Manitoulin — Life on the level

[kayb]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

I don't drink much liquor anymore, but this used to be my favorite.  So did White Russians until one unfortunate night in a dive bar playing pool and listening to Patsy Cline on the jukebox.......😂

 

Patsy just calls for some serious drinking.

 

Trivia for the day: The site of Patsy Cline's fatal plane crash in 1963 is about 4 miles from the house where I grew up. It was, in point of fact, in the county dump, before they graduated to landfills. We heard about it at church, and like the rest of that part of the world, drove out there after lunch and joined the procession of hundreds of cars filled with either gawkers or those paying respects.

 

My favorite Patsy tune is Walking After Midnight. What's yours?

[Kerry Beal]

3 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Can’t beat Dickel and anything..

Sadly that was the last of it!

[Kerry Beal]

 

My contribution to work today - large version of summer torte with strawberries and rhubarb (still have a bit of rhubarb left).

 

Today was my second day with a delightful medical student. After we finished rounding at the Wiki nursing home we headed to Ed's Place for lunch. Our physicians assistant Peter suggested the club sandwich on the home made bread. It was a good choice.

 

 

 

These were called Poutine Bites - I'd say a little more like half sized deep fried mozzarella. They weren't horrible but they weren't fried cheese curd either.

 

 

Maryse opted for fries with hers. We each brought home half a sandwich. 

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

After lunch we headed down to the boat launch - this is where I got my mint.

 

 

 

 

The water is very high this year - normally we could have walked out to the furthest trees (albeit having to avoid all the goose poop)!

[Kerry Beal]

 

Our lovely dinner - unctuous chuck eye - way too rich to eat a whole piece, bok chop with garlic, sous vide corn. I understand the work unctuous is in poor regard these days - but to me it's that rich, buttery texture that chuck or short rib takes on after a long slow sous vide cook. 

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

 

For the ER nurses today

 

 

 

To be left for Anna

[Anna N]

Yet another lovely sunny morning here in Little Current made even sunnier by chocolate dipped ginger!

 

 No breakfast photo because I ate the half of the club sandwich which Kerry brought home yesterday evening. I really do need to kill my Puritan child! The thought of wasting it did not occur to me but should have. Some things do not do well as leftovers. 

 

 Kerry has a 24 hour emergency room shift so depending on how busy it is she may be here much of the day. On the other hand I may not see her for many, many hours. Either way I have decided to take a day off from preparing dinner. There are enough leftovers that we won’t starve and it will free up the kitchen for anything Kerry might want to get involved in. She has had almost no playtime since we arrived.

 I fancy a day of just leafing through recipe books and perhaps making up shopping lists of ingredients to seek out when we head into Sudbury this coming weekend.

 

 

 

[Anna N]

12 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

sous vide corn

 I am not quite sure how long the corn remained in the sous vide bath but it was certainly much longer than the recommended 30 minutes.  It was a little overcooked in my opinion but still quite edible. I enjoy the convenience of sous vide because it involves so little last minute futzing about. 

[Kim Shook]

7 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Yet another lovely sunny morning here in Little Current made even sunnier by chocolate dipped ginger!

 

 No breakfast photo because I ate the half of the club sandwich which Kerry brought home yesterday evening. I really do need to kill my Puritan child! The thought of wasting it did not occur to me but should have. Some things do not do well as leftovers. 

 

 Kerry has a 24 hour emergency room shift so depending on how busy it is she may be here much of the day. On the other hand I may not see her for many, many hours. Either way I have decided to take a day off from preparing dinner. There are enough leftovers that we won’t starve and it will free up the kitchen for anything Kerry might want to get involved in. She has had almost no playtime since we arrived.

 I fancy a day of just leafing through recipe books and perhaps making up shopping lists of ingredients to seek out when we head into Sudbury this coming weekend.

 

 

 

Next time your Puritan child demands that you eat a leftover club sandwich, you might try doing what I do, if it appeals to you.  I adore club sandwiches, but can't ever eat more than 1/4 to 1/2 at one sitting.  I turn it into a chef salad the next day.  When I get home, I remove the bread and toss it (a slight pain to the Child, I know) and the next day cut up the stuffing and toss it with lettuce and dressing.  

