chromedome

Seems eminently logical. On one hand we have your professional skills, on the other we have your predilection for a) complex and sometimes improvisational cooking, combined with b) a predilection for cocktails. One would anticipate and necessarily prepare for the occasional de-tipping of a finger, I should think. (I was fortunate to have an experienced RN and a good first-aid kit - hers - close to hand, as it were, the night I took off the end of my finger on a mandoline...sans cocktails though, I was working at the time.)

Well, blanching and freezing buys you a lot of time to think about it. For something quick and easy, they make a nice soup. Pull the strings, simmer them in chicken or vegetable broth, then buzz them with a blender. I'll sometimes add a bit of green onion or sorrel to mine, but that's basically it. No recipe as such, just "that looks like enough."

With beef I'm primarily interested in the braising cuts, like the short ribs and chuck. Pork, I favor the shoulder but will eat any cut quite happily. Right now I'm buying a lot of chunked-up breast bones from one of my local supermarkets, where they trim the ribs to make them nice and neat. Cooks like ribs, tastes like ribs, costs 1/3 to 1/4 as much (depending whether ribs are on sale that week). With lamb I'm also indiscriminate as to cut, but I buy it less often because it's pricey here. We do have a couple of local producers whose lamb is exceptionally good, so when I do splurge it's because I've seen theirs in a store. Very partial to offal, though I seldom indulge because it's a solitary pleasure. Though I *have* gotten my GF to try liver with the accompaniment of bacon, mushrooms and fried onions, and she has come (to the shock and horror of her inner 8-yo) to quite enjoy it. Now that she's back on her (keto) diet, and we're eating separate dinners about 50 percent of the time, I have a lamb kidney I've been looking forward to.

Or so one would assume/hope. It wasn't specified. For Quebec and recent visitors there, "Deli Shop" brand pate has been recalled for potential listeria. http://inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-08-30/eng/1567201658590/1567201658898

By all means, you've been missed. When someone goes "radio silent" for a while, I always worry that some mischance has befallen them.

I haven't noticed it in any stores in my neck of the woods, but got a couple of little sample pouches included with some corn tortillas I bought this past week.

St. Hubert chicken nuggets, Ontario and Quebec, recalled for bone fragments. http://inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-08-30/eng/1567201591867/1567201597538

Supermarket salad prices are clearly much lower where you live.

I don't doubt it for a moment. I had a Fagor at my restaurant, a much less storied but still serviceable brand. It cost me around $3500 IIRC, and we installed it ourselves (this was in 2008, so a bit more recently than yours...*and* in Canadian dollars). The first season I was open I had only a domestic dishwasher, which took a full 90 minutes per cycle. Seriously, when you're already working 100-hour weeks, the last thing anyone wants is to be washing 30-40 covers' worth of dishes after closing time. The upgrade wasn't just money well spent, it was an absolute prerequisite to continuing. Definitely value for money.

I still do bread by hand occasionally, but use my Zo to mix my day-to-day bread (a honey-whole wheat sandwich loaf my late wife was partial to, which I believe originated in the old DAK recipe book). I give it a second rise after the dough cycle ends, then shape it and pan it by hand and bake it in my oven. Baked some tonight, in fact.

My dream is to one day have a decent conventional dishwasher for day-to-day, and a commercial unit with that 90 second cycle for when I'm cooking a holiday meal or engaged in some other project. Currently I have a vintage Kenmore portable that I bought (well) used for $49, which cleans beautifully and fits nicely into my compact apartment kitchen.

Grilling wouldn't be your best choice, unless you're looking to work out your jaw muscles. A braise would be the traditional option, or (as Rotuts suggested) sous vide would be the non-traditional way to make it tender. Schnitzel is an interesting suggestion, one I wouldn't have thought of. I'm guessing you'd have to hammer it pretty thoroughly, but if pork leg works I don't see why veal wouldn't.

It does look like a nifty little gizmo for small/single-person households. Always assuming, of course, it actually gets things clean. I briefly had a countertop Danby, and ran no more than 3 or 4 loads through it before putting it back up for sale on the same site where I'd purchased it.

Yeah, it looks like they've cut what would be called the calf muscles in a human (oh, the irony!) away from the bone and packaged them separately. Kind of a bummer, when veal bones add so much to a braise.

No surprise to anyone here, of course... https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/29/755115208/duped-in-the-deli-aisle-no-nitrates-added-labels-are-often-misleading

Ultimately we all use what makes sense for us. I still use my $19 rice cooker instead of my Instant Pot when I make rice, because it's smaller and less fuss. And I haven't discarded my slow cooker, even though the IP can theoretically replace that, too, because I find my braises come out better in a slow cooker (and mine has interchangeable inserts in three different sizes, which is useful). I haven't bought a CSO because it's too small for my purposes and I personally won't spend that much unless it can outright replace my main oven (which, to forestall the inevitable comments, I know some of you do...but it wouldn't work for me). I have no sous vide rig because it simply doesn't interest me except as a technology. My induction hob is basic and low-end. (Shrug) It works for me, and that's who I cook for. YMMV.

Actually, though I do spoil her, this predates me. After she had her gall bladder out, several years ago, she never really knew from day to day or hour to hour what would disagree (violently) with her digestive system. So she got used to deciding on the spur of the moment, which made dinner later, and the whole cycle just kept reinforcing itself.

Mmmm, yeah...not in my household. You know all those memes about "I've named everything in the house/every restaurant within 'x' radius, and she still doesn't know what she wants for dinner"? That's my little redhead to a T. In fact, she's usually the one sending me those memes. Often nothing's decided until 8 or 9 PM, by which time I've already eaten in self-defense.

"Poor little cheese, you're turning blue! Let's warm you up..."

My brand-new Panasonic microwave has a dial, as well. Everything old is new again, as they say. ...except my knees.

(Shrug) I do the same. I only ever deep-fry in small batches (battered haddock bites last night, for example) and have a small KitchenAid saucepan that I use for the purpose, narrow and tall. In my case, I use about three cups of oil.

Actually, that's a possibility. Sea salt, by its nature, has random and variable impurities in it. It might be worth having another go, using a generic pure salt (ie pickling or kosher salt, not iodized table salt), just to see. Edited to add, for clarity, that an impurity in the salt might be reacting with something in the tomatoes to create the bitterness.

They can be soooo unreasonable...

https://business.financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/kfc-latest-to-partner-with-beyond-meat-will-test-plant-based-chicken-wings-and-nuggets-in-atlanta

Yeah, the heat makes me feel like a centenarian, too.