chromedome

Wearing my former food-safety trainer hat: Anna's right, molds can introduce mycotoxins into foods even when they're apparently confined to the surface. Also, as Lisa says, many pathogens (especially Listeria monocytogenes) can quite happily keep on keepin' on even at refrigerator temperatures. I share your horror at the tragedy of wasted lamb stock, but OTOH it's an excuse to eat lamb again soon so you'l have the makings for a new batch. That, plus avoiding a nasty bout of GI distress, adds up to a win-win.

Yeah, that's it. I can't speak for Dejah but we've bought it a few times for my GF, who's keto-ing this autumn, and she's liked it. If you think of it as skinny orzo, rather than as "rice," you'll pretty much have the picture. What's available in my neck of the woods is a different brand (the name escapes me at the moment) but I'm sure it's pretty similar.

Ours is dominated by a large vase of cut flowers, and has a small laptop semi-permanently at one end. Much of the rest is usually buried under pet and grandkid stuff, so any time more than one or two are sitting down to eat we need to spend a few minutes clearing the table first.

Basically nuts held together by sugary meringue, and usually (but not invariably) topped with royal icing or a similar glaze. My daughter has a (diagnosed) gluten allergy, so I make them every year. There's actually an entire class of German Christmas cookies made with nuts and egg whites, and varying in the details.

Zimtsternen, since it's that time of the year.

Hmmm. I'll have to bear that in mind. I usually buy one or the other of those to make a few things at Christmas time. I've not had any problems, but neither did you until this time.

LOL Why report a boring ol' meteor when you can monetize a YouTube channel about your awe-inspiring UFO sighting?

Yeah. I'm still not sure if it's a really, really bad location, or a really, really inspired one.

"Location, Location, Location" Dept: This is the local Weight Watchers office in my city. On the left, a burger joint; on the right, fried chicken.

Sage Derby is a nice "gateway drug" if you can find it there. It's got a nice herbal flavor to it, and the veins in it are green rather than some sort of disturbing red or purple, so it's perhaps a bit easier psychologically.

I basically can't hear people at all in any kind of retail establishment. My actual threshold of hearing, as tested a few years ago, isn't too bad...down about 5 percent in one ear and closer to 10 in the other, pretty much the normal range for a guy in his mid-50s. The problem is that I can't pick voices out of background noise (ie, I need a favorable signal-to-noise ratio). To make things worse, my ears appear to be most efficient at picking up exactly the kind of frequencies generated by HVAC systems and crowd noise. The average Walmart isn't an especially noisy place, for example (most days) but for me the HVAC is thunderous and reduces me to lip-reading. Bars and restaurants are worse, because on top of noise from the mechanicals you've got the din of conversation, you've got music, loud drunken people, etc. Usually I just stay home.

Hmmm. Is it just me, or is that yellow bottle closest to the camera Greek olive oil?

Yeah, the self-rising part is neither here nor there IMO. Even White Lily posts self-rising and regular versions of biscuit recipes on its website.

Kind of a quasi-pierogy, I suppose. Actually, out in Alberta pierogy pizza is a thing. Mashed potatoes, bacon bits, caramelized onions, etc. I've never had one myself, but I can see how it would work once you get past the actual idea of it. Hmmm. Google tells me this is fairly common in the American midwest, as well, especially around Pittsburgh. So I guess this isn't news to a lot of you.

It crops up with other forms of childhood nostalgia, like Cheez Whiz on celery and certain indefensibly bad pop songs.

It's all good. As it happens, my daughter randomly sent me this comic yesterday, and I thought of the thread here: http://explosm.net/comics/2956/ (I didn't post it initially because it's not a "food funny," but what the heck...now I have context)

I get that Jello hankering sporadically every few years. It's often consumed with the leftover half-can of sweetened condensed milk from some recipe or other.

It's here on the Coast as well. I suspect it's a national product for Superstore. Don't remember if I've seen it at Sobey's as well.

For sure. I'm actually in Saint John NB, now, but it's kind of along the way depending which highway you take. (If you fly, of course, we'll have to content ourselves with waving from afar...)

Shades of Monty Python...

Yup, that'd be it. I'd never actually thought about it at a time when I was near the computer, but I knew they must exist. I'd be more likely to spring for the set of nested cutters in different sizes, because I don't bake a lot anymore except at holidays or when the grandkids are going to be around. It'd be handy to have 'em in different sizes.

Up here Tim Horton's uses a hexagonal cut, which I thought was genius the first time I saw it. I'm sure it's a massive production machine, as opposed to a hand-type cutter, but one day I'll see a hexagonal cutter and buy it just for biscuit-making.

Either way, the dress code is the same: a white sports coat and a pink crustacean.

I'm pretty sure I saw Jacques Torres silkscreen something or other on chocolate, once. That's my unsubstantiated memory, mind you, which is increasingly what the Eng Lit professors like to call an "unreliable narrator."