Smithy

Yes. In case it isn't clear, ours have had heavy use: in the car, in the trailer, sometimes even in the house or the hot tub. I have other travel mugs I keep for sentimental reasons (corporate logo from my former job, for instance) but never use them any more because they don't hold a candle to the Contigos.

We've been very happy with our Contigo Autoseal mugs. We chose mugs with handles, as shown in the link, but they also come without handles. The mugs hold temperature better than any others we've tried. I learned about them from a friend who took hers on a backpacking trip around Europe: she'd fill it with boiling water in the morning, and have hot water for tea a few hours later. It didn't leak. Here's a picture of one of ours, not-leaking. Clockwise, from upper left: coffee inside; lid on; tipped over (for more than a minute); righted again. No leak. The only apparent age issue is that the outer coat of the mug, which once matched the lid, has worn off to reveal the stainless steel below. Note: I discovered, while making this photo series, that our other mug DOES now leak around the lid's rim; the gasket must be wearing. I think they're 4 years old. They didn't leak on our boat trip last year.

Nice pun! My mother, a born leftie and forced ambie, thought so.

Based on this recommendation, I took a look and also bought the second one.

Squash Ribbons with Tomatoes, Peanuts, Basil, Mint, and Spicy Fish-Sauce Sauce, 47% through the Kindle version. This was an adventure. The photos uptopic have been inspiringly lovely, and I bought 2 yellow summer squash and a zucchini simply to make this recipe. Then I started to make the Spicy Fish-Sauce Sauce, and began to worry. First, there was the necessary substitution of ground chiles and sriracha sauce for the fresh chiles to be found in the recipe but not in my pantry. Next, there was the Fish Sauce. I don't recall how long ago, or why, I first bought fish sauce, but I've kept it around without really cottoning to it. It has sulked in the refrigerator, only occasionally being trotted out for some experiment before being relegated again to the Hazardous Materials Storage section, for years. I began to mix, and the aroma permeated the kitchen. Whew! I adjusted seasonings in the dressing to my taste, which meant adding a LOT more water, sugar and vinegar - including some wine vinegar - to balance out the fish sauce. I could still smell the fish sauce. I let it rest and mingle. The marauding aroma marched to the rest of the house. The salad itself looked pretty. The ribbons of squash became supple after some hours of salting, draining, and then rinsing. The tomatoes, basil, mint and peanuts added to the color contrast. O-kay, it looked pretty. How would it taste? In a moment of skepticism I hauled out some leftovers as a dinner backup. Surprise! I needn't have worried. Somehow, that spicy fish-sauce sauce is an excellent compliment to the vegetables. I probably overplayed the sriracha; the salad dressing has a sneak-up-and-don't-let-go bulldog quality of heat, but the flavors are quite good. We'll be playing with this more. Maybe I'll move the fish sauce to more accessible place in the fridge.

I'll have to keep an eye out for Raves in our markets. To be honest, I think the Honeycrisps are overrated (says the Minnesota resident). My favorites these days are Fujis for eating and Granny Smiths or Pippins for baking, but it's fun to try other varieties.

I'm very impressed. Who would have imagined dendritic patterns on confections? Obviously, someone did - but not I! I wonder if they got the idea from looking at, say, a dendritic agate. I often look at interesting landforms and wonder how they might be reproduced in pastry form, but the closest I personally can come is to make meringue to look like a sand dune.

Fascinating. It would be fun to see what they come up with as a rough recipe. Einkorn flour isn't difficult to come by. Maybe some clever forager can find some club-rush tubers. Although I will admit that "club-rush" sounds more like a social event than a plant. On further reading I see that an alternate name for the club-rush plant is the bulrush. Hmm, this may have some marketing possibilities for a restaurant of the same name. @gfron1, I'm looking at you.

@Jim D., if the party favors can be used to predict the marriage, this one will be joyous. Well done, sir.

