kayb

Maiden voyage at making sauerkraut. Two huge heads of cabbage made about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons of kraut, which went into the bucket to ferment on Friday. I'll check it next week to see how it's progressing. Improvisation when it came to weighting it down. The yogurt container with the cottage cheese lid holds water for a weight.

That's an absolutely horrible thought. "This wasn't just plain terrible. This was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins on it." -- Dorothy Parker

@shain, that's lovely. Did you make your pita? If so, would you kindly share your recipe? I had more salads made from assorted leftovers: black beans with the rest of the roasted corn, homemade ricotta in place of fresh mozzarella (since I didn't have any) on the half-tomato left from yesterday's BLT, and cottage cheese with a bit of fresh pineapple that was just before going south on me. Fine lunch.

Chefs after my own heart. You never have to worry about green bell pepper in anything I cook. And celery only extremely rarely. Stuffed green peppers are an abomination, too. Right, Rotuts?

I don't like Chick Fil A's food, but their lemonade is superb. Forgot to take a photo of my lunch yesterday -- bacon and tomato sandwich with jail slaw on fresh whole wheat bread. Quite good.

I hope the prognosis is not that grim. I do know that I've had the ability and opportunity to try and regularly enjoy many more foods than were ever available in the mid-20th-century rural South in which I grew up. I never had pizza beyond the ChefBoyArDee in the box kit variety until I was a teenager. And while I'll eat sushi in the US, it can't compare to what I had in Japan (or at least, never has to date). I'm encouraged to see the increasing interest in GOOD food, whether local vegetables and meats I cook at home or five-star cuisine with ingredients flown in daily from half a world away. I'm encouraged that schools are offering credit for gardening and raising vegetables and livestock. I'm encouraged that farmers' markets are THE place to be in the summer, and that so many people anxiously await the opening weekend. I'm encouraged that fast-food consumption is dropping, at least a little, and that we are at least aware of the fact there are better alternatives out there. I'm encouraged that there's such a growing movement toward teaching younger generations the skills needed to acquire and prepare healthy meals (my church is holding a class on just this topic later this summer through Cooking Matters/Share Out Strength, the national hunger relief charity). I'm 60 years old. All in all, I probably eat as healthily, and with a lot more flavor and variety, than I did growing up on the farm half a century ago. That, to me, says we're at least making a FEW advances. And if given the chance to travel, whether domestically or abroad, and sample the regional cuisines from the local, non-guidebook, not chain establishments, be assured I will do so in a heartbeat. It's been my experience, so far, there are a good many opportunities for good food still out there. I hope, and think, there will be for a long time, here and abroad.

@chefmd, I've just read through this thread from the beginning. What an absolutely fascinating, and enjoyable, journey! Thank you so very much for sharing your experiences, culinary and otherwise, with us. And my very best wishes to your son and daughter-in-law for a wonderful future. Thanks for taking the time and sharing with us!

This is fascinating. One of the many reasons I love eGullet. Now, if I could get over my fear of working with puff pastry/phyllo, I might give it a shot.....

Whole wheat bread from Reinhart's "Breadmaker's Apprentice." Another new loaf for me. Exactly by the recipe but for using whey instead of water; needed about an extra tablespoon or two of whey to get all the flour incorporated. Lovely crumb and texture; softest and lightest whole wheat bread I've ever made. My rising times, both in the bowl and in the pan, were about twice what the book suggested; in all fairness, my kitchen is pretty cool. The downside? The flavor was...meh. I thought it had little flavor at all. I contemplated using flaxseed meal for the coarse ground wheat or other flour element, and opted for semolina instead. Wish I'd done the wheat. At a minimum, it wants more salt.

Leftovers, some left over on purpose for just such applications. A salad made of leftover roasted corn, cut off the cob, avocado, tomato and bacon; leftover deviled eggs from the weekend, and very nearly the last of the jail slaw I've been munching on for a month (told y'all it keeps forever in the fridge). A most excellent lunch. I was going to have watermelon (that I got for the weekend and we never cut open), but I was too full.