[MelissaH]

On 7/1/2019 at 3:09 PM, teonzo said:

 

This calls for a visit to a couple of thrift stores, where you'll find the right lamp for you for $1

 

@Anna N, have you ever considered a headlamp? I have two: the older runs on AA batteries, and the newer (acquired when I was helping friends who are my parents' age with a home renovation project and I didn't know I was going to need more light) of which has a rechargeable battery that charges through a micro USB port like a non-Apple phone. Both of mine have a strap that goes over the top of the head in addition to the around-the-head strap, but that's really a luxury and certainly not usually required. The LEDs are quite bright, and my batteries last a really long time. I like headlamps better than flashlights because you don't need to hold them, and because they always shine the light where you're looking. Betcha Canadian Tire could supply you with something that will help.

 

On 7/2/2019 at 12:12 PM, Anna N said:

For some days before I even arrived in Manitoulin I have been hemming and hawing about two recipe books.

 

 Dorie Greenspan‘s, Everyday Dorie, is a puzzlement.  We, here on eG, are generally huge fans of Dorie but I can find only one recipe from this, her latest book, in the forum—This prepared by @blue_dolphin. Has Dorie lost her appeal? Or is it that Dorie is so well known for her sweets that  we don’t trust her with savouries? But that can’t be true either because many of us cooked from Around My French Table.  All that is just a long way of saying that I succumbed just now and bought her new book.  I am hoping to try a few recipes while we are up here. 

 

The other book is even more of a conundrum for me. It is Christopher Kimball‘s Milk Street Tuesday Nights. I am not a fan of Kimball but Kerry did remind me that when I first started to cook seriously, I devoured every issue of Cooks Illustrated that I could get my hands on. I learned a great deal from some of those magazines.  But like many others I found over the years the  magazines and the recipes became more and more repetitious and Kimball’s business model became more and more annoying.

 

So why am I looking at possibly buying this book? I would have to say because it encompasses recipes that have moved away from the strictly homey American food model. There is nothing wrong with blueberry buckle but I like to see what is  happening with food from other cultures. Finally Kimball seems to have acknowledged that there is the world beyond his fantasy farmland.  So I’m curious.  Anybody?  I have yet to lay out the money but the temptation is not going away.

 

I have both of the two cookbooks you mention. For me, cookbooks are far more than just sources of recipes, and I enjoy reading Dorie's headnotes and directions. The Milk Street, however, I felt as conflicted about as the rest of you. I borrowed it from our local library, and was (for once) impressed by the range of recipes and the blessed lack of superlatives compared to old-style ATK writing. I also liked that for the most part, these recipes don't use ingredients that I have to make a special trip to acquire, and that most of them aren't Projects that use significant amounts of my time and energy to prep. Nonetheless, if I hadn't found it cheap, I wouldn't have gotten my own copy.

 

12 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

After lunch we headed down to the boat launch - this is where I got my mint.

 

 

 

 

The water is very high this year - normally we could have walked out to the furthest trees (albeit having to avoid all the goose poop)!

 

People on my side of Lake Ontario are quite unhappy this year, thanks to the higher water and storms that have contributed to significant erosion. They blame the binational commission that's in charge of regulating the water levels in the lake, saying that they'd kept too much water in the lake so they could use it for power generation in the spring. Many locals keep loudly wishing they'd open the floodgates and let more water go downstream. (Never mind that if they'd done that earlier, they'd have likely flooded out parts of Montreal and other points down the St. Lawrence.) But all the water out by you, and in the rest of the Great Lakes, will eventually make its way down to us and out.

[Shelby]

15 hours ago, kayb said:

My favorite Patsy tune is Walking After Midnight. What's yours?

Absolutely the same with Crazy coming in a close second.  Her voice is magical to me.

[Anna N]

12 minutes ago, MelissaH said:

@Anna N, have you ever considered a headlamp?

Never thought about it but I shall certainly put it under serious consideration. Thank you

 

Well I know I am going to buy the Tuesday Night’s book eventually!  I always do when I get into this kind of mood. I have zero willpower to resist. I can hold back the urge for only so long.   I too enjoy these books for much more than just their recipes.   And curiosity is a powerful force.

