Cumin here too, followed by Berebere mix which is the one I buy in bulk, keep the bag in the freezer. I don’t buy the cumin in bulk because it’s cheap in stores here.

Unless you are counting onion & garlic, but those almost always fresh and I’d call them veg more than spice.

I hate beets as vegetables but shredded beets in chocolate cake will fix it just like the carrot fixes the spice cake.

That’s the way I cook, just have made enough mistakes and so many different dishes I can put things together and make magic. On baking, my family doesn’t like fancy cakes, more like snacking cakes, those are pretty forgiving. I don’t measure rice & water, just know how it should look, and yes my husband sometimes gets annoyed that it’s not more standardized but I’m not a commercial chef I am a cook.

The exceptions - My sourdough bread, and the sourdough chocolate chip cookies - carefully measured by weight and if I am winging the bread (never the cookies) I try to still write down the measurements in case it’s the best bread I have ever made. The bread I could almost certainly make it without measuring at this point, I can tell by how it feels, what it will do, but have the scale and use it.

My mom cooked from recipes. Only from recipes . She asked her mom once how to make good biscuits, and her mom said “the water has to be very cold”. Which, honestly, would have helped me a lot. But my mom wanted a recipe!

It’s elderflowers, yes but the taste is so similar to lychee its uncanny.

We had something similar but non-alcoholic recently. My basil plants are crazy big & I keep looking for ways to use it.

Whole limes, cut into eights, coconut cream, lots of basil, sugar, and ice in the blender, strained over fresh ice.

Oh, I feel ya.

Ginger lemonade with tonic water is nice & complex, if you can have that much sugar.

And we made earlier this week a really good non alcoholic drink in the blender, a riff on Brazilian lemonade. Coconut milk, sugar, quartered limes, lots of basil, a little mint and ice in the blender, not too long, strain through a mesh strainer and serve on crushed ice. There is a recipe on NYT but certainly something you could “measure with your heart” as my daughter says.

Grow magical and deadly plants on her balcony, and one day a crow…

It’s sweet, and not super spicy, just a hint when used in a drink. I like it but my oldest daughter doesn’t. Personally I would infuse orange liqueur with habanero, instead of trying to work one up with the dried ancho - much brighter flavor but good for margarita. I also often make a spicy fire tincture, infuse vodka with habanero for a week, then with anatto for a day, then strain. That adds “spicy” without a lot of other flavor and no sweet.

If you can get Jarritos soda, the grapefruit makes a glorious Paloma, I have to add lime because it’s too sweet for me but I really like it.

Also mezcal, grapefruit, and rosemary.

People saying rain lily but it doesn’t look like my rain lilies (same color but different shape). It does look like a type of crocus to me.

If it does turn out to be some sort of rain lily, they seem to multiply by themselves, I split them occasionally and plant some in other parts of the flower garden because I like them, they are easy, and they bloom in the summer here.

Cheers!

I guess he would think they were malfunctioning?

Ok I am making the watermelon rinds cordial and think the measurements must be backwards. She has 2 parts sugar to 1 part rind, I did 1.5/1 and it’s still an insane looking project. Next time I will try 2 parts rind 1 part sugar.

ETA it ended up more like watermelon syrup, there was undissolved sugar till the end but I added some water and blended it. Also this sure wanted to ferment, next time I am making some kvass with it instead.

I will garden & do plenty of homestead-ey stuff, appreciate the natural world so much but camping, that is a hard no. Hiking is nice, the beach, the springs, the forest. Not sleeping outside voluntarily, had quite enough of that involuntarily.

I am so confused. Why do you think I said taste is the only thing that matters about food? I did not say that. I said that it does matter, and should not be devalued, would never argue that it’s the only thing that matters, and never said that.

? I grow vegetables and fruit, make healthy meals, mostly homemade. Sourdough bread, fermented drinks with odds and ends to divert waste. Why do people think good food doesn’t taste good? Good food tastes great.

Why are you conflating animal foods and pleasure in eating? My vegan kid is a foodie, a good cook and a person who gets a lot of sensory enjoyment out of the texture and flavors of food. It’s important to her.

What is wrong with entertainment, though? Taste is one of our senses, like hearing or seeing, having food that tastes good is not inefficient , it’s lovely - I think having a good palate and appreciation for lots of flavors is a positive good in a life.

I like Beyond Burger more than hamburger but not more than black bean burgers or ground pork. I just dislike ground beef though. That Beyond Burger is made from isolated pea protein, flavoring and wishes. It does have a distinct flavor, and is a highly processed food.

How is this not just crisco, hydrogenated fat? Butter seems like it has more going on, traces of milk proteins & sugars that give it flavor.