chromedome

We had a wood-burning range when I was a teen, living in northern Newfoundland (electricity came from a few truck-sized diesel generators, and was thoroughly unreliable). It's a whole other approach to cookery, that's for sure. When I first read about the AGA and its mantra of "you don't *set* the temperature you want, you *find* the temperature you want" it made perfect sense to me. Obviously on a cookstove you do have some control over the temperature, if you manipulate the vents and dampers and choose which woods you burn (we always had some poplar set aside for lower-temp cooking and baking, for example). It frustrated my mother terribly at times, because she didn't grow up with a wood-burner, but my father was very skilled at maintaining a stable temperature.

I would say "prudent," rather than "paranoid." After you've tried this one, and have a sense of how it was progressing, you can try another and let it go a bit longer. Eventually you'll find the point of diminishing returns.

Mealiness in apples is almost always a matter of how long it has been since they've come out of cold storage. It sounds like either a) your local Walmart has only middlin' turnover on produce; b) the produce staff aren't good at FIFO; or c) there's a supply chain issue.

I haven't done a moulard myself, but with poultry the usual rule is that the bigger the bird, the better the yield. I think it's probably safe for that many people. As for cooking method I'd probably low and slow for most of the cook, with a blast to crisp the skin at the end, but that's just an educated guess. Think of the crisping and cooking as separate activities and use your best judgement.

Yes, sweet-and-tangy is always a good combination with beets. I'll often drizzle a bit of pomegranate "molasses" over roasted beets.

I eat a lot of beets, and love them. Comments upthread are correct in that roasting in-skin (or steaming or boiling if you prefer) is the best way to minimize mess and a generally Dexter-ish ambience in your kitchen. If you want to venture beyond that, you can take your cue from Dexter as well...set down plastic or foil on your work surface, glove up, and wear an apron to stop splatters from permanently re-patterning your clothing. I rather like shredded/julienned beets as a salad, it captures something of the same fresh sweetness as juicing them. Another guilt pleasure is to julienne them or use my rotary mandoline/"spiralizer" to make beet noodles, and then deep-fry "nests" of them until crisp and have them with a spicy dip (a remoulade, or a well-seasoned sour cream mixture, or at times I'll just use creamed horseradish).

Welcome to you both. I've learned a lot here over the years, and there's an astonishing quantity of information contained in these threads if you have the time to winkle it out.

LOL We must be rough contemporaries. I can affirm that Cold Duck was also popular at parties involving naval personnel in Atlantic Canada at roughly the same time period. The men were mostly beer, whisky and rum drinkers, IIRC, so I'd guess the wine was favored by the wives (and stealthy children the next morning, curious to learn what the fuss was all about).

A study recently released here in Canada concluded that food prices would face a noticeable uptick in 2021, to the tune of just under $700/household over the year on the average. One of my local news outlets interviewed an academic who was involved in preparing the report, and I thought some of you might be interested in it. https://signalhfx.ca/qa-what-the-2021-food-report-tells-us-about-food-economics/

I inherited my grandmother's main cookbook, a wartime edition of The American Woman's Cookbook, which is similarly annotated. I pull it out every now and again just to leaf through it and read her comments.

One of the ads mentions a set of collectible images of songbirds inside the boxes. When I was a kid, Red Rose always came with a little incentive inside the box in the form of pictures or small ceramic figurines. Most of my relatives had dozens of those little figurines around the house. They were made in England, and are now mildly collectible. We have two other iconic regional tea brands. King Cole also originated here in Saint John with the G E Barbour company, now headquartered in nearby Sussex. The other is Morse's, originally blended and sold in Halifax but now also owned by Barbour. Both are perfectly decent, full-flavored orange pekoes (I'm drinking King Cole as I write this).

Red Rose is a well-known Canadian tea brand, once headquartered in uptown Saint John (but now owned by Unilever). In the 1950s the company commissioned Norman Rockwell to create a series of paintings for its print ads, which were recently rediscovered by a local graphic designer. Story is here.

