SusieQ

@liuzhou Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that. 😒 Update us all when you can. Healing hugs to you.

"Moe and I celebrated our 43rd Wedding Anniversary today." CONGRATULATIONS!

Once again I must admit to being envious of those of you who have so many tomatoes that you have to have a plan as to how to manage them before they spoil. Spring in my Seattle maritime location this year was particularly NOT good for tomatoes--rain and cold for most days! Result: spindly starts that just didn't want to grow once in the ground. I didn't even plant them until June 1! They've just in the last couple of (very hot summer weather) weeks started to come into their own. Three indeterminate, one cherry determinate. The indeterminates have had a fine time growing tall and leggy with very little fruit. The cherry tomato is at least happier and now has lots of blossoms, but so far I've gotten exactly 4 cherry tomatoes. I kinda hope our hot weather lasts, but on the other hand, no air conditioning at 85degrees and above gets old very fast. OK, done whining. : )

Oh, if only my first experience of risotto had looked like this. I like to order stuff in restaurants that's new to me. But my first experience of risotto turned me off it for many years. What I got was a bland dry lump of -- something. And got charged a pretty penny for it too. 😁 But I have had at least one tasty risotto since then. Yours looks absolutely fabulous.

I'm no good at editing photos. With regard to recent pork/beef discussion: Rarely can I afford beef anymore. This pork steak was yummy, but then I cook with lots of garlic. 😄 My first time cooking broccolini. I boiled it for a few minutes then stir-fried it with some chopped shallots. Tasty but I didn't cook it long enough.

"Grape-nuts -- a scientific partially pre-digested food..." Who knew?

Thank you! I watched your video and was mesmerized. I never in a million years would have thought of mixing diced vegetables with tofu and then making shapes the way you did. Is this something you learned about in Japan?

It looks like you have several different coatings. Not to mention shapes. Could you give more detail?

I should clarify. When I first saw this, 25-30 years ago, I didn't know what to call it. But I learned that the meat that came off of it went into a sandwich on pita bread called a gyro. After that I learned that this same thing could be called a schwarma (or however it's spelled) if the meat was lamb. This was all in Seattle.

Same -- Seattle.

That's too bad. Here in Seattle I've seen this maybe once or twice over the years. Hmm, I wonder what the uneven distribution cause is. (I do buy russet potatoes quite often; it's more or less my default potato choice.) Well, before I posted this I decided to look up the russet potato, which I thought was automatically an Idaho potato. Apparently not. I amend the above statement to say that my default potato choice over the years has been the Idaho potato, which is a russet potato. But maybe your russet potato is different.

Chris, thanks for this gustatory tour! I've never been to New Orleans, so this was fun to see a few spots and lots of dishes. I appreciated all your photos.

Drum fish? Never in my life have I heard of it nor seen mention of it. Until now. 😛

Good heavens. With all that food, and a bottle of wine? Too bad you were rushed. (If the food all comes at once, what are you gonna do?)

Sorry I never answered this. Today at Safeway they're $ 3.50 a pound, at Fred Meyer $2.90 a pound, and apparently not available at QFC -- these are the three major grocers in the Seattle area. I had to look it up because I don't normally buy chicken livers.

Student days, many many decades ago, poor but willing to experiment. The only thing I knew about "liver" was the liver we used to have at dinner at home every once in awhile. None of us could swallow any of it without a big slug of ketchup to help it go down. And if you couldn't even stomach that, there were napkins and pockets. Now I know that our mother just cooked it wrong. Like, fried for 30 minutes or who knows. I just remember a gross taste and an awful leathery consistency. Anyway, long story short, one of my first forays into gustatory exploration was trying this "student on a budget" recipe that my roommate said was good. It was very basic. Melt a stick of butter, add a whole bunch of chopped garlic, then the chicken livers. Baste with the butter for a couple of minutes. Eat with buttered French garlic bread. p.s. This was back when chicken livers were a really cheap purchase.

I have fenugreek seeds that I bought a couple of years ago but have never known what to do with them. Of course, I've never actually looked up what to do with them either. : ) But they look exactly like these in your photo.

Yes, for sure.

Gosh. Old, rich, and still miserable. That's sad.

Thank you so much for this post. So much information and history and language education. Fascinating.

I like to poach salmon with some fennel fronds and a few thin slices of lemon and sweet onion in the water.

If I have celery, then creamed tuna on toast. I have to have celery in it, though.

Looks good. I like your video, too

Oh, to be on the road again! Thanks for sharing. What's a treet salad?

Wow, beautiful photo/vegetable. Makes me want to jump in.