Smithy

I've been traveling a lot over the last few months, and my sourdough starter is changing...not for the better. For various reasons I've just been feeding it (equal parts starter, flour, water usually; sometimes 1:2:2: starter, flour, water if I thought I'd get a chance to bake bread.) My starter has been getting thinner and, well, more sour smelling. The thinness surprises me, and I wonder what - if anything - I can do about it. Hooch starts appearing after 3 days, but the smell is pretty strong after only 2 days. I feed it almost every day to avoid the smell and try to keep it boosted to a "normal" (by my experience) viscosity. I have no control over the water, unless I start using and carrying distilled water. I think the water we started taking on a couple of weeks ago has more dissolved solids and is harder, but I don't have a way to measure it. I haven't been taking pH measurements along the way, but the pH at home (where this starter was born) is around 8.7, so the alkalinity here shouldn't be unusual. The flour - well, I was faithfully using one brand but most recently I've had to explore other brands; all have been unbleached flour but it's possible the variety of wheat was different. My maintenance has been regular and frequent feeding of the starter, but I've had to step up the rate. I wonder what's going on with it. It's sitting out at room temperature (no room in the refrigerator). Any ideas? Is it dying?

Kim, what was so much worse about cleaning the Vitamix for this vs. the food processor?

Welcome. You've come to a good place to learn; the members here range from brand-new cooks to seasoned (heh) professionals. You may find useful information also in the short courses offered in the eGullet Culinary Institute: how to cook various cuisines, make soups, sauces, and so on. Depending on the degree and manner to which your wife has become disabled, you may find useful information in courses offered there on Cooking With Disabilities. Part 1 assumes the cook is working with disabilities; Part 2 addresses cooking for someone with disabilities (mostly for an impaired child, but some information may be valuable to you), and Part 3 discusses sensory issues such as dealing with nausea and medications.

The netting in weinoo's link is designed for your purpose. Does the clam bake netting have any advantages, like being more readily available?

I think if I ordered a club sandwich and didn't have some meat between both slices I'd be surprised. The first one sounds more right to me. I haven't had one in years, though, so my memory may be faulty.

Inspired by recent developments in this topic on Moroccan Tagine Cooking, as well as a need to keep working through last year's stash of fresh dates, I invented a new dish. The cookware in question is a clay pot from Egypt; it isn't a tagine. Clay has wonderful cooking properties that I'll be happy to discuss in more detail. Raw ingredients: chicken thighs, rice, half a valencia orange (for juice), spices, a touch of oil, a bit of chicken broth; not shown: the dates. In layers, into the pot, I set: a little oil, the rice (~3/4c?), drizzled the rice with broth, but not (it turned out) enough. Atop the rice went the chicken thighs (patted dry, dabbed with oil, sprinkled with spices). The dates were tucked in around and between the chicken; the orange juice was poured over the lot; the rest of the spices were spread over the chicken. The pot went into the oven at around 300F (still no oven thermometer) covered, until it was nearly done, then uncovered for a little extra browning of the chicken. I thought it was done when I pulled it out. The chicken was fine; the rice needed more time or more liquid. Still...where that rice was done, it was deliciously done. Look! It approached the Iranian tahdig: crusty, brown, caramelized. The beauty of slow cooking in an oven is that we could spend time sitting outside, looking at the stars. I actually found Comet Lovejoy...that is, I didn't discover it, but given clear skies and a clue where to look, I found that fuzzy greenish ball. I still haven't exhausted our supply of dates, but that won't stop me from replenishing. Up soon: dates from a local producer.

I may be way off base here, having no experience with clam bake bags, but I'm going to guess that if you have them in firm contact with the roast in question the net won't be able to dry out enough to catch fire. If you wrap the item in question with the clam bake bag and tie it off, then trim off the excess, I don't see the netting as being very flammable unless the contents are drying out badly. You might consider basting the contents and the net to prevent that happening. I may be waaaay off base here, though. :-)

Do you have a target age bracket in mind? Lunch totes for 1st- and 2nd-graders would differ from those for middle school or high school set.

When I was a kid I strongly preferred Miracle Whip. Sometime in early adulthood my tastes changed; I can't stand the stuff either. My darling isn't as bull-headed about getting his own preferred condiments as I am, but there's no harm in each of us getting what we want. It just makes for a more crowded refrigerator. :-)

Oh, boy. I've been getting plenty of new toys lately and figure I need to put them through their paces - but this looks like a lot of fun. I was thinking - nay dreaming! - about fried shoestring onions after seeing Anna's and Kerry's recent posts; clearly, I wasn't the only one! I have my mother's old Salad Shooter at home in a box of things claimed when we cleared out her apartment. I wonder if it will be a good trial version when I get back home?

Maybe I'll make a double batch, or triple. My Miracle Whip Brat has been suggesting white balsamic vinegar.

How could one help bragging, with that? That's quite a haul!

I've never seen a butter dish (except a butter bell) that would accommodate that much butter at one time. Is that a standard size in Canada? Or do you cut the butter into smaller portions?

