The food thread

It's for our 4th of July, red, white, and "blue" fingerling or miniature potatoes (halved or quartered to get the pieces the same). I like colorful veg in it so there is some colored peppers (sliced very thin), green onions, dill and/or a little cilantro, parsley, and the lovage for herbs. The dressing is lemon juice, EVO, s&p, and a good mustard. I do throw in things that show up from the farm at times like some grated radish or garlic scapes. I try to dress it only an hour or so before it is served (and the lemon juice MUST be fresh squeezed). It is busy and looks like fireworks but it is always finished.

My grandmother, bless her heart, made dressing with bacon, the rendered fat and white vinegar and far fewer ingredients. IIRC my friend added bacon to mine in her version and removed the colored peppers. The touch of yellow, red, and orange is pretty though.

Ahh, Americans and their flag... 🙂. It sounds delicious, especially the mustard. I have neen trying out some varieties of Kozlick's Candian Mustard, they make a nice grainy Dijon.

Oh, re: lemon it goes without saying.
 
The panda bear has a diet abundant in bamboo shoots -- which have virtually no food value -- for this reason the panda eats almost continuously, poops continuously and has no time for reproductive activities..

Roger that, I quit smoking a month ago and it's been all poop and no shoot since.

Reproductive activities are highly overrated, imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzyy74x7p-g
 
Stick at it Jacco the first month is the hardest , get past that milestone and it gets easier.
I was ' forced ' to give up 2 years ago after a serious ( smoking related ) illness that almost killed me.
At one point i was given 2 hours to live so despite my first instinct after leaving hospital being feed my craving i resisted and went cold turkey , not pretending it was easy after 40 years and i still get the odd craving but as Magnus said getting your taste , smell and stamina back makes it worth the fight not to mention you , your clothes and your house no longer stink and theres always vaping if the cravings get too much.
Lol just realised i have become a REAL ex - smoker.

Another advantage is being able to sell your unwanted electronics on e-bay as coming from a smoke free environment🙂
 
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On a lark, I recently bought some new (to me) spices - long pepper and grains of paradise. I ground up a bit of each and tried them on a few things, I like pepper on eggs and cottage cheese, for example. The grains of paradise are far too subtle (I think most of the heat in this small bit actually comes from the dried red pepper I ground previously) it might be good in gingerbread men. The long pepper is quite excellent, however.
 
Speaking of unusual and hard to find herbs and spices, every year around this time garden centers pop up in parking lots and odd places suddenly are selling seedlings. Two years ago I was in Canadian Tire looking at herb seedlings and saw some epazote. I had only ever seen it dried, and it doesn't have much flavour when dried, so I bought one. It grew like a weed, and what an unusual aroma! When crushed the leaves smelled like gasoline or mineral spirits. Bugs and slugs seemed to give it a wide berth. When cooked with black beans the flavour quickly changes and it adds a quality that is hard to describe but very nice. I have not seen it since but would like to grow more.
 
Jacco: way to go! Quitting for real is very hard, and there will be unexpected moments when the cravings come back. (I used to say quitting is easy, I've done it dozens of times!). You are as vulnerable as an alcoholic on the wagon, where one drink can send them on a bender. When I quit for the first few months if I smelled tobacco smoke I almost drooled, it smelled so good. After several months it suddenly smelled horrible, almost made me nauseous. Far worse than it ever smelled before I smoked. I think that was when I knew I was an ex-smoker, but a decade later I still some times reach for my shirt pocket, or think "Holy sh*t a cigarette would be good right now", even though I know it wouldn't be. I loved smoking like a bad woman, but I know she was bad for me and I can never let her back in my life.
 
As a bonus I discovered tía tô, the Japanese usually just use it as a garnish is there any Vietnamese dish that features it?
The veggies here are sold through Chinese markets so the names might be changed (to protect the innocent). IIR tonight I will ask the Mrs. to chime in here.
Wow that's a lot!
A lot yes, but highly effective for acid reflux (wait, what?) Yup, acid reflux and regular old heartburn. I used to own shares in Tums but no more. At $2 a bottle it's not only healthy but since I love lemon, it's a bonus.
 
Cal , just in case you ever get sick of sucking lemons......
From about the age of 15 i suffered from terrible stomach pains , like something was trying to eat it's way out of me , which technically it was.
I had all sorts of tests but nothing conclusive and my main diet was an ever changing selection of anti acid remedies none of which really did much to reduce the pain and i just learnt to live with it .
Fast forward 30 years and i was working in Germany and one night it got so bad i ended up in hospital where i was diagnosed with ( a long name i can't spell or pronounce) a type of acute acid reflux which basically meant my body was constantly trying to eat itself and damage to my stomach wall allowed digestive acids to reach parts it shouldn't.
I was prescribed something that at the time was a relatively new drug and UK doctor's didn't prescribe because it was too expensive .
For me it was nothing short of a ' miracle drug ' and with-in a few months i was 'cured' and the problem has never returned .
I 've no idea how your health service works and personally i try to avoid pharmaceuticals if possible but sometimes you just gotta make exceptions , the drug is called Omeprazole and i would have thought widely available now , worth looking into maybe?