blue_dolphin

I've never eaten at Taco Bell nor have I eaten anything other than an occasional apple and piece of cheese while driving. I know I’m a fossil but I have never owned a car with an automatic transmission. When I’m driving, I’m driving and when I’m eating, I’m eating. Still, I enjoyed the article for its view into a different world.

Your table looks so pretty and spring-like, @Kim Shook, I love it!

I need to make some bagels. Maybe I'll set up the dough tonight. Maybe I'll be too lazy. We'll see. Today's breakfast was lazy: toasted baguette slices with almond butter and chili crisp, a couple of dates and coffee.

I’m not a big supermarket shopper but they are readily available in my area. They are sometimes mis-labeled as pasilla, like the ones I bought the other day at Smart & Final. Even the Aldi near me has them. Trader Joe’s is a mixed bag but Sprouts, Ralph’s, Vons, Albertsons generally have them in stock.

That was my take as well. I thought it was a pretty balanced article discussing the issues with dietary research on human subjects. It's so hard - we're just not good lab rats!

Those little wire egg slicers work quite nicely to make slices, assuming the wires are at the spacing you desire and are very easy to clean. My grandmother had one that I was always enamored of and I believe I was allowed to slice Play-Doh with it at some point. On the onions, I think there are a lot of chopping gadgets that might suit you, depending on how many onions you need to chop at a time, whether you need to dice only or also want to mince, chop and slice as well and how much patience you have for cleaning the thing!

My sense is that inexpensive multi-use devices rarely perform multiple tasks really well. I tend to doubt that an inexpensive vegetable chopper, handy for dicing lots of onions would also produce lovely, garnish-worthy egg slices. But maybe you're not looking for pretty eggs. Personally, I'm very happy to use the same sharp knife for both tasks but I'm not slicing dozens of eggs nor dicing more than 5 lbs of onions at a time so I absolutely understand why someone might want an alternative. Everyone has their own needs and value perceptions, both of which change over time.

I love it! We had Kool-Aid for a rare summer treat but it was always mixed up in an opaque plastic pitcher. I was sure that it must have tasted amazing in that chilled glass pitcher! Never connected the dots but I do have a weakness for pretty glass pitchers!

Leftovers for me, too. Breakfast quesadilla with that corn-poblano salad mix that I used on Saturday, scrambled eggs (the two that broke when I was trying to make the fried egg in that post and pepper jack cheese.

It's nothing like Jerusalem or Ottolenghi, Plenty, Plenty More or Nopi, but I hope you’ll find 3 bucks worth of good things to try!

I was wondering about that as well. If they formatted the pullout tables with links to the recipes, it could be even better than the print version. Also, I love being an enabler 😂

The Kindle version of Ottolenghi Test Kitchen's Extra Good Things (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) is $2.99 on Amazon in the US and Canada. Today only. Price expires at midnight, all least according to Alexa, who informed me of this deal. I think it's quite a good little book and had more (way more 🤣) to say about it over in this post back in Feb.

The book actually calls for beer or white wine but suggests hard cider or diluted vinegar as alternates in the header notes. No beer or white wine in the house but I had a bottle of cider hanging around It's this Henry Hotspur's Hard Pressed for Cider which I think may be a TJ's label and I know nothing about cider so I have no idea what style it is. I put the rest of the bottle in the fridge and will give it a taste later. I'll be curious what you think of Ruffage. At a minimum, I think you will enjoy the stories she tells throughout the book. I've said this before around here but I think Abra Beren's books are great "idea" books where she throws out a bunch of variations and lets you run with them. Some of the variations are as simple as short lists of alternate ingredient combinations and others are literally sketched out in the form of a drawing with a few arrows and fewer words. In Grist, her second book, she tends to provide a bit more information. In both books, she leans into condiments which appear in the front of the books. I know some are annoyed by sub-recipes like that but I've found most of them pretty simple so no disaster if I forgot to plan ahead. I've read through her new book, Pulp, but I haven't cooked anything from it yet. It's based on fruits that are grown in the midwest. For each fruit, she offers several prep methods (raw, roasted, grilled, poached, stewed, baked, preserved) with both a sweet and savory recipe for each method. Instead of condiments, there's a "Baker's Toolkit" up front with recipes for breads, batters, doughs, crusts, toppings, etc. that are used later in the book.

