Thanks for the Crepes

I am intrigued @liuzhouand @Duvel. I like star anise, but it just tastes like licorice to me. I love it judiciously used with pork, for example. I also love cinnamon in some Greek savory meat and tomato sauce applications, but I don't see it as contributing to umami per se, but rather as a balancing agent. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on why you think it brings out, and complements umami flavor. I perceive it as having no umami of its own at all.

Hi, divalasvegas. If you come to NC, please don't do so for Mama Dips. They are another that is resting on past laurels. It's a tourist trap now, but was great in its heyday. $3 for an iced tea anyone?

I agree too with everything @Jaymes said, but I'll take marinara over hot dogs in lean times, please. Hopefully, we have a little parm, even if from the dreaded and reviled green can to up the protein and umami.

I have a story on the butter/margarine thing too. There used to be a restaurant in Raleigh where I have eaten both the best stuffed whole lobsters in my life many times, and also the very worst one in my experience. I'm naming Neptune's Galley, because it's many years defunct, and the building is now occupied by Pam's Farmhouse Restaurant with no affiliation to the owners of Neptune's. Pam's BTW is excellent, as Neptune's was in its heyday, and run by a real sweetie of and old NC country girl. I find myself lapsing into the vernacular whenever I'm lucky enough to eat at Pam's. Neptune's used to be a date night destination place, with an oyster bar, and many expertly prepared seafood dishes. Top notch service and quality. They served a large and lovely whole lobster with the carapace hollowed out on the dorsal side and stuffed with mostly real crab meat and just enough other stuff to flavor it and make it the top of my list ever for stuffed lobster. The first time I ever saw a butter warmer was at Neptune's, the kind with the romantic tea light candle underneath. It inspired me to search out and buy my own to use at home. This lobster was really from the god of the sea. Fresh, boiled first almost done, because everyone who has tried it knows that grilling or broiling a lobster from raw is a drying mistake that leads to rubber right? Then the premium expertly flavored stuffing was placed in the lobster and it was broiled to perfection and served with the melted butter, twice baked potatoes and a fresh and beautiful salad and fresh baked bread with more real butter. The last time I darkened the doors while it was still Neptune's, and the worst stuffed lobster experience of my life, I got ripped off big time. The stuffing had turned to surimi, all the butter had turned to margarine, and the bread wasn't house made or fresh anymore. Being me, I spoke up, and the manager, told me it was the same, and what I was eating was real butter. NO. NO. NO and NO. So sad to lose such an iconic restaurant in our area, but they went out of business very shortly after my last visit and I think they were planning it at the time of my rip off. We are glad to have Pam's in the same space now, and it is a large and very lovely space. Still, I have so many fond memories of the restaurant when they were thriving and trying.

I soaked some plain old pinto beans last night, washed and drained them several times, and put them into the Crock Pot this morning with nothing but a little onion, jalapeno, salt and three pork spareribs. They cooked all day, perfuming the house with tantalizing umami all the way upstairs to the bedrooms. At dinner time, I made a pan of jalapeno cornbread. Simple, but truly one of my favorite eats.

Here's one local case (not a restaurant, but a purveyor of gluten free products) that was prosecuted with a very harsh sentence of 9-11 years handed down. I'm pretty sure there's more to the story than can be found in the article, because a prosecution like this is extremely rare. He ruffled some powerful feathers somewhere, I suspect. One does not do that here. But you are right Deryn, about most lies, fraud and big white collar theft not being prosecuted today. It's just the normal SOP for doing business today. There are some of us left that remember when people took pride in their work and product, and their reputation. Now even when they are caught, they shrug/laugh it off and go on as usual. The authorities usually ignore it too. I do have one personal success story here locally with food fraud. A local low cost grocery chain which shall not be named was pouring up to a pint of water into large, four or more pound packages of chicken parts. They have to put those horrible large diaper things under the chicken now to absorb the exudate that oozes out of the perfectly legal "up to x% solution" that has been injected to ostensibly make the chicken moist and tender, but is really done to drive up the chargeable weight. Some of the stores, to one extent or another were taking advantage of this and obviously adding water to the packages. I got angry and sick of it as it escalated and they kept getting away with this flagrant fraud. I called whatever passes for the Bureau of Weights and Measures in NC after looking around on line. I did not expect results, but shortly after my call, the practice disappeared, although there was nothing in the news, and the stores go on as usual. So maybe if people begin to speak up, instead of just thinking, "Everyone does it, what can I do?" small changes can be chipped away, even in these Hell-in-a-handbasket times.

