blue_dolphin

I went to a U-pick cherry orchard the week before last week, on their opening day. Not cheap @ 6.00/lb but the quality was stellar. The weather has been relatively cool. When it gets super hot, they can go from ripe to overripe in a flash. They've had an odd year and had to close for a few days in between the Brooks and Rainiers and again for several more days before the Bings ripened. Usually they go fairly seamlessly, with some overlap between the varieties. I got an email from them saying they expect today to be the last day of picking. I'd hoped to go back for some Bings but I'm heading out of town tonight so that's it for my cherry picking this year. I reported on my bounty in this post.

Google maps seemed to know the place. Whether they'd actually get you there on passable roads is another question! Newfoundland map - Stephenville to Twillingate You guys are covering quite a lot of territory!

I have that Lodge combo cooker. It's a very useful pot. Good for baking bread in a regular oven. But it won't fit in a CSO.

Pasta alla Gricia with Sugar Snap Peas from Six Seasons. I added some shrimp which weren't in the recipe. Nice but not necessary.

Ditto the thanks! I also enjoyed this video that queued up following your link with the same 3 Roman chefs preparing their versions of carbonara: Wish I could try them all!

I was just going to say the same. Amazon prices over the last year:

Thanks for mentioning this. I went back and re-read the whole Part I CSO thread. Good stuff there!

I'm just plugging the places that @ElsieD mentions into Google maps, not actually making anything interactive. Edited to add a link to the route as of today: Newfoundland-Stephenville to Springdale

In honor of our current adventure, I'm re-reading @ElsieD's first Newfoundland blog. It's a wonderful travelogue so I'm adding a link here in case anyone else would like a little more background on the area: A good scoff, cod tongues, toutons and tea on The Rock aka Newfoundland. I'm also keeping a tab opened to a Newfoundland map so I can follow our route. Thanks for taking us along, @ElsieD, I'm enjoying the trip!

It certainly woke me up!

Six Seasons leftovers. The recipe for Smashed New Potatoes with Lemon and Lots of Olive Oil p 161 suggests making hash browns by shaping the smashed potatoes into pucks, dipping in bread crumbs and shallow frying them until browned and crisp. So, I did: Topped with Charred Scallion Salsa Verde p 109, soft boiled eggs and a few bacon crumbles. Tomato chutney on the side.

Evan Kleiman's Good Food podcast/radio show on KCRW devoted today's episode to Anthony Bourdain: Remembering Anthony Bourdain The Good Food blog contains personal remembrances from several of the show's staff: Good Food Remembers Anthony Bourdain. That blog post also contains a link to a Los Angeles Times article that Evan wrote: He may have had a bad boy persona, but Anthony Bourdain was lovely, loyal and so damn smart

From Amazon.com.au

Good point! If I'd looked at this salad as a good way to use up leftover roasted cauliflower, I'd probably have been more forgiving in my review!

Roasted Cauliflower, Plums, Sesame Seeds and Yogurt from Six Seasons p 188. I'd say this is an agreeable salad/side dish but it doesn't really show off either the cauliflower or plums to their very best. It turned out better than I thought it would but isn't quite my thing. I wasn't sure I'd be able to make this as cauliflower usually disappears from local farmers markets around the time that plums and other stone fruits start to appear. But our cool spring has kept the cauliflower in good shape and I managed to nab some first of the season Santa Rosa plums so I figured I'd give it a try. I adore roasted cauliflower and think it's best nibbled straight from the oven - golden and a little crisp on the outside, piping hot and tender inside. In my book, cooling it down and dousing it with lemon juice and yogurt does it no favors. Tossing lovely ripe plum pieces along with the above as I tasted and adjusted the seasonings made both of them look bruised and beaten and turned everything faintly pink. That said, it was pleasant to eat. The toasted sesame seeds brought out similar nutty flavor notes in the roasted cauliflower and contrasted nicely with the sweet-tart plums and slightly bitter parsley leaves. If I'd had some, I might have served this on a bed of romaine or the crispy lettuce for a little more textural contrast.

@Dante, have you tried their goat milk gelato and if so, what did you think of it? Or maybe I have read it wrong and you are actually making it? And where in VT is Upper Valley? Is it near White River Junction? Maybe I already asked this and forgot? I grew up in the Champlain Valley so I know it's not that and we often traversed other parts of VT in order to visit relatives in western MA or travel to Boston but I'm not familiar with Upper Valley.

