MelissaH

Is that the brand that comes in a plastic package, with kind of scripty writing on it? We see that brand at the Price Chopper in Oswego. That does sound good with caramelized onions! I need to get more onions today. But the skies are gray and it's sprinkling, so I'll be taking the car out on my errands. But I'd planned to do that anyway: enough trash and recyclables have built up over the last couple of weeks that I need to do a run to the transfer station sometime this week, and I might as well do it today when I'm not wishing I were on the bike. We do not have municipal trash pickup here. Either you pay a small fortune to one of the private companies, or you buy a pass for the transfer station (we buy a year pass every January, but some people prefer to get punchcards and pay as they go) and bring it in yourself. Recycling paper and cardboard, cans, and #1 and #2 plastic is included in any kind of punchpass. Breakfast this morning was cereal and milk from my new container. But it looks about the same as yesterday's, so I didn't take a picture. I ate more than I did yesterday morning, so I shouldn't be starving at 11:00 like I was yesterday. MelissaH

Dinner last night, post-paddle: Casey started by taking some of the meat from the pork anti-roast that I'd finished off in the crockpot, and putting a portion in each of two ramekins: He then peeled and chunked up a carrot (surprise!) and added half to each ramekin, along with some frozen corn. We'd eaten all our fresh corn from the market long ago. He then added some of the sauce along with a splash of water to thin it out a tad, and then gave the ramekins a stir to combine the contents. The leftover mashed potatoes went on top and then both ramekins went onto a baking sheet and into the oven until the top was browned and the instant-read thermometer beeped that the inside was up to temperature. Dinner is served! Pigherder's pie, with salad made of romaine, yellow pear tomatoes, and thin radish slices. Now, it's time to clean up the kitchen. MelissaH

I started knitting at the beginning of the year. I was looking for a way to generate hats quickly and cheaply (we have two college hockey teams, with prolific scorers) and something to keep my hands busy at the same time, beccause when my hands are busy I can't chew on my fingernails or stuff food in my face. Somehow, knitting clicked in my brain. I love trying new techniques and figuring out solutions to problems, to see what I can come up with. It's kind of like cooking for me, in that way. Last night's knitting did not end so well. I had both cat (Leo) and knitting on my lap. After a while, they co-existed in uneasy peace. The problem was not the yarn so much as the knitting needles: Leo finds them irresistible to chew on, both the bamboo of the needles and the nylon cord connecting them. (I prefer to use circular needles for everything, as I find them more ergonomic and easier to deal with than straight needles. And it keeps my total needle count down as well.) As a result of Leo's proclivities, the size 8 (5.0 mm for those of you in other parts of the world) 16-inch needle I've been using has tooth marks in one point, and I'm going to have to take some sandpaper to it and hope the whole thing doesn't splinter. But the real problem came at dinnertime last night. I was working on a cabled band to become part of a hat, loosely based on this hat from the on-line magazine knitty.com, got the cabled band long enough to go around my head, and decided to at least undo the provisional cast-on at the bottom to get ready to try and graft the beast together this morning. (For those of you who don't knit, a provisional cast-on is a way to start knitting that can easily be taken out later, so you are left with loops that you slip onto a knitting needle and can then knit. And grafting is a way to join two sets of "live" loops such that the join is seamless and invisible—it looks just like another row of knitting—but can be fiendishly difficult to accomplish.) When I undid the provisional cast-on, I somehow only wound up with 15 loops on my needle, not the 17 loops that were supposed to be there. I looked and looked and looked, and never did figure out what happened to my two missing loops, but I think the problem came in because this is the first time I've used a provisional cast-on with both knitting and purling in the same row. Matters went from bad to worse when I managed to drop a stitch, and it laddered back all the way through the cable down to the start because I didn't realize I'd dropped it at the other end of the needle. At that point, Casey was calling me to get my food, so I ate, spent a few minutes ripping out the entire piece, and started over. The second time through, I got smart, and after only knitting one inch or so, I tried undoing the provisional cast-on again. And again, I managed to lose stitches without figuring out where they'd gone. Rip out again. But I did figure out that things were apparently supposed to be tangled: where I switched from knitting to purling and vice-versa, the cotton I'd used for my provisional cast-on was woven through the real working yarn, just like it had been before. The third time, I knitted an inch or so, and then wove a stitch holder into my work before taking out the provisional cast-on. Cumbersome, yes; but no dropped loops this time. I hope to get this band done (for real!) today, in between all the other things I have to do. When I'm not working on something little like a hat, I have a knitted top in progress. I'm using a split-neck top-down pattern with 3/4 length sleeves, just like all the female TV chefs wear nowadays, and this one's knitted from the top down so I can try it on as I work on it, and so there's nothing to seam up afterwards. It's made from cotton, a little lighter color than navy blue but darker than royal blue. This winter, I'm going to figure out socks. I know how it's supposed to work, and I have some yarn that I got in the Czech Republic that should make very nice socks. I just need to put it all into practice. MelissaH

