JoNorvelleWalker

The worst* pizza I ever had was in Genoa. Then again I got violently ill in Naples... *OK second worst...I forgot about Texas.

Is the Miele their steam oven?

I've been experimenting with using a stir-fry pan for cooking steak. Stir-fry pan is what William Sonoma calls it. You might think of it as a stainless steel flat bottom wok. I find the generous sides of the pan reduce splatter significantly. Plus I can turn off the smoke alarm* and get the pan smoking hot. The first attempt was not half bad. The outside was a little charred and there was a hint of gray, but the rest was a lovely pink medium rare. Last night I tried again. I probably got the pan even hotter and I reduced the already very short time. The crust was overdone. The inside was what one might charitably call "blue". I would call it raw. I couldn't chew it. I would masticate a mouthful as best I could to extract some flavor and then had to spit it out and try again. But there was no gray! @CantCookStillTry any luck finding hing where you are? *not to make light of tragedy a house in the neighborhood burned down this weekend.

I believe Steve has said somewhere Mexicans don't soak their beans.

When the Ayocote were new they took four hours in the pressure cooker!

What I have in stock are: Ayocote Morado Ayocote Amarillo Ayocote Blanco Rio Zape Moro Yellow Eye Royal Corona Pinquitos And I just spilled a bag of chickpeas. (Steve might consider more upscale packaging.) In the past Ayocote have been problematic. Moro was good. But Rio Zape has been my favorite -- possibly why I have only a quarter pound left that I could find. So I think for tonight it boils down to either Moro or Pinquitos. @kayb the last of my Cranberry went off to a pot of Georgian stewed beans with herbs, one of the best bean dishes I have had: Edit: and I forgot, still a couple pounds of Marcella beans.

Oops, apparently I was not clear. I am not looking for recipe suggestions. I am looking for Rancho Gordo bean variety suggestions for a simple pot of well flavored Mexican style beans.

I've had it from the library but I do not own a copy. Many of the ingredients were a bit too exotic for me.

I still have pounds and pounds of Rancho Gordo that aren't getting any younger. Tomorrow has to be beans. Any suggestions? When daylight comes I may post my inventory. What I want is a simple batch of beans to accompany a Mexican meal.

I am also of that persuasion. Almost all of my food pictures need white balancing and a little lightening, done in camera raw. Then my final steps are converting to 720 pixels width, unsharp masking, converting to sRGB, changing mode to 8-bits per channel, and saving the file as .png -- admittedly I should automate those things.

The wild rice I ended up with is Bineshii, hand harvested and wood parched but not the most expensive stuff. The package came today. It looks good. I confess the reason I chose Bineshii is because they have an amazon storefront: 1 LB MN WILD RICE AMERICAN INDIAN HAND HARVESTED...

I thought grapefruit? At a farmers market? But then I remembered where you were.

I've used my KitchenAid grinder only for meat, but it may make a difference which way you insert the blade on the shaft.

I know it's not exactly Sardinian but Bugialli's vermicelli in Sicilian tuna sauce: Pasta not tossed before photographing. And I used linguini.

I fondly remember Sky Bars. Unfortunately the last one I had -- I believe from the Vermont Country Store -- was a little un-fresh.

Part of their charm. Now I am craving them.

I once had a fondness for Necco wafers. Not sure I still do but it would be very sad to see them go. What is the situation? I don't even know who makes them. My teeth are not amenable to Mary Janes.

When I got the newsletter I didn't debate, I went to the Rancho Gordo site. But that's what I get for sleeping late. Speaking of debate, I was in a discussion with a colleague at work about bean pots. She advocated for her bean pot and I advocated for mine. After some while we realized both of us had bean pots from Rancho Gordo and she concluded: "I think we have the same bean pot."

...and after reading the article last night in the New Yorker, yet again the bean club is sold out.

I've never seen a ramp in the store or in the ground. I believe they don't exist.

Speaking seriously, my refrigerator soaks everything in condensate, dissolved cheese, and/or other red-brown fluids...which eventually puddle on the floor. How do get your refrigerator to dry things out?

Vegetables hadn't been invented when I grew up in the 40's and 50's.

You won't believe how much time I wasted looking for this article in the NY Times...

I notice the packaging asserts "Patent Pending". Perhaps about to be baked with patent flour.

OK, egg. Single egg omelet in the 8 inch WS was not that pretty. Not picture worthy. Perfectly tasty though. I'd say it was about halfway between my first attempt with the Koizumi and the second. It appears the Danish non-stick is not quite as non-stick as the Japanese. A trace of egg was left in the pan. Both times the Koizumi pan was clean. More trials are necessary.