chromedome

There have to be enough restaurant-related Herman cartoons out there to make up a full book. I would absolutely buy that. ...and they could almost certainly get another book out of the home-cooking ones. Let's call them, for the sake of argument, "Herman's Restaurant" and "Herman's Cookbook." you would think Jim Unger's estate, and the syndicate, would cheerfully leap at the chance to make more money from existing IP, wouldn't you?

I have three of the paddle type (one genuine, two knockoffs) and one of the long, skinny zesters, all of them gifts from friends and family. The skinny one in its slipcover lives in the utensil drawer in our main kitchen and gets used several times/week for zesting and/or parm; occasionally for taking a bit of cinnamon from the end of a cinnamon stick. The paddle ones are in a box somewhere in the barn since we moved, about 18 months ago. I haven't seen or looked for them in that time.

Hmmm. We've all dealt with seeds of uncertain age/provenance from time to time, but this is an extreme example. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/120221-oldest-seeds-regenerated-plants-science

I just tripped across an interesting wrinkle on the whole theme of induction cooktops that's targeting the (substantial) number of households that aren't capable of supporting full-power induction without electrical upgrades. Their solution? Battery storage within the appliance, so the induction coil is powered directly from the battery (ie, wattage not limited by 120V wiring) and the direct electrical connection is used only for charging. Apparently at least one or two other startups are pursuing similar solutions. https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-05/bto-peer-2023-copper-street.pdf

A bit of food-themed geekery to start your day:

A sig-worthy philosophy, to be sure.

The tradition of eating greens and black-eyed peas isn't a "thing" up here, barring perhaps a small number who brought it with them as immigrants or acquired it by osmosis (if you will) through social settings like this one. My own equivalent ritual, as a freelancer, is creating my "2024 Invoices" folder.

The latter was common in my part of Newfoundland, where a lot of the families originally arrived from Somerset. "My part" in this context meaning "where my family hails from and where I lived as a teen, 40-odd years ago."

LOL The idiosyncratic pantheon of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels included Anoia, the goddess of things that get stuck in drawers.

Truffled gorgonzola sold under a couple of different brand names in Alberta and BC has been recalled for listeria. It's a really limited recall, because the cheeses in question were sold only in Calgary and Fernie (as far as we know thus far) but still... https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/various-brands-gorgonzola-truffle-cheese-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

My ex's paternal grandfather retired at 75, then went back to work at 80 "because I needed the rest." ...I think he was joking, but I'm not sure.

I've got the garden and the rabbits; chickens hopefully will happen in the spring. Retirement, now.. that's not looking so likely.

As mentioned elsewhere, I made up a couple of rabbit terrines on Christmas day. I had no particular recipe, but reviewed a handful of them and winged it with those as a basis. I used two large-ish rabbits from the freezer, along with pistachios for a garnish. Flavorings were salt and fresh-ground pepper, sage and thyme from my garden (picked on the day!) and a goodly splash of Crown Royal. One terrine used ground pork as the fatty complement to the lean rabbit. Because my GF can't eat pork anymore for medical reasons, the second used Beyond Meat's mild Italian sausage. I don't have the traditional narrow terrine mold, so I used wider and flatter loaf pans. After cooking in their water bath, and cooling for an hour at room temp, I filled in the gaps around the edges with some well-reduced rabbit stock I'd made in the IP. In the event, it turned out that the "well-reduced" stock was not well-reduced enough, and did not set up as well as I'd hoped. So that went back into the fridge for another usage, and I'll experiment to get it right before I do this again (I may just add some plain gelatine rather than relying on reduction). In any case it was (IIRC) the first terrine I'd made since culinary school,. nearly 20 years ago, so I won't complain about the minor dificulties. I halved both, with the pork one going as gifts (one to an aunt, one to my longtime best friend's family). The other will be part of our NYE festivities at home, with the second half in reserve for some other special occasion. I didn't take photos as I made it, because I was under a tight time constraint, but I did get shots of the interiors when I halved them: That's the "with pork" version... ...and this was the "with Beyond" version. The rabbit-loin garnish shows up better in this one. I haven't tasted the final version just yet, and won't until NYE, but I quick-cooked samples of each forcemeat to test the seasoning before I assembled the terrines. It tasted pretty good at that point, so I'm confident in the end product. It was kind of fun; I'll hope to do a few more terrines this coming year and will post them in that cook-off if I do. Unless they're rabbit-based, in which case I'll put them here again.

It had never occurred to me to wonder about it, but CBC published an article about the local tradition of candles in the window at Christmas (all but invariably faux candles now, of course). I don't recall whether I saw them or not out West. Is this something that happens where you live? I'm kind of curious now. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/east-coast-tradition-christmas-window-candles-1.7066387

Earlier today I'd made up a couple of rabbit terrines for holiday entertaining/gifting. I took the opportunity to get a meat/bone ratio for our current Flemish Giants, since we'll be doing a compare/contrast with other breeds next year. My start weight for two well-grown bunnies was 3.686 kg (a little over 8 pounds, so they were big ones) and the weight of stripped bones left over at the end was 496g or just over a pound. Quick math tells me that's a meat:bone ratio of just over 7.4:1. Not too shabby.

