Katie Meadow

Jello has legs.

You're the expert!

For @Kim Shook and others who are fond of saltines, I've just discovered a saltine-like cracker that ups the ante: It is Westminster Bakers Square Hearty Crackers. Apparently the brand is an old New England Company. They are a sort of like a saltine and an oyster cracker had a baby. I can't explain it, but I love them. Of course ordering from Amazon I somehow was in denial about the price and didn't realize when I started to re-order how ridiculous the mark-up is. It doesn't matter, because they are out of stock a week after my first order. I'm sure that this brand can easily be found on shelves all over the northeast for about a third the price. The operation seems to specialize in oyster crackers. Anyway, I'm on a search for a more reasonable source while suffering from withdrawal.

Found this recently at my favorite Japanese/Asian market. Tokyo Market is up in north Berkeley and has the freshest fish ever, and a huge selection; it's a shlep, so we don't shop there routinely. This rice is very good! Shorter grain that my usual Kokuho Rose Sushi rice, and a bit more of a bite if the ratio of rice to water is the same, no? Last night we cooked the rice for a hybrid Cajun/Asian shrimp dish, and tonight I'm going to do a simple veg stir fry with cabbage, chinese chives, kohlrabi, choi sum and egg. Fun having a new rice!

Ideas for a crazed old ugly enamel coated cast iron frying pan: Buy a baby turtle at the circus and make a cute pond environment for it. Just don't keep it on the stove. Make a mini rice paddy and grow rice for home consumption or artisanal gifts. Make some crazed marbles in it and then arrange them inside it for an art project. Hang it on the inside of the front door in case of intruders if you don't have a baseball bat. Although statistics say that heavy frying pans are most often used by the intruders against you. Put the pans out on the street in a box that says FREE. Learn to say no, so you can use that empty wall space (which we all agree doesn't exist in @weinoo's kitchen) to hang the turnips you got in your latest box because there's no way they will fit in the fridge. OMG I just saw the @jimb0post! How could two people come up with such an inane idea at the same time?

Good god that sounds delicious.

Thanks. Yeah in the distant past I knew that! Maybe I've reached that tipping point where I relearn something new every day. Now there's a comforting thought.

I know how they get a ship in a bottle, but how do they get that pear in?

Oh, that's a very nice antique. Mine was also just flimsy metal and wood, maybe a little bit newer. Probably purchased at a flea market a million years ago. Even when it worked it didn't work very well. I rarely need more grated hard cheese than two people require for a flurry on pasta, so I'm happy with my old knuckle-challenged box grater. When the wedge of cheese gets dangerously small I just toss the rind in the soup pot or wherever. Actually I don't believe I ever hurt myself grating hard cheese. Before I owned a processor there was always the fear of pink latkes.

Exactly how would you repurpose them?

If those kids are drooling on the floor they are way too young to have fruit mentos. That's neither the size or shape you want stuck in your kid's airway.

That style of grater has been around forEVER. I'm sure you can find one for a better price than that somewhere!

In the old days those RR pears from Harry and David were spectacular. I had the feeling they packed them very carefully with attention to varying states of ripeness. I kept them in a cool room, not refrigerated. But the last time I ordered them, maybe five years ago, the quality and attention to detail was way down. They just weren't great. Made me sad, and I decided, given the price, not to buy them anymore. This season I've had some excellent Anjou pears. I keep them on the counter and that short window of "just right" has been easy to gauge. When it comes to pears I'm with Flannery O'Connor: a good one is hard to find.

Pears (and apples) are not stone fruits.

Looks like something that would eat your lunch. Or a set of gums and teeth packed for a transplant.

@JoNorvelleWalkerif you hadn't mentioned Junket it probably would have been buried in my brain for the rest of my life. Thank you? I wonder if that stuff they sell as Junket Danish dessert on Amazon is like the original.

I agree that most supermarket jalapeños appear larger than they used to be, as well as less flavorful. It's a crapshoot how much heat a given batch carries. It's too bad, because when I make escabeche or pickled jalapeños I don't want giant slices. I try to pick out smaller peppers and to be safe usually buy a few serranos, just in case I need more heat in the pickle. Not exactly the same, but sort of works. At the farmers market I can usually count on poblanos looking and tasting like poblanos, but that's only in season, and I buy from same vendor. Hard to imagine those giant bland jalapeños making proper poppers! Not that I've made them in a million years.

Cottage cheese was used growing up for only one thing: my dad liked to mix it with sour cream and stir it into sliced cucumbers and radishes with salt and pepper. I still like that once in a while in hot weather. I used to like cottage cheese with cantaloupe sprinkled with cinnamon. Then I switched to ricotta and cantaloupe and never looked back. I can eat good ricotta with a spoon out of the container any time. Now I am partial to to any rustic toast spread with butter then ricotta and salted. But I digress; I know these old pamphlets are comfy homes for all kinds of bizarre concoctions with cottage cheese. I can't say as I have ever had cottage cheese with jello or with pineapple. Jello was typically available if you were sick or had your tonsils out. It was considered dessert, not salad, and made appealing only with do-it-yourself Redi-Whip. Despite how dreadful that sounds I would eat it now in my altered pandemic/MSNBC haze, but only if I didn't have to get off the couch.

Minnesota and North Dakota have traditionally grown a lot of US beets. Louise Erdrich territory. Remember "The Beet Queen?"

oh yeah....wildlife! Backyard birds. Intruder cats. These are tame times. As for worms in Eastern European plums, no doubt a few have slipped into every batch of Slivovitz. For 4 year olds who are seriously cranky. Just don't tell them what is in it.

I had no idea about Wise Sons. My source for lox, bagels and cream cheese is Beauty's Bagels in Oakland, apparently a partner! The bagels are quite good. When I've stayed in NY in the last few years I didn't bother to search out a deli. We usually split our stay between my oldest friend who lives in Chelsea and the Beacon Hotel in the West 70's. The Beacon has kitchenettes with toasters and is right across the street from Fairway, so several days in a row I get my breakfast lox and bagels fix in my hotel room. 2020 was the first year we didn't go back.

God made clogs for a reason.

CA Bay Laurel is harsher. Turkish are better. I think most all dried bay leaves from spice stores are Turkish, no?

Recently saw a story about a delivery of firewood. Out crawled a tarantula.

Okay, pastrami on white is really sad. Like a raisin bagel is sad. They should have asked, and I would have sent it back or bought two slices of rye bread and done the conversion myself.