chromedome

I was a high schooler/underaged drinker before the breweries switched to screw-off bottle caps. Millennials are always impressed by my ability to pop the cap from a bottle using just about anything, but it was a knack born of necessity since I was absent-minded and didn't reliably remember where I'd put my church key.

Oh, wait! Even better... Eugene and Dan Levy should sponsor it as a promo for "Schitt's Creek."

I can absolutely see someone cheerfully coughing up the money in order to name the washroom after their least favorite politician.

Very smart.

My late wife was bad for that, too. Admittedly I buy smoked hocks *primarily* to cook with sauerkraut, but I do enjoy them other ways as well.

Food Recall Warning - Crisp & Delicious brand Chicken Breast Nuggets recalled due to Salmonella http://inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-01-25/eng/1548461716196/1548461718217

My grandmother's house was on a lake, and when I was a kid there were two kinds of mint growing right at the verge. One more or less stayed put but the other invaded the lower lawn heavily, taking over about 2/3 of it. My father used to complain that on a hot summer's day, the oils of the mint plant would just about knock him off the riding mower. After she died and the property was sold, the new owner quelled the mint by bulldozing the entire site and building a McMansion on it, blocking the view of the lake from any position other than inside the house.

I pulled shrimp, salmon and cod (the latter caught by my Newfoundland relatives) from the freezer last night and made chowder. No pictures because I'm lazy, and because chowder isn't super-photogenic at best.

The most recent one I've gotten was for salmonella in some Hello Fresh and Chef's Plate meal kits. Distribution is national, or nearly so...from the Maritimes to Manitoba. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/about-the-cfia/newsroom/food-recall-warnings/complete-listing/2019-01-21/eng/1548130312229/1548130314953 I'll try to keep up on it, for the benefit of Canadian regulars here, but be warned in advance that "life stuff" and absentmindedness make me an unreliable correspondent.

Schools here in Atlantic Canada have a zero-peanut policy, so peanut-free snacks are a must regardless of your own child's allergy status. I expect it's the same in other provinces. Halloween candy is uniformly made in peanut-free facilities, presumably for similar reasons.

I got hooked on falafel in my native Halifax, which had a great influx of refugees during the Lebanese civil war of the 70s. I worked in a mall with a surprisingly good Lebanese place in the food court...it got to the point where the local indie paper retired the Best Falafel category of its annual "Best of Halifax" reader's poll, because it just went to this place every year without fail. I've made them occasionally, but not nearly often enough. On the upside, a pair of recently-arrived Syrian women have opened a cafe right in side the YMCA where my GF and I go 3-5 days/week, so I can get my "fix" there.

I find that mine frosts the *most* in summertime, because that's when the air is at its most humid. Kerrie's 8-year accumulation of ice roughly equals mine after 6 months.

My mom's War Cake recipe is very similar in style and technique, though hers has more sugar and less fat. Hers has more water and flour as well, so I expect this version makes a softer cake. I always liked the flavor of mom's (made it several times as a kid, just learning to bake) but found the texture to be somewhat chewy.

In practice, their emails seem to arrive late in the evening for whatever reason. But no, I don't specifically check before eating. I don't buy a lot of processed foods, or even prepared salads, so it's pretty seldom I have to actually check a product to see if it's been recalled.

I don't know if the equivalent US agency has an email mailing list, but I get updates from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency all the time. The subject line/header tells you what the recall is about (E. coli, salmonella, listeriosis, allergens, etc).

"Divided by a common language," as they say.

Cool. I use a Mason jar lifter for ceramic ramekins, but it's not as good with custard cups and their sloped sides.

Black cake is a tradition in Nova Scotia as well, probably because of the Caribbean rum/molasses connection. Someone, probably Peter the Eater IIRC, posted a recipe here once upon a time.

LOL Speaking as an older brother, "younger sibling" *is* a reason.

I spent the summer and autumn of '80 working the inshore fishery in Newfoundland with my father and my uncle. My uncle tried repeatedly to teach me the necessary handful of basic knots, and failed miserably. I think he thought I was deliberately screwing it up, in order to avoid responsibility, but in truth I was just as frustrated as he was. I was never any good at 3D puzzles, either, or anything in general that requires spatial perception (I bang my head a LOT).

I ate a lot of rabbit growing up, as well. My father snared them and occasionally potted one with his little .410 shotgun, and we also raised them occasionally. We mostly ate them as stew, though fried was not uncommon either. I could skin and gut one with my pocketknife by the time I was 7 (during those brief intervals between losing pocketknives, at least...).

I find the texture is improved the second day. I usually make mine up ahead, and reheat a portion each morning for breakfast. If I forget (which happens occasionally) I'll make 'em up but won't eat them day of. I'll have something else, and then have the new batch the next day when they're "right" in my estimation.

On a Daiso-related note, I don't know if you saw this on your local news: https://www.narcity.com/ca/on/toronto/news/japans-version-of-dollarama-just-opened-in-ontario-and-you-wont-be-able-to-resist-their-products

Something I tripped across the other day while working, and thought it might amuse some of you (and it's at least somewhat on topic...) https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/325536

One of my former restaurants was in a rather nice little seaside in. I had a customer stay a week once, an elderly and curmudgeonly English gent (he clearly relished the curmudgeon role) who told me that he looked forward to each Canadian visit, in part, because it had become impossible to get a decent muffin back home. There's been a decade of enthusiasm for all things artisanal in the bread world since, so I doubt it's still true (if in fact it was, even then). It amused me, though, because he reminded me of a perpetually sour co-worker I'd once had. That co-worker was from New Zealand, and one of his recurring gripes was that it was impossible to get decent lamb in NZ because the good stuff all got exported.