet, beautiful and delicious. 4/5 newly planted pots of seeds have sprouted. I foolishly didnt label so cant yet tell if its thyme or oregano that didnt germinate - maybe by Sunday I'll be able to figure it out. The tomatoes are nearly done - we've eaten half the crop and the rest are going to go fast, but there arent many new flowers, nor much green fruit. The guava is covered in little fruit-swells. An object lesson in how a plant reacts to the right amount of light. Anyone know why the passionfruit vine might be unhappy and yellowish?

Bertram's at Mr A's is not only good (and $$) but has a fabulous view of the planes flying by, nearly at restaurant level. Hard to match.

Oceanaire Linkie to Oceanaire post by Kalypso

I'd be right there with you, K8, re the Dr. Grrrrrr. Went thru that process this year - waiting sux. Annie, I think you made the right decision regarding the recipes. There's nothing to stop you using those recipes for your own business as well, but removing them from your current employer would have reflected very poorly on you. 1: its a bad feeling 2: it leads to bad references. (re the macaroons, I agree with that call too). If you decide the 3-days still isnt working out, Pontormo's exit interview (bottom of page 1) is brilliant, and will get you rave reviews if anyone calls your then=ex boss for a reference. Plus, its all true. as for selling out - I understand the frustration with the boss, personality, and relative degrees of perfectionism - but to keep goign til you find something better, remember it aint called "play". (Still, after 18 months of reciting to myself - "this is what they pay me for, this is what they pay me for", I about cried tears of joy to get transferred). Good luck whichever way it goes.

I know three kinds of potato salad: vinegary/bacony (aka German) - rare the divine roast potato version from our food service - unique the kind with pickle relish - by far the most common,regardless of race, religion or creed. Despite my dislike of MW, the fridge has a large jar to indulge the Tenor, who's been known to use both mayo and MW on a BLT.

What she said. Page flipping is annoying. And this means there are pages that will need anecdotes or pictures to fill them up. Those are good places for nifty explanations and variations too. Theme. I want a theme. I've got Joy, Mom has McCall's, the Tenor has Betty Crocker. That's plenty of generic american cooking and basic skills.

Yesterday I ate ~ a pint of jelly-bellys, 8 egg rolls, 3 large cookies, 4 granola bars, a bacon/mayo/tomato sandwich, and half a large bag of Kettle black-pepper and salt potato chips. 4 cups of coffee, 2 glasses kahlua and milk. I only stopped with the chips and eggrolls because they ran out. I had my suspicions....sometimes its no fun to be right.

I'd look at 'em there on the table in front of me and think: the food here is gonna look interesting at the very least. My first thoughts on seeing the picture were: can that knife cut ? can they be kept clean ? You've addressed the first. The second - hard to address and keep the stuff returnable. For little crevices and holes (those are holes right thru, yes?), brushes rule. Bottle brushes rule over nail brushes IMO. But you are not going to want to spend hours poking into each hole to get them clean. And you may have to clean mid-service if you dont have extras and someone drops a piece on the floor. Also, you'll probably have to hand dry them as even stainless will rust if left too wet too long. Those holes look like they wont dry quickly by themselves unless the air is crackling dry. For the reasons of maintenance, Im thinking return. Bummer. I'd like to use them in a restaurant.

Thank you. Pretty!

Thanks for the mini-vacation. Your photography sparkles. Good luck with your pregnancy and with motherhood.

Hooray!!!!! I'm so happy for you that it was a success. :beaming: :selfserving icon: Will the icecream recipe go on recipegullet? , or will you save it for your first cookbook?

Blue cheese ice-cream?, garnish with cracked pepper?

Electric knives are fabulous for cutting upholstery foam to shape. What were they developed to do?

We have the saying "Land of Milk and Honey" - similar to those milky rivers and porridge mountains. I love the picture of the fireboat on the river. I've seen them doing the same in Long Beach harbor. Its a beautiful photograph (moscow13). Thanks for blogging, Alina. Its fascinating.

Garlic press - which seemed like a good idea when I got it Bread machine - ditto. Needs a countertop home if its ever to be used. Angelfood pan. Dont like angelfood cake. No idea why I have this. 2 Egg separators - serial gifts from a gadget lover. I used to love using my rosette irons, but had an open area into the living room right above the stove for 15 years, which discouraged splattery fun like frying. Perhaps I shall resurrect them and relive the '70's. I believe they are stored next to the MagicPan-style crepe pan.hmmm, now I want to hunt out a recipe for Coquilles St Jacques.....

Left-over rice fried with spinach, fermented black beans, soy sauce, egg, garlic, cayenne & toasted sesame oil. This was a very successful experiment. Especially served with roast chicken and steamed carrots as well (dinner last night).

nevermind.

I'm hurting to have missed this one... nearest to me is a HomeTown Buffet... the opportunities were endless. Perhaps this topic can stage a revival as a new contest sometime?

The vaccine sounds a bit scary in so many ways.... do we really need new auto-immune diseases? Vaccines require enormous clinical trials, because in addition to showing they do what they are supposed to, it must also be demonstrated that they are safe. That takes a lot of test cases, since vaccines usually go into other-wise healthy people. Be interesting, if it gets that far, to see how many volunteers they get. I bet they have the fastest enrollment in the history of clinical trials. Somehow, I dont think it will get to that stage tho. So many differences between mice and men.