Tri2Cook

That would be the only reason I would even consider wanting it. Coffee table books are of no interest to me, tell me how you did it.

I'm trying to figure out why a new, and I would assume slightly more complicated in design, chamber sealer can be so much less expensive than the standard variety that's been around forever. Even without the discount, it's cheaper than the cheapest, smallest regular type. Pretty cool though.

Well if you can't have the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the Pillsbury Doughboy is the next best thing.

Kinda the same for me. I've never had the stuff made by them but I tried 2 or 3 recipes from the book that I found online while deciding if I was gonna order the book and never ordered the book. Nothing I tried was bad, it just wasn't particularly exciting either.

That would be an evil choice for me to have to make, chicken fried steak or huevos... I suppose it would be a bit greedy of me to order both.

I use the KitchenAid attachment at home. It's good enough for the amount of use it gets. I don't do enough grinding at home to justify a separate machine for the purpose. One thing the KitchenAid attachment is not good for is stuffing sausages. I did that exactly once, said never again and bought a dedicated 5 lb. stuffer. Edit: forgot to mention, there are aftermarket grinding plate sets available on ebay for the KitchenAid attachment that give a much better variety of grind size options. Quality is good (at least, for the set I have) and they're not even expensive.

It's not a mystery to me. I live in a tiny little town that doesn't even have a stop light (from a central point, you can walk to the end of the populated area in any direction in less than 20 minutes) and there are 11 restaurants in that small area that mostly all serve similar menus (so it's not a variety thing) and we get our butt kicked every day by the lunch and dinner crowds. I can't speak for the other places as to how busy they are on a daily basis but they all stay in business. People who don't want to cook are becoming the majority. I've joked many times that they could build local houses with a microwave and fridge in a closet and not even include a kitchen and nobody would notice. Works out good for me since I cook for a living. The whole job security thing.

Honestly, the first thing I thought when I saw this discussion topic was "Kerry doesn't need travel kitchen utensils, she finds anything in the hotel room or general vicinity that looks like it could serve the purpose and makes it successfully serve the purpose."

That's pretty cool. If this is the early stages, can't wait to see where you're planning to go with it.

For my taste, a lot of drinks could be improved by your adoption program. That's not commentary on the quality of those drinks, just an indictment of my personal taste in cocktails. There are very few all-booze cocktails that are as enjoyable to me as those with some intervention from non-alcohol ingredients.

I was looking at #1, the dog pops, because I do donations sometimes when the local no-kill shelter does fundraisers but the shipping to Canada would eliminate any savings. If there had been a few of them available, quantity may have offset that because, in that weight range, it generally doesn't cost much more to ship a few than it does to ship one. I was already pretty sure if there had been larger quantities available, you would have mentioned it but it never hurts to ask. Somebody looking for variety over quantity could do very nicely with that selection though!

Ok, thanks!

Probably a dumb question, you would most likely have mentioned it if it wasn't the case, but I'll ask anyway... one of each is what's available?

That's the thing, it is absolutely location dependent. If I lived in NYC, I would never be so arrogant as to say I can do what any restaurant in NYC does better myself at home. That would be a pretty bold statement coming from anyone. But when you live in a very small town over 500 km from the nearest large city and pretty much every restaurant in town is a variation on a theme (same basic menu, each place has a thing or three it does different) because that's all the majority of the local restaurant crowd will support, it changes the game a little. We've had a couple attempts at something different over the years. They were good... but they didn't include those core items that every menu in town has so they failed. There's hope for it getting better though. The building of a new hospital that is the central medical facility for a lot of small surrounding communities is bringing in professionals from city areas who are wanting more than has traditionally been available here. We now have a coffee shop that roasts it's own beans, a sandwich shop that focuses more on the healthy end of eating and even a 100% vegan caterer/take-out place. None of those would have lasted 6 months here 10 years ago but they seem to be doing fine now.

My favorite dining style these days is sitting in my living room in a recliner with a plate of whatever I cooked perched on my lap while I watch a football game. - I say the above with the disclaimer that if I lived in a place with a better food scene, I'd probably be more inclined to take advantage of it. There's nothing available where I live that I can't do as well or better myself so a restaurant meal usually means the combination of not wanting to cook, not wanting to clean after cooking and the kid bugging me to eat somewhere all fell into place at just the right moment.

A vitamin C tablet is mostly ascorbic acid and won't add that tart freshness that citric and malic add. I'd be inclined to use fresh lemon juice as a substitute before I'd use ascorbic acid.

I agree. I've tried various types of liver in assorted preparations from a variety of cooks and not found happiness. I once had beef wellington that had a ridiculously thin layer of pate under the mushrooms and beef. So thin I didn't even notice it until I took a bite and all I could taste was liver and I was done. That's the extent to which me and liver don't get along. I've tried chitlins exactly twice, the second time accompanied by the words "that other person must not have known how to cook them right"... those vile bits of evil nastiness shall never pass my teeth again regardless of hunger level. Tried tripe only once in menudo... loved the soup, was not fond of the tripe but I honestly think it was more a textural thing than a taste thing. Beef heart (the only type I've tried) was actually not bad at all, didn't have that nasty iron/metal taste liver has. Tongue, I've also only had once... it wasn't bad at all but not great enough to be worth the bother of preparing for myself. That's about the extent of my organ meat experience. Brains and sweetbreads may be exceptions to my general lack of food squeamishness, the idea of eating them doesn't appeal to me at all. I've been told kidney has that same general nasty iron metallic taste that liver has so it seemed pointless to try it.

I could make a list of proteins I don't eat. Thankfully, I've never been in a position hunger-wise to truly know which proteins I won't eat. But in the spirit of the discussion, I've never tried an organ meat I actually liked. Heart and tongue don't offend but I only eat them if offered, I don't like them well enough to cook either for myself. I don't choose my food on emotional or squeamish grounds so there probably aren't many proteins I wouldn't try if offered outside of any that offend my sense of smell to the point that I know it's not gonna stay in my mouth if I put it there.

All the way down to "out of business". But if you have to go too low to make a profit, you need a new customer base or a different business. There's a big difference between what people want to pay and what they can pay, your job is to find that line.

I'm guessing you're spot-on with that assessment. The texture looks a lot like the omelette-esque eggs Subway uses for their breakfast sandwiches, which are indeed brought in pre-cooked and frozen from an outside source to be thawed and warmed for our enjoyment... assuming we enjoy our eggs a bit rubbery and somewhat dry.

Me too... …but that would definitely be the party-pooper for any chance of enjoying the noodles.

Now I feel dumb... I thought that's what she meant.

I wanna see the video footage of you getting that little container of various liquid filled vials through security.

Lime juice works great, my late wife always made them with lime because she liked it better than the lemon version.

It's the ol' institutional plop-n-drop school of sandwich making. Grab a scoop of the called-for portion size, plop one scoop of filling on a slice of bread, drop on another slice of bread, push down, cut, repeat. The "push down" part is the only spreading of the filling that happens. If it's a typical board, they'll swear it's the best thing they ever ate if they're convinced it's good for the bottom line. I did a two year stint in a hospital kitchen but it was a special care facility where the patients were going to be there for a long time or never leave (one of my great uncles lived out the late stages of ALS there while I was working there). Maybe having long term patients made a difference, the food was actually pretty nice and there were always multiple hot and cold entrée choices at every meal. All fresh cooked on site, 3 meals every day. We had giant steam kettles for doing homemade soups and stews, a whole bank of gas burners and ovens, a separate cold prep area. Of course, that was also a fairly long time ago so maybe that the real difference.