That's weird. It's still showing a USD price of $15.04 sold by Amazon and no warning about low stock on the US site. Camelcamelcamel shows that there have been a few periods (the dotted lines) where Amazon didn't have the item but it's not showing it out of stock at the moment.

Thinking back, we had home-baked cakes for dessert very often. Usually sheet cakes. Layer cakes were for birthdays, except my dad's, who got an apple pie. That Pepperidge Farm coconut cake that @ChocoMom mentioned was a rare treat. Served when guests were either unexpected or had multiplied beyond the initial estimate. Mostly, my mom was known for her fruit tortes. I've mentioned these before - a cake baked in an obsttorte pan like this, filled with custard or pudding and topped with fruit and whipped cream. They're quick and easy to put together but make a nice presentation and were delivered far and wide to pot-lucks, church suppers, family celebrations and any friend or neighbor in need of ....well, neighborliness! Here she is, in her 90's, putting the finishing touches on a 4th of July torte to be delivered to the neighbors across the street who were hosting visiting family for the holiday. And the finished product: You can tell that this one was going to a close neighbor as they got the red tray. Pot-lucks got a regular plate and anything going farther afield was placed on a disposable platter fashioned from pizza boxes cut to size and covered with aluminum foil.

The kindle version of My Delicious Life: delicacies from my mother's fusion Israeli cuisine is currently free on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.

I bought some cauliflower for a different recipe but was inspired by some cooler than usual weather to try the Baked Cauliflower with Salt Cod, Currants and Pine Nuts from Six Seasons p 192. Cauliflower, pine nuts and currants or raisins are a classic combo for me in pasta and other dishes but the salt cod new to me. I followed the recipe, using a pound of salt cod and 3/4 lb of cauliflower, which he says is a small head of cauliflower. My farmers market cauliflower heads are usually 4-5 lbs so I only needed a little of it. I think I would have preferred more cauliflower, allowing the cod to be more of a seasoning but it was still very good. Way, way way better than my horrid childhood Lenten dinners of salt cod in a cream sauce served over boiled potatoes. Canned peas on the side. Say no more!

I had some leftover cucumber-yogurt-scallion-dill mixture that I repurposed into shrimp salad Served on toasted ciabatta with smashed avocado.

Avocado Egg Sandwich from The Moosewood Restaurant Table cookbook. There's a cucumber-yogurt-dill-scallion mixture on the bottom, avocado slices and egg. The recipe calls for hard boiled egg slices but says that fried eggs will be less messy. I went for some jammy yolks to stick everything together but with these ingredients, applied in this order, I'm afraid a certain mess factor is unavoidable 🙃!

I hear a very low hum on all functions. I can hear the fan on convection bake, just a bit louder than the hum. With all of the steam functions, I can hear very low "bubble, hiss, steam" noises once it starts heating up and periodically throughout the cycle. I also checked my new "reserve" CSO and it's much quieter.

I should have mentioned it since it takes up half the plate! It's a Pork Chop with Cherry Mustard.

I went cherry picking earlier this week and decided to share my bounty in this thread as it seems to be the most recent of the various eG cherry threads and I like the title 🙃. Oh Baby! I picked about 5 lbs of Brooks cherries, which are a little lighter in color and a bit less firm when fully ripe than Bings and were the only trees with ripe fruit this week. I gave some away and played around with the rest. Clockwise from left front: In the pie plate, roasted cherries with red wine and black pepper - very nice warmed and served over vanilla ice cream Cherry ‘Shine (a Moonshine version of brandied cherries) from Kevin West's Saving the Season has to sit for a few weeks before I can taste it. He says to serve it in tiny cordial glasses on nights when you want to sit by the fire and read thick books. Cherry Chutney - This has a lot of crystalized ginger in it that comes close to overwhelming the cherries. I also added a couple of de Arbol chiles for a little heat. It's still delicious and I enjoyed it on toasted ciabatta with homemade ricotta and am looking forward to using it on a grilled cheese sandwich with some stinky, runny cheese. and Cherry Mustard - the fresh cherry flavor really comes through nicely here. Very good with some salami and cheese. Oddly, the recipe says it's good for 3 days in the fridge. Seems awfully conservative, but we'll see. Given that 3-day timeline, I figured I should try the Cherry Mustard served as in the linked recipe with pork chops. Very good. I garnished with a few of the roasted cherries. I think this would also be excellent with duck, chicken or salmon.