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I enjoyed reading a sweet little article by Tracy Wan in the NYT: Try New Fruit. The Weirder, the Better Surely it's paywalled against non-subscribers. Sorry for that but read it if you can. A quote: or two: I always figured those fruit names were designed to appeal to the 6-year-old inside each of us!

@Toliver mentioned them in this post about 2 years ago. There are some unfavorable comments that follow. @Kim Shook commented on them again last year here. Maybe you've gotten a new and improved version?

Driscoll grows berries all over the world. I have no idea what drives their price differentiation in various markets. @heidih is correct that I'm not far from where Harry's Berries are grown. Also TONS and TONS of Driscoll berries. Differences are that Harry's Berries are organic (I'm sure Driscoll's has an organic line as well and would surely be more expensive as strawberries) and they are picked ripe either the day before or the morning of our market. Perhaps most importantly, the varieties that they grow may not be high-yield but are very flavorful. These are Gaviota. Seascape, which will come along soon are my favorite. Driscoll surely chooses varieties that are firm and can tolerate being knocked around. My berries hold quite well in the fridge for up to a week but would be a mess in a commercial shipping and grocery warehouse situation.

They were expensive but worth it for a treat!

Tomato & Strawberry Salad with Feta and Olives from David Kinch's At Home in the Kitchen The berries (from Harry's Berries at the farmers market) were spectacular. Tomatoes were also from the market but were so-so. Nice trick of using feta brine to make quick dressing.

Avocado, kimchi and soft boiled egg on a hash brown with a drizzle of kimchi mayo

Modernist Pizza (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) currently priced at $300.30 on Amazon in US.

I have one burner where the igniter clicks but often doesn't light right away. Then, I ended up rustling around for a match to light it. After reading these articles, I spent $12 on one of these USB rechargeable lighters (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) to keep by the stove. Should help cut down on the gas emission and I'm sure it's cheaper than getting a new igniter from Wolf.

Check out this beef cheek and bone marrow pie: My friends are headed to Roan Mills bakery this AM and I'd already put in a request for a baguette when this photo popped up in their Instagram feed. I put in my request and am excited to try it!

I've had variable success with that bowl shaking trick for peeling garlic. It’s worked well a few times and been a noisy failure on others. I’ll try the MW trick next time I have a lot to peel.

The pasta section at my TJ's has been a bit sparse of late. Shelves are completely filled but a lot varieties are missing. No spaghetti or fettuccine for some time. Dan Pashman's said that the TJ's version of cascatelli is in stores but may take a while to make it to all locations, particularly on the west coast. I haven't seen it here yet. I'll continue to check. I did purchase this fusilli corti bucati recently. Like bucatini, the little spiral shapes are hollow so they cook quickly - the package says 7-9 minutes. In my hands, 7 min was plenty and I'd go with less if finishing will take more than a min or two. I saw someone recommend them for soup. To my taste, they're a little big for that but maybe I should try before deciding that. Here they are with hot sausage, baby kale and Parmesan from a recipe adapted from Julia Turshen's Small Victories (she uses orecchiette and baby spinach): In addition to the named ingredients, this dish gets its flavor from caramelized onions and lemon zest.

I very much like the book. The stories of Cho's own background and Chinese bakeries across the US and beyond are interesting to read but it's very much filtered through a Chinese American lens so I'd put the book in that niche rather than saying that it defines a style of regional Chinese cooking. There's a section on buying Chinese ingredients and a lighthearted calendar of Chinese celebrations that those much more familiar with the culture might find unnecessary and incomplete but make the book and the recipes accessible to those lacking that knowledge. Kristina Cho grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, spending much time in the restaurant her grandparents started after they emigrated to the US. Some recipes are quite authentic, I think, to what you would find in Hong Kong bakeries, where her grandparents were from. In others, she takes the traditional methods but puts her own spin on them, treading well into fusion territory in some recipes. She's had a food blog, Eat Cho Food, for quite some time and the book is filled with excellent step-by-step photos and descriptions. You can see how her recipes are written and get a sense of her photography on her blog. You can see a list of the recipes from the book here on Eat Your Books and if cooking those dishes piques your interest, I'd recommend checking out the book.

