blue_dolphin

Before seeing this thread, I'd never heard of WinCo. They have a store in Ventura so I'll check it out. I limit my grocery store trips these days but it's still my main form of entertainment so I'm looking forward to the outing!

I gave my cousin David Lebovitz's book Drinking French for Christmas, along with a few bottles. She's been enjoying trying the cocktails so we worked on stocking her bar with a few more. Six of these actually came from my bar, the others were purchased on a quick road trip to K&L Wines in Hollywood. Their store isn't open but orders can be picked up. Fernet-Vallet, Armagnac, Suze, Bigallet China-China, Bonal, Cap Corse Blanc, Génépy, Cap Corse Rouge, Byrrh, Pommeau de Normandie, Yellow Chartreuse. We split all the bottles so both of us ended up with improved selections!

@curls, I like the idea of adding preserved lemon to LGD! Your mention of the R-Rated Onions reminded me that I have a couple of batches of them in the freezer so I made the Anchovy Gateway Spaghetti for lunch: I don't need a gateway to anchovies but I noticed that a small jar in the fridge had a significant layer of anchovy sludge in the bottom and figured this would be a good use. Love the garlic bread crumbs and the flavors. The savory anchovy nicely balances the sweet onions. There could be vegetables like sautéed bitter greens or roasted Brussels sprouts but it's very nice as is.

I agree with @Maison Rustique that having to click through some sort of multi-page slideshow is annoying. Otherwise, I have zero annoyance about skimming through stories and photos to get to a recipe. They should feel free to set up their pages the way they like. I'm not paying them anything other than what they earn through my clicks and scrolls. I generally rely on Eat Your Books to search my own cookbooks and the blogs and publications I like so I'm not encountering that situation very often.

My cousin signed me up for a combined cooking class/travel lecture via Zoom. A collaboration between a cooking school and travel agency, both with regular operations on hold. Their current series is on Italy and yesterday's session was on Sicily. We made Sicilian stuffed zucchini Very easy recipe. Stuffing was the zuke guts sautéed with garlic plus almonds, capers, golden raisins, lemon zest, panko and Parmesan I think I spent more time trying to position my iPad so I could see it while trying not to share my kitchen mess than I did actually cooking. While these were in the oven, we watched a lecture/slide show from a woman in Sicily who's a professor and often works as a tour guide. She talked a bit too fast and tried to cover way too much but it was still a fun diversion.

Those were from a bunch of watermelon radishes that I bought at the farmers market. The greens were a couple of feet long, at least, and the stems were a bit thick but they cooked up quite nicely.

Leftover seafood jambalaya with radish tops

For Ronnie, you could always give one roll a CSO warm-up on steam-bake to soften the crust. Like 3-4 min @ 275°F. Also, since you're a good baker, you might consider making the rolls. I've use this recipe from Andrea Nguyen successfully. She has more tips on her blog here. Oh, and those look great!

Same

As are spaghetti and meatballs. I took my cousin to a little Italian restaurant in my neighborhood, owned and operated by Italian immigrants. The food and service are excellent. Jim asked for spaghetti and meatballs, not on the menu. They kindly offered to make some pasta with meat sauce. He accepted but informed me that any decent Italian restaurant would make spaghetti and meatballs and I had clearly taken him to a sub-par operation.

I was the child who always tried to peek through the wrapping paper so knowing what's in the box only heightens my anticipation of getting my hands on the goods...or beans 🙃

I need to buy some basil so I can do the same. I should do that before the other herbs go south! I put up another small batch of Citrus Shrine. This one has kumquats, limequats and mandarinquats. I juiced a couple of the lemons to top off the jar.

Those two are new to me, too, and I'm looking forward to trying them. I got my order confirmation but no shipping notice yet. Hopefully they'll get shipped next week.

In neighboring Kansas, our @Shelby makes bierocks/bierochs/runzas quite often and they look great! A nice tutorial in one of her blogs, starting here. When an online cookbook group I participate in covered Shauna Sever's Midwest Made, the Nebraskan Runzas were very popular. The recipe from the book is available at this link.

Carbonara, or perhaps more properly something masquerading as such, became a regular fixture at my childhood supper table in the late '60's when a family friend, a young priest who'd spent several years studying in Rome, described to my mother his best attempts to recreate that dish he missed greatly. This was rural, northern NY. There was bacon and ...gasp...cheese from a shaker can - supplemented with some extra sharp aged white cheddar! The farm-fresh eggs and tons of freshly ground pepper were as close as we got to authenticity. It became the classic "change of plans" meal that could be on the table in the time it took to boil water and cook the pasta and it was much loved. Though I can seek out good guanciale and pecorino these days, my 1st generation Irish-American mom nailed that silky, eggy, porky, peppery sauce with the best of them. Maybe that's why I'm accepting of the variations? My intro was as cheap and cheerful student food, nothing iconic.

Made the Penne with Brussels Sprouts with Bacon from Melissa Clark's Dinner: Changing the Game with garganelli instead of penne, a bit of country ham instead of bacon and added an egg since it's breakfast Should have just tossed the raw egg in to the pan with the pasta so I could call it Smoky Brussels Sprouts Carbonara 🙃

Agreed on the semantics. Their title tells me that it's NOT carbonara and tells you some thing quite the opposite!

I think they already took care of it more clearly by calling it Smoky Tomato Carbonara.

I passed over the recipe when I first saw it in the NYT but all the wailing has piqued my interest. I used to frequent a restaurant in LA that served a pasta carbonara con fungi. An abomination perhaps but a darned tasty one! Maybe I'll try the tomato recipe.

I dinna name them, just made them 🙃

Here you go: Nigel Slater’s drop scones recipes They are rather like big, fluffy pancakes.

My aversion to conflict is much stronger than my aversion to any particular food. There are plenty of foods that I'd wouldn't choose but almost nothing I'd become a social outcast over. As a kid, I learned the minimum amount to take of something I didn't like without causing offense, how to move it around my plate, strategically arranging (hiding) things and avoiding dinner table drama. One of my brothers was an absolute drama master, refusing to eat almost everything. He was routinely sent to bed by my father, who then stormed off, slamming doors, leaving my mother in tears and the rest of us silently looking at each other across the table, appetites gone. I've continued to hone my own avoidance skills and they have served me well.

Looks warming and satisfying for a winter morning!

A Little Green Dress/Parmesan toastie topped with a boiled egg and more LGD Edited to add that this was very good. I'm contemplating another 🙃

No, sadly, there is only one regular fish/seafood seller and they have lovely fresh fish, they don’t bring mussels every week. I have other good sources but have been limiting shopping trips lately. The frozen juices here tasty but perhaps pumped up the weight a bit.