blue_dolphin

My top recommendation would go to Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons: A new way with vegetables. It is not strictly vegetarian as he uses anchovies here and there and even includes a recipe for Beef with Lots and Lots of Onions but it's mostly vegetarian and does very good things with vegetables. I've given it to 8 friends and even though it's been a couple of years, I still receive regular text messages with photos of what they are cooking from the book. He starts the book with a "go-to" section of sauces, pickles, compound butters and condiments that he draws on throughout the book. Some people think that's a sneaky way of hiding a recipe-in-a-recipe so be warned. There are photos of most dishes. We have a thread on cooking from it here. Joe Yonan's Cool Beans is a new title that is full of vegan bean recipes. Beautiful photos, too. I've enjoyed what I've cooked from it so far. Ottolenghi's Plenty and Plenty More have both been mentioned earlier in this thread and are both excellent. There's a "cooking from" thread on Plenty here . I thought there was one on Plenty More, but I can't find it. Both have tons of recipes with interesting flavor combinations and photos of a lot (though not all) of the dishes. If I were going to give either of those to an Ottolenghi novice who doesn't have access to ethnic groceries, I'd include a pantry gift of sumac, za'atar, pomegranate molasses, harissa, tahini and preserved lemons (or a recipe for that last one.) I don't see a recommendation for The Moosewood Restaurant Table upthread but it's a great book with a ton of (the cover says 250) recipes, most of which are fairly easy and not particularly time consuming. I'm quite fond of the Hummus with Preserved Lemon....all the dips are good. I love Deborah Madison, too, and I prefer her Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone to Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian but while the big tomes are good for reference, they don't draw me in as much as her other books. Vegetable Literacy is a beautiful book that will teach almost anyone a few new things about vegetables. The book is organized into "vegetable families" and there's an informative essay to begin each chapter so it's a good guide to substituting related veg in recipes. Her book, Local Flavors is a great farmers market companion. IMHO, The Greens Restaurant Cookbook, mentioned just above is on the restaurant-y side. For example, most of the soups require their own stocks. The results are generally worth the effort and there are quite a few recipes (Winter Squash Soup with Red Chili and Mint, Turnip Soup with Turnip Greens and Black Bean Chili) that I return to over and over but be aware that it's not entirely effortless cooking. My most used of her books is The Savory Way, which I've used a ton. Both of those are older books and lack photographs which I know is a deal breaker for some but they also happen to be my favorites. Finally, I'll put in a plug for another old favorite of mine, Mollie Katzen's Still Life with Menu. In this book, she promotes the idea of doing some prep work ahead so dinners are easy to put together at the end of the day. There are 50 menus and each one has a list of prep tasks that can be done 1, 2, or 3 days ahead. There are also quick pasta and stir fry meals, breakfasts and menus for vegetarian Thanksgiving, a vegetarian barbecue and a Seder, all meals that can confound those hosting vegetarian guests. Because of the menu planning aspect, this would be good for someone new to vegetarian cooking or someone who would like a bit of a nudge to get into menu planning or everyday cooking. There are some weekly menu plans at the end with advance tasks to do each day. No photos, the book is illustrated with Katzen's own artwork.

Hard water is pretty rough on dishwashers, too. I'd imagine it could be worth it in hard water areas. The last place I lived the water was awful. Even with a rinse aid, the dishwasher left spots and streaks on everything unless you yanked them out and towel dried everything as soon as it stopped.

Very exciting! Please do continue to keep us posted - I can't wait to hear what you think as things continue!

Lebovitz cites the Union Square bar nuts as his inspiration for the recipe in his book. Based on this discussion, I was prompted to make another batch last night. With a white (yellow?) negroni-type thing.

Last week, I made the Spicy Glazed Nut & Pretzel mix from David Lebovitz's book Drinking French. I expected the nuts to be great but the pretzels were surprising delicious as well. Sadly, it's all gone. The recipe is also available here on his blog. The book also has a recipe for quite a few tasty snacks that I'm looking forward to trying. The Rosemary Bar Nuts were quite good.

