chromedome

https://civileats.com/2021/05/07/why-ken-meter-is-on-a-mission-to-build-community-food-webs/

There's a recall for BC and Quebec (so far) on one particular brand of Taleggio, for listeria. https://inspection.canada.ca/food-recall-warnings-and-allergy-alerts/2021-05-12/eng/1620873492820/1620873499288?utm_source=r_listserv

That's generally how I do the autumn batch with the "feral" apples, because prepping them is otherwise a PITA. A few of the trees around here produce apples with a rosy blush to their flesh, and one small crabapple tree yields apples the size of a large cherry with a rich deep-pink hue, so I always include a few of those for color.

When we get our own place, yeah...that's in the plan.

I use a mix of whatever's available from the grower, during the months they're open, but usually try to mix at least 2-3 varieties for broader flavor and sweet-tart balance. In autumn I also gather apples from the "feral" trees growing in my neighbourhood, some of which produce surprisingly good apples at nearly market size. I'll need to make more from supermarket apples before the summer is over, but supermarkets here stock local NB/NS apples most of the year, as well. In fairness, when I *do* need to get apples trucked in from across the continent, I mostly taste the difference when eating them out of hand. In the applesauce it's much less apparent.

My nearly-invariable breakfast is steel-cut oatmeal, and I put a healthy glop of applesauce on it in lieu of other sweeteners. I also sometimes have it on toast as a breakfast (on mornings when I wake up and realize I've forgotten to make oatmeal...) and I like it with yogurt as a snack/dessert at random intervals. That accounts for most of my usage, though I'll also occasionally have it on pancakes or waffles, or incorporated into muffins or a cake. Oh, and I'll also turn a few pints a year into fruit leather for the grandkids.

Also, I was down to the last pint of the applesauce I put up last autumn (27 pints) so I grabbed 20 lbs of apples from the local grower before he closed his storefront for the season. Less a few that I ate out of hand, and a few more that spoiled while waiting for me to get down to business, that still gave me 11 pints. As a bonus, having never done the math before, I now know that I get through 50-60 pints of applesauce a year or roughly a pint a week. That's handy to know for reference purposes (a canner load of 9 pints takes about 13 pounds of apples, so keeping me supplied with applesauce requires roughly 70-80 lbs of apples/year).

Just to follow up on this, since I'd neglected to do so in the fall. The dill pickles were perfectly fine, the bread and butter needed a bit more sugar (to my taste). I'm happy enough with the results to this point, have amended the bread-and-butter recipe in my copy of the book, and will doubtless try a few others in the course of the summer.

Possibly national, Golden Mushroom brand enoki, any date code prior to May 7, for possible listeria. https://inspection.canada.ca/food-recall-warnings-and-allergy-alerts/2021-05-07/eng/1620439193668/1620439199451?utm_source=r_listserv

Mine gives me a slow three-count before shutting off. That's usually plenty long enough, though occasionally annoying.

I have used both V8 and tomato juice to thin/rehydrate the sauce in tomato-sauced pasta dishes that have been in the steam table for a while, but that's a niche use-case that's of little pertinence to most home cooks.

My cheapie B&D rice cooker crapped out yesterday while I was prepping meals for the in-laws. My GF and I each had one when we moved in together, one of which we kept and the other went to one of our daughters. So the casualty was either 8 or 14 years old, depending if it was hers or mine. Either way, it's hard to argue with the TCO on a product that sells for about $20. So I bought another one.

I don't know if anyone here buys this kind of thing, but some "Big Carrot" brand juices are being recalled in Ontario because they potentially contain...glass. https://inspection.canada.ca/food-recall-warnings-and-allergy-alerts/2021-05-06/eng/1620352012624/1620352018407?utm_source=r_listserv

When I was out doing some garden prep at my stepdaughter's place the other day, their mastiff was busily digging in the uncultivated portion of the area where my garden is. To my wonderment, she was digging up and eating the (damaging) white grubs that grow into June bugs. What a good girl!

I'm not sure it's going to move the needle on food cost as much as some of you think. In my much less-elevated restaurant I paid more for some of my produce than I did for ingredients like sturgeon and wild boar. They weren't serving supermarket-grade meats, and I'm pretty sure they won't be serving supermarket-grade vegetables either. They'll be dealing with boutique foragers, farmers, etc. The things that aren't innately "high-spec" must be made so, which requires time and skilled labor that would almost certainly negate much of the cost advantage.

It's been relaunched in a limited way by the old company's former CEO, under the name of Outdoor Supply Hardware. Same look, same feel, many of the same locations. Apparently they're doing well within their limited footprint. https://chainstoreage.com/store-spaces/orchard-supply-hardware-to-be-revived-sort-of

I will add that serving it out of the casserole dish is inappropriate. One needs a Welcome "Mat out of Hell."

I'm an omnivore, but I don't consider some form of flesh to be a necessity at every meal. (shrug) It doesn't affect the likelihood of me sliding my knees under a table at EMP, which was already effectively nil.

Well, there seems to be a demand for elevated vegan in NYC (you have to figure if there's demand anywhere, it's there...). There's also big-name precedent, with Ducasse and Passard going at least mostly-veg at some of their restaurants. I own Ducasse's Spoon cookbook, though I'll confess I haven't cooked anything from it.

After reading the many mentions of lentil-based faux liverwurst on this thread, I made David Lebowitz' "faux gras" last night. My GF has been craving liverwurst but can't have it (no red meat because it makes her RA flare up), so this seemed like something that would be worth at least a test batch. Turned out pretty good, and hit the spot for her quite nicely. My only quibble is the color, and I think I might add the tiniest bit of grated beet (or maybe even just a few drops of beet juice) to give it a hint of pink. I think uncooked beet would also give it a hint of that slightly metallic minerality you get with liver.

LOL Yup, you'll fit right in...

You say that like it's a bad thing? Probably my own style could best be described as "chaotic, but within boundaries;" more like a canal than a river, to draw an awkward analogy. I like to delude myself that if I ever live in one place long enough I'll get to the "place for everything" stage, but the reality is that my ADD will probably prevent me from attaining the "...and everything in its place."

An entirely different kind of "fun stuff," but last week when I was in the supermarket I found a couple of packages of fresh morels that were marked down 50 percent because they were approaching their "use-by" date (and yes, just about every part of that sentence still fills me with wonder). The same supermarket (Superstore, if you're wondering) also had heirloom tomatoes at $2/lb last week. They weren't as good as the best ones from my garden, but they were right up there with the "not-best" ones. Decidedly better than I would expect from a supermarket at this time of year.

The possibility occurred to me belatedly, but - in the immortal words of Austin Powers - "Sadly, that bridge had sailed."