plk

When I make a list, it's in TextEdit on my computer, and then I print it out and take it with me. Or I print out the recipe and take that. I'd never remember all the stuff I have to get today, so this is the big list:

Man, I used to love those chicken in a biskit crackers. They taste as if they're saturated with supercondensed, supersalty broth. I've never tried those "flavored" Triscuits, though. Flavor in the triscuit itself seems wrong, even though I like flavored potato chips. It's like flavored rice cakes: also wrong. The most satisfying cheese to top crackers (or chili), for me, has to be Tillamook medium cheddar, ideally bought in a big brick-shaped loaf. Tasty, tasty.

Some cheeses with stuff in them are really special, and I don't think you could easily replicate the same effect just by piling stuff on top of the cheese. I was picking up a selection of cheeses a while back for a party and was given a suggestion by the cheesemonger there to try "No Woman" cheese, which has Jamaican jerk spices. That did not sound particularly appealing, but when I tasted it, wow, was it ever great! It had tiny bits of brown sugar and clove, and it was just the most interesting and surprising thing I'd eaten in a while. Cheeses like that aren't all that versatile, though. I can't imagine seriously using it in a recipe or a sandwich.

I don't know how it happened, but we have THREE dutch ovens. For the enameled one, I just have a LC oval (ordered from amazon, which has decent deals on LC), but I noticed that Lodge now has an enameled line. Lodge isn't exactly what I'd call off-brand, and we have two of their regular dutch ovens, but I would bet they're priced below LC.

Butterscotch sauce, strawberry sauce, candied nuts, crushed up butterfinger bits, crushed up oreo bits.

I just don't see how it ever could have been possible to walk into a farmer's market and come out with 10 out of 10 amazing tomatoes. Even when heirlooms were first becoming popular, I don't think that is biologically possible, and collective memory is not reliable evidence. 7 out of 10 seems pretty optimum to me for something as delicate as an heirloom tomato. Outside temp gets too cold or they're stored below about 50 degrees, and they get mealy. Maybe the farms who have consistently good tomatoes have extremely controlled conditions for growth, storage, and transport, and that would point to a greater complexity in production and better tomatoes over time for those particular farms.

My regular grocery store is so great that whenever I have to go to the giant chain store next door for something like jars (I refuse to buy anything perishable from them) that I am completely shocked by how it's set up. I can't find anything, the signage is woefully incomplete, and I can't find a salesperson anywhere. The checkout lines are packed and there is NOBODY on the floor I can flag down. I suspect that the store is intentionally set up in a way that's not easy to navigate in order to encourage impulse buys as I wander the aisles searching for mystery hard-to-find items such as cinnamon. Or Bell canning jars. WHERE COULD THEY BE? I don't know. I know where they should be, I'll tell you that. Then when I finally get my two non-perishable items, I don't want to wait in line behind people with 100 items in their carts, so I always try the self-checkout, which is always a mistake. This is how it goes: Me: scan, dammit, scan! Machine: ... Machine: ... Machine: *beep* Please put item in the bagging area. Me: puts item in the bag in the bagging area Machine: Extra item in the bagging area. Please remove item from the bagging area. Me: What the ... *looks around for help, sees no one and decides to move the bag to the floor* This continues for each item. At least there are six self-checkouts, and there's never a line (hmmm ..), so I don't think I've actually blocked anyone. I hope.

I tried the strawberry jam again, and it just doesn't set without pectin for me. And actually, I do have another batch all jarred up (I was hoping it would somehow just set up, given enough time) that never set that I'll have to reboil, add more citrus and pectin to. The kiwi lemon jam was fine (I added pectin to that one too), though not exactly to my taste (even though I love fresh kiwi), so I gave most of it away. It was good with cheese (especially a double cream gouda) and probably would have made a good tart topping, but really sweet gelled kiwi is just not a favorite taste.

I am fascinated, in awe, and disgusted all at the same time with these peanut butter pairings. Excellent! This reminds me of about a sandwich that starts with peanut butter.

A hunk of brown sugar. Not completely dried and rock hard, but a nice soft clump. White rice with honey, microwaved.

Peanut butter and cheddar cheese. Follow each bite with a swig of cold milk.

I thought all the currently-running Molto Mario episodes on Fine Living were repeats as well. I'm pretty sure there haven't been any new episodes. Also, Ed Levine on Serious Eats reports that he just spoke to Batali and he isn't leaving.

