chappie

When I get the chance I will take photos of the brands I bought, plus the one Willie brought back from Guilin. On a sidenote, I really enjoyed shopping for them — and just about anything at a large asian supermarket — because I was able to get five or so brands for, oh, about 8 bucks total. Everything seems so much cheaper than American-brand products.

I made it to Great Wall grocery in Fairfax, Va. this morning and tracked down several varieties of jarred fermented tofu packed in chili oil. Unfortunately, none that I've tasted so far come even remotely close to the stuff my friend brought back from Guilin. The oil in the Guilin jar was thick and full of chili; the ones I bought this morning have a weaker, thinner oil mixture that doesn't pack nearly the heat. Also, the tofu chunks themselves are considerably softer, less "blue-cheesy," sweeter (not a good thing for me) and have an off aftertaste. I'll eat them nonetheless, but when I visit him in Guilin (hopefully this summer), I'm packing a suitcase full of the good stuff.

I cooked with it once, some bok choy, but mainly I've been eating it straight-up and also mashing it into a pretty amazing dipping sauce I've concocted. The chili oil is key for me, though, and I want to find it like this again. If I do, I'll report back. I really don't want to be without this stuff, and that marinade for the ribs posted above looks unbelievable. (Imagine it with the chili oil...).

My friend brought me a jar of fermented tofu back from Guilin, China, where he lives, only he knows it there as "do fu ru." It must be the same product. Cubes of funky, blue-cheesy tofu packed in blistering chili oil. I love it, but I've already finished the jar in a week and a half. Is this or products like it readliy available at asian markets in the U.S.? I am addicted and must, must find a source so I can stock and entire shelf with it.

Plain old Captain Morgan's tastes to me like some sort of "tropical" suntan lotion, and it shouldn't be called rum in my opinion. Give me Barbancourt.

If you're in D.C. in November next year, I highly recommend the Old Ebbitt Grill's Oyster Riot. Tickets sell out way in advance (and cost I think $80, double the $40 I paid back in 1998 when I last went), but it's well worth it. They offer 20-plus varieties of oyster from all over the country (my favorites last time were Island Parks from R.I.), plus unlimited beer on tap, other appetizers and wines from their ongoing Wines for Oysters competition. Live music, too. I estimated I consumed around 100 raw oysters when I attended it. I was still in college and, sadly, set the critters free in a dark alley when I got home.

I made the Ritz mock-apple pie in high school, and if I recall it wasn't bad, and was reminiscent of apple pie. Not a substitute for the real thing, but it did disappear pretty quickly along with a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream.

How on earth did I miss this thread the first time around? Good glistening girthy porklord, your party should have been documented by the world's leading gluttonographers, shown at Sundance and nominated for a James Beard Award. (I like how you capitalized the word Pork, by the way). Daniel, have you ever tried scrapple?

I think judging by the company here that you aren't going to find many lamb objectors among this demographic. I devour it at every chance, but I know many people here on the Eastern Shore of Md. for whom lamb is a reviled and exotic game meat they avoid for simpler, blander fare. My favorite lamb comes from a Persian kebab house in College Park, Md. (Food Factory). Rubbed in a spicy marinade, char-grilled and served with fresh and blistered naan and a spicy yogurt sauce.

