lemniscate

That stuff is Gorgeous!

My Asian market seems to only offer the broccoli crowns. Very little stalk. But the Asian broccoli is almost all slim stalk, so I use that. It's stronger in flavor than the widely available supermarket broccoli. Their cilantro is not sold with roots, it's bunched just like parsley. I will check the Indian and Middle-Eastern stores for the rooted cilantro out of curiosity. I actually did locate parsley with roots at the hydroponic farm store. All their harvested herbs are sold as full plants. They are only open a couple days a week though.

Maybe it was a regional thing. I know it was sold in all the Italian owned produce markets and the supermarkets with roots for quite some time. Here's how I remember it, but the roots were much much smaller/slimmer/tender. I am not talking about the carrot sized parsley roots version. This pic was poached from Santa Monica farmer's market, so I guess it is sold like this somewhere still. Maybe it was an early season vs. late season parsley crop situation, memory has faded. edit: just realized pic is probably cilantro, not parsley.

I am having an existential memory moment. The Gardening topic got me to thinking. I grew up on a farm, sometimes a full on vegetable farm, near the end a soybean farm. Vegetables to market was our everyday life. I remember when buying celery included the leaves on the stalks. The leaves are my favorite part, so much more flavor than the stalks. We used it in salads and soups. But then the celery in markets got scalped, no more leaves. I use the asian celery now so I get the leaves. It's a different flavor profile, but it's close enough for me at the moment. Parsley, I could swear used to be sold as the whole little plant with the root attached. We would use it just that way in soup, I loved the root the most but I would commandeer that whole parsley in my bowl because I loved it as a stewed green. Broccoli suffered a sad fate when it got mangled down to the florets and the stalk, the best part IMHO, was no longer included. A few swipes with a vegetable peeler on the stalk revealed the sweetest part of the broccoli. I've talked to the local "artisan" backyard farmer's market people about leaving on the roots, or leaves etc...people just won't buy it because a whole generation got used to the supermarket versions of vegetables and don't recognize the original plant. I guess this my version of "old person yells at clouds" . 🙂

I accidentally bought a jar of the McClure's spicy pickles; I'm a half sour devotee so these are not going to be enjoyed as is; they are S*p*i*Cy*. So I improvised, I made dill-pickle salsa. I used my handy dandy manual food chopper and chopped the pickles, cherry tomatoes, and pickled garlic. I added a bit of sour cream to give it some body. Served it with the Trader Joe's veggie and flax seed chips. It was good and spicy. Not as relishy as I feared, a proper salsa type condiment.

My version of the Garden and Gun sauce. It's a more attractive yellow than this poorly lighted pic. I used white onions on hand instead of red. I left this sauce way less sweet than the recipe calls for. I found it's a good sauce for seafood/pasta. I use it as a dip for boiled shrimp. I do not care for traditional tartar sauce, so I use this mix with a bit of mayo as my tartar substitute. I've used it on sandwiches as a spread. I bet it would make a good vinaigrette base, may try that in the future. I figured I can add sugar to it to use it as a cream cheese cover sauce described above.

Butter dish on counter, all year. I have a 70's GE toast-r-oven for my toaster. I toast, it pops open, I butter, then I put toast back in oven to take advantage of residual heat to let the butter soak in. Maybe 30-40 seconds.

I had to say it out loud a few times. Uh-cane-st; a-gain-st. It's a rhyme type pronunciation. I admit I didn't get it until @Smithy clarified the "st" was not "π".

Two against one is not fair.

Personally, being able to do an internet search for a recipe or idea has replaced my cookbooks. Youtube videos show technique and finish. Netflix, Amazon, and media apps show me cooking shows on demand. I have a few Kindle/ebook cookbooks, but rare to look at them. Internet forums (eG, Reddit, Facebook groups, Chowhound,even accursed Pinterest) give almost instant access to recipes/pics/travel food/new trends. Maybe no one under a certain age (born in the age of all internet all the time) has depended on physical cookbooks like previous generations. I did a cookbook purge a while back.

