weinoo

When I got my large butcher block for part of my countertop, I literally spent weeks oiling both sides of it, prior to its installation.

My knives cut through paper plates. But - you do you.

On top of?

Reminds that I once cooked at someone's home - their cutting board was made of glass. Glad I didn't bring my own knives - not that I would have used them.

Another one of my plating semi-disasters. Pan-roasted pork rib chop, sliced off the bone (which is at lower left) and served with pan sauce made with shallots, mushrooms, white wine, chicken stock, mustard, horseradish and butter. Mustard greens and Jasmine rice round it out. Last night, I made dinner at a friend's apartment, a mere 9 floors below ours. Did all prep here, and brought it down to finish. Only took a picture of one plate: On top - fresh artichoke hearts, braised with olive oil, garlic, white wine, lemon, saffron and pimentón. Below, two versions of the exact same recipe for Maryland-style crab cakes. On the left, jumbo lump blue crab. On the right - Jonah crab. 3 out of 4 of us preferred the jumbo lump. Also on menu: Gildas to start, pasta al pesto with green beans, yellow beans and potatoes for the main. Blueberry/nectarine cobbler, served with vanilla ice cream for dessert. As a famous person once opined: "No complaints."

As Elaine used to say, a "big salad!" Lettuce, farmer's market tomatoes, cucumber, radish. H/B eggs, Ortiz tuna, Pickle Guys' pickled beets and pickled turnips.

A lovely Basque rose. (France's Basque country)...https://chambersstwines.com/products/ilarria-2024-irouleguy-rose

Pasta al pesto a couple nights ago. Out laSt night, fried white wild shrimp, meatballs, gravy and fried potatoes. Pan con tomate.

During the banking epidemic, which took place during the...well...pandemic, I purchased from this outfit: https://www.bakersauthority.com/ There's also webstaurant store...https://www.webstaurantstore.com/44035/wholesale-baking-ingredients.html In both the above cases, I think buying in bulk offers the greatest savings.

Stopped by the Union Square Greenmarket today, and picked up a few goodies. BLT, on Balthazar whole grain bread (lightly toasted). Assorted tomatoes (Beefsteak on the sandwich) and corn from Jersey. Duke's mayo.

It has to be toasted, if it starts out coming out of my freezer! https://www.freshdirect.com/bky/bak_bagel_knish/bak_bagels/sc/bak_bagels_plain/p/bak_pid_4651076

Bagel, Scottish smoked salmon, pickled herring, crudité. (Special plating for @rotuts and @gfweb).

I’m waiting for them to make an oven that will do everything above, plus clean up after cooking.

In my opinion, with AI, it's only gonna get worse.

After having some lunch, walked over to Essex Market, and my favorite cheesemonger. The Tour de France just concluded (today) their stages in the Pyrenees, and Formaggio Essex had just gotten in a delivery (which also included my favorite potato chips from Spain)... The Comté - delicious as always. The Pyrenees' cheeses are just fantastic.

Walked over to Chinatown (wait, I sorta live in Chinatown, so I only walked a few blocks west on Grand Street) to restock a few pantry items, along with some ginger, mangoes, etc. Never tried anything from the Ning Chi company, which is located in Taiwan.

My friend makes a smoked bluefish "dip" at Cafe Katja... I don't have his recipe (I'll ask him for it), but Hank Shaw has a nice one on his website...https://honest-food.net/bluefish-pate-recipe/

For anyone who might wonder, Louisette was one of the authors of Mastering the Art!

As a once-famous chef once said: "Take it to the plate." Eel Bar Foul Witch is not so much how beautiful the food looks on the plate, but how beautiful it tastes once in the mouth!

Couple of dinners out this past weekend. Friday night - the new Ops Pizza, on 2nd Avenue in the East Village (the original is in Bushwick, Brooklyn.) Known for both their pizza and their well-curated natural wine list, it was a place i always wanted to try, but failed to get to the Brooklyn location. Now that it is within walking distance, we went on opening weekend. I always have to order a classic Margherita - and this one did not disappoint. And we had a calzone, which was fine, if not terribly exciting. We did start with (no picture) fritto misto, an excellent platter of beautifully fried shrimp, haddock and some veg. Cocktails were good, and the wine by the glass selection was fine. We'll be back for more. Saturday night was dinner at Foul Witch, which interestingly enough was borne from the loins of Roberta's, another Bushwick stalwart, which also begat the much lauded (and sadly, now closed) Blanca, as well as Heritage Radio Network. We started by sharing the excellent focaccia, along with a plate (a huge plate, I might add) of the Finocchiona. Pastas followed, with Significant Eater enjoying the wonderful Chitarra with bottarga and yours truly, the lumache pomodoro, another fine dish. We were stuffed, but able to share the roasted sea bream... No room for dessert, but we were comped two glasses of the house amaro, and left happy for the walk home. And last night, back to local fave Eel Bar, where my only picture was taken early on... Eggs mayo, white prawns, burger, half chicken and cheesecake were all consumed.

If we could only cut him in half. For good. Hopefully, you told your gastroenterologist...in addition to telling us, of course.

Exactly. As a matter of fact, at one of our favorite places where they make a good burger, it's on a brioche bun; if I order one, I ask for it on toasted rye instead.

I have an earlier Creami; the capacity of the containers is 2 cups. I just kinda eyeball things. Yesterday I prepped, but haven’t yet spun, lemon sorbet, peach sorbet (with canned peaches in light syrup), and nectarine sorbet with, well, real nectarines. Each batch prepared was slightly more than the max fill line, but don’t have a big problem with that. I enjoy using different boozes, so for the lemon I used gin, the peach bourbon, and the nectarine - Apry. I expect they’ll all be edible.

Exactly why I use an old Cook's Illustrated article and technique for my sorbets. They don't stick around long enough for me to worry about them so much. Sorbets.pdf

Oy vey. But of course, as we all know, Wolfgang Puck was the originator of the smoked salmon pizza - at Spago - 43 years ago! https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/article/features/wolfgang-puck-smoked-salmon-pizza