chappie

I've been trying to incorporate more brown rice in my cooking lately, and the latest Saveur introduced me to a new method that works great, but goes against everything I read in "Nourishing Traditions" about preserving nutrients in whole grains. Without fumbling around for the issue, the techique is simply: Boil the rice on high, uncovered, in way more water than most recipes call for, for 30 minutes. (I usually scoop off a bunch of grey scum during this stage). Then you strain it, allow the mass to drain for a few moments, return to the empty pot, cover and allow to steam for 5-10 minutes or so. What results are perfectly cooked grains that don't stick together in a gummy clod, with portions undercooked, like many other cooking methods produce. I know I am likely dumping out some vitamins here, but the rice is great, especially leftover for fried rice. The article says this works for any kind of brown rice. Has anyone else tried it, and if so, are there even better methods that perhaps result in less nutrient loss? (Note: I couldn't find a main "brown rice" thread, so if there is one, please feel free to merge.)

I bought a lively, cartoon-emblazoned container of a dried cephalopod snack called "Mr. Squid" last year thinking the same thing: I like squid, and it has just a few ingredients -- basically squid, sugar, salt, chili pepper. It was one of the worst things I have ever put into my mouth. It reminded me of rotten bait left to dry on pavement.

If we're staying in with a DVD, I must eat before the movie begins. I can't concentrate on either if both are being consumed simultaneously, and I don't like movie interruptions.

Returned to Great Wall (followed by a trip to Eden Center and another banh mi or two) the other day, and found my new favorite ingredient: king oyster mushrooms. They're huge and, well, phallic, and surprisingly cheap! I sliced them into half-moons about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick, sauteed in olive oil with a touch of butter until crisp and brown on the outside -- and it's one of the best things I've tasted in awhile. Good, firm texture, very meaty, and tastes sort of like a scallop. If only they kept longer, I'd buy a cooler full to last me between visits. Also, in the hot foods section, I highly recommend the 75-cent tea eggs. I'm going to learn how to make these. My friend who lived in China for many years says they're a common staple and easy to do.

Whoa... I say go for it, take photos, and post here. I'm curious if: A) This works; and B) What I could do with something like this. What does one use an antigriddle for, anyway?

To whoever said this was the worst episode ever, I completely disagree. I really liked seeing the chefs' interactions with kids. Even the spaz -- working with a young child seemed to humanize him. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it made me optimistic to see the kids really get into the whole process. Maybe I'm not cheffy enough.

My stepfather used to talk about a friend going on an all-watermelon diet for two weeks and losing a ton of weight. I always wanted to try it, but never could muster up the will.

Sounds like you enjoyed some of the places we love here on the Shore. Try Bobby's sometime; I think you'll like it, and the view is incredible. I feel the same about Lisa's -- great food but overpriced. At least they sort of make up for it with affordable wine. The next place I'm eager to try is Solstice in Berlin (www.solsticegrill.com). My sister gave us a gift card there and I've heard good things.

Waiting in a doctor's office this morning during my wife's appointment, I started thumbing through the (mostly women's and lifestyle) magazines. One of them featured a blurb about Padma Lakshmi, and I was surprised to find a handful of compelling recipes I immediately began to transcribe: Black Grapes & Baby Arugula; Carrot & Cilantro Salad; Sauteed Sweet Potato & Limas; Basil & Blood Orange Salad; and Pondicherry Lentil Salad. A few of these call for "Pure Orange Oil," with fresh grated zest as a substitute. I've never used this. Where do I find it, and are there varying qualities? It sounds like you only use a tiny bit -- a drop or two -- to flavor a dressing or dish.

I went to sleep last night thinking about "Reincarne." I imagined a scenario in which its mastery coincided with the rise in artificial intelligence, to the point where machines "learned" how to perfect this cultivated muscle tissue ... To the point that the machines learned to grow the tissue into bodies for their own locomotion. OK, so I am a vivid dreamer.

Ooooh: We could call it Reincarne!

