blue_dolphin

I've enjoyed it, too. And hey, I'm only on the other side of LA (Ventura) ! The guacamole-run to a restaurant for fresh fried chips brings back very tasty memories of my UCLA days! One of the post-docs in the lab had an avocado tree and used to bring in grocery bags full. The rest of us would supply the other ingredients and gather in the conf room for the communal chopping and mashing necessary to produce a most excellent guacamole in a big old punch bowl. When it was just about ready, we'd take up a cash collection and send someone out to the nearest Mexican restaurant for fresh, hot chips. Mmmmm Mmmmm! Thanks again for blogging!

I tell time in the kitchen the same way as everywhere else: Me, too!

Good comparison...also made in an WSJ article the other day: Why Wood Pulp Makes Ice Cream Creamier "Cellulose is cellulose," regardless of if whether it comes from wood pulp or celery, says Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a group that advocates healthier, more nutritious food. He says no research points to health problems related to consuming cellulose. I do read ingredient lists, but this is not one that I worry about in my food. If it's being used to replace truly nutritious substances with undigestible fiber for populations on the verge of starvation, that's another story.

Heidi - Do you review and shop from those ads? My weekly collection also arrived on Tuesday. I usually take them directly from the mailbox to recycling bin but your post inspired me to take a look. I got Albertsons, Ralphs, Vons, Smart & Final, Fresh & Easy, Jons and Sprouts. I have no idea where some of these places are located so their advertising is clearly wasted on me! Thanks for blogging, I'm enjoying your view of the South Bay!

Good question. I've wondered about this myself. I was thinking it was a US thing but recently read this WSJ blog post: "Why Breakfast Matters to Chinese Tourists", which concludes with the answer to your question: "After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day"

I made identical smoothies this AM in the new Blendtec and old Kitchen Aid. Each contains frozen berries, tofu, cooked beets, a few raw baby carrots, 2 oz pomegranate juice, a spoonful of frozen OJ concentrate, flax seed, oat bran, wheat bran, a few ice cubes and a couple ounces of water. Both blended up fine. The Blendtec gets points for ease of use. I had to stop the Kitchen Aid and stir things down in order to get everything blending as I usually do with these smoothies. I then let it blend at high speed for about 2 minutes. With the Blendtec, I used the Smoothie cycle and it got everything going really quickly, no need to stop and scrape down the sides. At the end of the cycle, it wasn't as smooth as I like so I ran it another minute. The end products were similar. No night and day difference. The Blendtec smoothie was slightly smoother, little blackberry seeds were less noticeable but the difference was not large. I'm looking forward to trying it with other things.

I got the delay e-mail yesterday and my red one showed up today (shipped on 3/17). On the right, my smoothie maker of many years. On the left, the challenger. Tomorrow, they go head to head.

We buy fish sticks for our toddler, who likes them a lot (mainly as a vehicle for ketchup, natch.) I find that most of them aren't worth grownup eating. But I recently tried TJ's "fish nuggets", which, despite the name, are actually small pieces of whole fish. They're really good! I Using fish sticks for tacos never occurred to me before this thread but after seeing Pierogi's post, I headed to TJ's and decided to try the fish nuggets. They were cheaper than some of the others so I figured it would be no big loss if I didn't like them. They're a great size for tacos and I agree with Andrew: Very tasty! I made some cilantro-lime slaw like Pierogi did in her most excellent blog. Unlike Pierogi, I did not make my own tortillas but used the "Homemade" tortillas from TJ's. Mmmm Mmmm good!

Those salsa's look great! As does Don Rogelio! How do you handle packing breakable food containers in your luggage for air travel? I love extending the fun of travel by cooking at home with an unusual ingredient I've brought back with me. Prior to the liquids ban, I used to love to bring home things like that, taking them carefully in my carry-on. I hate to check bags to begin with and they get so manhandled that I'm reluctant to pack breakables so I've been avoiding them. Any tips for doing that successfully? Thank you for blogging! Your photos are lovely and the Southwestern sunshine a treat to see on this very rainy weekend here in So Cal.

Mmmmm. That take-out dinner looks great! I'd love some leftovers for breakfast

Me, too. I've been making my breakfast smoothies with an older Kitchen Aid for years and looking forward to trying the BlendTec to see if they get even smoother

Oh my, I didn't know they actually labeled the packages that way! I heard a piece on "Bull Pizzle Soup" on KCRW's Good Food just before Valentine's Day. They used every bad pun you can think of!