I suspect it has everything to do with people saying "Oh, wow, look what Anna made THIS time!" and diving in. I'm glad I read this thread while eating lunch, else I'd be getting up right now to make cookies. And I don't need cookies. But I WANT cookies.....

@Shelby, tomatoes were excellent. These are hoop-house-started tomatoes from the Amish farmers at the Farmers Market. I'm several weeks away from having a ripe one in the garden, though I'm watching anxiously. It appears I will have a bumper crop of Romas; 22 on the vines already.

Tried a new one, for me: Rose Levy Berenbaum's Ricotta Loaf. For which I had to make fresh ricotta, as mine had been in the fridge too long and begun to mold, and once I made up my mind that loaf was what I wanted, nothing else would do. Fortunately, fresh ricotta is easy and quick. It cooked up a lovely and tasty loaf, with a tight, even crumb and a very rich texture (as one might expect, from 7 tbsp of butter and a cup of ricotta. My only issue was that I had to add about 50 percent more water (for which I subbed whey from making the ricotta). Not the first time I've had this issue with recipes in this book; using the amount of moisture called for seems to yield dough stiffer than pie crust. That can't be right...can it?

@ElainaA, gorgeous!

David, those are gorgeous. Pretty enough they could be pork. We cooked a couple of T-bones and grilled some corn, shucked, buttered, salted and wrapped in foil. I had mine with sliced tomatoes. Just excellent.

I've had burgers and hot dogs there, but I'm not crazy about them. Love the onion rings, and they have a great array of fountain drinks and shakes. And a kids meal with a grilled cheese sandwich that my grandson dearly loves, thus the after-church stop. I had an In 'n Out burger when i was in Phoenix, as I thought I ought to. I wasn't that impressed. The sauce is good, though.

Homemade yogurt, homemade granola, blueberries from the Farmers' Market. Significant volume of coffee.

Sonic onion rings. Of which a medium order (6 BIG rings) has 560 calories, I found after I'd consumed them. Gonna be a light dinner for me. Steaks will wait until tomorrow.

That was our year last year. Strawberries weren't good, and season was really short, because of so much rain. Ditto tomatoes. So far this year it's been decent; more rain than needed, but not enough to flood me, at least, out, though some folks haven't been as lucky. I have friends who normally cut hayfields three times a year, and got ONE cutting last year.

Cookout-the-first for the long weekend (there will be at least one, and potentially two, more, depending upon what the weather does). We had family cookout with the kids, who requested burgers, so burgers we had. I had mine without the bun, and with sides of potato salad, jail slaw, deviled eggs, baked beans and pickles. I thought the egg tray looked nice. In the center are pickled green beans I did last week. Dessert was blackberry cobbler, baked in a deep-dish pie plate, as my usual cobbler dish was in use baking beans. Wasn't sure whether to post it in lunch or dinner, as we had it about 2:30. I don't expect I'll be eating dinner, anyway!

Love it when the farmers' market is in full swing. New potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, peas. Blueberries, peaches, tomatoes, cinnamon rolls (this is a paper picnic plate full, about the size of what you'd bake in an 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan. Five bucks. Can't beat it.) And two of the biggest cabbages I've ever seen. They were a bit more than 10 pounds, together. I'm going to make sauerkraut this weekend. Single disappointment was the peas. They were either too old or had been picked too long. Woody and not very good.

According to the jug, active ingredients are "putrescent egg solids" (love the highfalutin' pseudonym for rotten eggs), garlic, lime, and thyme oil. Allegedly, there's another one out there on the market that contains coyote urine. I do not want to contemplate how they collect THAT. Really not looking forward to applying this.

Pork chop in balsamic vinegar and honey sauce, likely the last of the season's asparagus, and roasted new potatoes. Hurry-up curry: Shrimp, snow peas, spices in coconut milk, over basmati rice.

Tomatoes! A Park Whopper hybrid. Romas Luxuriant squash vines And as soon as we dry out from the current monsoon, I'm prepared to take on the marauding rabbits.

Going to try that ribeye and @cyalexa's Vidalias in gochujang and honey, wrapped in bacon, this weekend. Photos to come.