blue_dolphin

That company seems to thrive on drama. Years of tangling with the residents near their factory over air irritants produced by roasting peppers. Legal battles with the farmer who had been growing almost all their peppers. Recalled shipments to Australia and New Zealand due to potentially exploding bottles due to too much lactic acid. Underwood farms, their spurned grower, is local to me and started making their own Sriracha with the same peppers so I'll pick some up on my next visit to their farmstand.

You’re right, the two types of corn were fun and added distinct flavors and textures. The yuca was cut into wedges and fried. You might be able to make out one of the wedges peeking out from under the fish, just to the left of the rice. My friend said it was very good and kind of made the rice unnecessary.

Two lady friends and I had lunch today at a new-ish Peruvian restaurant called Limeña. It's a family owned place. The owner took our orders and delivered our food. His son is the chef. Gotta give them props for opening a restaurant during the pandemic. No menu to photograph - it's posted above the front desk where you place your order - but you can check it out on their website if you wish. It's the kind of place where you order at the counter and pay and they bring the food to your table. I insisted we sit outside, even though it's kinda right out on the sidewalk. There weren't many people inside but I wouldn't have felt comfortable dining indoors if it had started to get busy. As it happened, there was a steady stream of people picking up to-go orders but the indoor eating area stayed relatively uncrowded. I had the Ceviche Lemiña - Fresh local halibut tossed in lime juice, red onions, yams, Peruvian corn and toasted Peruvian corn nuts. The owner called the coconut milk/lime/ginger marinade Leche de Tigre or Tiger's Milk and I was instructed to eat it with a spoon to make sure each bite was came with some of the broth. Very flavorful, if a bit salty for me. Upon the recommendation of another diner, one friend ordered the Chaufa de Salmon sort of a "quinoa bowl," described on the menu as salmon served with quinoa in the style of Peruvian fried rice with bean sprouts, peas, carrots, egg, and green onions and their green hot sauce. She raved and raved about it. My other friend ordered the Pescado a lo macho - Pan fried white fish topped with shrimp, squid, and octopus in spicy Peruvian chiles sauce served with white rice and yuca. I got a taste of this and it was excellent. For dessert, we had alfajores, the caramel filled Peruvian cookies, baked by the owner's wife and we shared a dish of Lucuma ice cream. One of my friends ordered a Peruvian herbal tea called Emoliente which was served over ice since it was quite hot but can be served hot in the cooler months. It was a very viscous looking brown stuff. My friend said it tasted good but she didn't drink more than a few sips. I avoided looking at it! Edited to add that a bright yellow umbrella stood above our table, providing an odd gold illumination that I was only partially able to correct in the photos.

Love the bagel tasting, @Kim Shook! and a BLT on @Ann_T's bread - heavenly! On two recent mornings, I had Anna Banana's Nanner Pudding for breakfast. Got a pint in my ZEF BBQ order over the weekend managed to stretch it out for a few days. I'm sure there is something deadly that makes it so good. I could try to figure it out so I could make it but honestly, I shouldn't ever have more than a pint in my presence at any one time! I'm going out to lunch today so I planned to skip breakfast but started to get hangry. Took the edge off with some little baguette toasts slathered with Sheldon Simeon's kimchee dip and topped with radish slices sprinkled with herb salt. Those are French Breakfast radishes from the farmers market and this batch is very hot!

Another ZEFtover smoked turkey sando. This one a Smoked Turkey, Blue Cheese, and Red Onion Sandwich from Bon Appetit I used radish tops instead of arugula

I also love visiting food markets of all kind, including supermarkets when I'm traveling. Thanks for taking us along on your trips, @BonVivant. I love the beautiful farm, countryside and town scenes - beautiful country! Leftovers from Saturday's ZEF BBQ pick-up: Smoked turkey with cherry relish and baby greens on a brioche bun spread with sesame mayo. A sweet potato salad on the side. I made the cherry relish from an older recipe found in the LA Times. It was lacking something. I added more onion, more vinegar and a jalapeño, which helped but I think horseradish might have been the way to go.

I thought it was a booth in a Turkish bazaar!

I love one of those tarts for any meal!

I think this is the set:

Not @Annie_H, but I've had these 10" ones for years: Reptile Feeding Tongs (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) At $6.99 for a set of 2 pairs, one straight, one angled, they are hardly precision instruments, but they do the job, which is mostly retrieving a piece of vegetable from under the pot without burning my fingers. Haven't used them to plate pasta but they have been very handy to have around. Also, the reviews about feeding reptiles and using them to eat Flaming Hot Cheetos without getting orange fingers are pretty hilarious.

