Thanks for the Crepes

The watermelon pickles are intriguing to me. I've never had them before, and would be even more amazed that the rinds are edible except for the fact that I've been offering many, many pounds of them to my raccoon buddies over the years. They efficiently snarf them down to the green peels over a few days. I mean these peels look like they have been scraped with a sharp knife. It's astounding, but raccoons will eat many things that at least this human turns her nose up at.

If it's in a patty, it's a hamburger. If it's in a cylinder it's a sausage. Sorry you can't get sage. We wouldn't be able to make our Thanksgiving dressing/stuffing without it. It grows wild in many places here, but I haven't seen it in NC except cultivated. And yeah, I usually mince my own pork from partially frozen. Ground pork used to be cheaper here, and less fatty. Now, I know fat brings flavor, but the price has tripled and the fat has doubled recently. I like knife work anyway. I lose time doing it, but I have plenty of that these days. Weirdly, knife work relaxes me. It's zen like.

I doubt that, really. It's a good joke on our most vehement green bell pepper hater, but it is the season for fresh Hatches. I have some in the crisper. I also have a couple cans of T.J.'s "New Mexico Hatch Valley Fire Roasted Diced Green Chile". I like both green bells and Hatch. I am also pretty sure T.J.'s doesn't lie as frequently as some other purveyors. I have added a can of T.J.'s Hatch peppers to homemade mac and cheese and am delighted to see them offering this frozen.

Thanks shain, Actually more flavor I don't need. I'm not a stinky cheese kinda gal. I have had my Valbreso grow visible mold after I'd removed it from the can to avoid "tinny" flavor and placed it in an airtight plastic container with its brine. Maybe it would have been better off in the can, but my container was scrupulously clean. It's a lot of cheese to go through, even for two people, unless I want to make spanakoptia. Thank you so much for your info about freezing feta.

Are you really attached to the casings? Some folks are, but if you mix up your own seasonings with ground meat of your choosing, it's comparatively easy if you just fry them up in patties or even rolls of meat that can be put into a bun. Also if you bought a container or ground pork, you could mix up some to make your sausage, then freeze the rest in serving portions for a little while (ground meat does not hold well for very long in the freezer IMO) and then use it for dry fried green beans with pork, ants on a log or any number of things. Can you get sage in China? It's an herb I dearly love in sausage. I know you can get ground red pepper, which is something else I choose to put in my homemade uncased sausage, along with black pepper.

I love fatty pork blade steaks cooked in the oven under the broiler until the fat is crispy from raw. I buy them about a half inch thick. They seem tender enough to me and oh so flavorful. I like salt, pepper and fresh rosemary on them before they go under the broiler. We get very good pork and cheaply around here, though. We are in a major producing state. I usually serve them with a baked sweet potato and greens of some kind. We are also the foremost producer of sweet potatoes in this country, but dwarfed by China's production.

You can console yourself with this. I continue to be amazed at how inexpensive it it can be to eat out in China and some other countries. Not here! I'm glad you didn't end up with a freezer full of mediocre meat product you might not enjoy at a ridiculous price. You can always buy ground pork and add your own seasonings. That is an idea I picked up here on eGullet. If you're not picky about it being in a casing, and I'm not, this works wonderfully. And you know what is in it.

I deviate from the traditional Greek salad by adding cos/Romaine lettuce. I like it that way. Lots of restaurants serve it that way, and that was my first experience of Greek salad. My long since passed first FIL never made a Greek salad to share with us, but I have enjoyed his spanakopita, moussaka, baklava, avgolemono, tiropita and a bunch of other stuff. He loved to cook much more than most men I'm familiar with and owned a restaurant in Memphis, TN many years ago. I did manage to buy a cucumber from Food Lion grocer that was almost as crisp and fresh tasting as a good, freshly harvested garden one. The skin was still too tough not to peel, but this has to be the best cucumber I've bought from a grocery store. I wish I had bought more.

When/if I get a working oven, I am so trying this recipe. I can even do it with Camparis which have become a go to tomato after several disappointing deviations from them this summer, including expensive "heirloom" lookalikes that were juicy but flavorless. Camparis are usually available through winter here now. @Shelby, It would be much easier to peel larger good garden tomatoes like Smithy used if you wanted to use peeled. Do you blanch them in boiling water like I'm used to for canning or use another method? Peels usually don't bother me at all, especially in salads, but when you want a smooth tomato sauce, it's best to get rid of the peels. P.S.: Garden pics would be much appreciated by me and probably the community. pet pics, on and on ...

