dcarch

Surprised that no one has commented on the beautiful cabinet wood work detailing of that tomato greenhouse on the first page of this thread. Nice blogging so far! dcarch

Thanks Dakki. Terrible watermelon (not sweet) can be good for salads. Thanks SylviaLovegren. How well watermelon pairs with clams? Depend on how the clam sauce is made. Yes, You need to peel the skin off the rind, it is kind of tough. Nice video, Will , thanks. Shelby, I think 10 hours should do it in the dehydrator. It depends on how thick you cut the slices. Thank you all for great ideas. So many possbilities! dcarch

Make your own. Very easy. Get food grade molding silicone rubber and find a pattern you like. Mix the two part compound, next day you got your mold. dcarch

Summer = watermelon Do you know that watermelon is one of the most expensive summer fruits? Around here in NY they are about $0.65 a lb. Since Watermelon is 92%water, and considering throwing away the thick rind, it may work out to be $11.0 to $12.00 a lb, LOL! This is how I enjoy to the max almost the entire watermelon. I consider watermelon has three parts; First the sweet center. As you get closer to the rind it gets less and less sweet. Finally you have the throw away rind. I only eat or serve the sweetest center of the melon. I use the less sweet part for salads. You really don’t want a salad to be too sweet. I also use the not so sweet part to make crispy watermelon chips with my dehydrator. I highly recommend this. The crispy chips become very sweet because they have 92% of the water removed. They make wonderful snacks. The white/pink part of the rind is delicious cooked or pickled. Even the seeds can be turned into wonderful sprouts, but that will be another post, how to sprout watermelon seeds. I suppose you can make watermelon ice, ice cream, ------ What other things can you make wioth watermelon? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few dishes I made for July 4th: dcarch Pan fried Cod and watermelon rind, beet stems Making crispy Watermelon chips Watermelon celery salad Pasta with clam sauce and sautéed watermelon

I have a 55 watt germicidal UV bulb which I use once in a while. I turn it on when no one is in the kitchen, and move it around after a while to avoid shadows. No chemicals needed to cover most areas. dcarch

I agree the person riding is taking the picture. The reflection in the sideview mirror shows the hand is posibly pushing the shutter on the handle mounted view finder of the helmet mounted camera. The other picture is the Tram system in NYC. dcarch

Or someone riding on the back of the motorcycle? Reflections does not seem to show someone is on the back. Photo seems to have deep depth of field, typical of helmet mounted cameras. Of course I can be very wrong. dcarch

Off topic? I have done this experiment a few times. Four identical bowls of dog food in front of a hungry dog, one bowl would be plated nicely. Made no difference to the dog. As humans, we do respond to food geometry visually, beyond taste. dcarch

And so it is. Who's in Tuscany? And someone in mid town NYC? On a motorcycle with a GARMIN ZUMO 550 MOTORCYCLE GPS RECEIVER, possibly a helmet-mounted camera? A man with rough hands? dcarch

And not far from your apartment. dcarch

Scottyboy - pork belly Foie sauce and black lentils looks sinfully good, should be made illegal. :-) Blether – I think I will copy your summer tomato soup, if you don’t mind. Kim – Amazing crust on your toad-in-the –hole. mgaretz – very juicy looking meatloaf. C. sapidus - Linguine Alfredo, green bean salad, sliced pineapple, and champagne mangos; what an interesting combination! menuinprogress – Thank you for introducing "Callo de Hacha". FrogPrincesse – most amazing lobsters! What did you do with the roes? Many beautifully photographed dishes such as the Black gill rockcod. Justin Uy – Very creative plating. Mm84321 – engaging drama on a plate. Tri2Cook – 20lbs of good perfect rib roast. robirdstx – Very interesting and tasty looking pizza. Douglas – Beautiful ginger-salt roasted beets from your apartment garden. SobaAddict70 – I would love to share with you that Spaghetti con granchio e pomodoro, and the Zucchini "pasta". patrickamory – Yes, sensational lamb. ----------------------------------------------- A few recent meals: dcarch Sashimi Ribs on squash Skate on risotto

Mangos, ---- pineapples, strawberries, cantaloupes, peaches ---everything is in season, soon you will be overwhelmed with tomatoes. Yes! Make leather! Let me share with you my way of making fruit leather. From a craft store you can buy ¼” x ¼” wood sticks. Miter the corners and glue into a wood frame. Using Scotch Tape to stretch supermarket veggie plastic bags on the frame. Use your blender to make fruit puree. Pour fruit puree on the plastic and dehydrate. There is no need for oil on the plastic, Fruit leather will not stick to the plastic. It peels off very easily. The plastic is reuseable for many times. If you set your dehydrator at the highest temperature and run it longer, you will get crispy fruit chips, crispy just like potato chips. Crispy fruit chips are my snack addiction. Very healthy Fruit leather and crispy fruit chips are popular with children. You can get fancy and box them for wonderful gifts. Do you make leather? What is your method? dcarch

Using a straw, you will be sucking up all the ground settled on the bottom of the cup. dcarch

