chromedome

It's funny, the things that linger on. Here in Canada, for example, the use of personal cheques essentially died in the 90s, with the advent of debit cards, except for the older half of the Boomer demographic and the dwindling number of our parents. The only reason I even have a chequebook anymore is because my former insurance company (note the adjective) would not accept payments in any other format, and my former landlord required his year's rent in the form of post-dated cheques (that was a decade ago, and I still have the remainder of that book of cheques). Yet they remain widely used in the US. On the flip side, that rapid and near-universal adoption of debit cards (especially now that debit and credit are tap-and-go) means that we've been slower to adopt phone-based wallets relative to many other countries. It's not uncommon here, but is nowhere close to supplanting the actual cards in universality. For me it's a no-brainer because my card is always in my wallet, which in turn is always in my pocket, whereas my phone is wherever I last set it down. Also, having written so much about online/digital security, the less of my life is on my phone the better I like it ("Okay, Boomer..."). You might accurately guess from that "...wherever I last set it down" comment that in my case, this is based less in paranoia than learned experience. For another example of decidedly old-school tech, the fax still lingers on here at medical offices. It's used for sending prescriptions from doctors to pharmacies, and prescription requests from pharmacies to doctors (ie, if a prescription is running out and has no refills, they'll fax the doctor for you to have a refill prescription written and returned). I believe they're also still used for sending requisitions from doctors to labs for bloodwork and imaging, though email and the province's new-and-improved digital portal are slowly taking over on that front. I don't know if it's the same in Ontario or if we're just that much of a backwater, though @Kerry Beal could probably enlighten us on that score.

It's a green tomato relish. Very popular here in Atlantic Canada, where some years we're likely to have more green tomatoes than ripe ones.

I remember you! Glad to hear that the LoafNest was a success, however modest (I gave you a quote for the campaign). I am on record here on the site (probably more than once) as saying that induction would be perfect for seniors (for safety/convenience reasons), if only someone would build an affordable induction hob with a simple dial rather than [expletive] touchpads. I'm not nearly as exacting in my use of induction as some of the others here on the site, largely because I have no meaningful use-case for sous vide, but a unit with better control than the two I currently use (both of them increment the power in 10 steps, so I'm often choosing between "a bit too fast" and "a bit too slow." At this point app-controlled/IoT devices are a hard no for me, and I'm an open-source guy by inclination (Ubuntu Linux is my OS of choice since 2007), so you check the right boxes for me on that front, as well. Several people here on the site bought an induction hob called Paragon, which also aimed for precision at a low price (perhaps some owners could weigh in on similarities and differences?) but sadly didn't make it commercially. Hopefully you fare better with this device.

It's almost that time of year again...

Huh. I don't know if it qualifies as "fun stuff," but one of our two national grocery chains (Sobeys) is now carrying a range of products from its UK counterpart, Sainsbury's. It seems to mostly be incidental stuff, like marmalade, candy, canned beans, cookies (sorry, biscuits) and lemon curd. UK peeps, are any of their products especially notable?

Yeah, that's a head-scratcher. I wonder whatever possessed them to make the cooking vessel square (-ish) rather than round? It's a pretty fundamental design flaw; you'd think a beta-tester might have mentioned this?

I mentioned a few days ago that I'm trying to form the habit of taking pics of my food occasionally, just to develop some familiarity with the camera on my new (-to me) S22, a significant upgrade from my older phone (an S7). That resolve happened to coincide with me making a "grown-up meal" for just the two of us last night, instead of the usual routine of grinding out something acceptable to all three generations living under our roof. The plating isn't exactly elegant (it was late and I was hungry), but it's a stew of rabbit and dried wild mushrooms (the Costco mix), served over soft polenta with steamed cauli and Brussels sprouts. It was tasty.

Via my daughter...

