blue_dolphin

On one of his podcasts, Dave Arnold said that 1 freeze/thaw cycle was ~ equivalent to one day at room temp for bread so I would recommend slicing the whole loaf, reassembling to minimize exposure of cut edges and freezing. Thaw as needed. Then, if plans change, it will still be good.

Strawberries undeniably suffer from shipping and the riper they are, the more they suffer so the longer they need to travel, the firmer and less ripe they need to be when picked. NYC is quite a bit closer to Florida than to California so I’m not surprised by @weinoo's observation. Once you get into the middle of the country that's more equidistant, it also gets more complicated to gauge shipping times, impacts of ambient temps, etc. Local berries will always be best and in many areas, their short season makes them even more precious.

I generally only buy strawberries at my local farmers market. Harry’s is among the vendors and expensive here, too. I see Mexican berries in supermarkets but will have to keep an eye out for Florida. I suspect I’ll be looking for a long time!

Not necessarily. But as @TdeV indicates, if you need access to the full recipe, you do need access to the book or to the online resources where it resides. However, even if you own no books at all, it’s still possible to run useful searches specifically requesting online recipes. On occasions where a search of my EYB bookshelf (my own books, magazines, blogs, etc plus library books I’ve cooked from often and chosen to add to my shelf with a “library” tag) comes up wanting, I can search the entire EYB library. When I do this, I’m not necessarily looking for a full recipe, but may be considering, say, a dessert using saffron and figs and wondering whether people tend to use dairy or citrus or other ingredients so I’m happy to skim the ingredient listings from a number of recipes for ideas. Additionally, since I make good use of my local library and the larger Los Angeles Public Library, I can often borrow ebooks that come up in those searches and have the full recipes in minutes if I want. I did that at least 3 times last week.

It facilitates a fairly fine texture. I only have one recipe that does it and it’s for a meat sauce to go on hot dogs. There aren’t many other applications where I want that texture but I can see it working in Kerridge's lasagna so maybe I should be more open minded.

Could you say a bit more about the curation of the top sites? Strictly online sources? With or without paywalls? Books? Historical manuscripts? No. Eat Your Books is my search tool of choice, but I also search here and a few other places. Again, I use EYB often, along with eGullet and a number of online cooking groups I participate in. Same as the previous question. While I’m pretty happy with EYB, I know of people here who would like to search for parameters they don’t routinely index, like a specific cooking appliance so perhaps your tool would be superior for them?

I agree. I find the broiler to require the most constant attention of any cooking method in my kitchen. My broiler heats up pretty quickly and there would surely be flames if I left any combustible material 8” away for the length of time they did.

They were good. Now I wish I’d headed over there today to get some!

This place is Valley Marketplace, previously Valley Produce. It’s a small, family-owned business with just 3 locations in Reseda, Simi Valley and Valencia. Not really worth the drive from anywhere unless you need a lot of something that happens to be on special. There's a Vallarta (SoCal Mexican grocery chain with 55 locations) right next door to the Simi location but I haven’t seen ox tails there. Maybe ya gotta ask?

I believe that it is indeed possible to measure volumes of salt with sufficient precision to determine whether the two samples differ enough to impact cooking results. If you weigh 10 separate 1T (or 1 tsp or 1 cup, depending on your scale) measurements of the two salts, taking reasonable care, and if there is no difference, I’d contend they are interchangeable. You may prefer one texture to another when used for finishing but that’s a different question.

Yes, they're kind of a pan-ethnic market. Persian and Mexican are most highly represented but they have other cuisines as well. Fun place to wander around.

Per this week’s ad from a local market, oxtails and short ribs are both $6.99/lb. Those are “specials,” regular prices are a buck or two/lb higher. This market does not have any pre-packaged meats, except frozen items like rabbits. Everything else is cut and packaged to order with 3-5 butchers usually on duty. Edited to add a photo from a post from 2022 when the tails were $4.99/lb so they have gone up in price. They were still frozen when they sliced them for me.

Thanks for the reminder! I just put it on my “hold” list at the library. I've got plenty of pasta cookbooks and don’t need another one but would like to get a look at it. I’m 18th in line for 10 copies so I should get it in ~ a month.

Ditto what @liuzhou said! I love visiting markets when I travel - even if they're not as amazing as these. And how nice that your hotel procured the cobek for you, @KennethT, and explained their quality concerns. I'd say their price was worth it. Lovely piece.

It’s a sign - you’re meant to have cheesecake for breakfast!

I just started watching Omnivore, René Redzepi’s new TV series on Apple TV+. It appears the first three of eight episodes are available for screening. It's quite lovely to watch. Here's a WSJ review: ‘Omnivore’ Review: René Redzepi’s Tasty Travels on Apple TV+ (supposedly a gift link) Eater thinks it should have been a different show: In René Redzepi’s ‘Omnivore,’ Noma Is the Center of the Culinary Universe And that’s not a good thing Hollywood Reporter review: ‘Omnivore’ Review: Noma’s René Redzepi Hosts an Apple TV+ Food Docuseries That’s as Thought-Provoking as It Is Hunger-Inducing LATimes: Q&A: Noma chef René Redzepi wants to make insects delicious. In ‘Omnivore,’ he explains why (paywall likely) Anyone else watching?

Stock 💯

Remove skin and bones then cook the heck out of them so they are dried out with the texture of cotton balls. That describes chicken breasts to me! More seriously, are they just drumsticks or leg quarters with leg and thigh? If the former, I agree with @btbyrd, though I prefer an unroasted stock.

Thank you for sharing, @KennethT! Your hotel looked like a pretty good spot to chill and recover but I know that wasn’t the plan and I've got my fingers crossed that you felt better for the rest of the trip!

Yes, you can, although it works better with some things than others as the blades not only mix but also chop things to smithereens!

I think you will like it. It has chapters for custard ice cream, Philadelphia-style, sherbet and frozen yogurt. I haven’t used too many of her mix-ins, some would get too pulverized by the Creami, but her method of melting chocolate with a little coconut oil makes a great melt-in-your mouth chocolate chip addition.

I saw this recipe for a tall, cool drink: Trader Joe’s Lemon Gin Refresher and gave it a try: Refreshing and not too sweet, depending on your choice of limoncello. I used my homemade stuff instead of purchasing the TJ's offering. Reporting here that I tried the McConnell's coffee ice cream I bought at Whole Foods. As mentioned above, it was just labeled coffee rather than Turkish coffee. It had a lot of fine coffee bean grit which ruined the mouthfeel for me although the coffee flavor is quite nice. I think I could tolerate a few bigger bean chunks over this much fine grit. I was going to go to their scoop shop last week to try the Brazilian coffee (my fish share pick-up is on the way) but the traffic was atrocious so I skipped it. Warm fish and melty ice cream are not a fine combo. Maybe next week.

Contact their customer support. Since yours is new, it should be within warranty and they have been offering to replace the units in those cases.

In another topic, @Smithy mentioned the liquid gold that is bacon drippings. This reminded me of my neighborhood's annual 4th of July breakfast that follows the little parade of kids and horses. They cook the pancakes on-site but always ask for volunteers to cook bacon at home and drop it off. Each volunteer cooks 5 lbs of bacon, provided by the committee. 55 lbs total. My first thought: Wow, I could get a LOT of free bacon drippings that way!

It's an Italian Parmigiano Reggiano Stravecchio (meaning aged at least 3 years) from Trader Joe's. It was $16.99/lb and the flavor is very good. They tend to have those older Parms around the holidays so I stock up. Not sure if it’s still in stores or not.