blue_dolphin

They were good. Now I wish I’d headed over there today to get some!

This place is Valley Marketplace, previously Valley Produce. It’s a small, family-owned business with just 3 locations in Reseda, Simi Valley and Valencia. Not really worth the drive from anywhere unless you need a lot of something that happens to be on special. There's a Vallarta (SoCal Mexican grocery chain with 55 locations) right next door to the Simi location but I haven’t seen ox tails there. Maybe ya gotta ask?

I believe that it is indeed possible to measure volumes of salt with sufficient precision to determine whether the two samples differ enough to impact cooking results. If you weigh 10 separate 1T (or 1 tsp or 1 cup, depending on your scale) measurements of the two salts, taking reasonable care, and if there is no difference, I’d contend they are interchangeable. You may prefer one texture to another when used for finishing but that’s a different question.

Yes, they're kind of a pan-ethnic market. Persian and Mexican are most highly represented but they have other cuisines as well. Fun place to wander around.

Per this week’s ad from a local market, oxtails and short ribs are both $6.99/lb. Those are “specials,” regular prices are a buck or two/lb higher. This market does not have any pre-packaged meats, except frozen items like rabbits. Everything else is cut and packaged to order with 3-5 butchers usually on duty. Edited to add a photo from a post from 2022 when the tails were $4.99/lb so they have gone up in price. They were still frozen when they sliced them for me.

Thanks for the reminder! I just put it on my “hold” list at the library. I've got plenty of pasta cookbooks and don’t need another one but would like to get a look at it. I’m 18th in line for 10 copies so I should get it in ~ a month.

Ditto what @liuzhou said! I love visiting markets when I travel - even if they're not as amazing as these. And how nice that your hotel procured the cobek for you, @KennethT, and explained their quality concerns. I'd say their price was worth it. Lovely piece.

It’s a sign - you’re meant to have cheesecake for breakfast!

I just started watching Omnivore, René Redzepi’s new TV series on Apple TV+. It appears the first three of eight episodes are available for screening. It's quite lovely to watch. Here's a WSJ review: ‘Omnivore’ Review: René Redzepi’s Tasty Travels on Apple TV+ (supposedly a gift link) Eater thinks it should have been a different show: In René Redzepi’s ‘Omnivore,’ Noma Is the Center of the Culinary Universe And that’s not a good thing Hollywood Reporter review: ‘Omnivore’ Review: Noma’s René Redzepi Hosts an Apple TV+ Food Docuseries That’s as Thought-Provoking as It Is Hunger-Inducing LATimes: Q&A: Noma chef René Redzepi wants to make insects delicious. In ‘Omnivore,’ he explains why (paywall likely) Anyone else watching?

Stock 💯

Remove skin and bones then cook the heck out of them so they are dried out with the texture of cotton balls. That describes chicken breasts to me! More seriously, are they just drumsticks or leg quarters with leg and thigh? If the former, I agree with @btbyrd, though I prefer an unroasted stock.

Thank you for sharing, @KennethT! Your hotel looked like a pretty good spot to chill and recover but I know that wasn’t the plan and I've got my fingers crossed that you felt better for the rest of the trip!

Yes, you can, although it works better with some things than others as the blades not only mix but also chop things to smithereens!

I think you will like it. It has chapters for custard ice cream, Philadelphia-style, sherbet and frozen yogurt. I haven’t used too many of her mix-ins, some would get too pulverized by the Creami, but her method of melting chocolate with a little coconut oil makes a great melt-in-your mouth chocolate chip addition.

I saw this recipe for a tall, cool drink: Trader Joe’s Lemon Gin Refresher and gave it a try: Refreshing and not too sweet, depending on your choice of limoncello. I used my homemade stuff instead of purchasing the TJ's offering. Reporting here that I tried the McConnell's coffee ice cream I bought at Whole Foods. As mentioned above, it was just labeled coffee rather than Turkish coffee. It had a lot of fine coffee bean grit which ruined the mouthfeel for me although the coffee flavor is quite nice. I think I could tolerate a few bigger bean chunks over this much fine grit. I was going to go to their scoop shop last week to try the Brazilian coffee (my fish share pick-up is on the way) but the traffic was atrocious so I skipped it. Warm fish and melty ice cream are not a fine combo. Maybe next week.

Contact their customer support. Since yours is new, it should be within warranty and they have been offering to replace the units in those cases.

In another topic, @Smithy mentioned the liquid gold that is bacon drippings. This reminded me of my neighborhood's annual 4th of July breakfast that follows the little parade of kids and horses. They cook the pancakes on-site but always ask for volunteers to cook bacon at home and drop it off. Each volunteer cooks 5 lbs of bacon, provided by the committee. 55 lbs total. My first thought: Wow, I could get a LOT of free bacon drippings that way!

It's an Italian Parmigiano Reggiano Stravecchio (meaning aged at least 3 years) from Trader Joe's. It was $16.99/lb and the flavor is very good. They tend to have those older Parms around the holidays so I stock up. Not sure if it’s still in stores or not.

The Dana Cree book, Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream is really an excellent one for learning about ice cream and she uses interesting flavors. While I wouldn't say the recipes are particularly time consuming, it's not a book of "superquick prep ideas," either so I don't want you to be disappointed. To give you an idea, her "Blank Slate Frozen Yogurt" that you can adapt with your own flavors, contains Greek yogurt, cream, milk or water, sugar, glucose and a texture agent of your choice (commercial stabilizer, guar or xanthan gum, tapioca starch or cornflour) and she adds the step of warming the dairy and sweeteners (you definitely want that heating step with cornflour or tapioca starch and some commercial stabilizers), before cooling and mixing in the yogurt. She strains the mixture through a sieve at this point, but that's not necessary for the Creami. One of the recipes in the book uses that Blank Slate Frozen Yogurt and mixes in chopped Amarena cherries and chocolate chunks so I'm going to try that one next!

For the Ninja Creami Deluxe, 11-in-1, it basically says this:

Happy Birthday! I’ve made several recipes using Greek yogurt, mostly from the recipes in Dana Cree's book, Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream.

I got ocean whitefish, a type of tilefish, in my weekly fish share and tried a quick and easy recipe for Mustardy Cracker Crumb Fish from Julia Turshen's Simply Julia. With a side of potato salad tossed with Caesar dressing. Those little spuds were red through and through. Thankfully the dressing the celery masked their initial appearance.

I grew up on Glazier hot dogs - quite red with a very snappy casing!

Perhaps not what this topic was intended for but it's food and it's making me laugh, so I'm sharing it here. Yesterday, I bought a bag of mixed fingerling potatoes and decided to use some to test out a potato salad with Caesar dressing. I bag was mostly red ones, so I grabbed a few and cut them up. I was surprised to see they were red inside, too, but just threw them in the pot and boiled them up. Now, I've drained them and they look exactly like a bunch of cut up hot dogs! Good grief!

They sound excellent. I hope you’ll share how you use them. I'm really bad at using spice blends, whether they’re gifts or stuff I purchased myself.