Thanks for the Crepes

I think of menudo as the Latin tripe dish. So this is very interesting. I'm always learning something here, thanks, Prof. Hobbit.

Thanks for taking all these beautiful photographs and providing a lovely narrative to go along with it. I'm so glad you are generous enough to take us along on your amazing trip. This one of the elk/caribou? is particularly amazing to me. ^^ I watched this video linked by @gfron1, too, and while the birds are very cute, I liked it. Chef Ramsey has an abrasive reputation for foul language and rude treatment, most of which I've see on "Hell's Kitchen" TV show. We call it "Mean Chef" around here. He's more polite on some of his other shows, but still has a "potty mouth", as my dear-departed grandma would say. For those still too angry with him to have watched the linked video, you might be interested to see him go bum over teakettle down a hill trying to net one of the birds and come up laughing. He also let's two lucky caught birds go, and we get to see him bitten on his handsome nose by the first one. He looks a bit beaten up at the end of the hunt, but they do eat their kills, including offal. There is a segment where they both eat a raw heart. Lambs and bunnies are cute too, but many of us still eat them and puffins don't seem to be endangered in Newfoundland. I did find a bunch of info on puffins when I did a search to see if they were endangered, if anyone is interested. Gordon Ramsey and his judges gave one of the contestants on "Master Chef" a very hard time for baking cheddar into an apple pie in a recent episode. I kind of like some good cheddar alongside a good apple pie, but it doesn't top my favorite of a la mode with vanilla ice cream melting slowly alongside a warm slice.

We had scalloped potatoes, roasted tomatoes and seafood, artichoke and spinach stuffed flounder for dinner tonight. It's a work night, scalloped potatoes take a long time, and I decided to make the quicker version, where you don't have to make a roux and white sauce for the first time in my life. I won't do this again, but the taste of the finished dish was fine, even the texture and mouth feel was fine, but the looks? Not so good. You use all the ingredients you normally would in the white sauce, but instead, sprinkle each layer of potatoes with salt, pepper, finely chopped onion, flour, and then dot with butter. Then pour over scalded milk, which I always do in the microwave in a 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup, you have to dirty anyway. The process takes nearly as long as the white sauce version, what with futzing around with trying to sprinkle flour evenly in our very humid climate and butter dotting. All you really save is dirtying a saucepan and stirring spatula and less then ten minutes. Then you still have to bake the dish an hour and a half. The "quickie" version, while not tasting of raw flour, which is the reason I've not made it that way before, is grainy looking, although not lumpy, as in improperly made gravy or sauce. So never again for me, although we will eat the leftovers tomorrow, and it tastes very good. The roasted tomatoes were probably the best thing I did. I never think I will get sick of raw garden tomatoes in the winter when the grocers are offering styromates, although they have gotten better lately with tasty Scarlet Pearl grape tomatoes offered nearly year'round and all through the winter. I needed some variation today though. So I looked to Marcella Hazan for inspiration. I knew she would come to my rescue. I cut a huge, ripe red tomato in half. Coated a pie tin with olive oil, put the tomato in and sprinkled salt, pepper, crushed garlic and oregano (Marcella calls for parsley). Then I just drizzled them with more olive oil, popped them in the oven for the hour and half the potatoes were cooking. The result was a very tasty, concentrated, flavorful, easy side dish that provided a break from all the raw ones we've been enjoying. Just when I think I'm catching up with only one large tomato left, here comes my husband with three more large ones and a double handful of cherries from our kind neighbor. That's okay, though, I love 'em, and now I have a great variation to keep them interesting. I can't take credit for the stuffed flounder. All I did was sprinkle it with parsley and paprika, dot with mo' buttah, and bake about 35 minutes. It's very good. It's a frozen product offered in our local Food Lion grocer from Quality Foods from the Sea, right here in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Elizabeth City is known as the Harbor of Hospitality.

Made a new post instead of an edit to this existing one to say I forgot you need a little olive oil too, if you are going to cook mussels in white wine. It is critical, so I did not want someone who might be interested in cooking mussels like that to miss it. By cleaned, I'm guessing you mean out of their shells? I have never cooked any that way, only live in the shells. While I was thinking about this subject, it suddenly occurred to me that I think I saw frozen, in-shell green lips one time in the fish monger's freezer case. That would probably be what the restaurant was serving. I may have to investigate further.