I used to buy Valbreso sheep's milk feta at the Mediterranean store, but it comes in a 21.4 oz can in brine, and I see after looking it up on Amazon ($23.99), that they want almost twice as much for the can as the Harmony Market does($12.99). It seems to also be available from Costco in a 21 oz. plastic pouch, but no price, at least for me, a non-member. I like this brand a lot usually, but I did get one can from Harmony that was too gamy for my taste. I bought another after and it was fine, so either my palate varies or the product does. Alas, the big can is more than I can use on my own now, so I am buying lesser feta in smaller quantities, that is much less expensive and doesn't vary in its taste. Athenos is the one I got recently. It seems to be made from cow's milk and is from Wisconsin. It's kind of creamy for a crumbly cheese, always consistent, and doesn't challenge me with too much funk. I like Athenos a lot too. Valbreso is the one I will buy if I ever brave the maintenance morons to get my oven fixed and make spanakopita to mostly freeze. Hmmm? Spanakopita freezes fine unbaked and bakes up like freshly made does. Why shouldn't feta? Does anyone have experience with freezing feta? Would it still be suitable for salads?

Exceptionally good-looking food and photography as usual, liamsaunt. But who hates lobster; are you an alien? If you are an alien, you must be a kind one to indulge us humans by cooking up such a delicious creation as those little lobster rolls. The person who invented BLT's deserves some kind of award, but those mini lobster rolls are even better to me. Good live lobsters are one of the things I can't find anymore around here. Harris Teeter used to have them in a tank years ago. Now the only place I know is Grand Asia Market, but that's out of my walking distance, and the last time I bought some there they were "muddy" tasting, as if they had been subsisting in a dirty tank. Hmmm. Maybe my seafood monger can order them or something. They do have tanks and they are friendly and accommodating in my past interactions with them. Since HungryChris found them at such a bargain recently they might even be reasonably priced. A girl can dream ... about perfect lobster rolls.

Lucky, lucky ducky! I covet one of these, but can't afford.

I wasn't hungry when I got home from the grocery store until about midway through my cool shower and I'd cooled down. Then I became famished. I'd picked up some beef chuck freshly ground in the store today and I had Hatch chilis, so I decided on a green chili cheeseburger. I quickly researched, and it seems that it's usually beef, chilis and sometimes grilled onion on top, then American cheese on top of that. I had bought some colby-jack for this purpose, but decided to stick with the white American I also had. I roasted the chili in a dry pan, then peeled, deseeded and chopped wearing gloves. The only other components were a little mayo on the grilled bun. This was really good, but messy to eat. I made a Greek salad to eat first and heated an individual blueberry pie for dessert. The cherry pie is good, and the first ingredient is cherries. I won't buy the blueberry one again. I suspected blueberries wasn't the first ingredient here, and it wasn't.

I also interpreted @lindag's link to be $199 for 1.25 to 1.5 pounds, but perhaps I'm wrong, if it means 12 packages of that weight. I took it to mean the tail was cut into 12 pieces, including the very bony couple cut from the end of the tail in the linked photo. There seemed no way to clarify further on the website. Either way, only something I think a restaurant would be interested in. These tails used to be given away to poor folks. Lobster used to be fed to prisoners. Ground beef used to be a budget meat. Things sure have changed. At least in this country, the poor have a nearly impossible row to hoe these days.

shain, Many of us here, OK maybe just me, have no idea what dorayaki might be. I'd be interested to hear your elaboration of how you made this and how it tastes. God help me, I was thinking McDonald's hamburger when I first saw the photos.

Linda, If you can get Helluva Good brand French onion dip, it's worth giving it a try. It's still made with real sour cream, and very good, a few months ago when I got some. I can't finish the whole 12 oz. container by myself in time, but I'll tell you what, it beats the pants off Deans, which I think is made with oil and other gook you don't want in sour cream and onion dip. There isn't a significant amount of difference in the price either. Helluva Good (yes, it is a real brand name) must be widely available, because unless memory fails (very possible), Anna and Kerry had purchased some on their latest excursion to Manitoulin.

I'm with you @OkieFarmer, if you're going to buy a Porterhouse/T-bone, then go with the Porterhouse. You are buying bone anyway, and it seems that the bone gets heavier/longer as the fillet portion disappears. Do you, as a butcher, find this to be true? Personally, I only buy Porterhouse when it's on a really good sale, and my favorite cut, rib eye isn't, so is much more expensive.

