Smithy

Lest I denigrate the rest of your point here - and I don't want to - let me note that in many parts of this country, including the part where I currently live, we're doing well to have something labeled as an 'Oriental' grocery. Distinctions between Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, Vietnamese or Korean are not to be made, and distinctions among Chinese provinces are not to be conceived. But I digress.... ...please elaborate on that charming but puzzling expression "skew in the stocking"?

Welcome, Stephanie / absolutelyfuzzy! As Anna noted, there are a lot of "Modernists" here as well as cooks of all other stripes. I also took that edX course. I enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. Did you have a favorite - or least favorite - section from that course?

If your kettle is heavily scaled, be patient and make sure you get all the scale out. I grew up in a household with very hard water, and over the years the tea kettle got so much scale that it was noticeably heavier. My mother heard about the vinegar trick and tried it, whether with cider vinegar or white vinegar I can no longer say. Well, the scale layer was so thick that the vinegar layer permeated it without removing it. We drank vinegar-flavored tea for a week or three before she finally admitted defeat and replaced the kettle. We had some peculiar-tasting rice pilaf during that time, as well. I'm glad to hear the vinegar worked so well on the pots and strainers.

Thank you for that link, rotuts. The review and the excellent video clip reinforced my suspicions prejudices (I admit it) about this product. No, I haven't tried it. I tried a little of my mother's Ensure a couple of times, marveling that her nephrologist claimed it provided full nutrition. (She didn't like it either, but we'll save the topic of kidney diets for another day.) Sounds like this is even worse. So no, I haven't tried it; probably never will unless someone already has a container and offers me a sip. Are you offering to be the first?

heidih, I've never heard of barley tea before now. Barley beer, barley wine, yes: tea, no. Can you describe it?

Have you tried scrubbing with a good (safe) acid, like white vinegar, or lemon juice? I'd expect a low-pH cleaner would help the process. A nice, acidy carbonated soft drink (cola or lemon-lime come to mind) also might do it, though you'd then have to get the residual sugar off. A restaurant co-worker used to use a rinse of whatever our lemon-lime soft drink base was to rinse and finish cleaning the taps in the evening. I don't know what the boss would have thought of it if he'd known, but he liked the results. CLR claims it should work without damaging your pot. I haven't looked at the MSDS, but it's available for download from their web site: http://www.jelmar.com/CLRbasic.htm. Note they offer a money-back guarantee. Note also that they say not to use it on aluminum, not to get it on your clothes or countertops, etc. Given its corrosive nature, you'd have to find something to rest the pot and strainer in upside down, to get the rims. Cheapskate that I am, I'd probably try some readily-available culinary acids first. :-) Edit: sorry, AnnaN, I didn't see your answer while I was typing.

Fine Living? Do you mean Fine Cooking? Or is there a new magazine out there that I haven't discovered?

I'm with Shalmanese on this. I'm not sure how a lightweight cast-iron pan could have as good heat retention as a standard pan. How would it make up for the lost mass? I have to admit, though: the Komin looks great.

Got it. I have to love a factory where a few beers are acceptable at lunch or after. I remember those days here, before zero-tolerance kicked in.

I don't understand: does a peking duck pancake have peking duck included with the other things, i.e. peking duck, sausage and bean curd string?

rotuts, I think you're describing the "make your own" or "create your own" features that I discussed. The June/July 2014 issue was "Sorbet, Your Way" in a create-your-own format. Unfortunately I can only link to the Table of Contents for that issue, since the online magazine doesn't seem to go that far unless one is a subscriber. (To be honest, this subscriber is having trouble navigating to it anyway. ) But if you look at this link to the current magazine's table of contents, you'll see that it's listed as starting on page 64. Here's a complete listing of all their "create your own" interactive setups to date. I think they've set up a nice variety, and the recipes seem to work. It probably has dumbed down a bit in the last few years, which is why I'm noticing a certain amount of repetition, but I do think it's a good teaching magazine. I'm not knocking Craftsy, mind! But I'm less likely to pay the cost of a new cookbook for a class in something I don't know about than I am, say, to try two or three new ideas from the variety offered in a single magazine.

I'd never seen a Barefoot malbec either, until I opened my eyes to see what I had grasped. I was surprised. I do hope some other people can find it, so we can compare notes. The store started out big but then made a major expansion a couple of years ago, when they added a Beer Cave (all the rage here, as though we don't have obliging snowbanks much of the year) and wine tastings, and widened the aisles but made them longer. It's the largest, though not the only, liquor store in town. That's pretty good for a city just shy of 90,000 people. It helps to be a regional commercial hub.

As I understand it, not all fiddleheads are created equal. How do you know which are the right ones to pick? (Ours are just popping up now too, along with - finally! - the ramps.)