Flies do serve a purpose in the wild, disposing of and cleaning up organic refuse, eventually, after their disgusting activities, but in our homes? Agreed! The bastards serve no use at all! I can still make short work of them with a standard swatter, as long as they land somewhere I can get them without destroying something else. The electric swatter is intriguing, though, but they don't seem to be sold here in stores, and I rarely resort to buying online.

Are these frozen? Live mussels, like I can sometimes get here are quite perishable. Also I have never heard of common black-shelled mussels like we get referred to that way. They have orange flesh here. I used to be able to order green-lipped mussels, sourced from New Zealand at a chain Italian place here called Romano's Macaroni grill. I had never seen them before, but I came to really love them before they were discontinued, probably due to cost. They are really a lot better than ours that we can get here. Their flesh is more gray, like clams, we get here, not as livery as our mussels are, and just plain tastier, IMO. Come to find out from the link above, they have health benefits too. Perhaps it would be helpful if participants would mention whether proteins were more perishable or frozen? I know when I cooked the fresh protein got preference. If your mussels are fresh and haven't already been cooked, I would cook them tomorrow with a little white wine, crushed garlic and parsley, olive oil (duh!) and serve them over fine pasta. Crushed red pepper would not go astray with me, but this varies with heat tolerance. I would also make some fried or broiled or grilled zucchini and/or eggplant. You could make this Parmagiana style with some of your dried and fresh tomatoes and some cheese. Baby spinach and rocket salad.

Last night we went to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in Cary. My husband ordered the carne asada burritos and I ordered a couple of cheese enchiladas and a chalupa with picadillo. Picadillo is a stewed seasoned pork and beef shredded concoction here, and quite good. The chalupa is unusual here, as it's a big crisp-fried flour tortilla filled with meat of your choice, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheddar and a little cilantro. It's like a giant flour shell crisp taco on steroids, and was very good, as usual. Unfortunately, my cheese enchiladas, for which I have had a severe craving since we went to Bravo's Mexican, and received substandard food, came out on a hot plate, but with unmelted cheese. I asked the waitress to take them back and have the cheese melted, and although she remembers me, because I always press cash into her hand for a generous tip, seemed confused. English is her second language, and she told me the cheese is melted. I later figured out, she meant the cheese scattered over the top of the enchiladas. I showed her the unmelted shredded cheese inside the enchiladas, and she immediately offered to take them back. I hate sending anything back. I have worked as a waitress, but I just couldn't eat them like that. She brought back my chalupa shortly so I could chow down on that while I waited on the enchiladas to be properly cooked. When she did bring the separate plate of enchiladas, they hit my craving spot, so well! Oozy melted cheese, perfect chili sauce, and so good. Between the frozen margarita ($4.99) delicious, and strongest in the area, and the great food I ordered ($8.75), I was nearly in a food/tequila coma. It was worth it though. No geese in the parking lot tonight, although we finished our drinks on the patio, hoping to see some. The carne asada burritos ($12.50) my husband ordered come two to the order of ten inch flour tortillas stuffed with their version of grilled skirt steak, which is very delicious. I usually order the carne asada not in burrito form, but I had this intense craving for good cheese enchiladas. He only finished one burrito at the restaurant, so took the other home to have for dinner tonight. His burritos also had some refried beans and rice, but they are mostly delicious skirt steak. They also served pico de gallo, minus raw jalapeno, whole grilled jalapeno and spring onions, and topped the burritos with a thick white cheese sauce they call molcajete and Cotija cheese on his giant plate, the size of a pizza pan. It comes sided with big scoops of sour cream and an excellent guacamole on top of green leaf lettuce. Because he doesn't like grilled jalapeno or avocado/guac, and they would go to waste, I salvaged them to my plate when his dish was served. I ate it all, save the seeds and membranes from the jalapeno which had plenty of heat going on. I even scraped the enchilada plate with my fork. So good, and worth the near food/tequila coma! Oh, I also left some of the picadillo from the chalupa, because I was more interested in the veggie components. Because my husband had great leftovers tonight, this left me free to go vegetarian, as I am wont to do when I don't have to please the carnivore. I had a salad of garden cucumber, tomato, commercial chick peas, green bell pepper and shredded carrot in lemon tahini dressing with garlic powder and a kick of cayenne. Then I made angel hair pasta in butter sauce with a bit of pasta cooking water and parmesan cheese. The last of the muscadine grapes for dessert. I hope I find more this season. It's not too late, I think. I offered him some of everything I made for myself, but he was too full. He will eat the leftover pasta for lunch tomorrow, along with other good stuff, like a piece of blueberry coffee cake.

