Beet with pretty stick

A pilgrimage to the ceramics store mecca yields items such as sponge on a stick. $2.65. I spent many minutes at the shop inappropriately fondling the pottery wheel I've been lusting after. Alas, I can not afford the thousand dollars to buy it. Pottery wheel! How you tease me! My attempts at marrying wealthy have so far failed miserably. Marry me please? I'll feed you.

So like most of America, I drown my sorrows by eating an entire rack of baby back ribs. This time, hickory smoked with a cilantro bourbon molasses glaze.

And roasted beet, radish, and gorgonzola salad. My current kitchen gadget obsession is the mandolin slicer. So far, I've managed to keep my fingertips. But it's only a matter of time before I slice off something important.

And for healthy-like snacking- Jewel toned beet chips! These turned out very beautifully translucent. I might not have sliced off my finger tips going overboard with the mandolin slicer, but my hands still wound up bloody beet red.

And then I made an empanada for dinner #2. Because I felt peckish.

Wanted: bacon honey

Walking Preston on garbage days gives us a great excuse to snoop on the neighbors. I am totally jealous that someone is getting bacon of the month club.

I wash my bacon sorrows with barbeque. Cilantro honey bourbon glaze. But it's not the same. I want bacon of the month club. Someday... after I marry for money, I will join the bacon of the month club.

Some pig

Coffee spiced braised Wilbur with jus. Like they said in Charlotte's Web. That's "Some Pig." Pork belly so tender it's essentially pig jello.

And for suppers #2 and #3, I roast cornish game hens. One rubbed with olive oil, lemon, and thyme. The other bourbon barbeque over caramelized onions. Game hens are great because they're the perfect size to eat an entire bird in one sitting. My stomach was very greedy tonight, so I roasted two.

Since the oven was already on, it never hurts to throw a few heads of garlic in to roast alongside the chickens. One can always use roasted garlic. The kohlrabi lump in the center is an experimental technique I'm trying to invent. The thought was to lightly "smoke" the kohlrabi with roasted garlic color and aroma while it cooks. I think the technique is solid, I will try this with some form of squash or root vegetable in the fall. The texture of cooked kohlrabi was a bit too fibrous for me.

I still had space in the oven, so we make balsamic glazed cipollini onions. Toss some peeled onions with a smidge of salt, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Bung it into an oven until luscious onion candy emerges.

Shelf #3 in the oven housed salt crust assorted items.

Salt crust beets, daikon, and kohlrabi. The beets turned out tender soft. The daikon and kohlrabi could have used some sort of barrier so as not to soak up too much salt. Perhaps wrapped in a lotus leaf before baking in salt.

Cherry tree produced only two tiny cherries this year. Less than one bite. Disappointing harvest. Still hungry.

Laying it on thick

Sunchoke gratin. Late spring and summer produce are about to show up at the markets. Fall and winter items must be cleared out of the refrigerator to make room for the new seasons.

Carrot apple ginger soup. With a smidgen of cilantro. The idea is to take advantage of pectin locked away in unpeeled apples to help give the soup an unctuous texture without muddling up the plant flavors with dairy or gelatinous meat broths. The texture turned out great, but I'm not really sure I can credit the apples. I didn't make a batch without the apples to compare. And pectin's jelling effect probably doesn't do much at warm soup temperatures. Tastes good though, so no matter. These would be great with some toasted pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top, but I didn't want to wash another pan.

Roasted orange beets and garlic- possibly for a salad later in the week, or some sort of marinade or sauce. Orange beets don't stain fingers and cutting boards and clothes and walls and napkins and dog noses like the more common red beets. I think orange ones are also slightly milder and more subtle in flavor, but that may be psychological. I'm easily swayed by pretty colors.

Today's bounty from the Super H Mart includes items such as Ca Ca flavored glazed chip snacks. Assorted shaped and filled mochi. Traditional Chen Pee plum candies, and coffee drinks named "Let's Be Bitter." In addition to being swayed by pretty colors, I am easily tempted by entertainingly named things. I will also be conducting comparison tests on cans of coconut milk.

