blue_dolphin

This is great! I have taken much inspiration from your posts in the past. Especially with regard to scaling recipes down and treating myself to nice meals rather than always waiting until I was cooking for a bigger group to try anything new. I very much look forward to hearing about your new adventures!

A quick google search suggests that tender young kale pods are edible. Some of those in your photo look past that stage.

Another one: Martha Stewart gets into meal kit business Is there any well known "food personality" whose NOT getting into this movement? From the WSJ article discussed here last week, it seems the expansion of these services is not all that smooth.

Thanks for the link, @rotuts. I like rapini but if it's going to get all trendy, I may have to move on! "...Broccoli rabe is still looking for its avocado toast moment..."

As far as drop goes, for daily use, I'd avoid anything significantly longer than the tabletop-to-chair-seat distance, for the reasons that @Thanks for the Crepes mentions. In my dining room, that's 12 inches. I don't think the difference between 10.5 and 12.5 should be a functional problem but if you will often see the table from an angle that displays that inequality and are grossly offended by it, get something custom or that can be hemmed to avoid further offence. I have a square table in a bright room and those 2 inches would begin to annoy me at some point but I have gotten over worse things.

I'm not @Smithy, I but know the Santa Monica markets have been attracting vendors from 200+ miles away at least since the early 1990's when I shopped there regularly. It surprises me that it's worth the drive, but that Wednesday Santa Monica market (like some others in the area) is very large and busy and attracts a clientele willing to pay premium prices for premium produce and market stalls at that market are very much in demand among vendors. I'd imagine it's possible for a farmer from near Paso Robles to make more profit at that single market than setting up at 4 or 5 different markets closer to the farm.

I thought this LA Times op-ed piece offering an egg farmer's perspective on US egg-washing requirements was interesting: The case for the not-quite-pristine egg

No spectacular view here, no adorable Parisian baking pans and saddest of all, no drop-dead gorgeous poached egg atop a delectable looking crab cake. Sigh. From Serious Eats, Sweet-Sour Macerated Cherries With Marcona Almonds, Mint and Ricotta. I had regular almonds instead of Marcona and subbed in lemon verbena since I was lacking mint but the ricotta was freshly made and still warm. We're having some rare early morning sunshine in this month of June gloom so I took my tray outside to enjoy the sounds of birds singing......and trash trucks banging and clanging. Ahhhhh, Monday morning!

Zucchini noodles and red bell pepper with lemon-artichoke pesto, topped with feta:

Just finished a small portion of penne with chicken livers and mushrooms in a light cream sauce leftover from a dinner out last night. It was not photogenic, but very, very tasty.

The California regulations for Certified Farmers Markets are pretty detailed. If your market is a California Certified Farmers Market (link to the list here), then any vendor within the Certified Farmers Market Section has to file a certified producers certificate that lists the produce they’re growing on their land. It’s certified by county inspectors and sometimes by the farmers market managers as well. They're required to have that certificate posted and available to customers to review. Vendors in violation of those regulations (and market managers who don't enforce them) are fined or banned. The page I linked to above also has links to the violation listings. Certified markets can designate a separate area for non-ag vendors like those selling prepared foods, candles made from a honey vendor's beeswax, etc. and some markets allow produce vendors in their non-certified areas but the separate areas should be clearly marked. I don't think most counties or markets have the resources for rock solid enforcement but I know LA County stepped up enforcement a couple of years ago and others, in So Cal at least, look seriously at the situation.

I use both vanilla beans and extract. I especially like to store vanilla beans in sugar to flavor the sugar. That said, I have never made homemade ice cream, vanilla or other flavors so maybe an ice cream base that's freshly infused with those flavors could be both as rich and clear as you hope for and as true and authentic as I do! Lacking that homemade ideal, is there a commercial ice cream that you would recommend as far as having the flavor you like? I would be interested in trying and comparing to the TJ's.

Yes. TJ's Cinnamon Raisin Bread. As I mentioned over in the TJ's thread, it seems to differ from the Cinnamon Roll Bread that was recently discussed over there. Out here on the left coast, we have either Cinnamon Swirl bread (no raisins) or Cinnamon Raisin Bread.