I second the reference for Fine Cooking magazine. I've learned a great deal from it. Over the years their features have seemed to come in cycles (how many issues for 'the perfect roast' have I seen around Christmas?) but they always have good articles and they continue to innovate. For instance: in nearly every issue they now have a "Create Your Own xxx" feature in which they show the techniques and proportions for some food. It might be chili, or ice cream, or macarons, or Chinese stir-fry. Their web site has the create-your-own items as interactive pieces, where you can select your ingredients from their list, set up your recipe, and print it. Another recent innovation is that if you're a print subscriber, you can also get the digital editions delivered (no extra charge) to your tablet or phone. My other favorite cooking magazine is Saveur. I think they're a very happy combination of food porn and travel guide; their articles are interesting, photography is great, and I learn about other parts of the world and their food habits. They also have recipes and a good web presence. I don't learn as much about technique from them, but every once in a while a gem turns up: how to make baguettes, for instance.

The variety, apparent quality and sheer quantity of food are astonishing. What happens to any leftovers? Do you know? Thanks for the extra stories. I suppose with a 2-year-old, the expediency of a beach bucket may be better than the alternative. ;-) I'll bet you've come away with 'chaos' as the new slang culinary term. :-D

As the others said, you can never go wrong with cookies. By the way: welcome to the eGullet forums!

Wow! Thank you for the photo of the peacock fish; words don't do it justice. I think I'll have to leave that one for someone else to do. However, the drunken fish recipe(s) sound promising, and I'm always looking for new ways to do green beans. I appreciate the additional notes on Shaoxing wine and the type of soy sauce needed.

Let me add my "Welcome, AnnieLo!" to the others'. You've asked a great question. There's been a lot of discussion about cooking in clay pots over the years. I have the eG Forums in general and Paula Wolfert in particular to thank for getting me started on clay pot cooking. The comments above about thermal shock are valid; however, I've had (and used) many clay pots for years, with no breakage or mishaps. Those 'pots' include glazed ceramic casserole dishes as well as unglazed fired clay pots, a tagine, and a Romertopf covered dish. You may want to look into the Moroccan Tagine Cooking topic to see some of the earlier discussions about cooking in clay. Despite the title, the comments also wandered into cooking in other shapes of clay pots, and the food is not restricted to Moroccan meals. There are links to related topics that seemed to deserve their own titles, and in fact the topic was generated by a braising course in the eGullet Culinary Institute. You may also be interested in this topic: Cooking with Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking, in which members cooked from the book and compared results. Don't be shy about asking questions; come on in and join the fun!

Yes, it's a pleasant surprise to see you here, liuzhou. That's interesting about the tiger skin peppers. My usual way of cooking hot peppers is to blister them, then peel and use the peeled flesh in whatever I'm making. It looks like you're using the skins as well. Do you remove the seeds and veins first?

That's a good move. Welcome, Emeline!

The ramps are FINALLY up! I transplanted some from a road right-of-way to our back yard, and foraged a few while I was at it.

We were out and about today, and decided to go into the local largest wine (and beer and spirits) store: Cash Wise Liquor in Duluth, MN*. We accosted a nice young saleswoman who thought the whole wine roulette idea sounded like a lot of fun. "What kind of wine are you after?" she asked. I explained that it was supposed to be a surprise, but that for price purposes I should probably pick something from, say, the second shelf from the floor. (Are all wine stores arranged this way, where the price gets higher with altitude? Or is that a Minnesota thing?) I warned her to hang on to me, lest I inadvertently purchase many broken bottles. She really got into it. The selection: Another Malbec! I'm sorry now that I didn't keep a bottle of Alamos Malbec, our last wine, for the sake of comparison. I confess I was hoping she'd steer me into, say, some Italian or Spanish blend. Nonetheless, this is wine roulette: totally random. I hope this is a wine readily available elsewhere among the participants! Barefoot Malbec, no vintage year visible, $5.97/bottle, on sale (about $1 off normal price). 1. Disclaimer: we're steady customers of this store, but have no business connection with them. 2. Apologies for the quality of some of the photos. We did this on the spur of the moment, and my cell phone was the only available camera.

You're way over my head on this, but didn't I see numbers earlier for the target aW to be around 0.65? I don't think I've seen any numbers as low as what you posted above.

For what it's worth, the cinnamon I used to get in Egyptian spice markets looked more like the Indonesian cinnamon on the right in your photo. If I asked its source, I don't remember the answer.

Thanks for that additional information, hiuray. I'm not surprised to learn that there are many varieties of "Asian" eggplants; there are also multiple varieties of the fat round eggplants. Unfortunately, in my part of the country the labelers generally satisfy themselves with "Asian", with the default "Eggplant" occasionally modified as "Globe" or "Italian". I don't know what they'd do with the small, round eggplants that are about the size of duck eggs. :-)Thanks also for the confirmation that sweet and sour pork is a genuine Chinese dish that's been corrupted in the USA. I'm looking forward to trying the real thing; I'm betting that it's a more nuanced dish than what you so aptly describe as gloopy, sweet and vibrantly orange. I've always thought the stuff I tried was too polarized: the culinary equivalent of a teeter-totter that just won't stabilize.