Moopheus

I've made naan, and I don't recall it being particularly difficult, though I have only done it a couple of times. I've not been entirely satisfied with my parathas, even though I think that should be even easier. But I keep trying, because I like making Indian food and it seems like I should be able to make Indian breads to go with.

I used to get that way about Burger King Whoppers--every now and then I'd have a craving, then I would eat one, and regret it. Like I knew that somehow, some part of my brain was playing a trick on me. It's probably been about ten years now since my last one.

Heh, I know I should worry about that, but honestly, I can't remember the last time I said "I'm not making XXX because there's no way me and hubby will eat it all." That's why they make freezers, right? Also coworkers. Excess product--especially baked goods--can usually be foisted off on people at work. But also the freezer, and canning, etc. And leftovers can be made into lunches to carry to work. Pate is pretty low on my list of things to worry about. In fact, it's not on the list at all. I make myself a loaf of bread every Sunday--it's enriched wheat bread, and lasts the week no problem. I've been making my own bagels because I live in a neighborhood where there are no decent bagels to be had. I don't make my own cheese, or not usually (I've made simple soft cheeses). Sometimes I make pasta, sometimes I don't.

In't that the whole point of making your own?

I don't recall learning much from my mother. Mom's not a bad cook--she can when she wants to. Coming home from work, she usually didn't want to. Growing up I remember a lot of pan-fried meats and boiled vegetables. The best cook in my family was my Sicilian grandfather. Not a wide range--mainly sort of typical working-class Italian-American food, but he wanted it to be good. So I consider myself largely self-taught. I'm quite certain that I am now the best cook in the family.

I have to admit I have had unsatisfactory results making pancakes with buttermilk powder. The batter invariably comes out much thinner than with whole buttermilk.

I have a small collection of cookbooks at the opposite end of your opposite end. The old Campbell's soups books, the Culinary Arts Institute, and that sort of thing. Where the artistry of the illustration clearly shows the limits of 1950s offset color reproduction. Line drawings that would now be considered seriously un-pc. And I mean seriously. I suppose some of these recipes are actually edible, but there's no way I'm going to find out. Otherwise I try not to buy cookbooks unless I am actually going to make some use of them. On the other hand, there are some books that are useful beyond their recipes, because they illustrate a technique or provide useful background information.

I don't know that's a fair definition. Imitation crab meat is "artificial," i.e. made by art, but it's derived from fish. Oh, I agree--there isn't really a bright line between categories, and many foods we eat now exhibit some level of artificialness, but what I think FG was getting at with his initial post was food that would be entirely made from synthetic nonfood sources.

Was it only a few years ago? I remember them from the 70s when there were still some on the east coast; and mainly what I remember is the feeling ill afterwards. Glad to hear they've cleaned up.

It's hard to speculate on the disadvantages of technology that only exists in our heads. And we know what the disadvantages are of our current food production system are. In order to assess the disadvantage of a new product, we'd have to know what it actually is. One thing we can generally assume is that no new technology is likely to be a perfect substitute for the old it replaces. No technology is a perfect solution to a problem, so new solutions just present different sets of tradeoffs/advantages. This is one of the reasons that old technology persists way beyond when the "market" has declared it obsolete. So a new product can succeed in the market if it presents some appealing advantage, relieves some perceived disadvantage, even if it doesn't really capture all of the qualities of the old product. And there's no question that one of the main advantages that drive the market is that something be cheaper than the old product. Not necessarily better or even as good. Otherwise we wouldn't be whining about crappy toasters. There would have to be question of resources: if the food product is truly artificial--not derived from plant or animal sources--then that suggests that it is synthesized from some material that has to come from somewhere else--a mine or an oil well. On a large enough scale, this is not necessarily a much better solution than what we do now.

Oh man, now I want one of those. I don't make toast very often and we have a serviceable Cuisinart, but even that requires watching and flipping to make even toast. Actually, one of the most frequent uses is to reheat leftover waffles that I have made in my ancient Sunbeam W-2 waffle maker. A toaster that could do that well would be greatly appreciated.