I spent summer 1994 in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, as part of a group of kids travelling in two geriatric Land Rovers with the late, eccentric British adventurer Quentin Keynes, a great-grandson of Charles Darwin and nephew of famed economist George Maynard Keynes. Quentin travelled like a modern-day Mr. Magoo, avoiding horrific peril by accident. We slept in the open, without tents (our summer is the southern-African winter), using our bags and storage crates as a "psychological barrer" to wildlife. Nonetheless, we had nightly encounters that put me in my place as an insignificant safari snack. One night "in the bush" (or "Danger Camp" as Quentin called it) at Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, I awoke to an elephant eating from the tree under which I slept and a hippo grunting 200 yards away from the banks of the Zambezi River. At another camp, in which I had my own private baobab tree as quarters, I was startled at 2 a.m. by a pair of hyenas fighting viciously, oh .... about 40 feet from my tender carcass. The kicker was when John, the odd kid among us, yanked us all from our slumbers hysterically in the middle of the night, wide-eyed and grinning, with the news that a pair of lions had sauntered up to his sleeping bag, and that the male had gummed his foot gently (to see what it was), then nonchalantly turned and wandered off. At this point of the trip, hyenas seeking discarded scraps on the fringes of our camp were nothing — akin to raccoons rattling trash cans; vervet monkeys had raided our belongings, TP-ing the site like drunk teenagers and stealing my two-month supply of Life Savers. And we were so used to baboons heckling us, I was beginning to understand their doglike barks on a personal level. Still, there was no way this wacko was telling the truth. "It was hyenas." "You're lying." "Go back to bed!" we shouted. But sure enough, flashlights showed a track of huge feline prints in the dirt leading to his sack — the toe of which dripped with sticky ectoplasmic drool. Thankfully, impala and kudu were abundant at Mana Pools, and perhaps the lions took one sniff at our Cheeto-fed, MSG-ridden, soda-poisoned American meat and passed on a midnight junk-food binge. I also have distinct memories of our culinary routine, which consisted of building a cook fire nightly, rummaging through Quentin's ancient "cook box" for the least offensive among a trove of loathsome, South African-label canned goods he had been hoarding — guaging from the wear-and-tear on their tins — since the Boer War. His prized, nitrate bombs, the Gammon Hams. Fray Bentos canned beans. Containers of long-ago solidified gooseberry jam which we slathered on soapy bread, and canned chicken parts — complete with veins and gelatinous bones, drowned in a diarrheal death gravy — so nightmare-inducing we left them behind at a roadside camp, where they likely remain today. It was all about regiment and rationing, and don't think about getting up before sunrise to scope out first-light at a watering hole. No, we must make porridge and tea for a proper English breakfast. Build the fire, boil the water, stir the oats until they "orgy", as Q liked to say. It took me 10 years to gather the will to taste oatmeal again. Our only saving grace were secreted tins of curry powder, the wonderful biltong — South African jerky — we purchased in markets, nightly rations of Ginger Nuts (like ginger snaps) and Marie Biscuits (both of which we snuck extra sleeves of from the Cook Box when Q wasn't looking) and the occasional street-vendor meat pie bought in random towns. Kit-Kats were ubiquitous at every store, so be bulked up on those, too. Still, we loved every minute of it. I have other culinary memories that summer as well, such as when we pulled up to a dusty, sleepy villa in Zimbabwe and found a creamery run by an older white woman. Seriously the best milkshakes I ever tasted. Or the hot, spicy stir-fry prepared at 1 a.m. as a welcome at the end of a long and frightening drive from Johannesburg, by Yvonne Drewett, wife of the dairy farmer with whom we stayed our first two weeks in the Transvaal. Or sampling blistering chiles (not unlike the tiny Thai hots) given me by remote villagers in Zimbabwe. Or ingesting some sort of brown powdered matter prescribed to me by a witch doctor in Harare because "it make you strong with woman." Banana-bacon burgers at Victoria Falls; KFC in poor cities; grits and ham in a hospital bed in Tzaneen, S.A. (a long story best told elsewhere); a god-awful fast food chain called Steers that sold drinks bearing an obviously faked and illegal image of Bart Simpson. ... and many, many more. Thanks for awakening some memories of one of the best experiences of my life with your post. (A much younger, trimmer and fitter Chappie, crouching at the Great Zimbabwe ruins).

I am going duplicate thread here, having just posted on this in the "meat aging" topic, but I'm looking for information on probe thermometers (the digital kind with an alarm you can set at precise internal temps). Anyone have experience with these and know which ones are best?

I've seen this episode twice and am eager to try the method. He uses a probe thermometer, one with a four-foot cord and alarms you can set for when the internal temperature reaches a certain pre-set degree. Does anyone know where to get a good one, which brands stack up against others or where I can find this out? I would check cooksillustrated.com but I don't have a password there.

Our wedding isn't until late September, but already we're doing some preliminary investigations for feeding about 125 (so far) at my father's home where I grew up. We have a smallish budget and I am entering into this already suspicious of anything wedding-industry related. Does anyone have any creative ideas on how to do this creatively on a budget?

Another favorite that just came to mind was breaded and fried sardines (from the can), smothered in some sort of spicy African sauce I had received as a gift.

Actually, peanut butter and pepper relish is another favorite.

What is the verdict on garden slugs? I know, I know, they're hideously slimy ... but aren't they pretty much the same composition as a snail? If, with vinegar, you could remove their slime, would they taste like a snail? I have always wondered this, especially in late August when the slugs outside start to resemble fat little breakfast links. Someone must know.

