blue_dolphin

Yes, they are very messy trees, dropping leaves, branches and berries all over the place! As you said, I just dry them at room temp for a few days and crush them as needed. I tried them after reading this Garden Betty blog post. I'm not tremendously enamored of the flavor but I haven’t experienced any ill effects at all.

I see the Massa Organics brown rice is finally back in stock!

In my peppercorn collection, there are a couple kinds of black peppercorns. My main Unicorn magnum grinder is currently filled with Aranya pepper from India. An auxiliary grinder is filled with Vietnamese black pepper. Both of these have fruity notes but the former leans more to warm dried fruits and the latter towards bright citrus. Another auxillary grinder, chosen for its very fine grind, houses white peppercorns and I use them occasionally. I have both red and green Sichuan peppercorns, though I usually bash them as needed with a mortar and pestle rather than in a grinder. At the end of my driveway, I have a California pepper tree (Schinus molle, aka Peruvian pepper tree, not to be confused with the Brazilian pepper tree (Schinus terebinthifolia or Schinus terebinthifolius, which I also have popping up in weed-like fashion) that @heidih mentioned above. My tree offers me all the pink peppercorns I could ever want. I keep some in a small grinder along with black and white peppercorns that makes for a nice mixed finishing pepper but if a recipe specifically calls for pink peppercorns, then I try to plan ahead, get some from the tree and let them dry a bit.

Yes, that's the same one I mentioned upthread. I am lucky to be able to get it easily. I went to a holiday friend's gathering the other day where we usually exchange small gifts. I gave everyone butter 🤣

The first link that @Anna N posted says: So perhaps they are a descendant of the Brittany Roscoff that I mentioned. Of course, I suppose the Spanish Armada could have made a port stop in Brittany and planted them centuries ago! The Roscoffs have an interesting history with French Breton farmers or farm workers (onion Johnnys) selling those pink onions in England and Wales.

I remember the first time I tasted pesto. I brought a huge amount of basil home from the Santa Monica Farmer's market and followed the recipe in Mollie Kaizen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest. I remember breaking off pieces of ciabatta to wipe out the blender and being amazed at the intense flavor. The first batch of pesto each summer brings me back to that little apartment kitchen!

I wonder if they were similar to Roscoff onions from Brittany. I believe that name is appellation controlled but I'm sure similar onions are grown elsewhere. Yesterday, I bought some Bordier butter flavored with Roscoff onion, one of Bordier's seasonal winter flavors.

Thanks for taking time to pull together an amusing and entertaining review, @Anna N. Even though it seems rather ill-suited to your preferences, you kept your sense of humor and gave us a good sense of the book!

We'll let Jacques know to keep his forks concealed when in Costa Rica 🤣 Note though that Jacques' primary use for the fork is not curling the omelet but distributing the egg evenly in the pan. I'm sure you are skilled enough not to need that but if one does, then the fork is already in hand and easy enough to use in guiding it onto the plate without really even touching the pan. From Pepin's classic The Art of Cooking, vol 2, in which he describes the classic French omelet, the country-style (browned), both of which can be either rolled or folded around a filling (aka stuffed omelet) and lastly, the flat, frittata-like farmer-style omelet. That sounds like what Jacques calls a flat, farmer-style omelet in his book, shown above, though he doesn't specifically call out the side of toast 🙃. I must say that I'm tempted to make one of those as it looks awfully good!

Sausage, duck egg & Cheddar with a drizzle of sriracha on a little brioche dinner roll. I had 2 of these.

I noticed that @kayb gets a 6 cup yield from a slow cooker batch. Not sure how many pounds goes in but I get about 1.5 cups of caramelized onions from 4-5 lbs on the stovetop so I’m thinking the slow cooker must yield a wetter product. Onion soup sounds perfect!

Good warning about that book, @Smithy! I have not yet approached it with an ingredient in mind. It's usually been, "Should I have cheese & crackers or is there anything easy here that I can feed myself..." I suppose if I were not particularly in the mood for cooking but wanted to smack someone something, this might be a good option! Is it by any chance the Smacked Vegetables with Feta & Dill?

Breakfast today will be a selection from this gift from my cousin: Hmmmm....where to start.....?

Pretty much. According to this, you're supposed to let them thaw a bit so they can properly be squished into the recesses of the waffle iron. My waffle iron isn't a Belgium-style, its recesses are more shallow but it should work with any kind. I have the small Cuisinart that's shown in that link. I only used about 10 tots, which didn't fill up the space so I just arranged them in a single layer in the middle. I forgot to set a timer but I'd say it took about 5 minutes, I used the same setting I usually use for waffles and they came out very nice and crispy. I want to try again to see if I can get some smaller, more latke-sized pieces.

