Thanks for the Crepes

Oh my! Now that is something that absolutely looks worth the calories! Moisture migration be damned.

@helenjp, Thanks for the info.

Very nice-looking dinner Dejah! Oh, I wish I could grab a bag of pea shoots. I love 'em. We have a couple of Chinese restaurants that offer them cooked up at a premium pretty much year round. The only time I have ever seen them for purchase is springtime at Fresh Market. It would be great to hook into the Chinese restaurant supply. My Korean-owned Pan Asian market never has them on offer even in spring.

Well broccoli is good (when cooked right, I like mine at four minutes). It's also very nutritious, but there are so many good things out there, and I hate to resort to a cliche, but variety is the spice of life.

Awesome breakfast. I've never had jamon iberico, so I'm jealous. @kayb ,I'm sure you have checked out your baking powder, but still, that's the place I'd start. New package? Maybe an older package that's past it's prime? I absolutely hate that, when I've made a recipe in the past sometimes for many years, and now it no longer works. I am there with my white yeast bread. I used to make a white milk bread from Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It was the only bread we ever had in the house. I made two loaves a week, and my then-husband and I have been known to polish off the fist loaf warm out of the oven with butter, between us. Oh for a youthful metabolism again! I tried the exact recipe after years of not making yeast breads, and the result was so depressing, I've not tried again. I absolutely feel your pain here. I did buy flour and yeast, so maybe I am getting a over my discouragement a little. Maybe. Good luck, and don't give up. We should forge ahead. We can do this. I think you have inspired me to try my yeast bread again.

I am eager to try these. Would another name for these peppers be "long green"? I have seen suspiciously similar peppers in my Korean owned S-Mart, but they also carry many Japanese, Chinese and Thai products.

That's okay, @gfweb. I'll eat your share of limas (one of my favorites), peas and other legumes, and you can have all the baseball fields. I like brassicas too, except collards, which is not too socially acceptable down here in the Southland. I do wish I liked them. They are such a beautiful green raw. I just had leftovers, repeating last night's dinner. I still have a half a Cornish hen left, but I finished off the other half of the veggie stuffed pepper tonight. I love this recipe, and it includes limas, which I realize many don't like (for some unfathomable reason?) but I do my share to eat them all up so you will not be offended by them.

After seeing @sartoric's fresh peach salad on the Dinner thread, I was jonesin' hard for peaches. Since it's winter here, and currently 21 F/-6 C with snow on the ground, I'm fresh out of fresh peaches. I had a can of Del Monte canned ones with no sugar added in the pantry. They made a fine snack on a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce with cottage cheese. I can't wait for summer fruit!

I agree that both links are pretty uninformative. I have never encountered a hoop cheese that has not been colored orange, like cheddar (unless, of course, said cheddar is white). Annatto or achiote, in Spanish used not to be required to be disclosed in the list of cheese ingredients by our US government for some crazy reason? I find it on more and more ingredient list on cheeses these days, probably in recognition of rare allergies to it. Cow's milk does not turn orange on its own, in my experience, and this is a rare American cheese. It is unmucked around with like "American cheese" that bears that name. Hoop cheese is many miles closer to mild cheddar than is your regular American cheese, even the good stuff that can be called that, as opposed to American pasteurized cheese product. I quite like hoop cheese, but I must say I prefer a medium cheddar for most applications.

I had another good dinner tonight. I roasted up a Cornish game hen and made a sauce for it from sugar, cornstarch, MSG, vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, Chinese five spice and plenty of red pepper flakes. This was served with Garden Stuffed Peppers from my ancient Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Bell peppers are stuffed with a mixture of cooked baby lima beans, onions sauteed in butter, corn and a diced fresh tomato. Over the years I've added oregano in the veg stuffing mixture and added cheese on top in the last five minutes of baking to up and complete the protein from the beans. This time it was hoop cheese from right here in Ashe County North Carolina. ETA a link about hoop cheese for those who may not have heard of it.

I think they should just raise the prices up front if they need more revenue. This business of springing a "surcharge" on the diner without being clear that this is going to happen and then falsely saying it's government mandated is nothing short of fraud in my book. Restaurants that charge mandatory "gratutities" have always revealed them when making reservations or on the menu, in my experience. Diners may not like them, and if they don't they have the option of not dining there and going somewhere else because they are informed. I guess the San Diego restaurateurs feel justified in this deception because they are angry with the law and want to protest it, but in my opinion, what they are doing is breaking the law and alienating their customers. There is no signed contract per se, but when one sits down or stands in line at fast food place, peruses the menu and selects one's choices, one should expect to pay what is posted on that menu, plus required taxes and expected tipping for the area. I definitely think there's an implied contract, and what they are doing is breaching that.

