chromedome

Though functioning AC in the midst of a muggy summer is certainly a worthy reward, in the end...

True enough. Though the net practical effect is the same.

https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/dining/mark-kurlyandchik/2019/07/07/loud-restaurants-noise-affects-taste/1638352001/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Unfortunately, all of those helpful suggestions assume that the building's owners/management will be rational and open-minded. That is a very, very large assumption.

When the supply of refurbs runs out, I expect they'll offer equivalent credit on other products. Not much else they *can* do.

There's a national recall of some bison products due to potential E. coli contamination. https://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-07-16/eng/1563315202785/1563315204824 I actually have a package of the Sensations brand extra-lean ground in my freezer, but the date codes are a couple of months removed from those in the recall.

If you care to take a deeper dive into the topic, you can download the FDA's Bad Bug Book as a free PDF, and have a read through the section on B. cereus. Speaking as something of a crank on the subject of food safety, I think everybody should have a copy.

A point of pedantry, perhaps, but you don't "buy" an ebook as a rule. You purchase the rights to use it, which may or may not remain yours with the passage of time. That's why my general feeling is that a book worth owning must be purchased in hardcopy form. This is a terrible inconvenience at moving day, I'll grant you, and at that I move more than most people, but I like having my own modest reference/entertainment library against the day when all the world is not a Google search away.

Yes, often they're store returns and are simply "new out of the box" as opposed to "new in the box." It is a peculiarity I often remarked upon as a retailer that everyone wants their store to have a liberal return policy, but nobody wants a product that has ever been out of its box. On one occasion I had a gentleman - old country German - ask to see a specific radio that was on sale. He took it out of the box, opened up everything, even took the earpiece out of the battery compartment, and then announced he'd take it. When I started to pack up the one I'd just brought out for inspection, he stopped me cold and said he'd like a new one. He truly did not understand why I was upset*, and was having none of my insistence that this *was* a sealed unit before he put his hands on it. It had been opened, and he wanted one that hadn't been. Simple. (* To clarify, this was relatively early in my retail career. By the time a few more years had passed this kind of thing was old hat to me...and I'd also become a past master of re-packing products so they were indistinguishable from new.)

FWIW, as a longtime retailer, I buy refurbs whenever possible. As a rule they're at least as reliable as new, and in some cases have been through additional testing processes/troubleshooting. Also, sometimes a "known-defective/problematic" part automatically gets replaced on refurbs, even if it hasn't failed yet. My current KA and the last one (currently still living with and working well for my ex-wife), and all but one of the computers in my house, were bought refurbished. So were my tablet and one of my two e-readers (the other was a gift).

LOL ...and here was I, thinking it's a good excuse to blow the dust off of my Instant Pot and cook up some chickpeas.

I can see how an eatery named "Woody's" would become a must-paint for Dylan.

LMAO! Yup...Like Alexander, you're fresh out of worlds to conquer.

The tree itself, as both an individual organism and a unique restorative intervention, seems unimpeachable. Its almost-guaranteed use as a wedge for less laudable projects is/will continue to be the sticking point, unfortunately. Even so, I would love to see the restoration go forward.

https://psmag.com/ideas/most-controversial-tree-in-the-world-gmo-genetic-engineering?utm_source=pocket-newtab

I have a random handful of cheapies that I use for various things (each one has a thing or two I prefer it for) but the one I use most is a handheld, adjustable "Kobra" by de Buyer. The guard is actually functional, the blade is continuously adjustable through a pretty wide range of thicknesses, and the blade is very sharp. A quick rinse, air-dry, and it's back in the box (yeah, I'm the guy who keeps the boxes).

Meanwhile, from the other side of the table.. https://www.qsrmagazine.com/menu-innovations/arbys-creates-new-food-category-meat-vegetables

"Save the liver"?

Offered without commentary...(except to note that there have been similar stories about the other main vendors as well) https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/07/google-defends-listening-to-ok-google-queries-after-voice-recordings-leak/

...and your impressions?

There's also this approach, which I tripped across while researching an article. Seems like a happy compromise all around, though uptake would have to be pretty significant in order to have the kind of impact they're describing.

I tried that a few weeks ago, when they were handing out samples. Tasted very much like my homemade.

Eat Smart brand sweet kale salad kit, the 794g size, listeria. Affects all provinces from Ontario east. https://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-07-09/eng/1562715652993/1562715655270

The CBC looked into it, and concluded that they were nutritionally pretty similar to beef. Comparable for calories, protein content and so on, with the addition of fibre (a positive) but with extra sodium as well (a negative). So there we go. As with any other burger, the joker in the deck is how they're served. The CBC article cited a 1,000 calorie Impossible Burger, as served in a specific US restaurant, which clearly isn't a good option for an everyday lunch. Duvel's comment that "one burger a month isn't going to save the world" was true enough in its context, which is to say a single individual who only occasionally eats a burger. (North) Americans, OTOH, eat a whole lot more than one burger a month, and in that context the occasional meatless meal as an alternative to a burger or other beef dish - whether it be a faux-burger at the local fast-food joint or (as the OP urges) an innately meat-free dish like the curries Sartoric posts in the meal threads - can be pretty impactful. There are other, more academic papers out there, but I came across this article last year and it does a pretty good job of explaining the basics of why beef is such an area of focus. It certainly goes beyond "virtue-signaling" (a phrase I have come to dislike) and that was certainly not what I meant to imply by comparing the conscious selection of an occasional meatless meal to one's choice of light bulb. Trying to shift omnivores (as most of us are) en masse to meatless eating is a big ask, and it's just not going to happen. At least, not within any kind of meaningful time frame. Making it easy for people to do something, instead, is at least the thin edge of the wedge. Meatless Mondays got a bit of traction. Beyond and Impossible are getting traction. Restaurants that offer mostly plant-based foods, but don't make it an extremist "meat is murder" thing, are getting some traction (a renewed focus on flavor and presentation has certainly helped, too). A very small minority are concerned enough about climate change to stop eating meat (and flying, and so on). A very small minority are defiant enough about climate change to bypass pollution controls on their vehicles (yeah, "pollution porn" is a thing) and barbecue extra-large steaks outside of vegetarian restaurants. Most of us fall in between, willing to accept the reality of climate change but not yet concerned enough about it to make any major lifestyle changes. In the shorter term, that's where the big changes will have to come from. Faux burgers are just the grist for that particular mill. (Disclaimer: I'm not advocating here for anyone to give up meat, buy stock in Beyond or whatever else, and I'm certainly not holding myself out as an example. In my own household I'm perfectly comfortable eating less meat, but the women in my life have been inveterate carnivores so we still use a lot. Also, while I'd love to have an electric or hybrid vehicle, I drive a low-mileage minivan instead because a) I live in an apartment and plugging in is not an option, b) I can't afford one, and c) several times a year I need to haul vehicularly-challenged members of our extended family in large numbers, so seven seats was a must.)

My first harvest from my (newly planted) garden consisted of a couple of green onions that had been missed last autumn and over-wintered successfully, my garlic scapes, and a large bag of "volunteer" greens (specifically, in this case, dandelions and wild sorrel). The dandelions were added to a "mess o' greens" which otherwise came from the supermarket, and the sorrel plus green onions plus a few scapes plus some chicken broth became a small pot of soup at lunch today.