chromedome

I think they're a pretty niche thing. My father grew them, and I have a small mason jar of pickled mouse melons he put up last year. I also have the leftover seed, and will try to grown them in next year's garden. I can see them being a big hit with the grandkids.

For some reason my brain initially interpreted "sprouts" as a verb, and I had a hard time understanding where you were going with that. Obviously my caffeine consumption today has been inadequate.

I haven't, no. It's just...lower. My daughter's cheapie Walmart branded slow cooker used to do a full rolling boil at Low, now it simmers. In my case it's more complicated because mine has 2-, 4- and 6-quart inserts, and it bumps the heat up a wee bit for each of them. I typically fudge that by using the 4-quart setting for the 6 and the 2-quart setting for the 4, and not using the 2-quart insert much at all. Energy usage? Unwanted heat in the kitchen? Not my question to answer, but those are the two factors for me.

I've "hacked" mine and my daughter's through the simple expedient of cutting a wire coathanger and shaping it to fit the inside of the slow cooker. The "crock" sits on top, and it cools down the cooking temperature to something a bit more reasonable.

The Speerville mill here in New Brunswick does an organic "Whole White," from locally grown wheat, which is quite good. If the Bob's should become unavailable, PM me and I'll find out how much shipping would be to send you some. It's stone-ground, so texturally it'll be slightly different, but it makes good bread. I found it to be a bit soft, so I picked up some gluten from Bulk Barn and added a wee bit of that to each batch.

I feel for you. Condensing my mother's two chest freezers into the smaller 7 cubic-footer was a heck of a challenge, and set me pretty far back in the quest to empty my own.

Alas, wait staff can't treat that as an indicator of "done-ness" any more, because too few diners understand that particular convention. Heck, half of the time we're lucky if they know how to use cutlery at all. I die a little inside every time I watch my (don't get me started) son-in-law using an overhand, trowel grip to fork food into his open-while-chewing face. (...it's not his mother's fault, btw, she raised three kids single-handed after kicking their father out. One boy is full-on autistic, the daughter was every caricature of the teenager from hell, and my SIL is a slug. I respect her greatly, but you only have time in the day for so many battles and table etiquette didn't make the cut.)

Growing up we never did a turkey because nobody in my family cares for it much, but now my nearest and dearest are big on the traditional meal. This year I got to do the turkey, so I separated the breast and dark meat and roasted them in separate pans. Mashed potatoes, boiled carrots, baked squash, rum & butter glazed sweet potatoes, roasted local late-season asparagus, broccolini from my backyard garden, greens from my backyard garden, pan-caramelized parsnips, a whole roasted cauliflower, and plenty of stuffing and gravy. Also I made a braided loaf, "just for nice." And there was homemade cranberry-orange sauce. Y'all can tell I like my side dishes, right? For dessert, apple pie and carrot cake. No photos, because I didn't think of it.

I read that initially as "amberjack on banana loaf" and had a bit of a moment.

A good choice, as long as you have a strong bladder. Supposedly back in the Algonquin days nobody wanted to leave the table, for fear of the maliciously perfect things she'd say behind your back.

Most CBC Radio shows are downloadable as podcasts from this page. The direct link to download Fridge Light is here.

Actually, many do sing but many do not. I guess it comes down to confidence in one's own voice, or at least one's ability to sound feminine while singing.

From the glorious silliness that is "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert":

One more for everyone's delectation: Authentic Chicken Parmigiana

I think this is legitimate for our thread, since it addresses at least the "drink" side of food and drink... http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/drunk-man-arrested-claims-he-time-travelled-to-warn-of-aliens-1.3619979

In fairness, the same could be said of Julia Child...she had the training, but was not a restaurateur. Nonetheless, she used her pulpit to change how millions thought of, and understood, cooking. In his less-exalted way, whatever one things of his on-camera persona, Alton is doing the same.

Well, just to put that into context for you...I'm a chef and former restaurateur, and my lunch most days is whatever leftovers are in the fridge (usually slopped onto a plated, or into a bowl, and microwaved). I eat oatmeal for breakfast almost every day, and dinner usually involves kids and grandkids, so lunch is my opportunity to make leftovers go bye-bye (my GF, bless her heart, simply doesn't see them). On days when I'm caught up on the leftovers situation lunch might be a sandwich not unlike yours, or if I'm really pressed for time and energy I'll just nuke a hot dog. Not that I won't do a nice lunch if there's a reason, you understand, but it's the exception rather than the rule. I'm sure the same holds true for a lot of people here, so post away whenever the mood strikes. We won't judge.