Pardon my poor presentation. This is a small pile of tater tots cooked in a waffle iron then topped with a fried duck egg. Cooking the tots in the waffle iron is an excellent idea because you get lots of crispy bits. It does, however, require that the tots be at least partially thawed so they can be properly squished. I was thinking it would be a fun latke substitute and for one person, it kind of is. Should have used more appropriate latke toppings but the duck eggs were calling....quacking?

Bon voyage, @KennethT! I wish you and your wife a fabulous trip and look forward to hearing every food related detail whenever you have time, which I rather hope is when you return home!

I'd go with: red green smoky, aka chipotle or similar tropical, fruity with habanero or Scotch bonnet yellow peppers packed in vinegar in a shaker bottle hot honey would be a bonus item to include

Yes. And they all say that onions can be deeply caramelized in ~ 10 minutes! Seems like it would be much less frustrating for beginner cooks if they gave real world times! While I'm here, I'll mention that caramelizing 4 or 5 lbs of onions and storing them in a zip-lock in the freezer is such a great time saver. Just a few minutes ago, I broke off a chunk, thawed in the MW, spread on toasted baguette slices, topped with pecorino Romano and broiled a bit. Mmmmmmm. Perfect with a glass of red.

Don’t forget the lemon slices. When they get a little charred, they are the perfect counterpoint to the sweetness of the other ingredients!

Well, if you ever get the time, I'm sure we'd all love to hear more. Here's my story: At one time, I had a roommate from an Italian American family in NY state that always made a big deal of the Seven Fishes. One year, Tony's mother and brother came out to California for the holidays and his mom insisted on making a Fishes Feast. I took her to Santa Monica Seafood, which was quite busy with everyone preparing for the holiday. Dom DeLuise was ahead of us in line and Tony's mom was absolutely thrilled to meet him. He was a gem chatting with her. He admitted that he was only planning on 5 fishes that year. She was appalled and spent most of the time in line suggesting additional options for him. I think she nagged the poor guy into buying extra fish that he probably wasn't going to cook!

That's a really good suggestion. I think the most successful sheet pan meals I've tried are sausage-based. The one with sweet potatoes, merguez, dates and lemon slices from I Dream of Dinner, served with a green sauce was an excellent meal. She says no need to flip anything but I think a good stir mid-way was helpful. I steamed the dates first to make sure they wouldn't dry out too much but adding them at the midpoint stir time would be an easier alternative.

Welcome to eGullet, @Dave_E! Cute avatar! I think a few of us have posted about using recipes written for a Pacojet. I made the silky smooth chicken liver paté from the Modernist Pantry blog and posted about it over here in the Paté and Terrine cook-off topic. It was very luxurious!

Reporting back on the Manhattan egg nog. This is made like Morganthaler's Clyde Common egg nog (see link in above post) subbing bourbon for the tequila and Carpano Antica vermouth for the sherry. The Carpano Antica is fairly sweet so this came out a bit sweet for my taste. If I make it again, I will dial back the sugar to 2/3 of the original recipe so 300g for a full recipe rather than 450g. I tried using a few dashes of Angostura bitters as a garnish instead of nutmeg. It works nicely, helps balance the sweetness and you can try your hand at using a toothpick to make latte art on top of the glass 🙃

Given the long lead times, I think it's unrealistic to expect international celebrity products like cookbooks, television programming and magazine features to react swiftly to volatile economic conditions. That means there's a risk of things falling flat, as anyone who published entertaining cookbooks, restaurant guides or destination wedding planners in early 2020. Depending on their audiences, I might expect celebrity chefs who regularly publish newspaper columns or have their own online presence with blogs, Instagram, etc. to be a bit more reactive. That does require understanding who their audiences are and what's relevant to them. That Daily Mail Jamie Oliver-bashing article that I linked to mentioned that Oliver was also roasted as out of touch for a recent series on £1 dishes. I'm not sure exactly what the issue was. Maybe the dishes were priced out at £1 at the time of filming but no longer doable at that price by the time it aired. Or maybe it's just a haters gonna hate thing. Edited to add that I followed the link to read the £1 Wonders gripes (the DM article is here) and there are a number of concerns but it seems like many people felt they were being preached to about frugality by a guy worth £240 million so I guess we should ask whether it's even believable when celebrity chefs attempt to enter that space. Maybe this is a DM thing but it made me laugh that both of these Jamie Oliver TV show bashing articles ended up with a bunch of recipes from the just-trashed programs. As @gfweb suggested over in the other thread, maybe that negativity is just clickbait. Back to your questions. Would I engage with shows promoting budget meals? I don't watch much food TV, but if I heard good buzz, I might take a look. Budget-stretching strategies for large families? Probably not for me. I'm concerned about food waste and energy efficiency so if there were entertaining programs framed in that way, I would definitely check it out. As @heidih and @liuzhou have said, the TV stuff is largely entertainment.

In mass quantities, a la your Thanksgiving extravaganza!