chromedome

I was late starting my indoor winter garden this year (because life in general...) but things are finally underway. I already had a ground cherry plant, a miniature tomato (ie, a dwarf cherry tomato) and a pot with basil and rosemary. I have three small windowsill planters: one seeded with buttercrunch and Lola Rosso lettuces, one with spinach, and one with both radishes and golden purslane (an impulse buy from the seed catalogue). I also have four larger pots planted: one with broccoli raab, two with mixed varieties of chard, and one with a variety of beets (Early Wonder Tall Top) that I grow every year for its greens (the actual beetroots are just a bonus). I've thickly seeded the chard, beets, and raab because I harvest them (cut and come again) at the stage where they're about the size of a playing card, so I can get away with growing them close together. Ditto the radishes, which I'll thin for baby greens and then allow the roots to grow on the remaining plants.

I thought we had a thread around here somewhere dealing with accessibility issues and their corresponding adjustments, but I wasn't able to find it on a quick search. It may be that I'm remembering digressions spread across multiple threads, or just that I need to invest a bit more time in learning how to use the on-site search properly.

It comes down to individual preferences/situations, I think. In my case my first thought is always the continued impact of arthritis, but I'm also very prone to tendinitis and there are already days when handling a knife can be problematic for me (so as I type the words, it occurs to me that I'm probably approaching this backwards...). A mandoline would be the easier option for me in a lot of cases, and I also have a stack of yet-unused discs for my Cuisinart, which I'll need to dig into at some point. I've sacrificed the odd bit of knuckle or fingertip to a mandoline over the years, but a cut-resistant glove (in conjunction with the existing holder thingie) would greatly reduce the likelihood of injury. My GF also says she'd be comfortable using the mandoline if she had one, rather than conscripting me as needed to do her slicing. (shrug) It just seems like a reasonable adaptation/precaution, like buying voice dictation software against the day I can no longer type (which I've already done).

Do you favor the chain-mail type, or the Kevlar? As my arthritis worsens, I can see the probability that I'll use my mandolines more and have considered buying a glove.

Bumping this to provide a view from the other side. This is a writer I follow (her historical Queens of Infamy series on Longreads is great fun), who's in her 30s and just never...quite...got around to learning how to cook before the pandemic rolled around. How Meal Kits Changed My Mind about Cooking

All that's missing is the lengthy preamble and a few pictures, and it's a page from an inferior food blog.

https://thecounter.org/four-corners-potato-species-indigenous-crop-navajo-nation-usda-southwest-future/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/smithsonian-libraries-and-archives/2021/11/18/kitchen-essentials-from-centuries-past/

I'm sorry, I know it was just a typo, but "electric wench" makes me envision one of the frontiers-y androids from Westworld helping you gut your deer.

It's a feeling most of us must eventually come to terms with.

I've retained an oversized balloon whisk from my restaurant days for that express purpose, but only prepare them in that kind of quantity once every couple of years. It works pretty well. Most recently I used it to mash the chokecherries for our current batch of chokecherry wine.

Number 5 on that list - squishing excess water from greens - is what mine primarily gets used for, though I do use it occasionally for potatoes. For actual mashing I mostly use the kind with the S-shaped wires, unless I want 'em extra-smooth for a specific purpose (then the ricer comes out). I also have one of the other old-school variety with a flat face and square holes, which I use for mashing things like carrot and rutabaga (or a combination of the two mashed together, which is a common side dish here in Atlantic Canada).

...and another update on the same recall, advising people not to EAT ACTUAL POISON because, well... https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/one-tang-brand-sweet-apricot-kernels-may-cause-cyanide-poisoning?utm_source=r_listserv

Utilization of fire and cooked foods by non-humans species, with a side order of hominin and human behavior. https://aeon.co/essays/how-animal-uses-of-fire-help-to-illuminate-human-pyrocognition

According to the commercial I just saw, Burger King now offers chicken nuggets in... dill pickle flavor? I cannot envision a combination of intoxicants that would make this alluring to me.

Once again, the CFIA is recalling cyanide-containing apricot kernels because people keep eating the damned things despite their cyanide content. Because, you know... wellness. https://rsams.prod.cloud.openplus.ca/en/alert-recall/consumption-one-tang-brand-bitter-apricot-kernel-may-cause-cyanide-poisoning?utm_source=r_listserv

I was in the market for a replacement bowl for my old Cuise, and ended up getting a lightly used Cuise thrown in along with it. I'm being facetious, of course, but not as much as you might think. Somebody on a local buy-sell page was selling said Cuisinart after splurging on a Robocoupe, and I got the whole shooting match (plus a tolerably full set of discs) for what a replacement bowl would have cost me on eBay. ETA: The original point I was working toward is that these things are pretty durable, so (as Jo said above) buying a machine to match your accessories, even if used or refurbished, isn't necessarily a bad move.

So...dairy tofu, basically?

It's all the same stuff you've been trained to do, just at a much higher pace and more of it at the same time. Not gonna lie, it's an adjustment, but if you stick with it (and are prepared mentally for some stress during the adjustment period) you should do okay. Also, even if things don't work out for you on the restaurant side of things, there are a LOT of other opportunities within the foodservice/cooking world. I ended up writing about food (and other things) after folding my restaurants. Classmates of mine went into food styling/consulting, teaching, or institutional foodservice management (she's probably the highest-paid of us all, which is nothing to sneeze at). One operates a spa with her yoga instructor/personal trainer partner. ...and that's just from the handful I've kept loosely in touch with. There are plenty of other options as well. ETA: Also, welcome to eG! There are some very talented and knowledgeable people in this community, and I learned a TON from the group here when I was a student and new graduate.

An update on the enoki mushrooms/listeria recall. It's now "possibly national." https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/jongilpoom-brand-enoki-mushroom-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes-5?utm_source=r_listserv

Another brand of sesame seeds added to the above recall. BC only, at least at this point. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/org-hulled-sesame-seeds-recalled-due-salmonella?utm_source=r_listserv

One of the characters in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series invented "leftover sandwich soup." I think a wrap fits the concept quite well.