Alex

Peeling tough-skinned vegetables

Too much decision-making pressure. You don't need the stress. Just forget about it and bake a potato.

I'm not aware of people widely criticizing him because of his appearance. Maybe they do, but as far as I can tell, the "hating" started when he opened his travesty of a restaurant, and when his shtick started getting old. I mean, even Emeril had a shelf life. And sorry, in a foxhole I'd pick Bourdain over Fieri in a heartbeat. Just my two cents.

A week and a half ago I bought a package of five Grade A 5"-6" beans from them, via Amazon, for $22.95; today it's a dollar more. The quality seems fine. I'll be using one of them this weekend and will report on anything out of the ordinary.

Count me in. I know I paid much less than that from one of my go-to places, My Spice Sage, earlier this year. It's currently $84 there. Where did you buy yours? Vanilla beans have gotten much more expensive, too, from what I can recall of my previous purchases.

My answer assumes you cooled your stock promptly and stored it in a sufficiently cold fridge -- 36°F or thereabouts. My package of Costco/Kirkland Organic Chicken Stock says that once opened, a max of seven days is OK. That's also my guideline for homemade stock. It's never caused a problem, except for that one time I ran around in circles for an hour or so, flapping my arms and singing Surfin' Bird at the top of my lungs..

Is it safe? (Not for the faint of heart.)

The Hyde Park/U of C area has really taken off since then, food-wise (as has the rest of the city -- and burbs, to some extent). In fact, we'll probably be going to A10 later this year. Ms. Alex will soon be flying to Europe via O'Hare, and will have some time to kill before catching her return connecting flight back to GR, so I suspect she'll be dining at Tortas Frontera. She's been to all of Rick Bayless's places in Chicago except this one. And thanks for the sit-down information, Chris; I forgot about that.

Yeah, O'Hare certainly is sprawling and can be a pain to navigate, but all in all, I don't mind it -- and it's a 45-minute, $5 ride to the Loop on the Blue Line ($1.10 with senior discount; $2.25/$1.10 to return). And the food options have markedly improved of late. And speaking of the South Side, sad to say that Midway recently contracted with a new concessions operator, who got rid of the best places: Manny's Deli, Harry Caray's, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Lalo's, and even Ben & Jerry's.

Trivia: 1) Her post was in 2010, prior to confirmation of the Reaper (and its predecessor, Trinidad Scorpion) as the hottest pepper; 2) There's a pending new champion, Dragon's Breath. I can't even begin to imagine...

rotuts, they don't make burritos and aren't a sit-down restaurant, but if you should again find yourself at O'Hare, I suspect you'd appreciate Tortas Frontera.

My test of whether a doctor has a sense of humor is to give him a copy of this pain scale, courtesy of Hyperbole and a Half. Be sure to read her explanation of the numbers.

Good. I was going to recommend a Grohe or Hansgrohe.

There's the problem in a nutshell. With studies like this one now routinely triggering press releases, the popular media has not a clue how to put the results in context, how to make sense of a small sample size, and how to intelligently differentiate three categories of studies: correlation vs causation, in vitro vs in vivo, and animal vs human. As Chris mentioned, single studies are, for the most part, just small pieces in a very large puzzle. Sometimes they can trigger other studies; sometimes they add a bit to a bigger body of knowledge, but precious few are paradigm-changing.

One Flew South, at Concourse E at Hartsfield-Jackson (Atlanta). As they say, "The first upscale dining experience at the world's busiest airport." Ms. Alex makes it a point to eat there whenever she passes through ATL. Vino Volo, as posted about earlier, doesn't quite meet gfweb's criteria, but it's a pleasant spot to enjoy some good wine and a sandwich or charcuterie platter. They're in multiple airports; I've been to the ones in Baltimore and Detroit.

Story in BBC Future

I remember that. I wonder how many of us got the reference.

Like liuzhou and rotuts, my first thought was my knives. However, in common modern usage, and inferring from your choice, I'm guessing "appliance" means something powered, either gas or electric. Could you clarify that, please?

Welcome, Victor. Just FYI, eG is all about sharing ideas publically via the forums rather than privately via PM.

Great article. Thank you. Here's another article, in Saveur, about another American pu-ehr merchant, Paul Murray.

Depends on how hungry you are.

Yes, I get my Namaste flour (and other food items and some supplements) from Vitacost. In fact, no more than three minutes ago I placed an order for 16 bags of Lundberg Organic Rice Chips. I'll have to try Authentic Foods' version after my current supply runs out.

For the limited amound of GF baking I've done so far, I've used Namaste Foods "Perfect Flour Blend" in combination with some coconut and almond flours and have never noticed any grittiness. Its ingredients, from most to least, are sweet brown rice flour, tapioca starch, brown rice flour, arrowroot powder, sorghum flour, and xanthan gum.

The pops are actually related to how the defrost cycle is handled in newer no-frost refrigerators. Here's some info from GE. If a grinding noise is present in every cycle, then yeah, it's probably time to start shopping around for a new one.

We also have a Maytag fridge and dishwasher. I don't know what sounds yours are producing, but for ours, those loud pops are somehow related to energy efficiency, so I've been told. And the grinding sound in our dishwasher occurrs just at the start of a wash, as it's the actual food grinder; the rest of the cycle is very quiet. That said, there are two known QC issues with our fridge: an air flow flap at the top rear that starts to make a lot of noise, and a drainage issue that causes water to pool and freeze on the floor of the bottom freezer. Both were fixed under warranty, but I was greatly irked that there was no recall.