Porthos

I don't know where else to post this, so if a moderator deletes it, I get it. One of the specific things I've doing is using this thread (thank you so much, @Toliver) to buy on-sale books, with an emphasis on Italian cooking, that were of the few ingredients cooked well variety. I've made several meatless main dish pasta meals from them this year. In the St Cuthberts kitchen at the Northern California Renaissance Faire, one of the offerings on the menu I inherited is Trader Joe's Tortellini. We cook up 2 pounds and immediately pour a jar of sauce over it. The carry-over heat is enough to heat up the sauce. One Sunday this year I discovered that we were out of sauce. A year ago I would have panicked about how to sauce the tortellini. This year I calmly grabbed a sauce pan, melted 2 sticks of butter, added some parsley then put in a generous cup of Kraft Parmesan cheese (something someone else brought which we lovingly call parm dust) and sauced the tortellini. It tasted just fine. I am glad that I still like to learn new things.

Waiter to his customers: "Is everything okay? You haven't photographed your food."

I have used the Tonnarelli CACIO E PEPE recipe from Marc Vetri's Rustic Italian Food successfully. It is a technique-specific recipe. Out of respect for the copyright holder I will decline to state how it's made.

Season 5 is now out and I am enjoying it more than most of what has been done previously. The show on Albert Adria is, to me, absolutely fascinating. The Thai woman Bo Songvisavais a force to be reckoned with. I'm re-watching the Musa Dagdeviren right now. And I re-watched the Massimo Bottura episode from season 1 yet again this week.

My daughter who lives in Georgia planted a garden this year, one of the things being an unidentified pepper. She thinks it might be a poblano. Can anyone tell me what it is?

Just had to have this one.

I wonder how one brand of dishwasher detergent versus another might play into using BKF to restore the surface?

A friend who went to culinary school taught my DW and me about the perils of not properly transporting rice dishes. Rice - who would have guessed?

@Anna N What year did you start going up with Kerry?

I've had poor luck with SS pans, warping in the oven.

Glad your trip home was a safe one. Thank you and Kerry for providing this fun and interesting virtual vacation.

I'm hoping get to Penzey's Anaheim store Saturday.

My Dw and I freely share recipes when asked. I'm well known for my corned beef, a very simple recipe, and share it when asked. I consider it a compliment. However ... My DW is known for her bread puddings, called "Kate Crack" by our friends. Some years ago a friend of ours shared her Amaretto Bread Pudding recipe with my DW with the provision that my DW never pass it along. We have been asked for the recipe but always respond with "we promised the woman who gave it to us to never share it." It's about respect in a case like this.

There's farmer's market about 15 miles west of where I live (no great shakes distance-wise) at which a vendor has them. Unfortunately, my schedule says that it would be at least November before i could get over there again, if they're still having it at that time of year.

This southern Californian hasn't made it over to the local Sonic, nor the ones I see in my travels around the state. Now if they wanted to add poutine, well-made poutine, to their menu that would get me in there. I really, really want to try poutine. Unfortunately, the life I am living at the moment doesn't allow for traipsing over to the other side of greater LA to seek it out.

I'm turning 65 next month. I have a lifetime of trying curries and KNOW that curries and I don't get along. I've had the "have you tried ..." responses here on egullet. My response has been and still is, "I love such a wide variety of food types and I don't 'suffer from Mal-nutrition' so why should I keep trying to like something that doesn't agree with my digestive tract?"

Upthread there was a conversation about recycling frying oil. At the Renaissance Farie I participate in in the spring in Los Angeles county, behind the food court area there are several blue oil recycling containers in which the vendors deposit their used frying oil. I've never been around during the week when it is collected so I don't know what the end use is, but I know it is utilized somehow. From a quick internet search my best guess is biodiesel fuel.

I'll look at the gorgeous pictures of Manitoulin Island and pretend that it's that kind of cool here, where we're headed for at least 97F. (don't remind me about snow there in the winter - it will disrupt my fantasy)

What do you do when you have small chunks of different cheeses in your refrigerator? You make 4-cheese Mac & cheese with bacon crumbles for dinner. Sharp cheddar, Emmentaler, Parmesan, and Gouda. Simple but tasty.

When I looked it up a little while ago there was no one concise definition, and some sources said it or may not be smoked. It seems that brine curing was the main definition.

I carry a Sharpie and put a thick line through each item that I pick up. I can't read my own writing anymore.

I live and die by lists. If I'm making a packing list for going away for the weekend I don't list "clothes", it's "t-shirts, shorts, socks, underwear" and such. I word-process my grocery lists also:

My FIL uses "Dead Soldier" and now we also do.

Sorry, no. I tried to find it by searching but I am short on time right now to do an in-depth search. I want to say that beef under 4 hours was fine. The issue was beef turning into corned beef if it was salted and went past the (magic) time.

Regarding salt, my memory is that in one of the threads on SV cooking how much time in the bath was the deciding factor for salt or no salt.