quiet1

Horses still need to get out and move around a lot more than a dog does and don't really take as well to life on the road. But leaving a horse behind half the year to go snowbirding seems a waste of money on the horse. That said if I won the lottery I want one of those million dollar plus motor coaches that combine horse stalls and luxury living quarters. Dunno, problems for the future since I don't have an rv or a horse. We have actually been thinking about the rv, though, for vacation traveling. Not something as nice as we'd get for being on the road weeks at a time. Though so far from poking around online I'm kind of unimpressed by most of the available kitchen layouts. It's like there is a kitchen just to say there is one there, not to do anything with ever. (We don't have a vehicle that could pull a trailer so I've been looking specifically at rvs, not trailers.)

If we can replace the slow cooker and the rice maker that would be really nice... Santa may need to come early this year.

How many people intersperse reading this thread with googling RVs? Or is it just me? My only dilemma is that while dogs can be packed up and come along for the ride, horses are not so portable and I'd always hoped to have a horse and more time to ride in retirement. Though the way my joints are going I may not have the option, I suppose. Do the critters stay at the camper while you are adventuring at shops? How do you make sure the temperature stays good for them if it is warm out, can you leave AC running? That's one of the big drawbacks of traveling with dogs for us, the 'can the dog stay in the car or is someone staying at the hotel with the dog?' dance because most pet friendly hotels don't want you to leave animals unsupervised.

I'm not sure I like SV for prime rib - in the photos the fat hasn't really had a chance to get to that melting sort of buttery stage that you get with a normal roasting method, it looks like? Plus it doesn't look like the searing and herb crust method really builds up the same sort of meaty crust you get from roasting. But prime rib is also not a cut I've had trouble with, historically, getting to a good temp without being overdone. For me it isn't one of those 'blink and you miss your chance' preparations, so I feel less like SV would help me with timing? I am now contemplating SV beef tenderloin, though. My mom just mentioned that as a possibility for Christmas and that is a cut where I feel it is less forgiving in terms of getting the timing right for temperature. I'm feeling vaguely inspired towards some sort of British roast dinner type thing, with Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts, plus some sort of Wellington-inspired mushroom dish for added richness...

'It's less the operating and more the mental issue of turning on and using an oven rather than just shoving something in a toaster? For some reason using an oven immediately seems like more work and more time consuming even if it really isn't. I will discuss it with other folks in the house, though, since there is time to think about it. Back to the IP - how well does it do as a rice cooker? We have a normal rice cooker at the moment and it didn't even occur to me that the IP could potentially replace that as well as the slow cooker.

I just got someone 3-4 bar related books instead of 1 or 2 becsuse of the sale, thanks! (We won't talk about how many fell into my collection while I was browsing...) I might still pick up a paper version of a basic book to sort of round out the home bar gift I'm planning, but this definitely let me include some stuff that might be interesting reading but isn't really a basic must have.

Since I didn't end up doing it this year (and thus can't ruin the surprise talking about it where a recipient might find my posts) I will say that what I had been thinking of doing was a tea and tea related items advent calendar. So I planned to have as one of the days some cookies (I didn't want to do tea every day so people didn't feel overwhelmed by a new tea every day) and it wouldn't have worked as a surprise if they knew they had to keep them in the fridge. (Obviously more fragile cookies could've gone sooner in the month, but I wanted to be able to have some closer to the end, too.) Unfortunately my health took a turn and my mother has been in and out of the hospital while they tried to figure out a problem (thankfully they finally got it, they think) so I just wasn't able to do all the planning and assembling it would have required to do it right. Maybe next year. I definitely got a lot of good cookie ideas from this thread, and a lovely cookie cookbook.

