kayb

I have cooked very little all week, having been gone and busy and such, other than a cucumber/grape tomato salad with feta cheese and kalamata olives that was quite tasty. I used a honey-citrus-balsamic viniagrette I'd made, and I like the touch of sweet it lends. I did have an excellent Monte Cristo at one of the few sandwich shops I've found where one can still get a classic Monte -- battered en toto and deep fried, as opposed to made with a couple of pieces of French toast. They cut the sandwich diagonally, batter it in a fairly thick batter, and fry it. I always ask for it without the powdered sugar, but bring on the raspberry jam! It's so rich I can barely eat half of it, but it's worth it. Excited about next week -- dinner one night is from Jones' Barbecue in Marianna, Arkansas, the only James Beard award winner in the state although we've had several compete. Jones' won an American Classic award a few years back. It's the oldest continuously operating, same family owned African American business in the state; he cooks nothing but pork shoulder, and serves it with white sandwich bread and slaw. And people come from everywhere to get it, and he's sold out by 10:30 every morning, at which time he goes home.

I grew up with a "snacky" type breakfast -- cereal, toast, something to that effect -- a fairly light lunch, generally sandwiches or soup, and a hearty dinner. early, 5 p.m. or so, after my father got home from work. I gave up on breakfast after I was on my own for a long time, but started back at it later in life because I found it easier to control my weight when I ate breakfast. Now that I work from home, my meal schedule is more flexible; I'll generally eat a good lunch, lots of veggies and protein, although it's generally a cold one. Dinner, I tend to stick with a meat and a couple of veggies if my daughter or any of the rest of the fam are eating, and I may skip it entirely if it's just me, or have just an appetizer-type plate of cheese, fruit, olives and so on. I do enjoy breakfast-for-dinner and dinner-for-breakfast, and indulge myself quite often.

Had to chase that link and save that recipe. That looks like a keeper.

liuzhou, that is just the way I like clams. Those have the most beautiful shells I've ever seen. How large are they?

I love my grill baskets for fish and veggies. I also have a box for wood chips. On reflection, I think the foil worked about as well.

I'm presently roasting two quarts of cherry and grape tomatos which, when dry, will go into the freezer on the baking sheets and then, after a couple of hours, into freezer bags. I love to pull them out during the winter for salads, quiches, pizzas, casseroles, sauces, and just about anything else you can name. I'll do a couple more batches before they're gone. Debating on whether to buy yellow-and-white sweet corn to freeze, or hold out for the Silver Queen white sweet corn I think I can get in August. May have to hedge my bets. I've frozen some purple-hull and crowder peas already, and will do more before the summer's out. Also need to do a big baking sheet of okra. And I'm about to need a bigger freezer.

Personal favorites: shrimp and grits at Mr. B's Bistro; chargrilled oysters at Acme or Felix's; the aforementioned shrimp po'boys at Mother's and the beignets and cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde. Soft-shell crab at Antoine's. Friday lunch at Galatoire's, if you can get in. No reservations, and there is ALWAYS a line.

Liamsaunt, I am off in search of Fine Cooking for that corn and crab cake recipe, not that we can get really good crabmeat here in flyover country. Scubadoo, that burger makes my mouth water. Been on the road for a week and not in the kitchen, but I did have a very interesting pizza the other night -- thin, crispy crust, topped with fresh corn, fresh mozzarella, bacon and truffle oil. Pretty exceptional. I've cooked the last couple of nights at my daughter's house, mostly summer produce I brought with me because I went on autopilot last weekend at the Farmers' Market and bought like I was going to be home all week. Today I am going to attempt to make a cake using a food processor, because the child doesn't have a mixer. Sigh.

I've heard good things about grilled okra. Going to try it.

I eat yellow squash at least twice a week in the summer. I love it sauteed with onion, in just a bit of olive oil; I love it brushed with olive oil and grilled; I ike to steam it with onion and then stir it up with eggs, cheese and cracker crumbs and bake. I shave it into ribbons along with zucchini, steam it, toss it in butter and tarragon. I will, if prevailed upon, bread and fry it. I agree, I've never found any good way to preserve it, though.

Love the idea of the stuffed tofu blocks!

I felt like cheese. Clockwise from 12 o'clock, Irish cheddar with porter; butterkase; fromage d'Affinois; frog (fig-raspberry-orange-ginger) jam; Castelvetrano olives; bread-and-butter pickle spears. A little honey in the center for the cheddar. Ritz crackers on the side.