Bought a bottle of this "French Fizz" from TJ's last week. $5.99. They also have a rosé. I have previously confessed that I'm a sucker for reusable bottles which is why I bought it even though it doesn't even say "wine" on the label. Turns out, it's a perfectly fine, light white wine to sip on a hot summer afternoon. Alcohol level is 10.5%, also suited to warm weather. Not going to knock anyone's socks off but $5.99. And after I got home, I realized it does indeed say "wine" in small print on the back label 🙃

I tried a bag of these little lemon cookie thins from Aldi and enjoyed them. Picked up another bag and added the key lime and coconut versions today. They also have a chocolate chip version. Thin and crisp. Nice flavor, not too sweet. $2.45 for a bag of ~ 24 cookies. The ingredients are all pronounceable:

I can relate, though I believe you are at an entirely different level in both the size of your collection and its distribution throughout your abode. Mine are all either in the kitchen or garage aside from the bean pots that reside on the cookbook shelves as objets d'art when not in use. And if they're in the garage, I should get rid of them. Except maybe the turkey roaster. What about Dutch ovens, cocottes, braziers, paella pans and tajines? Are they all included in your count? Hmmm. I might not be as far away from 60 as I first thought.

Speaking of too much meat, I just picked up a ZEF Dawg - a sausage version of ZEF BBQ's homemade spam, pickled onions, coconut curry sauce, roasted pineapple & scallions and furikake on a King's Hawaiian roll. Holy moly, photos just don't convey the size of that thing! The dawg is a little over 1.5" in diameter. Those are actually 3 King's Hawaiian rolls, not separated, so I cut it in three and will see what I can do!

Yesterday's breakfast was a half brioche bun with a leftover portion of that mushroom/chicken liver combo that I posted just upthread. I was still a bit hungry so I added some asparagus spears tarted up with Sally Schmitt's sesame mayo from Six California Kitchens. This stuff isn't going to change anyone's life but gosh, it's so dang easy. It's just a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil whisked into a cup of mayo (or if you're me, a scant tsp in 1/4 cup) and topped with toasted sesame seeds. Good enough and also enough leftover that I had the same today with the addition of a soft boiled egg and Campari tomato. Toasted a slice of baguette to clean up the plate.

Not sure anyone else would consider this fun but I finally broke down and ordered a box of half-sheet size parchment paper and it delights me every time I pull out a sheet and don't have to fight with it to stay flat. Why the heck did I wait so long? I thought it would be a nuisance to store the big flat box, I got paralyzed by the many offerings on Amazon. I don't consider myself a baker. So I just kept on buying another roll when it was on sale at Target. No more - I have seen the light!

No spoilers here. I was looking forward to last night's finale and enjoyed watching. I could have done without the horseback riding but otherwise, like the rest of the season, it was pretty much all about the food. No big interpersonal dramatics, real or edit-induced. I was impressed at the diversity of the panel that shared the finale dinner with the judges: Alexander Smalls, Bricia Lopez, Gregory Gourdet, Ed Lee. Thought they all had interesting input and wished I could have heard more from them.

When your tin of fish comes inside its own box …with gold accents, no less…you fancy!

Personally, I’d call you guys the Babes who Breakfast 😉

I'm sure you're right. I'm guessing it's a nomenclature that's somewhat common in UK shops but it would be nice to get your take on the original ingredient. Searching my own books for recipes that call for long green Turkish peppers, they're largely by UK authors or in books published in the UK.

Here's a recipe that's credited to her Sichuan book that calls for long green Turkish peppers: Dry fried “eels” (shiitake mushrooms) Eat Your Books lists 11 recipes from the book that call for the same.

Dana Cree's Hello My Name Is Ice Cream is an excellent book. I can’t speak to dairy-free.

Oxtails were on sale for $4.99/lb at a local international market. Not super cheap but not bad so that project should happen one of these days. In the meantime, here's another non-pâté: Cascaron with Chicken Liver Mousse and Guava Jelly from Sheldon Simeon's Cook Real Hawai'i. In the header note, Sheldon says he wanted to serve a Hawaiian riff on a chicken liver mousse. The mousse is super easy and made with sweet onion, miso and coconut milk, whiskey and hot sauce. Flavorful but also very light. The cascaron, on the other side, are on the heavy side compared with the crispy, dry toasts I usually have with chicken liver pâté. They're fried coconut-mochi fritters with a hard outside crust and chewy, mochi-like interior. Traditionally glazed in some sort of caramelized sugar syrup. Per the recipe, instead of a glaze, the guava jelly (I used guava jam) is piped into the cascaron and served with the mousse and furikake. I think it's probably easier to break them in half and top with the mousse, guava jelly and furikake to taste. I'd never pair these fritters with a heavier pâté but this actually works because the mousse is so light. Not sure I need to make it again but it was fun to eat, playing with the different ingredients so each bite was a bit different.

While Fortaleza tequila is widely available in my area of the US, you're quite correct on never finding Los Abuelos in the US. That was the original name when the company started but they ran into trademark issues with established rum brand Ron Abuelo and settled on Fortaleza as the name for international markets.

Do you put them in the dishwasher?