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Everything posted by jerkhouse
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I told my mom about this, and she's now a huge fan, as well as my uncle. It's funny that both of them had the same reaction after pulling it out of the oven: "Where'd it all go?"
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Haha, I was, but not anymore. That was taken when I was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (I was in the Marines) a few years ago. We were pretty good friends with the Jamaican cooks at the chow hall so I used to always ask them for the paper hats like the one I'm wearing in the picture; we thought the juxtaposition of the machine gun with the goofy paper hat was pretty funny, and since it was my "chef" hat I thought it might be appropriate for Egullet. Cuba was also the source of the name Jerk House, it was a Jamaican place that had awesome Jamaican food. (there were tons of Jamaicans on base so they had their own places, etc.) Probably in my top 5 places to eat ever, and it's stuck in the middle of a military base I'll probably never visit again, but I think about it all the time. I also just remembered that, although you can't see it, in that picture I had this crappy mustache that I grew as a joke (extreme boredom), so some people called me "Pierre" - with the hat and the mustache they thought I looked like a French chef, which is another reason that I thought to put it on here
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Of all the different stuff I've tried, the method described above produced the best results. Just throw some flank steak in the freezer for like an hour, then shave diagonally across the meat, and if you cook it hot enough for 45 seconds to a minute and remove it before cooking your other stuff, it should turn out pretty good. I wish I had come across this thread a year ago when I was going through trial and error trying to figure out the same question.
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I think I've posted this story before under another thread, but when I was a kid my mom caught me eating a [sandwich?] of cereal in hot dog buns, covered in orange juice. (I thought cereal would be better as a sandwich, and the hotdog bun was a good shape for it. And I had always wanted to eat cereal with orange juice - since I liked orange juice better than milk, it made sense to me that cereal with orange juice would taste better than cereal with milk). Anyway, my mom told me that eating the dough would kill me. I wasn't smart enough to figure out (1) that she was lying, and (2) that hotdog buns are bread, not dough.
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I've got a set of Wusthofs I've been using for around 5 years, which I like a lot. I was given a Shun classic 8" chef's knife recently and it's really nice, especially for something that is the same price (if not a tad less) as a Wusthof chef's knife. As far as feel, I've been going back and forth with them to try and decide which one I like better and I can't; they both seem to have their advantages. Like everyone says though, the German knives definitely have more heft. The Shun feels lighter, and also feels a lot more balanced. I like the Shun better now, but I think that may be because it's new. I've got to admit though, for a mass produced knife, it's very nice to look at. My wife made fun of me earlier because she caught me pulling it out of the block just to look at it.
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Forgive me if this is extra-old news, but there's a Le Creuset outlet store in San Marcos. The prices were still very expensive, and I have no idea how much it goes for retail, but I would imagine that since it's an outlet store the prices should be cheaper.
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It's not quite a superstition, but many recruits believe that the Marine Corps puts salt-peter in the food at boot camp (for it's anti-aphrodisiacal powers). I'm not sure why, but every once in a while the eggs were so dark they were nearly black, and this would be pointed to as evidence of the salt peter's-presence. Guys that worked in the chow hall supposedly remember pouring the salt-peter into the eggs, despite the fact that it never happened.
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Does anyone have any suggestions for some laidback drinking spots in Downtown Greenville? I'm going to be there over the weekend and I don't know the area very well. I figured any tips I could get here may match my tastes a little better than some alternative press "Best of" article I might find on the internet. (or maybe not.) Anyway, what bars do you guys like in downtown Greenville? Sorry if this should be in another thread, but it seemed like the discussion had already touched on Greenville bars a bit, so I figured you guys might be pretty helpful.
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Here's a quote from Bacchus Imports v. Dias, the last case (as far as I know) to involve the dormant commerce clause and the 21st amendment. I didn't have the motivation to read the opinion, but its out there for anyone interested. "The tax exemption is not saved by the Twenty-first Amendment. The exemption violates a central tenet of the Commerce Clause but is not supported by any clear concern of that Amendment in combating the evils of an unrestricted traffic in liquor. The central purpose of the Amendment was not to empower States to favor local liquor industry by erecting barriers to competition." Unless the Court changes its approach to dormant commerce power cases, it will probably be examining two main issues: (1) is the regulation discriminatory against out of state business, and (2) how burdensome is the regulation on commerce. There seems to be some sort of sliding scale under which the less discriminatory a regulation is, the more burdensome it can be, but there are limits at both ends of the scale. Some precedent indicates that incidental burdens on commerce will be allowed if the regulation is in pursuit of a legitimate state goal. I'm not sure what standard of review the legitimacy of the state goal is reviewed under, but as DoverCanyon pointed out, the justifications given aren't very convincing, so it will be interesting to see how the "legitimate state goal" thing plays out (if it ends up being an issue at all).
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My Russian professor in college used to have us over to her house every once in a while for Russian dinners, and pelmeni was almost always on the table. I haven't had it since then, but your article sure makes me want some; I'd also like to get my hands on some good borscht, but I digress.
