weinoo

I was definitely referring to the Levovitz recipe. Whether I make it or not all depends... Oh - he does say that all whole milk is fine.

Well...

Melissa Clark is probably the last "journalist's" cookbook I bought (Instant something or other), as I obviously waded into the Instant Pot insanity. But my other recent purchases are all either single subject books, or books from restaurants/chefs I admire. Examples include the Joe Beef cookbook, Nopalito, Roscioli, a book about Riesling, etc. I also just ordered a used book I thought I owned, but which is hiding somewhere - Richard Olney's French Menu Cookbook.

I'm pretty sure that I know buttermilk may be substituted for things like yogurt and kefir somewhat easily. But can buttermilk be substituted for regular, whole milk? I'm talking specifically for a dessert called flaugnarde, where it becomes part of the custard; and who knew that flaugnarde was simply a clafoutis made with different fruit than cherries?!

In perhaps the worst plating job ever (I have no idea what I was thinking), we had this for dinner last night: Chops from a rack of lamb (steam roasted for 15 minutes in the Cuisinart), Rancho Gordo flageolots cooked a la Instant Pot (they took like 12 minutes), and roasted pimenton dusted potatoes. There was also some sautéed broccoli, but I didn't want to make an even bigger mess of the plate. Oh - I took the just cooked beans, and tossed them with lots of olive oil, some herbs de Provence, salt, pepper, and a splash of one of my multitudes of Spanish vinegars. All tasted better than it looks.

You know, here's the thing with cookbooks by millennial bloggers. Isn't every recipe available somewhere else? I don't necessary see any real creativity going on with these recipes, they all just look like rehased stuff with maybe an ingredient or two changed. But maybe that's just me. Anyway, in case anyone is interested, here are Alison's beauty secrets!

The lemon in the dish turned the whole dish bitter. LOL!

I recently made a recipe of hers from the NY Times cooking section. Chicken with garbanzo beans. It was awful.

We can take this over to the NY thread, but you're discounting much great pizza in NYC. And recent reports from Pepe's haven't even been that great!

Nice photos and nice trip. That lettuce is just so wrong on a lobster roll.

Well, if you've never had a NY bagel, then you have nothing to compare it to.

You could easily pass these up... That Montreal bagel thing... Say what you will, they're just not as good as a classic NY bagel is. Too light and airy, in a weird way. I'll travel to Brooklyn (Bagel Hole), Whitestone (Utopia Bagels), Utopia/Fresh Meadows (Bagel Oasis), or even New Jersey for bagels, all of which will be better than these.

I think the oldest ingredient still in use in my kitchen is me.

Not planning on cooking, as we're heading to one of the best food cities on the continent - Montreal, and tonight we will be having dinner at Joe Beef!

Ahhhhh, algae...well, that makes me feel so much better! I've tried the vinegar thing - didn't work. I've tried vinegar/baking soda - didn't work. I like the idea of some sort of bendable brush. And as we're going away for a few days, I've emptied the reservoir and it will have time to dry out, but I don't see how that will remove the green stuff from the bottom of the tank!

Yes, but how do you wash it - it's impossible to reach into the bottom, no? Or do you just add some liquid soap and shake it up?

So the bottom of the reservoir to my CSO has grown a little bit of green mold. Pretty sure it won't kill me, as that water is heated to a boil to turn into the steam, but I'm wondering how everyone else deals with cleaning of the reservoir. Lemme know!

The "swing by" thing isn't exactly easy, since we live in NYC. But if there's a conference coming up in DC, one at which my wife's attendance is required, it will undoubtedly be a stop. As I mentioned, if we still had our apartment on Kalorama Road, this would be dangerous!

Awesome!

At some point, perhaps in my lifetime, New York State will join the states which have become enlightened. That is, after everyone lines up for the money. We were recently in California, and man did I have a good time at Harvest, on Geary. Now, what were we talking about again?

Experimenting with browning meat, which I think is tough in the IP, due to inability to control the sauté function temperature. It gets too hot, without being able to control the heat, other than powering it on and off. I played around with the IP last night. Admittedly a crappy experiment, since I tried to use a whole hunk of meat with a bone in it, which makes it sort of impossible for the meat to be in perfect contact with the bottom surface; additionally, the bottom surface of the Instant Pot is a bit convex. So I got to this point and said to myself, self, move on, remove the butt, this experiment sucks... That's a hunk of nothing special pork butt, procured at the Essex St. Market. After that, I tossed in the mirepoix (red onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic) and with powering and off, was able to get it nicely sweated...and I also toasted some chili powder as the veg were sweating. The pork butt had marinated overnight in a Penzey's spice mix tarted up with lemon juice, lime juice, and olive oil. I put the butt back atop the sweated vegetables, added the marinade back to the Instant Pot, along with half a cup of stock, and pressure cooked it for 60 minutes. Removed the butt, and reduced the (admittedly delicious) sauce. I had @rancho_gordo's Caballero beans, cooked on the stove top, Carolina Gold rice, and CSO steam roasted "baby" broccoli along with a few weird carrots. Sliced one muscle of the butt (the rest will become pulled pork), and plated... It was actually quite a nice dinner plate. But I can't wait for the pulled pork! Significant Eater was already bugging me for tacos.

I'm left-hand dominant, I guess, as I throw a ball with my left hand, but I write with my right hand. When I'm in the kitchen, the chef's knife is in my left hand. When I'm at the table, the fork is. My dishwasher is on the left of my sink. Interesting stuff.

You and me both, @KennethT. After all, how many countertop ovens does one really need...maybe the real innovation will be one unit that does it all!

Really, no one has one of these? Picture from RoccBox website. C'mon, @rotuts! @scott123 What the hell are you waiting for???? this could be the answer to producing real, authentic, lawful, Neapolitan pizza at home.

I think it's a juvenile eagle. I doubt an eagle would let an osprey hang out near its nest. We watch with fascination the eagles and their eaglets that live in the U.S. National Arboretum, located in Washington, D.C. The couple, dubbed Mr. President and The First Lady, have successful raised many kids. This year, there is a problem with one of them, and that one is now in a rehab center. Evidently, the adult eagles will go near osprey nests, to steal their food.