And if you're looking for something a little more downscale, take a walk to Chinatown and try Mother's Dumplings. In July, three of us ate way too much food there and walked away for $30 including everything. MelissaH

Casey came home from work today at about 5:00, and said, "Want to take the canoe over to Sterling?" So that's what we've been doing. On the way home, we discussed what to make for dinner. Suddenly, Casey snapped his fingers and said, "I've got it!" And after we got home and put the canoe, life vests, and paddles away, he proceeded to put dinner together. I took pictures of the process. It's in the oven, I took a shower to get rid of the DEET I soaked myself in (I'm a mosquito magnet), and if I don't get to post about it tonight, I'll do so tomorrow morning. I'm starting to put together my shopping list for the pizza party on Thursday. The weather looks like we'll be good to go on the grill. The family we've invited over usually does just pepperoni or bacon, and they generally order from Little Caesar's. We've also been told that as long as there's something that doesn't involve mushrooms, they'll find a pie to suit them. We've already warned them that grilled pizzas need to be lightly topped to come out well. Are there any pizza toppings I should be sure I have on my shopping list? We already have pepperoni in the house, as well as pineapple. Fresh tomatoes and green peppers too, as it's that time of the year. Are there sweet onions available from somewhere, or should I caramelize some of our local onions beforehand? MelissaH

Yeah, I'm working on crafting a letter that's not too grumpy-sounding. I suspect that'll get a better response. Well, you'll have to let Owen handle all questions about that bowl, because that's one of his photos. I'd be happy to show you some new-kitchen pictures, but any action shots will likely have to wait till Casey gets home. I find it exceedingly difficult to photograph and cook at the same time. Lake Erie, which we lived near in Ohio, wasn't quite the same refrigerator that Lake Ontario is here. The difference: Lake Erie is quite shallow, so it changes temperature much more readily. During the summer, Lake Erie heats up, so you don't see as much temperature swing. And during the winter, Lake Erie will freeze over sometimes, and once that happens, there's no more moisture available to create lake effect snow. And as we all know from the news last February, Lake Ontario generates snow all through the winter! But this time of year, it's quite nice to live lakefront. Here in Oswego, we can be ten degrees cooler than Owen in Syracuse. It's rare for us to get to 90 degrees F. And we always, always, always have a breeze. Because we're so close to the lake, we have a delayed frost in the winter. Last year, my next-door neighbor was able to get mint, chives, and sage from her garden until the week before Thanksgiving. (She's got a very green thumb, and is kind enough to let us use her herb patches, so this time of year I also have as much mint, chives, and sage as I can use.) The downside is that it takes us quite a while to warm up in the springtime. While Owen in Syracuse might be comfortable in shirtsleeves, we're still wearing hats and coats. We might not hit the extremes in temperature either way, but our changes happen more slowly. I remember thinking, when we visited Duluth back in March, that it was maybe a little colder but the weather was about what we'd left back at home. MelissaH

