Margaret Pilgrim

Haven't we all?

Jambon Chablisienne: ham in chablis, cream and tomato sauce ala Ludo.

And here we were all trying to get our flames to burn horizontally.

Many thanks! Bricks in short supply but I’ll cobble something together.

It seems that it's my 20th eG birthday also, since I joined on 4 August, 2001! I will create something candle worthy and would like to contribute but none of the suggested donations are what I have in mind. Is there a custom "I would like to contribute X amount" feature that I'm missing? In all events, a huge HB eG and thanks for 20 years!

I take a double take when using French recipes where a "spoon" looks frighteningly like our "cup". Slap myself on the head and think in another language.

I never liked the vibes in the original. Kind of like visiting the wrong church. No one there like me. I found the meat sub-par what i can buy at my corner super's butcher counter, and the prices gouging. Post Amazon, we have found prices quire reasonable although I prefer the quality and selection elsewhere. We go there periodically to buy Grizzli brand Swiss Musli, which is usually out of stock.

Another print and frame. It occurs to me that I could easily "paper" a dining room with food photos from eGullet.

Extra points for the lovely play of food and plate colors.

More of husband's requested "small plates". Half a baked potato + sauteed ham fingers+ asparagus + Hollandaise. 100•F today (38C). Cool in the house.

My go-to method for short ribs is French Laundry instruction for the ox-tail part of Surf and Turf. In short, marinate meat overnight in “cooked” red wine and chopped aromatic vegetables, add all this to browned meats, cover with paper lid and cook in oven low and slow. Have never considered internal temperature, only meat’s unctuous doneness. This is very “in short” as I have cooked this so often that I’m sure I’ve veered far from Keller’s original. People call the next day for the “recipe”.

Vietnamese crepe (banh xeo). In the country, reliable recipe in the city, so this was a cobble. Not right, but hit the right flavor elements. Next time in town!

It also tames the savage beast(s). When family is coming over, I try to have a fresh, warm loaf and cube of butter waiting. -> just the sound of contentment for at least 15 minutes.

We were referred to a small restaurant in a secluded pocket of the Languedoc in France. The room was simple but well conceived and chic. Husband and wife cooked and served a room of maybe 30 seats. The food was brilliant and plated beautifully. The room was packed on a Saturday night. it was seemingly very popular and wildly successful. The next year we looked forward to returning but found it locked down, the couple moved to a city and the husband having accepted the position of head of food at a retirement home. Being a chef and your own boss is an enormous undertaking.

"Soup of the evening, so rich, so green, soup of the evening, beautiful soup..." Purge the veg compartment '> zucchini, cauliflower, bok choy, romaine + onion, garlic, chicken broth => Bamix blender -> plated with mound of Mexican sour cream, crisp guanciale shards, chives = satisfying, even poetically evocative.

Right. Unfortunately for them, they, small as they are, stand out against the ferny stems of dill, and are picked off daily or hourly as we encounter them.

Aaaaaaargh...slugs are not snails, which also rate medium on my favorite food scale. Yes, we should dig around the base of the plant. Funny that three other plants bought at the same time have no hitchhikers, so far. As with everything, different strokes for garden pests as well as humans.

Aaaaaargh.... but straying off thread, which is my bent, we recently introduced a new dill plant to our herb garden. Since then, we have plucked 5 small (half inch California brown) slugs from the foliage. What's up? Is dill a slug banquet? No other herb from this nursery has ever brought in a predator. Thoughts?

Cornbread mix -> fast dumplings on chicken stews and chili.

A good rule of thumb, the larger the fish the greater the concentration of heavy metal, mercury and friends.

We are enjoying it simply steamed and tossed with olive oil and herbs but I'm sure it has legs past these simple uses. Experiences?

ABC stores are usually sad. We've had to use them when traveling, looking for an evening quaff or particularly when needing a gift for a local friend.

Pork tonnato with cauliflower, tomato, mushroom, avocado. Husband called it "interesting" which means (little more than) I don't have to pack my bags.

A play on Eggs Benedict, swapping rosti potatoes for English muffin. I like better!

Known elsewhere as "the angel's share" or in our house, husband's. There is loss in any cooking process. I joke that we could live on what is left in a restaurant pot. Or as my mother use to preach, Westerners make a cream soup and lose a goodly portion on pan and utensils. while clear Asian soups leave nothing behind.