AFAIK they're all coturnix quail in different colorations. They can be harvested for meat at around 7 weeks (less than half the time for bobwhite quail, for example) and start laying at around 8 weeks old IIRC. So that makes them pretty great as homestead birds. Not everyone has the patience for fiddling with their itty-bitty eggs, but it's not really *that* big a deal once you get used to it. Here's an article that gives the basics of quail-rearing, if you're interested (even vicariously). https://rurallivingtoday.com/backyard-chickens-roosters/coturnix-quail/

Yesterday was a "quail day." I've mentioned that my father-in-law was incubating a batch of them for us, and they began to hatch out in the early hours of Friday. We were there yesterday afternoon, and got to watch a couple of them hatch while we were there. Here's a shot of the view through the side of the incubator, with new hatchlings scurrying around on top of their siblings: Again, for context, they're about the size of my thumb at this point (a quail's egg is roughly a teaspoon, or 5 ml, in volume). Note the new arrival at bottom right. And this little guy is the one we watched hatch out, with occasional supportive pecks at the shell from the already-hatched siblings. He's pretty gassed, at this point. They bounce back quickly, though, once they have a chance to recuperate and dry off. Remember the itty-bitty quail in the box, from the pic a few posts upthread? Well, this is them now (roughly 1 month old). They're all fledged out, now, and just this morning I heard one of the males crow for the first time (in response/challenge to an adult in the main cage), so it's just about time to sex and separate them. They're perhaps 2/3 adult size, at this point. The females will start laying in another few weeks.

I made a point of taking pictures today, since it's been a while between bunny pics and I know some of you could do with a bit of fuzzy cuteness in your lives right now. I was out adding a panel of finer mesh to Hazel's cage, because her kits' eyes are open now and they'll be out exploring within the next few days. We've had unfortunate incidents of babies falling through the wider, heavier-gauge mesh that makes up the cages, but small-mesh "hardware cloth" (1/4-inch square mesh) is large enough to let rabbit droppings drop without allowing the babies to drop as well. Adding the mesh took longer than I'd expected, because Hazel - after being skittish and "hand-shy" since the day we'd gotten her - has suddenly discovered that she actually likes being petted, so while I was trying to wire the new panels in place she was bonking her head into my hand, just as a cat does. As it turns out, I may not have needed to worry about that. Her kits are freakin' HUGE! Check this out: I know it's hard to judge scale, when looking at photos like this, so here's a shot of one of Ivy's babies (a couple of days younger) for comparison purposes: Hazel's little one is at least 50 percent larger. So, while it's a shame that we lost so many kits, the survivors in her litter are reaping the benefit by having all the milk they can handle. In other news we're within a few days of our baby chicks hatching (here), and our next batch of quail hatching (at my father-in-law's place). We're not sure how we'll do with the silver-laced Wyandottes, because the eggs were held up in Ontario for two extra days by a late-season snowstorm. The silkies, at least, were local so we know their provenance and what temperature they were held at. I guess we'll see how things shake out over the next several days.

It's a beautiful day, today, so I took the opportunity to assess what survived and did not survive out in my garden. In the herb bed, the picture is much more positive than last year, probably because we had a normal quantity of snow to protect the plants. My thyme, oregano, sage and parsley all survived, this time, which was not the case last year. The lovage, mint and Egyptian walking onions all did as well, though I had no qualms about any of those. They'll survive just about anything short of nuclear winter. I also found my newly-established strawberry bed in good order, along with a few carrots that were too small to bother with last autumn. I'll let them run to seed, and then save the seed. The curly kale is still doing fine under its cover, but the lacinato kale, after over-wintering successfully, has been eaten to the stumps by some pest or other (grrr). It's too early for insect pests, I think, even at the larval stage, so I suspect rodents. On a happier note, I was surprised and pleased to see that last year's late-season planting of spinach is bouncing back quite happily. In my area we don't traditionally put out transplants or direct-seed most vegetables until mid-May or thereabouts, but I'm encouraged to see all of these things popping back up so readily.

