We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
While we were in the Czech Republic, we had a wonderful dessert concoction known as Tredlnik. It's a doughnut-like pastry wrapped around a rotating spit, fired over charcoal, then dipped in a sugary glaze and covered with cinnamon. The inside is coated with chocolate, and you can choose a variety of fillings. Ice cream is popular, but I really liked the strawberries and whipped cream.
It's one of the least healthy but most delightful snacks I've had. If you've never seen or had it, I would best describe it as an ice cream cone, but it's softer, there's a hole in the bottom, and it's served warm (even hot) - so while ice cream works in it, you'd better eat it fast.
The lines at Prague's Tredlnik stands were always long, particularly after 11pm when the drinking crowd started showing up in force. Lines often included young men on their bachelor party, forced to wear dresses, and often being held up by their buddies. When I woke up early to visit the Charles Bridge (you really do have to wake up early if you want pictures of it without crowds), I was stunned to see the same women I'd seen the night before around midnight, firing up their Tredlnik fires and making the dough. I wasn't sure if they were just finishing up from the night before and about to be replaced by the next shift, or if they were really hardcore workers.
For carving beef or lamb, maybe pork, it's hard to control the thickness or thinness without a pique.
Old-fashioned carving sets used to include one, but usually not long enough and the knives with them were not top-notch. I like a slightly-serrated meat knife so I can go as thin as I want. The Pique gives good control.
Amazon, of course, has good stainless ones. Once a hot meat has rested a few minutes, use that thing and get exactly the clean slices you want.
I don't really know why you would care, since an apple is just a sugary dessert with minimal food value. However, market apples can be up to one year old. It doesn't matter.
They are stored in a high-tech versions of the olde root cellar, cool and dark until needed.
Let's just assume you want to raise your own eggs. Not as a farmer, just for your own use, like a 4-H project or like almost everybody did during the war.
I know two people who do backyard chickens. They keep the gardens weeded and eat all the bugs. A Red-Tail occasionally gets one. They scamper back into the coop at evening feed time, which keeps them safe from owls, fox, coons, and coyotes. That's the real "Free-range." Do you have to quickly teach your hunting dog to leave them alone? You betcha. Shock collar. What about Blacksnakes? Big fat Blacksnakes can't fit through narrow gauge chicken wire.
Duck eggs are bigger and tastier and ducks are less prone to disease and other problems.
A great project to do with kids, who should be responsible for it all. Does growing your own anything make sense in terms of time and cost? Of course not. It's for fun.
Classic Sicilian antipasto: grilled vegetables, done this way. Has to have sliced eggplant, but anything else: halved potato, halved artichoke, leek, peppers - you name it. Best grilled on wood.
Heat wave in the Northeast due to global warming. We never used to have heat waves. Spent two hours in and out of a pool. Water was too warm, not too refreshing. Needed some giant ice floes in it, hold the Polar Bear. The good part was that Mrs. BD ordered me a tuna melt on white toast with lots of jalapeno slices in the cheese. Chips on the side. A perfect lunch.
Can you eat a sandwich without potato chips on the side? I can not and will not. Impossible. Our place fries their own daily. A bit thick and just slightly burnt. Fried in beef lard, I think. Delicious. A loud, hearty crunch. Easy to make at home with a mandoline.
How anybody can drive up Route 91 through Vermont without stopping at Curtis' place (just west off the Putney exit (Exit 4), next to Ron's gas station) for some authentic Mississippi barbecue is beyond me. Curtis is a Mississippi-born and bred barbecuemaster, but he spends spring to fall in Putney, VT (of all places), cooking over hardwood smoke all day long, with his pet pig and dog following him around the smoky pit. Now he sells his own Curtis' Root Beer and Barbecue Sauce too - but only at his place.
He is a busy old codger, but he will chat with you if you have anything worth saying to him. It had better be interesting, though. You do not see many places like this in New England. I'd be willing to claim that it's the best southern barbecue in Vermont.