I have only one teapot, and it probably isn't worth any money, but it is worth a lot to me. It's one of the things my stepmother gave me before she passed, when she and everyone else knew that was imminent. So it is very special to me. It's marked on the bottom of the glazed inside and out white ceramic piece "copyright (symbol) 1992, CBK Ltd., Taiwan. I just measured the capacity, and it holds a little under five cups or about a liter. There is an embossed bow at the top of where the handle joins the body of the pot, and English ivy vines are also embossed (raised) twined around the circumference of the pot and barely extend onto the graceful spout a little. The piece is mostly white, with three colors for the embossing. The leaves of the ivy are green, the vines brown, the bow a very light gray. It deviates from nature by having something that looks like small blackberries or raspberries attached to the ivy vine. These berry things are also rendered in brown. It seems to work in spite of this because I find it graceful and very pleasing to my eye. I don't use it much, as I don't have company for tea anymore. It does have a design feature where there is notch cut into where the pot accepts the lid so you can carefully fit one of the two ears on the lid under the opposite rim of the opening in the pot and again, carefully drop the other ear into the notch. When you turn the lid 45 degrees it is very secure, and held by the ears under the rim of the opening of the pot, so no chance of it coming loose and getting broken during pouring. I prefer to brew my personal tea directly in a ceramic mug, again glazed inside and out with a hand painted pattern on the outside in Wisteria vines in flower. It's marked on the bottom "Wisteria dinnerware, 2004 Heritage Mint, Ltd., Scottsdale, AZ, USA, made in China". I know this one's not worth anything, because I bought it at Dollar General. I still find it pleasing, and have several other pieces in the same pattern. The mug holds a half liter, so it is much bigger than many of the teapots upthread. I preheat it with boiling water, and brew my tea directly in it with a non-matching salad plate on top to hold the heat. And yes, I drink the entire cup at one go. I felt intimidated by some of the beautiful Asian teaware I was unfamiliar with. I was afraid to post about mine until andiesenjie posted some more normal (to me) teaware like I grew up with, but not Wedgewood or anything really expensive. I know I would have much to learn if I were to be invited to a Japanese tea ceremony, and mine may be a redneck way of brewing tea, but it works just fine for me.

I have been picking up raw, unprocessed Hatch chilis from Harris Teeter grocery in Cary both this week and last. They also at some point, had or will have roasted ones, too. Mine got rung up incorrectly this time as roasted, and took forever to get corrected. I'd have let it go, but it was a difference of 3 raw ones (.50 lb @$1.29/ lb = $0.65) or 3 roasted (unknown unit, but may have been lb. @ $2.29 = $6.87). I would buy some roasted at $2.29 a pound, but not per single pepper. I didn't see any, though. Be careful of these things. They are hotter than they appear in the mirror of your experiences with other peppers that don't initially seem that hot. I won't be touching cut ones again without gloves, as badly as I hate to wear gloves in the kitchen. Harris Teeter also promised fresh figs last week but did not have any. Boo and boo! I can get citric acid and Valbreso feta only at my Mediterranean market. Of course the have a lot of other interesting ingredients. I have bought some nice Turkish tea, spices, tahini, and lots of other stuff right here locally. The Indian market Patel Brothers is a good source for inexpensive produce. The last time I bought dudhi/opo squash, it was 49 cents a pound. They have long beans, many types of eggplant, Korean squash they call "zuchinni", fresh methi/fenugreek leaves. They also have a bunch of other stuff that is both familiar or unidentifiable to me. I haven't found produce there that was priced higher than was available in a mainstream grocer. Many offerings are cheaper than the other grocers. I love their array of twenty something barrels that contain bulk snacks you scoop into produce bags at $4.99 a pound. My favorite is the curried deep fried flour squares. They're just a bit larger and thicker than Cheezit crackers, and I don't think they are leavened, but often puff up and flake from steam expansion from the frying. This place is a treasure trove of new experiences every time. Oh, and every Indian spice known to man! The only problem is that many of them come in multi-pound packages that I would consider restaurant size, and perhaps they are? I recently bought their smallest offering of ground fenugreek seeds and poured the pouch into an empty shake top container that used to hold 8 oz. of black pepper. The fenugreek powder fit, but barely. I like this spice, but this will last me a long while. Their is Baghdad bakery where I buy samoon bread. I pass African grocers, small Latino mercados (one offers tortillas calientes), and a halal meat supplier, but have yet to explore any of them. Everything I mentioned is in walking distance of a couple miles one way. We are lucky.

