chromedome

I've previously shared articles about coffee research from a specific team of scientists. This time, they've turned their attention to improving pour-over coffee (link to the underlying study in the text, for those who want to geek out). https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/apr/08/secret-to-stronger-pour-over-coffee-with-no-extra-beans-unlocked-by-scientists

Seeing the first new shoots from our host o' hostas... ...and my autumn bulbs... ...not to mention the fall-blooming sedums I picked up late in the season last year, on clearance. The sedums and the hardy hibiscus (another late-season purchase, marked down from $40/ea to $10/ea) are both okay in my zone, but not necessarily in aboveground pots, so I sunk them both into empty spaces in my main garden for the winter while we considered where to put them on a more permanent basis.

Just gonna do a screen-cap here, owing to the NYT paywall, but those of you who may be affected can always check the FDA's site for details and batch numbers.

Scientists in the kitchen:

My GF just sent me this video. I've seen some actual ads that were this off-kilter, so I suspect it's legit, though maybe one of our UK members can confirm? https://www.facebook.com/reel/690876749942364

...after baking a cake for a grandkid's birthday, forget to ask "Are you bringing a knife to slice this with, or am I?" Which resulted in my stepdaughter and I giving each other "Uh-oh" looks, as grandson and his friends and cousins gathered around the table. I ended up cutting the cake with my Swiss Army knife, which was not quite long enough, so today I need to carefully extricate the remainder of the chocolate icing from inside the handle. I'll note that planning an outdoor birthday party in April was a pretty gutsy call on my stepdaughter's part, and it ended up getting moved forward a day because the weather today is expected to be pretty poor.

As many of you will know, I raise rabbits for meat. I've done some back of the envelope math at one point or another and worked out that even a small establishment like mine (4-6 does) can put something on the order of 800 lbs of meat in the freezer in just one summer, depending how hard you want to work them (and a few other factors). That compares favorably to most forms of larger livestock, though of course (as I've often joked) you don't get many steaks or chops out of a rabbit. Having made that joke repeatedly, one day my GF challenged me on it. She really enjoys breaded schnitzel-style cutlets, and wanted to know if I could figure out how to make them from a rabbit. I gave it some thought and decided that hind legs or loin pieces were my best bet, so last night I thawed two saddles of rabbit (ie the two loins, and the piece of spine joining them) and gave it a shot. Here's the end result: Three of the loins I left intact, just removed the silverskin and pounded them out. One loin I cut diagonally in half, to make two smaller portions for the kids. There were also the tiny tenderloins, which I didn't bother to pound because they were already quite thin and (of course) tender. Finally, I had the four vaguely triangular pieces of thin belly meat which I'd left in place when I broke down the rabbits; those I pounded with the studded side of the meat mallet (you'll see two of those at the top of the plate). They were chewy, but not unpleasantly so. I served them with boiled potatoes, steamed cauliflower and broccoli, and gravy. No plated pictures, because I had hungry/impatient mouths to feed. (NB: I also roasted the pieces of backbone, with the bits and pieces of meat that weren't worth trimming off, and those are in the fridge as an agreeable nibble I can reheat and pick clean when the mood strikes.)

Basically the wheat version of pearled barley, I guess. I expect you could use it in recipes calling for wheat berries, but dial back the cooking time somewhat. I'll be curious to see what you think of it.

I don't have anything much to add that hasn't already been touched on, but (shrug) that's never stopped me before... I'll add a +1 to the possibility of it being attractive to people who live with a chronic illness or other disability. That's an under-appreciated market (a great many of the kitchen gizmos you've seen on late-night infomercials began with that market, and then expanded into the mass consumer sphere). Also, there are a lot more people with disabilities than most of us realize, not to mention how many of us will be temporarily sidelined by illness or injury at some point in our lives. The hotel breakfast-bar idea seems plausible to me as well, at least as a niche/novelty item. I doubt you'd place them at every Holiday Inn or Best Western, but as a very small company you night not need a large sales volume to do your 401(k) some good. Here in the Kitchen Consumer forum you'll see a very similar request for feedback (a precision cooker) by a European entrepreneur who has been successful in just such a modest fashion. That said - and far be it from me to throw cold water on anyone's dream - it could be argued (for reasons too obvious to require comment) that you've chosen the Very Worst Possible Moment to be prototyping a new electronic device, having it manufactured, and bringing it to market. ETA: Took the time to look up info on the prevalence of disabilities in the US, then forgot to include the link. https://www.cdc.gov/disability-and-health/articles-documents/disability-impacts-all-of-us-infographic.html

Some of you may be familiar with the work of UK author Robert MacFarlane, whose books and essays on the natural world and our interactions with it (Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, etc) have been international best-sellers. This morning I tripped across an essay from a few years ago, about a trip to the ancestral home of the domesticated apple, in Kazakhstan's Tien Shan mountains. MacFarlane himself didn't take that trip, it was his friend and fellow writer Roger Deakin. Deakin died of cancer almost 20 years ago, and MacFarlane frames an excerpt from Deakin's book about his journey with personal reflections on their relationship. It's fascinating food history re the emergence of the domesticated apple, and pretty fair travel/food writing in Deakin's recounting of the trip. I found it well worth the read, and thought many of you might enjoy it as well (as someone who was born and raised in apple-rearing country, and gets through 7-10 pounds of apples a week, it was especially resonant for me). https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/east-to-eden/ Those of you with an interest in history and archaeology may also want to Google some of the recent excavations that have happened in the Tien Shan mountains, which hosted some substantial trading and agricultural centers going back to several millennia BCE.

This one's pretty specific and small scale, but I'll throw it out there just in case. Some batches of ground beef at Aladdin's Foods, in London ON, are being recalled for E. coli. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/aladdin-foods-brand-lean-ground-beef-recalled-due-ecoli-o103?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

An interesting revival that's been going on in Sicily... https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250328-the-return-of-sicilys-ancient-white-gold

A fun interview with Steve (conducted by a personal friend): https://www.altaonline.com/culture/food-drink/a63904280/steve-sando-rancho-gordo-bean-empire/