Katie Meadow

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?

@ElsieD The tomato should be flavorful and not rock hard, but not yet red and ripe. The breading should be applied with a light hand; not so thick as to overwhelm the delicate tart tomato. A shallow fry is fine, no need to deep fry. Generous salt and pepper. Fresh herbs, minced, or dried as taste dictates. Love it as a side, but also in a fried green BLT. Best eaten right away! When you see them on a steam table they probably won't be very good. Anyway, it isn't a major commitment, so try it and see what you think. The first time I tasted one I was a convert. And I grew up in New York where most people have never tried it.

For me, speed isn't the goal. The goal is to not have to do it myself. I don't care how long it takes my husband to shuck corn. I just go do something else somewhere else and return when it's done, grateful. There are some kitchen chores I just can't stand, and that's one of them. However, if I found a tangle of cornsilk in bed I might think twice. I'll stop now.

A few years ago we were on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain and stopped at a shack run by a Viet family. They served up very good banh mi and crawfish in a giant vat sold by the pound, which were basically just dumped on the table to suck and pull apart. They were not at all muddy, but quite spicy and also extremely salty; it was hard to taste the meat, to tell the truth, so I don't know how representative they were. I have more patience with small crustacea than either my husband or my daughter, both of whom gave up on them before I did. There are photos of me as a kid doing a perfect dissection of a lobster on a wooden table, looking like nothing else in the world existed. Needless to say I was usually the last one to finish my meal growing up.

I love the iconic packaging; it's always seemed so mysterious. The few times I've seen it in a prominent display it always looked like an art project (I think I saw towers of Spam in Hawaii.) I don't remember anyone I knew ever buying or eating it to my knowledge. I have bought and opened one can, and that was several years ago, mostly out of curiosity. I tried it fried in slices and tried it with potatoes, cut in little cubes for hash. Neither method convinced me to ever try it again. I found it really horrid. I wonder if most of those people who like Spam didn't start eating it in childhood? Clearly there are many things people eat in this world because they grew up eating them. Surely no one ever ate Peeps for the first time as a 60 year old and then continued to eat them. Or did they? Fess up! Upthread someone mentioned the Paul Theroux quote. Yes, it's racist, and it would be hard to put it to the test.

A hybrid tomatillo avocado salsa makes a nice dip for chips or a salsa for your choice of taco filling. I like to roast the tomatillos and blend them with some ripe avocado and the usual suspects: roasted green chiles, lime juice, garlic, cilantro, etc. It is thinner and more tart than the typical guacamole. Also good drizzled over slices of ripe tomato.

@HungryChris, I too love FGTs and they are not easily found at farmers' markets around here, even at the end of tomato season, when you would think they are more common. I especially like them if the batter is lighter, like a tempura sort of thing. They make for an addictive fried green tomato BLT.

Wonton wrappers make for pretty decent apple fritter-like things.

It's hard to grasp how many ways that is impossible food. Sausage flavored sausage. Chicken processed to taste not like chicken. On purpose.

But apparently you missed the corn as well. Glad to hear you're okay. If only you could get eG to pay you to keep this thread alive. Oh wait, that would be a really bad idea.

A first aid kit and an airbnb cancel each other out. It would be hard to hurt yourself on any knife you find in that kitchen. You only ned the first aid kit if you bring your own knives. So I bring neither and feel totally justified in going out instead of cooking in. The only time I remember wishing I had a real kitchen on vacation was in the south of France. Those markets just about killed me.

What is this thread about, really? It appears to be useful for talking oneself into or out of certain appliances. Or trying to justify not needing something or justifying your love of something. I've been reading about the CSO on eG for years, and I now feel very happy knowing that I will never get one. I've come to the conclusion that I don't really want anything that's multipurpose at this point in my life. I like all my single-purpose appliances. We have purchased two new appliances in forever. My husband upgraded his ice cream maker to a much better model and we gave the old one to my nephew. I got us a top of the line Zojirushi rice cooker that looks like a white space capsule and that I make short grain rice in several times a week. I can still make excellent rice on the stove but this is the closest thing to magic in my kitchen. I admit that I am getting lazy in my old age. Things I most likely will never own: 1) a sous vide rig. We don't eat a lot of meat any more and what else is it good for? 2)a pressure cooker or slow cooker. I'm not in a hurry and love my cast iron enamel pots. 3) a stand mixer, even though they are very handsome and come in fabulous colors. My husband makes great bread and he seems to like kneading. I don't bake much and make do with a hand mixer.

And then, @Ann_T , after you shelled the peas, roasted the beef and baked the Yorkie, it was 8 a.m. and Moe woke up and requested eggs and biscuits for breakfast. I'm coming back as Moe in my next life.

They do in fact look like day lilies. Very pretty. What are you going to do with them? I've only used dried, and only when making hot and sour soup.

In Mexico many years ago we became enamored of the small limes available at all the markets for cocktails and limeade, and those colorful squeezers were everywhere. I still love mine, but it really isn't big enough for anything but a small lime. If I were to measure, I believe my wooden citrus reamer is the most productive way to juice a lemon or a lime in my kitchen. And for some reason I find it satisfying. Yes, you do have to strain the juice or spoon out the seeds afterwards, but that is an easy chore.

A flat surface seems to be the most reliable and consistent way to make a sharp, effective crack in the center of the egg--helpful if you are separating the white from the yolk. But it seems to me that using the same surface every time you break an egg means that you know exactly how much force to use. And my counter is always available.

In case anyone is interested, I've managed to answer my own question about keeping down the python population in the Everglades. Apparently they taste fine, but are full of mercury and people are warned not to eat them.