Braised collards with sausage and apples from Ruffage with grainy mustard and sharp cheddar cheese toasts. This was good and pretty quick for something with "braise" in the title. I think the intent with this recipe is to use a small amount of meat as a seasoning but I had a package of Toulouse sausages I'm working on finishing so I made it into a main dish. The hard cider used for the braise brings a nice acidity to the greens.

This link to Eat Your Books should take you to the list of recipes in the book. Does that help? Edited to add that the Index at the back of the book is 12 pages long. The table of contents in the front only lists the chapter titles, not all the individual recipes.

Garlic-smashed chickpeas with poblano-corn salad and a fried egg topped with paprika chili oil from Grist This is so true! I wanted a nice fried egg for this breakfast and managed to nick the yolks on not one, but two eggs before I got this one out of the shell unscathed. I should have just scrambled that first one, but noooooo! Now I have to go bake something that uses 2 eggs 🤣

I wonder if it could be spelled perchero? Google translate gives that as the Spanish for coat rack. I like the idea, similar to the little purse stools they brought us in fancy Paris restaurants. Perfect for showing off your Hermès bag to the dining room. Or, in my case, my handy backpack 🙃

Thanks for the opah mention. I just signed up with a weekly "catch of the day" service here in SoCal and opah is listed as one of the optional "add-ons" for the coming week. I don't think I've ever had it and certainly not cooked it but may give it a try!

I'm not sure how much room is inside those small stars, but I have some battery operated, rechargeable tea lights. The candle base is 1 5/8" in diameter x 7/8" high and the faux flame bulb adds another inch to the overall height. Since they're not real candles, they could go in at any angle. Not all that realistic on their own but they flicker gently so they're not bad inside a holder of some sort. And they'll never ignite a cat or kitten tail or cause a conflagration if I leave them "burning" 🙃

Very excited that my favorite sandwich guru, Max Halley, will be a guest judge on tonight's episode. He's really a hoot and I'm wondering if they'll let him be himself or not. Could be a challenge language-wise. He's looking uncharacteristically serious in this photo he posted on his IG I also want to watch the NCAA women's gymnastics semifinals and have a Zoom Jews United for Democracy event on my calendar, all at the same time. Weighing my options!

Cassoulet toast from Susan Spungen's Open Kitchen, recipe online here. I mostly followed the recipe but used Rancho Gordo cassoulet beans and added one of the Toulouse sausages that I cooked for yesterday's breakfast. A big bowl of cassoulet is a bit too much for me, but this always hits the spot!

I also got the email yesterday for an April 12-14 sale. As far as I know, you can only view the current sale so unless you made note of the previous sale prices, there isn’t a good way to compare. I bought that copper core 4 qt chef’s pan w/ domed lid from them in 2020 for $139.95 but have not monitored the price since then. It's a nice pan, but pretty heavy. The pan itself weighs about 5 lbs and the lid is about 1 lb 12 oz so I definitely appreciate the helper handle.

Indeed. Like Kleenex, Tupperware seems to describe the whole category - in this case, storage containers. I never had any of the real deal Tupperware but I absolutely have a Tupperware drawer!

I think they are very good 'idea' books. Lots of variations make it easy to find something to suit what’s on hand. There are photos but they represent a minority of the recipes. That doesn’t bother me but some people want a photo of each dish. She also leans into condiments that appear as sub recipes, also disliked by some. Generally, I’ve found them to be pretty simple so no big deal if I forgot to prep ahead. Some of the variations are minimally sketched out, literally presented in pen and ink drawings with a few arrows, or just as a list of alternate ingredients following the main recipe. I’m always scaling recipes based on what and how much I want to eat so I’m fine with that but they may not suit someone who wants more precise instructions.

Garlic-smashed chickpeas with roasted carrots, broccolini and ras el hanout apricot almond rig from Grist As you can see in the photo, the smashed chickpeas look rather dry. Reviewing the recipe, I see I was supposed to add butter to them along with the garlic. Maybe I'll try that next time. Or not. I didn't really feel like fat was lacking, just moisture. In any case, the combo of flavors and textures is very good.