chromedome

My mom never especially liked cooking, though she'd hammer out a serviceable meal when Dad was at sea. When he was home, and after he retired, he was always the one who cooked. Mom was a pretty fair baker, though, and eventually (after my childhood) they did own a bakery. Her main cakes were a sultana cake (a sort of pound cake with raisins), a cinnamon-swirl loaf and a really good lemon loaf, and something called a "Katherine cake" which was baked in a tube pan and fell somewhere between a regular butter cake and a pound cake in texture. My birthday cake was always a Katherine cake, with a piece of cardboard over the hole in the middle so it could be iced as a large round. She also made a cookie I especially loved, called "crisp & chewies." These were a sort of a spicy molasses cookie with currants, and they were wonderful. I really need to get that recipe from her, I haven't had them in years. To be clear, I say she "was" a good baker because she seldom does it any more, not because she's dead. Dad passed away last year, and she'd mostly lost her taste for sweets anyway, and Parkinson's is making it harder for her to do anything in the kitchen. I always try to fill her freezer with ready meals when I'm visiting, so she can have healthy, balanced meals with zero effort.

I recently bought a snack out of morbid curiosity that would doubtless elicit strong reactions from many of you. There were several packages in the discount bit at my local supermarket of...crunchy olives. (??!!!) They turned out to be ripe black olives, dried to a raisin-like consistency (I know we lost some of you there) and then coated with a spicy, starchy crust, like beer nuts. They were...not bad...I guess...other than their fundamental weirdness.

I'm also not a fan of mint and chocolate together, though I'm fine with either flavor on its own. Except in an oatmeal cookie...chocolate has no place in an oatmeal cookie. Those were designed by God to contain raisins.

The ones you eat are sweet almonds. The ones that give the over-the-top almond flavor are bitter almonds.

There's a scene in the movie "Never Cry Wolf" where one of the native hunters grins a gap-toothed grin at the main character, points to his nearly-toothless mouth, and says, "This is what happens when a meat-eater starts eating sugar." (may or may not be verbatim, it's a lot of years since I saw the movie)

My confession is even more shameful. After a week away, I'll sometimes...(blushes)..."mark as read" and promise myself to catch up at some indefinite point in the future.

Yeah...a good choucroute garnie, like Iggy, is worth a million in prizes...

Western fiddleheads and eastern fiddleheads are from different ferns, and the west-coast version is apparently rather rougher on the digestion. The ones we get here are perfectly safe, as long as you're not an unreasoning devotee of vegetables cooked "tender-crisp." Just cook 'em all the way, and you're good to go. Comparisons to fugu are pretty over-the-top. Reflect that cassava is downright lethal in its raw state, but when properly handled is one of the world's major staples. Fiddleheads are nowhere close to playing in that league, as toxicity goes.

Public Toilet Stress Disorder: the struggle is real.

I popped in last night to taste the microbrews and buy a growler. I'm working now, but I'll post some pics and give some initial impressions later on today.

I've bookmarked that one for future use. I do love me some lemon curd, and since I lucked into a (vintage) Vitamix at the thrift store for $25 I've been looking for reasons to use it (I prefer a stick blender for soups, and I don't do smoothies, so it hasn't seen a lot of play so far).

Seen today on Facebook:

Basically regular foil, but one side is treated with (I believe) silicone, making it a sort of metallic parchment. Seems to work, though I've only used it a couple of times.

IIRC Moosehead was the best-selling import beer in the US for...I dunno, about 15 minutes back in the 90s. I'm not a lager drinker either, so I don't drink either their flagship brand or Alpine (their top brand here in the local market, launched decades ago by the current owner's father). I'll certainly check out their microbrews, though, and give my opinion on them FWIW.

LOL But what is a lobster except a vehicle for butter?

LOL

I feel that way too, as I get older. (I know it was a typo, but it was a good one.)

No, but there's lobster. I think that'd work for most people.

This is literally three blocks up the street from where I live. I'd wondered what the construction was all about. They'll be offering five microbrews at a time, and although they don't say so I suspect the most popular will make it into the regular line if demand warrants it. http://huddle.today/moosehead-opens-its-small-batch-brewery-and-taproom-in-saint-john/

Saint John is a blue-collar industrial town, and (frankly) something of a backwater, but it still seemed strange to me that there hadn't been a vegetarian restaurant here in ages. The proprietors are well-established in the local community, wife Sarah as a vendor of vegetarian food at a local farmer's market, and Keith as the sous-chef at the popular Saint John Alehouse, where he's been doing vegetarian nights for years. The new place will be called Vegolution, and it's opening next week. Disclosure: Though I'm a dedicated omnivore, I contributed to their crowdfunding campaign because...geez, no vegetarian restaurant, nearly two decades into the 21st century? Oy. Besides, now I'll have a place to take my sister when she's here from Vancouver.

His back-and-forth banter with Ruhlman was one of the most entertaining things on eG back when I was a newbie. I never see a walrus without thinking of him.

Perhaps line individual cheesecake molds with bacon? I have a vague recollection of doing bacon-wrapped savory cheesecakes that way once, but it was during a spate of 110-hour weeks so I recall little of how it turned out.

It looks like a Rational to me as well, but I'm guessing the image is reversed. The controls should be on the left.

It's delicate, so it needs gentle handling. Preparing it whole, as shown by Liuzhou, certainly helps. If you'd rather not deal with the skin and bones at the time of service, you can fillet it like any other flat fish (four smaller portions, rather than two larger ones). Simmer the rack and skin for a nice little bit of fish broth, which you may then use to make a sauce if you wish. Steaming is a good choice, or cooking it en papillote. You might also poach it or bake it in some kind of sauce, though with the latter two there's a bit of difficulty in getting it onto your plate in one attractive piece.

I'll ask her. There are any number of similar-sounding recipes online, but of course it's the little details that make the difference between "a" recipe and "her" recipe. Also, in her generation of her family she is the acknowledged inheritor of her mom's genius in the kitchen.