kayb

Aaahhhh. Makes me SO want to go back to Japan. I loved the food, the presentation, the ceremonious service in even the casual restaurants. I loved the country, as a whole. I have had the tiny mackerel, just didn't know they were mackarel. Very good. I loved the food courts in the train stations and the array of food vendors outside the baseball stadium (buy your dinner/snacks, AND beer, and take them inside! Not to mention draft beer in the stands, courtesy of vendors with pony kegs strapped to their backs!). I would go back tomorrow, given a choice.

Glad to have you. Some phenomenal bakers in this group (I am NOT one of them!). Would love to see photos of your work.

@Chris -- looks like it's a bit heavily breaded. To get what I consider the "proper" ratio of breading-to-okra, I cut it, let it "slime" in a bowl for 20 minutes, then shake in seasoned corn meal mix (I've found that works better than just corn meal). Looks like this (upper left): I pan-fry in about 1/4 inch of vegetable oil on medium hot, in a single layer in the skillet.

I swear every winter (because I do not deal well with cold weather) that I will not complain when it gets hot. This is about the time every year I break that resolution into small, small pieces. Only 91F right now, but that's about 8-10 degrees cooler than yesterday, when it was, as an old friend was wont to say, "hotter than two rats f***ing in a wool sock."

My mistake. Edge Pro is the name of a model made by Smith's, thus my confusion. clickety

Looking so forward to this!

That is exactly it. I used about a half-teaspoon red pepper flakes, because it seemed to me I could barely taste a quarter-teaspoon.

The photo is from Portugal. Trying to remember who on here recently traveled to Portugal.

@liuzhou, I hope those lovely meals mean you're steadily gaining your strength back and moving toward being 100 percent!

Highly recommend you try the Vivian Howard Blue Q barbecue sauce. Amazing on chicken.

Oooohh. I can bacon jam regularly, and have some on the shelf now. I use it on grilled cheese, on soft cheese on crackers, on biscuits in the morning, and to jazz up grits and/or baked eggs en cocotte, but I never thought about "not-cinnamon" rolls. I occasionally do some with finely minced ham and shredded cheese, and those are pretty good, but MUST try the bacon jam ones. Oh, and it's marvelous to dollop a spoonful onto a burger about 30 seconds before you take said burger off the grill.

That would be much like Vivian Howard's baked eggs in stewed tomatoes, with the addition of the bottom layer of cheese, and VH's topping of crispy ham chips. I canned two pints of her stewed tomatoes, and envision this a few times over the winter. I suspect I shall add the cheese, because, well, cheese.

Oh, hell. And me with a quart and a half in the fridge.

Her husband does have a nice butt. At least in the pictures.

Please forgive horribly blurry cell phone photo. French toast from sourdough from the Farmers' Market. As I have been grandmothering all week, this is one of the two times the stove has been turned on all week.

I'd love to have that recipe, if you have a link, @ElsieD. It will, someday, cool off enough to bake bread again. I've been buying it at the Farmers' Market.

I just put it on the stove, cover with olive oil (I keep reusing the garlic oil I saved from last time), and poach on low or very close to it until they're soft. Cool, pour up, being sure they're covered in oil, and refrigerate. Scoop out however much you need, just bearing in mind it's milder than raw so you may need more. Combine half and half with melted butter, mash the soft cloves completely, and brush on bread for the best garlic toast on the planet.

Enjoy the drive! Wish you were coming in two weeks. I'll be up in that part of the state for a few days then.

Apropos of the "things you might want to know for no particular reason" someday category, EdgePro is a fine Arkansas product, and has been since 1886, when Mr. Smith, whose name I don't remember, began mining Arkansas novaculite in the Ouachita Mountains and making whetstones. They no longer manufacture in Hot Springs (like so much else, it's been offshored), but their HQ and distribution center is here. Somewhere, I have a couple of pieces of raw novaculite I picked up from the grounds of their former plant, now DC, in Hot Springs. Really nice guy that's the CEO now. FWIW, Microplane is an Arkansas company, as well.

I prefer, in almost all applications, the taste of slow-cooked garlic over that of fresh. So I get the big bag of cloves and poach them in oil, then store them in a couple of quart plastic containers (that are dedicated, as one might imagine, to garlic!) in the fridge. Lasts me about three months. Plus I have great garlic infused olive oil.

I love an entrepreneurial woman! Please tell her congratulations for her thriving new business! @rotuts, there is a gyro food truck here in town that does to-die-for falafel. Unfortunately, it parks downtown, where if you don't work there, parking is a pain in the butt, so I rarely go. But damn, it's good.

Wise choice.

You folks need to come to Memphis. You can't throw a rock without hitting smoked shoulder. We call it barbecue.

I don't remember any duty when I brought my Misonos home from Tokyo in my checked luggage. Of course, I'm not sure I remembered to declare them, either.

I generally don't do it, because I'm not that organized, but I have done so in advance of my Saturday at the soup kitchen. Don't do potatoes, obviously, but I will certainly do onions, pepper, carrots, even meat if I have access to it; usually the meat is at the church, so generally not unless it's a pre-cook (I've done two or three Instant Pots of chuck roast, for instance, and then shredded it, though). Stuff like squash, eggplant, etc., is easy enough to prep I don't bother with advance. But any hard veggies may get done a day or two in advance, and refrigerated. We did something, I forget what, that called for caramelized onions, so I did those at home in the slow cooker well in advance.