Read the link I pasted a few posts up (the Slate one). That's what it talks about.

The Robert Morris might be closed (it's for sale, I do know). I would only recommend it for a dark dining room and a good crabcake. I've heard great things about Grove Market; never been. In Kent Island, we like a place called Lisa's Small Plates (tapas, with a lazy susan in the middle of the table for sharing, and a good wine selection), and a new place called Cafe Sado, opened by the owner of the former Nikko's in Annapolis. I haven't been to Perry Cabin; a little too $$$ for me. I'm sure if you don't mind that, it's probably a top-notch meal.

My point was not to suggest we need to do this to feed people, and you are correct in that there are many other forms of protein than animal flesh. However, with current and increasing market demands for meat, I think you'll find it harder to convince the world to settle for beanburgers, tempeh and wheat gluten nuggets than you think. Who knows, perhaps one day this kind of technology will be so commonplace and advanced, you could basically request an exact marbling percentage, grain structure and mineral background for a certain kind of "meat." (First off, it needs a new and highly euphemistic name. Contest, anyone?) One of its biggest obstacles would be marketing it against Big Meat (is that even a term?) So the product wouldn't likely catch on until it was really good. Originally I hadn't even considered humane treatment of livestock, but really, even on a medium-sized operation, who are we to know what kind of "quality" lives cattle, pigs (as smart as they are delicious) and sheep, et al, have lived. (OK, I'll give you Kobe beef...). If I shoot a deer cleanly through its lungs from a tree stand, I can be pretty certain it didn't suffer long and that up until that moment it lived a life deer evolved to live. I don't know that when I pick up my $1.99-a-pound chicken (which I do). Sometimes when I try to imagine possible distant futures, an optimistic idea of people advancing beyond our contemporary faults, I think about stuff exactly like this. As much as we look back with horror at Colonial doctors filling an agonized patient with whiskey and sawing his leg off, people wearing itchy wool year-round and sucking on wooden dentures -- maybe some distant humans will laugh at the "primitive" notion of killing animals for food. It's not that far-fetched in the long run. At any rate, the argument is all theory until something delicious emerges.

Look. This may be a corny qualification, but: 1. I love meat, including scrapple, chicken livers, fish, crab, etc. 2. I enjoy cooking quality food. 3. I grew up hunting and butchering deer and took satisfaction in knowing how to both kill and process an animal, as opposed to people whose lifelong interaction with flesh is wrapped in plastic on styrofoam in a giant cooler at Safeway. 4. I know people who raise beef cattle. Yes, the idea on its surface is bound to turn the noses of cooks, gourmands, "foodies," carnivores, omnivores, locavores, lambavores, S'moreavores, etc. But if you look deeper, it's both bound to happen eventually and not entirely "wrong." Mass-raised meat, for one, is produced under horrible conditions, with horrible inputs and a ton of resources. There is nothing romantic, pure or natural about how 98 percent of our animal protein is produced. And, with demand for meat growing worldwide (with burgeoning economies in China, etc.), coupled with an ever-growing population, this puts an even greater strain on resources and the environment. So what if we imagine a world in which millions enjoy a refined, perfected meat-culture as their animal protein, leading to less land devoted to mass stockades, graze and giant pools of pigshit. Then the elite can focus on higher-priced, smaller-scale organically raised heirloom livestock for their tables. To decry this concept flat-out, from anyone but a vegan, suggests you see nothing wrong with the current state of carnivory. And it's a sorry state.

A pertinent follow-up I found today on slate.com: http://www.slate.com/id/2189676/ I really don't see a negative to this, especially if it could be eventually cultivated with far fewer resources than livestock take, with an almost zero risk of infection (no fecal coliform, for one), no need for antibiotics, hormones, etc.

Top Chef has finally, quietly lost my interest and I didn't even realize it. Until just now, 2:23 a.m. Friday morn, I had completely forgotten there was an episode Wednesday. I'll catch it on a rerun, and perhaps the show will pull me in again, but my hunches on this season have thus far been correct. I think the novelty has worn off.