Finally got around to trying Wylie Dufresne’s Scrambled Egg Sandwich that I mentioned upthread and @liamsaunt shared here. As @liamsaunt noted, it is indeed very rich and I also only ate half though I'm considering going back for another bite 🙃 It held together much better than expected - I was sure the eggs would squish out all over the place but they did not. I nibbled some pickled onions on the side but I think it could benefit from a smear of something spicy on the bread. Maybe I'll saved the other half for lunch and dip it in tomato chutney.

Growing up in the far reaches of northern NY, I first experienced Sunset at the home of neighbors from California who subscribed to the magazine and had lots of back issues as well as cooking and gardening books in their library. I looked after their cat when they traveled and they encouraged me to spend time in the house so poor Toby would have a bit of company. I was happy to spend hours sprawled on their lovely Turkish carpets (after cleaning up Toby's hairballs, which he apparently NEVER hawked up when they were at home) and paging through Sunset magazines and books. I just loved the indoor-outdoor living they featured, something that didn't exist in a place where an open door elicited shouts of, "Shut the door! Shut the door!" most of the year because either freezing air or bugs would get in. Fast-forward to today, I live in a 1966 So Cal home that could well have appeared in the magazine. It's not uncommon for first-time visitors to say, "Wow, this looks like it belongs in Sunset!" I subscribed to the magazine as soon as I moved to So Cal. Back then, every issue was absolutely packed with content and they were cooking and trip-planning guides for many adventures in my new state. Lots of fond memories. I no longer subscribe but I'm always happy to find a new Sunset at the dentist's office. And believe me, there is nothing else happy about those visits!

Not sure if this is the best place for this but here goes.... I know there has been discussion in various threads about grocery delivery and mentions of Instacart and how they treat their shoppers (not well). I saw this article, A smaller competitor to Instacart is a better deal for shoppers, in the LA Times about a different app called Dumpling. That particular article is more about the shopper side of the business but I found the model appealing. I still haven't needed to use any grocery delivery services but if I do, I quite like the idea of being able to establish a relationship with an individual who's motivated to keep my business. Not sure how widespread their services are but I found several shoppers in my area. Has anyone used Dumpling?

Veering back towards the topic title of Alexander Smalls... for those interesting in listening to more of his speaking, LA cookbook store Now Serving is hosting him on virtual book tour this coming Wednesday, June 17 at 4 PM PDT where he will be speaking with LATimes Cooking Editor Genevieve Ko You can register for the live web session here: Now Serving Event Calendar After the event, you may be able to find it on this page where they have been sharing previous events: Now Serving Event Recordings He was also interviewed recently on this episode of Why Food on Heritage Radio. Alexander Small's new book is Meals, Music, and Muses: Recipes From My African American Kitchen, available from Amazon or Now Serving.

Crud?

I was already thinking of New Orleans BBQ shrimp so after reading this, I decided to make a batch of cornbread to compare with the crusty baguette that I'd planned to use to sop up the juices. Both the cornbread and shrimp recipes are from Toni Tipton-Martin's book, Jubilee. I really preferred the flavor of the cornbread with these shrimp but as a sauce-sopper, this particular cornbread is too crumbly. If I was craving shrimp surrounded by cornbread, then this would NOT scratch that itch and I'd much prefer a shrimp corndog. Since I was going for BBQ shrimp, I was happy. Finally, pardon me for using peeled shrimp...at least they still had their tails!

Well, if it never set up as well as it did the the past, then I was wondering if the oven temp could have been off and it might have needed more baking. Any chance the overnight fridge temp was lower than usual? If it was colder, that could have taken longer to bake and I'd imagine that if parts of it came close to freezing, then thawed, that could have prevented the custard from setting up. My own fridge is subject to random acts of freezing...when I least expect it! I stand by my guess that it will be perfect next time!

