#food Oyster-sauce lacquered pan-seared chicken thighs (start in COLD PAN to render crispy skin, then finish in the oven). Rice. Cauliflower gratin, with a sauce of cheese and béchamel (both home-made), crispy top made of buttered, spiced panko and RENDERED CHICKEN SKIN fried to crispy bits.

OMG.

#food Recombination! Here's a store-bought flour tortilla I shallow fried in home-rendered lard, topped with my home-refried beans, taco sauce, scallions, shredded cheese and my twice-cooked crispy pork belly confit, chopped to bits and crisped in lard AGAIN. Mexican pizza?

So on this day people--total strangers, mind--come to your home uninvited and TAKE your candy? I have objections to this holiday. Strenuous objections.

Frightening. Sure it's a big kitty, all "suckling and adorable," but it's also MURDER. Look at those f'n claws. Still. Worth the risk. *love*

#food BURRITO FROM SCRATCH project, "dry run" today with some store-bought elements. First, some beauty shots, then a longer explanation. (cont.)Burri

#Food Just processed 18+ pounds of pork belly. All the fat I could conceivably remove is now cut into small cubes and is in the big pot slowly being rendered into nice, pure, unseasoned lard. That lard will confit some cube of pork belly I have seasoning overnight in the fridge. Yum!

#food EXPERIMENT! Very similar meatballs to yesterday's classic Cantonese soup, but I cooked them like an Italian grandmother would, to golden+brown+delicious in a dry oven; parsley potatoes, rich brown gravy. Interesting flavors of China in a "meat & taters" context. Darn delicious!

#food Light classic Cantonese soup: pork meatballs (with pickled mustard greens) in a rich chicken broth with white pepper and big chunks of daikon radish, scallions to garnish. Sometimes you don't want rice or noodles or bread, you want cleansing, clear, healthy, easy, delicious but nourishing.

#food Tried for an 'art nouveau' flower thing today, and to my shock, it kinda worked! Pretty. Orchid-like. Lilies? Mandrake! @cargie.baby tells me it was delicious. :)

#food DOUBLE today: dinner and dessert. First up, Schweinshaxe, "pig shank," the great double-cooked, crispy-skinned roast pork knuckle beloved by Germans everywhere. Here with buttered parsley potatoes and a stupendous gravy made out of vegetables and pan drippings from the pork: (continued...)

#food Sometimes you just want BISCUITS 'n GRAVY, even if you don't have biscuits. This is a toasted buttered sesame seed bun. It's saw mill / sausage / milk gravy with bacon and scallion whites, garnished with scallion greens and the crispy bits of bacon. Details if y'all wantl. For now, YUM!

#food Shrimp scampi! I pre-poached the shrimp in court bullion. Spaghettini is the pasta. COPIOUS garlic, parmesan, butter, fresh thyme and enough parsley to please a horse. Red pepper flakes and lots of fresh cracked black pepper too. Pasta water to emulsify the sauce. Damn-near perfect.

#food I like how today's latte art turned out. Very 'Starry Night'--dramatic tree (or perhaps fern?), windswept storms (or perhaps waves of mist or humid air), a huge moon? (Sun?) Tasted delicious, too.

#food Crisp weather reminds me of leafy walks home from school, so I made a junior-high cafeteria classic: Sloppy Joes from scratch (no cans) are extremely rich, dark in flavor--too intense, so I lightened it with heavy cream and thickened with a beurre manié. Cheap supermarket bun, of course.

#food Not every dish I attempt comes out pretty. A "gooey butter cake" (yeah, boxed cake, too-sweet cream cheese layer, etc.) I stubbornly made in a pan an inch too large and with metal walls too thin. Tastes correct, tiny but overdone bottom crust, but lost its integrity coming out of the pan.

#food Creamy chicken "pot pie" buckle. Improvise a filling (mirepoix in bacon fat, white wine, fresh herbs, Slap Yo Mama, blond roux, home-made chicken demi, rotisserie dark meat, cream) and reduce. Transfer to a brazier and top with from-scratch biscuit dough. Bake to bubbly & golden. Ahhhh.

