chromedome

I "more or less" clean as I go. Things I'll be re-using (ie, favorite knives) get washed right away. Small items I'm done with go to the dishwasher, large items get rinsed and stacked alongside the sink for later hand-washing. I wipe down and sanitize counters, and put away ingredients, as needed. The stack of stuff beside the sink may or may not get washed after the meal, depending on how I'm feeling. If I'm tired, or just plain have better things to do, I'll put off the hand-washing until after lunch the next day (mornings are writing time).

Here in Atlantic Canada, $1.69/ea is a pretty standard in-season price, though they'll sometimes be less (and cheaper again in bags of 3-5). Off-season price can often be $2.99/ea.

If any Canadian bakers are following this thread, you can get whole milk powder at Bulk Barn.

I haven't repaired a Breville but I have replaced thermal fuses in other small appliances. The instructions on that page are pretty clear and straightforward.If you've previously done any electronics work at all, you should have no problem.

Or to summarize: "When life hands you lemons, gild them."

Boil it, steam it, stir-fry it, make slaw...

Cool. You should send that to The Mother Earth News, it's exactly the kind of thing they publish for others to be inspired by.

Good food in retirement complexes is a growing trend...not necessarily in all (especially the low-cost variants) but in many. It's often attributed to the Boomers ageing out, and to their collective unwillingness to accept sub-par food. They've got the clout to change things, and they will. As a massive generation arriving just as the world of commerce discovered demographics, it has literally been "all about them" (all about us, I should say, since technically I'm considered to fall into the last of the Boom) from the beginning, and that's not going to change much at this late date.

Sounds like you got a Friday afternoon unit. Or gremlins.

I've used the "water" from tomatoes and from shredded cucumbers (the tomatoes worked better), so I can see no reason why broth wouldn't work as well. I don't use much liquid other than eggs in mine, so it was more a matter of using something up as opposed to looking for an identifiable flavor.

At the retirement complex where I cooked for a few months in the off-season, FWIW, the busiest night of the week was Friday when we offered steamed mussels. The house dietitian insisted on reduced-sodium recipes for most meals, but we made liberal use of herbs and spices to compensate. I've been encouraging my own mother to try different things, because she's in the early stages of Parkinson's and one of its effects is that it reduces one's ability to taste. My suggestion was that she might find enjoyment in flavors she'd considered too pungent when she was younger, and she's finding that to be the case (blue cheese was one of our first experiments). Just as an aside, some authorities in the field of gerontology advocate for the selective use of MSG in feeding the elderly, because it reaches the brain through a different channel and can help keep them interested in food (often a concern). I would presume that other umami-rich food and condiments with similar glutamates probably have the same effect.

That's a combination I'm fond of as well. It works with hot-smoked, but I've also done it with cold-smoked salmon that was in the fridge just long enough that I didn't fully trust it. You lose the cold-smoked texture, but the flavor is still great. At my restaurant, when it was open, I did an eggs Benny variation with my house-cured gravlax which was pretty good (he says modestly).

I used to serve much the same dish (no Maldon, salmon visibly cooked) at the farmer's market, on a fresh-baked roll. I mostly did grilled salmon and salmon tacos as a lunch thing, but I hit on the notion of using my trim as breakfast portions.

I find that infuriating, especially in places where the range hood is on an outside wall and it would have been easy to do. SMH.

I use it in lemonade, lemon curd, lemon loaf, lemon ice cream, and tisanes. It's a nice accent.

...and/or conching your own bean-to-bar chocolate.

Lemon balm isn't one of the herbs I use most, but my sense of humor dictated that I had to plant some (my landlord's name is Melissa).

My lemon balm, oregano and chives are all up and running. My sage didn't make it, it seldom over-winters well in my neck of the woods. I have a bunch of things started in peat pots...we aren't moving this year as originally planned so I'll be doing a lot of things vertically and in nooks and crannies around the yard, and I'll also have a plot out at the GF's parents' place. It's a few more weeks until we can reasonably plant, here, and unfortunately there's going to be a lot of rain between now and then (pretty much all of the next week, for starters) so it might be a while before I can work the soil properly. I have two dozen cloves of my father's garlic planted. As I've mentioned elsewhere he'd been hand-selecting his garlic (Music, a hardneck cultivar) for size over a period of several years, and now routinely gets individual cloves in the 25-30 g range (about an ounce each) at the time of harvest. He passed away in March, but I'm going to keep the strain going. Mom still has lots in their original bed, too, which will be harvested before she sells up and moves into town.

I quite agree. I ate a salad with chopsticks in front of my mother, years ago, to her bemusement. When she served the ice cream for dessert she said "I suppose you're going to eat that with chopsticks as well?" ...so I did.

Everyone gets a turn. Life is very democratic, that way.

Pretty fair fare at the faire.

That's my son-in-law. My daughter knows how to cook frugal stuff (they're on a limited budget) but he basically only eats about a dozen things, and most of them come out of a microwave. It drives her crazy (personally, I'm rooting for her to outgrow him at her earliest opportunity).

Bourbon is, as a rule. You'll find pockets of aficionados in the big cities, and the rednecks get stupid on Jack (not bourbon, I know, but in the same vernacular) but that's pretty much it.

I have a lot of the thin, flexible plastic sheet-style cutting "boards," which I find ideal for that task. They slide easily between the cake and the cooling rack, and provide enough support (with a careful hand under the middle, of course) to easy shift the cake to a plate or cake board.

Urine from the big cats is prized among discerning growers for its ability to repel deer and raccoons, as well as most other pests. Even a cat from the other side of the world, apparently, smells like trouble.