Ha! Totally called it! What do I win?🤣

I opened the cherry tomatoes yesterday. So tender with none of the chewiness, tooth space jamming up of the jarred versions. Think butter soft and sweet sweet sweet.. I ate them on crackers with olives and cheese. That was dinner. I was happy. I am going to buy lots of these tomatoes, I never liked sun dried tomatoes due to the texture previously. Next up are those artichokes.

For a Game of Thrones viewing party, I wanted to make cookies with a rose jam the hostess had brought back for me from a trip to Poland. I made Split Second Cookies, which to me were an even easier version of thumbprints. I did rose jam and apricot jam versions.

I haven't....yet. I will look into getting some. I do have some Styrian pumpkin seed oil (I forgot I had it until now), I bet that would be good drizzled over the veg.

I was inspired by the Trader Joe's Semi Dried Antipasto veg to see if I could do something similar homemade. I was at the Chinese market and picked up Asian eggplants and largish zucchini. I sliced them 1/4" minus and seasoned, put them on my grill mats in the Oster oven at about 110F for 2-3 hours. I tossed the semi dried pieces in a cambro, doused with Greek olive oil, salt, and dash or two of balsamic. Not pretty like the TJ's stuff, since just eggplant/zucchini experiment, But it is close in texture and taste to me. I didn't add a ton of olive oil since I'm pretty sure these will soak up as much as you can add (trying to hold down the calorie count on the dish). I ate some over rice. I think these would be great on pizza, or added to pasta sauce or cold in a salad.

I tried the Semi-dried Antipasto Vegetables and thought they were fantastic. Had them as a side dish room temp. The texture of the veg was not mushy, but toothsome and had lots of flavor. The oil is subdued and not too much. Product of Turkey, I know they sun dry a lot of veg in Turkey, so I wonder if these are sundried or? I bought the antipasto cherry tomatoes and the grilled artichokes but have yet to open them.

I shove a bunch of it in the bottle of an inexpensive silver tequila (Kirkland) and let it steep. Then I make cilantro margaritas with it.

I just came home from my local Chinese market with an Edwards Classic Country Ham in the cloth bag, ~15lbs, for significantly less than the online + delivery price. Last one, or maybe only one they had. I brought it home. This won't be an Easter ham, since I already took delivery of Nueske's smoked ham. King of impulse buys , I'd say.

It was a wild and windy Tuesday night, cooler than normal. We sat on the patio to watch the skies and shared two bombers, a Unibroue Don de Dieu that I found at Whole Foods for a reasonable price. The 2nd was Left Coast Asylum. These are big alcohol heavy beers and we were feeling no pain fairly soon and were cheerful.

My favorite soy sauce, Yamasa, adds alcohol as a "natural" preservative. Since I went to Japan years ago, I found I preferred the soy sauces with the alcohol base.

In the chefsteps comments, someone noted that 13 min 30 sec was the sweet spot for the set whites (no residue) vs. luscious yolk at 167F.

For me, nopales is best with tomatillos. Tomatillos are supposed to help with the okra-like sliminess that nopales can have when stewed. I use this as a side for roasted, shredded pork. Do not forget the crumbled queso fresco or cotija for the topping. https://pinaenlacocina.com/2014/05/15/nopalitos-con-rajas-en-salsa-verde-cactus-with-roasted-green-chiles-in-tomatillo-salsa/

I had done cold large eggs (Costco) at 167F (Joule) for 13 minutes and got results of what *I* would deem acceptable as a traditional poached egg texture. YMMV due to personal taste. Whites will stick to the shell in a layer when cracked. I didn't take any pictures though. I also use a silicone net bag to hold the eggs in the water. adding Chefsteps 167F egg link, (pre-Joule release apparently)

I'd love to try the Squash Flower soup. I had Squash Flower crepes in Mexicali with Huitlacoche soup. I think about that meal often. The delicacy of the flavors were wonderful. Don't get me wrong, I like a good Sonoran style burro or enchilada, I just wish those other flavors of Mexico would catch on here. We had some access to good Mexico City style food, but that chain seems to have given up the ghost lately.

I don't have marmalade, so I used zest, lemon juice and sugar to replicate.