blue_dolphin

I really can't imagine what it would taste like but all this conversation has made me curious. I looked it up at Total Wine and the stuff has an amazing number of positive reviews. My store has the mini bottles available for a fairly nominal cost so maybe I'll spring for one and find out. If I do, I'll be sure to let you know!

I noticed Modernist Cuisine is going to offer a series of email Bread School courses. They said they will make an announcement when it's available for sign-up, sometime in early March. In response to questions when they posted this on Facebook, they said that it's not necessary to have either this "At Home" book or the original Modernist Bread in order to follow along. Even though the emails don't require the book, it kind of piques my interest in getting it and might serve as a nudge to actually bake from it! I figure I'll sign up for the emails when they become available and if they seem engaging, I'll order the book.

I'm very sorry about your broken hip, @Katie Meadow and happy you are home, complete with titanium body parts and sense of humor intact! Couldn't pick a single "reaction" emoji to encapsulate that so I had to post!

I've never heard of a rock cake but your Fat Rascal description reminds of pane del pescatore aka fisherman's bread, also called an Italian scone. The recipe I have from the Il Fornaio Baking Book (available online here) includes the ingredients you mention, including raisins, candied lemon and orange peel in addition to fennel seeds and a splash of Marsala. They often have almonds on top, although my recipe doesn't do that. I think this was the last time I made them. Thanks for the reminder to make them again!

I tend to prefer to chew my calories rather than drink them. Unless there's alcohol involved, that is 🤣 And I love that you often include vegetables in your breakfasts. Years ago, I participated in a research study where we had to eat a LOT of fruit and veg. I soon learned that adding some to my breakfast could help prevent getting to dinner time and needing to eat 4 servings of fruit and 5 vegetables. I need to get back into that breakfast habit! Toasted fruit-nut bread (has dried apricots, figs, cranberries, pecans, hazelnuts and walnuts) spread with homemade whole milk ricotta and topped with beet stems and cranberries pickled in a sweet red wine vinegar brine. Plus a handful of kumquats to ward off scurvy.

I thought you might!

I save Parm rinds and use them in soups and sometimes when cooking beans. I have to admit that I never stopped to taste the rinds but I’ve never picked up a moldy taste or smell in anything I've made with them. Edited to add that I’ve got some stashed in the freezer and will be sure to give them a good sniff before I use them.

How about using it in a Bloody Mary? Or a spicy martini?

I've been buying them for a while and blame either @weinoo or @Katie Meadow. I can get them at a local import shop. The brine is good in a vinaigrette. Or just toss greens with a splash of brine and drizzle of olive oil. Also toss your hot spuds with it prior to making a potato salad. I'm not a big pasta salad fan but the aforementioned vinaigrette makes a nice dressing for the sort with bits of cheese and salami. If you're making any recipe that uses pickled peppers, look for a way to sneak the brine in to sub for vinegar, lemon juice, etc.

A curious breakfast. Yesterday's balsamic beets and beet greens, warmed with Gorgonzola and scooped up with crisped tortilla wedges. Blood orange on the side.

Yes, but it's not uncommon for a kitchen with all gas appliances to have all or mostly 110 volt circuits. When I moved here I hoped to replace the gas cooktop with an induction model but there's no 220/240 volt circuit available. Running electrical in this post and beam house is not trivial and would have cost a bundle so I got another gas cooktop.

Growing up, I wasn't much of a meat eater. I never cared much for calves liver but my mom lightly breaded and fried chicken livers in bacon fat and served them with mushrooms and onions, also cooked in the bacon fat and I liked that. Always liked paté, too, and will probably make something along that line with some of this package.

I always like a recipe that uses both the beets & greens and this is a good one. Works well as a side because you can throw the beets and everything but the greens into the pan and leave it to simmer while you do other things and just toss the greens in towards the end. I know liver isn't for everyone but with their flavorful spice marinade and bright squeeze of lime juice, these are pretty great! Well...you know....if you're a liver lover!

Chicken livers on toast from the breakfast chapter of Dishoom, recipe online here. Also balsamic glazed beets & beet greens.

