lemniscate

@Smithy I made it to the Saturday sale! I thought getting there at opening bell was the smartest thing, however, it was already mobbed because people get there at 0:dark:thirty to wait in line to get the best selections. It was quite organized for chaos though. I needed bowls so I was looking more for shapes instead of design. I found these almost raku-like bowls that are great sizes and I love the colors. I don't even know the patterns name. I think I spent `$70 for 10 pieces. (water bottle for scale)

There are supposedly borosilicate (advertised as such) kitchenware in the AmazonBasics line. The reviews are ABYSMAL. They are reported to be shattering in varied usages.

I was just surprised to see sous vide has made it into the "convenience" section at Costco, with all the other heat and eat entree foods. Pork Belly is not my thing, so I probably won't buy this. Sous vide is something I still struggle to explain to my friends who don't cook like I do. They use the heat and eat foods way more than I do. Trader Joe's was the only other place that had food (turkey legs) specifically labeled sous vide prep. BTW, I buy the Kirkland pre-cooked bacon strips because I like them, they're easy to microwave in no time, and I'm not paying for the fat rendered out of uncooked bacon that I rarely use.

New to me at Costco. Didn't buy it. Yet.

Same here, the taste/texture of cooked salmon is not to my liking. I like it sushi raw and gravlax only. I want to try the Chefsteps mi cuit treatment, but not in any hurry. I love ikura, I could eat buckets of it. In fact, lunch today was a small jar of salmon roe. Whole Foods has it as one of the prime member big discounts this week.

Summer roadtrip season is just around the corner. It's beef jerky time, ultimate roadfood. Many lbs. of eye of round (Costco) marinating for 24 hours in soy sauce, sesame oil, Worcestershire, liquid smoke, black pepper, garlic/onion powder. I don't add sugar, I don't like sweet beef jerky. Umami all the way! It will be dried in the cheapo Oster french door oven on the patio, starting tomorrow night. Labor of love.

My first impression from the picture was maybe unrolled Pillsbury crescent rolls-type dough.

Went to World Market.....for pickles. Came out with Munz white chocolate praline and a Bounty bar (hey, they were on sale!). Both are now gone (but shared).

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.