blue_dolphin

Looks similar to this convection oven: https://www.amazon.com/-/zh_TW/FSE-COH-3100WPRO-單甲板電動對流烤箱-烤盤容量-半尺寸/dp/B0BRTFY71Q

This morning, one of my neighbors posted in our neighborhood Facebook group asking if anyone wanted some Suriname cherries. My first step was to come here where I found a couple of posts from @shain (whose posts I miss and hope is Ok) in this topic and over in the gardening topic which convinced me they’re edible. I also found an old post in a topic about unusual ice cream flavors that mentioned making a sorbet with chilies. Interesting! So I went over to meet my neighbor and picked these from 3 different trees in his yard: Sorry for the poor focus. As @shain mentioned, when they’re ripe, the fruits fall right off the tree so it was more like catching them than picking! My neighbor said that last year, the dark variety were the biggest but this year, that tree produced a plethora of tiny fruit instead. I believe they are from the same Eugenia family as the Rio Grande cherry that I posted about upthread. These are smaller but also more flavorful. The flavors of the fruit from the three different trees were distinctly different but I think I will combine them and try the sorbet idea. The pit is pretty big so it may be just one serving!

For years, I walked to work, 4-6 miles, depending in my route, through Santa Monica to UCLA. Much of my walk was in areas filled with 2- and 3-storey apartment buildings and I was often surprised how frequently i picked up the scent of bacon since I thought of it as a weekend treat. I was kinda jealous of those mid-week bacon eaters. Never got a whiff of it when I walked through the pricey areas. Maybe because their houses were set back from the sidewalk or maybe they didn’t appreciate the pig as much as the rest of us!

No, I don’t have that one. Sounds good though!

I only have a couple of Sunset cookbooks (Cookies and Brunch come to mind) but I would happily snap up any of them! I was introduced to Sunset magazine when I was a kid and used to cat sit for neighbors who were originally from California. They wanted me to hang out and give their orange tabby Tobermory (aka Toby) plenty of attention, not just feed and leave, and paid me the princely sum of $2.50/day. That compares to babysitting 2-5 feral children for 50 cents/hour so it was easy money! Back to Sunset, they subscribed to the magazine and also had some of the cookbooks so I’d always grab some to read and sit on the floor with Toby for hours. The homes, the gardens and the food featured in Sunset could have been from a foreign country for little me in the frozen reaches of northern NY! It was really like visiting another world. Their home was decorated with mid century modern furniture with interesting artifacts from their travels that I could trace out on a huge world map they used to mark each trip with colored push pins. They were both college professors and used to book passage on cargo ships and go all over the place. I got my own subscription to Sunset when I moved out here but it’s always been linked to Toby and his interesting guardians!

Boozy mushrooms on toast from Diana Henry’s Simple, a favorite of mine - the book and the mushrooms!

Benton's Country Hams released a limited offering of smoky bacon scented dryer sheets for Fathers Day. Ten individually vacuum sealed sheets bundled with a T-shirt and 3 packs of bacon for $75 If you think that's a better idea than I do, I’m sorry to inform you that they sold out but you can find a link here to sign up to be notified of the next release: https://www.bentonssmokedsheets.com

Scrambled smoky duck eggs on sourdough from Ottolenghi's Plenty This recipe calls for dried chipotle peppers, soaked and roughly torn, green onions, garlic, tomatoes to be sautéed first, then scrambled along with the duck eggs, spooned over toasted sourdough and garnished with cilantro. Sour cream is to be served alongside but I subbed Greek yogurt. Not bad but I think dried chipotles are better used in either a spice blend or in a longer cooked dish like beans or a stew. I’d prefer a chipotle in adobo here.

To be clear, the “they” who wrote that blurb is someone from the US retailer, Mala Market, which also carries Megachef Thai oyster sauce.

I've heard good things about Yangjiang Extra Pure Fujian Oyster Sauce from China but haven’t tried it yet.

