chromedome

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/

I wouldn't have expected them to so resemble crabapples. Very interesting.

That makes sense. Spain's magical ability to export more saffron than it grows (despite using so much domestically) is the result of similar legerdemain.

Just out of curiosity, what size do whole chickens run in SoCal? Up here, it's rare to see anything that's not in the 2.5-3lb. range.

This relates more to the business side of brewing than the tasting side, but here in New Brunswick (where out-migration to other provinces is often driven by lack of jobs) a recent survey by the CBC showed that the province's craft brewers account for more jobs than mainstream brewers like Moosehead and Molson-Coors. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/craft-alcohol-producers-now-employ-nb-workforce-twice-the-size-of-traditional-brewers-1.5353978 When I moved here in 2007, the only local craft brewers (AFAIK) were Pump House in Moncton and Picaroon's in Fredericton. Now there are 70+, with more emerging all the time. Incredibly, Nova Scotia has a still-higher number of craft brewers per capita despite its larger population. It's just not possible to keep up without making it a full-time job (and having another, lucrative full-time job to pay for all the beer) but I try to make sure I taste something new a couple of times each month. My current favorite is an IPA-style rye beer from Trailways, one of the brewers featured in the article. It's called Rype, because it's a "ryePA." It's on the fruity end of the IPA spectrum, but with interestingly spicy undertones from the rye.

Sorry, I did not. I've moved to the other side of town and don't get in as often now that it's not my local beer stop (one of the ANBL outlets on my side of town has six taps for growlers, covering a range of local breweries, so I'm still well served in that respect).

My mom had one of those when I was a kid, and used it a lot for slaws and such. Goodness knows, it might still be in the back of one of her cupboards somewhere.

I forgot to report back on that, but the last day was definitely too late. Everything left in the store was on one little table at the front, and even that was pretty sparsely populated. I did pick up a pair of parisien scoops in different sizes, two of those little ceramic bird vents for pie baking, and a couple of very small saucepans (1-cup and 2-cup). Total expenditure was under $10, and I got a small wooden rack for free that was part of a display. It will now hold pot lids in my cupboard.

6 is "Once over lightly." I guess I was just overthinking number 1...

LOL If trampolines were organic and had scientific names, "Hoponius" would have to be the genus.

I found all the others easy, but I confess the first is still opaque to me. I'm sure I'll facepalm once you've given the answer.

Sadly, tight-fisted restaurateurs are seldom willing to invest in those any more...

Truthfully, here where it's caught and processed we're creatures of habit. There are basically just three dishes here using salt cod*: Salt fish and potatoes; fish and brewis; and fishcakes. For the first, the fish is soaked briefly to make it pliable and then a) cooked in the pot with the potatoes (old school), or b) simmered in one pot while the potatoes are boiled separately in another (modern style). Separately, render out diced salt pork fatback. To serve, spoon the rendered fat and crunchy brown bits (scruncheons) over the fish and potatoes. Optionally, slice an onion into a small bowl of plain white vinegar an hour ahead of time, and have the onion rings and onion-scented vinegar as a garnish/condiment for the main meal (this is also good with fresh, pan-fried mackerel). Fish & brewis is similar, but replaces the potatoes with "hard bread," which is the lineal descendant of the "ship's biscuit" of the sailing days or "hardtack" that fed the armies of centuries gone by. It's basically just flour, water and a bit of salt, baked to a stony texture which (if kept in an airtight tin or bag) prevents spoilage for years or decades. You soak it to soften it, then simmer it with the fish to absorb some flavor, then serve the fish as before with the quivering cake of stodge in lieu of potatoes. Leftover brewis is sometimes eaten warm or cold with molasses, as dessert. There's also a variation called "fisherman's brewis," which is the leftover fish and hard bread turned into hash with a bit of fried onion. Fishcakes are typically leftover cooked fish and potatoes, mashed up together with (ideally) an egg for binder, and some finely chopped onion. They're breaded and fried, and served as part of a larger meal. A typical Newfoundland fisherman's working-day breakfast might include eggs, two or three fishcakes, a substantial quantity of baked beans, half a loaf of bread and a pot of tea. The Europeans have a much deeper and richer variety of dishes using our signature product, as - for that matter - do the Caribbean nations. I've had many fine salt cod dishes from Jamaican farmer's market vendors, and joked with some of the older ones about how my grandfather probably caught and cured some of the fish they grew up on. He was, to all accounts (and my memory as well) something of a jerk, but he was also famously a perfectionist and even those who disliked him conceded that his fish was first-rate. *Note that the versions involving "brewis" are Newfoundland-only, and won't be found in Nova Scotia or the other Maritime provinces.

Perhaps her name is Ruby and she just assumed...

Yeah, for those of us in other countries we can switch things up (for falafel fava beans are equally canonical; and we can certainly make other bean dips). In the areas where chickpeas are a staple, though, it's not that simple. They're a core agricultural crop as well as a core food, so on one hand the food chain becomes that much more precarious for everyone if the crop fails (ie, we're likely looking at millions of people starving) and the agricultural sector also needs to learn - almost overnight - how to reinvent itself around a new and unfamiliar crop. To put it into perspective, imagine a sudden blight wiping out the US corn crop. Americans and Canadians (because we grow the same cultivars, it would affect us as well) would not be in imminent danger of starving, thankfully, but it would be a massive, costly and emotionally wrenching* dislocation. *How many corn-based dishes are hard-core, group-identity comfort foods in the Americas? It's like that for chickpeas in their homelands, too.

Rhetorical question of the day from FB: "If two vegans don't like each other, is it still called a beef?"

Bummer. I always loved feather/down sleep things, but both of my wives had nasty allergies. Current GF, like me, is a fan of the feathers so we sleep on a feather bed, with a down comforter and feather pillows. It's a nice change (for me, for you I totally get that it would be hell).

We do roasted veg a lot, including mushrooms (also cremini, most of the time. Whole if they're small, halved or quartered if they're not. Pretty tasty.

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/bite-house

Yes, the pendulum of hyperbole is now on the backswing. Let's take a look at that, shall we? Here's the actual list of ingredients: Water, pea protein, canola oil, coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, cocoa butter, mung bean protein, methylcellulose, potato starch, apple extract, salt, potassium chloride, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, sunflower lecithin, pomegranate powder, and beet juice extract. Not hard to parse out, right? Proteins to replace the meat proteins, fats to replace the animal fats, starches to act as binders, and then flavoring and coloring agents. Although "natural flavors" can conceal a host of dubious things, the only "scary, unpronounceable" items on that list are potassium chloride and methylcellulose. Potassium chloride is mostly used to make foods savory while reducing sodium in the form of salt, and also to dial up the food's nutritional profile by adding potassium. Both of these are positives, by any measure. Methylcellulose is... (gasp, shudder) plant fiber. You know, the stuff that the USDA estimates only 5% of Americans get enough of* (but 66% *think* they do...So unless you're keeping a detailed food journal guess which category you're probably in?). Also, it's already in a bunch of other stuff you're probably already using. Bottom line, I suspect most of us would not have to dig very deeply at all into our cupboards and pantries to find items containing more unpronounceable ingredients than you'll find in a Beyond Burger. There are many reasons to eat or not eat faux-meat products, but the ingredients list is a non-factor. *I'm not picking on Americans here, I'm pretty sure the figures for Canadians are pretty similar. I've just recently been re-reading the research on the subject, so it was fresh in my head.

Rather a recurrent theme in this thread from its inception, in fact. Edited to clarify: For all of us, not Jo specifically.