haresfur

If having a pie warmer at your workplace isn't ultimate Aussie, I don't know what is. 🙂

Do they have a toasty press in the work area for lunches? Back, pre-covid, one of my coworkers had it down to a science - propping up the top with a glass so it didn't get squished more than he liked. A techo then made him an adjustable prop out of some threaded stock and some nuts so he could dial in the perfect level. The round things could be arancini.

Kangaroo is very lean so pretty healthy, and low impact on greenhouse gases so I feel kind of guilty. I might try harder but my partner is not much of a red meat fan. I wouldn't say it's gammy, more like congealed blood. Steak is best cut thin and cooked fast.

I'm really not sure why there is a shortage. Maybe it isn't economical with the expense of covid control in the abattoirs

They cull wild kangas and I believe the meat mostly comes from Queensland, which irritates me because there should be a local industry imo. There is no sport hunting season, you have to be a professional or a farmer to kill them with approval. They really fill the same ecological niche as deer - browsers that like to jump in front of cars. Take extra care driving at dusk and dawn. Most of the meat goes to pet food because most people don't eat much if any. I'm not a big fan. Do like having them behind my place, though.

Oh, I forgot. There is apparently a kangaroo meat shortage and the cat is pissed! He will eat beef in a pinch and the dogs will eat anything. Their food mostly comes in by contactless delivery.

About the only covid-related food thing for me is wearing a mask in the grocery and my continued avoidance of most indoor dining, even though it is allowed with reduced seating capacity. But the new outbreak management style of short lockdowns to get ahead of contact tracing is a good reminder to keep enough staples on hand, anyway.

try a couple of these puppys

I don't know anything about the grade system but it looks like the system primarily includes the pungency/hot flavour: sweet<slightly pungent<pungent<hot and the colour: light brown to orange<pale red<bright red<vibrant red. It is interesting that it doesn't seem to include smoked paprika, but maybe that's what they mean by pungent. So if you are using it primarily for colour, not flavour (like deviled eggs) then go for something red. If you want a lot of heat use erős, and something in between then go for pungent. Aside from that I think you just need to try them to see what you like. I would guess the different pungency just means you have to adjust how much you add. I don't think I've ever seen paprika for sale or a recipe that called for anything other than sweet, hot, or smoked. I do see sweet smoked and hot smoked, though.

Sugar, water, soybean paste, modified tapioca starch, salt, MSG, garlic, caramel, spices I didn't see anything labeled tianmian sauce, at least in script I could read.

I bought some "Peking Duck Sauce", and to me it tastes pretty similar to hoisin but better than many of the brands available here. ... and it goes pretty well on pierogies but not quite as good as mango chutney.

I have a vague recollection of someone on the forum claiming that dried leaves tasted stronger than fresh. Or maybe I was dreaming. I think the flavour is a bit different, not just stronger/weaker. The dried ones I have now are similar to the fresh because they came from the same tree and I just air-dried them and they still look pretty green compared to the ones you buy. In any case I tend to use more fresh in a dish.

Ok, a hijack into a tale of two cooks. My second year in mineral exploration after graduation (not counting my undergrad summer jobs), we had a cook who had absolutely no experience as a commercial cook, as far as I could tell. She brought a thick book on how to run a restaurant kitchen that included tables of portion sizes for various dishes. Needless to say, it was not written to address cooking for a crew of mostly young men out walking many miles a day. I particularly remember her being dismayed when the tray of (cakemix!) cake that she thought would last a few days wouldn't even touch down as it was handed around the table until it was gone. I was sent to a camp in Nova Scotia in the autumn when our work up north was finished. Pretty plush - they had rented out the buildings at a ski area (as an aside, the year before it turned out the place they rented was a recently closed brothel and they got some irate visitors). About the first thing the cook told me, with pride, was that she had gone through 3 cases of chocolate chips because the boys would come back from the field and eat her cookies until dinner. She didn't have much if any professional experience either, but she was a real cook.

We have a topic (and I am firmly on the parma side of the parma/parmy linguistic divide)

Great topic, looking forward to it. But really??? I had better looking food in exploration camps where the food came in by float plane every week (ok I had some horrendous food too, but that depended on the cook). The basically permanent camp I had near a mine where I did FIFO, two weeks on / one off, had pretty decent food but tending to the meat and 3 veg style. There was essentially no limit on the food budget, although most people didn't want anything fancier than filet mignon every once in awhile. T-bone was standard. My first geologic mapping summer job in uni was pretty plush because we stayed at the camp for building a huge hydro dam in northern Canada. First day going through the dinner line, they slopped veg and a huge mass of mash potato on my plate and then draped a steak over top. The steak literally draped over the sides of the plate. Then the server asked if I wanted another one. I thought they were joking. So I suppose the portion control is a good thing. But what's with the styrofoam for the dinners or are those taken to work, too?

One thing my parents hated after they moved to Nova Scotia, Canada was the quality of the meat. So they would bring a suitcase of frozen beef back with them when they visited the prairies. My father wasn't exactly a stickler for packaging and the flight was long, not direct, and sometimes delayed. I can only imagine what the baggage handlers thought about a big ratty old suitcase dripping blood. But it was usually still mostly frozen when they got home.

Where are your mangoes from? They are way more than a dollar each here and this is the height of harvest in Queensland.

You went wrong with freezing the banana. Next question. I like fruit, mango or vanilla yogurt, orange juice, and ice. My partner likes fruit, yogurt, and ice - or maybe no ice. Frozen berries or mangoes go in frozen.

I'm surprised no one in Aus has come up with an HSP pie 🤢

Now that it's broken in, you can operate your now old blender without the lid in place

American Red Rose was inferior to the Canadian product and barely a step above Lipton's imo

Cool story. "It wouldn't have been the same blend sold by the label today, however. The Atlantic version was discontinued in the early 2000s" Now that's a shame. The Red Rose Orange Pekoe was distinct and really good. Like the English gentleman in the old ads said, "Only in Canada? Pity" And I actually had my Mom bring some Red Rose from Nova Scotia for a coworker who had talked about how good it was.

The first time I encountered UHT milk was working in bush camps in Northern Canada decades ago. Before that we got all our milk in frozen and still got some that way because it helped keep the meat from thawing. So it seems surprising to me that it didn't catch on for you. The fresh milk here seems particularly susceptible to going off - especially in plastic. So I'm glad we have an abundance of UHT, too.

IMO UHT milk doesn't taste quite as good as really fresh milk but tastes a whole lot better that a few day old regular milk. Even after you open it, it keeps a lot longer in the fridge, which is good for those of us who don't use much milk.

Why not buy UHT milk?