blue_dolphin

I've been using a 1:4 ratio of cornmeal to liquid. In this case, it was .5 cup of Bob's Red Mill corn grits to 2 cups of water with the pot in pot IP method (thanks to you!). I usually get a first meal of a bowl of soft, spoonable polenta and pour the rest out into a parchment lined pan and let it set up for a couple of hours before cutting it up.

A few little polenta squares, broiled until crispy, topped with roasted onions with sage and balsamic vinegar and thin shavings of Pecorino Romano I probably should have just shaved the cheese over top and left it instead of broiling as it all stuck together and was messy to eat. I'd like this on greens, either raw or cooked, with a drizzle of the onion juices or some balsamic vinaigrette. Should have thought of that. Tasted good though.

I hope no one deems that video as too commercial. I enjoyed watching. Thank you for sharing.

Not to mention your little container of powder-y white substance !

So, your luggage contained a skillet, fish spatula, lime press and microplane but no sunscreen? You are my kind of traveler ! I enjoyed your pre-trip training and I'm looking forward to more of Peru - thanks for taking us along!

I suspect the table service workflow is more similar to the drive-thru workflow than it is to counter service so it would make sense from an efficiency standpoint. People waiting at a service counter get really pissed when they perceive they are waiting longer than, say, the customer behind them, who had a different order and was served more quickly. Getting the waiting customers away from the counter is bound to lessen that pain point.

Yes, this is my experience as well.

I am no expert in North Carolina specialties but Tom Thumb is a pork sausage stuffed into a pig appendix (looks like a cecum to me) and aged for a couple of weeks, but not long enough to become a hard, dry sausage. It's also called Dan Doodle. There is a recipe for Tom Thumb in the Deep Run Roots cookbook, not that I ever plan to make it !

Oh, and @FrogPrincesse, I thought of you as I was wandering through my local farmers market this afternoon. We're having high winds here today and I was impressed at the variety of items vendors were using to stabilize their canopies - everything from sand bags, cement blocks, big water or cooking oil jugs, dumb bells, weight lifting plate weights - you name it!

I'm ever so jealous that you got try the Tom Thumb nachos, @curls! Vivian did a live chat on Sunday where she was making them. The combination of Tom Thumb, black eyed peas, pimento cheese served up as nachos absolutely cracked me up. It was only 9 AM here on the west coast but I would happily have munched on them for my breakfast....maybe with a poached egg on top !

@pastrygirl, thanks for mentioning Paper Source. I wouldn't necessarily have thought of them for labels. I stopped by today and found several colors of the round, rectangle and oval labels on sale for 50% off. Not the holiday red and green, of course, but I was able to pick up some that will work nicely.

I've been getting them from TJ's for a few years now and keeping them on hand for those whipping cream emergencies that pop up from time to time. They say they're shelf stable but I find they keep better in the fridge, especially if they'll be hanging around for a while.

The NYT food section has a piece titled The American Thanksgiving in which they interview 15 cooks, many 1st or 2nd generation immigrants, about their traditions for the holiday. There is a video and a recipe to go with each short essay. I enjoyed it and wish I could attend a Thanksgiving pot-luck with all these folks so I could try everything!

Thank you, @rarerollingobject! I very much enjoyed this series with your beautiful photos. The street scenes, in particular, bring back good memories of trips where I tagged along with a friend who grew up in Hong Kong. She generally spent the days catching up with friends and family so I had my days free to explore the city with my maps and book of walking tours and my trusty Octopus card, joining them at the end of the day for dinner. So much to see! So much to eat!

The move to academia, particularly in a Public Health dept, doesn't surprise me as he seems to have a fairly longstanding interest in communication in this area. I'd say that depends on how you define a course of study. Prior to the Purple Carrot, he did a 6 month stint as a visiting fellow at UC Berkeley where he lectured and contributed to the production of a food-centric video series titled, "California Matters" in conjunction with the Berkeley Food Institute and UC's Global Food Initiative. This last move is less surprising to me than the Purple Carrot gig.