We don't have a pressure cooker right now and I think the way a pressure cooker type device speeds things up and makes it simple to make a pot of whatever would fit into our lifestyle, so if I'm getting one anyway I figured the IP looked like the way to go. The stove is gas so I was thinking of an electric pressure cooker anyway so I feel less stressed about leaving it on while I'm not watching. (I don't entirely trust our stove when not supervised. My stove in England had a cut off so if the flame went out for some reason the gas stopped, but this one doesn't have that. Makes me twitchy about leaving stuff cooking.) My concern with replacing the toaster with a toaster oven is that it seems less user-friendly for folks like the 11 year old who just wants toast? But I've never had a toaster oven so could be wrong. I think I'm on to something with the moving the spices idea - they aren't in an ideal place anyway, I just can't figure out where else to put them that would be accessible and not a horrible place to store spices. (I don't want them right next to the oven, for example.) But that corner isn't usable as a countertop anyway so plunking a small appliance on it wouldn't be the end of the world. And that is near enough to the stove and the big oven that moving things between those or just using the stove as a safe place to put a hot pan would work well. I miss my previous kitchen - it had a broom cupboard and I basically lined the door with spice racks so everything was right there, easy to find, but not in the way. This kitchen is probably from 1950 or so and just doesn't make the most of the space at all.

Much bigger footprint though, isn't it? I can't figure out a good place for it that wouldn't take up needed counter space. Maybe if I find a better place for my spices it could go in the corner... (I have two of those YouCopia spice drawer things and they are both full. We might have a spice problem in this house, just slightly...)

Leftovers tonight from our Indian feast yesterday. Half a vegetable samosa, cauliflower pakora, saag paneer, lamb curry, daal, rice, butter chicken. Not particularly pretty since it all mushed together a bit in the to go box.

Oh, I know all about that thread too, I just can't figure out where I'd put a steam oven. I figure the instant pot would go where the slow cooker is now.

I have to investigate. There is one place that has a restaurant also and they do flights, but there is something about the building triggers migraines for me sometimes, so I don't go there often. (I'm not sure if there is a faint smell, or if it is the lighting somehow - it is a converted church so the lighting is a bit odd for a restaurant. It's hard to pin point what it is causing the problem.) There must be more, though - I know we have a whiskey place.

Part of the issue with beer is probably just that I don't know a lot of beer drinkers. Most of the people I know who have a drink on occasion go for wine or spirits, and one of my tasting methods is to steal a sip if the person is the sort to be okay with that. So to try beer I have to buy it myself and quite often there is something more interesting sounding I could try instead, like some variety of cocktail. We do have a couple of places where you can buy beer by the bottle and mix your own six pack - I should do that sometime and aim for beers that are less hoppy and maybe any known to go well with certain foods? I've definitely tried a beer or two that tasted like it was THIS CLOSE to being something that would go really well with pizza. So I believe the pairing exists.

Any idea what the mixture in the bowl is? It's been a while so I can't remember.

My Vietnamese relatives do an interesting thing with venison, it's pretty tasty but I can't remember ever being told the name. It uses up little odds and ends, though - basically the meat pieces are marinaded in some kind of rub, then the meat is seared and cooked until desired temp, then it's served with each person getting a little dish with some spice mix in it, and lime wedges. You squeeze the lime into the spice dish to make your own personal bowl of sauce, then each piece gets dipped briefly (or longer if you prefer) as you eat. Anyone heard of such a thing?

I didn't even think about such things existing on a small scale. No one will notice if I turn the basement into a chocolate making experiment lab, right?

I would never have expected to find an egulleter on wow for some reason.

Yes, that is the sort of thing I was thinking with using chocolate bars. I'm sure I can get Lindt, and quite possibly something more interesting if I go to the shop that has a range of imported coffee and teas since they usually have some chocolate, too. I might grab some Green & Blacks milk chocolate also - I think it has an interesting flavor for a milk chocolate, a little more of the dark chocolate bitterness than people typically expect. To temper if I was using bars I could just chop the bar up, melt like 80% of it or so, then add back in the rest of the chopped bar while letting it cool to a working temperature, right? The bar should be in temper to start with, I just have to avoid destroying all the crystals. Also, some of the fancier tool chocolates that are available online but only in the U.K. are actually silvery - I have silver (and other color) lustre dust from cake and cookie making experiments, if we brushed some on after popping the chocolate out of the molds would that stick enough to give a sheen to the chocolate, or would it just make a horrible mess?