I was searching Eat Your Books for some ahi tuna ideas and thought the recipe for Seared tuna with pistachio crust and papaya salsa from Ottolenghi - The Cookbook sounded promising. I pulled out the book, saw the photo and almost changed my mind. I was envisioning crunchy, toasted nuts but this looks like the fish is coated with some weird green paste. Nonetheless, I persisted… I lost some of the toasty nuts in the pan but scooped them on to the fish after this photo so I got what I was after. The salsa is quite nice with papaya, mango, cucumber, onion, chilies, ginger, lime zest and juice and fish sauce.

I made this Spring Onion Tart with Chèvre, Dill & Black Pepper from Sunlight & Breadcrumbs by Renee Erickson the other day. I added mushrooms and a few asparagus stalks. It’s been breakfast (and the occasional lunch) since.

@Smithy, I’ve been thinking about your question for a while. I think it’s complex and I have no easy answers but am sharing this stream of consciousness anyway 🙃 @liuzhou wrote that there are two types of culinary ennui: cooking ennui and eating ennui. I suspect there are even more subtypes. For example, eating ennui can be appetite ennui (nothing appeals, no appetite) or dining/social ennui (something might appeal but it’s not worth making just for myself, I'd like a dish from a particular restaurant but I don’t want to go there alone, or I'd like something that I’ve always shared with a person or group who aren’t around) @liuzhou also said eating ennui was the most concerning and I agree, especially appetite ennui. A number of years ago, I lost my sense of smell. I could still taste (sweet, sour, salt, bitter, umami) but had zero appetite, absolutely nothing appealed to me. I was sick, had other symptoms and many tests but no diagnosis. After a while I realized that I needed better nutrition or I was never going to get better. I found a smoothie recipe that included 2-3 servings of both fruit, veg and protein, plus fiber, etc. I made one every day, drank half in the AM and half for lunch. Not culinarily interesting but it did the job. I doubt you’re in that situation but looking out for nutrition in some way is important. Even when I started feeling better, and wanted to get back to cooking, I’d lost interest in trying new recipes because so much of their flavor was lost to me. I learned to focus on old favorites and rely on flavor memory to fill in the blanks. Luckily, texture has always been key for me so I focused on that. Again, I don’t think you’re in that situation but focusing on old favorites isn’t a bad idea from a comfort POV. You mentioned both planning ahead and cooking earlier in the day and I think both are good strategies for dealing with cooking ennui. Sometimes the restrictions of a job, caretaking for kids, spouse, parents or the need to conform to the preferences of those folks restrict the time available or the recipe options but they can also provide a helpful structure. When I was working a demanding job, I could only devote time to cooking on the weekends. If I didn’t get my act together, I’d be stuck with restaurant or cafeteria food that was expensive and not particularly healthy so I shopped, prepped and cooked. When my mom lived with me, I planned meals to accommodate her preferences. I no longer have any of those restrictions but if I don’t do a little planning, I’ll just wait until I’m hangry, which is no time to do any enjoyable cooking. I’m a morning person. That doesn’t mean I need to eat right away so I’ve got plenty of time but if I don’t have at least a bit of a plan, I’ll waste the part of the day that I could be most productive. That pertains to cooking and anything else I want to accomplish. I suspect the same is true for anyone with the flexibility to schedule our own time whether they’re early birds or night owls so I think you’re on to something with those thoughts. From what I’m reading in your posts, you’re doing fine!

This is true. I previously thought the development of Charleston Gold was driven by productivity, which was surely a factor, but it seems that an aromatic variant was indeed one of the initial project goals. Charleston Gold: A Direct Descendant of Carolina Gold I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison myself. I have both the regular Carolina Gold and the Charleston Gold brown rice from Marsh Hen but they’re not really a direct comparison since one is a brown rice. The Charleston Gold brown rice is indeed an aromatic long grain brown rice, though if I’m after a brown rice, i usually go for the chew of a medium grain rice like Massa Organics.

I’ll admit that my most active bar going days were when I was in college. We'd meet up with a group, grab a table and hang out until everyone had bought a pitcher. We all paid cash and tipped well. No tabs.