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Love me some indoor Christmas decorations, and I am not even a Christian! Looking forward to this, as always. PS - Fried green tomatoes are awesome!

Yay! I was hoping this would be happening soon. Your Christmas decor is beautiful … the piano, the fireplace and mantel … I love it! And you have a Rushton Coca Cola Santa! I have one, too. 😍 Ooh, and tell me more about your life sized Santa! I know I didn’t see everything, so now I’ll go back and examine all the pics and read all the words. 😉

As noted here, I started wondering about the source of the smoked salmon that I purchase here in Duluth. One of my favorite shops, Northern Waters Smokehaus, discusses the sources of their fish in their FAQs, but it was confusing: according to the FAQs, the salmon may be wild-caught or farmed. I wrote and asked them about it, and had an intereesting and nuanced discussion with their HR representative. With his permission, I'm quoting his writings: I followed up with: He responded:

I think the battery is a great idea one of the biggest problems in changing out gas equipment is having enough power for an electric alternative. To me it’s pretty clear that electric is the future and Induction is the most efficient type. Now with a battery you can have some pretty powerful sophisticated equipment any place that you have 110 V power - hopefully you can get a dedicated circuit. And there’s none of the health problems associated with gas. As this technology matures, we’re going to see lots of great restaurants in funky old buildings where it’s not economical to bring in more electrical power. Up here in Canada I’ve seen quotes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade electrical an older buildings. That simply not in the cards for a lot of restaurants. There’s lots of effects for this residentially as well for example, when I put in my Rational Oven, I really wanted to go Electric but the cost of bringing the necessary power to my home was way more expensive than the actual oven so I went gas and it’s been great no issues but how much longer are we going to be able to buy gas appliances and the exhaust calculations with a gas powered device are much more onerous than a electric one. For example the new electric Rational Oven’s can be supplied with a “Ultra Vent” well I’ve never seen one Rational sells it so I know it would work. The beauty of this is no make up air or external venting is required. This is a big thing in a Canadian winter. Game Changer.

The farmed shrimp we’ve gotten was from TransparentSea Farm, an operation that’s currently on hiatus as they purchase land and build to expand. They raise the shrimp entirely indoors in tanks and provide fresh, head-on shrimp only hours out of the water. Why do you feel such shrimp should be avoided?

searches for Anko only turns up AU stores/souces . . . the design looks very similar to others available in USA tho . . .

I shared this Claire Saffitz video for holiday 7-layer bars over in the Thanksgiving topic: Since I actually made them: And they were quite good, I figured I’d share the deets here in hopes I might find it again myself 🙃 These are the ingredients as they appear in the video description: And what I did, based on the video: Mix the Biscoff cookie crumbs (I used TJ’s Speculoos cookies), the melted, cooled butter and the egg yolk, press into a 9 x 13 inch baking pan and use the bottom of a glass or measuring cup to compact and level the layer. Bake at 350°F for 15 min While it’s baking, prepare the filling ingredients. Whisk the sweetened condensed milk with the egg white, a pinch of salt, 2 tsp vanilla & 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Layer the ingredients on the baked crust in this order: cranberries (no need to chop) nuts (I used pecans) crystalized ginger oats sweetened condensed milk coconut Cover pan with foil. Bake at 350°F for 10 min covered, then remove foil and bake 13 min more, until coconut is golden brown. My observations: My coconut wasn’t anchored in any way, making it hard to get nice squares. I used dried, flaked unsweetened coconut which the recipe calls for (to me, these are skinny shreds, like little matchsticks). She used what I would call dried, unsweetened coconut chips (very thin, but flat shreds) and said to add the milk mixture BEFORE the coconut because the coconut seals the surface and prevents the milk from seeping in. That may be so, but if using the skinny shreds like I did, I recommend adding the milk last, as is usually done in regular 7-layer bars. I’m not entirely convinced the egg does anything but the crust did hold together nicely so maybe it helps. I brought these to Thanksgiving and they were largely ignored in favor of the standard pumpkin & pecan pies but every one who tried them asked to take some home. They’re not terribly sweet and excellent with a cup of coffee.

I live in Australia, so doubt you would have access to this brand - Anko.

Of course, though I do avoid using farmed shrimp at home. And ab is not something I see really at all. Oyster farming is a net positive for the environment, and we’re in Portland, ME right now, enjoying that bounty. I believe Trader Joe’s sells some wild salmon.

SQUEE!! It's showtime!

As the Guardian article the OP shared and @Alex’s follow-up details, it’s important to learn about the sources of fish and seafood available to us. By and large, US fisheries are quite well managed and provide good options for those of us in this country. For anyone looking for local fish and seafood options in the US or Canada, make sure to check out your options at https://finder.localcatch.org and filter by your criteria. I’m lucky to live in an area of the country with good options (availability of local seafood far from the coasts is understandably sparse) and privileged that I can afford to participate in a weekly delivery of fresh fish caught by local fishers. Every week, I receive info about the fishers who caught that week’s fish, their fishing methods, which port their vessel brought the fish into and background on the fishery for that species. Since the commercial salmon fisheries off California have been closed for a few years due to concerns of overfishing, the wild-caught Alaskan salmon we get is procured from companies that process and freeze salmon caught by local SoCal fishers (and others) that sail up to Alaska for the season. Edited to add that not all the seafood I get is wild-caught. We’ve gotten locally farmed mussels, oysters, shrimp and abalone, all sustainably farmed.