This is AI "art," but it's still pretty cool. https://www.facebook.com/mira.gupta.7771/posts/pfbid0P4nNSgi3EGJcVADLuJBGDoVgA9NxGJMTMRheYQ5LpYNxVkyH8rgPFCWuKWLyynafl?__cft__[0]=AZXLppYgs5Esnt4I8YD2X0WjBUCiKQzC6NcJWPLdxkp8tVTcbqsemM3agZFobUAeGItbg7yV1_eX8fB28WNwbK1Wzfrz7pkUPp7QpGsQKP3-rhxlYuD4wDcN5rOZ7fTC-2hwLmO__CXtulwCSzYmTHmlBSElZG2x5a23cYUHiYWS4Q&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

Via Montreal-based cartoonist Gabrielle Drolet (New Yorker, Globe & Mail, etc):

I made up additional cookies yesterday morning, so I have enough now for the various gift boxes we'll be giving away. Then I prepped the meal, because we typically eat ours on Christmas Eve. The three grandkids were "his, hers and theirs," so there's lots of juggling involved in balancing our immediate household, oldest/youngest's paternal family, middle one's dad and his parents; and this way one or more of the other families gets to have them on Christmas day. As it happens this year there were a lot of abrupt changes of plan owing to miscommunications, illnesses, shift changes, etc so it all went pear-shaped despite our best efforts. I'd shifted the meal from our usual mid-late afternoon slot to more of a dinnertime schedule (6-6:30), but then - as I said - things changed at the last minute. So I told them "you see us every day, go to [in-laws' place] and have fun, we'll eat when you get back." That ended up being nearly 9 PM, but so be it. I spatchcocked the turkey, made stuffing, baked a buttercup squash in slices (glazed with honey, with fresh black pepper and allspice ground over it, because my sweetie wanted a sweet side dish); made a quick stock in my IP with the neck, back, keelbone and wingtips for gravy purposes; cooked Brussels sprouts low and slow in a large skillet with onions and turkey bacon (because my GF can't have the regular kind); made a big bowl of mashed potatoes; and the rest of the veg were peas, green and yellow string beans, carrots and greens. I often do the beans as "green bean casserole," but forgot to buy the fried onions this year so I didn't bother. The potatoes, beans, greens, carrots and peas all came from my garden, and with the carrots coming out of the ground just a few days ago and some of the greens (and herbs) being harvested on the day. Row covers are a wonderful thing! The squash and turkey came from local farms, about 15 and 10 minutes up the road respectively. The Brussels sprouts were also local, from a farm about 30-40 minutes the other direction. If people were still obsessing over "food miles," it would be considered a pretty virtuous meal in that respect. Sorry for the lack of photos, but in addition to my usual litany of excuses (cramped and unattractive kitchen, poor lighting, elderly cell phone camera, deficient photography skills) I can safely say "C'mon, you've all seen lots of roasted turkeys..." Gift-opening happened this morning, and was every bit as much fun as you'd expect. Grandson (5) had to periodically give vent to his excitement by leaving the area of the tree and thundering up and down the hallway, celebrating the most-recent "best gift ever" at the top of his lungs. Funniest of all was the hulking mastiff, who gets her own stocking filled with toys and is even more excited about it than the kids. She stands there quivering and dancing with anticipation as my stepdaughter pulls out each toy in turn, giving each one an exploratory chomp, until one of them just "does it" for her. At that point she and her newly-designated favorite disappear into a little world of their own for a half-hour or so. Eventually she emerges with head and tail high, swanking around the living room and squeaking it proudly for everyone. It's sweet and hilarious in such a big, burly dog. All of the veg trimmings went out to my rabbits at this morning's feeding, so they've had a holiday feast as well.

I did indeed get a small harvest of greens from my garden yesterday, along with some sage and thyme for the turkey/stuffing. It's not a large quantity of greens, but it's about half of what went into the meal (the rest came from the freezer). I'm the first to admit that there's a strong element of "just so I could say I'd done it" involved. I was surprised to find that my broccoli plants are still hanging in there. You'll recall I'd given up on them a few weeks ago and reallocated their covers to other beds. Despite enduring spells of weather getting down to near -20 at times (roughly 0 F) some of them are still pushing out new growth and tender little buds like this one: I picked several of those as well, some of which are visible in the bowl if you squint just so. It's good to know: if I succeed in building a more durable greenhouse in 2024, or salvaging a usable remnant from this year's ill-fated hoop house, there's a possibility that broccoli might survive deep into the winter even in a "passive heating only" scenario.