Darienne

I'm a bit confused by David's use of the terms bittersweet and dark. Bittersweet chocolate is dark chocolate. I think. Or am I wrong? What percentage of chocolate liquor are you talking about for each of the terms?

We'll be heading home to Ontario via Albuquerque pretty soon and are looking forward to a meal in Cuba. Yummm...Chile Rellenos and Chimichangas. Moab is a Mexican food wasteland now that the little restaurant that served the Hispanic workers who were here for a couple of years building the new bridge over the Colorado has left. The bridge is finished. The only decent restaurant, El Miguel, is closed for the winter season. And it's open only at dinner time and we old timers eat our big meal at noon. The other Mexican restaurants are pretty...well...pretty awful. In Moab, we make our own Mexican food.

Between Amarillo and Tucumcari is a lot of not much. However, there's a truck stop in San Jon just inside the New Mexico border which serves East Indian truckers mainly but we always stop there to get a few samosas, no matter what time of day we go through. I think their menu is much expanded now and you can buy an entire meal. It's never been meal time when we have gone through. You can certainly buy all sorts of dried and canned ingredients to make many Indian dishes. Lots of East Indian nibblies. Which I love. It's not fancy, but the food is good. The staff is friendly, even the ones whose English is very limited. ps. Just asked DH if he remembered eating in Tucumcari and he reminded me of a Mexican restaurant in Moriarty where we once ate a very good breakfast...but that was long ago.

Citrus fruits are very important in our eating life. They are used in a number of dishes. There's a muffin which takes the entire orange. And a wonderful layered chocolate cake which has an orange filling...it's DH's usual birthday cake. Then there's the Orange- Szechuan pepper ice cream based on David Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop. And a recipe from Power Hungry: The Ultimate Energy Bar Cookbook which takes orange and lemon juice and zest. Not to forget my very popular Margarita Pie, put together from two different recipes, with orange and lime zests, lime juice, etc. A friend sent me a new, now my go-to, recipe for Scones which takes orange zest. Oh, and Ed's favorite Chinese recipe Orange Beef. There is no end to the recipes which I make using citrus fruits. OTOH, we are far from home with only The Joy of Cooking cookbook with us and so we are not making a lot of citrus based dishes, although we have made the Margarita pie twice and the Orange Beef for the annual Chinese Feast (very non-traditional I fear). Then there's our weekly standard supper fare, Wednesdays it is: popcorn and Orange Julep drinks (my own recipe based on one I found online but veering far away from it in the end.) Oh, and I love slushy Margaritas once a year when we hold the Annual Dog Weekend. Need fresh limes for that. I've never had Key Lime pie. I guess I could do that one here in Utah. We have two luncheons lined up for this week and that could be the excuse needed...if they have Key Limes in the grocery store (not noted for exotic produce). ps. Since posting this I have found a number of Key Lime pie recipe which differ quite a bit from each other. Can someone lead me to their favorite recipe??

Love those Rice Krispie Squares made with cayenne in them. Delicious and different.

Thanks dcarch. A very discouraging thing to watch this glorious bushy tree grow and grow and grow. Maybe I'll do just buy a grafted one if I can find one in Peterpatch. Love the marmalade the little fruits make.

I have this gorgeous Calamansi (Kalamansi, Calamondon, Kalamondon plus a dozen different names) and the wretched thing has yet to bloom. I have raised it from a seed and it even has thorns on it. It came from the trees of a friend and her trees are much producing. It's not fair!!!!

I would have snapped them up.

The replies given above are great. Answers to my ongoing confusion. Glad Shel_B asked. Thanks, eGers.

If I can run this past you please...sometimes the inner fruit doesn't fill the outer skin by a long shot. Are these one good too...as long as the outer skin is opaque? What about the outer skin becoming tan? I thought that this is when you harvested them? And not before... The ones in the store in Utah all have tan skins. I grow them at home in Ontario and am never sure when I can use them... Thanks, Andie

I tried the putting the uncooked (but not no-boil) noodles in straight from the package with the extra liquid. My only problem is that it took FOREVER for the noodles to cook through...about an hour before I dared to leave the aluminum foil off to finish the dish. When it was done, it was perfect. Don't know what I did wrong. It's not my oven...and perhaps my ingredients were too cold and I should have allowed for that right off the bat. Fortunately we were not expecting to eat the lasagna right away, so all was well. Thanks. I'll do it again. Hate fussing with coiled lasagna noodles. ...or maybe I'll do the soak in cold water trick...

Another title to record. Thanks, Nancy.

I'd love to read this book. This is my favorite kind of cookbook...the one full of stories and suchlike...plus I love North African food as much of it as I have had. I think I'll order it through ILL when I get home. Thanks, Smithy.

I'm no expert, but I always thought that a club sandwich contained chicken...never turkey. Is this a change? And is the turkey white or dark meat? I can stand turkey twice a year only, Thanksgiving (in October in Canada) and Christmas. And only as plain sliced turkey, none of this sandwich or even worse, soup thing.

Glad to have read all the replies to my question. I'm not going to order the book. Thanks.

Anna, I guess I could find it if I could easily pay extra for butter in my budget. However, your idea about cutting the block is a good one. I'll check Wabi Sabi for an "American" style butter dish next.

we would cut off a fat slice of butter from the original pound block so we basically need some sort of square butter dish. Never knew of butter bells before. Googled them and looked at the images. Nope. Not suitable for us, anyway.

Very nice butter dish Smithy, but we also need a butter dish and have been looking for ages for one. And remember that Canadian butter is sold in one-pound blocks, that is the size of your entire cardboard butter box.

I'm still following this thread religiously and drooling over some of the prizes that folks have nabbed. We are back in the land of what USED to be second hand heaven at a store named Wabi Sabi and I see from rereading my past posts what wonderful things I have found over the years. No more. The store had a new board of directors and the prices are jacked way up and the selection has fallen tremendously. From what I can gather, some of the locals are non too pleased. All we have bought this year are a few drinking glasses which were missing from the rented house. Haven't even been tempted. Quel dommage.

Excellent point, Edward J. I was willing to forgo all illustrations, a lovely accompaniment to recipes...but you have named one thing which I really didn't even notice. Thank you.

...But this publication date is 2011 and it's huge... 890pages...and contains 2,000 recipes. Surely it then stands as the best buy with the best content??? The New Best Recipes is 2004. I'm just asking...

It may be that I have missed it in the topics, but I can't find any reference to the 2011 publication of Cook's Illustrated Cookbook: 2,000 Recipes from 20 Years of America's Most Trusted Food Magazine. It appears to retail in the USA for $40 but is available on Amazon for far less than that. Obviously lots of recipes with interesting notes also. I always love the notes and explanations. Back home in Canada my library doesn't carry Cook's Illustrated and the larger city library has only a few issues. I've borrowed it from the local library in Utah and am thinking about buying it. Any thoughts, please ?

Tri2Cook, I think I like this better. Good for you.