chromedome

"I"ll definitely remember...." is one of the greatest lies we tell ourselves. Right up there with "just one more" and the like.

That's a good day at the office...

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/11/26/781679216/how-families-eat-in-the-arctic-from-an-18-box-of-cookies-to-polar-bear-stew

Listeria in Lafleur brand Original Wieners, affects (so far) Ontario, Quebec and NWT. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-11-25/eng/1574735681193/1574735687555?utm_source=r_listserv

That was a common theme of the late James Barber's show, The Urban Peasant. He'd traveled the world a lot in his "day job" as an engineer, and began to notice the similarities between dishes in different cultures: Different twists on the same basic technique or set of ingredients. He'd often stop at some point in a recipe and explain how you could vary it from there to be Thai or Italian or Indian or what have you. I quite liked that show. I had a similar moment as a young 'un newly arrived in Vancouver. I walked past a little Portuguese restaurant on Commercial Drive, most days...nothing fancy, just their equivalent of a blue-collar, greasy-spoon diner. One day they had salt cod and potatoes as their daily special, so I decided to see how different it would be from the Newfoundland version I'd grown up with. As you'll recall from previous discussions, in Newfoundland one renders out salt pork, providing both a fat to spoon over the dish itself and the rendered-out "scruncheons" as a pungently salty garnish. I was shocked at first when the Portuguese version arrived with a heavy drizzle of olive oil and a generous scattering of olives, but after a few bites I realized that those played exactly the same roles as the rendered fat and scruncheons in the Newfoundland version. Mind blown.

It starts: The CFIA's first salad/E. coli recall has been issued, for a handful of Bonduelle brand salads containing chicken or turkey. NB, Ontario, Quebec, possibly national. https://inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-11-22/eng/1574484580118/1574484580525?utm_source=r_listserv

I'm not 100 percent certain, but I believe I've seen that brand of salads at either Sobey's or Walmart. I could be wrong. This particular recall apparently only involves salad mixes containing meat, so that lets me out even if it does extend to Canada. Not that I don't eat meat, you understand, but I don't buy bagged salads containing it.

Humph. I expect we'll see an announcement about the salad greens here in Canada, as well. Ours are mostly imported at this time of the year, and I know the Signature brand is sold here.

I was an adult when I first encountered it - Japanese was not a "thing" in 1970s Nova Scotia or Newfoundland - and truthfully, my immediate impression was "fish bologna."

I was gifted a half-dozen Canada goose carcasses once by a hunting friend who only wanted the breasts. I cooked the legs in a Crock-Pot for what was intended to be that night's dinner, but turned out to be the following night's when they needed a solid 16 hours to become tender. They were fine, imo, though the long/slow cooking may have helped. The rest of the carcasses went into a big pot of stock, part of which my ex mistook for chicken broth and used in a casserole.

Odd. When I grew it in Edmonton, which is not exactly known for the mildness of its winters, my tarragon came back in spring before even the dandelions. I had head-high tarragon by early summer, and more of it than I would use in years (despite giving away basketball-sized bunches to anyone who would stand still long enough).

At Superstore and Sobey's they run $15-$16-ish/kg, so individual birds can range anywhere from $60-something to almost $100. My GF is keen to try one sometime, so we may splurge at some point in the leadup to the holidays. The odds just got a bit lower, as I had to put an unexpected $400 into my van and historically freelancing dries up quite a bit in December. We'll see. Also, @Anna N, was it you who'd spoken of enjoying russet apples but never seeing them in a store? My local Sobey's has them now, so if you call the produce people at your closest store you might be able to snag some. (...not entirely OT, because goose and apples go together beautifully...)

A girl after my own heart. That's adorable.

Or, to coin a phrase, "Let them eat nori." https://grist.org/article/the-answer-to-climate-killing-cow-farts-may-come-from-the-sea/

Funny you should say that. I used to keep Pernod around for cooking at one point in my life, but now a local distillery's absinthe is available at my nearest liquor store in airline-sized bottles. I keep one of those up in my cupboard for when the impulse strikes.

Ontario only, potential listeria in the Farm Boy brand of cheese balls. https://inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-11-17/eng/1574042653470/1574042660080?utm_source=r_listserv

A backgrounder, for those who want some context (bear in mind that one of the experts who's quoted extensively may have some axes to grind, as a cabinet minister in the previous administration). https://www.eurasiareview.com/13112019-reasons-for-ecuador-unrest-lie-much-deeper-than-fuel-subsidies-abolition-analysis/ ETA: ...and another. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/ecuador

It's also quite possible that authorities have simply shut down the internet in the affected areas, now that I think about it.

Oh! ...Also very important (though you may be waaaayyy ahead of me on this) is that it must be called a "Unicorn" juicer.

I watch my carbs closely, lest they fall from my fork and fail to reach my mouth.

In the past she's had to lay low because being active online would have drawn unwelcome scrutiny ("the nail that sticks out gets hammered," and all that). I expect, under the circumstances, it's probably one of those moments.

An afterthought, and an alternative retail avenue: If you really want to swing for the fences, maybe pitch the device to Target. They've used superior design for years as a way of differentiating themselves from Walmart, and this might just hit their "sweet spot." You certainly wouldn't attempt to command a premium price in that market, but selling scads of them at Target might be more profitable than dribs and drabs at a Sur la Table or Williams-Sonoma sort of place.

Bear in mind, this is an especially tough crowd for a product of this type. Lots of focus on function, here, and most of our kitchens are already over-stuffed with gadgets and gewgaws. Earning a place in the mix is no small feat. I think it's probably a viable product in the right setting (ie, high-end, fashion-conscious retail). Many a fortune has been made on the back of products that were impeccably stylish if not necessarily the *most* practical: The fashion industry springs to mind, for starters, and a design-first mentality hasn't kept Apple from being one of the world's most valuable companies.

Listeria recall for a wholesale vendor's "European style" back bacon because of listeria. Currently affects BC and the Prairies, but possibly national. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-11-06/eng/1573096241946/1573096247885?utm_source=r_listserv Also, another update to the Ontario-centric beef/veal E. coli recall, this time adding a couple of halal butchers in Mississauga and Brampton. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-11-06/eng/1573088927607/1573088927998?utm_source=r_listserv Lobster in brine and crab in brine, botulism, sold in NB and Quebec. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-11-13/eng/1573696235713/1573696241811?utm_source=r_listserv

...and then, if we want to talk *seriously* old-school food storage techniques, there's this: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/the-worlds-oldest-leftovers-left-in-pleistocene-storage-containers/