chromedome

Canada's Ecology Action Centre says 95% is ideal, and has numerous practical suggestions. https://ecologyaction.ca/issue-area/root-cellar-basics My father has been researching them for a few years but hasn't put his in yet. He'd sent me the link to this article in the Mother Earth News, in case I was ever interested... http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/root-cellaring/fundamentals-of-root-cellaring-zm0z91zsie

I'll cop to it. At one of my jobs we used it for our catering quiches, because we did a butt-load of catering (over $1 million my last year there) and served some 1500 or so lunches each day, and we just didn't have the resources to do the crust from scratch. It's certainly not my favorite crust for quiche, but it's a pragmatic option in commercial use. I always keep a box of President's Choice all-butter puff (a supermarket brand here in Canada) in my home freezer alongside a box of phyllo for when I need to turn out something on a tight timeline. Or just when I feel like it. It's not bad at all, so the only time now that I'll usually make up a batch from scratch is if I have a big project in hand and don't want to work with a whole bunch of piddly little sheets (or don't want to shell out the $$$).

Three of my favorite things, right there. Alas, I have no IP and cannot advise you on that point. One of my favorite breakfasts is a mound of sweet dumpling or delicata with a soft-cooked egg on top and a slice of fried ham alongside.

I have an existing love of Iranian food, and an existing affection for Duguid's books. That one sounds dangerous.

Okay, I don't think I've done anything that egregious in foodservice. There was a time though when I was a computer salesman, I got so busy explaining how to install the $800 hard drive (yeah, it was a lot even back then...it was a very specific drive) that I forgot to actually collect the money for it. Fortunately he was a regular, and came back the next day to settle up, but it made for a very tense few minutes with my hot-tempered manager at closing time.

The usual rule of thumb is 2 parts water to one part bones/carcasses by weight. I guess you'd include the feet in the weight of bones.

Ah, yes...I remember "those" weeks perfectly. "But wait, there's more! Order now and you'll also receive one dumbass mistake ABSOLUTELY FREE with every meal!"

I love that site. I first tripped across it years ago when I lived in Edmonton, and wound up spending four of my only six potential sleeping hours there that night (never a good idea to "poke around on the internet while I wind down"). The related fashion and decor pages are equally fun -- I remember some of those ghastly combinations from my 70s childhood -- but the funniest of all was his tribute to The Gobbler, "the grooviest hotel in Wisconsin."

1) Make tea. 2) Put steel-cut oats on to simmer. 3) Come browse eGullet while sipping my tea. 4) Think "Mmmm, smells like oatmeal cookies!" 5) (penny drops)

I like that CI explains the thought process behind their recommendations, because often it tells me where we parted company. I think if you live in an area where beans are not widely used perhaps you might get old and stale ones at the supermarket, but it's a long stretch to go from there to a blanket condemnation of dried beans in general. I've bought 'em in 6 of Canada's 10 provinces, and only occasionally found myself with a batch of elderly and "cookproof" beans...usually when I was desperate and picked them up at a convenience store, or something like that. (Disclosure: Freshness is a complete non-issue for me now, because my parents grow and dry their own and share 'em with me.)

That's a strange anomaly...it's almost as if they calculated the exchange rate backwards on the Canadian price, and marked it down instead of up.

I have a Kobo, which gives even better control over the typeface. Way more fonts to choose from, and I can adjust the font weight, spacing, line spacing, etc. Mind you, I have a lot more books in dead-tree format and buy "real" books more often than ebooks, so reading glasses will be my constant companion for the foreseeable future.

FWIW, my half-sized batch makes eight. I seldom bother to make a half-sized batch.

The ones I bought were reasonably decorative, with pretty printed patterns. Basically they were comparable to most dollar-store gift bags or gift wrap, which is what they otherwise would have gone into.

That's genius.

I bought up a bunch at a consignment store (not nearly as comprehensive as Andiesenji's collection, but still decent) specifically for gifting. Honestly, anybody I give a loaf to in one of those will generate more paper waste in two trips to Tim's, with or without my cake...it seems pretty minor as environmental impacts go.