I'm back from my errands today. Since I was only going a couple of miles downtown, and I didn't have anything huge to carry, I rode my bike. It's a 1992 Bridgestone MB-3, with most of the original components still on it. The rear rack is by Blackburn, and the panniers are my original set of Maddens, purchased at the Madden factory outlet in Boulder. Back when a bike was my only mode of wheeled transporation, I'd do all my grocery shopping like this. Between the two panniers, my backpack, and a bungee cord over the rack to handle the oversized but light stuff like TP, I could easily carry enough to get me through a week of eating. I'd always load my own bags, because I wanted to make sure I got the two panniers weighted evenly. This trip, I was headed first to my local yarn store, North Wind Yarns and Weaving. I needed to get some yarn to knit a hat. Mission accomplished, I headed back up the hill to the dairy, where I replenished my milk supply. I got somewhat of a hard time at the dairy. They do not have anywhere for me to lock the bike, so just like in the past, I brought the bike inside and leaned it against the ice cream chest, just inside the door. In the past, it's never been a problem: I leave my bike there, I get my milk, I pay for the milk, and I leave. The bike's out in about two minutes, I've never seen anyone getting an ice cream cone inside, and my bike's cleaner than most people's shoes. But this time, one of the employees told me that bikes were not permitted inside. I replied, nicely, that I'd be happy to lock my bicycle up outside if they provided me with a rack to lock it to. She suggested I use one of their picnic tables, or one of the plastic chairs. I explained that those were not possible: a U-lock, the most secure form of bike lock and the one that I use, is incapable of fitting around a picnic table. Furthermore, if I locked my bike to their picnic table, it would not be possible for people to sit at that table until I moved the bike. And a plastic chair is not an acceptable bike rack either: even if there were a way to get the lock around the chair, it's too easy for someone to lift up the bike with the chair, plop both into the bed of a pickup truck, and drive off. We left it as a lose-lose situation: I won't be going back as long as they can't give me a proper parking place for my bike. The head office is also going to be hearing from me, because this should be a relatively easy problem to solve. So, I got home, put the bike away, and made lunch. I started by toasting a whole wheat pita on one of my stove's burners, till the edges were just slightly charred and the whole round was pliable. Then I snipped it in half, and opened the pocket of each half. Inside went Jarlsberg cheese, some sliced turkey from the deli, and a bit of lettuce. This time of year, I prefer my tomato on the side, because they're so juicy and will turn the bread to mush. This tomato came from one of our local farmers. We travel enough during the summer that we don't grow our own. To drink: the last of my limeade, with seltzer. MelissaH

Yup, Byrne still sells milk in glass bottles. You buy the milk and pay a deposit on the bottle, and then you return the rinsed-out bottle and get your deposit back...or just swap the bottle for a full one. I did their milk in glass bottles for a while, but it seems to last better for me in a paper carton. I think it has to do with light getting to the milk. Paper cartons are also less prone to spilling and lighter, important considerations if you're hauling milk on a bike. Now, off to...Byrne Dairy! MelissaH

Salt potatoes are something I'd never heard of before we moved to Central New York. And they're a big thing around here. They're sold in a bag, exactly as they look in the teaser photo: a mess of potatoes with a bag of salt. The potatoes themselves are maybe a little larger than a golf ball. Around here, small potatoes that might be sold elsewhere as "new potatoes" are labeled as "salt size." I believe they came about because the city of Syracuse is built on top of a large salt reserve, so salt was readily available. To prepare salt potatoes, you put the contents of the bag of salt into a pot of water, essentially making a saturated solution. You then boil the potatoes in the brine till they're done. When the potatoes are cooked, they get drained and then slathered in melted butter. If you want to go really upscale, you can then add some snipped herb of your choice. If you go to a food festival, potluck, or BBQ chicken dinner, salt potatoes are usually on the menu. Truth be told, they're generally a little too salty for me, if the package directions are followed verbatim. The package directions for the "low salt" version tell you to use either half the salt or twice the water. That's more in line with my taste. But all things being equal, my favorite treatment for salt potatoes is to boil them up, and then smash them a bit while they're still hot, let them cool, drizzle with olive oil, and reheat and crisp them in the oven. I got that treatment last year from a Fine Cooking article. This is a great time of year, not just for potatoes but all the other produce that's grown in the area. I don't know if we'll make Thursday night's farmer's market downtown, but we might be able to catch the Saturday morning market in the town ten miles south of here. MelissaH