I was cooking in a boyfriend's dads kitchen in a mobile home many years ago at their very, very aggressive urging. I did not want to. I didn't like to try to cook in small bachelor kitchens that don't look too clean. It scares me, and in this case was very justified. I pulled a sack of potatoes I was going to fry up from out of one of their cabinets, and it dripped liquid all over, smelled putrid, and on further inspection, had maggots squirming in it. They were determined I would cook, because the boyfriend had been bragging on the cooking that came out of my clean and larger kitchen. I cleaned the repulsive mess while the dad went to get fresh potatoes. This relationship burned out very quickly. As far as fly traps, I have never seen any except the old-fashioned rolls of fly paper that come rolled up into little cardboard tubes that I used to buy at the feed, tack and farm supply store to hang in the stables. They were cheap and effective. Once you unwind them from their tubes, they smell pleasantly sweet and attract the flies very well. Just be careful to hang them in an out-of-the-way area. The flies will come to them. Also be careful not to get your long hair caught in the dratted things, as I did, once. You will have to cut your hair to get loose. I refuse to cook in a kitchen with even a single fly buzzing around. You can't leave out a mise, or even walk away from a piece of meat to get some seasoning. I know what the buggers are doing when they land on food. They regurgitate and suck it up to eat, at the least, and they may be trying to lay eggs too. I know they serve a purpose, but they are so gross, and no one wants them in their kitchen. It's enough to make me walk out of a restaurant if I see a single fly. Also modern fridges are on rollers now, and I can easily move one to clean under it if I have taken out all the food out and put it in coolers to defrost the fridge. I tried both, and I could not budge either of them fully loaded. It's the landlord's fridge that needs defrosting. They want to provide only the best appliances. I'm just lucky I have a large enough kitchen to accommodate a nice Amana as well. A wooden dowel works well to fish debris from under fridges without moving them. When we had a cat, I was constantly fishing out cat toys and treats he batted under there.

I'm a firm believer that centralizing animal husbandry and slaughtering operations, like is so much done these days to reduce the cost for the huge corporations who do most of it, actually greatly increase the chances of unhealthy product. I would buy and consume Amish or 4-H meat products, could I only get them, any day over mainstream raised and processed product. Just look at the government's tolerance for salmonella in chicken and egg mainstream products. A lot of the regulations are purely designed to shut out small farmers and ranchers. I say, "Rock on, small producers!"

Here's a link to an Associated Press article that my local news station published today where Yum Brands subsidiary, KFC, denies the authenticity of the recipe revealed in the Chicago Trib's authenticity. Well they would, whether it is true or not, I think. Also like @btbyrd said upthread, the recipe will have changed over all these years from the original skillet-fried when the original restaurant opened. The food chemists and the bean counters team up these days to ruin most things. I don't like KFC today, but I remember back in the day, it was good, and I'm still going to have fun trying the recipe published in the Trib with the pan-fried version like the Colonel made before he got famous and went on the road to market his franchises.

I'm so glad we have less regulation here in NC. It makes native seafood and freshwater harvest available to us folks who want it. Sorry to hear this tale of a fishing village and government who make the local fruits of the sea unavailable to the locals. In my local fish monger, we have fresh whole fish available with bright eyes, live mollusks, and everything I have bought there has been great. We are two hours by car from the coast, but not far enough away, I've discovered, to escape being beaten up severely by a Category 3 or 4 hurricane like Fran or Hazel, respectively. Yesterday was the twenty-year anniversary of our visit from Hurricane Fran. I'm sure the Nova Scotian government's intentions are well-meant, but IMO they manage to delay the delivery of an extremely perishable commodity to those who might desire to purchase it. People in larger communities get it when it's not in its prime, and folks in fishing communities get nothing, when if it was allowed, the product would be at its prime in the fishing communities and especially off the boats. Just my opinion.

