Moopheus

Actually, right now the dollar is worth about what it was in the late-80s, early 90s, after the Plaza Accord devalued the dollar. You might recall that for many years the Canadian and US dollars were at roughly parity; that was considered normal. In the 90s, when Robert Rubin became Treasury secretary under Clinton, Rubin actively pushed the dollar up. Since that time, the dollar has come back down again. In the 90s Canadian dollar <i>was</i> weak, and in recent years has basically been driven by increased oil exports, to the US. In fact, not only has the dollar not crashed and burned, it needs to fall further, especially against the RMB, which is still being held fairly tightly by China. Of course, an increase in the cost of cheap crap from China would hurt Walmart very hard.

Zero.

Throw out? You're supposed to save that stuff so you can embarrass them with it later in life. In front of their college friends and that sort of thing. Sent from my Brain using Fingertype

Or chalkboard paint. Heck, you could put the chalkboard paint over the magnetic paint and have both. Oh no, this is giving me ideas. Don't think the wife will go for it, though.

And part of the way it was sold to consumers was that it looked professional, starting with the high-end home versions of restaurant ovens. Then the look was applied to everything regardless of actual quality of the innards. Ever watch those house-buying shows on HGTV? Practically every time, they coo over the stainless like you'd be an idiot to want anything else. Oddly, it seems to me, stainless countertops, which might have more practical value, were largely displaced by solid surfaces. Personally, I would like to see more color choices returning to the appliance market. I realize that your choice could look dated after a while, but having everything be white, black, or steel is boring. At least a few makers seem to be moving in that direction.

And of course, in more professional books, they aren't scaled down at all. The recipes may be for large quantities, leaving you with the chore of figuring our how to scale it down. There are a few books, like Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread, that try to have it both ways, but the instructions are still mainly structured for the professional user. On the other hand, these books sometimes have a wealth of detailed information and descriptions of techniques that would be glossed over or ignored in a home-cook book.

Not exactly packaging, but I hate drinking coffee out of an extruded polystyrene foam cup. I think it does something weird to the taste, and I don't like the texture of it either.

Was it one of these?

I'd assume that for $99 you're not getting commercial-grade Metro shelving, but the less-expensive Intermetro, which is only rated to 300 pounds. Though I've never come close to even that on mine. I've got some in the kitchen, the laundry closet, I mostly built my darkroom with it. I've never had the urge to cover it up. I like the open shelving. If it were up to me, I'd do all of our cabinets as open shelves, but my wife does not like that idea.

Yes, I've had mine for about six years now and I've done it a couple of times. I should probably do it more often than that. Mine has a "dinner" side and a "dessert" side, and the dessert side has little divots from the chocolate chopper. One side smells like onion and garlic, the other like chocolate and vanilla.

Yes, sort of. I think Weinoo hit the nail on the head when he said Jamie is controversial for poking his nose in other people's business-i.e., how families eat, (in the UK and US), how kids eat in schools (in the UK and US), and how he hopes to change entire communities, (Huntington, WV and Los Angeles). You can't help but be conflicted when you watch Jamie on his mission. Right, because in the US, at least, we understand that an individual's right to a close personal relationship with international food conglomerates and restaurant chains is sacred, and shall not be gainsaid. Economists tell us that consumers are rational actors making informed choices in their best self-insterest, so who are we to doubt?

My 1946 Toll House baking book, likely unchanged from the 1937 edition, says 1 cup sifted white flour=one quarter pound (4 oz). It also says 8 average size eggs is 1 cup, so that suggests a pretty small egg by todays' standard, as Baroness says.

I'm not sure Sandra Lee is really controversial. Some of the people mentioned are arguably overrated or overhyped, they have human flaws that make them unappealing to some. But Ms. Lee is just a fraud, and anyone who knows anything about food knows it. There's no question that she inspires an amazing level of visceral hate that may be unmatched for anyone else in the food world. Part of the reason Food TV no longer has fan forums on their web site was that hers was hijacked by anti-Sandra forces. The forum Television Without Pity has an entire subforum devoted to her. People hide her books in bookstores. Even Rachel Ray doesn't get that kind of treatment.

Well, "methycellulose" has too many syllables for a mass-media news report. I'd agree that this is unlikely to be a serious health issue, despite the suggestion of the story otherwise. It should be a concern of representation of expectations, though. If you sell a product as one thing, and it contains enough cheap filler that someone could legitimately feel cheated, that's an issue. When folks go to McD's, they expect to get chicken nuggets, not packing material. It's not like the processors go out of their way to inform customers what's really in the product. Unfortunately, the mass-media has learned that people don't pay attention to basic facts, they have to be tarted up with a patina of alarm.

More like a result of there not being any food police. If we had more food police we'd have less contaminated food. Industrialization of the food supply has greatly increased the spread of pathogens in the food supply, but the producers have the power to keep regulators and inspectors from forcing them to take any responsibility for their practices; the industry's attitude is that it's the responsibility of you, the consumer, to watch out for yourself. Which means that state health departments don't have much choice but to hassle, you, the consumer, because they haven't got the funds or the political backing to push it back up the production chain.

My local Whole Foods usually have Parmesan for $18 a pound. $12 per pound would have to be a special sale price or a loss leader. The best price I can get around here now would be $13-14.

I have a traumatic childhood memory of that, which means, no ice cream cones in the car, ever again.

If it were me, and I wanted a tile floor that was consistent with the original decor, I'd go with real linoleum. There's a few companies that still make it (Armstrong, Forbo, Johnsonite) in various colors and styles.

I can tell you, from extensive personal experience, that the New Joys of Jell-o (1974), is an abomination. A crime against humanity.

Wow, Jeff, Never? Not even on a long road trip? I'm in awe of you and others on this topic who can be so disciplined -- seriously. It's not discipline, I just hate eating in the car, especially since I'm usually the one doing the driving. If I need to eat on a long car trip (which these days doesn't happen as anywhere near often as it used to), I'll stop somewhere and eat. I might take a coffee with me, but that's it. Somehow I manage to survive short trips without food. These days I put more miles on my bike than the car, but I've never managed to learn the trick that some cyclists do of being able to take a drink while riding.

I should clarify that I am not adverse to trying new things. I'm just not motivated to keep trying them over and over again. A few weeks ago I happened to have something I'd never had before--raw oysters on the shell. There were a few different varieties on the platter, I tried more than one. My response was, meh. Sure, I know other people really like them, but I couldn't really see any point to going any further with that for myself.

Like the one FG works for. At least a few years ago, they had the Harney tea guys in on a semi-regular basis to gives talks in the demo kitchen. If you (Steven) go to the library they may still have the demos on DVD.

Can't say as I would call supermarket eggs a miracle. Cheap, yes, miracle, no. There's nothing miraculous about industrial food. These days I mostly get my eggs from a farm in Bedford, I think they taste better than supermarket eggs, but the difference is not huge. But the price difference isn't either. Most of my eggs end up in baked goods anyway. But I do rather prefer to support local producers as much as I can afford to.

Drive? I can easily get 30 pounds of groceries in my bicycle panniers. Cambridge is small and flat; most of the places I shop aren't that far away.

Not really, no. Gee, I don't really like this, but I'll keep eating it anyway until I can convince myself I actually do like it. Sorry, no motivation for that. Also, not really into appreciating food, more into enjoying it.