If you get a young rabbit, they are also delicious fried. They are extremely difficult to keep out of a garden. Burying half of an eight foot fence of any appreciable perimeter, is quite the project. If you have "a LOT" of them now, you will have more very shortly. They are endearing creatures, but drastic measures are probably called for. Good luck with your garden, @Shelby, between the coons and rabbits, it sure looks like you're going to need it. Many of us love following along with your bounteous garden adventures every year, the preserving you do as you harvest, and finally seeing the veggies appear in your summer and off-season dinners like the home canned tomatoes in the salad you made the other day.

This won't help divalasvegas unless she travels to this area, but we have a really good mom and pop chain with 4 restaurants in the NC Triangle area. Used to be Mami Nora's and when she sold/transferred? it to her kids maybe a year ago, they changed the name to Alpaca Peruvian Charcoal Chicken. Quality seems not to have suffered. They use good chicken and charcoal, have great Latin sides and the prices are quite reasonable. The fried yucca and maduros are worth the small 50 cent upcharge for the combo price. Here's their menu, and here's what yelp has to say, with several mouthwatering photos. If anyone is in the area, I highly recommend it.

Not in mine, but if grandma and those she cooks for like it, why not?

@liuzhou, I often make cornbread with olive oil and rosemary, using dried if that's all I have. As you know, cornbread's a quick bread, just mix up the batter and bake immediately. I like my results with dried prechopped rosemary. I quit using the whole dried leaves when I found out I could get it chopped smaller. I would think that the additional hydration time combined with the steam heat from the bake would render dried rosemary quite nicely soft in a yeast bread.

Five-way Cincinnatti Chili, but I cook the beans in with the cassia spiced beef chili, and they are usually prepared separately in the authentic dish. Spaghetti topped with chili and beans, finely chopped white onion, and colby jack cheese. This was popped into the microwave a few seconds per plate after plating everything on preheated plates, because I needs my pasta served piping hot with melted cheese! A simple salad alongside, and we had a very satisfying dinner.

I don't order "test dishes" as such, and certainly something I know I don't really want or like. If a Mexican, Tex-Mex or otherwise Latin restaurant cannot serve a decent salsa, which is the first thing you are usually offered, I am going to be out. A restaurant we used to go to frequently for a couple decades apparently changed hands, and now their salsa is just pureed tomato from a can. There is no onion, jalapeno or cilantro in the mix, and it is just really bad. Sure enough, the rest of the food has followed suit, and the scorching hot plates have been replaced with cheese enchiladas served with unmelted cheese. They used to have the best cheese enchiladas. They won't get my business anymore, but fortunately we have plenty of good Latin restaurants with better food in our area. I have to make my own cheese enchiladas now to get back to the quality of the now dead to me resto, but that's okay. I can get delicious and perfectly cooked, perfectly accompanied skirt steak at our current favorite place, so that eases the pain of the loss of an old friend restaurant where the staff all knew us. If a southern Indian restaurant can't serve a delicious paper masala dosa, I'm also out. I know from my attempts to make these at home how difficult they are and how involved, so I leave it to the professionals. Again, very fortunately we have a great southern Indian restaurant nearby and their dosas are still up to what inspired me to try making them at home. Wikipedia says:"Masala dosa was listed as number 49 on World's 50 most delicious foods compiled by CNN Go in 2011." I agree, and wish I could make them myself. They also have great fluffy and light idly, which is another good test for Southern Indian. I'm not even gonna attempt these at home.

I completely love reading Kenji's work, but have had some disappointing results from some of his recipes. I have also had problems with his recommendations for high heat with my electric stove elements, like @JoNorvelleWalker. I tried this, and the first one was instant charcoal, like she said. I reduced the heat, and had better results, but still nothing to match his commentary or photos in the linked article. I was hoping for a magic solution to making pizza without running the A/C against the oven in our brutal summers. I will still read his stuff, but I'm going to take the recipes with a grain of salt. I also won't be buying his book, but I wish him much success with it. He is a passionate and interesting food writer.

Such bounty in sky high Ambato! As I recall from childhood in southern California, those lime blossoms smell like the perfume of heaven too. We rarely run out of limes in my location, but I never see them for less than 5/$1.00, and they usually are 2/$1.00, sometimes more expensive. I've run across some dry ones occasionally with no juice too. I like to let them ripen some in the crisper drawer where they will stay good for up to a month at times. When they start turning yellow is when what I can get become their juiciest.

Well, if you are going to eliminate seafood, I would definitely go with pork then. My favorite happens to be shrimp. Pork is a close second. I like a batter on the fried protein that doesn't go soggy in the sauce. It's the opposite of what I usually like for fried food without a sauce which is tender, light and crisp, but with the sweet and sour treatment, I much prefer a batter that is harder, just a little thicker, and more impermeable to the sauce. An otherwise very good local restaurant ruins their sweet and sour grouper dish with a batter that quickly goes limp. I guess I could ask then to serve the sauce on the side.