Great looking crepes, Chris! But thrown out???! What blasphemy! The ones that are not perfect are always cook's treat. Mmmm. Seriously, you are right though. When your preheated pan "skitters" a few drops of cold water when thrown onto the surface of the pan before quickly evaporating, you are ready to add fat (I always use all butter about 1/4 teaspoon per crepe) and proceed cooking. "Skitters" means the intact drops of water actually immediately produce enough steam to jump around intact on your pan before evaporating. It is a fun test of the heat of the pan. Okay, I am easily amused.

I only like broccoli cooked for about 4 minutes, never more than that in an open pot of boiling water. The florets are plenty soft, still bright green, and have some texture left when I drop them into a pot of boiling pasta toward the end of cooking for one of my favorite dishes, with garlic butter and parmesan. Like Anna, I always roast my cauliflower from raw after coating in oil, and adding less seasoning than one thinks one needs, because of the dehydration factor. I like to slice it 1/4"/6.35mm and lay it out on a couple baking sheets for a whole head with the small bits to the inside of the trays, where they caramelize but don't incinerate. The sturdier "steaks" go to the outside of the trays where they will get more heat. I came to this conclusion after experimenting and reading the entire iconic Roasted Cauliflower thread here. I'm with Anna, in that I think no pre-cooking is necessary, but if one wanted to do large florets instead of slices, or an entire head which would make a great presentation, perhaps a minute or so in a covered Pyrex casserole with a teaspoon of water in your microwave would produce desired pre-softening results? Maybe take the power level down once you got some steam and don't overdo it, to get some softening at the core of a whole head? I am really enjoying everyone's posts about what can be done with your Instant Pots, but sometimes when you have a hammer, it might make everything look like a nail.

I don't know if it's the real deal or not, but I bookmarked it, and will try it next time I'm in the mood to clean up the stove after pan-frying chicken. It sounds credible to me. I am not going to worry at all about not owning a pressure fryer. This will be fun! According to Louis Hatchett, who has written books about Duncan Hines, the truly original Kentucky Fried Chicken was skillet-fried. It only began to be marketed with special pressure cooking equipment when he and his wife launched the franchises. Duncan Hines visited and recommended the original restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky in 1939, and wrote about it in one of his travel guide books.

@cta, Now that you've mentioned it, Paul's bowl does look very much like the inside of gourds I used to grow up a chain link fence on the edge of a vegetable garden.

I watched an interesting video on our local TV station's website about NC restaurants today. Some of these are in very small towns, but all of them have a lot of character. It's a little less than 30 minutes long, and WARNING is broken by 3 ad segments, which even Ad Block does not fix. The thread would also be a good place for me to post about my rare visits to the modest, but good restaurants I visit here in my community. Hopefully, others who live in or visit the state could weigh in here too??? Doesn't Scott Mason aka "The Tar Heel Traveler" have the best job you can imagine?

Please go to a peaceful sleep @Bhukhhad. Others who "win"/are selected as "it" ignore the rules for days, and sometimes don't wind up cooking at all. No worries. Again, for the third and final time I wish we would relax the rules to get a wider participation, and let people get suggestions for their ingredients. I think it would be a lot more fun, and yet again, we would all learn more from one another. The one time I jumped in and nominated myself to cook, I regretted it mightily, because I was invited out to eat on the day I was supposed to cook. I turned down the rare invitation, and soldiered on because I pride myself on doing what I say I am going to do. The rules, and then not following them, take much of the fun out of it for me. This is my very last word on it, and I will enjoy and follow @sartoric's great thread with interest, but I won't be participating under the current rules/guidelines.

Wish I could help @Paul Bacino, but your bowl is thinner, and nothing like the dolsot used for bibimbap. All searches tried to correct me to jicama when I tried jacama, and when I insisted, I got zilch. I'm bumping this up for you so someone more enlightened may see it and provide you some real help. Perhaps it would be helpful to expand on the culture this comes from and a few more details? Beautiful photo, as usual. I love the little fish tail sticking up!