#food Home-made peanut butter white chocolate no-bake haystack cookies with flakey sea salt (Malden). I pre-toasted the rolled oats and added in shaved flakes of almond, also pre-toasted. Good thing I did all that toasting, these needed the complexity. Yum!!

#food Soy sauce scallion noodles: the "poor person's feast" which kept East Asia alive through tough times. Hot wok. Tablespoon of lard, blacken some scallions. Soy and oyster sauces. Boiled noodles (I had soba ). Stir-fry fast and hot, top with more scallions. Luxury: sesame oil and seeds, MSG.

#food Fresh tomato soup! Two anchovies sweat in olive oil, butter and COPIOUS garlic. Reduced some red wine to a syrup for acid and body. Simmered the tomatoes in the oil, removed all seeds/skins. Dollops of fresh thyme-infused reduced heavy cream and goat cheese garlic sourdough toast garnish.

#food Beans! Great Northern beans, pork hock, turkey thighs (neither smoked, had to add liquid smoke), bacon, lots of aromatic veggies, home-made pork stock, red wine reduction, many secret spices and herbs, scallions. Delicious! Autumnal, hearty, savory. Makes a great soup when diluted!

#food German tonight: pork cutlet schnitzel in a creamy white wine & onion sauce. Lazy me didn't make spaetzle, so it was tater tots to the rescue. I mean, this was just fine (went for crust on the pork rather than tenderness: ultra thin, crispy, but a bit tough). German food is so heavy.

#food White-chocolate cardamom-infused caramel sauce from scratch, drizzled over vanilla bean ice cream. Easy to make, though this recipe called for glucose (liquid form), which is sticky stuff indeed. Delicious, but not really an "ice cream sauce," the cold made it too hard too fast. (cont.)

#food Penne w/ walnut-bread pasta sauce (Ligurian). Think of it as a "white pesto," where you use nuts (walnuts this time) and plant matter (water-soaked bread instead of basil leaves) to build a creamy, delicious, toasty sauce. However, this is EXPERIMENTAL, as I added some other things. (cont)

#food Appetizer made from leftovers! Cauliflower purée, pan-seared and butter-basted trim from 72-hours sous-vide short rib, drizzle 25-year balsamic, scallion greens, flakey salt (Maldon). Absolutely decadent and delicious. Forgive the balsamic drizzle plating, I'm not trying to be retro. YUM!

#food Penne & cheese. Made a cheese sauce that failed (mediocre supermarket cheese, not much flavor despite adding fresh chopped dill). So I turned it into a penne "Mac & cheese" with a fresh bread crumb topping (paprika, MSG, thyme, parmesan, pepper, lots of butter). Ketchup & scallions, oh yes.

#food Oven-"BBQ" pork "side" ribs, pulled, on buttered toasted sesame seed bun, BBQ sauce. Korean cucumber salad (peanut butter, gochugaru, rice vinegar, calimansi juice, soy sauce, toasted sesame seed hand-crushed, scallions). I continue to try and build capacity for spicy food. This was YUM.

#food Spaghetti alla Nerano... ...except I had no provolone. I used 24-month parmesan instead, boosted with a little heavy cream and butter. Not ideal, but best I could do. Oven-fried zucchini the day before, then sautéed with garlic and onions, then copious black pepper, flakey salt. Delish!

#food Congee experiments continue! Can you simply use congee (liaised with cream and egg yolk) in place of risotto? This came out delicious, flavor superb, but texture too loose. Short rib (salt, pepper, sous-vide 72 hours), scallions, dill cream garnish, drizzle of aged balsamic, Maldon salt.

#food Mad dessert experiment: Pastry creme (stabilized with gelatin), Swiss meringue and whipped cream all combined into a kind of crème diplomat. Buzzed up home-candied pecans (egg white, sugar) into a nut butter and folded it in. Layered with arrowroot biscuits. Dusted with cocoa. SINFUL!