It depends how you define "hard." Is it brain-surgery hard? Rocket-scientist hard? No. It's grinding, numbing, joint-pain, dogged perseverance no-sleep hard. It's work-all-the-time-for-minimal-pay hard. If you aspire to be a chef and own your own place (never mind Michelin-starred, as in the article you linked) you'll need to learn how to run a business, which is something culinary schools in general do a poor job of emphasizing. To be a really notable chef, you'll need to combine an industrial engineer's meticulous attention to detail* with an artist's flair and creativity. Also you'll need to manage people capably, which is often the hardest part of the job and the most difficult to learn. That being said, have at it. I graduated culinary school at 40, because cooking was something I was passionate about. I opened and closed a couple of restaurants (see my earlier comment about running a business) and eventually wound up out of the industry, but what I learned provided the basis for my current career as a freelance writer. Organization, focus, cleanliness -- and of course cooking chops -- are all highly portable and useful skills, regardless of whether you ultimately end up employing them in a commercial kitchen. * Not a random analogy...the chef I worked for when I was going to school was an industrial engineer by training. Her partner, the trained chef, wound up managing the front of the house while she ran the kitchen.

File me under "love" as well. I'll cheerfully eat them at any time of day, any time of year.

It's not that big a deal, really. You know the added flours have no gluten (with the exception of rye, but we can ignore it when it's a small part of the mixture), so you just add a spoonful or two of gluten to make up the difference. If it comes out dense, you add more the next time. Easy-peasey. Rye and buckwheat add deep, dark flavors; millet, oats and corn add sweetness; and with corn or millet you get a nice golden hue as well. It's a fun way to play, once you've got the basic recipe to behave for you.

I usually advise against making abrupt, radical changes anyway, so don't feel like you need to go all-in right from day one. Instead, I'd recommend trying out one of more of these sites/apps and simply use it to monitor what you *currently* eat. That exercise has a number of benefits in and of itself. To begin with, it establishes a useful baseline to compare/contrast with your future eating habits. It also gives you time and opportunity to get accustomed to the site and its features, and to enter recipes for a number of dishes you make regularly. As you settle into the groove of tracking/monitoring your food, you'll become more mindful of what you eat and that in turn will inform your meal choices. Over time, you'll find that you begin to gravitate to healthier options by default, simply because you are monitoring your eating (just as scrutinizing your finances leads to fewer impulse purchases and better spending habits). When you splurge on high-calorie meals or foods -- and there's no reason not to -- you'll do so deliberately, and on foods that give you maximum pleasure (around my house, it's often Hollandaise or creme brulee). You'd get the same calories from munching absently on potato chips during a Netflix binge, but with much less joy. I'm not one for penitential eating, as my sig will attest, but even modest tweaks yield good long-term results if you're conscious of your choices.

Ah, gotcha. Makes perfect sense.

"Cooked but just..." is ideal, no?

It's possible the whole-wheat flour here in Canada is higher in gluten than what you're using. My usual loaf is a sandwich bread, so it's enriched with egg, milk, butter and honey; sometimes (depending on my flour and how it behaves) I'll add a dash of vital wheat gluten and a spoonful of lecithin granules. I often replace up to a third of the whole-wheat flour with a random mixture of other flours out of my cupboard (rye, buckwheat, corn flour, oat flour, kamut flour etc), in which case I definitely add gluten. Have you tried using the basic setting, instead of the ww setting? It's possible your bread might be over-proofing and then losing volume (the ww cycle usually extends the rising time). Your nose will usually tell you if it's over-fermented, the dough will develop a sour and faintly alcoholic smell and the finished loaf will be dense and coarse.

The recipe I mostly bake for our daily sandwich bread is 100% whole wheat. It was a favorite of my late wife's, and I believe it came from the old DAK breadmaker bread book. She was an early adopter of bread machines, and although she didn't own a DAK she swore by their recipe book. There are still used copies out there, if you look for 'em. How are the loaves falling short? We could perhaps brainstorm a bit.

Mangoes and bananas both have a hint of bitterness/astringency under the sweetness, which is exaggerated when they're frozen. I found it wasn't a big deal with just the bananas, but when I put them together it was overpowering. "Like vomit" seems a bit harsh, though.