chromedome

That's what crossing the border feels like for a Canadian. There's many a hard-drinking New Brunswicker who can cite in detail exactly how much you're allowed to bring back after a given length of visit, and I'm sure the same holds true for border areas of the other provinces. If "Two-buck Chuck" had a Canadian equivalent, it would be "Ten Buck Chuck" or something like that (or maybe "twelve-buck").

I've made up a large quantity of sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, because I'm going to host the building's kids for a cookie-decorating day soon. I've also done a couple batches of shortbread cookies (I'll do another batch with browned butter as well, and one batch old-school as fingers), and a batch each of German cinnamon stars and what my GF knows as Russian tea cakes (aka pecan meltaways and many other things). I've baked the pieces for five little gingerbread houses and will do another batch soon to make a church, and will assemble a little gingerbread village on a large cake board at some point in the next week or so. Have made a batch of 8 mini-loaves of date-nut loaf (one of my Mom's holiday staples) and 9 mini-loaves of banana bread with nuts and chocolate (one of my GF's holiday staples) and will do one more of each, as well as a two batches each of cranberry-orange loaf and pound cake-y Sultana loaf (my mom's other two holiday staples). I'm thinking I'll plump the raisins with a bit of rum, just 'cause. Still to come (aside from what's already been mentioned) are more of the zimmtsternen and Russian tea cakes, a batch or two of linzer cookies and spritz cookies, a few kinds of chocolates and possibly some breads. I've got a stack of small dollar-store baskets on the side table near my desk, and plan to fill those for the neighbours and others peripheral to our circle, and slightly larger ones for family. Most years I start too late and don't get through half of what I'd intended, but this year I'm pretty much on track. This is the upside of work slowing down at this time of year.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-north-american-french-fry-shortage-could-be-on-the-horizon-1.4712386

Possible salmonella in President's Choice coleslaw. So far it's Ontario and points west, but possibly national. https://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-12-03/eng/1575413977507/1575413982486?utm_source=r_listserv

https://qz.com/1754394/intermittent-fasting-has-become-a-productivity-hack-for-men

LOL Might want to move that post to the humor thread...

Try this: https://www.heirloomgardener.com/plant-profiles/edible/cockes-prolific-corn-with-a-comeback-story-zm0z19szhoe Argh. That one hits a paywall as well, but not until you're halfway through. Here's another, which doesn't... http://www.thecarolinagoldricefoundation.org/news/2018/4/2/now-it-is-found-the-story-of-cockes-prolific-corn

Regrettably it's paywalled to anyone without a Premium membership. I found what appears to be the same recipe elsewhere: http://spoonbreadforhieronymus.blogspot.com/2008/12/amazing-five-hour-duck.html

We had the other extreme with mine. She lived to be 93 (she was born in the portentous month of August 1914, as the world slid into catastrophe) but unfortunately was long gone into dementia by the time she passed. This may perhaps be why I'm not big on zombie flicks...watching the mortal remains of a loved one shuffling around aimlessly strikes a little close to home. After caring for her for 20 years my mom was terribly concerned about going that way herself, but we're feeling easier on that point as time goes on and she exhibits no more than ordinary getting-older forgetfulness.

I worked in a lot of call centers when I was younger, so I'm very patient with them (one advantage of the new technology is that you don't have to listen any more to the sound of your tier 1 customer service rep flipping frantically through a paper binder). Sadly, training is often entirely inadequate at the lower echelons, and it's necessary to insist politely but firmly on being escalated. Sometimes more than once. In fairness, occasionally even a fairly robust training program fails to prepare one for the unexpected.

I'm only a few years older, but I saw them in action regularly in my grandmother's kitchen.

https://www.tastecooking.com/art-cooking-demo-disaster

Cilento brand Mozzarella di Bufala Campana, possible listeria. Quebec and Ontario only, at this point. https://inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-11-28/eng/1574992579686/1574992585649?utm_source=r_listserv

"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...)