blue_dolphin

@rotuts, I get honey (small jars for me) from a local place that also sells 5 gallon pails of honey - maybe more than you need as it weighs about 64 lbs !

Warm whole wheat croissant with butter and hot honey, fresh fruit and coffee: The NYT had a recent piece on Hot Honey Shrimp in which I learned that hot pepper infused honey is a thing that can be bought in a jar at the supermarket....or some supermarkets, anyway. I had no idea. I'm out of shrimp but wanted to test out the flavors so I mixed up the honey, cayenne, freshly grated ginger and lime zest (omitting the garlic from the recipe for now) and used it to anoint my croissant. Nice. I'd intended to just mix up some hot honey but I'm such a sucker for lime and ginger that I had to throw them in, too. Will try it with shrimp one of these days but in the meantime, it's plenty nice for breakfast. Edited to add that next time I will try one of the hot honey recipes that use fresh chiles rather than the dried cayenne called for here. This was certainly quick and easy but I think fresh chiles would give a better flavor.

Yes, in my experience, the syrup crystalizes when stored in the fridge. It goes back into solution on warming but if it's just me, I scoop one out without bothering.

Toasted English muffin topped with sautéed greens and mushrooms and poached eggs: Host's note: in order to reduce the load on our servers, this topic has been split into multiple parts; the next course is here.

Thanks for the tip on extra-wide fabric @Nyleve Baar, I have never seen it in my local fabric shops but It's certainly available on-line and would make a good solution for me. My table is not excessively large (~ 55 inches square) but I've never seen ready-made tablecloths the right size.

Interesting. That's not my take from the article at all. My take is the proposed lower meat consumption guidelines, if followed, might mitigate negative environmental and health impacts that would likely occur in the future if meat consumption rates continue to follow their upward trends. So offering some mitigation of future issues rather than solving entirely the current problems. It certainly does strike me that with the vast size of China's population, almost ANY broadly adopted dietary changes there are likely to have significant environmental and public health impacts. I am reminded of this 2014 article, "What Do Chinese Dumplings Have to Do With Global Warming?", that discusses the increased use of refrigeration in China's food chain.

This page lists substitutes complied by Alice Medrich and Rose Levy Beranbaum for the standard 1 oz squares of unsweetened baking chocolate, including an option to substitute 3 T cocoa plus 1T cocoa butter or shortening for each 1 oz square. If you end up substituting both cocoa for chocolate and butter or oil for shortening, I wouldn't expect the muffins to be the same as following your friend's recipe as written.

Was debating a poached egg breakfast but had to jump on the toastie train, inspired by recent toasts by @rotuts, @Anna N & @sartoric. Whole wheat English muffin, a smear of dijon, sautéed mushrooms and greens, crumbled bacon and sharp cheddar. Kinda makes me want some tomato soup!

Just unboxed an order from Hi-Time. Nothing super exciting: A non-St.Germain elderflower in a bottle I can save even if I don't like the stuff. A coconut rum to play with for some summer drinks, a restock of Montenegro plus 2 more amari that I haven't tried yet and 3 more restocks. Can't beat the 10 buck shipping to CA, AZ & NV. Nice service as well - I'd added 2 bottles of wine and they rang me up to caution about the heat (it was 108 here at the time) and ask if I wanted them to hold the wine instead of shipping. Several of these items are available at my local Total Wine but Hi-Time had lower prices that more than covered the shipping.

With respect to the kitchen appliances, I'm afraid the manufacturers know their customers all too well. The house next door, built in the early 1960s, had still functioning original or '70s appliances when it was sold by the family of the original owner a couple of years ago. In 2 years, all the kitchen appliances have been replaced TWICE. Once with basic white models by someone doing a "mini-flip" of the property and again with stainless steel models installed immediately after closing by the current owners. Of course there are consumers who expect something that falls into the category of "durable goods" to be...well....durable but when there's no shortage of buyers with an itch to "update" on a regular basis, I can't fault only the manufacturers for substituting cheaper parts and pocketing higher profits.

I did a search for poultry shops in my area and came up with Whole Foods and Healthy Pet pet shop !

Also a small article on the NYT site: Dog Meat and Lychees: A Pairing Meant to Make You Feel Warm Inside Edited to add link to a longer 2015 article: Chinese City Defends Dog Meat Festival, Despite Scorn

Or maybe a ranchise owner(s) with McD stores (and the necessary distribution network) in both MA or CT AND the Albany area. VT's another landlocked area that's listed in the McD's lobster roll press release. I'm planning a trip that will involve flying into either ALB or BTV and will be on the lookout for McD lobster rolls.

@HungryChris tried one last year. Edited to add that I realize now that you were asking about the current incarnation, not last year's model. Also commenting that the Albany NY market seems a curious one for the lobster roll (from someone who was born there and grew up in northern NY with nary a lobster in sight)

@kayb, kudos to you for tackling dinner prep while you are stuck in a chair. Reminds me how inaccessible the average kitchen is to someone in a wheelchair. I think I'd be relying on my phone to order delivery - and in this area, that would be pretty much limited to pizza! Talk about pictures worth a thousand words - this one is hilarious and your daughter's expression is priceless!

Leftovers from a lunch I hosted yesterday. Pulled pork, spinach and caramelized onion quesadilla, TJ's mango-jicama slaw, TJ's mango salsa and my pickled onions. Once again, the Cuisi steam oven does an amazing job of reheating something that I would ordinarily have tossed out.

Two more mango mania items from TJ's. Both very good. I found the frozen mango salsa in the freezer section with frozen Mexican entrees. This is very good - way better than the jarred mango/pineapple "Island Salsa" that suffered from mealy textured mango. As a single eater, I really liked the way the ingredients are individually frozen so it's possible to remove just a portion and leave the rest frozen. Flavors are very fresh, the texture is good and it packs a nice little kick. It was $2.99. I can imagine using it in a lot of ways and it would be worth keeping on hand when good, fresh mangos are hard to come by. I also tried the mango jicama slaw from the refrigerated section. It was $4.99 for a 3-serving tub, sort of a racket for a slaw-type product but I'd heard good recommendations and thought I'd get some and see if it's worth trying to make my own version. The lime-mango vinaigrette is packed in a small pouch at the bottom of the container and the other ingredients layered on top. The vinaigrette is very tasty, much nicer (to me) than the bottled Sweet & Spicy Mango Vinaigrette that TJ is also selling. I liked it enough that I went back for a second container rather than making my own for lunch I hosted yesterday.

To be clear, this is certainly not Ricotta Infornato al Limone although it involves ricotta, limone and a forno (a Cuisinart toaster forno, to be specific ) A few weeks ago, I made some baked ricotta with lemon and rosemary, similar to this that was flavored with lemon zest, garlic and fresh rosemary. It got great reviews and a lot of recipe requests from my friends. I was wondering what a slightly sweet version would be like and was thinking of using lemon zest, rosemary and bit of honey, then remembered I had some lemon-rosemary marmalade in the fridge so I used a spoon of that and some fresh chopped rosemary. I'd ordinarily serve separate pots of ricotta and jam but combining the flavors like this does make it into something else, something a little special, especially when served warm from the toaster-forno! If you start with a nice ricotta, I think you could mix in most anything you fancy and end up with a good result.

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