chromedome

Late to the party, but my copy arrived yesterday.

Here in Canada, the Loblaw's chain sells ready-to-drink cold-brewed coffee in cartons and in single-serve cans. My GF likes her coffee at room temp (don't ask), so my usual morning routine includes making a cup for her when I first get up so it can cool before she rolls out. I bought a carton of the cold-brew once when I was going away for a few days, so she could get her coffee fix without having to wait. She found it perfectly acceptable, if not as good as our usual brand prepared conventionally and allowed to cool. It was far too weak to my taste, though that was a given.

We have a lot of moose here in NB, as well. My late wife grumbled once about all the "watch for moose" signs..."I've been watching," she said, "and I haven't seen one in almost 18 months of looking." It was a clear case of tempting the universe to respond, because the very next day she came around a sharp bend in the road and nearly ran into a big bull (in my little Protege, yet!). She was still having palpitations when she got home. "People told me 'horse-sized'," she said, "but nobody ever specified 'Clydesdale'..." She reckoned if it hadn't been for the dangly bits, she probably could have driven right underneath him in the little Mazda.

In Canada the corresponding brand is Bernardin, perpetrators of one of my favorite tongue-in-cheek corporate slogans: "Because you can."

I remember some mention of icebergs being a priority for one or the other of you. Kinda have to go early for those, regardless.

Out of Milk! That's the one I spoke of upthread, that made me want to stick a skewer through my own eyeballs. I'm happy it makes you happy, though. ETA: I couldn't think of its name for the life of me, and I can't tell you how happy I am that I won't have to Google it to make that nagging mental itch go away.

Yeah, June's a bit early. I've gotten pretty bad chilblains hitchhiking there in June. Mind you, I've also sweltered at the roadside in February, which was an equally odd feeling. Much-loved Newfoundland humorist Ray Guy (now sadly deceased) joked that mainland bunnies got to wear white in winter and brown in summer, while their island equivalents were forced to stay mottled all year in the interest of camouflage.

I keep a list on paper and add to it through the week, then (cough *usually* cough) take it with me when shopping. A few years back my late wife got a bee in her bonnet about using an app to keep our shopping list, so we could each update the list from our phone in real time, and so on. It was a good idea in theory, and the app had great user ratings, but it "simplified" my existing 5-minute process to about 2 hours/week. And that's not counting the time I lost scrolling through it madly while in the store. Oy.

Send 'em a letter. Tell them they need to do a special run of "Blood Clots" ice cream for Halloween, using Shoprite ultra pasteurized cream.

Nah. That's what happens when people who have no idea about tartar sauce start making it for the tourists. Seriously, when I was a kid I knew NOBODY who ate tartar sauce. Fish 'n' chips came with vinegar or ketchup, and that was pretty much it.

It occurs to me belatedly that a longtime hot-weather favorite in my family is just canned tomatoes, served with toast. On a really hot day, you put the can in the refrigerator first for an hour or two. I haven't had that in years, but now that I've thought of it I probably will.

LOL Well for me, "a better breakfast" would involve dropping the Miracle Whip in favor of real mayo. But I understand the sentiment.

Always happy to have someone on hand who's up to speed on the science.

Lots of us here have cooked professionally at some point along the way, and a few still do. It's a great resource for advice and encouragement.

Quaker oats are very common up here, but I've never seen the grits. Probably a regional thing...I'm guessing gallon jugs of molasses are probably harder to find where you live, for example, but every supermarket has them here. Similarly, my California-bred late wife was shocked to find that the liquor stores here carried no more than a dozen kinds of tequila (selection has increased since, but it's still sparse), while the rum shelves spanned 16 feet of wall.

So that's Wednesday night's dinner taken care of...

Wow. I feel a lot happier now about the price of the 5-lb box locally.

Are you looking for one to use in a commercial kitchen, or just at home? Robot Coupe is a good brand, but it's a bulky and costly piece of gear.

Literally? (You just never know, around this place...)

LOL In another forum, I opined once that - if the eventual collapse of our world leaves anyone competent to pronounce an elegy - it would probably boil down to "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

The point of putting a hole in the egg is so the air pocket inside can expand in the heat without blowing out the shell. I don't own an IP or other pressure cooker, but in all likelihood it reverses the process - because you're cooking under pressure - and forces water into the hole, where it causes those irregularities. That's just off-the-cuff theorizing (and I'm only on my first cup of tea) but it seems plausible.

My daughter just moved to a new apartment (the result of a "reno-viction" by her old landlord, but her old place was so vile we welcomed it) and finally had a space to hang her great-grandmother's spice cabinet. The contents of the jars? Well, my grandmother passed away 10 years ago and had stopped cooking some time before that. When I go back there in a couple of weeks, we'll go to Bulk Barn and pick up some fresh stuff to re-fill them with. My grandmother was born in the portentous month of August 1914, and was 93 when she passed away. Her older sister outlived her by 8 months. On my father's side, several of my great-aunts and great-uncles lived into their 90s as well. Both sets of my wife's grandparents were nonegenarians (the last one passed away just a few months ago), so my kids have some pretty robust genes in the pool.

The direct approach! I like it.

Better late than never.