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Food Thread: Your Biggest Cooking Screw-Ups: Come On, Don't Be Shy!

I have left expensive veal shanks (Osso Bucco) braising for...um...a lot longer than they needed. Yup! Forgot to take them out of the oven before I went to work, and 12 hours later came home to some sad little desiccated shanks that had just the tiniest bit of dry but barely edible meat on them. But damn it! I ate what I could salvage!

And exploding eggplants are always fun! Pro Tip: poke some holes in them before you roast them.

Anybody ever misread your own recipe and add 50 grams of Cayenne instead of five grams? But I fixed by correcting the weights of all the other ingredients and ended up with enough dry rub to make about 8,000 racks of ribs. Which is not the worst thing in the world!

Anyway, fess up. Tell the class your worst screw-ups.

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This is by no means a novel concept. Domino's Pizza has done this for years, and innumerable take-out joints do pretty much the same thing.

But it's got a cool and hip name, so it must be better!
Ghost Kitchens: The Future Restaurant Model?

There are many forms of ghost kitchens, but the barebone structure is that it is a meal preparation facility -- and that's it. All a ghost kitchen does is receive the order and cook the food. If the kitchen does not have its own delivery service, it relies on third party delivery service apps like UberEats or Grubhub to transport the food to the customer. Ghost kitchens are not designed to be seen or to dine in, and multiple restaurants can rent the same ghost kitchen, hence saving rent space money and additional labor costs.

Obviously the shift to take-out and delivery because of the Covid-19 lockdowns drove the increase in this sort of operation, but I wonder how demand will survive the current recession and the significant inflation that is baked in the cake for the next few years? My guess is that the first thing to get tossed out the window is take-out and delivery meals. Why spend three or four times what it would cost to make it yourself, when rent just got jacked up 25% and gas costs $7/gallon?
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Lurker "RS" was recently in Charleston with his lovely wife, and enjoyed what looks like a great meal at a restaurant called "NICO," which seems to take oysters very, very seriously. As "RS" says:

The oysters are curated. You learn the name of your server and the name of your "shucker." The attached photo is dozen number 2 of the evening, and were simply divine.

I followed those up with Burgundy scallops and a cauliflower gratin, both of which were roasted in a wood-fired oven. (Second photo, cauliflower in the background playing second fiddle to the scallops which were the Platonic ideal of well-prepared shellfish.)

Oh, yeah. There was also a big-ass chocolate cake.

Curated oysters sounds like lunacy, but tasty, tasty lunacy! And a good scallop is a wonder. Oh...that cake looks like it has a big-ass cookie underneath it!

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Hmm...I like goat cheese, I love bacon, honey is always a good thing, and thyme is my third favorite besides salt and pepper...so what's not to like about this dip?

Whipped goat cheese dip with bacon, thyme and honey

And I find the writer immensely appealing. She's an Aussie who moved to Texas!

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I'm not sure that this sort of stuff requires a recipe. Sure, the first time you make it you probably should check a few recipes for time and temperature, but after that? Eh...it is infinitely customizable, and difficult to ruin.

Asparagus, Mushroom, and Goat Cheese Breakfast Casserole

One thing that I would do differently. She recommends using some sort of frou-frou non-stick spray on the baking dish. Why? Just make some bacon, use the drippings to grease the dish, and put the bacon in the casserole!

See how easy cooking is!

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Frozen Mayonnaise

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I'm on special assignment, gathering news of great food from the far reaches of the earth. So don't be too offended if I don't respond to your questions or comments or abuse. But I will take lots of pictures and eat enough for everyone!
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Romaine lettuce that is green, instead of the white crap they sell that has never seen a photon, pork rib roasts from the front end of the pig where all the good and fatty meat lives, carrots that don't taste like stalky chalk, spare bottles of Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 Year Old Bourbon, an herb garden that actually produces herbs (but no basil!), well-marbled NY strip steaks and elk backstrap to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

And don't think that you are off the hook with maple syrup and French Toast: I'm watching you...all of you! And I am watching you perverts who shake Manhattans and keeping a list for the Burning Times.