chromedome

For future reference, "I just didn't care for it" is explicitly considered a valid reason to refund a PC product from Loblaw's. I've never had them/seen them refuse a grocery return for any reason, nor any piece of store-branded general merchandise. For brand-name products out of their general merchandise section, the rules might be different.

I'm not a regular gin drinker, but apparently an artisanal gin from my neck of the woods has been making quite a splash. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/fils-du-roy-gin-award-1.3514793 I suppose I should pick up a bottle and try it.

Well, cooking is applied physics. ...and applied chemistry, and I suppose you could make a case for applied biology as well. I have to agree that I find the most pleasure in books that provide context (cultural, sociological, scientific) for the food as well as just recipes. ETA: Welcome to eGullet, Paul! It's a fine community, and whatever your culinary interests you'll probably find someone here to share them.

Congrats on "cracking the code." I'm sure your customers will be thrilled.

I've taught kids that age to make fresh pasta, and it was a big hit. Perhaps a manual pasta-rolling machine, if you can find one in your price range?

(shrug) Can't answer for what worked/was used elsewhere, of course. In my part of the world, oil was relatively (I stress relatively) uncommon and expensive until the late 1960s and early 1970s. Pork fat was cheap and local, so that's what was used.

Lard and cured pork would have been the defaults until relatively recently, I suppose.

Here in my neck of the woods ricotta's about twice as much as cottage cheese ($5-ish per tub) so local dairies do a fine-curd cottage cheese described on the label as "lasagna style." I've used it many times when making lasagna for friends or family, just so it's not quite such a budget-busting extravagance. When I'm making it for myself, I usually opt for a bechamel layer rather than the cheese.

Oh, hon...that's just brutal. All the pain, without the closure.

Top sirloin is by far the tenderest of the sirloin cuts, so it doesn't need extended cooking. When cut as a steak, it's tender enough for straight-up grilling. I often opt for it instead of pricier rib or strip steaks, because I find it's more flavorful than the premium offerings and almost as tender (usually).

When I lived in Edmonton, one of the leading restaurants there called its daily special "soup of yesterday"...because as everyone knows, most soups are better on the second day.

No, that was just a "Wow...weird." Maybe it's a Canadian thing, but they're pretty easy to find in supermarkets here. Usually Ocean Spray, and often a couple of other brands as well.

No, no. Cane sugar. Trade with the sugar-producing Caribbean has been a part of life here in the Maritimes pretty much since Day One. Sugar beets are a prairie thing. There have been sugar refineries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for some time as well, though the one here in Saint John closed a while back. http://www.sugar.ca/International-Trade/Canadian-Sugar-Industry/History-of-the-industry.aspx

I reasoned similarly when my wife passed away unexpectedly a few years ago. I had little interest in food for the first while, but I approached it the same way I did everything else...just went through the motions of normalcy. I got up at the same time as usual each morning, had my habitual bowl of steel-cut oatmeal, worked for the usual number of hours (I'm a freelancer), ate everyday food every day at the appropriate times, and so on. Eventually the colors and flavors came back, so to speak, and in the meantime I found that keeping my life structured helped me hold things together.

??!!

Drowning in anything would be an unpleasant way to go, but at least in water you can try to swim. Molasses? Not so much.

Football for me, too...Hotspur at Chelsea.

Wow, yeah. Dysphagia's no joke to deal with.

My chef at that place was very fad-averse, so no MG for her either. Her attitude was that fads come and go, but good technique is forever.

It was fine dining. Not international state-of-the-art kind of fine dining, but comparable or superior to anything else in the city (Edmonton, AB) at the time.

Sounds about par for the course. I was fortunate, I never did an unpaid internship (I was a career changer with a wife and two kids, so that wasn't really an option). The restaurant where I worked my way through school had a female chef as well, but she wasn't one to raise her voice. She'd just gaze at you -- well, me -- in unbelieving silence for a painfully slow moment or two, and then *lower* her voice. I've had a shouter or two along the way, but this was infinitely worse.

McGee played around with them at length, somewhere along the way (I don't recall which book or column). His end recommendation was to roast them low-and-slow (200°F for 8 to 10 hours). I don't usually have any issues with them, and in fact just got four or five pounds from my father's garden. I don't know how they'll work for my GF and her daughter, though, so I'll be cautious.

I would have done the same, in that context (I left them in the passionfruit sauce I made for my coconut-cream ice cream, for instance, when I had my restaurant). Those who don't mind the seeds can crunch 'em, those who want to can pick 'em out. They do definitely add to the visual appeal.

LOL Yeah, there's that. Not exactly fine chocolate work, but it *is* kinda cool to do the tour.

Well, St. Stephen is a pretty small place but it's the shopping hub for a large area. I guess that makes a difference. I do understand that there are plenty of remote, far-flung places in Ontario. I once spent 14 hours with my thumb out at the Pickle Lake turnoff, before getting a lift from just the third (!!) vehicle to pass me all day. I guess as a Maritimer I have the usual engrained belief that Ontario gets all the good stuff, and we get the leftovers. I can't fault Sobeys as a chain on cleanliness or selection. I do little of my shopping there, except for specials, but that's a function of cost. Superstore, No Frills and various local stores all have better pricing, and I'm a cheap bas frugal.