chromedome

One day a few years ago I was cooking (home-fermented) sauerkraut, and my little granddaughter - then 2 - asked what it was. She loved pickles and she loved noodles, so I thought quickly and told her it was "pickle noodles." She ate more than I did...

This is a long shot, but when mine did that (Calphalon-branded, no idea who actually makes it) the problem turned out to be...that the cord had come partway out of the power bar.

When I was a kid, our vegetable peeler had a bean "frencher" at the other end of the handle. There also used to be a bean-frenching attachment for Kenwood stand mixers, though I don't know if it's still made.

I'm in the steel-cut camp; it's my almost-invariable year-round breakfast: I make up a large batch (1 cup oats, 4 cups water) and then reheat a bowlful in the morning. I say "almost" invariable because occasionally I'll forget to make them up in advance, in which case I'll either microwave some quick-cooking oats (which otherwise I keep just for baking) or do without. I don't have the time or patience to wait for steel-cut to cook in the AM. My most common version adds a handful of raisins or other dried fruit while the oats are cooking, and then a goodly shake of cinnamon as well. I eat them with enough milk to loosen the oats, and a topping of homemade unsweetened applesauce. Quite virtuous, but very tasty.

There's no such formal process here, AFAIK...it's a perennially cash-strapped city, and rather small (there are probably blocks in NYC with more people than Saint John's 70K or thereabouts).

I've been reflecting on those very points for the last year or so...my daughter lives on a fixed income, because she and her hubby have medical issues (and because her hubby generally, well...let's not go there...) and she has thanked me, often, for giving her the cooking skills to navigate that. They were demonstrated in a concrete fashion when my kids were little, because we went through some pretty lean years. Often I supported my family of 4 for a month on what our neighbours spent in a week on groceries. I had intended this spring to reach out to a few agencies here in our area and offer basic cooking-skills lessons and demos, if the logistics could be worked out. Then COVID came along, and that was no longer an option. I'm still hoping to get that organized, if our numbers stay at a low enough level in my area (the recent outbreak is subsiding, and we're down to a couple of dozen active cases).

The most common recommendation is simply plain running water, in conjunction with otherwise-sound food handling practices. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/7-tips-cleaning-fruits-vegetables Some sealed, pre-washed products are safer without further washing... https://extension.umn.edu/food-service-industry/wash-or-not-wash-recommendations-fresh-produce ..but yeah, you can use a (very) weak bleach solution if you want to. https://extension.umn.edu/growing-safe-food/produce-wash-water-sanitizers The latter two references are aimed at professionals, but whatever...

Look away, Liuzhou...

The soup base amounted to three quarts and one pint (I'm running low on pint jars, at least until my next deep-dive into the storage unit); and the peppers gave me 7 pints.

Years ago, I lived in an otherwise all-Chinese neighbourhood. Over a period of a few months, I came to realize that all of my neighbours used PRB soy sauce, so I started using it as well. It's not at all artisanal, just a mass-market product, but to my taste it's a good one and still my default.

Possible foreign matter (pieces of glass!) in certain batches of Miss Vickie's potato chips. https://www.inspection.gc.ca/food-recall-warnings-and-allergy-alerts/2020-11-03/eng/1604456061321/1604456069989?utm_source=r_listserv

Canned 3 pints of green-tomato "salsa verde" from my last garden harvest, and turned a kg of my beets into pickled beets. Tonight I'm taking advantage of ridiculous sale prices at a local indie grocer to pressure-can some roasted sweet peppers and some broccoli soup base.

Sad to hear it. I'd been thinking of him just the other day, when a random look at an older post got me thinking about some of the prolific "back in the day" posters who aren't around any more.

I don't mind it at all, often use it for salads. I also do baked mac & cheese with it for the grandkids sometimes, because they liked their 'butterflies." Though that may be over, now that the 5 yo is in school. Last time I offered to make her some butterflies, she give me the eyeroll and said "Papa...those are bowties." Today's pasta goes in an entirely different direction, though. GF was watching Food Network and some guy was doing ricotta-filled ravioli with brown butter and sage. She asked "is that something you could do?" so yeah...that's what's for dinner. I made up the dough last night, and will make and fill them today.

As long as it's food-grade plastic, you should be fine. I make mine in a big plastic ice cream pail, 18 litres IIRC.

Broccoli salad is on my to-do for the day, as well. A local indie grocer had it on 4/$5 this week, with a limit of 8, so I got 8. That'll be a week's cooked broccoli, a big bowl of broccoli salad, and some broccoli soup base for canning (I didn't give my pressure canner any exercise last year, and I don't want it feeling neglected). They also had 4-packs of sweet peppers on 3/$5, so I have some roasted peppers to can as well.

From her local news: https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/elora-resident-and-canadian-culinary-giant-anita-stewart-dead-at-73-2837553 I own a copy of one of her books, Anita Stewart's Canada, and consider it worth having.

"Shameless plug" dept, though explicitly disclosed...Just recently discovered that one of my years-ago culinary classmates, now a consultant/food stylist/popup-event vendor, has begun selling spice mixes as a COVID-era revenue generator. Thrown out there, should anyone be interested.

(sigh) Leftovers agaiiiiinnnn? "Leftover white truffle" just doesn't have that same ring of dreary inevitability as "two people, one ham," does it?

Details are still sketchy, but apparently Canadian food activist and icon Anita Stewart passed away yesterday. She was the driving force behind Food Day Canada, a national celebration of our food traditions. I'll post links once I've found some. A tribute from our local celebrity chef Jesse Vergen just showed up on my timeline, and her Wikipedia page has been updated to show her passing away, but I've yet to find any news stories. I expect some will turn up in the course of the day.

Yup, immediate problems always trump those a little way down the road (I'm sure we can all think of a few prominent examples, so I won't even go there). It's the psychological equivalent of the photographer's/moviemaker's "forced perspective," I suppose.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/29/927111009/as-biotech-crops-lose-their-power-scientists-push-for-new-restrictions

NP. I don't know if they've cross-linked 'em all as yet, but some of the other library collections they've digitized include vintage cookbooks and pamphlets as well.