A bowl of grits topped with a soft-boiled egg, crispy chorizo and a quick salsa of tomato, avocado, pickled onions and jalapeño

The cheesemaker's website recommended a pinot noir or Champagne with that Dorothy's cheese. I had a nice Rusack pinot and it was a good choice. I bought another cheese and will try something sparkly with it this time. I also need more bread. I ate the rind, too! I like the Phigment also and thought it was a good buy at that price. I have a bottle of the Roustabout but haven't tried it yet. I've been drinking some of the Bogle Phantom red blend from 2013. Used to be around $9 or 10 at TJ's but the price seems to have crept up over the years. I haven't bought any in a few years. On one of my recent visits, they had this Hess Select Pinot Gris for $5.99. Seems to sell for around $12 elsewhere. Winery released the 2019 in March so maybe they gave TJ's a deal on the rest of this? It has a lot of tropical fruit and drinks almost more like a light viognier than a pinot gris. I think it's a nice summer sipper and something a little different. Probably not something that will stick around in their stores forever.

Mine hangs on the inside of a tall cabinet door in the kitchen and I use it a lot. I was thinking of getting another in red or black and trying the one with the rounded neckline this time. I'll have to watch for a sale or free shipping offer to nudge me into ordering!

I have little experience with the overnight soaking method so feel free to ignore my 2 cents. The ratio of milk to eggs looks similar to what I use in quiche which sets up fine with half & half, marginally with whole and not well at all not with skim or 2%. Any chance the milk was different? When using a lower fat milk in a quiche, I've found that tossing the cheese with a teaspoon of cornstarch or Wondra helped the custard to set up. Not sure if that would be useful with the overnight method here or not. Any chance the cooked sausage was hot enough to start cooking and coagulating the eggs when it first got mixed so there wasn’t enough protein to make a custard by baking time? Finally (or maybe it should be firstly 🙃) do you think the custard mix didn’t set up properly or do you think it set but then broke? My prediction is that this will work perfectly for you, as it always has and we’ll never know what happened!

I noticed that @Shelby posted about her Sriracha Maple Snack Mix in this topic so I figure I can continue the theme with this Spicy Glazed Nut & Pretzel mix from David Lebovitz's book Drinking French. The recipe is also available here on his blog. Not that you can tell in the photo but everything got coated in a mix of brown sugar, maple syrup, butter, salt, cayenne & cinnamon before baking. Very good. Now to track down that Sriracha Snack Mix recipe.....

I think the sixty cents is probably key! Picked up my first post-virus cookbook from the library today! I'd put it on hold shortly before they shut down and was first in the hold queue all this time!

I loved the first section, liked the second one and found it a bit of a slog to get through the final two. That said, after the Netflix series came out, I went back to re-read them and it seemed like a package that made great sense with the videos to break up all that reading. But we're all different so anyone considering their $3.99 investment would be wise to take your advice and steer clear!

The Kindle version of Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat is currently $3.99 on both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. I'm not wild about cooking from ebooks but, in my opinion, the value of this book are the first 4 sections as named in the title. Great textbook for learning how to cook, especially if you take occasional breaks to watch her Netflix show of the same name. From Amazon's "Look Inside" feature, it looks like Wendy McNaughton's charming illustrations come through well. The recipes that follow those sections certainly do work but this is also a book that you could just read through and get a lot from. Edited to add: The Kindle edition of Smitten Kitchen Everyday by Deb Perelman is $4.99 so maybe not a crazy bargain but still a good price for a solid book. I own the paper version and like it. This one is NOT currently bargain priced on Amazon.ca.

In the header notes, Toni Tipton-Martin says these Lowcountry Shrimp and Grits from her book, Jubilee, are outstanding served for breakfast. No argument from me! The shrimp kinda sank into the grits but there were 6 big, lovely shrimps in there and I ate them all!

Trader Joe's used to sell shrimp corn dogs in their frozen section. Came with a sweet chile dipping sauce. I haven't seen them in quite some time. Tasty little buggers they were.

I've been trying to make this salad and failing to assemble all the ingredients at appropriate ripeness. Finally gave up and made a sub. It's the Watercress, Mahón cheese, Nectarines and Creamy Lime Dressing from Amá. Only a little of my watercress was still perky by the time the nectarine was ripe. I used what I had and added some romaine. Arugula would have been better. This didn't completely wow me but I will remember the addition of a spoonful of heavy cream to a citrus dressing used on a salad with fruit. These are still early season nectarines so I'll try it again in mid-summer.

@RWood, you have ruined that child for all other cakes and set yourself a very high bar for repeat performances, which I’m sure will be demanded!