Katie Meadow

Yeah, but it starts with NY water. By late afternoon it's more of a rich stock!

Those look very good. I agree that a good use for zucchini is in fritters. And it can be combined with a variety of other vegetables in the batter. Kohlrabi, corn, chard, etc. Fritters with a generous amount of fresh dill would be excellent with the other stuff on that plate. Even zukes perk up when they are fried and crispy. A good way to hide them, if you really need to, is to add them to a pureed green chile chowder. A couple of potatoes, a few roasted tomatillos, roasted green chile, broth, cilantro and so on. Very forgiving.

Terroir, c'est vrai? Same for dirty water dogs I suppose.

Not wild about zucchini or summer squash. Like broccoli zucchini isn't exactly a summer vegetable, since both are available year round. I'm love/hate about melons. I love a really good cantaloupe or a really good watermelon . But I am not fond of all the super-sweet melon varieties like Sharlyn and Crenshaw. Can't recall names of several others but if they are too sweet I don't want them. Not wild about bell peppers, either, although I do use a green one if I am making red beans and rice. Other peppers I DO like, especially hot ones.

Probably the same way a person like me detests broccoli but loves cauliflower and eats roasted brussels sprouts.

That's exactly what I used to do. I'm beyond that now.

Life is short and getting shorter. If I had to pick apart a pinch of peppercorns I would put myself out to pasture.

Oakland Chinatown. There is a fish market on 8th st between Franklin and Webster that had good prices and live crab tanks. It is a couple of doors down from a good Chinese pastry place. I confess that I have not bought live crabs for several years. The local crab season here has been in big trouble for a while, and the price of crab is high during the season, if indeed there is a season. And in addition to that, I also admit that I have become quite squeamish in my old age and the idea of dropping a live critter into boiling water gives me the willies. Yuen Hop is the noodle factory and large store. That's on Webster between 8th and 9th. Sometimes their noodles can be found at Berkeley Bowl and Tokyo Market, but not reliably. All their extruded fresh wheat noodles and wonton and dumpling wrappers are excellent and come in a great variety of sizes and thicknesses. For roast duck to-go I like Best Taste on Franklin. I haven't tried any other places for whole or half a duck in years, but there are so many places that could easily be good. Also on Franklin is Tian Jin, the dumpling window. Decent dumplings and sweet little walk-up window. If you don't make your own dumplings it's an option. Mine are better!

Yeah, me too. Up to my neck in lobster stock.

Not going to make my own noodles. Is this dish cold? Cold noodles would suit me. We are having a hideous heat wave here in northern CA.

@blue_dolphin, do you have a simple recipe for a basic tart lemon popsicle? I'm not looking for anything with yogurt or other dairy, just a very plain lemony icy treat. Egg white would be okay if your favorite recipe includes it. I have a mold. And my next door neighbor has lots of really fragrant lemons. Thanks, it's so hot here in the Bay Area and of course you know very few of us have air conditioning up here.

Looks lovely. What's in it?

My picture of your lawnchair is a little different. It has the sprouts included. Does anyone remember Haitian cotton? We had a couch made of Haitian cotton. It sprouted when it got wet. Funny now, but disgusting then.

They're adorable. What's not to like? Simple raw tomato sauce is my favorite, and getting more play as I get lazier. Olive oil is always good, but have you tried it with butter? Chop tomatoes. Salt and let sit fifteen minutes or half an hour. Apply lots of butter to hot pasta with a splash of pasta water. Add tomatoes and juices. Good god I love butter.

I made this: Moelleux of Summer Fruits currently up on David Leibovitz's website. It is described as a "soft" cake. Anyway it is delicious and very easy. I used plums. I'm sure peaches or nectarines would be great as well. I made two alterations: I switched the ratio of AP flour to almond flour. I reduced the sugar to a scant cup. I would caution against using fruit that is super ripe. My plums were just the early side of ripe, and that was excellent. I am guilty of cutting back on the sugar for much of my baking, especially fruit cakes or pies. I like tart. It was great the day of and it was great for breakfast. What's left will be gone by tonight. Oh, and the sides get seductively crispy.

Mulberries this time, from a friend's tree. Not enough on their own, but luckily I had a bunch of plums. So more jam! Different that straight plum, just as good.

Cold pizza isn't really a hangover cure. I think it's just the first thing you see in a box on the floor when you stumble from bed or the couch. It takes fewer brain cells to eat it for breakfast than anything else, and usually you don't have to walk as far as the kitchen. I say "you" because I really don't mean me. It's been several decades since I ate cold pizza.

Agreed. And by the way, @fondue, I suggest that FORGETTING 100 + recipes is a better indication.

From the age of one my daughter liked beer. After the third sip we got wise and didn't leave any bottle at arm's length.

You might want to look at Smitten Kitchen's Salted Peanut Tart. No raisins within a thousand miles. https://smittenkitchen.com/2019/02/salted-peanut-tart/

Thanks @blue_dolphin and @chromedome for answers that make sense. It seems to me a very bad trade off: no seeds and diminished flavor for more work growing them.

Wow, @Bernie, you're something of a killjoy. Civilizations lived and died on the altar of corn. Every summer I feel compelled to sing the praises of fresh sweet corn. I have three favorite ways to eat corn. One is on the cob, simply with butter and salt. Another is to scrape off the kernels and sauté them in lots of butter @weinoo style. I like to add a little chopped tomato, roasted green chile, cilantro, and variations thereof. When corn is less than stellar I like to make corn fritters, although the sweeter the corn the better everything is. Another more ambitious favorite is a mix of sautéed corn with additions as above and sautéed mushrooms with garlic. I love it for a vegetarian quesadilla. Works on flour or corn tortillas and is very nice with a little Oaxaca melty cheese. With a Bloody Mary that's dinner.

Let's change the subject; it's summer. Too hot for hunks of meat floating in a water bath. Finally I have a question that qualifies--or I think it does--as stupid enough. However it isn't a cooking question exactly, it's more of a botany question. Here goes. You must have noticed that seedless watermelons are taking over the world. In my experience they usually don't taste as good as the ones with seeds. For the past few years I was able to chose seeded over seedless. My farmers' market reliably sold them both. But my husband came back from a shopping trip to one of our regular markets claiming that there were ten varieties of watermelon for sale and ALL of them were seedless. Okay, so I'm getting to the stupid part. If you grow seedless melons where do you get the seeds to plant the next generation? And what kind of seed would genetically self destruct so it doesn't reproduce itself? The questions probably get stupider from there. And are we growing a whole generation of kids who don't know about seed spitting contests at picnics? I'll go now. Quietly.

The first time I had lovage it was a sauce drizzled on steak. Really memorable. It was served in a homey bar/restaurant and the lovage came from the cook's father"s garden. It didn't seem to be celery-like. I had to ask what it was.

Somehow pastrami on pretzel doesn't have the same ring to it as pastrami on rye. Looks good, though!