Interesting technique. I'd never have thought of doing it that way. My method, handed down from generations back of Southern cooks, is to rinse the okra and, while wet, slice the okra into said half-inch rounds; those go in a bowl and sit for at least 20 minutes. This allows the "slime" to exude. Then it all goes into a plastic bag with 1/2 to 3/4 cup of self-rising corn meal mix (a combo of cornmeal, flour, and baking powder), salt and black pepper. That's sealed and shaken, and the breaded slices fried in about 1/4 inch of oil over medium-high heat. I tend to use canola, but peanur or any other oil that tolerates high temps will work. The "slime" helps the breading mix adhere, and the finished product is crunchy and not "slimy" at all. I can't abide boiled okra, though I've been told roasted is good -- I'm going to try it sometime. I've also had dehydrated okra that made an excellent snack. You can also put the breaded, uncooked okra in a single layer on a cookie sheet, freeze it, and transfer to a plastic bag to freeze. I freeze mine in gallon bags and fry what I want, from frozen. It's important to put the okra in the skillet in a single layer and not crowd it too much. You can drain one batch on paper towels before frying the next. My three daughters and I will eat two pounds of fried okra at a sitting, and fight over the last bite. Give me that, fresh sweet corn and sliced tomatoes, and maybe some purple hulled peas, and I'm in heaven. Meat is entirely superfluous in that meal.

High market season, and a big crowd out for the Fourth of July market. Sweet corn, crowder peas, pink-eyed peas, green beans, peaches, tomatoes, okra, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, eggs....and cinnamon rolls, which I have successfully resisted all summer. I caved this morning.

I will have some of Scamhi's paella, some of Bon Vivant's steak sandwich, and some cornbread from Shelby, who makes it the way I do (sugar? in cornbread? Abomination!) Shelby, try making it in your waffle iron, a trick I learned from Kim Shook..... Had our Fourth of July dinner on the third; baked beans, potato salad, pork loin done in the oven instead of on the grill as it was raining/threatening rain all day. Plus zucchini stuffed with a take on Mexican street corn -- kernels, sour cream, grated cheese, ancho chile powder, smoky paprika, cumin and grated cheese, and baked. Pretty tasty. Pork loin sprinkled with barbecue dry rub mix, then SV for 24 hours at 125, cooled, and then roasted with a chipotle honey butter glaze. Could have been a touch more done, but very good. Zucchini. I'll do this again.

Salad made up as I went along: Watermelon, tomato, bacon, grated cheese, white balsamic vinegar, balsamic glaze. Pretty good.

My house is a 1950s model with limited countertop space in the kitchen, and particularly, limited countertop space with access to electrical outlets. Today, when putting on a pork loin to sous vide for 24 hours preparatory to being refrigerated and then grilled as part of a holiday extravaganza, it occurred to me: I have a laundry room. It has a utiity sink,and it has outlets. I can put the sous vide rig in there, be easily able to add water if it needs it during the long cook, and have it Out Of My Way while I'm doing other things. Feeling quite brilliant.

I have to say, the notion of American cheese on a tomato sandwich never occurred to me. I must remedy this. Most likely tomorrow.

Come on. Love to cook for people. And it was Yarnell's (made in Arkansas, about 75 miles from me, in fact) "Guilt-Free" Homemade Vanilla. They do, however, make a French vanilla that is marvelous, too.

Inspired by Kim's Indiana visit, I decided I wanted pork tenderloin/cutlets; I recall when I'd get tonkatsu in Tokyo and how much I loved them. So I took a couple of pork loin chops I'd carved off a whole loin and frozen, and set to pounding them thin. My meat mallet is perhaps a little weak for the job, and/or my arms are out of shape, but I eventually got them to about 3/8 inch thickness (from about 1 inch), and then floured, dipped in egg/milk wash, and breaded them in crumbs for frying. Whereupon they "drew up," as my Grandmama would have said, back to something thicker than 1/2 inch but at least thinner than when I started. They were, though, quite crispy on the outside, and tender and moist within, so I'll call it a win. Veggies were creamed fresh corn and purple hulled peas warmed over from the previous night, and new potatoes poached in butter and cream. And, of course, sliced tomatoes, a three-times-a-day staple this time of year. These were Cherokee Purples.

Overnight house guest last night, and a morning with no work obligations, so I did a big "weekend" breakfast midweek, which was a rare treat. Bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits, sliced tomatoes, watermelon, canteloupe, pear preserves. Followed an hour and a half later, I am ashamed to admit, by a "lunch" of blackberry cobbler and ice cream.

I was in Nashville last weekend and stopped off at the Patterson House for a cocktail. The notion of bacon-infused bourbon intrigued me, so I had a Bacon Old Fashioned. Wow! House-made bitters applied via eyedropper. Four Roses bourbon infused with Benton's bacon. If there's a way to make simple syrup "artisan," I have no doubt this was. It was the best old fashioned I've ever tasted, bar none. Info on the bar here.

I had cooked in my own kitchen for 40 years before i bought my stand mixer and a good food processor. I don't know how I ever functioned without either one. My absolutely indispensible kitchen tools,though, are my two good knives -- a 5 1/2 inch utility and an 8-inch chef, Misono, that I brought back from Tokyo.

From time to time, yes. Le Creuset, too.

Count me in the appetizers-for-an-entree/tapas camp as well. I enjoy the variety of tastes, and often, I find the quantity of an entree is just too much. What I can eat looks back at me reproachfully from my plate, and I hear my grandmother chastising me about children starving in China.