Very nice food coming out of your steam/convection ovens everyone. I covet one. I know you were making a joke, @Shelby but you do know that most oven light bulbs are easily user replaceable? Most grocery stores sell appliance light bulbs on the aisle with the regular light bulbs, and you can use them in the fridge too.

I charcoal broiled a couple of thick chuck eye steaks. It's still cold and windy, but at least it was clear, and it doesn't take long to broil off steaks because we both like 'em Pittsburgh rare. They were not the tenderest steak, but brought plenty of beefy flavor to the table. We had baked potatoes with butter, colby jack cheese, chives and sour cream, and asparagus to go with. Then I roasted some marshmallows for dessert.

I made garden stuffed peppers tonight for me and served with toasted bread for both of us and a hamburger steak for my husband. I started making these peppers over 40 years ago from a recipe in Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but adapted it somewhat. I cook up lima beans from frozen, and add frozen corn at the end of cooking just to thaw. Meanwhile, I've sauteed chopped white onion in butter and added a couple chopped Roma tomatoes and a partial leftover regular tomato at the end just to soften it a little. I mix all these veggies together along with some of the bean liquor and the tomato juice and some salt and oregano. Then I stuff raw green halved bell peppers with it and bake it for 25 minutes. I top with plenty of grated colby-jack and return to the oven to melt the cheese. I really love these peppers, and they make a meal for me. My husband likes them too, but he still wants his meat.

We had spare ribs done in the oven in Eastern NC barbecue sauce, because it was cold outside. I'm not saying how cold so as not to offend those who have reported snow and shockingly cold weather from further north, but our poor strawberry and other farmers are busier than one-armed paper hangers trying to save their crops as I type this. I baked the ribs low and slow in a covered CorningWare casserole dish for several hours and then broiled to crisp them up. While cooking the ribs, I also had an open casserole of baked beans going in the oven too. These are the beans I like to serve with ribs that have canned whole tomatoes, lots of sliced white onion, ketchup and mustard added. Then they are topped with raw pretty lean bacon pieces and baked until they are quite reduced, caramelized and delicious. I also toasted off some bread, but didn't butter it, because there was already plenty of pork fat in this meal. We preceded it with a spinach and Roma tomato salad. We'll have the leftover ribs and beans tomorrow with some lovely sugar and butter corn in the husk I found yesterday.

Anyone else notice that the parsley has not even been chopped? That's the hardest part to me. If I were buying that package of veggies because I was trying to avoid chopping, that would be a problem. That said, it would probably make a lovely topping fried up in butter and then splashed with a little soy sauce for some good steaks. One would have to get past the dirty appearing mushrooms first though. I'm getting older and weaker too. I love mushrooms, but the pre-sliced ones are never cleaned, and until I'm decrepit and half blind, I'm not eating or serving dirty mushrooms. @DerynI usually only cook for two nowadays, and have thrown out many partial onions that weren't used right away after cutting into them in past years because I didn't want them stinking up my refrigerator. I got an idea from some very cute and very overpriced containers I saw for sale in an upscale produce department that were shaped and decorated like an onion for storing partially used onions. I immediately thought of the sour cream and cottage cheese tubs I save for food storage and I haven't wasted an onion since. The plastic these dairy containers are made of is specially formulated to keep odors out, but they also keep them in. I've kept cut onions up to two weeks in the fridge this way. It has also improved my cooking because I'm never tempted to use too much onion in a dish just to avoid waste, or leave it out because I just need a little of it.

Glad to see you back, @ninagluck. Gorgeous presentation, but what, do tell, is the stuffing in your surprisingly edible tulip flower?

Tonight after finally finishing up leftovers from the delicious mesquite grilled chicken this week, we went to our seafood shop. The husband got his usual catfish fried at their store with tater tots, and I got a half peck of live oysters, 3/4 pound of wild caught large shrimp and a lovely slicer tomato. I've let the shop fry shrimp for me before, and it's good, but not my perfect fried shrimp, so I brought some better shrimp home in the shell to fry up here for myself. First I made a salad of about half the tomato and some spinach and ate that as a first course. Then I shelled and deveined the shrimp. I dusted it with flour seasoned with some salt and cayenne, and then fried it quickly in a couple batches in a 12" skillet, turning once. Now this is the way I love my fried shrimp! Just the merest bare dusting of seasoned flour, lightly fried and very well drained and blotted. Perfect with lemon wedges. It was worth the extra work and cleanup. I also ate some more of the flavorful tomato. I don't know where this shop gets its tomatoes, but they always have more flavor than the ones I can get at the grocery store. I was tempted to buy more, but I already have Roma and Scarlet Pearl grape tomatoes here to use up. I couldn't finish all the shrimp, so I will get into the oysters tomorrow along with the leftover shrimp. I ate all of them except 5, and I have 4 left. I accidentally dropped one on the floor while tossing in paper towels, and so the coons got a special treat. I can see myself crying over it if I didn't know I had more than I was going to be able to eat anyway.

