chromedome

My long-ago Vancouver barber vented to me on that subject one day. A friend's daughter had just gotten married and they'd given her the requisite lavish wedding, to the tune of some $30,000 (in 1984 or so!). The couple got back from their Hawaiian honeymoon, and sheepishly said "Mom? ...Dad?...we've made a terrible mistake. We should never have gotten married." My barber was livid about this. "Why we got to spend this much on a wedding?" he asked aloud, animated as only an Italian with three daughters approaching marriageable age can be. "Take that money, make a down payment on a house, now they got something. If they break up, at least you sell the house, you get something back." I felt for the poor guy. He couldn't have made much from that barber shop, and the cost of his three daughters' weddings would probably represent every cent of disposable income he could scrape aside for 20 or 30 years.

Sometimes actually talking it out, and seeing the words in front of you, is all it takes to bring things into focus.

That one, probably the Canadian equivalent to the one Toliver just posted, has now been updated (includes Sysco, which certainly ups the ante): http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-08-21/eng/1566441064966/1566441070819

There's a role for "explainers." It's how I make my living, albeit on a much smaller scale than his.

Of the foods I'd ordinarily encounter, I can't think of any I flat-out *wouldn't* eat. I'd have a qualm over octopus, now that I know how intelligent they are, though if it was served to me I would still eat it so as not to discomfit my host. Being soy-based I guess natto is technically a protein, though it's used more as a condiment. I have not encountered it in real life, but can't imagine that I would enjoy choking down something that basically is salty, lumpy phlegm.

Back in the 80s, when I was hitchhiking a lot, I got a lift with a guy who claimed he'd been the original patent-holder on those foil-topped cups. Said that was the second time he'd been a millionaire. He was quite a colorful character. Claimed he'd made and lost three fortunes, and was then on his way to Vancouver with everything he owned in a station wagon, intent on making a fourth ("..but this time I'm not marrying any damn stripper...").

Have you ever seen a movie called "The Accidental Tourist," with William Hurt as the titular (uptight) travel writer, and Geena Davis as the dog-grooming free spirit he falls for? In one scene she's helping his equally tight-wound siblings (Kethleen Turner and David Odgen Stiers) put away the groceries. They're...alphabetized. She helplessly brandishes a box of pasta and asks, "Does this go under P for Pasta, or M for Macaroni?" They gaze at her incredulously for a few (interminable, uncomfortable) seconds before Turner says curtly, "E. For elbow macaroni."

I think I've seen that same weird texture in eggs that have been frozen after cooking, but without the mediation of large quantities of cream.

I hear it makes corn grow really well... (ducks, runs)

Bummer. My condolences. My mom's had a couple of those (getting a bone graft in her lower jaw, to support the new dentures, then having the implants put in once she'd healed) and they sucked rocks. She mostly survived on pudding and yogurt.

...to be devoured first.

Sounds better than "desolated."

There's a listeria recall for diced, cooked, chicken meat. Currently it applies to 7 provinces, but it'll probably be extended to "national." Currently it only applies to commercial/institutional products, but may expand to consumer products as the CFIA continues its investigation. https://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-08-18/eng/1566177360394/1566177366791

Nothing wrong with seeking help when you need it. Quite the opposite. A friend of mine in Nova Scotia checked himself in at one point when his cocktail of antidepressants, antipsychotics and whatnot went sour on him, as they sometimes will, and the doctors needed to get him balanced again on a revised regimen. He showed up at the desk wearing a T-shirt that said "You're just jealous because the little voices are talking to me." It was as much bravado as he could muster at the time, but it made him feel better in a small way. And he knew a bunch of us (including my kids, who were then still young and loved him greatly) had his back.

I've seen them once or twice at Superstore, so there's hope.

There was actually an earlier cocktail called the Clam Digger which was basically the same thing, except you had to combine the clam juice and tomato juice for yourself in those days. Not my idea of a good time, either way.

That's pretty much my approach to bananas, though I only buy green when forced to it. Usually stores mark 'em down right around the time they're finally getting ripe (by my lights) so I get to pick them up at their best (again, by my lights...my sister's the opposite, and prefers them when the first flush of yellow has barely begun to lighten the green) and only pay half price. I doubt you're betting better papayas in Maine than I am next door in NB, so I'll give that a try next time I see papayas for a decent price.

Well, the fibre-heavy cookies tradenamed as "Bowel Buddies" set the bar pretty low.

Many of you will know that the Official Canadian Cocktail is the (Bloody) Caesar, a first cousin to the Bloody Mary except made with clamato juice. At my restaurant I used to make a "Caesar Caesar," which used a heavily reduced Caesar (cocktail) as the base for a modified caesar (salad) dressing. It was pink, of course, and added some different flavor notes to the traditional garlic, anchovy and parm, but still hewed close enough to the original to not be completely out of left field. Of course we had to explain the joke on the menu, since most of our clientele were tourists from elsewhere.

When my late wife was in the hospital, they brought her a "turkey dinner" in which the turkey was two slices of deli turkey roll, and not even the better-quality stuff at that. I brought her meals from home every day, after the first day.

It's very mild, kind of like a watermelon rind in its faint hints of sweetness and cucumber, but without the faint sourness you get from melon rind. The texture is similar to kiwi, to my mind. As stated upthread it's definitely enhanced by a squeeze of lime (as is papaya, another fruit I considered to be rather a letdown). It plays a nice supporting role when paired with other fruits, and it certainly brings plenty of juiciness with it.

I've hard that, but have yet to see the red-fleshed variety at a store here. It's hard to justify the premium price for such an understated flavor, but I do splurge occasionally and use them as part of a fruit platter or fruit salad.

It's not like they aren't going to eat bugs once they're capable of locomotion, but still...

...and, as a bookend to the original discussion, a look at how NASA's "space farming" technology is/can be applied here on Earth: https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-farms-of-the-future-were-built-for-outer-space-will-they-work-on-earth/

I understand the fascination. When I hitched through Saskatchewan for the first time in summer, I walked down to the edge of a farmer's field and had a really, REALLY close look at the wheat. I'd eaten it all my life, and of course Canada is one of the world's largest producers, but I'd never seen it actually alive and growing. I went to the extent of pulling one stalk from the ground and bringing it up to the roadside with me, where I carefully disassembled it in the sunshine and chewed a few of the unripe kernels. I later got to see barley, rye and oats growing, but that first encounter with wheat was oddly wondrous.