C. sapidus

Thank you, Pontormo. I grew up inside the beltway in Silver Spring. Progress has changed downtown Silver Spring, sometimes for the better and sometimes not so much. National chains have displaced a lot of the inexpensive “ethnic” places that I loved, but a few old favorites are still around. I took some pictures a couple of weeks ago, all within a single block of Thayer Avenue. The Thai Market is excellent – I frequently see it listed as a resource in the back of Thai cookbooks. Negril has amazing beef patties, jerk chicken, and an incredibly dense and delicious sweet potato pie. Ethiopian restaurants seem to have moved out to the suburbs. Back in the day, we had to go to Adams-Morgan for Ethiopian food. The sign for an Indian restaurant in the next block is too small to read. My favorite Indian vegetarian restaurant, Siddhartha, would have been behind me as I took the picture. Their Mysore masala dosas (dosai?) were among the best things I have ever eaten.

Lucylou - Thank you! Jumbo lump crab meat is mostly huge, unbroken, gleaming-white chunks of pure backfin crab meat. "Backfin" is a lower grade, with smaller pieces and more dark claw meat mixed in. It still tastes great, but jumbo lump crab meat is glorious stuff. I'll ask Mrs. Crab about the WW points in the morning - she said that they were fairly low.

Elder son is a newly-minted teenager, and younger son recently hit double digits. Not tonight - I'm going to bed soon, but I do have some pictures to share later this week. In the meantime, I described our kitchen renovation in excruciating detail on Dave Hatfield's thread Kitchen remodeling, see what others have recently done (Post #23) (scroll down a bit - there are pictures after the verbiage).

Thank you, Teepee - I have always enjoyed your pictures, and wish that you posted more often. The boys seem interested in learning how to make their favorite foods. As I'm sure you know, teaching is much easier when you have a receptive audience.

The grownups usually plan the meals, but the boys will occasionally request a particular dinner. They have been lobbying for ribs lately, so I’ll probably make some tomorrow. There will be dog pictures. Sorry, we don’t have cats.

:laugh:

No cow tipping – those are street-smart urban cows. Thanks for reminding me. We did not have beer with dinner, but we did have a dry Riesling. Later on, I’ll show you some extremely local beer – a Russian imperial stout that Mrs. Crab and I brewed at the Flying Barrel (clickety), a brew-on-premises store in town. When we don’t have a batch of homebrew, we usually stock Blue Ridge porter from the former Frederick Brewing Company. They started out where the Flying Barrel is now located, but have moved to a larger facility near town. Apparently, the Flying Dog Ownership Group has purchased the Frederick Brewing Company and renamed it Wild Goose Brewery. Crabs and beer - it doesn't get much better than that. A Maryland blog would be remiss without steamed blue crabs and cold brew. We hope to partake later this week.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Crab made smashed potatoes with tarragon, olive oil, salt and pepper. An otherwise exemplary human being, Mrs. Crab has a weakness for puns (visual or verbal). Fingerling potatoes. Mrs. Crab also made a big pot of borscht for later this week. To a previously-prepared chicken-vegetable stock, she added red and yellow beets, orange and yellow carrots, parsnips, white turnips, onions, celery, broccoli slaw, and thinly-sliced deli ham. Beets - caught red-handed! Borscht simmering in the pot – it smelled and tasted really good.

I use an Ikea drying rack over the prep sink as my cookbook-holder. Normally I’m a recipe-follower . . . . . . but cultures often clash when I wing it. The veggie stir had ingredients from Mexico, China, and Thailand: Prepped and ready to go. Turn the hood fan on high and fire up the wok: Stir-fry the garlic and ginger for a few seconds, and then add the baby bok choy and sliced Poblano chile: When the veggies are mostly done, add Shaoxing rice wine, Chinkiang vinegar, and fermented soybean paste: Give it a taste, and add a little fish sauce and chile bean paste. Oops, forgot the tomatoes so I stir-fried them separately.

