chromedome

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2011/07/23

We were gifted a 5-lb bag of local crab claws by a friend, who's a former fisherman. The local variety is Jonah crab, not one of the more desirable species (they're bland as crab goes), but the claws are perfectly fine and of course free is always good! I didn't think to take pics at the time, but since yesterday was a special occasion* I used them to make a crab variation on Eggs Benny. (*Nine years ago on the 22nd was when my GF and I transitioned from "friends" to "more than friends," so we treat it as our anniversary.)

The trade agreement the UK negotiated with Canada in the wake of Brexit (for cheese, and I would assume other foodstuffs as well) will reach its end-of-life as 2023 ends, meaning British cheeses will face a large tariff relative to those from the EU and other points of origin that have active free-trade agreements with Canada. Expect to see a large increase in the price of your favorite Stilton or extra-sharp Snowdonia, and a corresponding drop in availability. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/23/hard-cheese-canada-rejects-british-attempt-to-secure-tariff-free-exports

I took advantage of the warm weather earlier this week to harvest my remaining carrots while the ground was thawed. I got just under a kilo, or exactly 2 pounds. They're an "Imperator"-type carrot and would typically be much longer than this (scale is hard to judge from this image, but the longest are probably in the 20cm/8in range), but I'd planted them late simply because the garden was such a work-in-progress this spring (weather, making up new beds, etc). My row covers needed some TLC after the wind and high rains, but the greens underneath are still hanging in quite nicely. As long as I have above-freezing temperatures on the day, I'll be able to harvest some kale and chard for my Christmas dinner (and the forecast looks mild for both the 24th and 25th, so that should happen). The greens are growing slowly enough, with the currently-minimal daylight, that I'll probably call time on this experiment after the holidays. I think I'll pile mulch over the kale and chard and see whether/how well they bounce back in early spring. If they show signs of life, I'll cheerfully treat them as an early harvest and enjoy them to the hilt before replanting in something else. They're biennials and will go to seed/become inedible if I leave them longer, but it'll also be a "proof of concept" should I want to get into seed-saving. I may - I like the idea of evolving my own "landrace" strains - but that's TBD.

I gifted my own son a chef's knife, slicer and paring knife of his own when he was in high school and I was in culinary school. They weren't in that same ballpark for quality (the commercial yellow-handle Henckels used in so many restaurant kitchens) but he was still pretty proud. He was in the cooking class at his school because they'd had the bright idea of splitting the traditional "Home Ec" into two modules called "Food" and "Fashions," which opened the door - psychologically - for more boys to sign up for the cooking portion of it. He was so enthused, fact, that he wanted to take his shiny new personal knives to school and use them in class. I asked him, "Say, refresh my memory... why was it your school got locked down last week?" "Geez" he replied, "Because some freakin' idiot brought a knife to- ... oh." He definitely caught the bug, though. He made us perfectly good individual cheese souffles one morning for breakfast, when I had a (rare) day off and could sleep in. I appreciated the gesture, if not the three hours' kitchen-cleaning afterwards. He's 35 now, and his Facebook posts are still frequently about one or another meal he's concocted.

I got the boxes of cookies in the mail yesterday for Alberta (late even by my standards); now today I have to bake some more for local giving. I'm going to stick with the "grown-up" kinds for this round, as opposed to sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies which need subsequent decoration. I also dug out the tote containing my late mother-in-law's Christmas decorations. Most of them are just inexpensive commercial things from Zellers (for those who don't know, think "Canadian K-Mart") but... they were hers. Serious sentimental value within the family.

In the UK, The Guardian has named The Bear the best show on television in 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/20/the-50-best-tv-shows-of-2023-no-1-the-bear

Mashups for the win!

At the price they charge for cherry tomatoes here, that's $25-$30 worth of tomatoes (mind you that's in $CDN, so perhaps $18-$20 USD).

I've gotten a few kinds of cookies done... sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, zimmtsternen, vanillekipferln (sp?), Linzer cookies, and what my GF knows as "Russian teacakes" though they have a number of names (some of you will know them as "pecan meltaways"). No great amount of any of them; half or less compared to my usual, but it's enough to get boxes out in the mail to my grandkids, niece and son out west with a few left over. On a completely unrelated note, one of my friends shared this photo with a suggestion that it's ideal for "retro entertaining": Pretzel sticks, white chocolate, pink icing, Oreo crumbs.

Posted with the caption: "Error 404, drink not found."

Surprise, surprise, it's enoki again! https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/golden-mushroom-brand-enoki-mushroom-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes-3?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Yeah, I'm scratching my head over it. If they were fruit-containing products I'd have thought maybe stems, but that clearly isn't the case here.

I always have either WASA or Ryvita on hand. Currently it's Ryvita, because they were on sale. On the whole I prefer WASA.

That would actually make a fascinating compare-and-contrast, wouldn't it?

There's a national recall on some kinds of Little Gourmet Organic Bowls, which apparently contain wood. Not that a lot of us here have toddlers, but perhaps grandkids (or great-grands?) might be at risk. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/certain-little-gourmet-organic-brand-mealtime-bowls-recalled-due-pieces-wood?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

LOL I'm the opposite, I seldom eat eggs for breakfast but "breakfast for dinner" is a frequent occurrence.

You know the market niche has become mainstream when... https://www.fastcompany.com/90987446/ooni-gozney-roccbox-solo-pi-home-pizza-oven

Got a couple, tonight. First an add-on/update to the cantaloupe recall (5 deaths to date in Canada, 3 in the US): https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/fresh-cut-cantaloupe-products-recalled-due-salmonella-0?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23 ...and Kopi Thyme sauces and soup bases (various Asian styles) for botulism. This one's Ontario and the Western provinces, but possibly were sold online and ended up in other provinces as well. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/kopi-thyme-brand-sauces-and-soup-bases-recalled-due-potential-presence-dangerous?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Which, yes, is sharp. For those who - like me - are clumsy or experience declining dexterity, it's definitely a pick-your-poison scenario. I personally found that I was more likely to cut myself on the can after using a side-cutter, so I abandoned it for a conventional can opener. Others (possibly/probably a majority?) have found otherwise. I will say that cans opened with a side-cutter make excellent biscuit cutters, etc. and are definitely preferable for steaming loaves of Boston brown bread.