I was surprised as well and would be pleased to be wrong. The video preview of the episode was posted on the PBS Food Facebook page with a comment describing it as the season finale and it was shared on the show's page. In both places, a number of commenters echoed your surprise at the short season but so far, I haven't seen any info to the contrary. I've got my fingers crossed for some sort of holiday special

It's because you live in a red state. Sorry. @Alex still has some but may find them disappearing from MI, depending on how things sort out. So close! @FrogPrincesse and I are still finding plenty, although I suspect many have escaped to @ElsieD's neck of the woods. edited to add: of course, I am kidding!

The last episode of season 4 is titled Mayo. Sorry to see the season end. They did a mayo-tasting with folks at the restaurant with Miracle Whip, Hellman's, Dukes and Blue Plate. I thought it was curious that no winner or results were given but I learned the reason today in listening to an interview with Vivan on the Eater podcast. Vivian says that there was a winner and it was initially included in the show but PBS asked them to remove it lest it look too much like a product endorsement. She also said that PBS required that the Biltmore sponsor spot that appears at the end of the show be edited to remove the smiling people. Again, sounds like it was looking too much lime a commercial. It's a good interview. Much more in-depth than some others I've heard. You can listen or read the transcript at the link above. Edited to add that in this episode, she made a dish for the restaurant that I would love to try if they share a recipe. She cooked a local fish sous vide with a lot of oil (+ other seasonings) in the bag. Picked the fish off the bones, made mayo with the poaching oil (and other seasonings) and used both in a fish salad, riffing on the classic tuna salad with mayo. Sounds like a little dab of this was served on a cracker or toast as an amuse bouche. Sounds ever so tasty. I'd imagine the fishy-ness of that oil will vary a lot depending on the particular fish with a fatty fish possibly being overwhelming but it seems like a brilliant way to concentrate the flavor of a lighter fish.

I was initially surprised to learn that fully half of the contestants are returning from previous years. Sam Talbot (Season 2: Los Angeles) Casey Thompson (Season 3: Miami & Season 8: All-Stars) Amanda Baumgarten (Season 7: Washington, D.C.) - Brooke Williamson (Season 10: Seattle) - Sheldon Simeon (Season 10: Seattle) John Tesar (Season 10: Seattle) Shirley Chung (Season 11: New Orleans) Katsuji Tanabe (Season 12: Boston) Maybe it will make the early episodes more engaging. It's usually sort of a blur in the beginning, I tend to wait until they barber down the list a bit and then go back and watch the early ones.

I'd like to try Dan Kluger’s recipe for Celery Salad with Pear, Feta, Olives and Jalapeño that appeared recently in the WSJ. A few celery soup recipes that I like from the times when my CSA was bombarding me with celery the size of a baseball bat! Creamy Celery Soup - Most of the celery gets cooked with onion, leeks and garlic before being puréed. A smaller amount gets braised gently in butter and added at the end and adds a nice bit of textural contrast. "Creamy" is in the name, but the recipe uses 4 cups of chicken stock and 1/4 cup of cream so it's not a heavy soup. Celery Soup with Cashel Blue Cheese from Delia Smith's Christmas is very yummy. I've made it with a variety of different blue cheeses I was drawn to this Celery and Pear Bisque in part by its use of dark green leek tops which I always hated to discard when they were lovely and fresh. Like the first recipe, I like the contrast of the smooth soup and the garnish, in this case, finely chopped fresh pear. And I second @Anna N's suggestion of Gabrielle Hamilton's celery toasts. I've made them several times.

Sugars are certainly important for the browning and the "toasty" flavors that result from the Maillard reaction but you also need temperatures well above the boiling point of water for this to occur. It will take significantly more heat to drive the moisture out of a moist, heavy bread than a less dense, drier slide of commercial sandwich bread.

I've requested this one at my local library. It's currently "In Transit" so it hasn't hit their shelves yet. When I get it, I would certainly join in.

Welcome, @Smokeydoke! There are many cookbook-obsessed members here. Please join in!

BLT on toasted sourdough The tomato looks sort of anemic in the photo but it's a big yellow pineapple heirloom tomato from the famers market. Very juicy and flavorful.

Nice round-up and nice local library! Thanks for sharing.