Franci – you have such mastery of using vegetables. I can enjoy the Eggplant kuku everyday. Ashen – wonderful pizza. Mgretz – I envy your smoker. robirdstx – Nothing wrong with a nicely grilled steak. SobaAddict70 - Scampi al forno looks delicious and beautifully plated, so is the potato salad. patrickamory – I have made frijoles borrachos a few times, they didn’t come out as nice as yours. Scottyboy – those smoked ribs, WOW! You are a good cook! :-) Chicken ballotine, Wow! You are a great chef! Kim – Thanks. The dressing on my watermelon salad was French dressing with a little wasabi added. Those amazing looking curly bacon! C. sapidus – lovely drumsticks. percyn – perfect steak on fried rice. rotuts – Thanks. The clam dish; the clams were sous vide cooked. mkayahara – Thanks. The cauliflower was very easy pan sauted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Went to the farmer’s market, got some wonderful squashes and purple scallions, some extraordinary scallops and heritage pork belly. Went to the supermarket, and got some Lamb neck bones. Lamb is expensive, but the neck bone was $1.65 a lb. A lot of meat on the bones. The flavor and texture of the neck bone meat is, IMHO, better than other lamb cuts of meat. Kind of like ox tails. I hope no one discover that. :-) dcarch Sous Vide Pork Belly with a Medley of squashes Stewed Lamb Neck Bone Scallops, patty pan squash.

Haven't posted in a few weeks --- a little overwhelmed by all your amazing dishes. Those ribs! OMG! I make a few things for Father's Day. dcarch Lettuce Avocado salad Strip steak, Hosta flowers, Grilled Pineapple Water melon Tomato salad Clams Pulled Pork, Cauliflower, Beets Flat Apple pie

Nothing can clean as well as an ultrasonic cleaner + cleaning solution. dcarch.

Just your normal Blackberry cell phone camera. Those are skew holders. They hold two skewers so that food will not flop around. dcarch

You hear this all the time, “ I am sorry about the quality of my photos, they were taken with my cell phone.” In reality, a cell phone’s camera is a very capable optical device. I have used my cell phone to take pictures for many of my past posts here. Used properly you will be amazed what a cell phone camera can do. All the following pictures were taken with my cell phone. Pictures of my dish of gulf shrimps with fiddlehead fern and beet stems. Picture C – Elephant garlic. Giant gloves, (compare them with the peppers), not a bad shot? Piture D - a macro shot of strawberry seeds. Picture A – a macro shot of a single brown rice. Picture B – a macro shot of two sesame seeds, one black and one white. Macro shots were done by putting a magnifying glass in front of the lens. Two important things will get you very good pictures with a cell phone camera: Good bright lights and steady tripod. dcarch

Haha! very interesting reaction to my plate. As it was said, "it's in the eye of the beholder". I of course will not tell you the hidden subliminal symbolism which I schemed to play games with your subconsciousness. I suppose, If you were an astrophysicist, you might behold that that circle represents the Black Hole in which it sucks in all matter with a relentless force, so powerful that no electromagnetic energies can escape. No electromagnetic waves means the absence of color and the absence of color equals black. However, the mystery of this Black Hole, dark matter and anti-matter could be explained by the new String Theory, which is represented by the stringy scallions. dcarch

Heidih, I am glad you are asking the questions. Yes, Those are paper-thin Chinese sausages. Reason for that is to give a little more taste to what's just under that, which is Cod. I forgot the Cod. :-) The artichokes seem to be a different variety. They are very large globe shaped, not heart shaped. Come with very long stems and the stems are very tender. dcarch

Kim – Wow! Those are perfect pork chops. The cabbage makes them even more perfect. Chris Taylor – Tagliatelle and ceps, makes it very attractive to be a vegetarian. SobaAddict – That bread looks like professionally made. Very pretty artichoke dish. Beautiful plating on the others. Mm84321 – you are the cirque du soleil of the food world. Percyn – burger making require more skill than many fancy recipes. Scottyboy – the smoked pork belly looks heavenly. Prawncracker – Mango lobster, sounds like a great pairing. Panaderia Canadiense – While your Beef Stroganstuff may not be authentic, but it looks like it tastes better than the real thing. Anna N – That simple shrimp salad is simply divine. Jayt90 – that chicken ballotine is amazing! C. sapidus – With perfect steak like that, who needs sous vide? Patrickamory – your Boston-style baked beans sure looks appetizing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few ordinary everyday dishes. dcarch Gulf Shrimps with Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Black Garlic, & Black Potatoes. Drumsticks with Artichoke Stems Roasted Pork on Jicama Tofu with Ginger/Scallion Sauce

To get max flavor and no soaking time, I often use a coffee grinder to turn dried muchrooms into mushroom powder. This will also allow you to use the tough stems. dcarch

I posted mine on the "Dinner" thread. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php/topic/5867-dinner/page__st__27870 dcarch

Some stunningly beautiful creations! Just amazing! For Memorial Day (USA): A fine gentleman generously sent me some special rub (Mad Hunky). This is experimentations in: Trying out the rub in various ways in three dishes, country style pork ribs, St. Louis pork ribs, and a crawfish dish. Finding out, side by side which rib of the two is my preference. Also, I am on a pork cracklings kick. Baked crackling is not fatty. The salad is lily bulbs with jicama. The MH Rub worked beautifully in all three dishes. And, to all those brave men and women who protected our freedom, I honor you on this Memorial Day. dcarch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Baked Pork Cracklings Country Style Ribs on Watermelon Rind Crawfish, My Style St. Louis Ribs on Pineapple and Beets Lily Bulb Petal, Jicama Salad

Nothing wrong with your Pork, Chris. Your camera is not the smartest. It couldn't tell that it was reading the reflection from the flash and underexposed the pork. dcarch