I told y'all... herding cats. I will follow the thread avidly, but not offer another suggestion unless I am prepared to offer up a list of ingredients, pick a suggestion within 24 hours and then cook it within 24 hours.

Why not freeze chicken stock/soup, and then add noodles or potatoes on the reheat? I remember growing lots of cultures on agar in biology labs. It reminds me a lot of a good chicken stock, although agar is made from seaweed. I wouldn't roll the dice with chicken soup, myself. I do eat leftover foods, but four days is pushing it for me for most things. After that I don't want it from my own kitchen where I know exactly how it's been handled and stored. From a restaurant, I want it prepared the same day and to order, if possible. I'm paying good money, not dumpster diving. Fortunately for me, when I come up with the cash, I have my choice of many restaurants right here in my neighborhood that cook delicious food up from fresh ingredients to order. I can understand making a soup to serve and reheat throughout the day, but after that, it needs to be frozen or ditched, in a professional setting, I'd think. Okay, if we're in a post-apocalyptic setting, starving, all bets are off, but I'm still not going to knowingly pay good money for old leftovers.

Why would it be happening this year to so many gardeners? Also the pollination thing? I know the bee population is sadly diminishing here, but why this year, for the first time I've ever heard of? Also, some areas are getting the usual inundation, and some areas are getting zippo. I'm enjoying more zucchini than I can comfortably keep up with compliments of gardener friends and family. We have had adequate rain here this year, but even in our past drought years, with irrigation, it was still more than anyone could keep up with. I still say this is a very weird year for zucchini in some parts. I hope it's not a fungus or something. Also, I think a single plant can produce male flowers and female flowers. If the flower has a nascent zucchini fruit behind it, that's your female. Here's a link to a YouTube video on hand pollinating zukes in a greenhouse with no natural pollinators. I love the name "Grumpy Gardener", but I think he may be wrong in this case.

What a great haul from your garden! Thanks for sharing it with us. That is an absolutely wonderful idea too, about a fishing thread. I don't fish or have a boat anymore, but you could start one (hint, hint, hint). I'd love to hear about fishing trips, and I'm sure there are others who would be interested here. We have some good contributions in the forum archives about fishing, shellfishing, and I even remember a great report by @johnnyd, who sadly doesn't participate much anymore, about harvesting sea urchins. They are scattered willy-nilly through the forums, and it would be great to start collecting them where they are easier to find. I even posted a link to a YouTube video about a local family's catfishing expedition to Bond Lake in Cary, when I found out our local fish monger gets his catfish from there right here in our neighborhood. If I were the one who started it, I'd try to make the title inclusive of seafoods and freshwater foods, so we can hear about all the interesting food members are taking from the waters.

Yeah, on the Garden thread, many are reporting poor or no yields from these usually prolific squash plants that will inundate the gardener. I hope this is not a trend that will continue, and I wonder what's going on here???

@JoNorvelleWalker, when I was growing them, I just picked them sooner. There may be a variety out there that has a determinate-sized pod, that I don't know about. The whole purpose of the plant and the pod is to produce seeds to reproduce though, and they can only do that when they are allowed to grow beyond the size we like to eat them at. The smaller the better, I think. I once found small okra pods, none of which were longer than 3"/7.62 cm that were offered alongside of another batch of larger okra pods in my Indian grocer. I chose the smaller, of course. They were some of the best I've ever eaten. I've been the victim of letting my garden ones get too big and woody. They love hot, dry weather, and grow at an unbelievable rate in these conditions. Aren't the flowers gorgeous? They're related to cotton and hibiscus, and remind me of the flowers of both.

Yup, I may get my eG credentials revoked, but the "gourmet" versions just aren't as popular as the convenience ones when your're trying to hit the traditional comfort zone of people who grew up on it for holidays. While Vivian's buttermilk fried onions looked like they would be most delicious one their own, I sincerely doubt they could keep the crispness of the French's version in that application. People want family and familiarity on holidays. She's an awesome chef, though, with a James Beard award, so if anyone could pull it off, my money would be on her.