chromedome

When my restaurant was open, I had a wonderful local tea vendor...an elderly couple who sold at the city market, and imported directly from a distributor in China. They carried all the "10 famous teas" (actually 16 or 17 of them...I understand there's a lot of disagreement over exactly which teas belong on the list) as well as other noteworthy but more mainstream offerings. I didn't taste my way through them as systematically as you're doing here, and lacked the experience to brew and taste them this critically in any case, but they were remarkable.

My long-ago best friend in Vancouver, a first-generation Italian-Canadian from Friuli, insisted on fine-to-medium white cornmeal for polenta. Coarse yellow cornmeal, he sniffed, was fine for the coarse peasants of more southerly climes.

I favor good-quality canned whole tomatoes, because here in Atlantic Canada garden-fresh tomatoes come and go in a few weeks and store-bought are usually pretty blah. I use canned rather than diced, because diced tomatoes have calcium chloride added to firm up the cell walls and keep the chunks from breaking down. I look for a smooth rather than a chunky texture in mine, hence whole tomatoes (or even crushed, in a pinch).

It's not just the humane thing, it's the prudent long-term thing to do. Kids with full bellies learn better, focus better, behave better. Kids with full bellies are less likely to turn to illicit activities just to survive. There are lots of other moving parts there, too, but the old adage about the "ounce of prevention" still applies.

You mean the microwave technique in the link?

No, but staying functional without it is sometimes challenging. Especially if you're working multiple jobs, as many SNAP recipients are. Essentially, income supports subsidize employers who don't pay a living wage. Of course, that's a whole other discussion. I don't care for soft drinks myself, basically all I drink is water, tea and one cherished cup of strong coffee a day. Still, there's something to be said for that one little "luxury" that makes the rest bearable. A can of Coke wouldn't be that for me, but I always had butter for table use when my kids were growing up, even during times when I fed the family for a month on what most people considered a week's budget. It was worth it to me.

I was utterly boggled by some of my classmates' ignorance of food and cooking in the broad sense. One young lady in my class was incensed when the instructor told her she had to taste everything she cooked. Apparently -- I kid you not -- from earliest childhood onward, she'd eaten literally nothing but canned soup and boxed mac and cheese, and was livid at being told she would have to put other foods in her mouth. Apparently her reason for getting a culinary certificate was to work at a retirement home where she had an "in" due to nepotism. I feel for the residents, I really do.

If you grew up eating oatmeal made with rolled oats, you'll find the texture is very different. Much more (for lack of a better word) "grain-y" than the rolled kind, more of a risotto texture. I'm not a fan of Bob's oats, to be honest. Conventional steel-cut oats call for 1 part oats to 4 parts water and 20 minutes or so of cooking time; Bob's call for 1 part oats to 2 of water and just 8 minutes' cooking time (IIRC). I found them unpleasant when cooked per the instructions...I went closer to 3 parts water and cooked them longer. When cooked per the directions I found they had an uncanny ability to cling to my teeth.

Sheesh. Sounds like some of the apartments (and landlords) I've had.

I was the opposite. I'd flip mine out of the pan and finish it on the toaster oven's "broil" setting, so the bottom one could crisp up as well.

According to the intro, cheesesteaks were deliberately omitted (along with muffalettas, po boys, etc) as being well enough known already.

A pretty interesting read, though I'm surprised to find hot roast beef sandwiches classed as "regional."

My current one has that, too. Often I'll pop the door to shut it up but, due to one or another distraction (shout out to all the ADD sufferers*) then walk away and forget about it. *By which I mean not those of us with ADD but our family members, significant others and coworkers who put up with us.

In my case, the beautiful moment is watching the penny drop after I've been searching for my mug for five minutes or longer...

In my house, the microwave is jokingly referred to as the "tea storage unit" because I'm prone to forgetting my mug in there.

Sharpen them.

Gotta figure a good chocolatier is welcome just about anywhere.

This site has a bit of an axe to grind, but the image at the top gives a good visual comparison of the two.

Isn't that always the way?

Yeah.

I have little doubt of your popularity among your co-workers.

A bit late on this, but I can assure you that a bit of funk when you open cryo'd meats is absolutely normal. Many's the time I've had a panic-stricken young line cook come to me all of a tizzy, believing that the day's entree would have to be scrapped. It's just how meats wet-age inside the cryo pack. After 10-15 minutes, the smell largely dissipates. If you blot any surface juices from the meat with clean paper towels, then sear or blanch it, you're good to go. Bear in mind, the bacteria that cause funky smells are not pathogens, which typically leave no evidence of their presence. Rustwood is right about bacterial populations, though. Each pathogen has what's called an "infective dose," the population required to make one ill. That might be millions or just a few hundred, depending on the pathogen (it can be frighteningly low with listeria, for example). The larger the original population, the more quickly you reach the infective dose. The same principle holds for spoilage bacteria, though the stakes are lower because most people wouldn't be able to choke down enough of the finished dish to make themselves really ill. (Apologies to those who already know this, but reiterated for the sake of those who don't.)

Sorrel doesn't grow wild in Florida? Admittedly the wild stuff is pretty small, but it doesn't take long to harvest a few cups if you're prepared to look for it. I've added it to salads and soups (an old friend's ribollita recipe springs to mind) for years. Also spanakopita.

Capelin caviar...cool. For those who don't know, capelin are a sardine-ish bait fish that shoals in huge quantities along the coast of Newfoundland. When I was a teen I fished for one autumn with my uncle and father, and capelin were one of the things we caught. We'd dip a seine and corral perhaps 7,000 or 8,000 pounds of them, then sit for the next 12-14 hours and separate them by gender. The males were worth just 1 cent/lb at the fish plant, while the females (because of the roe) were worth 26 cents/lb. To put that into context, salmon (you could still catch them commercially back then) also fetched 26 cents/lb. We separated the males from the females ourselves, because the fish plant hit you hard for the labor of separating them if you brought them in unsorted. And how does one tell the difference between males and females in a sardine-sized fish, you wonder? Simple...the females are the pretty ones*. The males went back into the water to fulfil their biological role with the (very slightly diminished number of) females. *Not at all facetious, believe it or not...the males have rough, grey-black skin and a ridge down their sides, while females have smooth skin with a delicate rainbow iridescence.

That's me. The ex joked that by the time I was done with a chicken carcass, any dogs in the vicinity would turn up their noses at it. I've been known to go to the extent of biting the ends off the thigh bones and sucking out the marrow.