Some batches of Compliments brand pastrami and Montreal smoked meat, also sold under the Leavitts and Deli Shop brand names, have been recalled for listeria. Possibly national in scope. https://www.inspection.gc.ca/food-recall-warnings-and-allergy-alerts/2020-12-07/eng/1607395348707/1607395354323?utm_source=r_listserv

Yup. As you up your purchase price, the bundle gets richer. There are bundles each month, divided between books and games. Looking back through my inbox, I find 14 offers in November, 9 each in October and September, and 7 in August. I've already gotten 3 so far in December, so I expect the total will also be high for this month.

That's correct. They're platform-independent, you get 'em in multiple formats and without DRM so you can use them across all your devices and not have to monkey around with Adobe Digital Editions and suchlike.

I've bought a few of their bundles, two that were computer-related and one of SF/fantasy. I think they're excellent value for the dollar, even if you opt for a relatively generous payment. I typically go to the top tier, which on most bundles is $25 or $30, and works out to be just a couple of dollars per book. For those who are curious but haven't clicked through, the organizations you can support though this bundle are Khan Academy, the Jane Goodall Institute, and Doctors Without Borders.

I don't know how many of you are on the mailing list from Humble Bundle, but the basic idea is that each month they offer several bundles of books and games on a pay-what-you-want basis. The more you pay, the bigger the bundle you get, and a portion of the proceeds goes to a worthy organization (you get several to choose from). Right now there's a cookbook bundle on: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/quarto-cook-books?linkID=&mcID=102:5fca873072edab1bc336a0d0:ot:5b5ddec0db76615eab9b646e:1&utm_source=Humble+Bundle+Newsletter

I've had 'em that way, and enjoyed them, but in my neck of the woods ground almonds are easier to find and cost less (and I can usually find them on sale somewhere). I looked at a bunch of linzer cookie recipes and kind of "averaged out" the ratios of ingredients. I have nesting cutters in a number of shapes, so I do equal numbers of each shape (stars, squares, scallop-edged rounds, etc) and then match them up afterwards with the jam in between. When I say "jam," that can be either red currant with the skins sieved out or raspberry with the seeds sieved out. Then I dust them with icing sugar before serving.

My uncle Ken did that, back in the 50s. When he passed away a couple of years ago, he was still waiting.

I have planted them twice without success, but will try again. The vagaries of spring and fall weather here make things interesting, some years.

There are a few brands on Amazon.ca, but they're *all* currently showing as out of stock. I expect it's a COVID-related supply chain thing.

My Christmas baking is underway for the year (belatedly). Turned out 10 dozen cookies this evening after work, divided between sugar cookies (for grandkids and neighbour kids to decorate) and gingerbread cookies. Made a couple of pounds of brown butter for tomorrow's shortbreads and what my GF calls "Russian tea cakes," which are shortbread-y balls with walnuts in them which are rolled in powdered sugar when done. I've seen many recipes with different names, but all very similar (the brown butter version was how a long-ago friend's mother made them, and is her favorite). Linzer cookies and zimtsternen to follow after I re-stock on ground almonds. Mini loaf cakes will have to wait until I've re-organized my freezer to make room.

There are a number of cultivars out there, and I occasionally find "feral" apples (those from long-ago farms, now un-tended in strips of woodland around and between residential neighbourhoods) with anything from a blush of pink to a bright vermilion in their interior. There's a small tree near where I live right now that fits into the latter category. It's pretty tiny and scrubby, maybe 8' tall (picture if Charlie Brown had gotten an apple tree instead of a Christmas tree) and the fruit are small but flavorful. I harvest a few each autumn to give my applesauce a nice rosy hue. If I have the opportunity to acquire the necessary skills before I move away, I might attempt to harvest some scion wood from that one and take it with me.

I'm on Team Applesauce as well, though admittedly my homemade is usually quite tart so the whole sweetness-in-a-savory-dish thing doesn't apply. I'll cheerfully eat sour cream on pretty much any kind of potato, but in this context I like the applesauce better.

I'm sure by now there's an Alexa equivalent to "damn you, autocorrect!" on the Web.