Katie Meadow

I have one of these tomato presses. They are not well designed, but they do work and they are relatively cheap. And best of all it's great looking and a fabulous color. https://www.amazon.com/Tomato-Strainer-Manual-Vegetables-Kitchen/dp/B0CGNS2QZV/ref=sxin_16_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?content-id=amzn1.sym.1ac62dee-1169-4bf4-91b9-84fe33c930b1%3Aamzn1.sym.1ac62dee-1169-4bf4-91b9-84fe33c930b1&crid=CEORR5OG5WYS&cv_ct_cx=tomato+press&keywords=tomato+press&pd_rd_i=B0CGNS2QZV&pd_rd_r=f46f905f-0898-4376-84df-200745c2ddda&pd_rd_w=HVKeM&pd_rd_wg=lrV2e&pf_rd_p=1ac62dee-1169-4bf4-91b9-84fe33c930b1&pf_rd_r=CS1MK71MQNB3H76PJQ0K&qid=1743436988&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=tomato+press%2Caps%2C164&sr=1-1-6024b2a3-78e4-4fed-8fed-e1613be3bcce-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9zZWFyY2hfdGhlbWF0aWM&psc=1

And @Neely one more anti-slime okra treatment is my husband's adaptation of Vivian Howard's Okra Oven Fries. Heat the oven to 400F. Slice the pods in half lengthwise, cutting off the stem end if you like. Toss the okra halves with olive oil, salt, pepper, and any other spice of choice. Howard suggests ground coriander, we like smoked paprika. Place the halves cut side down on a baking sheet.Don't crowd them. Roast for 15 minutes. Turn the halves over and roast another 15 minutes or more to desired crispness. The pieces should be partly browned, partly crispy, partly a little soft. Really great for cocktail hour with a Bloody Mary. Or with a Porch Swing. Or on a porch swing.

I've often seen red bell peppers combined with tomatoes for a soup. A little tomato might reduce the bitterness and also support good color. I'm surprised your roasted peppers were bitter. Usually I find roasted red pepper dressed with salt and olive oil (when done by myself) to be pretty sweet. I've roasted tomatoes with a sprinkle of brown sugar, so as suggested above, sugar might help, and cream too.

Pain meds yes, but also a gummy.

Those compostable bags present a new problem. In my experience they shorten the life of some produce, especially fresh herbs if stored in the fridge because they seem to encourage condensation and get very damp. One solution that helps is to wrap the herbs in paper towels inside the bags. But then of course you are using paper towels, which also should be avoided.

There's a toney market that we rarely shop at but we were in the neighborhood and needed bread. Organic pasture-raised eggs were $14.99 a dozen! That's some kind of record for our neck of the woods. We need eggs but not that badly.

I see chile or chili as being about the most adaptable of meals in America, so calling a "bowl of red" authentic can mean many things to many people in many places. That said, the problem with using brisket already cooked is this: how do you get a meaty broth if you are not simmering the meat yourself? As for BBQ, if you fancy that in a chile, it would be more like Brunswick Stew in parts of the South, but typically it's pork. But you could invent a Texas version with brisket. Although that might already be a thing.

@Tan Can Cook Hi. I've never eaten at that restaurant but I have eaten at Special Noodle in that same complex. One of my favorite dishes there is the Soup Pan Fried Buns. Not that many places serve that and theirs are really good. If you know of other places that do that in the East Bay let me know! I'm in Oakland, and the place that makes them near me doesn't compare. Anyway, welcome!

My Lithuanian ancestors would be thrilled to have chicken fried rice, no matter what. I'm sure they ate Chinese every Sunday, like we did on the upper west side of Mannahatta.

Not really surprised. L.et's hope I get another twenty years out of it. By then I'll be 97 and won't remember where the kitchen is.

I I love my Viking. It is now over 30 years old. We have needed service on it twice, neither time major, although of course service calls don't come super cheap, but that shouldn't be too surprising. It's a workhorse with heavy duty cast iron grates, Very high flame to very low simmer, easy to adjustl. We bought it with a cast iron wok grate that can be subbed in and that's fantastic. Since the Bay Area is a big city it isn't hard to find independent contractors who know how to work on Vikings. Maybe that would be challenging in a small town or in the countryside. Really my biggest complaint is that the marks on the oven dials are getting hard to read after so much use. Not critical yet, and I assume it can be remedied one way or another. I don't know if the new models are as reliable. But that goes for many appliances.

@Smithy YOU. ARE. AWESOME.

I criticize my own cooking all the time. Only then will my husband join in. But usually he softens the blow and is actually wrong about the reason something isn't as good as one hoped. If we make a recipe for the first time and it's awful, it often is the fault of the recipe. And wow, there are a lot of bad recipes out there. In a similar vein the habit of some recipe writers to include a paragraph headlined, "Why you will love this" irritates me no end. I might love it, but the odds are not good. As for menus that describe a dish as beautiful or delicious, well, I agree, that's rarely a good omen.

https://www.thekitchn.com/polenta-versus-grits-whats-the-difference-187807 This is an in-depth dive into grits vs polenta. I'm sure this information is already here on eG somewhere, but it's worth repeating. Bob's red mill medium grihnd cornmeal is a fantastic product; I use it all the time to make cornbread or to add it to baked goods that include cornmeal. My preferred type of cornmeal pudding/mush is American made grits. The good stuff is stone ground and made specifically from cornmeal sold as grits. There are a number of mills that will ship to you. This is not instant grits, by any means. You can get white grits or yellow grits and they taste a little different. Cornmeal in the Americas is typically made from "dent" corn while cornmeal made in Italy used for polenta is made from "flint" corn. Italian polenta is often made from finely ground corn. I'm sure that excellent corm meal mush can be made from just about any kind of corn and with various grinds. But my suggestion for a a baseline polenta would be to actually by an Italian product, fine ground if you are looking for a silkier texture. To my knowledge most Italian polenta is made from yellow corn, but that's the extent of my info when it comes to Italian grown flint corn. Needless to say there's a wealth of information on line about the difference between grits and polenta, and not all of it simple--or correct. I'm no expert but I do love most things corn. @Shel_B I'm glad you have come up with something that pleases you, but it does sound like a rather complicatied method.

Related to drought/lack of humidity is warming. To survive the trees have to move up the hill.