chromedome

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.

Here's one you don't see every day....Heinz baby food, turkey stew 8+ months, is recalled for potential presence of insects. Presently they're saying BC, Newfoundland, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. I'm guessing it'll be updated to "national" at some point, given that spread. http://inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-08-16/eng/1566012117302/1566012119453

Except, alas, one's knees...

Yesterday's haul for me consisted of salad greens (leaf lettuce, plus whatever was in the random "mesclun mix" that I planted), broccoli, broccoli raab, baby beet greens, green onions, watermelon radishes, and a few random handfuls of dandelion and sorrel that happened to cross my path at the wrong moment. I also planted more chard, spinach and beets (for their greens alone, at this time of year), and moved some struggling tomatoes and cucumbers from their planters to the main garden. They may or may not survive, but they were doomed in their old location so there was little to lose by trying.

We'd spoken of him just recently on another thread, in the context of decades-ago Vancouver, but Konyk was originally from Manitoba. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/food/hunky-bill-bc-perogy-pioneer-restaurateur-pne-mainstay-dies-at-88-542741922.html I guess I know what I'm having tonight for dinner...

Disclosure: Though I'm not vegetarian/vegan, I supported their crowdfunding campaign just because a) I thought they had a good chance of succeeding and wanted to back their dream, and b) sheesh, a city in 2018 (as it was then) without a single vegetarian restaurant? It just seemed wrong.

When I was growing up on the East Coast in the early 70s, peaches came from a can. Full stop. Eventually we started to see fresh ones creeping into the supermarkets, but they were either a) rocks, or b) mealy and disappointing. Then, as a teen, I hitched to Vancouver for the first time. As I was passing through the Okanagan, I got a lift with a farmer who gave me a small bag of the just-picked peaches he was ferrying to his roadside stand. For starters I'd never seen a peach the size of a grapefruit (!), and I'd certainly never tasted one like that. Afterwards I had to find a gas station where I could wash and change, because I was so sticky with peach juice (up past my elbows, and down my chin and shirt) that the wasps wouldn't leave me alone.

Possible botulism in salmon caviar from distributor KananaskisTrade, recall currently affects Ontario but might become national. https://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-08-14/eng/1565794116255/1565794118158

Another page on the same site gives a bit more context: https://thegreenergrassfarm.com/2015/01/29/forbidden-fruit-the-interesting-story-of-the-currant-and-pine-trees-ribes-genus/

I just got back from visiting my mom in Nova Scotia. In the town where she lives (Truro) there's a little restaurant, succinctly named Great British Grub. One of their offerings, and a popular one to judge by their sidewalk patio, is a "full English." We pass by there every morning when I accompany my mom on her morning walk, and on this past visit I watched as a woman picked up her slice of black pudding and daintily dunked it into the ramekin of baked beans, in exactly the same way one might dunk a doughnut or cookie into a cup of tea of coffee. Frankly, that never would have occurred to me.

(Mentally adds Lemniscate to the list of Known Pratchett Aficionados...)

Yeah, drawing the line is a difficult call to make (hence the current academic debate). At a certain point a given behavior becomes obsessive and destructive, even if it is normal and acceptable in and of itself (ie, a desire for health). Defining that point is one of those archetypal "the devil is in the details" scenarios.

As a sort of epilogue to this thread (no wonder I had trouble finding it, it's been a year already!), some academics are questioning when "orthorexia" crosses the line and becomes a pathology, and whether it merits a place in the DSM. https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2019/07/28/medhum-2019-011681.abstract https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666318315290

Truthfully I'm not a fan of the super-sweets, which is why I so seldom eat corn anymore. I don't dislike it the way Liuzhou does, I just find it cloying. I *could* grow my own, but my garden is small and I'm reluctant to sacrifice a block to anything that's not a big-time favorite.