My work schedule is such that I've been relying on the local farmers instead of trying to grow anything more elaborate than basil this year. I'll file away the info, however, that Mountain Magic tomatoes will grow in pots. I had assumed, for no particular reason, that they'd need more space.

Thank you for the reminder! Our system has it.

I have a moratorium on cookbook buying for a while, at least until I've actually cooked from some that I purchased earlier this year. That said, I've now placed Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Practical Pantry: Recipes and Techniques for Year-Round Preserving on my wishlist. It's available in Kindle version, as well as hardcover - and I noticed quite a few listings for it in the used bookstores also. Thanks for the recommendation.

Mountain Magic is one of my favorite tomatoes, also. I haven't been able to find them around here in the last few years. Maybe I can talk someone into growing them again next year.

Wild rice done in the Instant Pot (pot in pot method), shrimp and vegetables in a mustard cream sauce over the rice, and frozen, ready-to-bake onion rings cooked in an air fryer. The rings were a disappointment; the rest I'd do again.

I've had a few duds since my last post. Last weekend, while we had company, we were all eager to try the recipe for French fries in the Holsem Air Fryer's cookbook. I was impressed at how little oil was needed to coat the potato slivers. I was also impressed that the recipe gives times based on size and shape of the pieces: half-moons vs. wedges vs. sticks, and the size of each. Unfortunately, none of us was impressed with the results. It took much, much longer than the book suggested to get the fries to cook, and by the time they had finally turned crisp there was no flavor to them. I may try again, using the waxy potatoes they specified instead of the Yukon Golds I had on hand and using more of a spice coating. I purchased some oven-ready breaded onion rings and have baked them in two batches. These cooked much more quickly than the package instructions said to cook them, and in both cases turned out to be crunchy-hard without great flavor. They looked pretty good sitting in the air fryer... ...but on the plate you can see more clearly that they were overdone - and that was stopping the cook at 10 minutes rather than the prescribed 15. It's possible there was something about my technique, but I'm inclined to blame the brand of onion rings instead. On the other hand, the Maryland-style crab cakes I purchased from a local deli and cooked in the air fryer were brilliant. I forgot to take a photo. We ate them too quickly.

@Anna N I'm laughing because of the cleanup, but it looks delicious.

Stick around, and let us see how you get on with it. Maybe you'll make more of us envious.

They are talking about one strand at a time, and it has to have a round cross-section. As with so many scientific discoveries, it starts as sheer playful curiosity and becomes something more. The ArsTechnica article notes that the modeling required to figure this out has already helped in an Adobe application. It also says: And yes, I too grab a handful and break it - with the bend pointed downward into the pot, so it doesn't go flying all over the kitchen. I learned that one the hard way, believe it or not, so I know what a floor littered with spaghetti pieces looks like!

One of my favorite summer salads, when the tomatoes finally come in, is a Caprese salad. We keep basil out on the deck, olive oil and balsamic vinegar in the pantry, and for special occasions we'll buy thinly-sliced salami and mozzarella cheese. When the season is right, nothing IMO can be simpler - or finer. Well, it's even better with fresh, warm sourdough bread. This picture is actually from a sailboat cruise last summer, but I stumbled over it earlier today and think it's worth sharing.

I thought the same thing about tomato soup, then I remembered gazpacho. Go figure. I bought the Kindle version of Six Seasons, but so far have only done the roasted green beans with pine nut vinaigrette. I liked it; our guests liked it; my darling not so much. Oh, well. The vinaigrette is good on other things too. Tonight it'll be gracing some asparagus. I may break down and buy a dead tree version of this book, for the sheer pleasure of handling and looking through it. Every time this topic is updated I remember that I actually own the book, but without its taking up space on a desk I forget to look through it!

I didn't know Trader Joe's carried that, but I've purchased it in New Mexico. It is indeed good stuff. Here's hoping TJ's starts carrying it again.