I’m pretty sure that Thurston Howell (the third, I believe) was eating nothing but wild fish on that isle. You may, but it seems like everything I mention in my post is stuff that gets discussed here, so I don’t agree with that assessment. Great Alaska Seafood…https://www.great-alaska-seafood.com

i would eat fresh fish frequently if it was the sort that I get down @ CapeCod while visiting @ WHPS. Im very fortunate that I can afford it. when visiting my father , years ago , Id get fresh wild salmon 5 days a week , frim Cook's Seafood in Menlo Park. getting there in the morning , I could see the owner looking over several fish , some still wiggling ( all most ) its my favorite fish . The seafood outlet in Falmouth had salmon , but it was not local . so i got the freshest local and enjoyed every bite. Id pay quite a bit more where live , there is a large fish market one town over but the fish there is not fresh. now , in thinking about irt I might look into wild salmon on line : your favorites sites are : thank you .

May I respectfully suggest that not everyone finds any or all of these items affordable and therefore farmed salmon is all they can afford? I'd add that in Canada even farmed salmon is not cheap.

@Shelby Elegant . Kudos your way . BTW : for this Season , Im offering IDS // SV CkDrums for shoveling snow , esp. off the top of the Hylander ( 1 extra CD for that ) you can use the snow to keep the CD cold until you get home .

I read this comment out loud in my best Thurston Howell voice. I found it tremendously improved the accessibility of the comment

A further reply:

Well, it was kind of a rhetorical question. But if people (here) are buying fancy steam ovens, fancy induction burners and ranges, multiple InstaPots and Cuisinart steam girls, Vitamixes, Bamixs, Japanese knives, etc. etc., then buy wild salmon. I’ll add fancy indoor smokers to the above!

There are products designed for this like Retro Clean (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) and Vintage Fabric Stain Remover. Some people have recommended Retro Clean for vintage quilts, I'm sure it would work on other textiles. I used a product to clean up an old quilt or two but I can't remember what I used now and don't have it around anymore. I do remember it seemed to work well.

$ .

Eat wild salmon from Alaska. Why anyone buys farmed salmon is beyond me.

I love the look of wood, too. What I don't love is the look of aged, crazed, discolored "book-matched veneer", which is what I'm working with. Trust me, I'd replace this table with a lovely long rectangle of wood if it made any money sense at all. [Also -- thanks to whomever -- my guess is Smithy -- got these posts seated in the appropriate forum. I searched and searched, I can't believe I somehow missed "The Topic" ?! Anyway, now it's straight]

Oh your decor is lovely! Your house is awesome, so warm and inviting. Though I do have to ask about the Santa on the left of the fireplace there, because I think I would jump after walking into that room in the evening and maybe forgetting it was a Santa and just seeing someone standing there, hahahahaha. I can smell the wreath also. And good job with the tomatoes!

Hello! What the hell was I thinking up there saying I'd for sure be back on my game by now? 🙄🤣 For reasons I won't go into here Thanksgiving week was..........rough. BUT, time marches on and deer week stops for no woman! And I'm here! For some reason I prodded myself into decorating for Christmas early in November. Which is good because I promise it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't already done lol. I'm glad it's done, though, because I find the twinkle lights comforting . A few pictures of the house to get us in deer season mood lol: My mom and step dad sent me this gorgeous FRESH wreath. It's been years since I've had a real tree or anything so I'm really enjoying the fragrance. It's hanging in the kitchen where I can see it and smell it all the time. It's turned off pretty cold--which is an excellent thing. No worrying about it being too hot to hang a deer. I wrestled with going to the big city to the grocery store and Sam's.....but it snowed a bit on Monday and I just felt like staying home. We have enough food plus I ordered a big Misfits delivery that hopefully will be here Thursday to supplement my fresh veggie stash. Speaking of veggies, before it froze my brother and sister in law gave us about 80 lbs of green tomatoes. I had thoughts of relish etc. but in the end we simply packed them in boxes and let them ripen. It worked a treat! Soooooo...although they aren't exactly as good as just off the vine from the garden, they are miles above grocery store tomatoes. Very grateful to them for sharing (our garden got beaten to a pulp in that hail storm). And yay! Good tomatoes with meals! So, I'm off to finish cleaning a few things. Our hunter friend's flight was delayed from his starting point so fingers crossed he's able to make his connecting flight to get here. In a bit I'm going to start on breakfast burritos and prepping for dinner. I'll be back after a while!

A couple of nights ago I went to a party. One guest had brought smoked salmon from a local company. It was moist, tender, and better than I'd have expected; I have (had) firm opinions that the best smoked salmon in town comes from the Northern Waters Smokehaus. Another guest and I agreed that this was just as good. So I bought some yesterday, and had some of it for dinner. Mmm. Flaky. Oily. Maybe not quite as firm as Northern Waters' work, which is Atlantic salmon. This label suggests this salmon is locally farmed. (I need to call both of those companies and get more information about their sources, in light of this article.) Anyway, it's good stuff. I also finally had the ingredients to try a recipe from The Mediterranean Dish: Sauteed Mushrooms with Garlic. I overcooked the garlic and had to start over, but fortunately I hadn't added the mushrooms yet. This recipe's a winner. It's intended as an appetizer, but was plenty of dinner for me, especially because I'd been sampling the salmon. Edited to add: Everett's salmon comes from Alaska, according to their info sheet. According to the Northern Waters' Smokehaus FAQs, some of their salmon is wild-caught in Alaska but it isn't clear whether some of it is farmed. I've written to them to ask. Edited further to add: Northern Waters says their Sockeye Salmon is wild-caught in Alaska, but the Atlantic Salmon is farmed. They're careful to look for certain certifications for sustainability and best practices. We had a good email discussion about their practices. I've shared it, with permission, here.