I haven't started any vegetables yet for later transplant, because it's still a bit early for most things, but we did get our mushrooms underway a few days ago. I've spoken about this a couple of times in recent years. You can buy mushroom kits consisting of a suitable substrate (sawdust, for example), which has been inoculated with spores of the desired mushroom, and maintained in conditions that encourage the mycelium to grow. The normal way to use these is simply to poke some holes and mist them, which prompts the mushrooms to fruit through the holes in the package. We've been a bit more ambitious than that. To maximize the value of a kit, you can prepare a larger quantity of substrate on your own account, and then crumble the substrate from your kit and mix the two. Some do this in baskets, some do it in ordinary plastic 5-gallon/20-liter buckets with holes drilled through them, and some do it in open beds in their garden. We've tried all three. So far the best one-season yield we've had was from the open bed of winecap mushrooms, which gave us 25-30 pounds. It didn't do as well as we'd hoped in the second year, giving us only a handful of mushrooms. It's still there, and we'll revamp it this year and hope for better, but we've also gotten another kit. This year we'll be doing all eight varieties using the bucket method, which my GF believes will give us the most controllable/reproducible results. This project is her baby, so I'm just following her lead and providing the muscle as needed. The kits are neither especially cheap nor especially costly, averaging $20-$25 ea (CAD), but with eight varieties it does add up. So establishing them as a self-sustaining presence in our garden is the longer-term goal. For context, we go through a lot of store-bought mushrooms, and ordinary button mushrooms here typically cost $3.99 for a 227g (half-pound) package. So that 25 pounds of winecaps, for example, corresponds to $200 dollars' worth even at button-mushroom pricing. When you allow for the higher price or outright non-availability of specialty mushrooms, their dollar value goes up. Our Superstore chain has "gourmet" mushrooms currently (morels, enoki, etc) at prices ranging from $8.99 and up for the same 227g size. So this year we have five buckets set up with sawdust substrate, and another three where the substrate of choice is chopped straw. We have another kit for winecaps (Stropharia rugosoannulata), as mentioned above, as shiitake, lion's mane (Hericium erinaceous), chestnut mushrooms (Pholiota adiposa) and four different kinds of pleurotus/oyster mushrooms. ...and yes, if you're wondering, we are indeed Blue Oyster Cult-ivators (Pleurotus ostreatus var. columbinus, which varies in color from a steely blue-grey to genuinely blue, depending on the strain).

I'll call this one "food science," on the grounds that it's probably not worth creating a new thread for "food-related medical stories." A man in Florida needed years to finally be diagnosed with a brucellosis infection around his defibrillator implant, and it was eventually traced to eating pork from a feral hog. https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/florida-man-eats-feral-pig-meat-contracts-rare-biothreat-bacteria/

I don't usually post recalls from the US, because I only subscribe to the Canadian agency's notifications, but I tripped across this one this morning in my travels. Some Stouffer's and Lean Cuisine frozen meals are being recalled due to the presence of foreign matter, specifically wood (I have questions...). https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/nestle-usa-announces-voluntary-recall-limited-quantity-lean-cuisiner-and-stouffersr-frozen-meals-due

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't seen it as low as $9/lb for quite a while out here. Pretty sure the last time I bought a few slices they were marked down for clearance, at 30% off the $13.99/lb price. That was a few years ago, already.

Yeah, you just debone the flats. I leave the wingtips on, because they make a convenient handle. Also, I love how crispy they get and I nibble them from their tiny bones at the end of the meal. It's not actually that big a deal. You just circle the "elbow" joint with your knife, scrape the ends of the bones a bit with your knife tip to get any tendons tying the flesh to the bone, and then push everything back to the "wrist" joint. A quick wrench dislocates the two bones (equivalent of the radius and ulna in a human arm), and Robert's your mother's brother. After the first few, I had it down to 20-30 seconds/wing. And I could have gone faster, if suitably motivated.

One of my clients gave me an assignment recently for an article on deboning chicken wings, because apparently there's a regional chain somewhere in the sunbelt that's getting some attention for its stuffed chicken wings. So after doing the article and the photography (not my strong suit) I froze the wings for another night. That turned out to be last night, because it was something quick and easy (since the actual deboning was done in advance), and I had errands to run in the afternoon. They were stuffed with ... (sigh) ... Stovetop stuffing mix, because that's what my sweetheart's mom used to make so it's what she likes. I'll come up with something more interesting, next time. I also frenched the drumettes, because I thought the grandkids would appreciate the whole "meat lollipop" aspect. Roasted a sheet pan of broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and mushrooms to go with, and made a garlic-y dip with mayo and sour cream. No photos, because that's a habit I haven't yet acquired (though I'll make a sporadic effort, going forward). Also roasted off a few of the quail from our freezer, a few nights earlier. Just spatchcocked them, seasoned them simply (salt, pepper, garlic, rosemary), and roasted them at high temp for 15-16 minutes. They were tasty, but the grandkids balked at having to pull the flesh from the bones at the table. Next time I'll probably "tunnel" debone them (remove the keel, ribs, etc) to make it easier for the rug rats.