I'm really enjoying your blog - your photos and breezy comments make me feel like I'm right there in the kitchen with you! I'm in awe of your delicious dinners. The big projects are certainly more than I'm up to after work but the roasted sausage & grapes are a treat! So, you said "farm".....will we be seeing your CSA? I'm very keen to hear your thoughts on doing a CSA share as a single cooker. I haven't tried it - thought I might be overwhelmed with produce. The recent LA Times article pointed me to the Underwood Family Farms CSA which has a drop off quite close to my house and I'm thinking of giving them a try. Looking forward to your insights. Thanks for taking this on!

Maybe, but I took your post to mean normal chemical or biological agents pose no contamination problem. I took Wholemeal Crank's caution to be that monitoring of radiation during clean-up indicates that centrifuges can readily be contaminated with whatever they are used with. Radioactive materials can readily be tracked with appropriate detectors, which do not universally detect all chemical or biological agents so one should not assume centrifuges or other lab equipment are free from contamination.

It's not 80 yet where I am, but it's supposed to get close to that today and it certainly is a beautiful, sunny morning. I was in gray, rainy, windy Seattle most of the week. So even though I needed a sweater, I took my coffee outside this AM - the pink jasmine on my patio is intoxicating! I'll bet Pierogi will keep you envying the weather....and the food, too!

Another vote for eye protection. You do not want this stuff, even a droplet, in your eyes! It's way more prone to violent boiling than hot oil so extra caution is really appropriate. I've only used LN2 at work, in a lab. The only food related "experiment" I remember was eating LN2 dipped graham crackers and blowing smoke rings.

I'm excited to see a So Cal blog! Maybe you'll take us to some places I can check out myself! And like IowaDee, I'd like to hear what you think about that Sunset cookbook, too.

Pesto! It was on a bit of crusty bread, direct from the blender I used to make my very first batch. A sunny Saturday afternoon in the little kitchen of my very first apartment. Oh my, how those flavors filled my mouth! I revisit that memory each summer with the first basil of the season but that first time was such a revelation!

I like to play with the Miso-Almond Sauce from Mollie Katzen's "Still Life with Menu." She uses it on Steamed Vegetables, Tofu and Soba Noodles. She uses 4 T miso and 6 T almond butter and gradually blends in 1.5 cups of boiling water. I like it as is or with some garlic, tahini in place of some or all of the almond butter, parsley and a squeeze of lemon. Or with peanut butter, ginger and some hot chili sauce with a sprinkling of cilantro.

lesliec - Beautiful blog! Each of your posts (prose and photos alike - Stilton and port is my favorite) could be a full article in a glossy food mag! I'd never contemplated bay ice cream or heard of alloro but I'm now convinced that I must get myself a bay tree. My only trip to NZ was 2 weeks on the South Island, clearly there is more to see. Thank you for all the effort it took to crank this out.

Duh! Strike the French stuff. Obviously didn't read the question carefully!

I'd go with a red (my preference if the salmon is grilled) and a white. An Italian Sangiovese or French Beaujolais for the red. And an Austrian Grüner Veltliner for the white.

I've been meaning to ask one of my beer-making friends to help me set up a home-made system like this: Carbonating at Home Edited to add, I only drink sparkling water, no flavored sodas.

I'm a big fan of the pour-over method. I have single cup version for both home and work. A friend gifted me one of these Melitta ceramic pots that I use when I want to make a bigger volume. I had a gold cone filter for a long time but went back to paper. It seemed to me that unless I washed the gold filter out promptly with lots of hot soapy water, it started smelling like old coffee. The gold ones are available, more commonly in the larger #4 size, but also in the smaller size that would fit a single cup holder.

So sorry for your struggles. I am no Paypal expert. I just paid with my credit card. If I recall correctly, when using PayPal, I usually get a screen that lets me choose to either use a credit card or log in to PayPal. I enter all my usual credit card and billing info and proceed. Maybe I set something up in the deep dark past that allows me to do that? Anyway, I really love this concept. I've got dozens of cookbooks on my shelves. Yet when I come home from the farmers' market or rummage up a few ingredients from the pantry, I've been searching online because I was too lazy to go book by book. I'd started to think I could no longer justify buying any more cookbooks because I just wasn't using them like I used to. So my subscription enables me to buy even more cookbooks!