lperry

I know of Nadal through my friend's teenage daughters who follow him on twitter and Facebook. One of them got his autograph at Wimbledon and during the exchange she found him to be incredibly polite and kind. Immediately after Facebooking it, she melted into a pool of dreamboat-induced hormones.

Sweet corn, lime, mango tacos. Daiquiris. Digitalis for the heart palpitations brought on by the USA Belgium game.

I don't use Google, ghostery and adblock are working, and if I turn them off, I'm seeing the same ads you are. Guess again. Sweaty firemen build a replica of the Taj Mahal. Las Vegas. David Beckham spatchcocking a chicken.

You guys are skewing the algorithm. Hot Chinese men. Hot World Cup Players. Gorgeous men of the armed forces.

It's my understanding that Google "reads" the page and matches the ads based on keywords. Let's give it a try. How to build your own Taj Mahal in three easy steps!!! How to lose 200 pounds in half an hour!!!!! The most amazing cat video you have ever seen!!!!!

Chard (garden) and black bean tacos with lime and crumbled goats' milk feta (those cheese guys at the Four Mile Run Market) Avocado, palm heart, and purslane (weed in the garden) salad

Tofu kaprow, served over jasmine rice, holy basil and young garlic from the garden, sliceable tofu from Super H. I think the flavor profile would also be very good with eggplant and sweet peppers. If you are like me and have read Fishinnards' posts about holy basil, you were thinking, wow, he really likes that herb. If I come across it, maybe I'll give it a try. Now I get why he is willing to run all over town to find it - it is a unique herb, and an exquisitely wonderful one at that. The two of us sat on the deck parsing the flavor profile: Anise. A little rosemary? Clove. Soft mint. Unrecognizable tropical floral notes. There's fruit on the nose - stone fruit? Grapes. Table grapes - that's it. We ate the entire pan full, I had put about two cups of leaves in right at the end of cooking, and we wanted more. I'm going to head outside and encourage my plants to grow faster.

A friend was in town recently, and the restaurant was chosen due to the dietary requirements of her teenage son. Persimmon was the closest place with a hamburger on the menu, so we walked over for dinner. They squeezed us into a table that was reserved for later with the understanding that we would make an effort to finish quickly. One of our group was a little offended that it was even brought up (and repeated several times), but I thought it was kind that they made an effort to serve us on a busy night. Dishes that were pronounced quite good included the burger, the roast chicken, the gazpacho, the Caesar salad, and the beet and goat cheese gratin. The vegetarian selections are limited to starters, soups, salads, and the like, along with a "vegetable plate," so a light meal for those who don't want meat. Also noteworthy is that our server admitted he did not know what gluten-free meant, but he would make sure the kitchen staff was able to accomodate the diner with celiac. I asked for a glass of house white and got a Sauvignon Blanc, a well-balanced one, but not my favorite grape. My fault for visiting too much with the friend and not taking the time with the menu. Service was great, friendly and attentive. I wish we had something like this within walking distance - a nice, solid, neighborhood bistro-type restaurant with excellent service. Not a destination restaurant, but a reliable local stop.

Barbancourt blanc, Ting, a squeeze of lime, ice. Thinking Ting might make an excellent Paloma.

OK, now I'm going to have to try it again. Are you using the long or quick cycle? Edit - I think you have to add a tablespoon or so of fat to it.

Every mustard in the garden is starting to flower, so, penne with arugula pesto, and a side of yu cai cooked in olive oil with a sprinkling of red pepper flakes.

I clicked the "null vote" to see how it was going, and now I can't cast a real vote. Not an enormous issue, but I may not be the only one.

Freezer theme continuing. Spaghetti with a roasted cherry tomato (freezer), red wine (freezer) sauce, thickened with a little goat's milk cheese. Topped with some shaved romano.

I admire those with the fortitude to cook during this heatwave. I've got a radish dip (radishes and dill from the garden) and a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge.

Recuerdo Torrontés 2011. Like a tropical peach flower. Perfect for a 95 degree day.

I walked by yesterday and talked to a couple of guys who were installing some lettering on the awning. Current opening estimate is "about two weeks - the end of June."

^ Skype is just a few cents a minute on international calls, and you can call any phone number. A buck or two to figure out a favorite meal may be worth it.

Fernery. As in, "Get thee to a fernery."

^ I use homemade fillings, but I'm not sure what you mean by "adapting." Do you mean trying something that isn't a recipe? The only advice I have is, ignore the recipes. I have a few basic cake recipes I use, and I fill and ice with whatever is on hand or sounds good at the moment. So if you happen across a basic chocolate, yellow, or whatever type of cake that works to your liking, save the recipe as a building block. Coconut cake is nice with anything tropical, so pineapple, mango, lime, passionfruit - think Tiki cocktails. Chocolate cakes can be filled with raspberry, blackberry, or marmalades, and I've used ginger preserves with good results. A little Grand Marnier never hurts chocolate, either. Regular yellow or white cakes can be filled with anything you have, and it's sometimes nice to make the flavors of the fillings go together with extracts in the batter. For example, you can add a little almond extract to a cake that will be filled with peach preserves, or brush it with an amaretto syrup. Or add lemon extract or oil for one with lemon curd filling. If the fillings are sweet, think about a bitter chocolate icing to balance things out. For the guava paste, I would heat it on the stove or in the microwave to get it softer, then add a little water to thin it out a bit. That's another nice, tropical flavor that would work in a coconut cake. For the passionfruit, I substituted thawed pulp for the lemon juice in the lemon curd recipe, cooked it on the stove, then chilled it. You can sub out any type of highly acidic juice you want in a basic curd recipe - lime, grapefruit, orange, passionfruit, etc. If you hit it with a good immersion blender like a Bamix before cooking, it won't even need straining. Goya and La Fe are the brands of frozen fruit pulps I usually find around here. I've been thinking about guanabana lately. I'm firmly on the Cake side of the Pie Vs. Cake debate. I hope this was helpful. (?)

Maps tend to look odd in areas where collecting is not very commonplace. Those two counties mark where a botanist has collected, identified, and cataloged the plant through an herbarium. The ferns probably grow elsewhere, but nobody has made an "official" collection, so it looks like they are rarer than they are.

What's Ticketmaster?

Thanks! The cake is Paula Deen's recipe, which is a pretty classic southern coconut cake. (I de-glutened it.) Don't use the sour cream/coconut filling unless you like things really sweet. I have filled it with mango lime and pineapple date preserves with success. All I had on hand was fig, so I made a passionfruit curd using Alice Medrich's lemon curd recipe as a guide. You need two egg whites for the frosting, so use one whole egg and two egg yolks in the curd. The tartness will balance out the divinity icing. Edited to add, unsweetened coconut is nice on the outside, and toasting it a bit helps with flavor balance.

I think it's 1 to 3 if you want it slice-able. I need to dig through my notes to see if I wrote anything down. I am unable to pass up any opportunity to write circinate vernation.

Making Mr. lperry's birthday cake this afternoon. Coconut cake with passionfruit curd filling and a seven-minute frosting encrusted with shredded, unsweetened coconut.

I got it to work in my rice cooker by whisking the polenta into the cold water before it went in. I wonder if different powered cookers yield different results? Mine is not induction, so it cooks a little more slowly, I think.