I've only had goose one time. I don't think I've ever seen it in a store anywhere, although I'm sure if one looked, they could get it around the holidays. My second husband's uncle had a country place on several acres an hour so out of Memphis outside Collierville, TN. We were married out there on his place, and a while after that, the uncle called him and asked him to come shoot a problem Canadian goose that had settled on their pond. He was the best shot in the family, and we had contests shooting a quarter nailed to a fence post from distance regularly with .22 rifles. It seems the goose was making airborne attack dives at people just trying to get from their cars to inside the house. It was scary because the feathered beast had a wingspan of about 6 feet. It probably wasn't a legal kill even back then in the mid eighties, but there were stills out around there, and if I were a game warden, I don't think I would have made that area a priority, if you know whut I mean. He got it with one shot from a .22 through the neck, and the uncle's lab retrieved it from the pond. My husband plucked and gutted it, and we took it home and I cooked it in my Brinkman smoker for hours. @cdhis right. It was really gamy, REALLY gamy. But I was determined to eat it, and earn my creds as a proper country girl. I would not be in the market for a $116 goose, even if it tasted a lot better than mine did. Good thing it was there for the rich folks, though. @gfwebI'd also love to see some pics from your upscale market to see how the other half lives.

The chicken I cooked over mesquite wood chunks and charcoal served 2 meals for my husband and I on Tuesday. We had baked potatoes and spinach and strawberry salad sides. He ate a leg quarter, and I gorged on a thigh and a wing, my favored parts. I sent a half of of my huge baked potato that was leftover for his lunch plus a chicken leg, so that was meal 3. Meals 4 an 5 were where I pulled one of the breasts into shreds and added it to some jalapeno, white onion and chopped Roma tomato I had fried off in a little oil. I added a little water and Goya Adobo seasoning with the chicken which I just heated through after the veggies were cooked. He had his portion in a burrito and I had a couple of tostadas. There were refried beans, melted colby-jack cheese, lettuce, more raw Roma tomato and sour cream involved in both dishes. There was enough filling to make him another burrito for lunch the next day for meal 6. Meals 7 and 8 were the other breast sliced and put on a sandwich for me and he just wanted the sliced chicken, and he had enough left for a chicken sandwich for lunch the next day along with a banana, so meal 9. Meal 7-8 were preceded by a first course of boiled asparagus, topped with over easy eggs fried in plenty of butter and a lemon wedge as a first course. I cooked a pound of asparagus ($1.27 a pound on sale!) before trimming for the two of us, so a very substantial first course. There was one wing left, and I munched on that for meal 10 with a boiled egg and some strawberries. I wasn't even trying to stretch it this time. I just like cooking with plenty of veggies, and us older people only have so much stomach room. This was a commodity supermarket chicken purchased on sale for 77 cents a pound. The mesquite treatment made it very delicious anyway. I picked the smallest specimen in the case, and it weighed in at just over 6 pounds. The breasts alone were at least a pound apiece after boning. I did not save the bones for stock this time, because the smoky flavor would have limited its versatility, and the juices and fat were lost through the grill grates. In hindsight, the smoky, charred bones may have made an interesting base for a Southwestern themed soup. The raccoons are glad I didn't think of that earlier.

After reading this discussion, I'm even more thankful to have our little fresh fish market so close in our neighborhood. We are a couple of hours from the Atlantic, but their fish, mollusks and shellfish have always been fresh when I got them there. The fin fish and squid are whole and stored mostly buried in crushed ice out front. They get clams, oysters and mussels from the back somewhere, so I don't know how they are stored, but have never received a dead one. Once I got a couple oyster shells in a batch that were filled with nothing but mud, but they were tightly closed, so there was no way to tell before opening. You can tell from the eyes of the fin fish that they are fresh because they are clear and shiny. As they age, they will dry out and shrink and become more opaque. They gut and fillet the fish at the store if you want. If it makes you inland guys and gals feel any better, at least you don't have to worry about hurricanes. If I lived further inland, I might have to lower my standards or eat a lot less fish, but with my options here, I would never serve or eat a smelly piece of fish. It sounds like Costco has a great refund policy, though, so you won't lose either way. I would just get my money back the next time I was in. I do buy some frozen fish from Trader Joes, and sometimes I buy more at the fish market than we can eat that night and immediately wrap and freeze. I think frozen is the best way to buy fish if you live inland. Fish doesn't keep well period even at fridge temps, which is why fish markets store it in crushed ice. It seems to do okay in the freezer, and if it has been handled well between the time it was caught and the freezer you are buying it from it is a fine alternative to fresh fish.