Alex

Does your library's website have a "Recommend a Purchase" feature? Ours is great about following up on recommendations, especially if I provide a URL other than Amazon's in the "Where you heard about this item" box.

As you might guess, the nugget with the mic is saying "Crispy"; the one on drums, "Crunchy."

TJ's nationwide applesauce recall

I picked up Samarkand at the library today. I sat down to read it over lunch. I went upstairs and ordered it. Tonight I'll be making one of the recipes (the one the author cited as his favorite). Hey, I'm getting old -- no point wasting time.

The Mulefoot Gastropub in Imlay City, MI (pop. ~3,600), 42 miles due north of Detroit's (in)famous 8 Mile Road.

Our two go-to markets carry the brand, but we've never tried it. We usually eat plain yogurt, then add just a bit of fresh fruit and granola -- less sugar, lower cost -- but when the situation calls for a flavored yogurt, I'll buy Brown Cow or, occasionally, Chobani. I find fruit yogurts cloyingly sweet now, although Brown Cow coffee is pretty good. (Hey, a coffee bean is the seed of a fruit. Close enough.) Ms. Alex probably would home right in on the salted caramel Noosa. And the strawberry-rhubarb. Good thing I do 99% of the shopping.

Now, if it could also play the Death Star theme while looming ominously, well, it might just be worth a grand.

I already did let her know and gave her the link to your post; she and I have even exchanged a few emails by now. Nice person.

Gorgeous stuff, Rob. How did you learn about her work? I browsed through her website, including, of course, the "Shop" section. Most of the pieces were beyond our current budget (we have to save for a trip to STL and a meal or two at Bulrush, y'know), but I had to buy this beautiful display piece, which actually is a rattle! It also prodded me to learn about terra sigillata, which I knew nothing about.

Pearls Before Swine: A president after my own heart

Here's the link. The key word in the original post is "seems." The culprit also could be a government agency in Mexico -- or even elsewhere.

I'll let others handle the salting/drying aspect. However, I'm a big fan fan of frequent flipping, a la Serious Eats. (He also advocates salting then air-drying on a rack in the fridge. De-smelling never hurts, either.)

Super-Sagacious Biochemists. Nah, I don't know. I make stuff up.

Prego. And welcome to eG.

The technique you describe is not unusual at all. Do you have any books on knife skills? This is one that I recommend: Mastering Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Tools in Your Kitchen (with DVD), by Norman Weinstein. Oh, and welcome to eGullet.

Yeah, that sounds about right. But wait -- there's more. For still more, read the full story here (The New York Times).

Rob, permit me to briefly chime in about the music (pun intended). I know that you want Bulrush to be a reflection of who you are, and not just with regard to food. But as with the glass floor, it's also a good idea to consider both your customers' tastes In music and the effect the music might have on them. In addition, it's vitally important to consider the nature of auditory perception in general. (As a psychologist, that was one of my areas of interest.) You mentioned that you don't want "tones that are distracting." However, vocal music in general tends to distract. Just as our brain's visual system is hard-wired to seek out and pay attention to faces -- especially upright human faces -- so does our auditory system want to pay attention to human voices. Have you ever tried to have a serious conversation while TV or vocal music is happening in the background? Also, given your new location, I imagine that artists like King Krule and The XX (and Radiohead) would appeal to a rather narrow range of likely customers, and would distinctly not appeal to a wider range thereof. I understand, of course, that background music can be a significant part of a restaurant's ambience and -- let's hope this doesn't happen much -- can make a sparsely occupied space feel more comfortable (and can give those couples who've awkwardly run out of things to talk about, something else to focus on). Reed-focused jazz (Anat Cohen, Paul Desmond as gfweb mentioned, etc.) certainly can be good restaurant music, but I'm guessing that's not the vibe you're seeking. Here's an idea, though: What would you think of a loop (or two or three) of ambient sounds from field and forest? -------------- On a completely unrelated note, I, too, love Eric Solomon's wines. And all of them have had a terrific QPR

I bet they love to play Plants vs. Zombies.

I see you've already started in with the beans, but for future reference, soaking reduces cooking time but is not necessary. Here's @rancho_gordo's method.

Marketing! (from The Onion)

And...? OK. Never mind. Overlapping posts Still, it would be good to elaborate on your post. Is this a super-special sort of deal? Is it rare and only shows up once in a blue moon? If it's just a sale price, that's not really a good reason to start a topic -- lots of items go on sale all over the world.

I understand completely. For me, it was two semesters of MWF 8 a.m. Physics. And on TuThSa I started my day with German at 9 a.m. Welcome to college!

Consumer Reports does provide information about reliability, albeit in a limited way, and not as an integral part of their rankings. Also, some ratings are indeed more "bells and whistles" oriented, but many are based on salient features. For example, the one for bottom-freezer refrigerators, which I've been consulting of late, appears to rely most heavily on temperature performance and uniformity, with energy efficiency, noise, and "ease of use" somewhat less so.

Who Made What? for Kenmore

Looks like formatting codes that didn't convert into an actual equation. I haven't looked at the actual course yet, but I strongly suspect that edX has a tech support service that you could contact.