blue_dolphin

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.

How did this do? Sounds like a very refreshing combination! The other day, David Lebovitz shared a recipe for a white chocolate sorbet adapted from Gale Gand's book Chocolate & Vanilla and I decided to give it a try. Here it is with dark chocolate shaved over the top. It's nice. Lighter than an ice cream but still rich from the cocoa butter in the chocolate. I've also enjoyed it with scoop of strawberry sorbet and separately with a scoop of tangerine sorbet and I'd say it works really well with fruit flavors. On its own, it's fairly subtle. It's not truly a sorbet as it contains milk so maybe more of an ice milk? The recipe is here in his newsletter or here in a blog post from 2006. He gives a yield of 2 cups in the newsletter. I got closer to 3.5 cups. I used Weiss Anëo 34% white chocolate as its what I had on hand. For the alcohol, I added a tablespoon of homemade, unsweetened creme de cacao (vodka steeped with cacao nibs for several weeks.) Kinda wish I'd split it up and made half with Green Chartreuse. Edited to add that I also added about 1 tsp of Avacream along with the sugar. This made me wonder what a ruby chocolate ice cream would be like. Callebaut has a recipe for one that adds raspberry purée. Maybe I'll try a small batch.

Last month, a California judge ruled no enforcement on the Prop 12 pig requirements for 6 months because the state was slow in finalizing the exact rules & regs. Pork industry plaintiffs wanted a 28 month stay.

Of course this reminds me of our dearly departed @Toliver:

I know people here in California who enjoy a cappuccino after dinner. I personally make Marcella Hazan's Fettuccine col Sugo di Tonno con Aglio e Panna which contains Parmesan cheese. And I have served orzo as a side dish so there's 3 mortal sins right there 😈

A basic buttery spritz cookie piped into a shape that can accommodate a dollop of jam seems like a solution that would work with many types of jam. Not exactly buttery, and this may be too similar to the small tarts you made but little phyllo cups filled with some sort of soft cheese and a dollop of jam are always popular when I make them. Here's a fig & goat cheese version. I've used goat cheese, cream cheese, brie, anything soft and all sorts of jam. Depending on the jam you want to use, a variation on the Hot Apple Jelly Thumbprints from Vivian Howard's Deep Run Roots might be something to try. The cookie part is a riff on cheese straws so they're as nice with cocktails as dessert. Vivian calls for smoked Gouda or sharp aged Cheddar. Both are good. You can use any sort of jam. The recipe is available online here. Another thumbprint cookie riff is the Devil's Thumbprints from Baking with Dorie. They are tiny, fudgy cookies filled with jam. I used raspberry and black raspberry and both were delicious. I need to make some orange or tangerine marmalade as I think that would be perfect with the dark chocolate. One thing that Dorie does in this recipe that makes them look a little special is to first roll the balls in turbinado or sanding sugar, then press with a cork to make a deeper well than you get in the average thumbprint. I had to hunt around to find a cork small enough to work with these little cookies but it worked nicely. The recipe is online here. Here they are before baking: And baked and filled: The Jammy Winter Fruit and Browned Butter Bars from Shauna Sever's Midwest Made might be a bit more homespun than you have in mind but they're a great way to use jam. I use about double the amount of jam as the recipe calls for and have made them with all sorts of jam. The browned butter really does highlight the fall fruit flavors. The recipe is online here.

Pick up a little 50 ml bottle and see what you think. If I want a martini, I want something with more juniper but a martini is probably the best cocktail to let the gin flavors shine.