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When I was a wee lass, I not only sucked on a penny once; I swallowed it. The circumstances, as far as I can remember were, I was riding on a rocking horse and found a penny and stuck it in my mouth in order to suck on it and pretend it was candy. I imagined it was the height of grown-up-ness to ride freely on a horse while sucking on candy. I may or may not have been a little touched in the head at the time. As you might imagine, the next few days involved waiting and "checking" (ew ew ew) for the penny to pass. But back to the worst meals: the only bad one I can think of now is when my mother-in-law took my recipe for chicken pot pie and tried to replicate it. Instead of a nice thick reduced sauce that coated the chicken and vegetables, it had a watery, bland chicken juice. Instead of morels, she used button mushrooms. Instead of chicken thighs, she used skinless chicken breasts. Etc. I was a little sad to see my poor pot pie recipe get the short shrift, but at least I know now that if I were in a pie vs pie deathmatch with her, I wouldn't have a lot to worry about.

Is #154 Jamon Jamon?

I've never really understood what the purpose of shelf paper is. It seems to me that you either have to clean the surface of the bottom of the shelf or the shelf paper, so I don't see the difference. Do unlined shelves get damaged more than lined shelves? Is it easier to clean?

I use the Bread Baker's Apprentice recipe, but modified to use sourdough starter instead of a sponge. I'm finding that they're ending up a little too light and fluffy (bready) rather than chewy. I think I need to make the dough stiffer or let them rise less or not boil as long. Boiling makes them poof up, and when they hit the oven, they really go nuts and rise like crazy. So, prasantrin, how about I send you my bagels and you send me yours? Hehe.

I stir to help with extraction. It makes sure that I get all I can from the grounds I use and that there aren't under-extracted grounds sitting on top of the water. I think it's the same idea as with brewing loose-leaf tea.

I have a stainless steel french press that I originally got from REI for camping. I think it's a 3 or 4 cup capacity. It works really well and it doesn't even matter if it gets dropped. Even though I think it's insualted, I don't keep the coffee in it -- it gets extracted for four minutes and then immediately drank or moved to a thermos. If it stays in longer, it gets over-extracted and tastes bitter. I use the Closed Hopper Walnut Zassenhaus mill for grinding. It's cheaper than an electric burr grinder and easy to adjust.

And, looks like pork producers are getting reimbursed link but affected pet owners will have to try their luck with class-action lawsuits.

I take price tags off gifts I give to other people -- not stuff I use at home. To my mind, if the meal is casual enough so that there is a jar of something on the table, the presence of a price tag doesn't matter. If I want condiments to look really nice, I present them in little cups rather than the original packaging. I would take the price tag off of something like wine, however, where the presence of its original packaging does not already indicate informality.

Okay, but you cannot tell just by a rabbit's temperment that it truly was intended for food. Animals vary in temperment even when they are bred under the same conditions. Relatedly, most puppies you see in pet stores were born under similar "livestock-like" conditions. In these usually large operations, the unsocialized parents stay in small cages most of their lives, producing many litters of animals that are sent out to be pets. So, I'm not seeing a big difference in how pets vs livestock are usually produced. Many animals that come out of these huge mills are also tempermentally and genetically unsound, but they're still defined as pets because of their breed.

Wolves are also wild animals. I'm talking about domesticated animals and simply that animals commonly considered to be livestock often do make good pets.

The thing is, several species of animals we eat also make good companion animals. Or pets, depending on how you look at it. Rabbits can and do make good companions, but for one born in poor conditions or not handled well, it can take more than a couple of months. It's not a matter of them being hard-coded in some way for food. Pigs can also make great companions and are no more unsuited for that life than are dogs. I think there's a convenience involved in claiming there's a real and natural difference between the animals we choose to keep as pets and the ones we choose to eat. In reality, we do eat animals that are capable of great companionship. I'm not saying it's wrong to eat rabbit -- I do it myself when I have the chance. But that the rabbit on your plate could easily have been somebody's pet, given the chance.

My favorite taquerias are San Jose taqueria on Mission (at 24th) and El Pollo Loco (at 29th), basically for the super burrito al pastor. And further up the street is Zante's Pizza. Really good stuff. Get the Indian pizza. Their regular Indian food is fine and their other pizzas look decent, but it's the Indian pizza you want. http://zantespizza.com/about.htm One thing I would definitely do is dim sum for a sunday brunch. I can't remember what the good places are called, though. The last time I went to a good place on Clement St (that's in the Richmond district). One new place that looks really excellent is Two: http://www.two-sf.com/home.html

I've always proofed dough (sourdough and others) in stainless steel mixing bowls because that's just what I have around. I think the clear plastic cylindrical or square tub things with markers on them would be better, but mainly because you can see through them and get an easier read on how much the dough has risen. I always take the dough out of the kitchenaid bowl, though, and use a larger mixing bowl because my kitchenaid bowl seems a little small to me and I want more room for expansion. The stainless steel bowl should be the same temperature as the rest of the room -- I can't imagine why it wouldn't be. And the amount of time the dough spends in the bowl just doesn't seem like it would be nearly enough to corrode stainless steel. At least, nothing has happened to my bowls.

