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@blue_dolphin interesting. Is activated charcoal a thing in S.CA ? I vaguely remember this being ' something ' in the past. after all , activated charcoal is given to children who have ingested various items ' not so good ' for you ie poison . maybe adding it from time to time takes care of ' toxins ' there has to be influencers on top of this.

Dehydrated using the "apartment floor" method.

I upgraded to the new CSO-500 (thanks to one of our Canadian friends!) which actually has a built-in air fryer mode and comes with a screen/drip tray - it works quite well. The lowest keep warm setting is still 125F but I haven't checked it's accuracy. I also don't know if the fan turns on in keep warm mode. I'm also wondering if there will be a flavor difference between the slow dried method and the accelerated oven method. These chillies are pretty skinny, so I may just keep them on the counter to do it. I was just curious if people had done it any other way so I didn't have to reinvent the wheel.

No radiators - since it was converted to apartments, the building used fan coils - including a gigantic water chiller on the roof for the A/C (which was nice because we didn't have to pay for the electricity to run it - it was part of the maintenance). They recently converted to a heat pump type HVAC system with a compressor in each unit so we can just about use the A/C whenever we want, but now we pay for the electricity it uses. According to my humistat, it's currently 44% humidity in here which is pretty nice. It will drop a lot more once it gets to be winter.

@weinoo nice. that's the thing about ML : it keeps on giving , and gets better and better as a MLSandwich.

Went out for some sushi earlier this week...I decided to have chirashi: It may turn out to be my standard order, as it was really good. I decided to pivot away from making meatballs to making meat loaf. And I practically followed a Serious Eats recipe to the letter, because I wanted to see if it was really that much better than a classic meat loaf recipe, say from Julia or James or whomever. It was a bit more complicated than I think a meat loaf recipe needs to be. But: It came out pretty nicely; I glazed half of it. Also made a semi-quick pickle: And some potato salad: I don't think I'll follow the recipe from Serious Eats the next time I decide to make a meat loaf, as I can get results just as good without making myself nuts. Though I will say this experiment was quite juicy and tasty. I'm actually looking forward to cold meat loaf sandwiches.

8lbs of De Cecco penne bought in a panic prior to proposed tariff on Italian pasta. Not intended to prompt political discussion of any sort

Yes, in my area it’s not unusual for Mexican-style restaurants to have lengthy Michelada menus and shrimp versions show up often. This list from Alta Baja Market in Santa Ana, CA where I had lunch recently is more fruity than fishy, but gives an idea of what’s offered.

Rather fond of pork shoulder. Vacuum sealer is very useful. Usually split a shoulder that size into three portions. Large chunks that get turned into carnitas for tacos in the slow cooker or instapot and then two portions, one with the scapula, one without cut into small chunks for sunday sauce

What kind of radiators do you have, or when they renovated did they provide forced air? You know how dry it is in our apartments this time of year - I've already got the humidifiers out, so I imagine just leaving them near any heat source with good air circulation would do the trick.

These were my crop from yesterday. The usual daily pistachio recall, and the formula recall from the US has been extended to Canada. Fortunately it was a fringe brand, with relatively minimal market presence. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-pistachios-and-pistachio-containing-products-recalled-due-salmonella-5 https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/byheart-whole-nutrition-infant-formula-may-be-unsafe-due-potential-presence-dangerous

I’d suggest putting the chiles on some sort of screen to improve circulation. This 11-inch aluminum pizza screen (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) fits conveniently in the CSO and I use it often in lieu of an air fryer. They come in all sizes though. In my CSO, the lowest plate warmer setting is 125°F but mine fluctuates from 115-130. It will run with the door slight ajar but probably not long enough to really dehydrate them. I’ve had little Thai chilies dehydrate themselves nicely on my counter!

Thursday, rigatoni with spinach and pine nuts Friday, chicken, pepper, and broccoli stir fry

I have a dehydrator and the booklet that came with it it says to dehydrate small peppers, use a temperature of 125F to 130F to get them to the brittle stage. They say it takes 10 to 15 hours. I don't see why you couldn't use the CSO to do this once the oven registers this temperature with the door slightly ajar. Piercing a small hole in the pepper prior to dehydrating will help speed things along.

Hmmm... so basically a hack dehydrator.. smart. My only oven is my CSO - I could set the Keep Warm to like 100 degrees or something but I don't know how long I can let it go for... I assume it would take more than a couple hours. On another note, I actually just found a few chillies that fell off the plant and were languishing on my floor... they were nicely dehydrated - still flexible but definitely dried and certainly no mold. So I guess that's always an option! Can you extrapolate the 10 second rule to the 2 week rule?

That has a little more "pee aroma" than I'm going for....

here is a recall list from Canada : https://inspection.canada.ca/en/inspection-and-enforcement/food-safety-investigations/pistachio-recall-salmonella California pistachio https://www.growingproduce.com/nuts/pistachios-recalled-in-wake-of-positive-salmonella-tests/ suggests re-baggers might be a component Iran # 1 producer , CA # 2. fortunately for me its been easy : I dont care for pistachios

In the US, there’s a drink called a Michelada. This looks like a play on that.

I have been a long-time subscriber to Health Canada's food recalls , if that's the right word. Day after day, the recalls seem to be for pistachios. I did see somewhere where the recalled pistachios were from, there were a couple of places, but I don't remember which ones.

have you tried over a subway grate?

This may or may not help. We had some fresh shishito peppers pop up in our garden this year and John brought them home. Some were left on the counter for days where they shriveled and dried up. Whether they dried enough for long term storage I can't say, but they had zero mold. You could try drying them in a very low oven with the door ajar to let the moisture escape. Other things can be dried this way so I don't know why it wouldn't work for chilies.

Have lived in Central Mexico since 2008. Other than at tourist spots, I am rarely offered a glass with my cerveza, let alone camarones! BTW, the chili salt on your glass rim is Tajin. It's a great seasoning; in bars you will get jicama sticks sprinkled with Tajin. I have been served Tajin rims on margaritas, but only with tamarind ones.

Hello, I am planning a skiing holiday from 24 December through 30 December at Moiwa Ski Resort, Niseko, Hokkaido. I am interested in any recommendations of restaurants for dinner in Niseko ski resort areas (Hanazono, Hirafu, Niseko Village, etc.). I will be relying on public transportation, and so Kutchan will probably be not accessible. I understand that during the holiday period it is very busy, and so reservations in advance are highly recommended. I am interested in regional (sushi/sashimi/Hokkaido beef), as well as Ramen, or other recommendations. Please advise. Thank you very much.

I've been growing my own chillies for a little while now and my plants make a lot more than I can use at one time. Indonesian food uses almost exclusively fresh chillies - so using my home grown chillies out of the freezer works really well. Malaysian food, however, uses, in large part, dried chillies. Many times, they are similar chillies, but dried rather than fresh which changes the flavor profile as well makes the color darker and more intense. Traditionally, the freshly harvested chillies (left on the plant to get super ripe before harvest) are spread out on tarps in the hot tropical sun and raked around every once in a while and left there until dry - usually a couple of days. I live in an apartment in NYC with no access to either tropical heat or sun. Can I just lay the chillies on my countertop or somewhere out of the way (but gets decent airflow) to dry them? I really don't want to have to get a dehydrator - I neither have the space for it, nor would I really use it for anything else. Thanks!

Oh, yes ma’am!