chromedome

A local mill where I live has Red Fife (the mill more or less single-handedly brought back grain-growing in the Maritimes). It does indeed make an unusually flavorful loaf.

I grew up in Nova Scotia, and subsequently lived in Newfoundland, Saskatchewan, BC, Alberta and New Brunswick. The first I'd heard of eating cheese with apple pie came about 10 years ago, when my California-bred wife brought it up (and was astonished to learn that this was news to me). This is not to say that people in those places don't combine them, but it had at least never come to my attention in any of those places (privately, or in restaurants).

I believed that to be an American idiosyncrasy, and strongly regional at that, until it came up last year here on the site. IIRC it seemed localized to parts of PEI and Ontario.

In this area, anyone who knows a hunter tries to get dibs on a deer neck to make mincemeat with.

It's the built-in software that determines how the beastie operates.

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but up here it's common at this time of the year to see mandarins/clementines at regular supermarkets with a bit of stem and a leaf or two still attached. You probably wouldn't need to buy many oranges to get enough leaves for a fruitcake or two.

The jar lifter that comes with your canning kit is ideal for lifting ramekins out of a water bath without poaching your fingertips. I know you can also tip out the water first, and perhaps other people can do that successfully, but I usually manage to waterlog one or more of my custards instead.

Most varieties are hard as a rock and inedibly tart, but there's a lot of variation. One of the universities in the PNW has been collecting cultivars from all over the continent for decades now, and apparently they have one or two that can be eaten out of hand like an apple. That'd be interesting to try. I collected about 15 pounds of quinces from one of my neighbours this year (a much better harvest than last year's).

Several years ago I watched a movie called "The Accidental Tourist," starring William Hurt as an uptight travel writer and Geena Davis as the dog grooming free spirit he becomes involved with. In one scene she's helping his siblings, played by Kathleen Turner and David Ogden Stiers, unpack the groceries. They are shelving the groceries in...(wait for it)...alphabetical order. Geena Davis holds up a box of macaroni and asks innocently "Does this go under P for Pasta, or M for Macaroni?" They give her the side-eye for just long enough to be truly, miserably uncomfortable before Kathleen Turner growls, as if talking to a small child, "'E'...for Elbow macaroni."

True that. My late wife had a neighbour in California who raised two pigs. On slaughter day, they simply shot the first one right in the pen, alongside the second, and dragged it out to bleed, gut and rough-butcher it. The second pig spent that entire two hours screaming at the top of its lungs before going the same way. She was gifted several pieces of pork by way of apology for the noise, and said it was pretty clear which cuts were from the stressed hog.

LOL My GF and I camped a month or so ago, but it was in the back of a plain ol' Chrysler minivan. I suppose we can call it "princess" camping though, because there was a feather bed over the air mattress and a down duvet over us.

I love those little butane single-burners. I had four that I used for catering and farmer's markets, and have kept two of them (the other two went to my daughter and my GF's daughter). They're great to have for when the power goes out, and I usually throw one into my vehicle before any long highway drives in winter, just in case. I also pull one out for wok cooking, every once in a while.

When I was a farmer's market vendor, the farmer at the next stall raised Berkshire and Tamworth hogs. He labeled his lard as "Happy Fat," which was a great conversation starter. He was perfectly up front about it being lard, but the labels got people to stop and ask. Once he had their attention, he could explain to them about the differences between his lard and the hydrogenated product on store shelves, and for that matter the (then) universally hydrogenated, trans-fat-containing vegetable shortenings. He was quite the character. One of his favorite sayings was that "TV is for people who don't have pigs to watch..."

That article has now been retracted. Apparently the lurid early version of the tale was not accurate.

Wow...those UK restaurateurs have definitely been "seen and raised." https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/9k7ena/a-vegetarian-chef-killed-a-customer-and-then-served-him-to-other-customers

They were tasting three plates: one of cacio e pepe, one of carbonara, and one of tripe. ETA: The penny just dropped. I thought that you'd thought the guy in the video had mistaken cacio e pepe for carbonara. Rather embarrassing for someone with my history of smartassery to overlook it in someone else. ("Sar-chasm: n, The gulf between the person making the joke and the one not getting it...")

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/31/657853587/illinois-farmers-put-rare-pig-back-on-dinner-table-to-save-it-from-extinction

"But it all makes work, for the workingman to dooooo...."

They're still around. I have two or three left from when my restaurants were open (the rest have fallen by the wayside somehow over the years).

Actually two kinds. Gyromitras are basically edible if you cook the hell out of them, though some people do react badly to them. Verpas are just bad news. It's not hard to tell real morels apart from either kind of "false morel," though.

I had a woman and her mom come into my kitchen one day to ask whether I could accommodate a seafood allergy, given that my menu was pretty seafood-centric. Hubby had life-threatening allergies to shellfish and fin fish, and had not brought an epi-pen with him (!!??). I showed them my setup, and assured them that I could prepare uncontaminated food for him as long as they advised the server when they sat down that they were *that* table. So what did they order? Wife and mother-in-law both ordered the lobster bisque and seafood appetizers, followed by fish entrees. I couldn't help but wonder if poor hubby had recently bought life insurance...

On a related (but broader) note: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/25/658588158/5-major-crops-in-the-crosshairs-of-climate-change

LOL I consider those to be "just nicely ripened." They gotta go a bit longer to be consigned to baking, in my house.

Got my new batch of kraut put together through the course of the day, to the tune of about 4kg of cabbage. There are just the two of us, so that should get us most of the way through winter depending how often we get the urge for choucroute garnie...

I can't answer for supemarkets in your area, but yeah...as Liuzhou said, usually "retired" laying hens. They'll vary in size depending on breed, but on the infrequent occasions I find them in the store I always buy a few for my freezer. They're like any other critter, the longer they live the more flavorful they'll get. They're too tough to cook conventionally, but I still like to work with them. Aside from stock or broth, they're great for stewing in a slow-cooker. They take a long time to break down, so you can treat 'em as an all-day braise at the lower setting. If I get a large one, I'll also usually cut off the breast and use that separately. I slice them horizontally into 2, 3 or 4 oblongs (depending on size) and give them the schnitzel treatment. That works well, and (given that the birds themselves are usually fairly inexpensive) makes for some cheap meals. Also, you still then have the rest of the carcass for more conventional uses.