kayb

Nice! I've had my eye on some beef ribs lately since I've done way to many pork. Scotty: There is no such thing as too much pork.

Good fortune in the new gig. Sounds astonishingly interesting. And thank you -- and your cohorts in the eGullet management structure -- for what has been an absolutely astounding experience in the two or three years I've been a member. I've learned so much, and look forward to continuing to do so. Don't be a stranger.

Going to be 104 here this afternoon, so I'm cooking inside. Boneless thick-cut farm-raised pork chops in the SV with a vaguely Asian spice rub; I'll finishing those off in a hot skillet tonight. Fresh purple-hulled peas, fried okra, sliced tomatoes, fried green tomatoes, zucchini fritters. Thick-sliced yellow tomatoes with a bare sprinkle of salt. Cole slaw, made two or three days ago and soaking in its turmeric-and-mustard sweet and sour viniagrette dressing. Canteloupe. Sesame-miso cucumber salad. We will not go hungry.

The best use of blue cheese I have ever found -- and I tend to like it in recipes and salads and combinations, not so much on its own -- is a grass-fed burger, grilled medium rare, topped with caramelized onions and crumbled blue cheese, and then back onto the grill or under the broiler just enough to melt the cheese just a bit. Blue cheese butter spread atop a prime, medium rare steak is also heavenly. There is a restaurant in Memphis that stuffs a filet with blue cheese, and that's excellent. I love the pairing of blue cheese with beef. I'm also a fan of the figs and gorgonzola, mentioned upthread.

During a recent tamale party my Cuban neighbor told me that the combination of fried egg and a tamale was one of her favorites. I gave it a try and am a total convert. The color on the duck eggs is lovely. Are they purchased, raised, or gifted? I have two sources -- I can buy them through my Locally Grown buying co-op, or I can most Saturdays get them -- and quail eggs -- at the Farmers' Market.

Good Lord. Away from the site for a couple of weeks, I have just sat and viewed four pages of the most gorgeous food on the planet and have been by turns enchanted, intimidated, driven to find recipes online, and grabbing my paper towel to mop up the drool. I'm cooking burgers tonight. Too stinking hot to cook anything inside. 100F all week.

Robirds, I'm anxious to try that bread as well. Having both flax meal and almond flour on hand, it's on the agenda. Thanks.

My, my. Such magnificent breakfasts, everyone. My biggest regret in having to almost eliminate wheat gluten from my diet is the loss of wonderful breakfast breads -- biscuits, scones, bagels, English muffins.... So most of the time, I look for an alternate starch for breakfast. Often, it's some form of potatos, but of late, I've been grabbing a few extra tamales at the Farmers Market and incorporating the meat and starch all in one. Today, it was one of those frozen hash brown patties, fried in bacon fat, with a duck egg and fresh blackberries with creme fraiche. One day last weekend, it was a chicken tamale and a duck egg.. Unfortunately, I don't have a pic right now of my fall-off-the-gluten-free-wagon breakfast for this week, at a B&B in western Maryland, but it was the best waffle I ever ate in my life. The recipe is here. Will include photos when I take my next leap off said gluten-free wagon, in a couple of weeks.

I presume there's nothing in Memphis? Or, (wishful thinking) Little Rock? Did the Patterson House in Nashville make the cut?

Kim, I believe there is no higher and better use of squash than to fry it with onions. Which is exactly what I intend to do tomorrow, along with the first okra of the season (!), and some green tomatos for Child C, whilst I stew some green beans and new potatos, and mash some more potatos for the Teenaged Boy, who will eat nothing green. I am watching him for signs of scurvy. Squash, beans, green and ripe tomatos, okra, zucchini (for fritters later in the week), all scored at the farmers' market this morning, along with tamales and fried pies. Blueberries, strawberries and blackberries all in the co-op order yesterday (along with ground buffalo). Tomorrow's dinner will include sous vide grass-fed chuck roast, happily burbling away in the little cooler with the circulator, and berries and creme fraiche, which is currently sitting on the counter getting thick. I love summer.

Everyone: I'll have one of everything, please! Particularly as I have not cooked a meal in two weeks. Lovely dinners. If I can't cook, I can at least vicariously enjoy all yours.

Eggplant pirogues. Use the oval ones. Cut in half and brush cut sides with olive oil; roast until soft enough the insides can be scooped out. Set shells, with about 1/2 inch of flesh remaining, aside. Mash eggplant flesh. Combine with sauteed onion and garlic; grated cheese; small shelled shrimp; crabmeat; sauteed celery, and diced tomatos. Fill eggplant shells; top with more grated cheese and bread crumbs. Bake at 400 until golden brown. Serve with some good cole slaw and dirty rice, and maybe some fried okra.

I believe I'd have to make a cobbler. Put them in a baking dish of the proper size for them to come up about halfway. Make a pie crust; trim it to fit the top. Take the trimmings, cut into small pieces, and stir gently into the fruit and liquid. Put the top crust on, pierce a few times, brush with a little melted butter, sprinkle some sugar. Bake at 350 until the top is browned. Serve hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Ideally, I like about about as much trimmed crust inside the pie as there is crust on top. If God made anything better, He kept it for Himself.

