KennethT

They've been serving crab/seafood boils like this for as long as I can remember. As a kid, we went to Baltimore, partially to have the steamed crabs, and they put newspaper on the table and dump the steamed crabs on top. No one was ever concerned about it being unhealthy since you're not actually eating (or even licking) the outside of the shells that contacts the paper. This has also been a common thing to do in a classic Louisiana crawfish boil.... Just dump them on the table and let everyone gather around and go to town! It's been like that since my grandfather was a kid and who knows how long before that! ETA: for something like spaghetti, hell no! That's just gross...

Yeah, I imagine it works like a bunch of arc welding tips creating arcs to the bottom of your pan. What happens when you lift the pan from the stove top? Too far away and you won't get arcing from the "burner" tips to the pan also, when not touching whatever the pan rests on (which I assume grounds the pan), the circuit is disconnected and the arc stops also.

Interesting, but I do have thoughts about the longevity and safety. Typically, plasma is produced by creating a very high voltage (thousands of volts) which is high enough to ionize the air (in this case), creating the plasma. I worry about how long the emitters last before needing maintenance/repair/replacement as constant arcing like that can cause carbonization (covered with soot which will damper performance). Also, the constant ionizing I imagine would create a lot of ozone - I don't know how good it is to breathe that in on a regular basis....

Southern India via Singapore headless fish head curry with masala potatoes

Please post about this!!

I thought the Kraken Burger was hilarious... first of all, how much food it is (and how much fat is probably in it!) but also, why is there no seafood in it? I'd expect some calamari or something in a Kraken burger...

Jesus... I'm drooling at that last picture... you could frame it... I'm a huge fan of the CN Batman trilogy, but the 2nd is by far and away my favorite. I find myself always watching it on a plane since my wife doesn't like to watch it - she finds Heath Ledger's performance too realistic and it freaks her out and gives her nightmares... his performance makes that movie.

Enjoy! I look forward to seeing your adventure here. How is the weather there this time of year? When I was a kid, my parents would take us during Presidents' Week to Miami (to visit the grandmothers) and then to an island in the Caribbean (to make up for Miami which was commonly 60 degrees and rainy until the day we left and then it was beautiful). We usually tried to visit the more southerly islands (like Guadeloupe and South) since it was practically guaranteed nice weather, as opposed to the windward ones which could be as dicey as Miami. Have a conch fritter for me!

Also note that different bags of shaved katsuobushi (at least that I've found in NYC) vary in price depending on how much blood line is in the shaved block. More blood line = more fishy flavor/smell. Smokiness would be similar.

I'm no expert on Japanese cuisine. Hopefully members like @Duvel will chime in... but in my layman's study, it is quite common to give dashi a smoky flavor by infusing katsuobushi flakes into the dashi briefly. Miso soup uses this technique. So it is not an uncommon thing for dashi to have a smoky flavor - but traditionally is done by infusing dried, smoked fish flakes.

We get the bison regularly - I usually either make burgers or Indonesian patties to have with a couple of sambals. It tastes like beef, but is very lean - but still juicy as long as it's not overcooked.

Practically the only other thing found in my local Wegmans supermarket, ground bison. We had received a couple avocados from our online supermarket for free last week. There were no rolls so I used a frozen English muffin. Also chipotle puree I keep in the freezer. My wife opted for the low carb version:

More done with chicken wings.... Indonesian chicken soup with ridiculously spicy sambal cobekan using my home grown rawit chillies.

Being in the NYC area, I had grown up with pizza, but the idea of the cheese was intolerable so I would pick off the cheese!

This probably would have been me. I was the pickiest kid on the planet when I was growing up. There's hope for them, yet!

I haven't made a complete meal in a long time, between coming back from vacation and recovering from the time change and lack of sleep, to work being crazy. Unfortunately, I pick the weekend of the "storm of the century". I assumed, being in NYC, the land of restaurants and food delivery, that the supermarkets wouldn't be ransacked as they are reported to be in the suburbs, but I was wrong and really wrong. In our new, giant Wegmans, the only thing left in the entire chicken area was 4 family packs of wings. Crazy. Anyway, I was already defrosting some home made roti canai, so no going back.... Chicken wing kapitan curry Roti Cucumber salad (cucumbers left over from last week)

@Duvel Aside from personal reasons, your son's friend lucked out when he gets a regular invite to dinner with your family!

Yes, please write an update once you've used them a bit, especially with the control freak.

Most food products go through a metal detector looking for metal fragments prior to packaging. I don't know if hot dogs do, but most candy/chocolate bars do. If the bone was finely ground, I can't imagine it would be harmful - just some extra calcium (although maybe not absorbable)...

Do you know what variety it is?

@Paul Bacino I should have said that in NY State, an unsalted Shaoxing will only be found in a liquor store since our grocery stores aren't allowed to sell anything with a higher ABV than beer... anything higher needs to be salted so that it is not drinkable... your state may be different and allow normal wines/spirits to be sold in grocery stores.

The Shaoxing that is unsalted will only be found in a liquor store. Pretty much any of them found there will suit your purpose. I'll try to take a photo of mine when I get home tonight.... it's perfectly adequate...

Wow - it took me a few minutes to realize that you didn't pick this up from your local DTF! You never cease to amaze me... We loved DTF ever since we had it in the Causeway Bay branch in HK.

Our wine fridge has a cartridge of expanded clay pellets that was soaked in water for a few hours before being installed in the floor when we first initialized it. The way our wine fridge works is that the walls get cold and any humidity condenses on the walls and hangs around there, eventually running down to the floor and into the cartridge of pellets, which then evaporates to re-condense on the walls. It keeps the humidity pretty constant - around 70%. I store all of our "cellar" items in there... potatoes last a really long time, onions, garlic, apples - anything that would have gone into a root cellar back in the old days. We keep them in rattan baskets to help allow air circulation.

Everything looks fantastic (except for the hospital food).... but I hope the little one didn't need to go to the hospital after frying his fingers! hehe....