A light lunch for Ash Wednesday featuring beets for a Valentine's Day color scheme. Based on a recipe in Susan Spungen's Open Kitchen for Whipped Ricotta Toast with Pickled Rhubarb and Grated Beets. I made the Creamy Ricotta from Bestia, which is pretty decadent from the added heavy cream and has a bit of a tang from the buttermilk used as the coagulating agent. I followed this recipe's instruction to whip the ricotta with lemon juice and zest. No rhubarb about so I cast about for subs and ended up pickling a mix of apple slices and halved fresh cranberries. The grated beets are raw and add an earthy flavor and chewy texture. Sort of odd, although not unpleasant with the creamy ricotta and tangy pickle. This is supposed to be a party appetizer but it seems like a dangerous choice both for the guests' clothing and the host's upholstery.

No, everything was mixed into the dough. There should be no need to snort or sniff at the cookies. Assuming you're actually chewing them and not swallowing them whole, normal retronasal olfaction should be quite sufficient to deliver odor molecules in food or drink in the mouth to the receptors in the olfactory epithelium.

Emily's Famous Red Beans & Rice from the recipe in Shaya, made with Rancho Gordo King City Pinks and Massa Organics brown rice.

Eat Your Books is your friend: it shows only one book by the name that @Okanagancook mentioned, The Mozza Cookbook and it does indeed list the recipe you've been discussing: Pan-roasted pork chops with olives and Sambuca-braised fennel. Not only that, but the recipe is available online. The EYB link is broken but I was able to get it via the wayback machine. Give it a while to load, it's rather slow: https://web.archive.org/web/20150315094608/http://cookstr.com/recipes/pan-roasted-pork-chops-with-olives-and-sambuca-braised-fennel

There are a lot of brown sugar shortbread recipes out there so you might consider them in drawing your conclusions, along with your personal taste, of course. David Lebovitz makes a thin, crisp version here and advises they are best eaten the day of baking. Melissa Clark includes a brown sugar variation, playing around with a basic shortbread here, where you will also see a number of flavoring suggestions. I've made quite a few flavored shortbreads where the flavors come through nicely. One example would be Deb Perelman's olive oil shortbread with rosemary. I’ve also made the salted rosemary shortbread, ginger rye shortbread, rose pistachio shortbread, fresh mint and lime shortbread, juniper olive shortbread and buttered rum shortbread, all from Sister Pie, and all had detectable flavors when eaten at room temp so I’m not sure your conclusion that added flavors require a warm, moist cookie is broadly applicable.

Yes, Korean fried chicken. I understand that it's often called Korean Fried Chikin for the reason you mention! They seem to have gone half way, calling it "chiken" 🙃

On the pricing, I rarely go out to restaurants so I'm no judge but I think everything has gotten really expensive, especially for small places that can't take advantage of big corporate purchasing contracts. I recently saw a mention of a new Korean restaurant in Ventura and was sort of shocked at the menu prices. A "small bite" kimchi pancake: $13.45. Kimchi fried rice: $15.75 plus $4 if you want to add beef or $3.50 for pork. Fruit drinks like mango-ade: $8.25. Adds up! Edited to add that it's a "fast-casual" place where you order at a touch-screen kiosk and pick up your food and utensils at a counter in the back.

There's a local take-out spot that makes excellent jambalaya, gumbo and etoufee. They might be closed today if they have a lot of catering jobs but if they're open, maybe I'll treat myself to one of your recommendations. I'd always heard that the RB&R was made on Monday because they could use the ham bone leftover from Sunday dinner and because Monday was traditionally laundry day, it was good to have something that could simmer all day without attention. Either way, Tuesday clearly isn't the right day!

well, I grew up in northern NY state with pancakes for Shrove Tuesday and now I’m in SoCal where anything goes 🤣 But, do tell, what would your raised in NO wife deem an acceptable meal for today?

Still aiming towards the RB&R. I put a pound of Rancho Gordo Domingo Rojos to soak. They're what I usually use but then I realized that I have a bag of RG's King City Pinks and they may be more traditional so I put them to soak as well. I retrieved the andouille sausage from the freezer. Sadly, I apparently used the last smoked hock from Broadbent. I'll sub a little bacon seasoning meat from Father's (overwhelmingly smoky on its own) and supplement with some ham from Broadbent's dinner steaks. Just need to go to the store for a green bell pepper - I'm not a hater 🤣 Even sadder than the lack of a smoked ham hock in my freezer is the fact that California's meddlesome Prop 12 means that Broadbent won't ship me any more of them...or any of their other pork products. Dang!

I'm think I'm going to do the Red Beans & Rice from Shaya but I should sroll back through this topic for other ideas.