Corned buffalo brisket hash, with a duck egg. Not as good as it should have been for the effort it took to corn and cook the brisket. I'm done corning; the deli will have to do mine. The corned brisket looked respectable enough when finally tender (48 hrs sous vide, 2 1/2 hours stovetop simmer). The homemade biscuits with bacon jam, however, were worth the slip off the gluten-free wagon. This morning, country bacon, "Methodist" latkes (fried in bacon fat!), and a sunnyside up egg.

Wow....never thought of avocado with scrambled eggs. Must try that ASAP.

Surf and turf. Strip steak sous vide for two hours at 125, then grilled along with the lobsters. Caprese salad with buffalo mozz. Roasted new potato wedges with white truffle oil. Ginger mojitos beforehand. Greg Norman petit syrah with dinner. The next night was an unfortunate attempt at corned buffalo brisket, the Alton Brown recipe, which was insufferably salty and unGodly tough. Resurrected it this morning with a long boil to tenderize it, then in with some potatos for corned beef hash.

Barbecued chicken. Boston baked beans. Slaw. Grilled corn on the cob. Ricotta cheesecake with strawberries. Cold beer.

Don't know how widespread it is, but there's a chain here, Papa Murphy's, which makes the pizza which you pick up, uncooked, and take home to bake. I'm not a lover of any kind of chain pizza, nor any kind of pizza except the honest to God New York style with the crispy cracker-type crust, but we order a ton of it because I work late a lot and have a teenaged son who thinks pizza is one of the major food groups (but won't touch one I make with homemade ingredients). He prefers Papa John's over Pizza Hut or Domino's. I sometimes pick up Papa Murphy's, and it's reasonably decent for chain pizza. For reference purposes, the best pizza I ever had was at Papa's Tomato Pies in Trenton, NJ. Memphis Pizza Kitchen makes a decent one as well. Beyone that, meh.

Duck egg, a poblano and mozzarella tamale from the farmers market, a caprese and some french fries left over from last night.

Love the sweet omelet. Got to try that. Also love that y'all are continuing into this next week! Great stuff!

Shrimp fried rice topped with a duck egg.

I kind of like seeing what people are getting in other parts of the world. I don't do a CSA, but buy all my produce from the Farmers' Market these days. Here was last weekend's haul: Zucchini, green onions, yellow squash, carrots, blueberries, blackberries, snow peas. The previous weekend, it was this: Strawberries, cute little hybrid squash (tasted like a yellow crookneck, but had more texture about them) broccoli (there's a head of cauliflower under the broccoli), cabbage, quail eggs, a couple of tamales, a small foccacia, and four fried pies.. Things started coming in early this year, due to our exceptionally warm winter. We've had lettuces and such since late March/early April. May and June are the absolute best months for the market; I'm hoping for sweet corn in the next two or three weeks. ETA: I do belong to a CSA, but it's a meat/dairy one. My share allows me to space a meat order equivalent to a quarter-cow out for six months, and essentially pick the cuts I want; I can also get milk, cheese, pork or lamb as part of my "share." I have another CSA membership for chickens, in which I buy five at a time and pick up on a determined-by-the-farmer date; I find I get those about every other month. Since I won't get any more until June (missed ordering for May!), I'm hanging on to the two I have left for barbecued chicken on Memorial Day weekend.

Just read the entire blog in a single sitting (at work, yet; but, hey, it's Friday). Just marvelous! I love cooking with someone, or for someone to whom my experiments are something to enjoy, not something to look at suspiciously and say, "What's THAT?" like the teenaged boy does. My taste-testing friend is coming for Memorial Day weekend next weekend, so I'm planning some adventurous stuff. The kid can have burgers and pizza and mac and cheese.

OK. So, you take a mackerel and cook it by pouring hot white wine (Muscadet, in this case) over, and leaving to simmer for a little bit. Then you keep it in the fridge overnight. The next day, you crumble the flesh, mix with cooked potatoes, rice vinegar and cream to make little fritters, which are coated in sake kasu and deep fried. You use some of the cooking wine to make an aspic, which goes on the bottom of each plate. The rest of the cooking wine is used to cook the carrots, which are then wrapped in seaweed. The other mackerel is cured in salt for 10 minutes, then submerged in rice vinegar and sake. This you slice thinly over each carrot. It is a very good dish. You just have to like mackerel. Fascinating! I may have to try this. I don't know that I've ever HAD fresh mackerel. Can you do it with other fish?

My favorite is sunnyside up, per the technique I learned on the Breakfast thread; fry in your choice of fat (I like 1 tbsp butter, 1 tsp truffle oil) on low heat until white is no longer transparent. Gently add about 2-4 tbsp water to the pan, cover, and let it steam done. It's the most glorious egg you ever had.