Katie Meadow

A question for all of you ham hock users. For several years I have been using smoked ham shanks instead of hocks. They are meatier and have just as much flavor, as far as I can tell. They are a bit less fatty, maybe. I use them to make a ham stock and then strain off the fat, or at least most of it. I simmer my beans in the stock and then it's optional to add back the ham just before serving, after I've cut it off the bones and trimmed off the gristle. My husband likes to add back in the ham, but I like my beans without it, with just the flavor from being cooked in the stock. Typically shanks are sold sawed in three partial cuts, and that includes cutting through the bone. I do rinse the shanks briefly before cooking in running cold water, but I don't soak them or do a second rinse, and I find the end product broth not overly salty. Does anyone else prefer shanks over hocks?

Okay, here's my first impression. In order to squeeze the lemon you have to use side pressure which means you need the other hand to stabilize or push back on the other direction. With a wooden reamer the pressure is equalized on both hands. With many cone shaped juicers the pressure is mainly down, so the other hand need only keep the object from moving. I am a big fan of the old fashioned wooden reamer. It is simple and for me gets every drop of juice that can be squeezed out. Some people like to have a built-in strainer. Using the reamer means I just have to spoon out the seeds. Your gadget doesn't solve that problem either, even though it has a pouring spout.

To qualify as "gribenes" you would need to fry up pieces of chicken skin. If it is fatty skin it will make its own schmaltz. Onions are a tasty addition, but optional, I believe, or at least they were in my childhood. My grandmother cooked up some good ones.

Now I remember why I don't buy large winter squash. Acorn is about all I can handle. Or, on rare occasions, butternut, which I ask my husband to cut in half, although he who rarely cooks anything has more kitchen accidents than I do. He bakes fabulous bread though, which is quite safe, so that's perfect.

To my mind, yes. If no plain burger is offered on the menu and the blue cheese is part of the normal prep, the kitchen has to make an adjustment just for you; they have to think about YOU, not just your food. If they adjust down the bill that would be very generous, but if they don't then I would still leave feeling satisfied and accommodated.

@Margaret Pilgrim Blintzes and bacon? There's a combination I've never seen before. It's been ages since I made blintzes. What a concept! I like them fruity and not too sweet, just a little sweet. Yum.

That does look very nice, and I would certainly eat it happily. But pizza with mashed potatoes? No. Never.

Okay, I'm all in with steaming. I did as instructed, which was to subtract one minute from the the steaming time because my eggs were room temp. I don't recall if I missed any note about this in the text, but the eggs are awfully hot if you try to peel them right away. I let them air cool for about five to ten minutes, and they were still plenty hot. Given that the eggs continue to cook when not shocked by ice water it may be useful to note that, depending on what yolk you are aiming for, you may need to adjust a bit to include a little cooling time. My eggs, which were very fresh, peeled easily and were delicious. I did use a steamer basket, with water coming almost but not quite up to the level of the basket.

Black Arks are the absolute best! Very hard to come by here in CA. Our favorite market used to get them for a very very short season, but the last few years they have disappeared. I'm not an apple butter person, and I've never cooked them, but just eating out of hand they are unique.

Mashed potatoes on pizza are one step away from the garbage can. Pineapple pizza, on the other hand, is otherworldly, but only if the fruit is fresh and tart. Yes, I moved from NY to CA and I changed.

Doesn't the flexibility of the kitchen depend somewhat on the type of food being served or on the particular dish? Burgers are a perfect example of something that can be made to order. You can get a plain burger. Or a cheeseburger with a choice of cheese. Or a chile burger or whatever. If you are restaurant that serves burgers it's advisable to be flexible. Have a great meat product and they will come. But some complex dishes rely more on a combination of ingredients cooked together. If a restaurant uses a house-made red sauce on their pastas it would probably be unlikely they could make it without onions. For a while I had coincidental health issues that required some pretty awful restrictions. If you are on a low-fat low-acid wheat free diet don't expect an Italian restaurant to be able to accommodate your every whim. I just ate a lot of sushi during that period. If your friends want to go out for pizza, they may not be able to sub a cauliflower crust, and hold the cheese and tomato sauce. Anyone who has had a three year old knows how to go way out their way to accommodate certain, shall we say preferences. Restaurants are not your mother. If they can easily or happily make adjustments for you, patronize them and tip them well. If not, go somewhere else, no?