We are subject to hurricanes here in North Carolina. I could hardly believe it, since we are two hours from the coast, when I first moved here in '86, but in '96 Hurricane Fran sat and squatted on us for hours, taking down trees, taking out power, and bringing the creek almost, (almost) into my home. The power was out for nine days that seemed like months. I already have stuff in the fridge and freezers that is going to spoil and needs to be cooked ASAP before it does. I have canned goods in the pantry that will keep without power at all times. I had a Coleman camp stove and a gas grill at the time. The best meal was ribeyes and striper from the freezer where I invited a bunch of people over and grilled them in the backyard, including the fisherwoman/neighbor who had caught and gifted me the fish. Everyone was fighting over the striper and ignoring the ribeyes. So a normally stocked household does not need to lay in food for an extended power outage, but will lose a lot of their stock anyway. Now I have a gennie to run the fridges, the waterbed heater, a few lights, and an electric skillet. I had no gennie for Fran. What I stock up on is ice and gas to run the gennie. You also need paper plates and plastic utensils because, remember, you are going to have to boil water for washing up without power. Paper towels are useful. Depending on whether you are a drinker or not, your poison of choice. If you have enough coolers and ice you can keep your most prized/expensive food cold and chill your beverages. This will be important because it is usually steamy and hot in a hurricane's aftermath. I thank God we didn't lose water here, because I needed to take several cold water showers a day to lower my core temp. It was so humid, the sweat had nowhere to go and the ambient temp was nearly blood heat even at night. If you think there's a chance you might lose water or drinkable water, you need to lay in a lot more bottled water than you would think. A very bare minimum of two gallons a day per person. Chips, cookies, snacks, nuts, jerky and other stuff that doesn't need refrigeration is justifiable junk food during a hurricane. Fruit will usually last a few days at room temp. Yeah, frozen pizza is almost always a bad idea, but especially when you are reduced to cooking it on a grill. The bread might be good for PBJ's or plain canned tuna sandwiches, but I'd be a afraid of using mayo after the fridge warms up. He he. I have even bought spray cheese (which doesn't need refrigeration) to use with crackers during a hurricane, but not otherwise. Milk, unless you have kids or teens who are going to drink it up real fast, is also a dumb idea. Good luck! I hope you come through just fine. Edit: There are other ideas here.

I don't know much about gluten free baking, but the first ingredient you list, @pastrygirl, is garbanzo bean flour. I buy this at Patel Brother's Indian grocer as besan, chickpea flour. It is very, very finely ground. There is not grittiness at all in it. It's so silky, I would say it is smaller grained than flour I buy at the grocery. The Indians are masters at grinding stuff, I have found. Besan also has some of the binding properties of eggs.

I know nothing about the JBS company, but if the marbling on the actual steaks is as good as shown in the flyer picture, I would expect to pay a lot. I have seen marbling like that only in pictures, and if I did see it in real life, probably couldn't afford it. Especially the tenderloin, which I assume is fillet mignon. The ones I see here are not marbled, but they are tender, so some folks really like them, and they command a high price. They don't have enough flavor for me, but I'd be interested in trying in such a well marbled specimin. By expensive, I mean I can buy ribeyes, T-bone/Porterhouse, NY strip steaks for $7.99 and sometimes $6.99 on sale. They are $12.99 and higher not on sale. Fillet is higher, but since I don't like it, haven't checked the price in years. For the marbling level you showed, I could expect the price to double or much more, judging from the more flush members' accounts of their fantastic meat purchases and meals.

I get them as @lindagdoes, raw and ready to cook in the refrigerated meat case in the grocers around here. They won't keep long at quality in a freezer, at least not a fridge freezer. They offer several varieties like hot and mild Italian sausage, beer brats and plain. I haven't tasted the Johnsonville brand in years, because I don't find it as good as either Food Lion's store brand or Smithfield brand. I never buy brats unless they are on sale (about $4.99 or even $3.99 USD per 20 oz. package) and haven't bought them since my husband went to the nursing home. He likes sausages much more than me. I fear your fully cooked and smoked brats might be little more than fat, glorified hot dogs, so I certainly wouldn't want to shell out a lot of money for what I consider a budget meat product. Unless, of course, you are in the majority that love a hot dog. That said, I do like a well cooked hot Italian sausage with sauteed onions and peppers on a good crusty roll occasionally. I put so many onions and peppers I have to chase them around the plate with a fork after they fall out of the sandwich. Fairs and food trucks make a killing off this dish, but they're very economical to serve here at home with my own ingredients.

That is a very tasty looking dinner, mgaretz, but you have me confused at where you said the corn was "cooked ALV". I have been to Google for the meaning of the acronym and come up with "a la vista" which translates into English from Spanish as "in sight". I don't think that is what you meant, so would you be kind enough to enlighten me?

I enjoyed looking at the pictures and reading reviews of Anthony's Fish Grotto in the shadow of the masts of the Star of India, so thanks for sharing that. We used to catch (gig by flashlight) bullfrogs and fry up the legs. They were very tasty. One time we were broke and cooked up the bodies too. Very, Very little meat on the rest of the carcass, but we got every last scrap off as you have to do sometimes. Sea Depot, my fish monger in Cary, offers a frog leg plate. I haven't had it, and I strongly suspect that offering will come from the freezer.