haresfur

Had a friend who took a month long summer trip. Somewhere around a week or 2 in, the line to the ice maker in his fridge let loose and water poured into the house until a neighbour noticed it running down the drive into the street and called the city to shut his water off. Aside from the water damage, the whole house up to the attic was full of mold and they had to take the entire interior down to the studs, sand off the mold, spray with bleach, and redo all the walls and ceilings. He was out of the house for a year. I'll fill my own ice trays, thanks.

At a popup lunch with friends. Strict rules about distances between tables and only taking your mask off when seated. But no cases reported in regional Victoria in about a week. The food was nice, not wow, but nice. eta: first meal with friends and first sit-down restaurant meal in about 9 months

I just defrost at 55 C or whatever temperature I consider "done". That way it doesn't sit in the danger zone for bacteria growth. If you are going to set it at 20 C, you might as well put it out on the counter, imo. (ok water is better than air for transferring heat into the food.

variation on a drink I posted around 2012. Don't think this is any better but higher end brands would have helped 2 oz reposado tequila 1 oz Cinzano sweet vermouth 1 oz Nocino 3 drops Bitterman's xocolato bitters Build over ice. Maybe a touch of Mescal...

When I worked in the bush, the canned corned beef, that we always called Corned Herford after the brand name, was very far down the pecking order* of what you would eat when the food flight was delayed. But, if nothing else, someone would break into it out of boredom. *the lowest of the low was whole chicken in a can of gelatine

There is a fish store I drive past all the time that is only open a few days a week and those days I'm almost always on another quest and can't stop. Last Saturday AM the planets aligned and we drove past on our way to get coffee with a plan to get cups to take back to the nearby parking spot overlooking the city, which usually is only busy at night when the teenagers are out having a pash. On the way past I spotted a sign for scallop pie and knew what I had to do. They came in tins and one could only be served inverted The scallop didn't have much seasoning, which made sense because you wouldn't want to overwhelm the scallop but it did seem like it needed something. Crust was flaky but tasted a bit like frozen chicken pot pie. Overall pretty good.

A bad idea that tastes just enough like roast beef and gravy to turn you off roast beef and gravy.

Not the liquor store, but the farmers market, a man from a nearby town making vermouth from grapes sourced in the Heathcote wine region, just outside Bendigo, and incorporating native botanicals. Also hand sanitiser from a gin distillery, who repurposed their still during the shortage and was stuck with extra stock. It was on sale and I was happy to help out, even though it was still more expensive than the big box hardware.

I suppose that any publicity is good publicity but I was told that the translation of "tökfej" is "prick-head" That being said, the matcha items look really good

Wash the cabbage? 😄 I just peel off the outer leaves and have at it.

Pasty from my usual bakery. It had been in the fridge overnight so I warmed it in the oven. As near as I can tell, the filling is potato, cabbage, and carrot. Not bad for peasant food. So the discussion in this thread made me realise that your bakeries seem to sell the pies cold. They keep them warm here so you can eat them right away.

Not sure how it would be on those fish but my go-to now for salmon is to crust the fillets with crushed dried caperberries. A fellow has been selling those at our farmers market and I have been having a lot of fun playing with them. Not so overpowering as regular capers

If you try a new flavour of potato chips from the grocery and don't like it, you pay for it and feed the rest to the dog. Same thing. That being said, there is nothing wrong with letting the restaurant know that you didn't like the food but it is up to them to decide whether to take it off the bill or not. If the food was actually spoiled I think you would have a case. But ultimately, pay the bill and absolutely tip the waitress. I let a very nice restaurant know that one of the dishes was really excessively salty to our taste - really to let them know rather than expecting anything. It was nice of them to take it off the bill, but they didn't have to. I mean why else would they ask, "How was everything?"* *I had friends who liked to choose a pretty ordinary pizza place for lunch. So when asked how the food was, my answer was always, "Up to your usual standards."

The lockdown restrictions on regional Victoria Australia have just eased, although Melbourne is still isolated. This means the other states are easing their border restrictions so that crews can come in to harvest crops. This is huge for the food industry. There are still issues because they can't bring in workers from other countries but it helps.

Here's an Australian Aldi contribution from the frozen section Not too bad. Not excessively cheesy, in spite of the unincorporated wad you can see, and not overpowered by the leek. No tin so served right side up. They also do a slow-cooked beef version that is decent. Still not quite the same as going to the bakery.

Now that you mention it, my father would often use his mock Hollandaise (roux based)

No beef offal pies?

My way, adapted from my father's, is not necessarily the best but works for me. Trim off the stem. Trim off the top of the bud - this makes the next step nicer by removing the spikes. You don't need to get all the spikes, just cut it off to expose most of the inside leaves. Then I run the artichoke under cold water, gently spreading the leaves apart. Getting water down inside and spreading the leaves apart speeds up the cooking considerably, especially for big ones. Then I put in a deep pot with a couple of cm of water and steam until you can pull the leaves off easily. My father was big on brown butter but I really like dipping in balsamic.

I take it you are a collector? The pot actually has a bit of a history - an ex-girlfriend swiped it from her grandmother, Florence Greenberg, who founded Scepter records and was apparently quite a character. Not that I have any documentation of the provenance.

This could have gone in the moka-pot thread but really, I dug the pot out as an excuse to use one of the Rosenthal coffee cups I inherited. I love reviving ancient topics.

I'd look to eastern Asia where there are all sorts of interesting snacks. One of our local grocers had a special on these and it didn't take me long to become addicted

Maybe it would be better to leave them to grow for another year

Australian meat pies from the bakery do not come in aluminium, except maybe family size pies. Nor do the frozen "party pies" - about 4 cm diameter pies for finger food. I suppose I could take one for the team to show them to you but they are pretty ordinary (Australian for pretty awful). Some of the other grocery store pies come in tins. There is a barbaric South Australia thing about flipping a meat pie upside down into a bowl of split pea soup as a Pie Floater.

I do a lot more sous vide then freezing than I do freezing then sous vide

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze' The pies are from the Eaglehawk Bakehouse. The Borough of Eaglehawk, now part of the city of Bendigo, may or not be the Eaglehawk of the poem. No matter, we have embraced it and they have recently constructed a marvelous Mulga Bill themed playground. And lest someone thinks we are straying too far from food, my belief is that a sense of place is as important as a sense of plate in the way food nourishes our souls.