Yes, clothing, including shoes, can be the best PPE in the kitchen! As to apron strings, I suppose they should be long enough but I very much dislike them and their special ability to entangle an entire load in the dryer. It's why I like the Rough Linen versions - no strings at all! I'm not challenged by putting them on but clearly that is an issue for others so I guess it's good to have all sorts of options.

Yikes! Noilly Prat is under $10 for 750 ml at Total Wine. I usually get Dolin which is $15.99 for 750 ml and $12.99 for 375.

Put on my new pink apron this morning and made the Savory Strawberry Biscuits from David Kinch's At Home in the Kitchen. Let's pause for a moment to admire the berries before they got mixed into the dough: The recipe says to roll the dough out 1.5" thick and cut 2-inch squares, of which the recipe was to yield 9-12. At 1.5" thick, my dough square was ~ 5 inches on each side. So I flattened, trimmed and came up with a few correct 2-inch squares, a few random rectangles and a couple of piles of trimmings that I didn't want to subject to further manhandling and mostly edited out of the photo below. Here's the end result. They are to be split and filled with a jam, a cheese and a meat. This one was blood orange marmalade, an aged Manchego-like cheese and prosciutto: Not sure this is the best way to feature stellar berries but tasty anyway.

Treated myself to another Rough Linen apron. This one in Orchid (which goes with my hair) and has the rounded neck. Put it on this morning to make strawberry biscuits. The apron looks better than the biscuits 🙃

Similar experience here. In the CSO, on convection, I bake tots and the like on a screen similar to this. (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

Thanks for the agriculture interlude! For over 15 years, I drove through many of the fields on the Oxnard plain on my way to and from work every day. It certainly does give one an appreciation for the hard work done to provide us with the food we eat. Broccoli's not one of Ventura county's bigger crops (only about $3M/year vs strawberries at $575M/year) but is grown in the area. I've never seen them let it flower for seed. Maybe because this area is too mild to provide the chill that some varieties seem to need for that. Very interesting.

Scrambled eggs with green onion and red bell pepper. TJ's Taiwanese green onion pancake. Yellow tomato.

Wow! That's certainly a meal worth planning a trip around. I can't imagine wanting to eat again for while after that feast. Thanks for taking us along!

I bought a bottle for a smoked salmon spread recipe a friend gave me. As everyone has said, it can be quite effective in small quantities. My first bottle fell out of the cabinet in the Northridge earthquake, broke and leaked all over the place. Everyone who came over for ages afterwards thought something must be burning!

That ruby chocolate ice cream is excellent. Very rich and creamy. Quite a bit of chocolate - about 180g per 500 ml of base. The raspberry (60 g purée per 500 ml of base) seems to enhance the flavor of the chocolate but doesn't stand out as a separate flavor. The color of the finished ice cream is pretty much the same as the ruby chocolate callets that you can see on the front of the plate. Here's a scoop alongside a scoop of the white chocolate version from David Lebovitz. They're quite nice together. As mentioned above, the recipe is here and a half recipe nicely fills one Creami container.

Here's that ruby chocolate ice cream, chilled down and ready to mix in the raspberry purée. A half batch filled one Creami container perfectly. Tastes very nice but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how it comes out.

It's an ice cream stabilizer blend. Contains guar gum, carrageenan. Figured It couldn’t hurt to throw in a little.

Yeah, Lebovitz cautions that if the mixture is chilled overnight in the fridge that the chocolate may separate. I did add a teaspoon of Avacream along with the sugar. I chilled the mix down to ~ 45°F in the ice bath then put it into the freezer. Not sure if it was the stabilizer or the rapid chill but I did not note any separation nor do I detect any graininess.