Jensen

Canadian bacon (called back bacon in Canada)

Bake the wings at a high temperature (425-ish) for an hour. This renders all the fat out of them so that they are not greasy. Once they are cooked to this point, then you can do what you like to them. Drench them in hot sauce and then pan fry for some carmelisation. Toss with salt and pepper. Whatever. The possibilities are endless.

Dog food

There is no reverse switch; it's just on or off. We've never had need of a reverse (and that's grinding bone-in chicken quarters!). A woman I know also has one and did have hers jam up once but she was grinding bone-in pork chunks (hocks? shanks? something with way too much bone in it). For just meat, it is a dream.

Not as much as we used to. We actually bought it to grind chicken (with bone) and vegetables for the dogs. It comes apart easily and all the pieces go through the dishwasher; so there's no worries about cleaning them. I also use it to grind beef (for dogs and humans). Generally speaking, I can find the cheaper cuts of beef for less money than I'd have to pay for hamburger.

I have this one: Meat Grinder at Northern Tool I love it.

Wow! Did this sentence ever bring back a flood of memories! When I was a kid, we ate pretty much in the same manner that my family eats now (see above) but for one difference. My dad was a fiend about holding one's fork and knife correctly! I haven't carried on that tradition...

Just re-read MM's note and I'll add this: the Spawn has been going to restaurants since she was an infant. She does not run around in a restaurant or yell out anything. If you leave the table at home, you are finished your dinner...there is no up and run around and then sit down and have another bite before you get up and run around some more. When she was younger, we'd always get seated with the other tables with children whenever we went out for dinner. It drove me crazy because the other children were usually bloody heathens.

We have two tables that we sit down at: one in the kitchen and one in the dining room. If it's just us, we eat in the kitchen. If we have friends over for dinner or if there is some sort of "project" taking place in the kitchen, we eat at the dining room table. There is only one television in my house and, if someone is watching it, it is turned off before dinner. We eat out at least once a week; other than those times, every night is a sit-down dinner with all family members present.

I think you'll see that I predicted Canada would be blamed for this three days ago. Let's see... The 9-11 terrorists were said to have entered the US through Canada. Whoops! Turns out they didn't! The grid failure in the northeast was said to have been the fault of someone in Ontario. Whoops! Make that Ohio... There are enough discrepancies and inconsistencies in the latest "blame Canada" schtick to make it as suspect as past finger pointings.

Apparently, a Seattle TV station has been producing an ongoing investigative report into the use of downer cows in the food supply: KIRO TV Check out all the links to the stories they've done on it, starting in October of 2002!

Didn't the cow in question fall ill after calving? I thought it was only slaughtered *because* it was downed.

Well, I truly hope common sense prevails. I did just read in another Sun article that the government is simply reserving judgement until the tests are in. I'm surprised no one in the American beef industry has pointed fingers at Canada yet though. For the past several years, that seems to be the American thing to do when in a crisis.

Not all partners seem to be overreacting; from today's Vancouver Sun: Elsewhere in the article, it suggests that the market for American beef in Canada was destroyed when the Americans closed their borders to Canadian beef.

I'm always a little suspicious of "exclusive" marketing. If the technology is so revolutionary and fabulous, why limit themselves to selling only through W-S? Edited to fix stupid typo.

Jack, a whippet or two will take care of those squirrels *and* the rabbits... I am so enjoying your foodblog. Thank you for being so inspiring.

I embarked upon a CFS quest on a recent racing trip. I think I ate it four times over a five day period. (I'm not in CFS country either!) The best I had was in Virginia City, NV. Second was at the Black Bear Diner in Shasta City, CA. Worst was at Spiffy's somewhere in Washington (which was very disappointing as I'd heard very good things about Spiffy's desserts and because one of my dog's littermates is named Spiffy ... I reckoned it *had* to be good!).

The iSi website has a couple of recipes for foams. It also recommends using the canister for keeping sauces warm. There are also tips on making foams, including a information on gelatin weight conversion. I got my iSi charger the first year I was married, which makes it 16 years old now. It's not quite the same as the Dessert Whip model; the most notable difference is that mine did not come with a cap for the charger screw-on thingie. I also seem to recall the instructions telling us not to remove the charger until the canister was empty. Being an unrepentant collector of paper, I probably still have the instruction booklet. I should see if I can find it. I'd be interested in knowing if the model I have could be used to make foams. It's quite a bit sturdier than the models I see in the stores now.

From today's Sacbee, an article on holiday brews: Holiday Brews This reminded me of my time working at a brew pup in Victoria and the two seasonal ales available: barley wine (Christmas ale) and ginger ale. Now that I'm living in the bowels of Hell (AKA Sacramento), I'm wondering if there is anywhere to buy ginger ale locally. Can anyone help?

Congee with pork liver

I feel your pain. I am too. Well, it's a small comfort to know that someone commiserates with me. You can imagine my shock upon moving here from Vancouver (BC) four years ago. I thought that because Vancouver and Sacramento are roughly the same size (with Sacto being slightly bigger), they would be similar, culturally-speaking. (Talk about a "rude awakening"!) Thanks for the tips. I will try that. I did make some Albers this morning for my breakfast. I oversalted them but, otherwise, it was a wonderful way to start the day. Now, I'm looking forward to trying "fried grits" and "cheese grits".

Well... This comment shows just about complete ignorance of traditional corn preparation in America since pre-Columbian times. In Thorne's article, he referenced this very same miller as having supplied him with grits that had been made in the traditional manner (using ashes from a barbecue pit!). I don't think the quote from the Anson Mills site reflects a lack of knowledge of the history of grits but rather it reflects an intimate knowledge of how they are produced *today*.

I'm Canadian too and I had no idea what grits were all about until a couple of years ago. They look like Cream of Wheat but are a little thicker. I imagine if you cooked them with more liquid, they'd be a dead ringer. They do not taste like Cream of Wheat; these have some flavour. I will confess that I've wondered if I would now like Cream of Wheat served with butter and salt and pepper though ...

I looked at the Anson Mills site; their "hominy grits" are hominy in name only...no lye used in the process. The Saveur article seems to contradict this, saying that the grocery store grits *were* soaked in lye. That doesn't really make sense though, given the enrichment info...

No. And not be disagreeable, but I am not convinced that most grits, even those sold most commonly in the South (e.g., Quaker, Jim Dandy and Aunt Jemima), are treated that way, either. I think they are simply ground, de-germinated white corn. From Simple Cooking Issue No. 83 (the most recent one): "In a book review many years ago, I criticized Paul Levy for comparing grits to polenta, saying that the former are ground from dried hominy (dried corn from which the hulls have been removed by soaking in lye or hdrated lime), while the latter is not. I was the one who was wrong, but I was hardly alone in this belief. It may be that at one time folks who had to "crack" their grits at home (whence comes the epithet "cracker" as applied to rural Southerners) did so from hominy, since it was hull-less and easier to shatter. But the grits produced by old-fashioned grist mills are ground from plain dried corn, with the coarsest pieces of hull removed by sifting."