It may be, for once thing, that there is a difference between "ingredients" and "elements on a plate". An Indian spice paste or Mexican mole sauce may be complex and composed of a long list of individual items, but they don't really act as 20 things in the dish; they are a single element. You experience them as a unified whole. When you cook, either you have made your ingredients work together or you haven't; the number really doesn't matter.

Where are you getting Stumptown and Intellgentsia in Somerville? I usually get Rao's or Jim's, it's like $10-11 for a 12-oz bag. Prices seem to have been fairly stable over the last few years, but who knows what the future will bring. Historically coffee prices have tended to be pretty volatile (it's hardly the first time people have complained about expensive coffee), like most ag products, but in the long run will probably increase for a variety of factors--growing global demand, environmental changes, etc.

That's too bad. I seem to recall that when I worked in that neighborhood around 2005, it was still a decent Italian grocery, but that they didn't have too much that couldn't be had elsewhere. Probably hard to survive that way in a bad economy.

You have to boil them--it's not a bagel if it's not boiled. They get baked after boiling. I don't like toasted bagels--a bagel should be crusty and chewy, and toasting ruins that. And yeah, the melting cream cheese thing is no good either.

Sure, it seems the logical progression. Much industrial food already is only marginally related to the original ingredients--i.e., ingredients are not used as such, but as sources to extract some material. If food manufacturers could created those desired extracts without the raising/growing of the sources, they would do it, and at least some people would eat it. I mean there are people who willingly eat head cheese, and also Twinkies. People will eat anything. Also, as a general rule, if it can be battered and fried, someone will eat it. Maybe I am only saying that because I am right at this moment full of clams. I suppose someday they might come up with something that could pass for an Ipswich clam in a blind taste test. Perhaps it only has to be "good enough" to find a market, because it could be made kosher, or be so much cheaper, or keeps without refrigeration, or whatever. Certainly, in other industries, "good enough" substitutes can change markets.

Incorrectly used food terms are a whole other issue (which has been discussed before). Typos on menus are like typos on the internet--annoying but inevitable.

I make miso salad dressings fairly frequently in the summer. Chang's miso butter recipe is good. William Shurtleff's Big Book of Miso covers the traditional uses, and then some.

If the Kwik Meal cart on 45th & 6th is still there (it's been a while for me), then that's worth a stop--excellent felafel.

Except that this is also true, at least in my experience, of postal service in post offices in New York (much slower and surlier in New York, even by USPS standards), cable service, and other sorts of services that don't have the competition that food services do. I don't think the "It's all out-of-towners" argument goes very far, either, since you tend not to get high concentrations of them outside of certain areas. Domino's was so inferior to what, Ray's? Really? The chains have grown in New York for the same reason they've grown everywhere else: massive marketing and favorable local government support (yeah, I'm looking at you, Rudy Guiliani).

Russo's in Watertown is good for general produce and Asian ingredients in particular--the carry a lot of stuff fresh that you might only see dried in other stores. Christina's spice shop is very good, but more expensive than the Indian markets. I have not been yet, but have heard that H-Mart in Burlington is worth the trip.

Slightly off topic, but I am curious--is the Artron color process you mention on the web site a six-color process or four-color? I seem to dimly recall from my days as a print buyer in the 90s when stochastic, hexachrome, and waterless printing were going to take over the world, the actual uptake of the technology was slowed by patent complications. And of course, cost and inertia. Nobody wanted to actually pay for it. I had some book covers printed waterless, and they looked real nice, but no one really noticed the difference.

I've got a 1986 edition, and there's nothing in it like Go or any other Monopoly piece.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Around here, the big supermarkets almost never have any kind of local produce, no matter what time of year or what it is. Got to go to a farmer's market or a farm stand, or one of the few real produce markets. while I have mixed feelings about shopping there for various reasons, I have to give Whole Foods some credit: they do actually stock local (or at least regional, meaning New England) produce and food products. This year we joined a CSA farm. But I would have to agree on tomatoes and strawberries as the worst. Most of the trucked-in stuff is weak, and cultivated more for appearance and travel than taste and ripeness. But the tomatoes and berries are the worst. Though last week I got a quart of strawberries from Canada (!) that were really quite good.

Sani-Tuff cutting boards.