The new Thai place, Thai-Ki (opened and operated by the former owner/chef of Inn at Easton) is great. Limited menu, which means most of the stuff on it is honed and good. I will say that I don't like the Thai curries much, but I never do anywhere because I find them too sweet, soupy and loaded with coconut milk. I ask for dishes spicy, and they oblige. The Spicy Turmeric Beef is singularly excellent, as is his version of green papaya salad, which he tops with a house-cured crispy pork belly. Sweet corn fritters were a hit, and the pad thai was beyond most standard Thai restaurants' versions. It's certainly a very welcome addition to Eastern Shore dining. If you're heading down to Cambridge there are a few notable new options. On main street there is Bistro Poplar, which my wife said was great, comparable to the high-end places in St. Michaels. And down Horn Point Road at the Cambridge Country Club is the recently renovated Bobby's (offering probably the best waterfront view on the Mid-Shore, IMO), with a great menu and a $25 Sunday brunch featuring all-you-can-drink champagne. 208 Talbot in St. Mikes has a recently added bar menu with killer chicken livers on it (I'd go just for those and drinks), as does Mason's in Easton. Mason's bar menu actually has some really good deals. Also in Easton is the new Martini's on Washington St.; I haven't tried it but I hear good things.

Good lord. If you live anywhere within 1,000 miles of either a city or an industrial zone you probably have an "increased chance" of dying in a 30-year-period than a wealthy hermit who resides in a steel-encased bubble atop Mount McKinley. My wife tries to eat fewer refined carbs nowadays, so she likes when I get up in the morning and poach her a couple of eggs sometimes. If this routine occurs 3.5 times in a given week, can I be sued for spousal abuse? Am I killing her? I love the "more vegetables" part. So I guess we should stop eating those, too.

This is not from 2008, but Cooks Illustrated years ago (maybe 2000 or '01) had a recipe for scallion pasta, in which you sliced and cooked in oil several bunches of scallions, then tossed with spaghetti. Maybe there was some garlic and red pepper flake, too, topped with parmesan at the end. It was terrible. Far too oniony for anyone at the table's tastes. I tried to pretend I liked it for about 10 minutes, but needless to say there were untouched leftovers that wound up getting pitched. I went back over the recipe to see if I'd followed it to the letter, and I had.

Hello? Anyone out there who can answer my molding query?

Good points, and again, I've hardly "gotten to know" any of the characters in this season yet. Maybe a few more episodes in I will. Right now the ones who stand out are Dale and maybe Mark and Richard. Zoi looks like she's always about to cry, Andrew like he's gone of his meds, and Jennifer like she can't wait to get in the middle of an argument. Let the posturing begin. I thought Season 3 was thankfully devoid of Season 2's mistakes in that department. Let's hope these chefs watched some reruns to learn the difference.

I was working while watching last night's episode, so I didn't pick up every detail, but I was a tad confused on the logic of sending Manuel home. If I heard correctly, it wasn't because he was responsible for the deal-breaking dish, it's because he wasn't responsible? Because he allowed someone else to present that dish? I don't quite understand that reasoning. I haven't developed any preferences for the players in this season yet, but I did like Manuel if only because he reminded me a lot of an old roommate of mine. The previews of next week's edition make me fear, however, that we're in for more of the stupid drama Season 2 provided. This group as a whole gives me sort of a bad vibe, and I think Bravo is going to play up the drama. Great dishes last night, though.

"I have no doubt that the people eating the food will culinarily crap in their pants." An appetizing quote from Andrew.

Whoa. I haven't even gotten to Erik's blurb yet, but instead reading with turned stomach the piece on Kobe Club. Maybe I need to get over it -- after all, who knows when some emperor will offer me $1 billion for the scrappledog -- but places like this and $700 sips of congac, et al, make me angrily nauseous. I'm glad some dude can pick up a $5,000 tip from Rush fucking Limbaugh, but I can't help wish anyone who pays that kind of money for food to choke on it in a back alley.