For dinner we had crab cakes with homemade tartar sauce, a vegetable stir-fry, and smashed fingerling potatoes with olive oil and tarragon. I started the crabcakes early because they need to chill in the fridge for an hour. None of the stores had jumbo lump crab meat, so we used backfin instead. Crabcake ingredients: Making crab cakes is like playing with lumpy, crabby play-do. We picked out any shells before mixing the ingredients: Dividing into eight portions: The key is not to squeeze too hard when forming the crabcakes - you want them to just barely hold together. Chill the crabcakes for an hour in the fridge. While the crabcakes were chilling, I made some tartar sauce. It was good on the crabs and the potatoes, but I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Anyway, these were the tartar sauce ingredients. After an hour in the fridge, the crabcakes are ready for 4-5 minutes per side under the broiler. Last time we made crabcakes we ran a family crabcake taste test – broiled versus pan-fried. The family preferred broiled. Crabcakes ready to eat.

Thanks, Susan! Having hungry boyz in the house definitely forces the grownups to be more organized.

Making a meal plan works very well for us. You will see why when we go back to work on Tuesday. We try to shop once a week, but I often make a second trip to the Asian supermarket or regular grocery store for produce.

I have never used it, but the ingredients are citric acid, maltodextrin, lime juice, lime oil, and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). A quarter teaspoon of TruLime is supposed to be equivalent to one tablespoon of lime juice. It tastes sorta tart, but doesn't have the wonderful fragrance of freshly-squeezed lime juice. We usually have limes on hand, so I prefer to just squeeze a lime.

Susan, the stories are quite touching and recipes are very detailed (in a good way). I be trying my first recipe from this book on Tuesday.

Mrs. C and the boys made lunch while I was out. Younger son enjoys cooking and making tea. He helped with the grilled cheese . . . . . . while elder son sliced cucumbers. The boys eat as many cucumbers as we can lug home from the store. Hey, he was listening when I taught him about knife technique! Lunch for the boys: Younger son also had some sardines in oil. He loves sardines, and loves breathing on family members after eating sardines. Mrs. Crab fried a portabella mushroom burger in Pam, and made a sandwich with whole wheat English muffin, TruLime, celery hearts, and a yogurt drink. Four WW points, she tells me. OK, I need to start making dinner. Please feel free to chat amongst yourselves.

Sorry, I’m posting things out of order. Among other things, Common Market also has an olive bar . . . . . . cheese . . . . . . and lots of bulk food:

I had a Caribou chocolate mocha bar for a post-volleyball snack. They are a bit sweet for me, but they fight the post-exercise sugar crash. I also had an apple and a banana when I got home. The apples have been really good lately – crisp, tart, and sweet.

While I was playing volleyball, Mrs. C was busy getting groceries. First, she stopped by the Common Market, an organic foods store. The store recently moved to a much larger location. Their produce looks very good . . . . . . and they carry fresh galangal and turmeric - woo hoo! After Common Market, she picked up a few things at Sam’s (no pictures). Crab meat is expensive, and Sam’s has the best prices. If things go well, you should see the crab meat tonight.

After making coffee this morning, started the week’s menu and grocery list. Planning meals increases dinner diversity and reduces the amount of wasted food. After reviewing the week’s activities, we decide who is going to cook on what night. Mrs. Crab is the better short-order cook, so she usually feeds the family on the nights when we have to be in three places at the same time. I have been trying a lot of new things lately, so it takes me a while to plan the week’s dinners. Usually, this involves a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee, a pad of paper, and a large pile of cookbooks – something like this: Here are the cookbooks that we will probably use this week: Mrs. Crab found a clever weekly menu planner with a detachable grocery list. The pad mounts on the fridge with a magnetic strip, so everyone can see the week’s dinners. Things do not always go according to plan, but here is this week’s dinner plan and grocery list:

