Chris Amirault

That's an interesting question. I definitely think that my little Kenmore workhorse is pretty good at creating a decent suck, but I wouldn't say it compresses particularly. What exactly are you looking for? Can you give some examples? It's my sense that some machines have settings for stronger and weaker sucking but they're labeled in reln to specific tasks. Marlene's point above about "a kinder, gentler vacuum" for liquid sealing goes to this point.

Welcome, feste! Can we convince you to post your recipe in Recipe Gullet for us all to appreciate?

Will Goldfarb weighed in on the FC over here.

Please note, non-Costco shoppers, the absence of other big box grocery retailers. Having finally made it to a Costco in Coeur d'Alene ID a few months ago, I can personally attest to the quality of Costco relative to, say, the wretched Sam's Club or BJ's stores. If I lived in the area, I'd have grabbed those wild salmon steaks myself, as well as a few cases of wine.

Why, here.

Try searching for "lobster" in the title of a topic and you'll find a slew of recommendations here in eG Forums. However, once you head inland from Portland, you're landlocked, and both Waterville and Bangor aren't exactly culinary destinations. I do know where to get good soul food in Waterville, however.

As we announced here, our two crack wine forum hosts, Mary Baker and Brad Ballinger, have stepped down. We thank both Brad and Mary for that volunteer service and look forward to their continued participation as emeritus staff members. To honor Mary & Brad's service, we've started this Member News topic. Please post your food- and drink-related reminiscences here. Thanks, Brad and Mary!

We announce with regret that our two crack wine forum hosts, Mary Baker and Brad Ballinger, have stepped down. We thank them for their long volunteer service and look forward to their continued, enthusiastic participation as emeritus staff members. To honor Brad and Mary's service, we've started a topic in the Member News forum here.

I don't think it's the water:bulgur ratio either. I think it's time. 35 minutes is way too long. We're down around 15-20 minutes, max, and that's in a bowl with boiling water poured over it and covered with a plate. Do you rinse it with cold water to stop the cooking? We do that, but that's because we're usually making a salad instead of pilaf. At any rate, it's never gummy.

Holy crap. I guess EB is less like Santa and more like Willy Wonka.

Boy, I'll say. Nevertheless, sticking with the "recently published" trend, I'll second Hungry Planet, and would argue that the first 120 pages of David Thompson's Thai Food would, if pulled out of the cookbook, rate on this list.

Ross Cutlery is fantastic. Get them started on knives and settle in for an hour or so. ETA: Matt_T, was the place in Milwaukee Penzey's?

It seems that no one has mentioned Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook, a remarkable book for its breadth and clarity. I'll also second the recommendation for David Thompson's Thai Food, which is remarkable on many levels, not the least the quality of the recipes.

It wasn't a service problem at all. Our servers were great, in fact. The dining room was full, the bar was pretty active, and about a dozen folks were downstairs for a function, yet we had consistent attention from three different people on the floor. The problem was that every dish left the kitchen with something significant wrong. That's a back of the house issue, not a service issue. Whoever was sending out dishes from the kitchen was either committed to cutting corners at the diner's expense or didn't care.

Yup: aged for several years and tasting somewhat like sherry, which is a common western substitute.

Why would you never write in a book under any circumstances?

Went last night for dinner and had a disappointing experience across the board. The menu (click) has become very conservative, with a pork shank the only moderately unusual main protein and few compelling small plates left. But even more troubling -- and odd -- was the lack of care seen throughout the meal. We started with the root crisps, half of which were soggy and/or greasy. Once the prep cook has mandolined them out, that's just about execution at the proper time and temp, so it's hard to understand it as anything other than laziness. Ditto the rainbow smelts, half of which arrived stuck together in a clump. The fish themselves were great, but that's a sourcing triumph. One main was a pork chop with mustard spaetzle. The sides were great, but the pork chop was less than one inch thick. Not only did that mean an overcooked chop. The cheap butchering job underplays the very ingredient featured and makes you feel like you're eating at your thrifty aunt's house where she's demonstrating a new method to make one chop serve two. This dish would be a marvel -- and worth the price tag -- if it was a thick cut prepared properly. Our other main was "chicken pot pie" using a chicken leg confit, the same leg, I'd imagine, that's featured in the menu's "tagine." The sauce and vegetables for this dish were solid, and the confit was pretty good, though a tad overcooked (and I'd have served two, not one, of the smallish legs). But the "pot pie" part consisted of a literally inedible lump of dough that had been beaten to a tough mass and baked. It was so terrible that we grabbed the server and insisted that they stop bringing it out. "Just call it crustless!" It was the sort of thing you should never see in any restaurant, let alone one aiming as high as Local 121. Bizarre. Dessert was also uneven: a great rosemary ice cream next to a lousy apple cider sorbet; a solid brown butter ice cream with a dry oatmeal cookie. As you can tell from the first post above, I have very high hopes for this place, but a few months later all the appealing aspects -- careful preparation, interesting menu choices -- seem to have evaporated. More troubling, all four dishes had elements that shouldn't have left the kitchen in their state. Someone back there wasn't paying much attention. This bodes very, very ill. ETA the dessert sentence.

Thanks Corinna. Done. As I have no plans to travel to Europe any time in the future but would make them in a heartbeat if I got a positive response, I find this process rather bizarre.

Susan -- and anyone else -- what was the disaster? I have trussing fears myself.

Looks great to me. I ended up trimming a smallish 6 lb belly down to 5 lbs. The trim is curing as salt pork; the slab is curing for pancetta.

This is really wonderful! I'm very grateful to your generosity. Can you say a bit about the corn she used above? Was it green dent corn? I'm having a devil of a time finding good corn to lime and grind.

I'm wondering if anyone's got recipes that use lamb.

That's cool! I've been fiddling with a method for rendering lard that way for a while; the recipe is here.

Looks fantastic. What was she using to season that comal? And was the pork fat somehow blended before being rendered?

Went by today before work: closed. Opens at 10a. Grrrrr. More soon when I get over there. (It's directly across from Rumford Pet Center, for those in the SE MA/RI area, btw.)