blue_dolphin

Over in the Dinner topic, @TdeV has posted about several Zoom wine tasting events that she has hosted for friends. The other day, I read this account from a blogger describing a Zoom wine tasting dinner she participated in through their country club. I'm not familiar with that particular club but I've attended similar dinners where the club hosts a winery, the chef prepares dishes to complement the wines and both the winemaker and chef introduce each course and its wine. There's generally an opportunity to purchase the wines at the club's wholesale prices. Here, they adapted the model with a multi-course take-out meal, paired wines and a Zoom meeting for the winemaker and chef to introduce the courses. I thought it was interesting to see how they translated that model into a remote activity. A lot of her photos are of the lovely table setting she arranged for her own family but I especially I liked seeing how they packaged each course and then how they looked when nicely plated. It surely is an intensive use of packaging materials but that seems to be the nature of any sort of take-out. In any case, I thought it was a fun way to celebrate a special occasion if the guests are in the same area.

Indeed it does and the bourbon-soaked date was a nice treat at the end! Thanks for that idea!

Welcome to eGullet, @tppytel! I'm not a chocolatier but I often read those threads because I find the whole business fascinating. There are lots of very experienced folks here who are incredibly generous in sharing their knowledge so I'd encourage you to dive in, discover the wealth of information in some of the existing threads, share what you're doing and ask questions!

Who knew? Certainly not me! But I am nothing if not suggestible so... I used the recipe in the NYTimes: 2T instant coffee, 2T hot water, 1.5 tsp sugar. I used piloncillo. At this ratio, I didn't find it atrociously sweet. Some of the recipes called for 2T sugar. That would probably hurt my teeth. Kind of a fun idea to play with. I'd like to try topping a mug of barely sweet hot chocolate with a dollop of this stuff for a mocha version. Edited to add that I used the whisk attachment to my stick blender instead of doing it by hand.

I suspect it depends on the differing local regulations. I checked the CPWM website and the stores in my area are still closed and not offering any curbside pick-up yet. In my county, CPWM is considered a furniture/home decor retailer and that category of retail is not yet allowed to apply to reopen for curbside pick-up. Must be a nightmare for national chains to navigate all the local regs.

After some recent warm weather, my popsicle supply was running low so I used elderflower cordial (the making of which I described over here) to make these Elderflower & Prosecco pops I added some lemon juice and a bit of honey to sweeten them. I probably used too much prosecco as they are a bit melty but still refreshing.

Truth be told, this is a photo of last night's supper but I seem to be a "path of least resistance" eater lately and had exactly the same thing for breakfast. Cheesy Borracho Bean Dip, Amá's Guacamole, chips and Mexican Salmorejo. All except the chips from Josef's Centeno's book, Amá.

I drove over to a local import shop and picked up a few very essential items: The guy who was bagging this up held up the Mull of Kintyre Scottish Cheddar and asked if I was aware that it's NOT butter 🙃

Plenty of eggs here and today is the farmers market so I can get more. I boiled up a bunch and made a version of Nana's Deviled Egg Sandwiches from Josef Centeno's Amá. I could have used some of @liamsaunt's pan de mie as that's what's specified in the cookbook but instead I made little open-faced bites on toasted slices of whole grain baguette. I cooked the chopped bacon until it was truly crispy and sprinkled it on top instead of blending it into the egg mixture. I don't usually like "stuff" in my deviled eggs or egg salad and this recipe is full of stuff: red onion, celery, cilantro, Calabrian chiles, capers, etc. I added it all and I liked it!

I finally got around to trying my hand at some elderflower cordial. I picked the umbrels off trees I spotted along Grimes Canyon Road when I was driving over to Fillmore to the bakery on Saturday morning. As I was driving home, I was dismayed to see a lot of little bugs crawling out of the bag I'd collected the flowers in. Luckily, they stayed over on the passenger side and I maintained my composure to deal with the twisty parts of Grimes Canyon and I made it safely home. I Googled the bug issue and found some people suggested rinsing the flowers to get rid of them. So I did that. Then I read other comments that the flowers should not be rinsed because they are so delicate and you'll lose a lot of flavor. Oh well. I found what sounded like a better plan - to spread the flowers out on a clean white cloth and keep moving them to another cloth or area until no more bugs come out. I'll do that next time. It's pretty easy to separate the flowers from the bugs on the cloth as the bugs seem to hang on or stick to the cloth and you can easily dump the flowers off. I think most of the bugs actually crawled off the flowers on to the bag shortly after picking. I did almost abandon the whole business at this time but decided to continue. My harvest, after unadvisable rinsing, spread out on a clean cloth. This is still outside, mind you. I wasn't ready to bring them in the house yet! I went through them, snipped off any stems and tossed out the umbrels that still had a lot of unopened buds. Here they are in the white pot after cleaning, with the discards on the left: I'd weighed them before rinsing and I had about 500g of flowers. I didn't bother weighing them afterwards since they were still a bit damp. They took up a volume of around 4.5 liters. I used the general proportions that @Mjx described during her blog in this post: 2 liters water, 500 g sugar, zest & juice of 3 limes (I may have used 4 or 5), 1 T or 15g citric acid. I followed the general instructions in David Lebovitz's Drinking French and brought the water, sugar, zest and juice to a boil, poured the hot mixture over the blossoms and let them sit for 3 days, stirring once a day. The citric acid was added at the end by dissolving it in a small volume of the steeping liquid, then mixing everything together before straining into bottles. I put everything through a nut milk bag and squeezed it to extract as much liquid as possible. I ended up with about 2.4 liters of cordial. The spent flowers are in the beaker between the two liter bottles. I put ~ 1.5 oz into ~ 8 oz sparkling water and found it quite nice. I'm happy with this level of sweetness. I have a batch of elderflower and prosecco popsicles in the freezer.

