chromedome

I meant the lobsters, actually. I live on the East Coast, and lobstering is a significant part of the New Brunswick economy.

Just for the record, that's the price we have in the supermarket right here, where they're landed. There are a couple of small shops that undercut the supermarkets, but not by much (no sense leaving money on the table!).

I did a turkey for the benefit of my girlfriend and her family, who have that tradition. Nobody in my family is keen on turkey - I'll eat it but it's not a favorite, my parents just wouldn't eat it at all - so we always did something different at Christmas. This year, I did a leg of lamb as the second entree. For sides there was dressing for the turkey, mashed potatoes, whisky-glazed sweet potatoes, baked buttercup squash, carrots, steamed broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus (Sobey's had a great sale on the latter) and Brussels sprouts sauteed with bacon and caramelized onions. For dessert I had a spread of Christmas cookies, plus an apple pie with quick-and-dirty caramel sauce made by melting a bar of Macintosh toffee into a bit of hot cream. One of the cookies I made was meringues piped into rings with a star tip, so they'd resemble little wreaths, and then I topped them with green and red sprinkles to complete the resemblance. When my GF's little granddaughter saw them the next morning, she squealed "Sprinkle doughnuts!!!" and immediately wanted one for breakfast.

I looked it up in my copy of Bo Friberg's The Professional Pastrychef. He says that 1 pound of fresh beets, peeled and put through an actual juicer, will yield about 1 1/4 cups. If you don't have a juicing machine, he suggests shredding them as finely as possible and then press the juice through a sieve (I suppose muslin or cheesecloth would work, too). Yield will be lower if you do it manually, but he doesn't give any indication of how much. He does note that freshness makes a difference to the yield as well, so it's probably one of those "try it and see how much you get" kind of scenarios. It's springtime in SA right now, so I suspect any beets you find will have been in storage for some time. Perhaps start with 1 kg, then you're pretty likely to have enough when you're done.

So after a fashion, I suppose it's come full circle.

Apparently, that's exactly what they're getting.

I mentioned it in passing in the "What are you preserving?" thread. I went very basic for my first time, just the basic 2% brine and no additional flavorings. I was inspired by an unusually good special (local, freshly-harvested cabbage at $0.19/lb, prices typically range from $0.69 to $0.99 in my neck of the woods).

...though as for that, you're more than welcome to pass over the Nanaimo bars and opt for butter tarts instead. (...coughwithraisinscough...)

I'll second that, it's one of my cold-weather staples. Next batch will be even more fun, because it'll be my own home-fermented sauerkraut.

An innkeeper of my acquaintance had a traumatic six-month interaction with TripAdvisor shortly after she bought the inn in question from the original family. One of her customers apparently used the hotel's own wi-fi (gasp!) to post a positive review of the place. TripAdvisor immediately suspended the inn's listing (this, in the midst of her first tourism season after buying the place) because *obviously* this was a fake review posted by the inn itself. Because, you know, anybody receiving excellent service would automatically tell himself, "Geez, two days from now when I'm someplace else, I really should log onto TripAdvisor and says something nice about these folks." It took a great deal of back-and-forth before TripAdvisor finally backed down, and by then she'd been invisible on the site for most of her first season. They're flourishing now, due to some canny marketing decisions, but it was a stress she really didn't need as an introduction to the business. I know others in the hospitality industry (innkeepers and restaurateurs) who've had guests try to shake them down for freebies and/or discounts, lest they be hit with a negative TA or Yelp review. In a couple of cases the guest has made good on that threat, to the detriment of the operator. Yelp itself famously shakes down hospitality operators, surfacing positive reviews for those who spend to advertise with the site and negative reviews for those who refuse. That's not hearsay or an urban legend, that's been tried in court and Yelp has won. The courts essentially ruled that they could continue with their 21st-century take on the classic "protection racket" ("Nice reputation you've got there...it'd be a shame if it burnt down..."). I recognize that those sites, and similar operators such as Foursquare, provide a valuable service. Unfortunately they also exercise power that's disproportionate to their accountability.