I'm not a coffee drinker. I love the way coffee smells, and adore good coffee ice cream that's not too sweet. I don't mind a little coffee in with my chocolate; I've been known to add a splash from the coffee pot to my hot chocolate-from-an-envelope when I'm at meetings, to kill some of the sweetness from the cheap hot chocolate mix. I like the way Vietnamese and Thai restaurants do coffee, with ice cubes and sweetened condensed milk. I'll even drink a little coffee, with sugar and lots of milk, when I'm in New Orleans or Europe. I'm just not a big fan of bitter anything, and most coffee fits into that category for me. But I love bubbly drinks. My current favorite is this: Dump a can of seltzer into a large glass. Fill the glass the rest of the way with prepared limeade. All the bubbles, half the sugar, no caffeine. Last week when it was hot, I went through an incredible amount of this elixir. Just before preparing my beverage, I took care of some unfinished kitchen business: taking care of the leftovers from last night's dinner. We were doing a bit of food shopping yesterday, and I asked my husband what he wanted to eat. He said, "Something roasted, with gravy and mashed potatoes." My go-to roast is generally a roast chicken, so I went to look at the available birds. But the smallest chicken they had was a whopping 7 pounds, twice the size I'd normally want! We'll sometimes see turkey breasts or turkey halves (exactly what it sounds like: either a right half or a left half), but not yesterday. So it was time for Plan B. And on sale this week was what the wrapper called a "boneless shoulder butt roast." These were more reasonably sized, so I got one. My husband cooked it last night, and we discovered that "roast" was a misnomer; if you roasted it, you wound up with something that required a very sharp knife and teeth to eat. (My husband roasted it on a bed of vegetables for a longer time than the package said. He then pureed the cooked veg into some broth to thicken the gravy, which went over the mashed potatoes that used up nearly all my milk.) We agreed that the problem was not flavor, just toughness and texture. So after we ate, I chunked up what was left of the roast and put it in the crockpot. We added the gravy, turned it on low, and left it overnight. When I woke up this morning, I turned the crockpot off, and left it to cool for a little while. Then I opened it up, removed the better-cooked meat chunks with a spoon (they're now tender enough to fall apart) into one container, and then poured the liquid into another container. They're both in the fridge, and will probably make an appearance in this blog at some point. Carrots were on sale this week, buy a pound, get a pound. So we have nearly two pounds of fresh carrots in the fridge. What do you like to do with lots of carrots? MelissaH

Thank you very much, Susan! My name's Melissa, and I live in Oswego, NY. My home is about a ten-minute walk from the shore of Lake Ontario, and about 50 miles from the city of Syracuse. I share my home with my husband and two cats. This week I'll be going through a fairly normal routine, with a couple of added twists. First of all, I have some errands to run in Syracuse. We generally make a trip down that way once every month or six weeks, to get things that are unavailable here. Since I need to head down to that area anyway, phaelon56 and I plan to get together for lunch one day this week. Second, the university where my husband teaches is giving the students Thursday off for Rosh Hashanah. We plan to celebrate the new year with friends by making that traditional round(ish) bread...pizza on the grill! My week started the way most of my mornings do: with a little breakfast: The cereal changes depending on my mood, and what was on sale when I went shopping. In this case, breakfast was smaller than I'd normally want, because my husband made dinner last night and used all but about two tablespoons of my milk in the mashed potatoes. So I'll be going out to get some more later today. It's shaping up to be a beautiful day: blue sky with only a few clouds, and a little breeze. If you want to follow along with the weather in Oswego, you can look at the meteorology department's weather station for current data. Pay special attention to the wind gauge: situated on the lake shore, we get some good gusts. (Currently, we have a 10-minute-average windspeed of 13 mph, with gusts maxing at 24 mph.) If it stays this nice later in the day, maybe I'll do today's errands on my bike. MelissaH

Is THAT what happened!! I made some grilled spot prawns with a pineapple/red bell pepper/red onion/basil relish in the morning and brought it to work for lunch, and the prawns were so soft I was really concerned about eating them. Huh! Besides cooking, how might my pineapple be "otherwise treated to denature the enzymes?" ← That's my guess: the bromelain in the pineapple went to work on your shrimp, started to break down the proteins in them. Result: mush. Same thing that happens when you put raw pineapple (or papaya, or kiwifruit) into gelatin. If you want a real trip, take a little piece of raw pineapple and hold it between your lip and your teeth. Feel the prickle? That's the enzyme starting to chew away at your lip proteins! As far as denaturing the enzyme so it doesn't turn your shrimp to mush: heat treatment, AKA cooking, is the most reliable way, and the only thing I know of for sure that will keep your meal edible and non-toxic. The other thing you can do is keep the pineapple and the protein separated till the very last possible second. Put the prawns in one container, the relish in another, and put a little of each on your fork at lunchtime. MelissaH

Be sure your pineapple's cooked, or otherwise treated to denature the enzymes that turn proteins to mush. MelissaH

Suzilightning, I wish I lived in your library district! Our library's currently undergoing renovation, and they won't be back home for a good long while yet. MelissaH