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In my undergrad days at Universtiy of Tennessee we had a chik-fil-a at one of the campus food-spots and we could use our meal plan there; sometimes I probably ate at least one meal a day there for a month or more straight - the more pickles the better. I've realized that my fast-food standards are considerably lower than many others' on the board, but even given my love for about every fast food place, Chik-fil-a manages to stand out by being so good without drowning their food in extra ingredients and sauces; the chicken (and pickles!) really speaks for itself. on a tangent - Iron Chef America is on right now and it's the one with Big Pussy... what were they thinking? On another tangent, thinking of home reminds me of Krystal..... sigh...
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Absurdly, stupidly basic cooking questions (Part 1)
jerkhouse replied to a topic in Food Traditions & Culture
I know it's been a few days since the cast-iron seasoning question, but I'd like to add to JPW's advice. I think most people recommend solid shortening like crisco instead of something like canola oil. It seems to cure into a better surface; sometimes canola oil can be kind of sticky. I can't remember where I saw it, but somewhere on the web I saw a guy that said he called lodge to ask them about seasoning techniques. They recommended baking the skillet at 500 for two hours. He said the reason they didn't recommend that on the actual instructions that come with skillets was simply because they didn't want the average consumer to get nervous when the oven started smoking (which may happen at 500), and that 350 does a serviceable job. Anyway, if you coat your pans with a thin layer of crisco and bake them at 500 degrees for two hours they will come out jet black; I've seasoned one skillet per the stock instructions (I also used canola oil) and another per the modified instructions with crisco and there is a huge difference; the one cured at 500 degrees turned out way better. I've heard people talk about the seasoning breaking down at high temperatures like 500 degrees. I don't have a response to that because I'm not that knowledgeable about cookware. I do know, however, that this method worked well for me, and that the advice supposedly came from the people at Lodge. -
that's another thing - It was my experience that many customers don't understand the sanitary justification for the toothpicks, they seem to think they are there in case they don't feel like picking the food up with their bare fingers. There were many times I would try to give a customer a toothpick and he or she would waive it off, saying, "I'll just use my hands," before grabbing the food and darting off. I should have put a sign that said, "Asshats, the toothpicks are not to protect your hands from the food, but to protect the food from your nasty germ encrusted hands" -and if you think I was going to argue with idiots over using toothpicks for the princely sum of 5 or 6 dollars an hour - it just wasn't going to happen.
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I can see how this could happen. Generally the people handling the food don't have any special food preparation experience. A knife that's been cutting raw meat for a few hours and hasn't been cleaned could easily get mixed up with the "clean" knife one is using to cut the cooked meat. Combine this with the fact that many of the people handing out food samples could give a damn about their job performance and it's a wonder that the walls of these stores aren't spackled with the vomit of food-sick customers - this is probably attributable to the incubation period of such illnesses; it's the customer's living room that gets sprayed with chunks of Freschetta four-cheese pizza and trail-mix.
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Curses! Foiled by clever marketing again! But thanks gifted gourmet; I'll be sure to give that a try.
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Does anyone have a good recipe for a Mexican Martini? I know they are similar to margaritas, but I'm not sure exactly what makes them different; does anyone have a recipe? They're so good; I'd love to know how to make them at home.
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Haha, my descriptive powers are obviously deficient, because what I witnessed nearly every day for the last two semesters was anything but erotic! It looked more like one of the lizard people from "V" if you remember that great 80's miniseries.
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I go to school with a girl that does this in class. First she does the "spoon fellatio" thing that browniebaker described, where she takes the spoon in and out of her mouth with the food still on it, (while eating yogurt) and then when she gets everything out she can with the spoon, she proceeds to raise the container to her mouth and performs cunnilingus on the yogurt container until she has removed every last gram of yogurt from it. It's distracting, and not in a good way - tongues in the mouth please.
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A "hot dog" composed of a bun and honey nut cheerios, with orange juice on it. In my mind it made sense: I always wanted to eat cereal as a sandwich, and I always suspected cereal might taste better with orange juice (since I liked it better than milk). Add it all together and you have the orange juice and cheerios hot dog. The best part though, was that my mom told me that uncooked hot dog buns were poisonous and could kill me if I ate too many of them; I'm not sure what that was all about, but I was stupid so I believed her.
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This is my first post. I would try to sneak in unnoticed, but from other posts I've seen it appears that people usually identify themselves as newbies - so that's me, the new guy. no hazing please At any rate, this is a topic close to my heart, as during one of the high points of my life I was one of the aforementioned food servers at a Costco. My favorite part would be watching adults elbow kids out of the way to get the "more desirable" samples before they ran out. One time a woman in one of the store-provided motorized scooters was reaching too far and somehow tripped the throttle, causing her to ram her scooter into my table, upsetting everything and scaring small children. Unfortunately, my tenure lasted a mere two weeks before I took another job. Actually it was kind of cool because I found out about all the food they sell at Costco that I wouldn't have otherwise known about. I haven't taken advantage of it, but at least I know where to get 5 lbs of prosciutto at a bulk price if I need it, or a 20 lb box of sausage. Also - there were quite a few people who showed up everyday around lunch to eat all the samples. I'm not sure how that fits in the general topic, but I always thought it was interesting.