It's really sad, but not surprising that the pet store sold bunnies that weren't socialized correctly and were meant to be food. The breeders who sell to pet stores are uniformly awful. There are actually some great, tame, litterbox-trained rabbits in animal shelters (at least around here) because people get tired of even the nicest bunnies. I'd really keep working on the training. http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/training.html http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/litter.html http://www.clickerbunny.com/clickercritterarticles.htm http://www.clickertraining.com/node/306 And not to criticize your vet too much for an offhand remark, but those are some weird ideas he has about rottweillers -- not that I'd leave any animal with teeth alone with a baby. Maybe he's seen The Omen too many times.

The relationship is, there are too many food safety problems associated with feeding corn to ignore. Grain-induced health problems with the cattle's stomaches and livers mean a steady dose of antibiotics in the feed, which produces stronger microbes. Also, since salvaged and distressed pet food can be repurposed for livestock feed, that has serious implications for the safety of the food supply. Especially since a bunch of the recently recalled pet food was bought by different hog farms: http://www.centredaily.com/225/story/80061.html And while nobody has to buy beef, when the cheapest beef is also corn-fed, you end up with a real economic disparity between those who are buying the safer beef and those who aren't.

JohnL, I disagree. The one study I referred to was about patterns after initial immigration, but there is certainly evidence indicating the same thing happened during initial immigration. Also, the point about there being wealthier ethnic enclaves misses the point that those areas also result from racial steering. Since you referred to wealthy black suburbs, I'll point out that in the book "Red Lines, Black Spaces," the author demonstrates how a black middle-class suburb formed not from choice, but because redlining practices and other structural constraints prohibited buying in other areas. People bought in Nepperham (now Runyon Heights) not because of commonalities with other residents, but because that's where they had to buy. There are plenty of interviews with residents which support the fact that wealth does not equate freedom of choice. This is institutional racism, which is still racism even when it's not "personal."

Well, if you look into the sociological and demographic research done on cities, including NYC, you'll find that the research supports what I'm saying about the formation of ethnic neighborhoods. Structural constraints limit where people can settle more than their preferences do. There are a lot of studies on this, but I'll just quote this bit from the abstract of the first one that came up for me (From "Race and Ethnicity in Housing: Turnover in NYC, 1978-1987"): And that's just one study, that's a bit old at this point. Anyway, I think it's widely known by those who study cities that this is what happens much more often than people freely choosing which areas they want to live in. But the reason I want to point out how this happened in the first place is to say that segregated neighborhoods with a bunch of ethnically-similar restaraunts are not a sign of progress, but of problems and inequality. That is directly related to the issue of ethnic neighborhood deterioration because, well, should we really be trying to encouage segregation? It seems a bit to me like getting nostalgic about colonization or other unsavory periods and practices in US history.

I think that part of the explanation of what's going on lies in how these neighborhoods were formed in the first place. "Ethnic enclaves" don't just happen because similar people choose to move to the same neighborhood. Some of that happens, yes, but there has historically been a whole lot of racial steering involved which limits where people can live, who can buy property at all, and where. I would guess that NY Italians are a lot less less ghettoized than they were in the past and have a lot more options of where to live and what they can do. This is not the case with every immigrant group, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Italian immigrants (like other European immigrant groups) are now commonly considered to be "white." They weren't always, and their ghettozation reflected it. So, sure, Chinatown might be considered to be a more successful neighborhood by having better and more authentic restaraunts, but there's a price for that.

Twinkies originally had a bananna cream filling, but now they have a vanilla cream filling. Something about a bananna shortage during WWII. So, I suggest some of each, sort of a Twinkies through the ages retrospective.

It seems like it's just a regular yellow sponge cake, but there probably are weird ingredients that make it taste uniquely "twinkie-ish." If you could get your hands on the recipe booklet that comes with this twinkie-baking kit, I bet you would get close, though.

I haven't gotten the impression that the restaurateurs want their story considered by the general public. It would be in pretty poor taste for JB to start revealing the details of their interactions with their customers over the internet.

What about some variation of a Waldorf salad? There's a certain nostalgic appeal to it. Walnuts might be too costly, but apples, raisins, celery, and mayo shouldn't be too expensive. And then you could probably use any leftover raisins in a bread pudding or an apple crisp. Great work!

Edited: I just saw you did offer a veggie sandwich -- read the original post wrong. That was the only thing I was going to suggest.

I agree, BRM. I mean, I like my cooking a lot better than what I get in most restaurants, but when I get the chance to go somewhere really special, or our friends make something really good, the tastes blow me away in a way I couldn't do for myself. With a recipe in hand, sure, I could reproduce it, but really special dishes often take a lot of time and tasting and reseasoning, and by the time the dish is done, I've basically already eaten it. I've definitely smelled it and have been looking at it for a while. So by then, it's not really a surprise or anything special anymore. I've pretty much already absorbed it and could kind of care less whether I actually eat anything at that point. I think a kind of sensory fatigue happens, where particular tastes and smells just aren't as interesting if you've been exposed to them for a while. The extreme example of that for me is Thanksgiving. My husband and I adore that holiday like no other and have been known to start tweaking the menu several months in advance. And last year, just as I was sitting the last dish out on the table, I realized I really wasn't that excited about eating -- the exciting part was already done.

Ah, I searched for a thread and paged through this forum, but I guess I was looking in the wrong place.