I'll take your Mr. Goodbars. MelissaH

My FIL was quite the jokester. At one point, he persuaded a local bakery to give him an eclair, frosted but unfilled. He proceeded to fill it with mayo. (Actually, since it was my in-laws' family doing this, it was probably Miracle Whip.) He then gave this particular eclair to a colleague. MelissaH

Sorry to say but no :-( ... basil as a curry leaf substitution is one of the worst substitutes I have heard of. It is like saying replace cumin with black pepper in a recipe - both are quite strong flavours, but nothing alike. Even dried curry leaves are worlds apart from their fresh variants. ← But does it really matter, as long as you like the results and as long as you're not trying for absolute authenticity? MelissaH

Yes, they're food-related. Spiedino (plural=spiedini) is an Italian diminutive word for a skewer. But I've never heard anyone call them spiedini, always spiedies (with various spelling variations). Think meat chunks (originally lamb, but other meats such as chicken or beef are permissible) that's marinated at least 24 hours but possibly much longer, skewered (NOTHING else on the skewer besides meat), grilled, and then removed from the skewer by grabbing with a chunk of Italian bread to make a sandwich. This may be as far as spiedies have ever traveled from Binghamton. MelissaH

Binghamton? Spiedies, perhaps? MelissaH

Think carefully about what you will use your sink for, before committing to the number of bowls. A good friend chose to put in a double sink with one large bowl and one small shallow bowl. For her, the small bowl was important because she likes to stopper the small bowl, run some cool water into it, and put the cut-off stems of flowers in to soak before they go into a vase. And this friend always, always, always has flowers in the house. My husband originally wanted a double-bowl sink with both bowls the same size, the exact same kind of sink he'd always had. This is because when he washes dishes, he puts hot soapy water in one bowl to wash, and then has a drainer in the other bowl so the washed but soapy dishes go into the drainer, where they get rinsed and left to dry. However, his argument had a fatal flaw, IMHO: when we redid the kitchen, we put a dishwasher in! Nearly all our dirty dishes go in the dishwasher; the ones that still need to be hand-washed require some form of special handling. In the end, we went for one giant bowl in our sink. And we're both delighted that we did so. We can put even our largest cutting boards and roasting pans (neither of which go in the dishwasher) FLAT in the sink for washing. When you go sink-hunting, bring whatever you think you'd want to put in the sink, and see how well it fits. Think carefully about what you will use the sink for (which may be different than how you use your current sink in your current kitchen). And if you choose to go for multiple bowls, be sure that the divider between the bowls is lower than the edge of the sink, so if one bowl fills, water goes into the other bowl rather than on the floor. MelissaH

I keep my ice cream maker bowls in the freezer in grocery bags. That's because I don't necessarily want to have to find a pair of gloves when I get the bowl out of the freezer right before I use it. It's easier to grab the bag by the handles, so I'm not touching the bowl itself, because my fingers don't get so cold. (And it's also easier to store stuff inside the bowl in the freezer, since I'm always looking for freezer space efficiency.) MelissaH

I'd try to find other volunteers who have been there, and get advice from them about what's available there, what you can bring, and what they wished they had. I'd also make a point about finding out what the local specialties are, and trying them while I was there. (Forgive me for going here, but isn't Namibia where Tony Bourdain ate warthog anus?) It's a large enough country that the foods/condiments available in one part may differ from the things available elsewhere. MelissaH

I'm not from Cornell, and it's not me.

I recall that David Rosengarten's It's All American Food has a recipe (which I haven't tried), but I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get the book at the moment. MelissaH

Just to clarify: We know the problem with the grill's regulator wasn't, in fact, a problem with the tank because we put a quick-disconnect adaptor on one of our "normal" tanks, plugged it into the grill, and still had a problem getting the grill to heat. When we put the new regulator on and tried the *same* tank, things worked fine. The old tank has an overfill protect device (OPD) and as such is legal here. It's still got another four years before it hits its 12th birthday and needs to be recertified. The only problem with the tank is the quick-disconnect, which is incompatible as it stands with any of our other propane-powered appliances. I'd just like to be able to somehow adapt the tank and use the propane. The tank did come with an adaptor that allows it to be filler with the standard nozzle. The adaptor pops on to the tank, and provides the tank with threads that the filler nozzle screws into. MelissaH