#food Congee experiments continue! My usual congee base (liaised with cream and egg yolks, soup base, MSG, soy) topped this time with blanched snow peas, scallions, twice-fried kalua pork floss, soy-roasted seaweed (nori), red vinegar, toasted sesame oil and seeds. Chili crisp not pictured. ;)

FURRYMUCK USERS: The memorial service for Tugrik on FurryMuck will be this coming Friday (August 8, 2025) at 9 pm CST (10 EST, 8 MST, 7 PST). Instructions for how to attend are on the Park bulletin board. Please pass the word to all who may be interested.

#food Indo-Mei noodles. I recently came into 40 packs of the stuff so cheap as to be nearly free. So I've started experimenting! Here it is made "to directions" but supplemented with peanut butter, chili crisp, scallions and salt-purged zucchini, sesame seeds garnish. Refreshing, nutty, yum!

#food ZONE PIZZA! Experimenting with toppings/sauces/cheeses, this big Detroit-style pan has five different zones: --scallion, zucchini --kalua pork floss, onions, zucchini --lion's mane mushroom, onions --dill cream cheese, scallions (no red sauce!) --floss, scallions Lots of flavorful oil. :)

#grief It's pretty clear we lost @tugrik.bsky.social yesterday. I'm shook and deeply sad. We only became close in his last five or six years, but it was pretty close. A remarkable man with a heart wider than the sky. Thoughts to his parents, Revar, and the many whom he touched. R.I.P. Tör

Another confirmation, but not official. I'm hearing Tugrik was hospitalized today with pneumonia and that he passed. He was with friends. That's two sources. I think it may be true. More if I learn anything.

I'm hearing we lost @tugrik.bsky.social. If anyone has details, please let me know. I'm hoping it's a rumor or misinformation.

#food Creme puff failure! These are creme puffs baked with a craquelin topping which proved too heavy. Choux pastry isn't strong enough to lift the craquelin. So I used each collapsed puff as a "bun." Still VERY delicious. Crème diplomat, rum-macerated fresh berries, home-made fudge sauce.

My father would have been 101 today. Miss you, Dad.

#food I do believe my cream puffs (choux pastry) have failed. :( They're sad little inverted pucks with almost no rise. In the drying oven now. We'll see. *whimper*

@halifaxretales.bsky.social Scoop for you!

send me a ref and ten bucks and I'll do an undertale style pixel avatar for ya. a pfp. a user icon. whatever you wanna call it

#food Two inventive desserts! I made a peculiar pastry cream derivative and decided it had to be part of two different desserts. First, beauty shots. In the thread, I'll explain what they are and what worked best. (continued)

Wrote a silly story about a time traveler. Time wanderer. A weird guy whose nickname I really like. www.inkitt.com/stories/1514...

As of this afternoon, I am a Canadian citizen. I maintain my U.S. citizenship, but I live and work and play and love here, now. It is now possible for me to become knighted. HINT HINT.

#food Dinner was "on the board." I like to sometimes "plate" a meal on the cutting board and let @cargie.baby and I just pick what we want. At least I made the smoked pork hock terrine myself. Brie, cheddar, garlic meatballs, eggs, pepperoni, berries, hot mustard, kewpie, pickles, toast. Yum!

#food Chocolate "hot mousse" ice cream experiment spun twice in my Ninja Creami. It stayed fluffy like fine snow but turned creamy on the tongue. Delicious, strange. The texture's like "dippin' dots" but it's at normal ice cream temperatures. Strange, but delicious with home-made hot fudge.

#food Shrimp roll! I poached shrimp in a court-bouillon (shrimp shells, herbs) using the Breville Control Freak to a perfect 130F (shrimp were tender and crisp and glorious). Then mayo, brunoise of celery (de-stringed!), parsley, spices, lettuce, toasted banh-mi bun, kewpie. So summery!