To celebrate getting a ride to a real grocery store today, I cooked myself a proper dinner. Caesar salad, minus the raw egg, followed by what turned out to be, I guess, cream of potato soup. I'd intended to make corn chowder, but I like it so well without the corn, I decided not to go there. I served this course with some buttered whole wheat bread. Unfortunately the bread was too sweet for my tastes, but I will eat it. It will probably be fine with ham sandwiches and will probably make good toast. There's a rare snow and/or ice storm bearing down on us with record low temps forecast, and I was lucky to get any bread at all. There were long runs of empty shelves in the bread area, but there were a few more expensive brands left. I also had to get 1% milk because the 2% and whole were gone. Some stores sold out of these items altogether. There were films on the local news of feet upon feet of empty bread shelves and empty egg and milk coolers. Then I broiled a center cut pork chop, and for dessert, I had half a pink grapefruit and blueberry Greek yogurt, eaten separately. Life is good ... until the power goes out. But I have a place to go with underground power lines, so life will still be fine.

Maybe the banana-themed gifting trend was inspired by your beautiful banana plant?

Last night I made a small batch of chocolate chip cookies using peanut butter for half the butter fat. I ate one for quality control and took most of them to the nursing home today and gave the remainder to my brother. The recipe said it made 3 dozen, but I only got 23 cookies, so I guess mine were larger.

I had the same problem with an old fridge freezer years ago. It only had a little rack hanging from the roof of the freezer for a couple of ice trays. I got a steel wire shelf where the legs will fold flat, but swing out and lock into place. It's coated with heavy white plastic and is sturdy enough to hold a lot more weight than could be placed on it in my application. I still have it, and its rusty now, and not pretty, but still useful in the pantry/laundry room. It held up to ten years in that old freezer. With it in place, I could stack half my stuff on the floor of the freezer and half on the shelf. I could find stuff easier and had a lot fewer avalanches. I found that not only was stuff better organized, but I could get more in there. It worked well for me, but all it did was convert my Lucy and Ricky model into what all the fridges have now: a built in shelf in the freezer compartment. I found mine at Lowe's or Home Depot. It was inexpensive and sure made my life easier. You will probably want to measure your freezer compartment, and take the dimensions and a tape measure with you if you go looking for a shelf to fit. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I'm very partial to lobster when I can get it. It's an almost sacred ingredient to me. I like live lobsters boiled/ steamed in a little water in a large covered pot for a few minutes. I serve it with only melted butter kept warm in my cherished candle-fired butter warmer stands with lemon wedges. So, so good when I can afford it and find it. I've also had bad experiences with frozen lobster tails to the point I'm not interested in experimenting with them further. Then I had a terrible experience with live lobsters picked up cheap on a sale at our large local Asian market. My husband went to get them, and he's the type that would not have noticed a filthy tank, which I expect explained their muddy taste and overall disappointing aspect on the plate. We did eat them, but if they had been the first lobster experience for me, I would never have sought another. At least we didn't get sick, but when you are expecting food for gods and end up with something that you sort of have to choke down, it is a monumental letdown. They weren't off fishy tasting like the frozen tails, but like they had been living in a concentration of their own waste. The clean sweet taste of lobster from the open ocean was long gone from these sad specimens. Lobster, which is expensive and prized now, has a rather different history in this country at least. " Lobster was also commonly served in prisons, much to the displeasure of inmates.[31] American lobster was initially deemed worthy only of being used as fertilizer or fish bait, and until well into the 20th century, it was not viewed as more than a low-priced canned staple food." This seems incredible now, but there are many other sources that support this history of a now much revered seafood. I can definitely see the wisdom of SV for breaking down collagen in tough cuts of meat without overcooking, but for something as tender and perfect as fresh live lobsters from the sea, perhaps it is not the right tool?

I just heard about the tradition in Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark and Austria of showing "Dinner for One" or "Der 90 Guberstag (The 90th Birthday)" as it's known in Germany. It's a 1963 British film, recorded in English, go figure? Anyway, it's an 11 minute short that deals with dinner being served to a 90 year old lady on her birthday by her also elderly butler. He is impersonating her four deceased friends as well as doing dinner and drinks pairing service for the courses. It was so hilarious I was laughing so hard tears were coming out of my eyes when my slow sense of humor got warmed up a few minutes into the film. I think it will be a new tradition for me for New Years as well. Anyone ever heard of this little film before? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F81YmOBP3BQ

Or the Elvis sandwich might strike someone's fancy, but not mine.

@RichardJones, your creation is so shiny, inviting, beautiful ...

