blue_dolphin

I'm an avid cookbook user but not a social media maven so not quite sure what to make of this NYT article: How TikTok Is Reshaping the American Cookbook (gift link) The only book mentioned in the article that I own is James Beard award winner, Korean Vegan, which I purchased after listening to several interviews with the author and I like it. Had no idea she was a TikTok presence 🙃 Obviously, TikTok cookbooks aren't an area I'm familiar with but it seems pretty similar to any other sort of "celebrity" cookbooks, which is nothing new and hardly "reshaping" anything, They both seem to be great money-makers for the publishers but not so appealing to me. I've purchased cookbooks by old-school bloggers like David Lebovitz, Deb Perelman, Heidi Swanson, etc. who earned my trust by publishing reliable recipes over the course of many years but many of these people sound clueless WRT writing and testing recipes. As to the article itself, I'm not sure why they felt the need to cite everyone's age.

Yesterday's doctored up mornay with spinach, country ham and caramelized onions got warmed up, slapped on toasted sourdough and broiled into a mornay-toastie!

I agree with the Heidi Swanson recommendation. She doesn't post as frequently as she used to but there are tons of good recipes there and if you like what you see on her website, I can recommend her book, Super Natural Every Day. Quite a few recipes in there that I make often, some I know well enough that I no longer need the book!

Since I still stand by all of these and am too lazy to re-type, I'm going to start by quoting a more general recommendation I made a couple of years ago in the Vegetarian Cookbooks topic. I'd especially recommend Deborah Madison's The Savory Way and Mollie Kaizen's Still Life with Menu for you, along with Ottolenghi's Plenty and Plenty More. On to newer books, a recent Eater piece, This Cookbook Isn’t Vegetarian. It’s ‘Vegetable-Forward.’ might be of interest to you. Of the books they mention, I'd definitely recommend Hetty Liu McKinnon's Tenderheart for you. It's organized by vegetable and they're all widely available, nothing that only turns up a special farm markets on the first full moon after the last frost. The recipes are all straightforward and I've enjoyed everything I've cooked from it. There's a photo for every dish, everything is vegetarian with suggestions to vegan-ize all but the egg-centric dishes. I also really like Abra Berens' three books, Grist (with a focus on grains and legumes), Ruffage (focus on vegetables) and Pulp (focus on fruit). I think of them as "idea" books because they are full of variations, riffs and suggestions for substitutions. They have a limited number of photos and some of the recipes are barely sketched out (a few in Ruffage are literally just little drawings!) so I wouldn't recommend them to someone who doesn't know how to cook but someone who knows what they like and enjoys taking ownership of what they're cooking can find some great ideas to run with. You might appreciate the sections in Grist on "a week of _______ with no boredom" where the blank might be black beans, barley, etc. There are photos, but relatively few of them. Also mentioned in that article, I just got Susan Spungen's VEG Forward but haven't cooked from it yet and I have Nik Sharma's VEG TABLE on pre-order and am looking forward to it. If you like Ottolenghi's style but aren't sure about Plenty and Plenty More, the recent Ottolenghi Test Kitchen book Extra Good Things by Noor Murad might be one to consider because of its tables and pull-outs to help choose recipes (see my post here to see what they look like.)

This was supposed to be lunch but I wasn't hungry 'til late enough to call it dinner. Tandoori Swordfish Steaks from Nik Sharma's Season. The fish gets a tandoori-style marinade with yogurt and spices but is grilled, not actually cooked in a tandoor. It's served on a pumpkin-garlic purée and topped with a coconut oil tadka.

I doctored up the leftover mornay from yesterday with caramelized onions, diced country ham and spinach, used that to make a grilled breakfast sando:

I find using a fork can help avoid that result.

It may just be a weird American way of differentiating that style from what some of us crazy Americans refer to as "French Service" where the waiters bring platters of food to the table and use serving utensils to place the food on the diners plates. Usually each waiter has one platter and they move around the table until everyone has been served each dish. There's also "Butler Service" where the servers present the platters, with utensils, to each diner in turn and the diner uses the utensils to transfer their serving from the platter to their own plates. My experience with these types of service has always been in banquet situations, although occasionally in restaurants with set menus. Edited to add that I suspect there is a lack of consistency in the use of these terms, both across countries and even within countries.

Inspired by this article in the LA Times, describing the Croque Matthieu from Pasjoli restaurant in Santa Monica. This description lured me in: Since the article also provides a bit more info on how it's constructed, I had to give it a try. Sorry for the bad photo. But not disappointed with the result!

I like that idea a lot. I've got a lot of jalapeños, cherry bombs and Fresnos so I'm set for that option!

I'm not a fine dining or catering professional so I probably shouldn't be poking my nose into this forum I wanted to say that it might make your query easier to answer if you sketched out your current understanding of the terms. From my experience as a guest, I've always thought that hand service was the same as synchronized service where the wait staff, carrying 2 domed plates each, surround a table, simultaneously place a plate in front of everyone then step back and, again simultaneously, remove all the domes. I've also seen this as s two-step process, without the domes, where the wait staff circle the table, set the plates in their left hands down, take a step, switch the plate to their other hand and repeat the the process for the other diners. I assumed wave service was also plated service but the wait staff work through the whole room from one end to the other as efficiently as possible. Hope you get some real answers, too!

