StephanieL

N made a loaf of basic sourdough, using a combo of regular bread flour and whole-wheat flour, and then used the discard to make crackers (a KAF recipe). The crackers will go with recently defrosted black bean hummus, left over from a batch made a couple of months ago.

Aw, thank you! We have been having more modest meals than these, including takeout.

Because it's going to be hot here over the next several days, N has been preparing fish in ways that we can have chilled or room temperature. We got beautiful salmon roast and cod fillets from the farmer's market yesterday; this vendor has wonderful, rich salmon in particular. Last night, N gave the salmon a dry rub (brown sugar, salt, pepper, Spanish paprika, and a pinch of dry mustard) and smoked it over apple wood. We let it cool on the counter and then put it in the fridge; today, she's going to make a salad and RG green French lentils to go with it, and we have a Spanish rose on ice. (Dessert will be store-bought chocolate cream pie.) Tonight, she's going to pickle the cod South African style, in a curry with onions, so that we can have it tomorrow evening.

Cherries! Lots of them at the market today, at around $6/lb for both Bings and Rainiers. Also picked up salmon and cod for this week's dinners.

Beer brownies, using Guinness. They're nice, but I thought they would be more bitter and less sweet. The recipe calls for brown butter and I'm thinking I didn't let it get brown enough. You can also use cold coffee if beer isn't your thing.

Your basic mojito. It was nice with Bacardi Gold, but we need to add white rum to our collection.

El Pollo Loco is having cheap family specials, so I combined their takeout chicken with my homemade Mexican-restaurant rice and garden peas & broccoli sauteed with salt, pepper, and RG Mexican oregano.

No, it was John Holmes.

Since the Alameda tiki bar is closed, their DJs have been having their sets live via FB, so I can have calypso, lounge music, etc. in the comfort of my own home.

If you have chicken skin, you could use the schmaltz to fry up the skin & onions and then you'd have gribenes, the kosher equivalent of chicarrones.

Not all of us. I dislike grapefruit anything, plus grapefruit juice clashes with a couple of my meds.

I saw the movie at Film Forum couple of months after my chorus actually performed Alexander Nevsky (with the St. Petersburg Orchestra, no less). It was really cool.

N made the KAF sourdough beer bread, using Negra Modelo beer and substituting diastatic malt for the malt flakes which we don't have. She made it rectangular rather than round; it didn't raise super-high, but what a great tender crumb, with a slight sweetness from the malt plus some honey.

We had a half-package of RG brown teparies to use up, so N made a curry with the beans and roasted butternut and cauliflower. Served with homemade sourdough beer bread.

Nope. Dive bars make me a little nervous. 😆