Thanks, all, for the kind words and encouragement. If anyone has any questions, or wants to see something in particular, just shout it out and I will try to accommodate. Thank you, Klary - that means a lot, especially coming from you. Excellent question! The first time I tasted chilies and garlic, it was like when the Wizard of Oz changed from black and white to glorious Technicolor. I think it was canned green chilies on a frozen Totinos pizza, but it was an epiphany nonetheless. Before discovering chilies I used to coat all foods with a thick layer of black pepper, trying to find a flavor that I did not yet know existed. According to an Indian gentleman of our acquaintance, folks in India did a similar thing before chilies migrated from the Americas. I also had the good fortune to grow up in a very diverse neighborhood just outside Washington, D.C. Even before I was old enough to drive, a short bicycle ride yielded restaurants specializing in Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Indian, Ethiopian, Jamaican, Mexican, Salvadoran, and of course Chinese food. At home we mostly ate standard British-American food, but Mom occasionally threw in an Indian curry or Ghanaian ground nut chop. One time Mom made shepherd's pie with chilies. We all loved spicy shepherd's pie, but she never repeated it. Of course, during the past year I learned a ton through eGullet.

Mrs. C and elder son made pancakes this morning. Apparently she slipped when adding the vanilla, so it had about a quarter cup. No complaints from me! The recipe: Ingredients (Penzeys Vietnamese cinnamon not pictured): Pouring the first pancakes: Elder son deep in concentration. This was his first time making pancakes, and he did a great job. He made one huge pancake, just because (that is a 12-inch skillet). He also made some pancakes with chocolate-caramel chips. Ready to eat. Toppings included cinnamon sugar, honey, and a variety of jams. I had mine with butter – they didn’t need anything else. Mrs. C started Weight Watchers recently. She says that the pancakes were three points apiece. I'm off to play volleyball. Menu planning and grocery shopping afterwards.

I usually make coffee on the weekend, mixing equal parts caffeinated and decaffeinated. I often mail-order coffee from Peet’s, Counter Culture, or Intelligentsia, but we have a Starbucks a block away. This morning’s grind: We have a very old blade grinder. I would love to get a burr grinder, but until then we enjoy a little extra plastic with our coffee. The coffee station is conveniently located next to the fridge and sink. We compost the grounds, which go into the white ceramic container until their trip to the compost bin. I use the stainless steel thermos during the week – more about that later. The silver container labeled “coffee” actually holds sugar. Mrs. C gave it to when we were dating – I think it was her first present to me. Mrs. C also made the trivet – she makes stained glass, glass mosaics, and mosaic stepping stones when she has the time. I usually start the coffee maker while warming the pot with hot water. This lets the coffee grinds get thoroughly wet before I put the pot in place and let the coffee flow. I take coffee with half + half and sugar. Mrs. C drinks hers black with two ice cubes. We feed the dogs twice a day. To control their weight, we cut their dry dog food (“active maturity”) with green beans. Remind me to tell you a story about the boys and green beans. Yellow dog also enjoys a delicious glucosin-chondroitin pill with her breakfast. More about the dogs later. Next: pancakes for breakfast and planning the week's menu.

Abra immediately guessed the style of food from the teaser picture. Dejah and alanamoana guessed the blogger’s secret identity (alanamoana, the plate is new). Kouign Aman correctly identified the wok and mortar . . . . . . but the spires and rooftops seemed to throw folks off the trail. Frederick’s clustered spires were immortalized in the John Greenleaf Whittier poem The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie. The poet probably treated the facts with, um, poetic license, but the clustered spires grace the city logo and the local golf course. Here is the logo on the Community Bridge, a rather amazing trompe l’oeil painting downtown. More information can be found on the Community Bridge web site (click). Tomorrow morning: menu plans and grocery shopping. Goodnight! (and thanks for the kind words, Pan).

Greetings from Frederick, Maryland, USA! Frederick is a historic town of 50,000 nestled close by the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Mountains (hills, to those of y’all that have “real” mountains). Located about an hour (depending on traffic) from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Frederick features an uneasy mix of historic buildings and high technology, corn fields and shopping malls, housing developments and dairy cows. Yes, we still have cows within city limits. But the housing developments are winning.

Culture-clash vegetable stir-fry for a late breakfast: baby bok choy, Poblano chilies, tomatoes, garlic, and ginger; seasoned with Thai chile bean paste, fermented bean paste, Shaoxing rice wine, and Chinkiang vinegar.