And I couldn't resist trying the little crabs at the giant kimchee bar. Cute little itty bitty crabs! I'm such a sucker for little kawaii things.

A sucker for things like mini-me bananas. These mini bananas sliced and served with melon baller scooped ice cream would make great banana split sundaes for toddlers and dieters. I would top it with a tiny swedish lingonberry instead of a full sized maraschino cherry.

Sambal grilled corn. And Davy sauced ribs. Sometimes, there's nothing better on a weekend than grilled corn and a frosty beer. I had forgotten how good grilled corn can be. We will aim to grill more corn this summer. The pork ribs were so tender that it fell apart like pulled pork. Messy and delicious. This batch of Kentucky Davy Bourbon sauce included dried mangos and oregano. Now that I've realized bbq sauces are incredibly easy to make, there's really no reason to buy sauces and marinades that include xanthum gum and lecithin.

Muddling through

Sexy new camera. It reminds me of a Klondike bar. A sexy Klondike bar.

Some of you may be getting dried herbs in the mail. Please don't get too excited because it actually IS oregano and NOT "oregano."

3 of my most favorite things all on one plate.

In honor of the Kentucky Derby, we celebrate with mint julep. Not only do I get to use Kentucky bourbon, I can smoosh the mint with the drink muddler. Seersucker suit not pictured. (I actually do have seersucker in my wardrobe.)

Fermenting funk

The Pasadena Trader Joe's sells bourbon for $3 less than the Woodford Reserve gift shop. Had I known, my luggage would have been a lot lighter on the way back. And the bourbon likely safer to drink because I didn't have to wrap the bottle with my underwear.

Fail. Darn you yeast!

Bottling moonshine

Original recipe Kentucky Davy bourbon rib sauce. Reconstructed based upon the ingredients list on a bottle of bourbon sauce at the distillery gift shop. The profit margins on these sauces are incredible. The basic ingredients are relatively cheap. And virtually no labor costs. My blender full of sauce would retail for $50. Mine sauce is even more delicious than store bought bourbon sauce because it's made with Davy Lurve. Lurve!

And delicious ribs ensue. Roasted garlic potatoes are bonus items. Dog sitter Terry says, "Yum."

Descending into hell

Visiting the Mammoth Caves this morning. I saw no wooly mammoths anywhere underground. Photos of the underground caverns are all going to look the same. So my cave tour recap will feature cave accessories!

Lights! Camera! Action!

I'm sure this first aid kit is OSHA approved. But you'd think that there'd be reflectors or some flashing lights around this. If there really was a problem, how the heck would you find this?

They probably have miles and miles and miles of extension cords.

Tempted to pilfer.

We could totally use these tools in Mexico. But how to smuggle these topside?

Acetylene torch! I have blow torch envy. Think of the giant creme brulée you can make with this thing.

Little pools like Fraggle Rock. Cave crickets do kind of look like Doozers.

One can't be in Kentucky without a visit to the Colonel.

The horse might produce more greenhouse gasses than the Toyota Prius.

I see a red door and I want to paint it black.

Some poor fool has to polish these copper stills so us city slicker tourists can see our reflection.

Abraham Lincoln lived in this house with his entire family. This shack will fit inside my bedroom with enough room left over for an alligator moat.

Fiery depths of hell

Hell is real. And it is Kentucky.

There's a reason why most nostalgia candies like Necco wafers and candy cigarettes are found only at gas stations in the middle of nowhere and not at the supermarkets. Ick! Gross. Nasty. Lemonheads are still good for the 21st century though. (I'm such a nerd that I knew that Necco was short for New England Confectionary Company.)

Asian people caravanning through the bowels of Kentucky in a Toyota Prius with Illinois plates may not have been one of our wiser decisions.

The smell of fermenting yeasty corn mash reminds me of my failures in bread making. Perhaps I may be successful at making moonshine.

Whirling blades of death.

Copper stills look like I Dream of Jeannie bottles.

Barrels of bourbon. It may be possible to get drunk just by spending a lot of time in the bourbon warehouse. Probably a bad idea to smoke around here. Woodford Distillery must have happy termites.

Werd, yo.