[Anna N]

Just now, Shelby said:

Absolutely the same with Crazy coming in a close second.  Her voice is magical to me.

Crazy wins for me. She was one of my late husband’s idols and when she died you would think it had been a member of his family.  

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Kim Shook said:

When I get home, I remove the bread and toss it (a slight pain to the Child, I know) and the next day cut up the stuffing and toss it with lettuce and dressing.  

 I have been thinking more and more about your suggestion and decided even the bread could be saved if I turned it into some nice crunchy, garlicky croutons. Now I wish I could have a do-over!

[Kim Shook]

53 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 I have been thinking more and more about your suggestion and decided even the bread could be saved if I turned it into some nice crunchy, garlicky croutons. Now I wish I could have a do-over!

It absolutely could.  Even if it has mayo on it, it would work.  Jessica makes her grilled cheese sandwiches with mayo rather than butter and they get nice and crunchy!  Thank you for the idea!

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, MelissaH said:

The Milk Street, however, I felt as conflicted about as the rest of you.

 I succumbed as I knew I would.   I have not had a chance, of course, to try any of the recipes but I have certainly bookmarked a lot of them.  The proof will be in the pudding as they say, but there are certainly some very interesting dishes. And the photography is exactly the kind that I appreciate in a cookbook. There is nothing artsy about it. Realistic photographs of the food are what I want to find!

[Anna N]

No lunch photographs either today. Can’t really say I had lunch. I was craving a slice of toast with butter and nothing else on it. Took care of that problem quickly. Kerry had left me two chocolate-dipped strawberries which became lunch dessert.   But since I am leafing through some cookbooks, I am likely to develop a craving for something else really soon!  

[rotuts]

@Anna N

 

at the point you might visit a NewsStand

 

consider looking over the MS Magazine

 

I wont suggest you buy it 

 

because I would not be able to sleep for a week.

 

now that you have One MS book

 

your set for not looking into too many others

 

and there seem to be a few :

 

https://store.177milkstreet.com/collections/milk-street-books

[weinoo]

19 hours ago, Shelby said:

I don't drink much liquor anymore, but this used to be my favorite.  So did White Russians until one unfortunate night in a dive bar playing pool and listening to Patsy Cline on the jukebox.......😂

 

Probably a pretty great bar, with Patsy on the box.

 

17 hours ago, kayb said:

 

Patsy just calls for some serious drinking.

 

Trivia for the day: The site of Patsy Cline's fatal plane crash in 1963 is about 4 miles from the house where I grew up. It was, in point of fact, in the county dump, before they graduated to landfills. We heard about it at church, and like the rest of that part of the world, drove out there after lunch and joined the procession of hundreds of cars filled with either gawkers or those paying respects.

 

My favorite Patsy tune is Walking After Midnight. What's yours?

 

I Fall to Pieces. She's Got You. Crazy. Walking After Midnight.  Sweet Dreams. Tough decision, depending on mood.

[rotuts]

now I have to comment : re Patsy Cline

 

Im not much of a " Lounge Singer " person

 

Ill define " Lounge Singer " this way :

 

Frank Sinatra ,  Barbara Streisand  and etc

 

nothing wrong w their voice etc etc

 

nor selection of music

 

I think they sang from the Sheet Music

 

and quite well

 

but for me 

 

Patsy Cline

 

sang from her Bones 

 

not the sheet music

 

sorry to interrupt this thread

 

its all about ones Bones.

 

cooking is the same , BTW

 

if you feel it in your bones,

 

while cooking

 

its going to be a mighty fine dish

 

just saying

Edited July 4, 2019 by rotuts (log)

[Anna N]

5 minutes ago, rotuts said:

Patsy Cline

 

sang from her Bones 

 For certain she did.

[TdeV]

17 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

@Kerry Beal, did you cook the rhubarb first?

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, TdeV said:

 

@Kerry Beal, did you cook the rhubarb first?

Nope!

[Kerry Beal]

 

Fries cut like a hot knife through butter.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

4 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

 

Fries cut like a hot knife through butter.

 

Did that device come from the thrift shop or the hospital?