Here's the rest of my TJ's mango mania haul: The mango & ginger crisps ( like the original raisin & rosemary crisps and the various other cranberry, pumpkin, whatever varieties) are lovely with bit of goat cheese. The frozen mango chunks are usually in my freezer for smoothies or adding to yogurt. Nothing new there but they're mango so they got to be in the picture. Next is a mango-tangerine candle. I don't light candles all that often (I fear the spectre of flaming cat tail torches but it smelled nice and was only $3.99 so I picked one up. As mentioned in my post above, I doctored the mango-pineapple salsa with some freshly chopped cilantro and jalapeño and served it with the shrimp nuggets. I think it would be nice with chicken or fish. I got a little piece of mango that was disappointingly mealy but I didn't really eat enough to know if that's common or not. Edited to add: I've now had more of the Island Salsa and more disappointingly mealy pieces of mango. Too bad, as the flavor is OK. I don't recommend it. The TJ's website mentions some frozen mango salsa but I didn't see it....possibly because I was trying not to see the shrimp nuggets. The sweet & spicy mango vinaigrette is OK, but nothing too special, in my opinion. If I want a mango-themed salad, I'd just as soon throw in some mango chunks and use a lime-ginger or other citrus vinaigrette. The mango doesn't add a lot here. Not shown, but sort of mango-related, I bought some chia seeds to try these Mango Coconut Chia Frozen Pops from the TJ's website. Completely unrelated to mango, I noticed TJ's has 2 pinot noir rosé wines under their VINTJS label this year. There's the Arroyo Grande Valley Pinot Noir Rosé ($7.99) they have sold for the last few years, with the 2015 vintage back in stock and a Monterey Pinot Noir Rosé ($6.99) that I haven't seen before. The Arroyo Grande Valley Rosé was my house rosé last year and makes a lovely methode rotuts so I was happy to see it again and tasted it alongside the Monterey wine. Both have a lot of berry flavors and enough acidity to balance the fruit. In the Monterey wine, strawberry flavors predominated, both fresh and a jammy, cooked-strawberry note with a tart citrus/apple finish. In the Arroyo Grande Valley wine, I taste fresh berries, with the raspberry flavor out in front. I find the finish a little less acidic than the Monterey but balanced with a tiny bit of tannin. I could be letting the brighter pink color of the Arroyo Grande Valley wine influence my taste buds with respect to the tannins but I think the difference is real. Bottom line: Both are nice. I think the Arroyo Grande Valley will be my house rosé once again but maybe I'll pick up another bottle of the Monterey so I can do a methode rotuts comparison as well.

I tried making French toast with some of the TJ's Cinnamon Raisin Bread we get out here. I didn't care for it. It was OK but I prefer French toast made from a lighter, non-sweet bread so I can enjoy the contrast between the slightly savory custardy bread and the sweet maple syrup. In this case, the maple syrup was entirely unnecessary and it still tasted too sweet to me. I'm not sure how the bread I used differs from the Cinnamon Roll Bread available on the East coast so perhaps that would be better. The cinnamon raisin bread we get is pretty heavy stuff - 62g/slice per the label (the slice I used weighed in at 72g) vs 42g/slice on the label in the photo above. The French vanilla ice cream gets 2 big thumbs up from me. A lot of vanilla ice creams have an overwhelming artificial vanilla flavor that I dislike but this one tastes true to me. Different strokes ! I tried very hard to un-see @rotuts's post about the shrimp nuggets. I was determined not to look for them so I zoomed past the frozen appetizer section entirely but wouldn't you know it - they were in with the regular frozen seafood entrees so I DID see them and I DID buy some. I used the same steam-bake settings to heat up a "serving" of 4 nuggets and had them with the mango-pineapple salsa (doctored with some fresh cilantro and jalapeño). As @rotuts reported, they are tasty little morsels!

Cinnamon raisin French toast and fresh cherries:

@andiesenji, where do you get Manufacturing Cream these days? I used to get the Alta Dena product at Smart & Final but it's not carried at the stores near me. I'll add that I used to freeze the Manufacturing Cream in the amounts I would need for a batch of cream scones and give the container a periodic shake as it was thawing. It sometimes looked less than perfectly smooth but worked fine for the scones - of course, that's not an exacting application for cream: a mix of butter and milk would probably work just as well.

Toasted cinnamon raisin bread from Trader Joe's. Topped with goat cheese or butter: That bread is sliced into rather thick slices and I really like crispy toast so I cut the slices in half before toasting.

I do have a couple of these and handy they are but if they had magical powers, I'm afraid they are long gone @paulraphael, I forgot to thank you for the links to the Kelco materials. Very informative!

Hmmmm. Perhaps it was a problem with the magical spoon (cuillère magique) Love Google translations! Apologies. That adds nothing to the discussion but it did give me a good chuckle.

Thanks for posting that. It is behind a paywall, but as usual, you can google the article title (Meal-Delivery Company Sprig Goes Lean) and get the full article.

Poorly focused and badly lit photo of linguini with artichoke-lemon pesto, sugar snap peas, red bell pepper and some sous vide chicken breast:

@BonVivant, each of your posts is a little adventure with so much to look at and admire. Beautiful job! For something much less scenic, I offer you .... beans on toast: Toasted olive bread topped with RG alubia blanca beans tossed with some artichoke lemon pesto. I mixed up the pesto with the intent of making a pasta dish. Then I used a bit of bread to taste it for seasoning and then ended up with this. Maybe there will be pasta later.....

True enough, but right now, I'd really love one of your PB cookies to go with my second cup of coffee.

Thanks for that link, @Anna N. Guess I've gotten overly accustomed to all the safety engineering that's supposed to protect us from ourselves these days but I must say it looks like an accident waiting to happen with that semi-exposed heating coil.