Another one of the bake at home Dulce de Leche Besito Cookies that I bought from Portos and a mug of black coffee. (re-using a photo I posted earlier because I am lazy)

Yep. This is my go-to method and has not failed me yet.

If you've got some preserved lemon on hand, this recipe from the Zuni Café cookbook is very good, even if you didn't confit your own tuna. Marcella Hazan's Fettuccine col Sugo di Tonno con Aglio e Panna is also truly excellent. It calls for both heavy cream and a bit of Parmesan.

The little black lentils are really nice in salads because they hold their shape so nicely. This one can be adjusted to whatever is in your fridge/pantry.

Got out early. Drove over to Fillmore to Roan Mills bakery for a baguette. Stopped on the way back to pick elderflowers to make cordial and had this treat for breakfast when I got home. First cherries of the year from the local farmers market, these from Ken's Top Notch Produce in Reedly, CA, up in Fresno county. The croissant was perhaps larger than is seemly but I ate it all anyway 🙃

Yes, I believe this is indeed being sold as a premium product and I agree that the price is high, but not $5/oz - yikes! When I drain the regular cans of St. Jude tuna, I usually get ~ 1 oz of "tuna broth." The cans with oil added, like the one in the photo above, tend to yield around the same 1 oz of broth but with a modest amount (maybe .25 to .5 oz?) of olive oil. My understanding is that it's normal for that amount of liquid to collect as the fish is cooked during the canning process. The chunk of tuna itself fills almost the entire can and weighs a little over 5 oz. There is only a little space around the perimeter of the can to contain the liquid. I can't speak to the current price of "regular cans of tuna" but when I was buying tuna at the grocery store, more than 10 years ago, it was a good bit less expensive than this product.

There are links to the spreadsheet pinned at the top of this Kitchen Consumer forum, right here. I've also found them super helpful!

I noticed More Than Gourmet is offering 20% off all their products. Free shipping kicks in for orders over $50. I see two codes on their site. SPRING20 good May 8-12 that says it is good for all their products and PANTRY20 good thru May 31. Their stocks have been recommended a number of times here on eG and I find them quite handy to keep around. The listed sodium levels are lower than in Better than Boullion or Minors soup bases.

What a great little collection of literary references - thanks for sharing! Not sure what it is about the pet stories, but I must say that I'd also love to have seen, “Herman Melville at breakfast feeding a sardine to his cat.” 😺 or witness Harry Crews, "puncture a biscuit and fill it with syrup, and then keep refilling it until it wouldn’t absorb anymore. He’d put two pieces of fried pork on top and share the whole thing with his dog."🐶

I haven't bought Ortiz in a while but this one is currently $5.49/can at World Market which seems in line with what I remember for single can, no-discount purchases.

Shoot them an email and ask about that. This is from an email I received from them on 24 Apr

I'd love to hear what you think if you do. Make sure to throw in a couple of cans of their tuna belly as a treat. It absolutely melts in your mouth. This is what you'll see in a can of their regular tuna. Just one big chunk of good tuna. Out of the can:

My friends picked up a baguette from the bakery for me today. Influenced by David Lebovitz's Apéro Hour offerings, lunch was sandwich jambon beurre avec les carottes rapées et cornichons: I used a generous amount of beurre d'Isigny Ste. Mère. Just don't tell anyone the "jambon" was in fact jamón Serrano 🙃 My taste buds did not complain.

That's a good test. I took a post-it, sliced the bottom into fringe (not sure that was necessary), stuck it over the fan vents and watched the fringe flutter when it was on. There are 3 sets of vent holes on the right side wall. The top set (where you can see the fan turning - duh - another good test) seems to be the intake and the air blows out of the lower sets of holes. @jrshaul, if you can't see the fan turning with just the oven light, try a flashlight or your phone.

I've only purchased a frozen take & bake version so I'm no help. Over here, in another thread, @jedovaty mentioned making and loving pão de queijo and might be able to offer suggestions.