There is also the safety aspect of having a well-fed and -provisioned crew. One trio did the Trans in the smallest legal boat possible (26'? I forget) and, in order to minimize weight, those youngsters packed a bunch of snack foods like Pringles and not much else. Someone needed to have taken them in hand before the race and put some sense into them. To make matters worse, the food in question had the fat substitute Olean (a.k.a. Olestra). It was literally a gut-wrenching experience for them. They all survived and finished the race, but were incredibly hungry when they crossed the finish line. It was one of those "never again" learning moments for them. 😉 We may have been asked to contribute money for food in a couple of races, but if we did it wasn't much. What mattered to me was - as you say - having good food, warm for those cold nights, and plenty of it. Lief and his wife sound like gems!

Thanks for this information about the Yeti cooler. I may have just worked out what to get my husband for Christmas.

I am still getting my mind wrapped round the idea of squid coming up on deck at night. Does this happen only at a low speed, or can they snag a boat doing 10 knots or better? How high off the water is the deck, that they're clambering aboard? Please tell more about this when you get a chance.

Back in my sailboat racing days I was rarely put in charge of the food, and it was interesting to see how the skipper dealt with the issue. Lake Superior is cold, year-round, and there's little as discouraging as spending 4 days choosing between cold sandwiches and instant ramen or soup in a styrofoam cup. (There may have been fruit also; I've put that particular Trans Superior Race more or less out of mind.) Other skippers I raced with were more interested in crew comfort, and over the years there have been frozen lasagna, heated in the (yes, gimbaled and yes, gimbals locked) oven as well as restaurant-quality boil-in-bag soups or dinners. Eggs and bacon for breakfast, in some cases, or hot or cold cereal. Sandwiches for lunch. On one much shorter race, when I was a novice cook but more interested in cooking than the other crew members, I cooked scrambled eggs with chunks of Jimmy Dean sausage mixed in. The skipper thought I was a gourmet cook! Times and my cookery have changed since then. Cruises are a different story than races, and probably more like the deliveries being discussed here. Last summer my husband, sister-in-law and I rented a 33' sloop for 4 days, and they let me take care of the food. We intended to spend every night docked somewhere on Lake Superior, but allowed for the possibility of its being too stormy or cold to want to use the barbeque grill latched to the stern rail. I purchased more food than we needed, due to that allowance, but we had plenty of choices and were never in danger of starving. As I recall the meals ran along these lines: Caprese salad with good fresh warm bread on the first night, with some of summer's finest tomatoes; pesto-stuffed boneless chicken thighs on the grill, with a fresh green salad and more bread on the second night; grilled kebabs that had by then thawed, over rice, for our final dinner. SIL and I preferred yogurt and fruit for breakfast; DH chose his usual cereal. I think we had scrambled eggs with cheese one day. Lunch tended to be sandwiches for DH and me and granola bars for SIL, which helps explain why she's much slimmer than I. We had fruit and pre-cut vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, celery sticks, etc.) for snacks. Convenience foods that I brought along in case it was too miserable to cook were a selection of the aforementioned instant soups and ramens, and prepackaged ready-to-heat Indian foods: curries, saag paneer, precooked rice. That last was a surprise; Uncle Ben's actually offers some decent precooked, simply reheat, rice. Most of that stuff came home with us, and with the exception of the soups and ramens (which went to a food shelf) we've been enjoying them as quick dinners. I think stir fries make a lot of sense, but didn't plan for them on that trip and certainly didn't expect a wok. I packed my own knives but trusted the charter company otherwise, and if I'd brought a wok I don't know where we'd have put it in that particular boat. The storage was pretty limited. Here's a shot of the cooler, loaded for the trip: For the short time we were cruising the eggs couldn't have gone off anyway, but I'm glad to read @JohnT's and @Auspicious' advice to store them in cardboard rather than styrofoam, and to rotate them every day or so. That's good to know for the longer haul.