chromedome

It's always hard to judge from a photo, but I'd say your assessment is probably correct (and yeah, being "ooze-phobic" won't help). The other thing is that it thickens further as it sits, so can be absolutely just-so but then become drier again if you don't plate it immediately.

He wrote comedic fantasy novels, but that's like saying Alain Ducasse might know his way around the kitchen. They started as a loving spoof/tribute to the pulp fantasy tales of the 40s, but quickly grew into something entirely other. He has something of the same off-kilter sensibility as Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), but with more depth and, thankfully, he was much more prolific. Under all the silliness the Discworld series contains some highly intelligent and impassioned writing, and Pratchett has been described as "the best satirist England has produced since Swift." A.S Byatt, a winner herself, lobbied hard but unsuccessfully to have him shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The character Natchbull Smeems crops up in one of the late Discworld books, Unseen Academicals, which is set at Unseen University (the Disc's premier school of wizardry). He's the Candle Knave, responsible both for overseeing the candle-making crew and for seeing that all the sconces and chandeliers are fully fitted with candles.

I go the opposite way and bump up the butter in most recipes, finding it improves the texture.

I have no information to contribute, having never been to Brooklyn, but I have to at least give a warm hello to anyone who chooses a Terry Pratchett character for their username. As it happens, I've been reading "Unseen Academicals" aloud to my GF this past few weeks.

I live in a neighbourhood of old houses and lots of green space, so mice are a year-round thing but spike at this time of year when they begin looking for indoor nesting sites. I don't mind, because they pose endless entertainment for our three resident kitties and the two frequent visitors (my daughter's cat, and my GF's daughter's cat). Our younger two are still just youngsters and I actually got to watch "mouse school" in session when the GF's daughter's cat was here to visit. He came trotting up with a very unhappy mouse in his mouth, spat it out - pah! - on the floor between them, and then sat back and watched. Our two dabbed at it gingerly with their paws, for all the world like adolescent girls facing a plate with offal or tentacles on it, much to my amusement. Periodically the mouse, with laudable determination, would spot a gap in the felinity and make a break for freedom, but Marshmallow, the older cat, would chase it down and bring it back. All the while my elderly Willow kitty, a fearsome hunter in her younger years, was watching them with a hilarious expression of incredulity. Cats can't roll their eyes, but her eyes were the only part of her that wasn't an eye-roll (if you know what I mean). She was for all the world like a pensioner volubly despairing over "kids these days" and their inferiority to the sensible, hard-working cats of her youth.

I'd been making progress, but the No Frills near me had whole pork shoulders at $0.50/lb. If I had more room, I'd have bought the 10 or so remaining in the case.

I LOL'd at "Sidewalk Tart." That probably means I've lived in sketchier neighbourhoods than you have.

My late wife was a supertaster, exceptionally sensitive to bitter and tart flavors. Those are some of my favorite ingredients, so it was something of an adjustment.

I'd trip over that more often than the three inquisitive kitties and my 100-lb canine shadow.

Nice. My hometown of Halifax is rich in Lebanese food, thanks to the 70s diaspora, and I always try to grab some when I'm there.

We have that too, and a folding step stool, but the slide-out platform seems neater and more convenient. It might never happen, but it's something to dream about.

Yeah. I'm 5' 7" myself, and on tiptoe can get anything that's not at the very back of the very top shelf, but she only comes up to my shoulder. For her it would be a game-changer.

If you want to play seriously with alternative flours, it's best to have a small bag of gluten flour on hand as well (you may find it sold as "vital wheat gluten"). A spoonful or two of that will make up for any deficiencies in the structure and crumb of your bread.

Host's note: this topic was split from A Small NYC Kitchen Reno 2017. That's useful. I don't know what you'll be storing in yours, but I can assure you that mason jars and cans add up the pounds faster than you'd think. My diminutive GF was very excited the other day to see a photo of kitchen cabinetry with a slide-out shelf at about knee height, purpose-built to stand on when reaching things down out of the higher cupboards. That's now number one with a bullet on the list for the kitchen in our putative future dream home.

Got my first-ever batch of sauerkraut fermenting in the basement. A 2 kg batch, which seems pretty adequate for a first attempt. No pic, because...well...sauerkraut.

That'd be a pretty spectacular formatting error.

One of my pet peeves is when those "3-ingredient" or "4-ingredient" recipes include something like "2 envelopes of instant onion soup," or "1 box spice cake mix." That's not one ingredient, people. It's anywhere from 6 to 20.

You misunderstood me, I'm afraid. I was agreeing with you that if you're doing it right, the pleasure of being "surprised by new revelations" won't stop any time soon. In my case, the big epiphany came when I moved to Vancouver after growing up in rural Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Vancouver's a fine food city, and I was overwhelmed by all the new flavors. That's what led to me going to culinary school, some 20 years later.

I totally get this, Scott. I'm a pragmatist, and don't belong fully to either camp. I think all of us who are passionate about food and drink have one particular hill we're prepared to die on, and Neapolitan pizza is yours (or one of yours, anyway...I don't know you, and you may have several more that haven't come up in conversations I follow). FWIW, I think that Neapolitan pizza now exists as its own clearly defined "thing," and that to my mind the various tweaks and riffs are "Neapolitan-style," or "Neapolitan-influenced," or what have you, as opposed to "Neapolitan pizza" per se. And speaking as a guy with 20+ Linux distros sitting on thumb drives and optical discs on his desk, open-source software is an excellent analogy.

Not if you're doing it right...

Why, the usual confrontation of tradition vs. innovation, of course. What else? To put it another way, we had equally passionate, thoughtful and intelligent people debating sharply divergent opinions, with some asperity - we've all had this debate before - but without unnecessary rancor or ad hominem attacks. Also, with an audience open to hearing and evaluating new arguments, should any be discovered. I'm always good with that. Of course, it's worth bearing in mind that today's tradition was yesterday's innovation. Tomatoes themselves are a relatively recent addition to the Mediterranean canon, and it's not hard to imagine a few-centuries-ago Neapolitan pizzaiola sneering at a red-topped flatbread and declaring "Call that thing whatever you want, but it's NOT pizza!"

I saw one of those in Value Village once and was sorely tempted, but they were pretty corroded and ultimately that decided me.

Well, you know...food, electricity...

LOL It's more than I've ever paid for one, but I drive disposables by choice. Also I'm a cheapskate.

Depends how well he wields that axe, I suppose.