This is what I mean by a clear view of the pass from L.A: unfortunately rare out here. The air right now is quite clear, however, and the view is glorious. One of our "time-saving" tricks is to do about a week's worth of salad preparation in advance. With proper timing the batches can be staggered to different days, but yesterday we were out of it all: the salad greens, the salad "crunchy" additions, and the fruit salad. Below is most, but not all of the results: mixed greens (romaine hearts and kale); 2 large containers of mixed chopped radishes, celery, carrots, ripe bell peppers and snap peas; more than 2 large containers of cut pineapple, citrus, strawberriBs, raspberries, grapes and dates. Not shown: hummus, and some of the other containers. By the time I'd finished with all that, I wasn't interested in food prep for dinner, preferring instead to sit outside in the sun with a book. Dinner was a very uninteresting mix of potato salad and bratwurst, not worth photos. I ran out of mayonnaise, so that's on today's task list. Does anyone have a favorite recipe? I'm doing the 2-minute immersion blender version from Serious Eats, but mine comes out very bland. My darling thinks it needs more sweet (he's a Miracle Whip kinda guy) and I think it needs more...salt? tart? garlic, perhaps? We're considering using Meyer lemon juice this time around but I'm open to suggestions.

I've been looking for the right butter dish for our trailer travels. Criteria: it must be pretty, sturdy and secure enough that the lid won't come off in transit. (Our original stainless steel dish is almost right, but the lid doesn't stay on securely. It takes 2 rubber bands to keep the lid on in transit.) Lightweight is also a good trait. Behold, I found something even better than I'd expected: The butter tray comes out for easy washing, so the entire dish need not be washed regularly...a good water-saving trick. The lid sits securely in the base, just as I needed. The style is a favorite, vaguely Danish Modern. I found this beauty last fall in, of all places, Simon's Town, South Africa, at the local equivalent of the Sally Ann. I think the marked price was 20 rand (something under $2) but I probably paid less: our entire bill, with 2 good linen jackets and some other clothing, was only 90 rand. My darling was a bit nonplussed that my souvenirs from South Africa included a butter dish that one might have seen in the USA in the '60's.

Thanks for that link, Chris. I can personally attest that the Cooper's Old-Time Barbecue of Llano, featured in that link, does wonderful brisket. We always get it dipped. Now I can work on making that sauce myself, more or less.

"Individual quiche" and "prosciutto wrapped eggie muffins" are making me absolutely envious! How I wish I'd packed along my little mini-tart pan as I'd intended! Anna N and Mmmpomps, those delicacies wouldn't last half an hour around here, even if I'd made a dozen for each of us.

How long do you expect the vins will have to sit before testing, Chris? You will report on the results in good time, please?

I'm not usually crazy about sweet potatoes, Anna N, because people usually insist on making them even sweeter. Your noodles look and sound delicious...not too sweet, and quite creative. What are the darker strips in the photo? Spiral-cut peel? Slightly caramelized potato noodle?

Wow...edible 'legos'! What fun!

Markus, that is a fascinating tagine, and a great find! I love the haggling process. It's best when both parties walk away thinking they got a good deal and had a few laughs. Welcome to eGullet, by the way.

No, we're farther south between the 10 and the 8, enjoying a very rare, clear view of the mountains around Banning Pass: rare because there's not the usual tongue of smog sticking out of the pass from the L.A. Basin.I'm enjoying a late breakfast: 2 oranges, a mandarin orange, and an avocado sandwich on rosemary bread. I set off the smoke alarm, trying to toast the bread on stovetop. Guess I should have turned on the generator and run the toaster instead. :-)

Those are gorgeous...absolutely gorgeous!...and I would gorge myself on them if we were in the same county. Thanks so much for showing us this equipment and technique, and what you can do with it!

This morning's view: The ribs before cooking, with their seasoning, looked dreadful in the "before" photo, so I'm saving the pixels. I really have to start paying more attention to lighting; late afternoon sunlight isn't the ticket. After they were cooked, they looked like this: The roundish things above are the two silicone disks I used to cover instead of foil. I left a couple of ribs uncoated with Jack Daniels barbecue sauce, and instead used some of the leftover sauce from citrus-marinated chicken last week. I think I liked that better, but both flavorings were good. This oven is new as of January 2, and I'm still learning to use it. (I broke my baking stone last week wtih injudicious heat.) The dial doesn't go below 300F, but by guess and by golly I got the oven to maintain around 200F by positioning the control about halfway between the "300F" mark and the "Pilot Light On" mark. Judging by the texture of the cooked ribs, they may have needed a bit more time. Nonetheless, the meat was nearly perfect: inexpensive prime rib, almost all falling off the bone. We did have vegetables also: the rest of the brussels sprouts for him and some steamed broccoli with yet more leftover citrus sauce for me. There is leftover meat - not as much as two sensible adults should have left - but some. (I hid my share lest it evaporate overnight.) When it's done, we'll really need to be 'good' about the calories for a while. Oinkeroo.

I'm reasonably certain that MSG is the principal constituent of Accent Flavor Enhancer, which is quite common in USA grocery stores. I'll have to check the next time I'm looking at a shaker of the stuff. I remember when my mother first discovered it in the 1960's - it was quite the rage back then. (Liuzhou, you forgot the other meaning of "on-line" back then: it meant Dad was coming home with fish. :-D)