I didn't remember the raisin rant and resulting thread, though I was here a lot in those days. I used to be surprised when people told me they hated raisins, but now I'm merely resigned. More for the rest of us, is all I can say (I cook 'em into my oatmeal, which is my near-invariable breakfast). Also, I'm the polar opposite of several posters on that thread...I'm sorry, but chocolate chip cookies are in no way comparable to a perfectly executed oatmeal-raisin cookie, the greatest exemplar of the home baker's art. Cake? Pie? Pudding? I value them all, but if there's an oatmeal raisin cookie on the table it's the first thing I'll try. I also (just to emphasize the point) love raisin pie and raisin squares. In fact, I sometimes make a recipe that came from author Lucy Maud Montgomery's personal notebook, called "Mock Cherry Pie." It's made by cooking equal quantities of raisins and cranberries in sugar syrup, then thickening the syrup and adding a dash of almond extract. It's pretty good, if not easily mistaken for real cherries. One of my texts in culinary school was Bo Friberg's The Professional Pastry Chef. In his discussion of brownies, he mentions that in an earlier edition -- as a European-trained baker without North American cultural context -- he'd suggested raisins as a perfect add-in for brownies. As he ruefully expressed it, "I haven't been in that much trouble since I used someone's fabric scissors to cut paper..."

I've spent most of the last few years divesting myself of kitchen stuff, so it requires a bit of thought. I'd say probably my AeroPress would be a shoo-in for one of the two spots: It fits the timeframe, and since I (usually) only have one coffee a day now I really appreciate having a good one. The mint-condition Vitamix I found for $25 at the thrift store has been used exactly twice, so that's not a strong contender. I've just picked up a backup for my 80s vintage Cuisinart food processor, but I'm not really going to count that one. The pressure cooker I bought for and then inherited from my father might become a good long-term friend, but I've only used it once so far. So...I'd go with the pasta attachment for my KitchenAid as the second one. My old manual Imperia died a couple of years ago, and I'd missed making pasta regularly until I bought this a few months back.

I sometimes arrive at the same point with long-cooked dishes, but from the opposite direction: I can't resist picking at them while they're cooking, so by the time they're done I'm full and can't eat.

I grew up in rural Nova Scotia eating rabbit and venison and moose, and on one occasion* shot myself a few squirrels so I could see what they tasted like. I concluded they tasted much like rabbit but were infinitely more work because they were so small in comparison, and abandoned that particular line of inquiry. Later we moved to Newfoundland, where I got to try a few other things. This gave me the opportunity later in life to troll my mostly-urban classmates in culinary school: We'd been discussing offal, to the distaste of most of my classmates, and I piped up that I was a big fan. "It's often the best part of the animal as far as I'm concerned," I told them, "I know back in Newfoundland the old-timers are all about the flipper pie, but give me the seal's liver any day." As I'd anticipated, this led to a chorus of revulsion centered around a rough theme of "Ew, you ate SEAL?" As that initial reaction died away, someone asked the question I'd been waiting for: "What does seal taste like?" "Well," I said, "It's dark and rich and rather strong-tasting. I'd say it's gamier than moose, but not as strong as whale." Yeah, they lost their minds over the whale thing, which was exactly what I'd intended. Just for the record, said whale was not killed deliberately as food (it got caught in a gillnet and drowned, and was a small and non-endangered species, so the fishermen pragmatically butchered and shared it). Right now my freezer contains a few small pieces of my father's last deer, and a nice bear roast from one of my Newfoundland uncles. The flavor of bear depends heavily on what it's been eating (it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "garbage in, garbage out") but this was a really good one. * I asked my father what they tasted like, and he invited me to find out for myself. The proviso was that if I shot it I ate it, and wouldn't whine about liking it or not liking it. Also, I had to skin and gut them myself.

Okay, almost any kitchen. And I forgot to mention the faux-woodgrain strip down the handle, to match that classy 70s faux-wood panelling in the nearby dining area.

The one I had combined avocado and harvest gold, so it would fit with the decor of *any* kitchen.

In part because of this discussion, my first use of the pressure canner I inherited was for putting up some stock (we're critically low on freezer space).

A meme went by on my Facebook feed a few weeks ago that defined one's vegetable crisper as "The place where good intentions go to die..."