Anna N

Today Kerry and I had business in Dundas so we lunched here at Bangkok Spoon. We decided to share some appetizers. I washed down mine with a glass of Pinot Gris and Kerry stuck with water. Calamari Shrimp cakes Coconut shrimp Crispy vegetarian curry puffs Sticky rice and peanut sauce. We were both quietly amused when a couple of ladies at a table beside us asked for chopsticks. Apparently the staff are accustomed to this and produced chopsticks without blinking an eye.

Not prepared to pay five dollars a month for access to a database of recipes.

The problem here is that only a few of us have the kind of scale that will accurately weigh 1 teaspoon of cumin powder.

I must add that @blue_dolphin's use of these books urged me back to them and they do have some wonderful recipes which I have been enjoying.

I must say how much I am enjoying your adventures with these meal delivery kits. The food does look appetizing. My brief experience with Chefs Plate still leaves me with the impression that the only things they knew how to pack were kale, quinoa and flat iron steak.

I am still trying to work my way through the logic of that!

I did warn somewhere that there would be some strange combinations as I try to use up whatever is in my fridge!

I know I don't have a replacement blade for mine.

I think @Kerry Beal and I are still waiting for one or more.

I would be hard-pressed to decide if I should eat it or hang it on my wall. It is beautiful.

@KennethT Your blogs are always interesting. I am looking forward to another.

I would be surprised and delightfully so if you found such a list. I recall struggling with the same issue some years ago. At one point I began developing my own table by weighing a tablespoon full of a whole spice and then weighing it again after I had ground it. I think it might take most of a lifetime to cover off all the spices! Now I wing it knowing that for the most part a tablespoon of ground spice will be considerably more potent than a tablespoon of whole spice. I have found it is rarely critical unless you are working with something with a lot of heat like peppercorns. Perhaps others have found a table or have better advice. I shall be watching with interest.

Sorry see my edit we must've cross posted.

oops. I just misread the whole thing. Thought you were trying to put the sauce under the skin. Can't see why the rub wouldn't work under the skin. Edited to remove ridiculous advice.

The lemon juice I will go along with. In fact I intended to give them a squeeze this morning but the truffle oil - NAH. I am such a cheap date.

Thank you. This time I put them in a dry cast-iron frypan (sometimes I use one of my Darto pans), all gill side down, fry them on fairly high heat, then turn them gill side up and keep doing this until I'm happy with the result. I know some people go much further so that they are devoid of any moisture but I like them like this. When I am satisfied with their color, I add about a tablespoon of butter to the pan, toss them about it a bit, season them with salt and pepper and serve them.

I am just getting into this book now and I have to say if any book that I have read in the last few years cries out for photographs it is this one! There are a few photographs but many are of scenes or ingredients and very few are of finished dishes. I am not by any means laying blame just wishing that the publishers could have found the money to support a lot more photography because the food (and the author) are so deserving of it. I have the Kindle edition so I find myself flipping back and forth as it were between the book and Google images as I try to imagine certain dishes.

Might be lunch. Might be dinner. Might serve as both. If you have never considered cooking lettuce you have missed out. It is also the perfect way to avoid waste because you can use lettuce that is not in prime condition. Grilled romaine, grilled radicchio are like very different vegetables than when raw. This particular recipe called for iceberg lettuce but I think it worked perfectly well with romaine. Asian cuisine it's much less reluctant to cook salads greens then those of us raised in the Western tradition.

Wonderful article and she has some very pertinent points. I am at the stage now where I don't want to bake in the big oven because it will take me half an hour to empty it. How sad is that? Not sure how I'm going to handle that.

I remembered to take a photograph as I was in the middle of packing these up. The last treats for my son-in-law until I return in August. These are from the David Lebovitz website – – salty, deep – dark chocolate brownies.

Always the most flattering light for good leftovers.

I have the one Melissa is describing above but I preferred it when the sprayer was not part of the faucet but was separate like so.

An interesting use of cabbage.