Semi-sweet chocolate chips was my afternoon "treat" at my grandparents' house. I was allowed 10, and would line them up, and then make a circle with them, and try to stretch them as long as possible. Unsurprisingly, Grandma was very fit. Today I'm having some strawberry preserves I'd made on some bread with butter.

I got a Costco set of pots and pans about 6 years ago, and finally got rid of the rest of it and replaced with a few pieces of stainless All-Clad about two years ago. This was the nonstick set from Costco, and I was getting rid of it anyway after deciding I just didn't want to cook on nonstick anymore. But besides that, the stuff I used the most was starting to warp and lose its coating. I don't really think I'd recommend Costco's stainless set after some of my pans started to warp, but I haven't looked at them recently either. That Emeril set mentioned above seems like it would be better quality for a similar price.

Ha! I'd say some Meaning of Life and Life of Brian sums up our wine collection: Catholic Dad: [singing] Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate. (we keep it all, whether it's lousy or not) Mr Creosote: Better get a bucket; I’m going to throw up. (see above) Wise man: We were led by a star. Brian's mother: Led by a bottle, you mean. Brian: You have to be different! The Crowd: Yes, we are all different! Small lonely voice: I'm not! And I loved John Cleese's Wine for the Confused! The most interesting thing was the blind tasting, and realizing that you can't necessarily tell red from white by taste.

I thought of another one: carob. Being a child of the '70s, I say there is nothing more disappointing than biting into a carob chip cookie or eating some carob trail mix. They sold that carob trail mix everywhere. I can still picture the bags of it, with the cashews and pieces of unsweetened coconut. It actually doesn't sound too bad now, but when you're about five, it's very sad. And along those same lines: Ovaltine. Looks like chocolate milk, but sure doesn't taste like it.

I'd probably freeze it until I had enough to do something with. When I did this, it took all of the fat from two ducks to get enough fat to confit four legs. So, you may want to save the effort until you can do a couple at a time. I'd just do whatever is more convenient.

A good half of my family lives in Austin, and depending on who I talk about BBQ with, or whether the point is just to eat or listen to live music and eat, some wax philosophically about Sam's or Stubbs, some Ruby's, Artz, County Line, or something. There are a few others I've been to a couple of times, though I probably haven't been to every single barbeque restaurant in Austin. I've always gotten the impression from my family and friends that there is a lot of local, nostalgic pride in a number of in-Austin BBQ joints, even if the most famous barbeque is further out of town.

In the bar of chocolate? Eesh. When I first started living on my own, I bought a jar of Nutella, used some, put it back in the cupboard rather than the refrigerator, and forgot about it. When I found it again, some time later, I opened it up, expecting to spread some on some toast, only to find a healthy crop of maggots happily nesting inside. It was probably five years before I could eat nutella again. Also, the first time I tried Campari was a rude awakening. It's so pink and attractive, and it seemed so refreshing in the Life Aquatic when Bill Murray was drinking it. I'm not saying it's bad, but wow, that's a bitter drink.

One of the few things I really like about my tiny 1946 kitchen is the big single farmer's style sink. I've always found the double sinks to be a pain. Sheet pans, stock pots, all fit in there. Now if I only had a dishwasher so that they wouldn't have to.

I'm just glad we didn't get a behind-the-scenes look at how the chili was made. I'm sure it was awful and wonderful all at once, and I do not need to see whatever process it was that created the brown sludge gravy with cinnamon. The only thing better than seeing Pekar himself was seeing Toby. God, I love that guy.

I'd venture to say that there's the best, relative best, and then the nostalgic best of whatever specialty food you're talking about. I think there are definite objective measures of what makes good Q, for instance, and one of those would be that the brisket is not tough. I think it's the hardest thing to do right, and I just didn't find that it was right at the nostalgic Austin places, or even most of the out of town places I went to, when last I visited. I ate well and had a great time everywhere I went, but I do think that the nostalgic joints that have become destinations for tourists (myself included there) don't necessarily remain the objective best, if they ever truly were.

This is the method I've used when rendering the fat from a duck. It destroys the skin, but you get absolutely all the fat: *Remove fat and skin together *Blend in the food processor until it's a nasty pink goo *Put goo into casserole dish and into a low oven (probably about 200 F) *Once the fat is melted, skim the pink foam from the top, leaving perfectly melted fat

Make apple jelly, then keep it to use in place of storebought pectin?

From the A.V. club article referenced earlier: The cheftestants are so lucky that Pampers doesn't seem to be a sponsor. A high-fiber meal, resulting in the healthiest "leavings", wins 200 lbs of Pampers and a year's supply of Gold Bond Medicated Powder.