@robirdstx I have great fondness for The Owl. Were you birding in the Bosque del Apache?

Must be a good trick to wrap a corn tortilla around that sucker.

I still like the Empire Kosher chicken. I prefer the organic when available. Chocolate biscotti: simple, dry, not too sweet. Tart cherry juice, although mostly I drink it in warm weather. Valrhona chocolate bars, 71 percent, perfect dark chocolate, great price for addicts like me. TJ's flour tortillas. Saddest losses: Pane Guttiau, Sicilian parchment crackers. Gone. Fantastic. You can buy similar crackers on Amazon, but they cost 5 times the price. Chocolate coated sunflower seeds. Not as good as the high price brand but cheap. No longer available. On the bright side: for those of you who have my sickness: the seasonal Butter Toffee Pretzels are back, at least at my local store.

On toast. Make toast, butter it. Add a nice layer of ricotta. Then you can add a variety of things, or not. I like thin slices of tomato and salt and pepper. I am also very fond of a drizzle of honey or sorghum on the ricotta layer, then and salt and pepper. Excellent on a white pullman loaf or a rustic crusty loaf or a rye bread.

Right you are. It's my brain, not your eyes.

https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/almond-crackle-cookies This should link to Dorie's 3 ingredient almond cookies. The recipe is all over the place. It is without doubt the single easiest and best cookie I know of that doesn't have either gluten, or for that matter, cholesterol, since it uses egg white but no yolk. Has no flour of any kind. Personally I like this type of thing far better than any kind of cookie made with non-gluten flours to try and approximate a wheat-based treat. They are addictive.

@liuzhou thanks for the great picture. Okay, she def could be a granny! Loved the story on your blog about her sauce.

I've also heard this brand called "grandmother's" but just looking at her picture she isn't that old! The brand is, I believe, Lao Gan Ma. One of their products is labeled Spicy Chili Crisp. It has a distinctive taste, very good. I have found it in Oakland Chinatown and assume that there are markets in SF where it can be easily purchased. I don't shop Ranch 99 but I would guess they carry it. The comdiments usually referred to as Chili Garlic Paste are numerous. Sambal Oelek is one example, flavorful and medium spicy. I've never tried the Lan Chi brand.

That's why god invented bread. And dogs.

For family dinner on Tday my husband and I inherited the job of cooking the bird. Typically about half the people at the table are vegetarians, so we end up with a lot of leftovers. Some of the meat has gone to the few who like it, but we take home the turkey carcass plus lot's of leftover meat. I don't even like turkey, but since we make the bird, we get the leftovers and that means soup, which I adore. Could you stand to roast the turkey yourself if you had all rights to the remains? A friend of ours who is a chef gave me detailed instructions for actually roasting the turkey (and of course the gravy) a day ahead and packing it up so that it really doesn't dry out and can be heated the next day. For those of us who don't care if anyone sees a platter with a whole critter ready for its Hollywood moment, and for someone like me who just hates the "day of" frenzy, this has been a revelation.

The pork belly pictured above looks better (and by that I mean more meaty) than most. At restaurants I've had yummy crispy pork belly in tacos or thrown into wonton soup at the last minute, but it isn't something I regularly order. And the two times I have purchased it as a slab, even from reputable butchers, it's been more like a block of fat with barely a shred of meat. That's discouraging, and neither looks or tastes appealing. I suppose I could speak up about it and give it a closer inspection but I do have to limit my fats due to high cholesterol so I guess I will switch out my allotment for something that's far less effort. Like cheese. Or a BLT during the height of tomato season. Or coffee ice cream straight from the freezer.

The Titanic menus are remarkable. The Triple Screw says it all. And for breakfast it's nice they give you a choice between fresh fish and not-so-fresh fish, which is what the Yarmouth Bloaters must be.

I'm guessing it really comes into its own at breakfast the next day.

So.....next week it's time for fried green tomatoes, yeah?