Do you know where these typical American garden plants originated in their wild forms before being genetically-engineered over millennia by clever humans into the international things we know and grow today?
Cucumber Eggplant Potato Tomato Onion Zucchini (and all other squash and gourds) Beans and Peas Lettuce Spinach Strawberry Radish Peppers Chard (including Swiss Chard) - chard is in the beet family - the beet was first grown for its greens, not the root Corn (maize) Asperagus Rhubarb
Simple, juicy, and crunchy on the surface:Sauteed Parmesan Chicken Breast
Slice the chicken breasts horizontally in half for thinner filets. Season with s&p, and dip filets in egg, mayo, or sour cream. Then cover with a mix of plain bread crumbs and grated parmesan and sautee in a mix of butter and olive oil until toasty brown.
Amazing the way it stays juicy and tender. It is obviously served with mashed taters, or preferably garlic mashed taters.
Fried Squash Blossoms are a wonderful summertime traditional Italian treat. I harvested this platterful of them last night and we fried 'em up. When served hot, and lightly browned and salted, they leave French Fries in the dust.
On summer squash like Zucchini and Yellow Squash, the blossoms on the long stalks are the males, and thus expendable. However, I use both because there's always too much squash anyway. In fact, the blossoms are tastier than the squash. (I am fond of yellow summer squash steamed with salt, pepper, and butter, not so fond of zucchini except in soup.)
Almost forgot to mention that squash blossoms prevent arthritis, dementia, laziness, neurasthenia, depression, obesity, heart disease, and cancer - and most other sorts of death and disease. Guaranteed. For a few minutes, anyway.
This site explains how simple this is, using Marcella's method. Do not wash them at all because they need to be dry - just check them for bugs inside but a few tiny bugs just adds a little protein to the mix. Brown them lightly, drain, and eat sizzling hot. Photo below from Marcella's site -
Delicious summer side dish for meat on the barbie, but it can function as a full meal for me if served on top of some Boston Lettuce:
A pile of cooked white rice (Basmati is best). Or couscous instead.
Cool rice to cool or room temp. Then add:
roughly chopped - peeled and seeded - cucumber roughly chopped tomatoes roughly chopped (halved) Greek olives lots of chopped fresh Italian parsley not too much chopped fresh oregano chopped red onion lots of crumbled feta cheese
(you can add some chopped red, green, and/or yellow bell peppers too if you want.)
Salt and pepper, fresh-squeezed lemon juice to taste, then toss with your best olive oil. Serve cool or room temp.
It could not be simpler. Remember the protagonist in Walker Percy's extraordinary Love in the Ruins who lived on them? Dr. Tom More. His brain was constantly fizzing and fizzling.
There's also the Royal Gin Fizz (with an egg), and, of course, the Sloe Gin Fizz if you can find any Sloe Gin around - or any loose Sloes to soak in your gin. Looks like a Beach Plum. Cape Cod Beach Plums would probably work just fine. They are bitter, flavor-packed wild plums. Maybe I will give that a try.
Photo is the Royal.
nb: Some old comments below from our late pal Marianne Matthews. Miss her.
Cook up a batch of couscous. Thin slice or matchstick a bunch of zucchini and/or summer squash. Chop up a bunch of fresh mint - enough to make it minty. Whisk some fresh lemon juice with olive oil and salt and pepper. Mix together, serve at room temp.
To make it even more Sicilian, include some chopped pistachios and there you have the classic Sicilian ingredients: couscous, lemon, mint, olive oil, and pistachio. All it's missing is pignolis - but a recipe is either pignolis or pistachios - not both.
You want measures? When you cook Sicilian (or Italian, for that matter), you eyeball it and taste it. Just keep it light, not soggy with oil.
Now back to my gardening chores. Damn weeds, I live to kill them. Need to water the tomatoes again and tie them up again too, trim the wisteria, and shave the boxwoods. That's how the gentry become rednecked on a beautiful cloudless day like this - proud bitter clingers.
