SylviaLovegren

How are the bees looking in your area? What bees? I guess that's your answer. ...although I don't recall a heavy bee season the year before. And it was not a mast year either. Our pollinators have gone the way of the Dodo. We used to raise hard-shelled gourds, but the extra chore of being a sexual slave to the lustful gourd flowers became just too onerous. Did you have blossoms on the apple tree? We have a small tree in our tiny urban backyard here in Toronto. Last year, the tree was afoam with blossom, then bore thousands of apples (every single one of which was sampled and thrown by squirrels. Every. Single. One.). This year, we had no blossom and, of course, now no fruit. I know that sometimes apples and other fruiters will alternate -- heavy set one year, almost nothing the next. Don't know if that's what happened this year or something else. It was a really mild winter and there was a late frost -- but was it severe enough to stop the blossoms? Toronto lilacs were full of bloom this spring. Is there an Ontario Agriculture office that might have info on stuff like that? I know the US ag offices always did, but another thing I don't know about how it works here yet. ETA: My apologies for the construction of that last sentence. Haven't had coffee yet!

I would like the two tiny Mexican ladies who have a truck in Holland, Michigan, to come to Toronto and sell their hand made tamals. Each foil-wrapped tamal, served with all the fresh salsa (3 kinds) you wanted, was $1.00. They were astonishingly good. But that's probably not what you were asking...

The bones you show up top have almost no meat on them, so roasting them wouldn't do much at all. Next time, don't scrape all the meat off but, instead, brown meaty bones a bit (you can do it on stove top if you don't want to use the oven). That gives the deeper roasted meat flavor. Scraped bones don't have much flavor to give, roasted or otherwise.

If you cooked the apples with cinnamon and pureed them, then mixed them with the sour cream, some brown sugar....might make an interesting frozen thing. A fun mixture for an ice/granita is cantaloupe or honeydew melon (or similar) puree with a bit of anisette. Touch of lemon juice and sugar syrup to taste. For some obscure reason I got rid of my little ice cream maker when we moved. Drat!

Those strawberries are just stunning. Beautiful! That jellyfish looks like a lion's mane -- powerful stingers. Be careful! Thanks for a wonderful and interesting blog. Are you sure it's supposed to be done? I don't think it is...

I read recently in the comments on a post somewhere on eG (no idea what the topic was) that the milk used in the panade chemically reacts with the meat somehow to make the meat mixture more tender. This made me wonder whether my recent switch to water rather than milk for my meatloaf/meatballs was why the texture was different and not quite as attractive as it had been. Thyme and nutmeg always go into my Swedish meatballs -- don't know if Danish meatballs are supposed to have the same flavor or not!

You can say that again. Cheddar heaven!

The best BLT is the one in front of me at the time. Craving!

The Sobeys on Front and Sherbourne in Toronto very occasionally has Pepper Jack -- but I dont' remember if it was Baldersons. I'll be there on Sunday and will try to remember to look. Trying to find Jack cheese -- with peppers or not -- in Toronto has been a surprise -- it was always the go-to mild supermarket cheese in the States. Here, they seem to have packaged mozzarella instead, which just doesn't cut it for me. Some stores have Pepper Havarti, which isn't too bad.

Raspberry swirl ice cream. White chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis. An old fashioned bombe -- maybe a raspberry jam center with chocolate ice cream mixed with raspberry liqueor and then a chocolate shell... One of my favorite things for fresh raspberries is shrub -- a sweetened concentrated raspberry juice kept in the fridge in a big handsome frosty jug, then at the appropriate moment on a sweltering day, poured over tinkling ice cubes in a tall glass and mixed with either fresh cold water or soda water, must have a stripey straw to slurp it up. My grandmother always had raspberry shrub in the fridge in the summer when I was a kid and I can still taste the intense raspberry-ness and icy coldness. On this side of the pond, I don't think anyone under the age of 60 even knows what "shrub" is anymore. Don't know about Blighty.

I second this - it's a fabulous tart and couldn't be easier. Someone linked to an Estonian Rhubarb Cake a while ago that was basically this, except instead of a pastry top, it was finished with 4 eggs beaten with 4 T sugar, then fold in 4 T flour, pour over the top and bake. Bottom crust prebaked for a bit. That would be delicious with fresh rasps or the jam as the filling. In fact, we had it last night with a few rhubarb stalks that were still in the market, topped up with lots of strawberries. Quite delicious!

I remember what American cooking was like before Alice. We used to have only frozen salmon available in restaurants...in SEATTLE! And I went to the fanciest restaurant in town for a big event and ordered espresso afterwards -- the waiter asked if extra strong instant Sanka would do. She'll helped change those things. I'll be forever grateful to her for the direct effect she had on the quality of my life, not to mention that of most of the continent!, attitude or no attitude.

You have excess raspberries and excess raspberry jam? Oh my stars. My advice: praise the Lord for the bounty and eat it by the bowlful while thinking of us poor miserable raspberryless sinners over here. (We could have raspberries but the required Swiss bank account is sadly lacking at the mo...) You could make a raspberry Pavlova. Or a delicious Schaum Torte using raspberry jam as the filling. Sigh.