Raw garlic in oil, because the oil creates an anaerobic environment where C. botulinum can flourish. Cooked rice because Bacillus cereus loves the stuff. B. cereus can produce enterotoxins directly in your gut, or in the rice itself before it's eaten. It's triply problematic, because 1) the toxin is heat-stable; 2) the bacterium itself "spores up" for protection and can survive high temperatures and emerge fully functional; and 3) once established, like Listeria monocytogenes, it can continue to flourish at refrigerator temperatures. Fortunately, for most people, B. cereus passes quickly with only 6 to 12 hours' misery in most cases. The usual disclaimers apply (it can be more serious for the elderly, the very young, those whose immune systems are already depressed, etc).

...but yours goes to 11.

That would be gluten flour, aka "vital wheat gluten." Turns your AP flour into the equivalent of bread flour.

They're widely used in pastry as a substitute for almond paste, but they're roasted to break down the cyanide. You've probably eaten them in marzipan form, or something of that nature.

When I was teaching my skater son to cook, I explained to him that the curved sides of the pan were "a half-pipe for food." That's when the light came on, and he quickly grasped the technique after that.

Several years ago the Earl's restaurant chain in Western Canada took a similar tack. A series of commercials had an animated pig, bull and rooster bickering, each calling your attention away from its own species and toward the other two. The pig sounded very much like Alfred Hitchcock and had similar features, which I found amusing.

On a similar note...

My GF and I are in much the same boat. She cheerfully describes herself as a "lizard," who'd be happy to perch under a heat lamp all day (and has been known to light the woodstove in August). Unfortunately for her she's a redhead, and has been sharply limited over the years in terms of how much time she can spend on a beach (ie, 15-20 minutes). If you ever want to know what "rhapsodizing" sounds like in real life, start her on the subject of SPF 100 sunblock. This past summer she was able to spend whole days at the beach with her toddler granddaughter, to our shared pleasure.

The Canadian Tire nearest me was the last of the three in the city to sell out, which took until lunchtime today. I was not one of the buyers, as I'm still equivocating. Best Buy Canada has them on for the same price, but is apparently also sold out in my area and online.

I could handle a day or two in a Sunbelt state, 'round about mid-February, but that would be about my limit. Where I live there are few midsummer days that break into the 30s C (say, low-mid 80s F), and I dread them. The idea of voluntarily spending my time getting roasted 24/7 has little appeal.

I'm still undecided about picking one up. As much as y'all are really giving yours a workout, I'm not entirely persuaded that I'll actually use it much. Oddly, it's the yogurt function that might tip the balance. I've often toyed with the notion of buying a yogurt-maker, but just couldn't bring myself to spring for another single-use gizmo. The IP would scratch that itch, and anything else I eventually do with it would be a bonus. Of course aficionados typically describe the Vitamix machine as "life-changing," and I use mine to, uh...crush ice. Occasionally. So I'm still hesitant...

Turns out they're in the Superstore flyer at that price, too, as part of their Black Friday promo.

Hmm. Tempting.

Completely OT, but every time my eye sees this title I read it briefly as "Scotch guacamole" and have a bit of a moment. Of course, I see it for the first time each day while I'm winching my eyelids open with my first mug of strong tea, so there's probably some sort of connection there.

On our side of the border, the current football dynasty - Laval's Rouge et Or - punched their ticket back to the national championship game, where they'll meet the University of Western Ontario Mustangs, who were one of the great dynasties a couple of decades ago. The Mustangs have a truly dominant ground game...in their playoff this weekend against the Atlantic champion Acadia Axemen, their three running backs and QB accounted for over 450 yards on the ground in an 81-3 (!!) victory. Looking forward to the championship game, it should be a doozy. It's next Saturday, 'cause our football season ends before yours. It's cold up here, doncha know.