"Photoshop: Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should." (It was never an actual marketing tagline, but probably should have been...)

Worth noting, for anyone who has any old-fashioned ideas about privacy, that in 2 weeks Alexa devices will start sending everything you say back to the mothership (until now, you've had the option to limit the devices to "local processing only"). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

This is anecdotal, so it's definitely not "science" as such, but this still seemed the best place for it to my eye. It's comments from the spouses of those on GLP-1 agonists (semaglutide, etc), on the changes they've seen in their partners while on the medication. It paints a mixed picture, in many ways. I'll note that one of my stepdaughters had bariatric surgery a year ago, and has experienced some of these things as well, despite having gone the route of surgery rather than medication. Basically the loss of food as a social/comfort thing, which is not negligible. https://www.elle.com/beauty/health-fitness/a63460440/ozempic-side-effects-spouses-interview/ That said, the evidence of broad health benefits for these meds is mounting rapidly, and should never be overlooked in any discussion of the pros and cons.

So my unofficial counts proved to be a bit optimistic. That initial count consists of me putting a hand into a nest box full of lively, wriggling babies, and mentally doing a quick "2, 4, 6..." as I fumble through them. When we do the "official" count it's both of us, with my GF pulling them out one by one as I hold out the front of my hoodie to receive them. The final count proved to be 8 kits for Ivy's litter and 7 for Hilda's, to go with the 7 survivors from Hazel's litter. So we lost just about 50% of our kits, with 22 surviving and thriving and 21 falling by the wayside. That's higher than usual, but - again - all of our does this year were first-time mothers. Hopefully they'll do better the second time around. With all of the melting and re-freezing we've had here of late, what had been a footpath through knee-deep snow is now a sheet of rippled ice surrounded by patches of bare soil and a layer of grainy, dirty late-season snow. It was pretty treacherous, so I had to walk ahead of my sweetheart and scatter driveway salt for us to walk on. I joked that sadly, it wasn't yet the season for rose petals (she says she forgives me).

Just a quick update to this post, since I'm supposed to be writing an article about the use of social media in policing (because freelancing is a really variable gig...). Sadly, none of the hypothermic babies survived despite our efforts. That was a blow, though not entirely unprecedented. Then the next afternoon, during my routine mid-day check on the new arrivals, I found that Hazel had somehow managed (in the course of being in and out of the nest box and fussing over her infants) to create a divot* right in the middle of the nest box, leaving nearly half of her babies literally out in the cold. Those, too, didn't make it despite rescue efforts. In the past we've had these incidents with new mamas, but they were less painful because we typically had 6 to 8 does giving us litters, staggered a week or so apart. With only 4 does, it hits a lot harder. The silver lining, such as it is, is that both of the brown does gave us really large litters. Hazel's litter, on the final count, proved to have been 13 kits, of whom 7 still survive and are lively and flourishing. Hester's ill-fated litter was a whopping 15 kits. If they're both better-grounded with their next litter (as is usually the case), we'll do well with them. On a more positive note, Ivy and Hilda have both now had their litters as well, and those are doing fine. Ivy gave us 10-12 kits, pending a final count (probably this afternoon), and this morning my rough count was 8 to 10 in Hilda's litter. *It occurs to me that this probably needs a clearer explanation. Each nest box is 20 or so inches in length, which is just right to be a snug and cozy shelter for a Flemish Giant (they're large bunnies). We give them straw and/or hay to serve as their basic nesting material, because in the wild they'd harvest their own dried grasses for that. Then, just before giving birth, they pluck copious quantities of fur from their own undersides and use that to make a warm, soft, fuzzy pocket in the middle of the nest box. That keeps the wee kits warm and cozy while mama hops out of the nest to eat, drink, stretch her legs, etc. In Hazel's case, her fussing divided that pocket into a 75/25 split, with most of the protective fur staying with the 7 survivors and very little left to protect the unfortunate 5.

From The Guardian, a look at a small non-profit working with manufacturers to taste-test meat alternatives. Best quote is about the director: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/mar/06/plant-based-meat-taste-testing