chromedome

Yup. I know it's a common and well-loved combination, but I just can't choke it down. (Shrug) What can I say...some people even dislike asparagus or cilantro.

Oddly, that's a combination I was never able to get behind. I like burgers just fine, and I love blue cheese, but to me blue cheese on a burger tastes exactly like beef that is sadly past its prime.

Meat birds are slaughtered very young, so that's not an issue even when they're free-range. My GF's parents had a dozen Meat Kings this year, and at two months old they'd outgrown their legs and could barely move on their own. I'm guessing your birds were a dual-purpose breed, and slaughtered when they were a bit older. There's also the possibility your first bird was an outlier, and the others will be fine. It's hard to say. Low-and-slow is always worth a try.

My late wife provided a website and operational advice (her mother had been a successful chef and caterer) to a similar service in California years ago. They eventually folded when the proprietor got cocky -- after my wife had moved on -- and sunk too much of their operating capital into a refrigerated delivery truck, just as the 2008 recession hit. They'd been delivering just fine with Cambros and picnic coolers in a random assortment of SUVs and pickups, but the proprietor had her heart set on the big truck...which, of course, was hard-pressed to meet the delivery schedule in their far-flung area of the Sierras.

I think for me, I'd sum up the case for owning physical cookbooks as "curation." I can find almost anything on the internet, but it makes for a pretty large haystack when I want a specific needle. With my cookbooks, I can find a given recipe from a trusted source in moments. I don't use 'em often, because I seldom cook or bake anything that requires a formal recipe, but I want them when the occasion arises. More often than not if I open a cookbook it's just for the sake of browsing and seeking ideas. In fact I have some cookbooks I would never cook from, but I keep them on hand for when I need to "dumb down" for a cooking class or a recipe that'll be posted online as part of an article. I spend too much time around proficient cooks, and often write for non-proficient cooks, so it's a useful exercise. Some of the cookbooks I enjoy most are what I think of as "contextual"...they provide a lot of historic or cultural context to go along with the actual recipes. Duguid & Alford, Anya von Bremzen, Claudia Roden, Paula Wolfert...I could go on, but each of you could come up with a similar list of names. Those are good reads in their own right, aside from the quality of the recipes, and I keep them on hand for their entertainment value. I know I could get them as ebooks, but those (to my mind) are singularly unsatisfying for this kind of book.

I've actually done that. The wild rice in the Lundberg blend I've used was unusually thin, and I suspect it was culled from their regular wild-rice product specifically because it was undersized and would therefore cook decently in the same time as brown or red rice. Other blends I've purchased used normal-sized wild rice, which was still crunchy when the rest was done. It actually doesn't take very long to sort out the wild rice from the mixture; then I just started the wild rice 15 minutes ahead of the rest. It worked out. Eventually I realized that the blends were quite pricey relative to the cost of the respective ingredients, so I started making my own. I still start the wild rice first.

That's gotta be The Big Lebowski.

The salt pork I'm familiar with is all fat, or at most has a thin streak of muscle through it. It's very salty. When rendered, it gives what I guess you'd call a kind of pre-seasoned lard. In Newfoundland, where my family originates, it's rendered for cooking fat and then the cubes of rendered fat -- "scrunchons" -- are strewn over the meal as a garnish and flavoring.

That's a definite anomaly. Typically Canadian book prices are about 30% higher than US prices.

I read that one. There was a more recent study this year that compared blow dryers, and found that the intense blast from a Dyson Airblade hand dryer spread water particles notably farther than other models.

That's the nut of the argument, right there. The issue is what's called the "infective dose" -- the population of a given pathogen that's required, in order to make you sick -- and it varies wildly between pathogens. A few thousand will do it with some, while others require populations well into the millions. The larger the starting population, the more favorable the conditions and the longer they have to reproduce, the greater the likelihood that you'll reach that threshold. Straight-up cleaning with hot soapy water sharply reduces the number and viability of pathogens. Sanitizing with an appropriately-diluted substance reduces pathogen populations sharply (several orders of magnitude, IIRC) while leaving your surfaces still food safe (sanitizers themselves can be toxic in inappropriate concentrations). Sterilization takes things a step further, but you won't find an autoclave in very many kitchens because outside of specific healthcare scenarios there isn't much of a case for it.

When I'm cooking, i usually have a sink full of hot water spiked with bleach so I can wash (most) things as I use them. I'll usually wipe down my thermometers' probes in the sink, then rinse them. I also have a spray bottle filled with restaurant-style quaternary ammonia sanitizer, which I use at the end of a session before putting it away. That's gilding the lily, though, with a strong pinch of "because I have it and want to use it up."

The cottage roll Mmmmpomps mentioned isn't the same as a picnic ham. A picnic is a piece of shoulder that's otherwise -- for lack of a better term -- ham-like. A cottage roll is salted pork shoulder, more along the lines of old-school "pickled" pork or beef. At least that's what it is here in Atlantic Canada...Alberta might be different.

This is no help and nothing to do with your problem, but the first reaction of my non-caffeinated morning brain was "If you're leaking chocolates, it's time to stop eating them..."

My favorite name for that one is "mock-aroni" and cheese. Proved to be a big hit with the grandbabies.

Welcome aboard! I spent as much time here as I could afford when I was a student and then an apprentice. Maybe more time than I could really afford, when I think of it. Learned a lot, though, so it was totally worth it.

Up here it was a bumper year for earwigs, probably for similar reasons.

I'd actually intended the thread primarily as a PSA...it hadn't occurred to me to think of it as a discussion starter. That said, if anyone else wants to air their thoughts here before taking 'em to Health Canada, by all means bring it on. FWIW, @Okanagancook, both Superstore and Sobey's here (Saint John, NB) already have RDs on staff and available for customer inquiries/education sessions. Presumably they do elsewhere in the country, as well.

I'm posting it here on the grounds that national Food Guides are, by their nature, intended to be used as references. Many of you will have read today's news stories about the proposed changes to Canada's food guidelines. All of the stories I read mentioned that Health Canada was soliciting input from the general public, as well as health/food industry professionals. None of them, alas, actually gave a link to the "consultation" page at Health Canada's website. For those who wish to weigh in, here it is: http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/health-system-systeme-sante/consultations/foodguide-guidealimentaire/index-eng.php

Yeah. And you know...I read articles today from three major news outlets about the proposed changes to Canada's Food Guide. All three mentioned that public input was solicited, and none of the three provided a link to the "consultation" page on Health Canada's website. Hmmmm...perhaps I need to post that link somewhere here on the forum, for Canadian eGers.

Like beans, they incline one to flatulate.

In my case, it's almost invariably steel-cut oats. The odd time I'm not hungry, or don't have oats ready to go, I'll just have tea and toast.

Hey, whatever it takes...

Food has always been part of the dynamic between us. During that initial week when they stayed at the inn I also wheedled her into trying her first creme brulee (that, she now says, is when she started to fall in love with me...).

To expand upon the "reheat in the oven" part of TFTCs' summary, I keep back a bit of turkey broth or drippings and use that to moisten the sliced turkey when it goes back in to the oven under its foil wrapper. That helps keep it from drying out, especially at the edges of the pan. I usually break down the bird into large pieces (ie, breast, thigh) and put them into the refrigerator separately to chill. You can give them an hour in the freezer first, if you like, to speed the process. I defer slicing until the next day, because the chilled bird slices so much more neatly and evenly. As an added benefit, the carcass is then available immediately for soup-making.