Kouign Aman

Sticking solely to the cooking related (we love garage sales and thrift shops for all our household needs.....): Acquired: a ceramic/copper/brass bain marie for $3. my wok for free cast iron skillet beautifully seasoned for $8 (a bit high) pyrex casserole with lid 0.75 Want..... oh my, where to start? Hand crank icecream maker cookie cutters tupperware patterned rolling pin shiny pretty things for the glass front dish cupboards....<chirp, chirp..magpie> books

Those poor british kids (the parents). Brilliant idea.

Jaz, that dinner looks delicious. I've always braised short ribs too. Thanks for the new technique to try. All your kitchen "stuff" seems lovely; that tall glass with the blue glass ribbon on the bottom especially so. Thank you for blogging, and please count my vote for marrow bones one day this week.

We stayed away from peanuts but we did give HRH almond butter. Next they'll ban cheerios and then what will moms do ?

My stomach hurts from the three evenings of laughter it took to read thru this thread from start to finish. Whooooweeeee, I feel good! Except... the worst meal bar none that I ever ate was my own cooking. I'm a pretty basic cook. I can follow a recipe and can wing it with a few things, but I've got no reason to brag. Tho I had never, prior to this event, made anything completely inedible (I think/believe/hope!). I had two chicken breasts to cook. We were mid-move. The spices made the move, the recipes had not yet. I had a vague memory of a dish my god-mother used to make, that I remembered really liking (25 years previously). I didnt have a very clear memory of it, and no recipe. Not much sleep either as I was mama-moo to our newborn. I remembered the recipe as being something like a cream gravy served over chicken with broccoli and for some reason I thought there was mustard in the gravy. To save on hands on time, I decided to bake the chicken in the sauce. So.... I started making the sauce. Didnt want it too salty so I used a bit of Coleman's dry prepared mustard, after tasting a bit on my finger to ensure it was less salty than the other mustards in the house. After I added a tsp or so, the baby cried therefore my brain evaporated. Assessed situation, in hurry returned to sauce. Tasted it, no mustard taste (DUH! I'd just tasted the powdered stuff straight. Like I thought I could taste anything at that point?) Added more mustard. Baby cries. Repeat. Baby can no longer be assuaged by anything except food (aka me). Dump chicken into baking pan, pour gravy over to hide ugly unbrowned bird bits. Bake. Chicken came out nice and tender, but...... terminally contaminated by the bitterest nastiest stuff ever poured over food. Scraping it off did not work. It had permeated every fiber. My husband kept trying to eat it, til I ordered him to stop (a nice man, nuh?). We ate steamed broccoli for dinner that night. No one anywhere could ever serve me anything as nasty as that meal. Its nice to be "immunized".

Damn that sandwich looked good. Would have looked even better with decent bread, butter, and pepper bacon. It looks like Im gonna be bakin' bacon in the morning.

I agree. Sooo hard to pour from the martini glass into the baby bottle....

You'd ban lovers from fine restaurants? Whoa! Hard core!

grew up in So.Cal. pineapple upside down cake, banana cream pie, coconut cream pie, fresh baked choc chip cookies (tollhouse), chocolate or hot fudge sundaes or banana splits, malts. strawberry shortcake (with angelfood cake). jello. jello pudding.

Ok, thats gross. But it got me thinking, how do people taste sauces in restaurant kitchens? At home I use teaspoons, and can go an awful lot of 'em with a new recipe 'seasoning to taste'. In restaurant kitchens, are there little stacks of ice-cream sticks everywhere, to use and toss? Do folks just wash their hands before and after sticking them in the pot? Inquiring mind would love to know. Thanks.

"apparant sub par table " - do you mean apparently sub-par or abberantly sub-par? In the first case, drop the word all together. Your description makes it very clear the table is sub-par. "adjoining room was a private dining room for residents of the Hotel....20 solid minutes of a newborn squealing ..." Since its for hotel guests, the parents had every right to be there. Sad reality of hotels. Sad judgement of parents that they didnt hire the hotel sitter for the evening. Sad choice not to use the hotel's other dinner choices. However, since its clearly an issue (probably for the larger tables next to you as well), the restaurant does have the option to use sound-deadening techniques such as fabric on the walls of the private dining room, white noise (low level) in the restaurant, etc. I think its a nice letter, and a professional should be pleased to get the feedback from a clearly appreciative customer. <editted to fix blonde formatting>

Good Bitter warm smells like turmeric cumin onions or garlic cooking in butter (what a rarity ) any sweets baking, less so if cinnamon involved the carmelizing smell of overheated milk Bad fake butter flavored anything raw turkey the first few hours of turkey stock cooking (every window open, and I'm usually browning garlic on the stove to combat the nastiness) cucumbers the outside of a KFC the sourdough starter for injera <editted to fix formating>

Thank you. I muchly enjoyed your blog, pretty lady!

I am so sorry to hear that. We stuck to trying new foods early in the day after 2nd-hand hummus gave a bad bad bad night once. Now, OT: Foods for gummy-grasping....trader joes has those rings and blob cookies... almond and lemon flavor. The rings worked great for gumming.

Lemon icecream with dark chocolate swirl. A second version with a thin stripe of raspberry swirl parelleling the chocolate. Rosemary icecream Straight hazelnut - no crunch. Straight chestnut. Chocolate icecream with cabernet swirl

Wouldnt sulfer compounds form yellowish crystals?

You are going to stop saying "fabulous"? What a shame! One new item a week would sink me. Maybe one a month... Only two biscotti after a performance appraisal? Your strength astounds me. I ate an entire bag of black-pepper potatochips after mine.

That sounds good and has my mind running thru the farmer's market wondering what else to fry...I keep coming up with fresh sage leaves fried and crumbled on pasta, and a deep fried version of insalata caprese.

Mmmmmmmm Trader Joe's potstickers. I also like their veggie version. My husband prefers the Costco pork version. Have you tried those? (Not a thing to do in midst of cleaning out a freezer. Its a Costco size bag :whacko:) That looks like one of our favorite dinners. I like to add a little rice vinegar to the dipping sauce to lighten it. What did you stirfry the broccoli in?

I turn scraps of meat or veggie into "fried rice". With cheese, much the same as AnnaN but not quite as well organized.

Isnt deep fried spinach called pakora?

Fat Ivor's, Valley Center. Wayyyyyy out of the way. Barbecue. Beef short ribs the speciality.

Has anyone tried Bento Sushi in Mira Mesa? Its next to Farrell's, facing the side of Target. If you've been there, what's your verdict?

Chris, I think you may have taken the posts a bit too personally. I'm quite surprised they let you bring your baby in. Our experience with drinking laws is that they were firm. And I'm glad the experience worked out well for you. What a story to tell him later in life - not many kids have been drinking at Pegu! We have a pretty mellow kid and like to take "the baby" wherever we can, but are always prepared to have one parent bolt from the scene with child in arms/stroller, to avert a major disruption. And of course, as you probably do, we tried to time excursions to coincide with a well-fed, mellow angelmonster. The problems of intermediate behaviour levels are real - while I find it hard to imagine being bothered by a googling cooing baby as one poster reports, it is easy to be annoyed by an exuberantly happy loudly crowing baby one table over. Or one that is just testing the capabilities of its vocal cords. So, we avoid places where people spend a lot of money to enjoy the atmosphere. Much as we love the angelmonster, there is a world of disruptive potential there, and it doesnt belong in fine dining or drinking establishments or libraries, IMO.

Cool. We do this too! What do you put in yours?