Peter the eater

Corning could be number eight. I think of curing beef in brine as a preservative process, but that brisket gets soft and pink before any heat is applied, just like an uncooked ham.

Right you are -- that's the thread that got me thinking. I'm not overly worried about the bacteria in my home kitchen as long as I use common sense.

Let’s say I’ve got a cheap cut of tough beef like a thick blade or round steak. I want to improve the taste and texture of the meat somehow. I can think of seven ways to do this . . . Pound it with a spiky mallet or wine bottle Pro: physical pounding softens the tissue, gives it a uniform thinness Con: meat can get mushy Stab it repeatedly with a fork Pro: low tech, fast and easy Con: drives surface bacteria in deep, enables juice loss Pass it through a jaccard Pro: thoroughly slices through muscle fibers and connective tissue making tough meat tender Con: I need to buy the device, enables juice loss Marinade it in a sauce with acid and enzymes Pro: fruit juices like pineapple and papaya add flavor and break down protein with acidity and natural enzymes Con: meat can get mushy, saucy meat makes a mess on the grill Age it in the fridge Pro: flavors develop and concentrate as the meat dries and breaks down naturally Con: shrinkage, takes time and fridge space Braise it Pro: prolonged moist heat melts connective tissue, makes meat very tender, a classic technique Con: rare not possible, takes time Sous vide it Pro: same pros as braising, but with a precise level of rareness Con: time and equipment required, no maillard reaction Do these descriptions sound legit? Are there more?

How do you garnish them? Straight up like regular burgers, or with some twist? A thin slice of pineapple with some sweet & sour sauce makes a luscious pork burger.

The Seafood Watch Program from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Greenpeace's Red List are worth a look.

I like pork patties. In the past, when processing our own pigs, I dice up then grind much of the shoulder. What doesn't become a sausage gets frozen into flat disks. Same goes for turkey.

Haddock has the perfect texture and taste for a crisp beer batter. Cod and halibut are also good. I've battered and fried mackerel, salmon, trout and char but always go back to haddock. A non-oily white-fleshed fish works best for me.

I don't know about people who actually cook for a living, but for every hour I work with a copper pot in my home, I spend ten looking at it hanging from the ceiling. Brass and copper are beautiful together. I know it's superficial but when it comes to handles, I'll take appearance over heat transfer coefficient.

I'd like thick copper, lined with primo stainless steel, through-rivet cast brass handles, hand-finished. 3 lids max for a set of 8 pots/pans, plus maybe an oval.

I'm rife with kitchen sin, but you know what helps? Keeping appliances on the counter. My wife's pink KA mixer and new 1.7L food processor sit beside my Foodsaver fully exposed and easily accessed.

I think most males are castrated within the first week of life, so these fries would be very small. The few times we've bought piglets to raise ourselves, they've always been sows. I don't think our Co-Op even sells barrows. I found some large pork fries for sale (click). $4.52 per pound, and it's sold as pet food.

I've seen old buildings with systems for ash disposal, but your box sounds more mysterious. Just imagine what future archeologists will postulate about our current crazy material culture.

I like rectilinear boards, but less than I like round boards. Look at the wear pattern on old boards of both shapes -- a square board gets four positions on the counter. A round board can be rotated from nothing to 360 degrees. This feature makes it last longer.

I didn't think I had anything to add to this thread until you reminded me. I once had a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes. We had a huge quantity of Tiny Tim tomatoes last year. The solution was to purée the bejesus out of them, simmer off the water, then freeze the concentrate. We're still eating them.

It depends where you live who you ask. There's probably a precise biological explanation, but I go with local lingo even if it's confusing. For example, I buy local shrimp (Pandalus borealis) which gets sold as cold, deep, or Atlantic shrimp. The same creature is a sold as a prawn in Europe. I believe any large shrimp is called a prawn in Australia. <edit to undangle my participle)

I could see me making tripe exactly once. I almost bought the raw ingredients last summer after watching Julia do it in on The French Chef. The butcher came out with a huge clear bag full of brown watery cow rumen and said "it needs to be washed . . . five bucks?".

Cassoulet is a good example of a dish that makes sense if you live in rural France with all those ingredients at hand. In my neck of the woods the components are expensive and/or hard to find: duck confit, dry French wine, Toulouse sausages, goose fat, etc.

Oh my, pops is the word. The heat, the mayhem, the physical demands -- I trust it all worked out. I want to buy one of those big mammal heads from my butcher. That's got Once-is-Enough written all over it.

While I tournéed a 10lb sack of potatoes for the first and last time, I began to think of other culinary accomplishments I don’t ever wish to reproduce . . .

Well, what do you know? I found one in a restoration catalog: click. Some boxes are just for mail, others have a milk flap below. Very quaint.

Looks like a milk box to me - accessible from the outside so milk could be delivered and kept cold while the occupant was away. Looks like a milk box to me too. When I was a kid living in Montreal we had a through-the-wall milk delivery box with inside and outside doors. Nobody builds new ones anymore because A)it's like leaving a window open all winter, and B)who gets milk delivered?

Absolutely brilliant! Be sure to check out this spit roaster

I pass an old guy selling smoked fish almost everyday -- I've never stopped. Somebody must buy his stuff since he's been setting up there for at least five years. I'm not sure what it is that puts me off, the rusty van and the "hadock" sign don't help.

The problem with coke is its complete worldwide overexposure. I like it as a rare treat, like a few times per year. Cold, fizzy, caffeinated caramel with a shot of dark rum is the extent of my hacking. I think I once watched Paula Dean put coke on a chicken.

That's a great price. I don't understand why breasts are the most expensive part and legs are always less.