I keep forgetting to take photos. We had dinner out tonight anyhow - my mom is in the hospital so my housemate took me to visit her then we all went to an Indian restaurant nearby that is usually out of the way for us. It's fun going out when my housemate and his son because his kid is pretty adventurous with food and so orders things people don't expect him to - the looks are entertaining. (Tonight he polished off an entire appetizer order of calamari pakora by himself. He is also fond of octopus and loves lobster and shrimp but doesn't get it often because I'm allergic so we don't have it in the house. I need to see if there is anything an allergist can do.) We got a combination dinner for two thing that they had, which gave us a nice variety of meat and vegetable dishes, and actually ended up with plenty of leftovers also, so I was able to put together a box for my dad and we dropped that off with him at the hospital before heading home. Better than the hospital cafeteria food for sure. (My mother is having a test tomorrow early so my dad is staying overnight with her.) We ended up with vegetable samosas (one of which I snagged for my lunch tomorrow) and daal, tandoori chicken, saag paneer, lamb curry, and butter chicken, plus rice and naan and dessert and two cups of tea, I'd definitely do it again. The one thing I'm finding interesting is how much some things vary between restaurants - butter chicken is VERY different depending which place you order it from. Treatment and quality of paneer also varies a fair bit - some places have paneer with much more flavor than others, some seem to fry the paneer a little before adding it to the dish, etc. I used to think I didn't care for paneer, but more recently I have concluded that I don't like paneer with no flavor - I don't particularly like the texture so if it is very very bland then my food just has cubes of meh in it, whereas we've had paneer a couple of times lately that had a very nice milky flavor that wasn't overpowering but also wasn't completely buried by the sauce it was in, and that does add something to the dish.

I found it interesting you butcher it yourself. Everyone I've known who hunts around here pays to have it taken care of - you just take the whole dead deer to the person and leave it and come back and pick up all the bits in a couple days. Not sure why - these are not folks who hunt with guides or anything like that.

I have a file on my smart phone for just this - I've only recently been able to drink much at all, so I missed many years of experimenting with alcohol in college and so on. So I've started keeping track of what I've tried (when out, mostly) and what I thought of it, even beers and less expensive items, to start developing an idea of what I'm likely to enjoy in a wine or spirit or beer. (So far beer is not doing too well. Cider is ok, beer not so much.)

I'm thinking we might go this route if kiddo is up for it. I usually watch him after school until his dad gets home from work, so we could probably sneak it in on an afternoon? Any recommendations for a good chocolate we can get in non-huge amounts? I recall seeing a site that had a wide variety of brands you could buy in modest amounts to experiment, but darn if I can find where I bookmarked it now. And recommendations on a brand/chocolate to buy that would be decently tasty would be helpful too. His dad usually prefers imported chocolate (he spent a lot of time visiting Switzerland growing up) so American inexpensive/supermarket brands tend to get a poor reception. (Except Reese's peanut butter cups. ) Or there's no reason why we can't use bar chocolate and just melt it down, right? So rather than buying a bag of pieces we could just buy a few chocolate bars we know he likes and use them? I am kind of nervous about tempering - I think we'd use the microwave method or the method where you just add in some already tempered chocolate? I certainly am not messing around with a marble surface, in part because I don't have one.

Hopefully this isn't too far off base for eGullet- my housemate's son approached me for my help in getting a Christmas present for his dad. He has his heart set on one of those molded chocolate 'tool' sets, however the only ones I've seen around locally are, frankly, not very good quality chocolate. Does anyone know of any online retailers that might have something that will deliver to the US and will have chocolate that doesn't taste gross? I found some really cool looking stuff but it seems to be all in the U.K. with no US delivery. (This may not be possible, I just thought I'd ask before subjecting the house to a box of chocolate no one wants to eat hanging around for months. )

I'm pretty sure if I made something like that and someone tried to eat it, there would be Words.

I'm going to make an effort to watch the show now he is gone. I never bothered before because I couldn't stand Kimball.