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Peter the eater

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Posts posted by Peter the eater

  1. In Canada it is illegal for fishermen to land a berried lobster. These females with eggs attached get a v-shaped notch in a tail fin before returning to the ocean. This practice identifies the lobster as a breeder and will protect it next time it's caught wether there's eggs or not.

  2. To paraphrase J. K. Rowling, "Blimey Harry, that's one big bird". Sorry to hear you missed the tasting and consumption. The drumsticks must be inedible. The drumettes must be another story.

  3. Boning pretty much anything with a scalpel. Ggod, I do love the precision...

    That's as impressive as it is creepy. I think I'm on the same page -- give me a whole critter with all the bits intact. I love the kitchen tasks of dispatching, plucking, skinning, filleting, shelling, etc. Shrink-wrapped styrene trays have their place but they're just not as much fun.

  4. Sounds like sous vide's the way to go. Does your friend have a spare spa pool lying around (à la Blumenthal with a whole pig)?

    I missed that one -- did it work? Thirty years ago my father poached a salmon in the dishwasher. Didn't go so well.

  5. . . . an article suggesting roast baby emu as an alternative to the Christmas turkey
    Snadra, I love that idea. I also lack the courage to float it with my in-law hosts this xmas.

    So how much does the roast weigh? Spatchcockable? How about a brine & bard?

  6. We've had quite a few pheasant this fall. The last one was probably the best because it was never frozen and I took the time to brine it overnight. The breast meat was plump, juicy, dark and tasty. Roasting low and slow like a small chicken works for me. The legs are always a bit chewy unless you go the confit route. I love these birds with cranberry, rosemary and gin flavours.

    Not very detailed, sorry Mjx. There's something about cooking wild game -- maybe proven recipes are too civilized?

  7. Best bet? Find someone on Craigslist with an unused copper set for sale. I find one every week or two -- Martha Stewart wannabees who bought the copper as decoration. Now that times are hard, they're selling at half-off retail. And you can usually haggle them down another hundred or two. There isn't much of a market locally for expensive copper cookware.

    I found my set of copper cookware in a similar way. Thirteen pieces from Ruffoni all unused wedding gifts at a fraction of the retail. The tin alloy lining is a bit soft so I would go with stainless steel on the inside. They're a bit heavy but they perform so very well, and they're easy on the eyes.

  8. Because our food preferences are largely guided by food safety. Beef & lamb is primarily unsafe due to e.coli which only resides on the surface so if you can cook the surface, the meat is generally safe. Pork used to have trichinosis which is why it was recommended to be cooked well done but is now fine with a pink center. Chicken suffers from salmonella which penetrates the entire muscle tissue which is why it should be cooked until completely done. Duck does not have the same salmonella problems and so can be served more rare.

    That is exactly my understanding. And the surface bacteria goes throughout if the meat is ground up.

    My fish guy/ichthyology PhD says almost every adult fish in the Atlantic Ocean has some amount of parasites. Fortunately, most are harmless to humans and easily removed with light and tweezers.

  9. We use less than 10,000 kwh per year, living in the Mojave desert. Our gas bills are similarly low. All told, we spend less than $2K per year on electricity, gas, water and trash collection.

    I don't own a gasoline internal combustion engine. (My wife does, but it gets 45mpg.) We grow a lot of our own food. The rest is sourced as locally as possible. I know the rancher who sells us our beef. The eggs come from backyard chickens. We shop at the local farm/orchard. (No smirking, it's a good farm.) We participate in CSAs. We compost everything. We recycle everything. Most weeks, we don't have any trash at all on collection day.

    SkoopKW, that's really very impressive.

    I put out two 75L bags of trash a month and often remind my neighbors now how easy it is (without being a knob, I think). I'm considering a low-tech old-school root cellar in the yard where I'm pretty sure I can maintain 5-10C year round. As Dave the Cook pointed out, refrigeration can be costly. Are there things like this in the desert?

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