BonVivant, I also adore your trip reports, but especially like the little metal old-fashioned buckets your two fish soups are served in. I infer these are common serving dishes in the area you are in? I used to milk a cow into a larger similar version many, many years back.

Google "knife sharpening services" with your city/state/province added. If you live in a small community, it may not do you much good. I live in the 7th largest city in NC, which is butted up contiguously to the second largest, Raleigh. Cary has a population of 150,000 and Raleigh has over 500,000. I only found two local sources for knife sharpening on line. One in Cary at a kitchen store for home cooks here in Cary, and one in the Raleigh farmers market. It's worth a try, though. Several mail-in services popped up too. Wouldn't it be difficult to wrap knives for safe shipping? None of the sites that offered services for mail order offered advice on the Google results. Maybe they do when you click into them. Edited to add: I'm happy as a clam with home sharpening on my otherwise broken electric can-opener that I was gifted circa 1991. This sucker is heavy and does a great job with my knives. That's the only reason I keep this bulky thing around. The can opener part has dulled and is no longer functional, but the abrasive wheel with guides works just fine for my needs to sharpen knives. The newer, more cheaply made can-opener I bought when I broke my right thumb saving my cat from a fall opens cans fine, but is a butcher of knife blades.

Yesterday, I made a huge salad for dinner and then fried up some eggplant and then some shrimp in the same oil, served with homemade tartar sauce. I had planned over fried eggplant stored in the fridge overnight in paper towels overwrapped with plastic. This rendered them virtually oil-free. Tonight's dinner was eggplant parmigiana, only not really. I didn't have mozzarella on hand so subbed in muenster, but it was very good and satisfying to me served with thin spaghetti. I can honestly say I liked this better than what I can get from my go to pizza joint which is the best restaurant version I've found hereabouts. We won't even talk about how much cheaper it is.

There's a lot of good info on the Oils for Seasoning Cast Iron thread, and particularly in this linked post that pertains to not smoking up the house. I dunno about the charcoal. I don't like to cook a steak any other way, and I love my grill, but the temp is hard to regulate. It starts out screeching hot, which is the way I want it for my steaks, but then goes down pretty quickly. I'm sure it could be done with determination, but you'd also get some black soot on the bottom too, probably. I only use pans on the grill that I don't care about much. I find charcoal pretty expensive too. Also, from personal experience in seasoning pans, I must not be running my oven hot enough or with enough excess of oil on the pans to create smoke. I have smoke detectors in the dining room on the first floor and on the top landing of the stairs on the second floor. The first floor one always goes off when I broil meat, and I have set off the second floor one a few times with broiling, but when I season pans, I've never tripped one. I never use heat above 400 F/204 C to season pans in the oven, and I use ultra thin coats wiped off to barely there in multiple coats/bakes. Works for me. Edited to add: Of course tea and a tea strainer is food and drink related. If you like tea, we have some very in depth informative threads here on it created by awesomely knowledgeable people on this very subject.

@Captain Very nice! You had some very lucky guests.

@sartoric Ouch! Feel better soon. @liuzhou I can't think of anything I hate worse than having something go badly wrong in the kitchen when I'm under time constraints. I had such a thing happen to me on Christmas Eve... I was going to grill a rib eye steak outdoors for Christmas for one, and then I found I would have a ride to go visit my husband in the nursing home on actual Christmas day. Plans changed. I knew I wouldn't be getting back before the early winter dark on Christmas so switched the grill out to Xmas Eve. I have a light on the porch, but it's just inadequate, especially with me between it and the food on the grill, and I've tried to grill by flashlight, but this is highly unsatisfactory as well. So I washed a potato and baked it in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. This was destined for twice baked potato. I sliced and oiled some nice little zucchini to grill alongside the steak and took butter out of the fridge to soften for some of the great store bought bread I've been trying to eat up. I seasoned my steak with salt and pepper, started my charcoal, and let it go. All was in readiness. All was on schedule except the potato. Still a little hard, so I took it from the oven, put it on a glass plate and went to microwave it for a bit to get it to soften up. DO NOT DO THIS! Within 15 seconds on high, I heard a muffled boom. I immediately went over and hit the stop button on the nuker, but it was too late. Exploded potato was everywhere on the surfaces of the interior of the nuker. This mess took me a good fifteen minutes to clean up, and meanwhile my fire was marching along it's inexorable path and daylight was fading. The potato was beyond salvation. I nuked another potato and made my stuffed potato and stuck it in the oven for the second bake, was able to grill the zucchini and steak before complete dark, but it was a very close thing. So... nuke potato, finish in oven good. Bake potato, try to finish in nuker very, very bad.