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Howdy KKers! Salade Nicoise is a classical french salade/meal from the area surrounding the town of Nice, hence the appellation Nicoise. Classical Salade Nicoise is made with Eggs, Olives, Tuna, and other garden greens. I'm not big on eggs in my salad, and I had some salmon in the fridge, so I took liberties with the classical French rendition and I've dubbed my concoction Grilled Sooner Seafood Salade Nicoise as an homage to the classic. First we start off with boiling potatoes. I used miniature purples, reds, and golds. I boiled them up using the NuWave induction cooktop as seen below. I really like this induction cooktop as it doesn't get the place hot. In Oklahoma and in the Summer, that's important! After they were cooked, I wanted to stop the cooking process, so into an ice bath the spuds went. Next came the haricots verts (that's green beans to everyone in the world but the French and Quebecois) which were blanched in the spud water after the spuds joined the polar bear club. And here the haricots verts are swimming amongst the ice bergs. And again, just like the spuds, the haricots verts jumped into the freezing water to stop the cooking, set the color, and to win a Polar Bear Club Certificate. As many of you know, I'm a sucker for new gadgets. A friend has a FoodSaver with a marinator, and I just had to get one. Below is a photo of the marinator in action. The marinator really works quite well. Here you see the salmon fillets in a quick marinade of olive oil, tarragon vinegar, lemon juice, tarragon, and pepper. Total time in the marinator was about 15 minutes. IF you have a FOodSaver, you owe it to yourself to get this marinator. Its less than $25 and it's really worth every penny. Now it's time to get down to brass tacks and get the seafood on the grill. I made up a couple of skewers of shrimp and one skewer of scallops and set them on Beauty!'s main grate. Temp was about 400F The shrimp cooked quicker than the scallops so I pulled the shrimp and put on the salmon fillets. Everything cooked quite nicely. The salmon was wonderfully tasty and flakey, the shrimp were done just right, and the scallops had just a nice little sear to them. So everything is cooked and it's time to assemble the Grilled Sooner Salade Nicoise. As you can see, I'm definitely NOT a food stylist, but this salad was a really nice treat. Tasty, refreshing, and dressed with pomegranate-blueberry balsamic vinaigrette. It seems as if everywhere I turn lately pomegranates and blueberries have been paired together, so what not at ChezChef as well, right? Without further ado, here's the money shot of what I placed on the table before SWMBOI. Thanks for looking in. I had forgotten how much it takes to plate up a nice Salade Nicoise. Assembly took as long as it took to cook the seafood! I fell in love with Salade Nicoise over in Paris, but there, they had all kinds of folks to plate it up. Here it was just yours truly. Now I remember why I save Salade Nicoise for really special folks! Y'all have a wonderful and safe weekend. Here in OKC, we're looking at manning the boats. We've had almost 15" of rain this month and another 4" forecast this weekend. Please take a moment this Memorial Day weekend to remember those members of our Armed Forces who paid the ultimate price so that we could sleep well at night and live in the greatest country in the history of mankind!

KKers! Today, the saga ends, Beauty! was delivered yesterday at 2:30 p.m. weighing in at a svelte 548 pounds including all the extras! I about froze outside while Tom got her off the truck and safely into my garage. Here are a couple pics to whet your whistle for what's to come. This first picture of Beauty and her delivery driver, Tom. Tom delivered TheBeast to my home last August and remember him quite well. He said that Beauty! is a small little thing compared to her bigger brother! Beauty! herself weighs in at 338 lbs compared to TheBeast at 954 lbs! Quite a difference. Tom is a really great guy and told me he'd put Beauty anyplace I wanted. Here is Beauty! riding the lift gate down to the street. Here is another pic of Beauty! giving you an idea of all the accessories that came with her. As is the case with everything KK, it is so well wrapped as to preclude any damage in transit! That's all I have for right now. As I post this it is now 24F and with the wind chill it feels like 14F. I'm going to have to bring all the boxes into the house and open them in here. IT's just too dadgummed cold to do anything in the garage and NO! I don't have a garage heater. My hands are frozen and my fingers just now beginning to thaw out! More to come!