Sicilian cheese is not very tasty, but I'll put in a free plug for the northern Italian Asiago. A fine hard cheese, and they now have it at Costco.
I tend to prefer stinky softer cheeses for dessert with a slice of fruit or some fruit preserves, but with an antipasto I don't mind hard cheeses. My favorite hard cheese? 6-month-old (ie young, before it gets grating-hard) Parmesan. Can't buy it in the US as far as I know. Second favorite? Pecorino. Third favorite? Dubliner. Now Asiago competing. I have yet to find an American cheddar that can compete with these things, but it might exist somewhere. A grandfather-in-law used to say "All good things come from Italy."
Ricotta Salata is good too, drizzled with some honey and sprinkled with chopped pistachio, but dog kibbles would be good with that too.
Is domestic Wagyu beef a scam? Since Japanese beef is no longer imported to the US, beef epicures are left with the US version of Kobe.
I would say it's not a scam. On Sunday morning I had a Wagyu steak salad for brunch at the member's dining room at the Metropolitan Museum and it was the best steak I have ever had. Pan-fried, caramelized crust, rare through, cuttable with a fork, dynamite flavor. I think it's my first time with Wagyu.
(Which reminds me to mention my view that, if you have some good steaks, do not cook them on a grill. London Broil, ok, but not good steaks. Pan-seared is the only way to do them.)
And speaking of steak, do you like to serve whole ones, or sliced? I think 1/2-inch slices are best except for ribeye. For London Broil, thinner. Need a good carving fork - a pique - to get it right. Same with grilled butterflied lamb which is my favorite grilled meat.
Prof. B. explained why reds should be chilled a bit before serving, especially in the summer - assuming the bottles are not coming from your underground or temperature-controlled wine cellar. 55-62 degrees F, max. That's not "room temperature."
I think The Prof is absolutely right, but I had never thought it through. No wine tastes good at 76 degrees. Hot grape juice isn't good either. (my Dad calls wine "grape juice" even if it's '81 Petrus).
Same thing applies to old Ports, I think.
Rich folks have wine refrigerators that keep each type of wine at its own preferred temp. If you have one, surely you deserve to be more highly taxed.
All it took for Hungarian cowherds to add to their stewpot was ground chili pepper - Paprika. Thus it was just plain stew until the Spanish brought peppers to Europe from the New World in the early 1500s.
Daughters and I are grilling lunch today for 3 moms in the family. Gave birth so God bless 'em.
Grilled things: eggplant, mixed-colored bell peppers, yellow squash, onions, portobello mushrooms, asparagus. Marinate with oil & vinegar, garlic, and herbs, salt and pepper and toss em on the fire. I use very large chunks or slices. That's Italian, or really more like Sicilian. To keep it traditional, I always throw some wood on top of the charcoal. I close the grill top so they cook before they burn, but I do like them a bit burnt.
London Broil, rare. My new Victorinox serrated meat knife can slice this thin enough to eat happily. 1/4-inch-or- less slices. Otherwise, I find London Broil inedible, meat-flavored chewing gum.
Mixed salad with walnuts and dried cranberries.
Mixed berries with creme fraiche (or sour cream, no difference really) for dessert
While we were in the Czech Republic, we had a 
For carving beef or lamb, maybe pork, it's hard to control the thickness or thinness without a pique.
The stuff from the can tastes and smells like dog food.
Pic is caponata
Do you know where these typical American garden plants originated in their wild forms before being genetically-engineered over millennia by clever humans into the international things we know and grow today? 
It's a Prohibition-era summer cocktail from the 21 Club.
Making a batch this weekend, from the garden. Simple
It could not 
Recipe 
Everybody loves the taste of basil. My father-in-law likes to just take a leaf and munch it up, and so do I. 
Prof. B. explained why 
All it took for Hungarian cowherds to add to their stewpot was ground chili pepper - Paprika. Thus it was just plain stew until the Spanish brought peppers to Europe from the New World in the early 1500s.