chromedome

You betcha. Sadly, my ground cherries were (ahem) grounded by inclement weather this spring, and I got zero germination. I'll try that again next year. My kids both loved fishing with their grandpa (my dad) and I'm looking forward to taking my grandkids out sometime soon.

Can't do #4, because I'm too easily distracted (yay, ADD!). At the moment when I should be diligently sniffing the air, I'll be in another room attending to something I'd meant to do the day before. I'll smell the smoke around the same time the smoke detector does. #1 is not especially pertinent for mealtimes, because I seldom work from a written recipe, but it's certainly valid when I do. #2 is not an issue for me, because I won't have rugs or carpeting of any kind in my kitchen. Also don't drink while cooking, because it exacerbates the whole "too easily distracted" thing.

A farmer acquaintance of mine joked with me once that when you send your youngster out to the garden to pick which veggies will be for supper, it neatly avoids the whole question of whether they'll eat 'em. I've been finding that with the grandkids, too...the only real issue is to keep them from picking things before they're ready.

(sigh) I'd be picking up a shoulder's worth of cans every time I went through that door.

It's not the cabbage that gets jammed, it's the sliding hopper/hand protector thingie. The frame is bowed just slightly, so I need to sand it a bit.

I have one similar to that, but I need to play with it a bit before I use it again because it tends to jam mid-stroke. Bought it after making the previous year's kraut, then didn't get to make any last autumn, so this year will be the first good test of it.

(shrug) My grandmother skinned her share, but never with an ulu. The old-timers favored flipper pie, but personally I'm fond of seal liver. Haven't had it in years, mind you.

I'd just shrugged off the Krim/Krum thing as a typo (or maybe a sly Harry Potter allusion). It's all good. As for the olives, hey...with climate change, you might yet be able to grow your own.

Cool. I'm growing Black Krim this year for the first time, and haven't yet seen a ripe one with my own eyes. Photos seem to vary, with some looking like yours and others being much darker, almost purple. I guess I'll see in a few more weeks...

My GF substitutes pecans, but the idea is the same. Sadly, she has to pass on the bacon now that her doctor has ordered her to cut processed and red meats (an anti-inflammatory diet to moderate her RA). Personally, I like 'em with a smidge of blue cheese in the middle.

I bring home one of those large reusable Walmart shopping bags filled with greens every few days. I alternate: one day it'll be the chard and beet tops (I grow Early Wonder Tall Top specifically for the greens); the next day it'll be the kale. I have late plantings of spinach, chard, collards, turnips and more kale in their early stages, so we'll see how those play out. Typically that big bag of greens will cook down to 5-8 portions (roughly 1 cup) once blanched, drained, and "squeezed and freezed." The sturdier kale doesn't cook down as much as the chard and beets. I have 35-40 portions in the freezer now, and hope to keep harvesting (albeit probably on a diminished basis) into October.

The first time I saw it at Sobeys they were sampling the brioche. Having tried several other GF breads and baked a few (the ATK sandwich loaf that's been posted here at some time or other is pretty good), I was genuinely astonished and impressed. As you say, cheap it's not. But when you have a hankering for that soft loaf, it'll scratch your itch.

It would go beautifully with my hammered-steel Paderno pots.

LOL Funny you should say that. The signature Canadian cocktail is the Bloody Caesar, made with clamato rather than tomato juice. At my restaurant I did a "Caesar, Caesar" with a heavily reduce clamato base added to the usual anchovies, garlic and such. Non-Canadian visitors needed to have the in-joke explained, but it was a good salad.

Seedless watermelons are always a hybrid, and (like a mule) sterile. Growing for seed is a whole interesting thing in itself, one I've intended to research thoroughly for years but have not yet done so. If you think about it, how many plants are bred/selected for resistance to "bolting"?... which, of course, means seed production. Obviously people did it for centuries, it was what farming *was,* but it's a knowledge base that has eroded sharply over the last few generations.

Aye, well. It was worth a shot. The weird thing is that it looks a LOT like the logo of a Canadian building supplies chain, but AFAIK they don't sell flatware. I guess it's not inconceivable that they'd have made a special purchase at some point, but whether they'd still have a record of who the manufacturer was is a whole other thing.

NP. My daughter is not celiac but she has a nasty (medically diagnosed) sensitivity, which basically means all the same pain but without the side dish of lasting physical damage. I've bought the Promise product for her a few times, and tried it myself, and found it surprisingly decent. They even make a brioche.

If you have a Sobeys, that's the place to look. They carry a brand called "Promise," which I can personally vouch for as being fluffy and tender like "real" bread. They actually pulled a high-profile prank last year, creating a bogus artisan sandwich shop with a Toronto chef and not telling anyone the breads were GF. Sobeys also has a newer "Compliments" brand bread product, which I have not personally tried but which is said to be very acceptable. Both are sold fresh in the bakery, rather than frozen from a case.

Image search is different. You actually put your picture of the logo into the search box, and Google finds similar images. ETA a link to Google's support page for that feature, which I belatedly realized might be helpful... https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1325808?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

Yeah, I had much the same feeling after turning my day's apple-picking into applesauce last autumn. Of course, right now my main thing is blanching and freezing greens from my garden, and you know how that goes...

I haven't done much in that direction in the past, though I have access now to copious quantities of chokecherries (we used them for wine, and it was pretty passable). Anywhere you'd use any other dark fruit/berry is a good starting point...all of those recipes in the classic repertoire that use red currants, for example. Game and game birds are good starting points. Be aware that they're quite tannic, and in some applications you'll need to work carefully with that. Also, there can be significant differences in flavor from one bush to the next. Taste fruit separately from each, before deciding which direction to go with your flavoring/seasoning.

Same idea, bolder flavor.

What I've always told people in my cooking classes is that "lovage is to celery as anchovies are to fish and parmesan to cheese." Think of it as a source of high-impact celery-like flavor, which you can use without the textural impact (and prep) of celery or in scenarios where celery's moisture would be unwelcome. I typically use it fresh in soups or (finely minced) in green or bound salads. Dried can go into anything that requires a celery flavor, including dry rubs.

...but only if said dog is willing to listen.