Silicone bakeware used for garlic confit hangs on a line so the smell of garlic eventually wears out
Don’t let this happen to you.
I made garlic confit and used some of my silicone bakeware to freeze it. Bad idea. It all smells like garlic, and my only option is to hang it out in the elements for a couple of weeks to salvage it. A few days and the garlic is still prominent.
I may have to dedicate this ware to garlic.
Note to self: Buy old school ice cube trays.
Oak Roasted Salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse
Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I wanted to quickly give you the skinny on a new product I’ve seen at the Richmond (CA) Costco my last few visits.
This is a chunk of hot smoked, oak roasted Norweigan salmon from the Santa Barbara Smokehouse, an outfit actually located in Santa Barbara. They smoke their stuff over open wood fires, old school.
Costco had this on sample a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t believe how good it was. Normally I stay away from hot smoked salmon because I find it too dry.
This one is tender, silky, fatty, salty and not too sweet — übersweetness being another of my kvetches when it comes to hot smoked salmon.
Oak Roasted Salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse (back view)
I should have realized from the get-go that this was made from farmed Atlantic salmon. Farmed salmon is fattier than wild salmon. Since I don’t buy farmed salmon unless it’s sustainable, I’ll hold off buying this again until I find out what the deal is. The company’s website consists of only a placeholder right now. UPDATE on 1/29/13: I have not seen this particular brand for quiet some time, but Costco still carries roughly the same product regularly. Note also that Santa Barbara Smokehouse’s website indicates that their salmon is “sustainably harvested.”
We had this with some crusty bread and it was a big hit. The skin had been left on, which helps keep the product moist and tastes good in its own right. Berry, our companion Akita, was all over it.
It’s $11.59 per pound, but our 1.2 pound section fed four people.
All you need is plenty of good bread and wine.
Oak Roasted Salmon from Santa Barbara Smokehouse being served
Interested in old pots and pans and dishes? I too. Don’t start with me about “I” and “me.” “I” is correct here because it’s the implied subject in an elliptical construction, though I agree it sounds unnatural and pretentious. Me too. (It was a quandary, but I went with common usage. I have either pleased all my readers or none of them. Hard to say.)
Back to old cookware.
I think I’ve officially rounded the bend when it comes to my current obsession: TEPCOware. By TEPCO I mean The Technical Porcelain & Chinaware Company, not Tokyo Electric Power Company.
While doing research for a piece I wrote for El Cerrito Patch, I fell in love with the ware this now-defunct El Cerrito, California, company produced, and have been incorporating it into my art, looking on eBay for plates and saucers, and even combing the edge of the San Francisco Bay for fragments. (Good God, ‘eBay’ has made it into the WordPress spell checker!)
Oh, yes: TEPCO dishware.
Methinks I’ll start borrowing some TEPCOware from fellow El Cerritans (my spell checker wanted to change that to ‘Cretans,” by the way) to draw so I don’t wind up with 200 variations of Needles & Pine.
Oh, be sure to test for lead before you use old dishes you know nothing about. Just look for a lead test kit at your local hardware store.
Easter Eggs for 2011
Although my Mom pulled herself together to produce a respectable plate of Easter eggs this morning, we’ll be having our roast duck dinner next week.
Let me explain.
About three weeks ago my son, Matthew, came down with a cold. It turned out to be a nasty, long, viral affair that was passed to my Mother about two weeks ago, to me three days ago, and to my husband two days ago.
We’re all down. Matthew’s birthday dinner, which was to be held last Saturday, was postponed to this Saturday—then postponed again to next Saturday. Steve pulled himself together enough to go to Nation’s to get an apple pie, which we decked out with candles and sang a lame Happy Birthday over yesterday afternoon.
If we’re ill next week we’ll be in serious trouble because of Mother’s Day on May 8th and then Steve’s birthday on May 11th. It is not acceptable in my family to combine events, so here’s hoping we’re able to take Matthew out to Solano Grill & Bar for birthday 24 next Saturday and then cook a roast duck, mashed potato and red cabbage Easter dinner the next day.
Now that I’m carrying on, let me go the whole distance: This week was spring break and I had off from art class and wanted to focus on working ahead on El Cerrito Eats, but no go. Matt’s not too happy to have a cold during spring break, either.
Have a great day, everyone!
Matzo brei with turkey ham and aged cheddar
At this point in time I’m starting to ponder the half-case of Passover matzos I’ll have hanging around after next week. We’ll have had a sea of smoked whitefish salad on them by then, and no one will want any.
If you’ve never heard of matzos, then you probably live in a place where there are no Jewish people. It’s cracker-like unleavened bread made of only flour and water–looks like a very large cracker, actually–that’s eaten during the Passover holiday instead of leavened bread, which is strictly forbidden.
Consider Deuteronomy 16:3: