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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 11, 2019 18:26:30 GMT
Actually, even though I called it head cheese, that is not completely accurate. The name for head cheese here is "fromage de tête" and even though it looks a bit better than American head cheese or souse, it isn't all that much different. What I photographed is actually called "tête persillée" which is one step up obviously since it has more whole pieces of pork and less gelatin. But I don't know of any intermediate level in English.
(I just tried to find a translation, but there wasn't one. However there was a description that said "relatively lean but slightly marbled.")
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 11, 2019 19:08:54 GMT
Well, Louisiana head cheese always looks better than souse, even though souse tastes good too.
Your tête persillée (parsley-adorned head?) seems to be nice pieces of pork suspended in finely-textured head cheese. I'm intrigued by the name, as La. head cheese is probably at least a descendant of something brought from France and does indeed contain parsley. Your tête persillée seems to be sans persil.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 11, 2019 19:39:27 GMT
The gelatinous areas between the meat bits are chock full of parsley.
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Post by mickthecactus on Mar 1, 2019 13:55:51 GMT
Fusilli pasta with red pesto and olive oil, cherry tomatoes and freshly ground salt and pepper.
Highly recommended!
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 3, 2019 14:13:34 GMT
I made soup with quinoa, leftover pork bits and chopped onion and celery.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 31, 2019 11:09:37 GMT
I made a perfect runny goat cheese omelette. Most of my omelettes are failures of one kind or another.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 1, 2019 12:44:17 GMT
Cheese on toast with Worcester sauce and cayenne pepper.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 1, 2019 15:24:12 GMT
Made a big pot of chicken and vegetable soup. I used the leftover chicken and stock from yesterday's roast chicken dinner (and vegetables)
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Post by lagatta on Apr 3, 2019 1:52:30 GMT
I also made a nice pot of soup: homemade stock, cannellini beans (white kidney beans, the turkey meat from the carcass and many other things.
Including some fresh flatleaf parsley. Frankly, where I buy it, they pay no attention to equal portions. The one I bought was three times the one next to it.
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 3, 2019 5:51:22 GMT
It's the same thing for parsley and cilantro here or even bunches of mint leaves. I think the only thing that counts for the workers is how fast they can put a rubber band or a reed leaf around the stalks they are holding.
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Post by kerouac2 on Apr 4, 2019 13:42:02 GMT
I had a ham, gorgonzola, kosher dill and full grain mustard sandwich. An excellent variety of flavours and textures.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 9, 2019 13:05:50 GMT
Penne pasta with green pesto (bought) olive oil and finely chopped herbs fresh from the garden.
Really delicious.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 9, 2019 15:16:35 GMT
Correction. Fresh ‘erbs.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 7, 2019 3:27:16 GMT
Why didn't you have herbs? They are ever so nice!
I got taken out to a lovely, lovely restaurant today and had perfectly prepared, super fresh seared tuna. It was served on a bed of quinoa, which was good, but I'm not all that fond of the star of the plate "served on a bed of", even if it does supposedly look more elegant. The menu said it came with sweet potato chips, which turned out to be chips in the British sense, not the American, so they were more ornamental than anything. I would have preferred a small salad instead of the chips. I may have unburdened myself at some point on my irritation at smears of sauce on the plate. What is the point? Anyway, my plate had three dots of something orange on one side of the quinoa and tuna and a smear of something black on the other side. Well, when I tasted the black stuff I almost fainted it was so good. I called the waiter over and said, "You know what would be fantastic? More of this stuff!", whereupon he brought a little bowl of it to the table. I have no idea how they make it, but it was basically blackened garlic ground into a paste. It was slightly gritty, somewhat charcoal-y and sort of sub-bitter, along with a garlicky mellowness. My friend tried it and actually made a little moaning noise of surprise and pleasure.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 7, 2019 5:54:03 GMT
I am against "decorative" sauces as well. Either put sauce on the dish or don't! A little drizzle or a few spots is ridiculous.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 7, 2019 7:14:34 GMT
Me too! I get so cross when I watch food programmes and out of a plastic bottle they add these poncey little dots. Proper sauces please!
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Post by lagatta on Aug 7, 2019 15:51:06 GMT
I missed a page here, so my post made no sense. I was talking about microwave and tinned cassoulet.
I've never bought them. I have doctored-up the usual tinned kind. Now I have to freeze portions of the lentilles du Puy (sort of) dish I prepared, as I've had other things go mouldy in the fridge with this heat and humidity.
Sort of, because same variety, but grown on the Canadian prairies. Not AOC.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 23, 2019 14:01:05 GMT
Pasta with red pesto topped with halved cherry tomatoes from the garden.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 23, 2019 20:04:29 GMT
I had a liquid lunch out on the town with a friend. Not a good idea.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 23, 2019 20:25:24 GMT
It looks great, Mick. What is red pesto?
No photo, Kerouac?
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 23, 2019 20:29:45 GMT
Oh, it was only beer, no big deal.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 23, 2019 20:30:29 GMT
I meant of the participants.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 18, 2019 0:41:09 GMT
For lunch I had the rest of the stuffed canarios (see What's for Dinner) and a red quinoa/pear/tomato/onion salad dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I highly recommend the salad, which reminded me of tabbouleh without being like tabbouleh.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 18, 2019 7:49:41 GMT
Yesterday I had an intereting lunch with the farmer next door in his sandstone barn, with his field hands, some nearby farmers and a few friends to celebrate the completion of the tobacco harvest. The centerpiece was a roasted suckling pig cooked in a wood-fired oven outdoors that seemed built for that. It was a collection of men who would probably be characterized as rednecks in the US. It began with a spread of aperitivos with homemade wine and beer, then the pig was brought out of the oven and cut up on a huge wooden cutting board and served with roasted red onions, rough sliced potatoes, and fresh raw fennel, all washed down with more wines including prosecco and some fortified wine from Nortern France I can't remember the name of, but didn't sound French at all. Then a huge torta di mele--an apple tart I suppose you call it in English was doled out and grappa served.
The main course for me though was the conversation in the local Anghiarese dialect with Mario the host translating for me into Italian where necessary. I learnt lots of interesting cuss words and phrases and colorful local guy talk stuff like how the local word for chestnut--usually "castagna" in Italian, but "nugia" in the local dialect--could do double duty as an anatomical descriptive.
By the time the table was cleared inside, we all went out into the sun which had come out while we were eating and enjoyed cigars, more drinks, and colorful tales of encounters with local wild boar, tractors tipping over and getting righted again, the comparative merits of grape varieties, the weather this season, and gossip. Like the more genteel dinner a few days ago, it took hours from start to finish.
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Post by mickthecactus on Oct 18, 2019 10:15:21 GMT
That sounds perfect Fumo!
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 18, 2019 15:16:45 GMT
I have had peasant meals in Lorraine and Picardy, and a large animal is always roasted on a spit (or several ducks or geese). For some reason, the cooking is always delayed for unknown reasons, so the aperitif goes on forever. By the time the food arrives, most people don't even care anymore. But the food is not the most important element of these gatherings, which are becoming rather rare in most places. The camaraderie and reminiscing are what remains engraved in the minds of the people in attendance.
At least that is the case for the men in attendance. The women are generally relegated to serving and cleaning roles unless there are some honoured female guests (like my grandmother after age 85). It is true, though, that the men do the roasting, just as the men flip burgers in the pitiful modern day imitation of these events.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 18, 2019 18:08:34 GMT
I forgot the highlight of the aperitivi: ravioli fritti; fried ravioli. Ravioli filled with potato fried in an huge iron pan with a good three quarter inches of fresh pressed olive oil in it. Local thing I guess, a little goes a long way but delicious nevertheless.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 5, 2019 19:47:17 GMT
I had an excellent bacon, bean sprout and tomato sandwich. As good as it was, I will admit that it was very ugly and I would never have taken a picture of it. A BLT can look good, but not this thing. And yes, it was a tad messy to eat with bean sprouts falling out.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 5, 2019 22:29:43 GMT
I guess I had brunch instead of lunch -- a sort of messy crepe with strips of poblano pepper, cheese, and good lord forgive us, canned corn. I didn't care because I really like where this restaurant is -- upstairs in a high-ceilinged colonial building with a great view off to the distant mountains. Also, it's decorated with quite nice posters of Paris and the great French photographers. Anyway, I'm still full, so value for money at least.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 23, 2019 10:47:06 GMT
I had a one-litre carton of 10-vegetable soup. Getting ready to 1) explode or 2) pee all afternoon.
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