Does injuring yourself with food count? One late night in College, one of my roommates was showing how greasy Doritos were by lighting them on fire. I decided to take this exhibition a step further by eating flaming Doritos. The first two went down cleanly (if a little charred and bitter); the third, however, pivoted in my dainty two-finger pinch, allowing the flame to briefly roast my lips. No wonder most of my scars are "leisure wounds." But hey, at least I learned something in college.

We just had our annual Christmas party, and once again in the wee hours I hazily devized a concoction (see Toaster Pig for another brainstorm) that only the precise, scientific dosage of Dark and Stormies, clementine champagne cocktails, beer and a bottle of Cisco (!) could inspire. I split open several biscuits, slathered them with the casino butter (bacon, bacon grease, onion, red and green pepper, garlic, parmesan, hot sauce and butter) I'd been using for oysters, spread on mustard and a generous dollop of mango chutney, then stuffed them with ham and brie. Baked in the oven until gooey, they were so freaking good people have called me about them. In fact, I might not have even remembered making these unless people had called to describe them. What are your most memorable, late-night, gluttonous creations?

When eating watermelon, I never spit the seeds out but just crunch them up, shell and all, with the flesh. Is it necessary to spit out the husk of the roasted seeds? Would eating it whole, like a pumpkin seed, cause any sort of internal damage or would it just add some good old fiber to the diet?

I will sometimes get on a self-mutilating roll with sharp knives. This summer I was making pico de gallo, chopping onions, and sliced my left index finger deeply with my Henckel chef's knife. I washed and bandaged it, then no more than 30 seconds later sliced into my middle finger. A year earlier, I was honing a paring knife vertically on a steel, slipped and buried the blade so deep in my thumb knuckle I wouldn't even look at it. Instinctively I ran it under the faucet, wrapped it in paper towells and then in duct tape over the entire thumb to immobolize it. I didn't remove the makeshift bandage for two days — and I was surprised at, 1. how clean and thin the cut was (sharp is better), and 2. how much it had already healed.

I like to toss the cooked potatoes into an antique oak vat, pull latex covers over my socks and dance the Barynya while my assistant ladles in cream and butter. Alternately, I stuff the potatoes into a ziplock bag, seal, wrap in five layers of plastic grocery bags, hang from a door frame and use it as a punching bag. But a wooden spoon works nicely, too.

While visiting my sister in Oakland a few years ago, I experienced a similar sensory overload at 99 Ranch Market in Richmond, Calif. — the centerpiece of a bright, modern Asian minimall. We were seeking ingredients for her birthday roll-your-own sushi party, but frankly, I was a little too overwhelmed to do much else than gawk and wander. Accustomed to smallish, low-rent Asian markets in the D.C. area, I was first amazed at the sheer size of the place. Acres and acres of items I'd never even imagined, let alone tasted. But immediately the wall of live seafood drew me in — it was wider than the broadside of a Wal-Mart and the tanks were pristine, cycling clear water, not that muddy gurgle I've seen back East. Let's see. There were live prawns of different varieties, two kids of eel, carp, rockfish, several kinds of oyster, mussel and clam, crabs ... I don't remember most of the species but it was mind-boggling. The fresh (but dead) seafood cases were even more fascinating. Among the rainbow packages, I found elvers, tiny white eel babies with googly eyes that looked like cartoon sperm. We stayed away from those. The meat case had raw pig's blood, cooked pig's blood, goat, beautiful ducks ... it was all too much to handle. I needed to spend a weekend there, with a journal and camera, sleeping in a van in the parking lot, to get a grip on the place. I didn't even have time to explore the produce.

I enjoy Ibarra, another brand of Mexican drinking chocolate. It comes in disks from which you break off a wedge or two, melt in a little bit of milk, add sugar, then more milk as you heat it. I like the slight cinnamon touch, and often I toss in a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper to wake things up a bit.

I was making kombucha continuously for several months in 2003, I think, but while I liked the taste of it, it didn't quite agree with my digestive system. I was keeping everything clean and following the instructions, but maybe I should've diluted it with water for awhile. I'll try it again sometime when I get a new starter. As for keffir, I drink commerical stuff I can buy in the store, because we can't get raw milk where I live in Maryland.

When I did it right (I found I needed to add a pinch of sugar to get the fermentation started, and I fermented it at room temperature slightly longer than they suggested) it was sour with a hint of sweetness, very dark, and with a nice beet flavor. Just a hint of effervescence. It kept nicely in the refrigerator.