Norm Matthews

I got some pork loin chops yesterday and was looking on line for something to do with them. Then my son opened my new cookbook KoreaTown, to a Kalbi recipe and offered it as a suggestion. It is for ribs but he said it's meat from the same part of the pig. He's right so I made them and grilled them today. I also made some quick kimchi with baby bok choy and bean sprouts. We also had some store bought kimchi and rice.

We had a chicken thigh recipe from the KoreaTown cookbook along with some kimchi sides.

At the end of the cookbook is a chapter of recipes from non-Korean chefs who use Korean flavors in their cooking. I made one with gochujang and coca-cola for dinner tonight. We had it with traditional Kimchi & banchan.

I ordered the book as soon as I saw you mention it and it came today. I am excited about trying some of the recipes. Even though my wife and I owned a Korean restaurant, she and her mother did the cooking and I just helped out when they got busy after I got home from teaching. I chopped stuff but didn't cook Korean. I didn't have to when I could just ask for it. After she and her family left, I started to learn to cook Korean for my son who was only about 4 at the time. He likes to cook now and knows more about the food of his heritage than I do. BTW here is a picture of my son and a picture of a chef from the book.

If Cassie were still here, we'd have a cake and a birthday party, but since she isn't, we had cake without a party. It is a white cake with lemon curd in the middle, cream cheese icing, and sugared peaches on the side. Main course was grilled rib eye steaks, broccoli salad, the last of the leftover bulgar salad, and something called a blooming potato. It's a potato cut so after it is baked, it's crispy on top and pulls apart like a blooming onion. This was the second time I have tried it and think I need to do it again and again until I get all the kinks worked out of the recipe.

I put half a salmon in the smoker at around 180º for a couple hours and we had it with a bulgur salad, carrots cooked with mushrooms and onion, and a baked potato.

We had enough steak leftover from last night for sandwiches tonight so I made some cheesesteak fixings and a provolone-parm. sauce.

After it stopped raining, it was nice enough to grill outside so I did steaks and corn. Inside I made a baked pototato (not on the table yet), salad and mushrooms. Earlier I made some sourdough bread with white whole wheat flour. When it came out of the oven the crust looked darker that it should but it was done to 190º so I knew it wasn't over baked. When I cut a slice, i was surprised at how dark the bread was. It looked like regular whole wheat bread, not like other bread I had made with white whole wheat flour. I checked the bag 4 times and every time it said "white whole wheat" All I can figure is that they put the wrong flour in the bag or their definition of white is different than mine.

My camera battery went dead right after taking this picture so I did't get a shot of the inside. It's sour dough French bread with poppy seeds. PS I used white whole wheat flour. I am guessing that's why it turned out a little darker than usual.

We had sesame chicken this evening.

Elsie, in a further attempt to answer your question, here is a wider view of that end of the kitchen. When we moved in, it was a breakfast nook with the ceiling light coming down a lot lower and no storage in that end of the kitchen. My son and Cassie built in the counter and cabinets for more storage. There wasn't enough space to put all our stuff before then.

ElsieD, I don't know what you should call it. Portable kitchen cupboard is a pretty accurate way to describe it. It is on wheels and has storage underneath. The cutting board on top is rubber and makes a good place for kneading dough.

Since Cassie has moved out, I have turned her cake decorating station into my bread making place. After a disappointing effort to make some pumpernickel bread, I got some advice from some of you folks here as well as a recipe from Anna N. I didn't use that recipe but gleaned some good information from it and used a recipe for one loaf from King Arthur Flour and here are the results from today. Yesterday, in anticipation of making this, I cooked some corned beef and we have been having sandwiches with it and the bread today.

In my defense, feeble as it is, I bought half a dozen different flours that day and put them all in the freezer.

I opened the freezer this morning to take out some coffee and noticed a small brown paper bag which I didn't remember. When I took out the contents, I discovered it was a small bag of Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye flour. When I was driving around looking for pumpernickle flour, I found this at the second Whole Food store i went to, put it in the freezer and forgot about it. I need to start taking some memory pills.

This is what my Farm Journal Homeade Bread cookbook said about Pumpernickle bread. "Named for Swiss Baker Pumper Nickel, who first made it to stretch the limited amount of flour during a wheat shortage. You will notice that our recipe calls for corneal, mashed potatoes and whole wheat flour in addition to rye flour"

I have looked on-line at local health food stores near here and no luck yet. Dark rye flour is essentially the same thing as pumpernickle flour. Your recipe that toasts rye flour may come close to replicating a similar kind of flour.

Anna, I looked for pumpernickle flour at both Trader Joe's and Whole foods. I will have to do a search to see where any local health food stores might be. I was going to add some cocoa powder to this bread if it wasn't looking dark enough but it was filling up my 7 qt bowl and getting so thick that I didn't want to play around with the recipe. I will look for a pumpernickle bread recipe that used rye flour until or unless I can find the flour locally.

I have been wanted to do a pumpernickle bread for a while but didn't want to pay KA prices for pumpernickle flour, plus shipping that would nearly double their high price, and no one carries it around here. When I did the Swedish Rye bread, I noticed in the Farm Journal cookbook, a pumpernickle recipe that didn't use pumpernickle flour. It looked good. It used whole wheat, and rye flours plus molasses and mashed potatoes. I made it and found that if I hadn't had a large capacity bowl, it would have been too small and there was a point where the mixer was straining-and it's a pretty strong mixer. Well it wasn't dark like you'd expect pumpernickle bread to be and I thought it was absolutely bland in taste. I took pictures but since I didn't like it at all, I won't post them.

Your breakfast looks yummy. In my twenties, I went on a 3 day pass to Paris. In effect, I only had one full day there. I wanted to see the Louvre most of all so I asked directions from a Gendarme in what I thought was French. I didn't understand a single word he said. Not even a simple Nord, Oust or anything. I went in the direction he pointed and after a few blocks, I asked someone else. Each time i went where they pointed and eventually got there. During the day, I am sure I ordered different things to eat but they all brought me a ham and cheese sandwich on French bread. Crusty French bread. BTW I didn't know cheeses were made other than by Kraft. At the Louvre I found a room where they had a buffet laid out for people to get a snack. They had baguettes, cheeses and ham.

The store nad some breaded and skewered chicken which I browned in butter, then finished in the oven with tomatoes and Parm. cheese, then served with rice and parsley. We also had salad and dessert.

Eggs and sausage over buttered rye toast.

I buy yeast in instant yeast in jars and although it is more than a package generally is, I usually use a scant tablespoon. I don't really measure that too closely.

They look really good Anna N. Let me know how you like it.

I plan to try a pumpernickle bread soon from the same cookbook. It has potatoes in it. Hope it isn't too heavy.