Sadly, I have no freezer space but while I have you here, when you use Romas for this, do you peel them and cut them up or just throw them in whole as with the cherry tomatoes? Thanks! I'm sure I could fit a jar or two of these in the fridge!

I do really love those! Never tried with Romas but I will give it a try. Also, I've always just stored them in the freezer. Do you just ladle them into jars and waterbath process? Do you need to add anything to acidify?

I'm looking for some tomato ideas. A local farm does pick-your-own Roma tomatoes for 40 cents/lb. It's usually over Labor Day weekend and it's usually blazing hot but this year, the tomatoes were late, there are still some on the plants and it's cooled down nicely so I'm going to get some today. I'm aiming for about 25 lbs, nothing compared with what most of you work with, but I'm just cooking for one. I'm going to make a batch of @Suvir Saran's Tomato Chutney and I want to put up some jars of Vivian's stewed tomatoes from Deep Run Roots, which I'll process without the breadcrumbs. I'll put some into a batch of Red Weapons from This Will Make It Taste Good, though that only uses a few pounds. Seeing @Smithy & @MaryIsobel's recent salsa posts makes me think I should try a small batch, even though I'm not usually a fan of cooked salsas unless I doctor them up with a lot of fresh stuff. I can alway just make some basic tomatoes in jars although I'm more interested in stuff I can't easily buy. Any other ideas for me to try? Unfortunately, since my fridge died and was replaced with a small one, my freezer capacity is nil and I don't have a pressure canner so I'm looking for things that can be waterbath processed.

Quite a few of Wild Fork sausages labeled "uncured" are well and truly fresh sausages (Italian sausage, bratwurst, etc.), not cured in any way and need to be kept refrigerated or frozen until used. Edited to add that others, like the kielbasa, are indeed cured with celery powder or the like. I guess you gotta check the ingredients to be sure.

Have you looked at this one that @CanadianHomeChef shared earlier in this topic?

Well, using the quote from @Jinmyo that appears in the first post in this topic: the buffet selection it seems to fit, although the coconut rice seems unique and gochujang is missing. Mixing would certainly be easier in a bowl but could be done on a plate. Eggs are verycommon but seem problematic for a buffet. Wonder if that's why they're missing? Given the wedding selections, I'm curious if that restaurant makes Korean tacos, à la Roy Choi or their own version? Anyway, thanks for bumping the topic. Last time I bought kimchi, I got a jar of radish kimchi and one of cucumber kimchi and bibimbap sounds like a fun way to use them!

I was wondering about this as well. Restaurateur Kathy Sidell opened a branch of Saltie Girl in LA. They're a full-on restaurant, not just a wine bar opening tins of fish here and there, but their tinned fish menu is part of their draw. They serve tins with a trio of salts, French butter, pickled piparra peppers, a house-made piquillo pepper jam and french bread and they offer an interesting selection. I'd say that goes beyond sourcing and opening bottle of lemon water Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio and pouring it into a wine glass. The mark-ups seem fairly reasonable to me so I'd be as willing to pay as I am when I find unusual wines in a restaurant. But I agree that paying three or four times retail for widely available, low-end products isn't appealing, whether it's wine or tinned fish!

Egg salad & arugula on a TJ's mini croissant.

Interesting little tidbit from @rancho_gordo in a bean club discussion. He said they monitor the moisture level in their beans as they are drying, targeting a level that's good for the home cook. He described visiting Italy and seeing beans being dried much more than that because the farmers wanted to avoid even the slightest chance mold, etc. My take-home, without any actual testing on my part, was that there might indeed be beans that would benefit from a nice soak if the goal is a completely smooth, evenly creamy purée with no firm bits.

Used some of the pickled shiso leaves in this Quinoa Bowl With Jammy Eggs & Pickled Shiso They're a great salty, tangy little condiment. The recipe said to use one piece and I suppose it may depend on the size of the leaves, but I used several in my bowl. I'll make more.

Some granola recipes use egg white to help bind the bits together. Or a couple of tablespoons of ground flaxseeds mixed with the same amount of water to make a slurry. You could try subbing one of those for part of your maple syrup.

I'm afraid I'm no help. There's a local farm that grows the peppers and sells a small quantity but I've never managed to get any from them. This would probably be a good time for me to ask again. Boonville Barn also sells their own California-grown stuff. I ended up getting a little 15g jar at a local gourmet/import shop. It seemed reasonable, compared with airfare to the south of France, but I do tend to hoard it!

Eric Kim's Rosé Shrimp from NYT Cooking. The shrimp come out really nice and shrimpy and the orange zest and piment d’Espelette work really well together. Next time, I'll have this with crusty bread to sop up the sauce instead of diluting it with the pasta.

Fly tying was my first thought, as this one is described but you are quite correct that it's really a general purpose "helping hands (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)" sort of thing. Edited to add that with all these stunning food and drink photos, I can't believe I'm choosing to comment on a piece of vintage table decor 🙄 Thanks, @liamsaunt, for taking us along on these marvelous trips!