Wow! I'm impressed. How does the clam/watermelon thing taste? I can't imagine it and am skeered to try... I like watermelon/basil/feta salad -- very refreshing on a hot day. Grilled watermelon with sherry butter sauce is supposed to be good but I'm not wild about it -- the watermelon picks up a fishy texture and taste -- to me -- that I don't care for. I LOVE Italian watermelon pudding with chocolate "seeds". Recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Sicilian-Watermelon-Pudding/ Do you eat the watermelon rind with the cod? Do you peel it first? Curious how you do it. I want to try those chips!

A person who has peas and duck breast for breakfast and who was born in NY, raised in Tuscany and living in Denmark, should have many interesting things to show us and talk about! Looking forward to it! That photo of the rape fields is beautiful.

Just so you know -- AND THIS IS A HUGE PET PEEVE -- Better World Books is NOT a charity. They donate the books they can't sell to various charitable organizations, just like most large booksellers do. They get the books FOR FREE from libraries and institutions -- unlike most other booksellers -- make a tidy profit and dump the dud books in 3rd world countries. Feel free to buy from them, of course, since they do get wonderful books and sell them very cheaply (thus driving down the cost of books for booksellers who have to buy their stock), but realize they're NOT a charity. If you want to hear some real profanity, talk to used book dealers about BWB and their "charity". /end of rant Libraries, by the way, pay the author/publisher a licensing fee which is more than just the price of one copy. So borrowing a book from the library is a good way to go -- and encourages the library to get more of that author's books. If a book is still in print it's a nice thing to buy a new copy (whether ebook or actual), but just buying and using books is a good thing and promotes reading and writing, both. Keeps the world of books up and running, one way or another!

TBOB (Taking the Bollocks Out of Baking) is much needed. It wasn’t me who called your low-carb diet stupid. I would sue the estate of Robert Atkins for obstructing trade (or whatever the correct term is) but I don’t sell enough books to be able to afford to sue because everyone is on a low-carb diet. (I see he once thought of becoming a comedian.) Also, I won’t take part in the dumbing down race (Sourdough Made Simple in Only 3.5 Minutes a Day?) I see we now have a Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Does that mean the bread in the first book was unhealthy? Another reason my book is self-published and approaching 250 sales while these books have bona fide publishers and sell by the thousand. Revolutionary thought but every consider coming off the low-carb diet, buying the book and baking the bread? Your husband doesn’t have to eat it. Best wishes Mick I'm thinking about it! He lost 25 pounds on the diet, I lost bupkis (and still trying to find it!). Sylvia

Where's mine? I'm dying here.

Wish I weren't doing the stupid low-carb thing (and that my husband weren't WILDLY enthusiastic about it). I miss baking bread and your book sounds wonderful. Just love your TBOB slogan!

You don't use soap on glasses people have been drinking out of? Really? Viruses and bacteria don't bother you?

Congrats! Hope the new job is fun and challenging and rewarding. And really hope that you'll pop back in here with questions and comments. Especially questions -- always enjoyed your topics!

Saveur had a few http://www.saveur.com/article/Travels/Eat-With-Your-Eyes-Food-Museums Slow Food: http://www.slowfoodutah.org/topics/view/22637/ has some as well (two of the same as Saveur's but an additional one in Switzerland) The Slow Food France website might have some interesting things. And there is an Escoffier Museum in Provence. Couldn't find a website for the museum but this article describes it: http://petanqueandpastis.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/01/muse_escoffier_.html

Sylvia, Could you please track down/post this recipe? Well, my memory's going. It was actually from the October 1984 Cuisine magazine, a recipe by Marie Simmons. No idea where the original is anymore, but I had an adaptation in my book, as follows: Polenta cooked (I like it with parmesan and jack stirred in) 2 oz dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in boiling water for 30 minutes 1-1/2 lbs sweet Italian sausage 1/2 cup boiling water EVOO 1 pound button mushrooms or similar, sliced 1/4 cup dry red wine 2 T finely chopped flat leaf parsley 1 garlic clove, minced 1/2 t lemon zest, minced. Drain the dried mushrooms, chop them, strain the soaking liquid and set aside. Prick the sausages and put them in a large skillet with the boiling water. Cover and simmer about 8 minutes, then uncover and cook until sausages are browned. Remove from pan and keep warm. Pour off most fat, add some olive oil, add the two mushrooms and saute until the mushrooms are cooked through. Stir in the wine and a few tablespoons of the mushroom soaking liquid and reduce until syrupy. Slice the sausages into bite size piece, add them to the mushrooms and stir to blend and heat through. Make the gremolata by mincing together the parsley, garlic and lemon. Stir the gremolata into the sausage/mushroom mixture and saute for a minutes until fragrant. Taste for seasoning and correct. Serve with warm and creamy polenta. You can make it without the dried mushrooms if you don't have them, change up the mushrooms to your taste, change the sausage, etc. But it's basically a very simple dish and really delicious.

Roasted red pepper strips with chopped garlic and olive oil -- delicious served on crackers or grilled bread. Homemade salted toasted almonds -- you can also spice them up with chili powders, etc.

Wow! Congratulations! That is just fantastic. Ya done good!