KennethT

The dark side of hydroponics..... Extreme nutrient burn!!! I've always thought that we learn more from failure than we do from success. This is an herb plant common in SE Asia - in Vietnam it is rau ram, in Singapore/Malaysia it is laksa leaf. It is probably the hardiest herb I've ever grown - it's practically indestructible. You can over water it, under water it, low amount of nutrient - usually it's happy. What you see here is the result of neglect and a design issue in my automated coco coir drip system. It's pretty common knowledge that you always want to water to runoff in coco so you don't get what you see here. My system uses a capacitive moisture sensor to trigger when to water and when to stop watering.... But for a while now, the system stopped watering before runoff occurred, leading to a huge buildup in salts. Pretty soon (I'm getting ready to move soon) I'll revise my design to fix this issue.

It also screws small producers as it is much harder for them to get distribution - especially when the market is dominated by a couple huge distributors, it is really hard to get their attention to pick you up, and even if picked up, get enough attention so that they can really help sales.

@BonVivantGreat idea to adjust the brightness/contrast. It definitely looks like some kind of wilted green... could be spinach, pea shoots... I don't think it's that important overall - sometimes, things are added to restaurant dishes for reasons like stability when carrying the plate through the restaurant - like a bit of cookie crumbled under a scoop of ice cream. Otherwise, the round piece of sweetbread could roll around the plate while in transit between kitchen and table.

I agree. 2 cloves, added whole, not ground.

Interesting, and definitely makes a lot of sense. Don't get me started on alcohol rules in the US. Between the leftovers of prohibition and pandering to large corporations.... bah! Damn you, 3 tiered system!!!

I know it's a hike, but what about Mitsuwa? I think the closest one is in Edgewater, NJ. I haven't lately, but years ago, I bought stuff from them online and they shipped - I was experimenting with obulato at the time after having stuff based on it at El Bulli and couldn't find it anywhere... except Mitsuwa in Chicago, who shipped it. Now, I see it in Kalustyans!

@weinoo Also - if you're there, you might want to check out Sunrise Mart - I wouldn't be surprised if they had it.

@weinoo A bit closer to home is http://www.sakayanyc.com/ They're in the East Village... I don't know if they carry mirin, but I know they have a great sake collection

Right - as I said, I've never had one before, so I can't say if the one we were sent was a really good one or not. I will say that while it seemed well executed (the bread was moist - not dried out, good crumb and texture) I think it's just not my thing...

My wife just got this from some people she knows from work I've never had a Panettone before. I imagine it will be quite some time before I have it again.... I don't understand why someone would ruin a perfectly good challah with candied citrus peels and other macerated fruit.

Maybe it's only the knob that can't go in the dishwasher?

Weird. Since the plug is ungrounded, theoretically the oven must be double insulated. Still not impossible to have a short to the case somewhere though...

It's hard to believe that my lemongrass plant looked like it was on the verge of death a few months ago.... I think some tom yum is in the near future...

A while ago, New York City instituted a trans-fat ban. News stories abounded about how KFC and others that fried in trans-fats now had to scramble to adjust their recipes to deal with the new law. One news station interviewed the CEO of Popeyes about how they were dealing with the change, to which he responded that they didn't have to change anything - they've never fried in trans-fats, they've always fried in lard...

@Duvel Looks good, but it will never taste like Popeye's unless it's fried in lard. That's their true secret ingredient!

maybe... but I haven't been to that many better sushi places. As a treat, we usually go (went) to Blue Ribbon sushi in Soho - and they did it. They also have this amazing Hokkaido uni that I love. The only other high class sushi place we've been to was years ago when we used to go to Sushi Yasuda back when Yasuda-san was there - we'd always sit at the sushi bar and chat with him. But there, I never chose anything as he would just surprise us... along with like 3 or 4 types of uni. I was always surprised by his memory - we only went there a couple times a year, but every time we sat down he'd look at me, smirk and say "sea urchin coming..."...

I've never seen dried curry leaves. I alwasy get them fresh. But now I just do a little snip snip, rather than paying $5 for 4 sprigs...

I used to love going to this one sushi place - when you ordered the sweet shrimp (botan ebi) which are raw, they deep fried the head and served that too.... drool...

Also, if you remove the heads, you can make "shrimp head fat" which was used in a bunch of some of the most well known Pad Thai places in Bangkok... I think they actually cooked the heads in pork fat... even better...

Love head-on shrimp. When I had more time, I used to get them all the time from my local H-Mart (Korean grocery). Now that I'm strapped for time, if I make shrimp at all, it's the IQF deshelled deveined kind. But I love using the head-on ones in curries (great for sucking the head).

We get delivery from our local Sichuan place at least once a week. We've also been trying to support our favorites, like a small Yunnan restaurant in the East Village every time we can. I don't know if New York City Chinese restaurants were hit as hard as ones in other parts of the country, as compared with other types of restaurants in the same locales... I don't think He Who Shall Not Be Named affected NYers affinity for Chinese food...

You can top it and it will split. Tons of videos growing curry plant on YouTube. Depending on environment, it can go from a short twig to a bush in a year or so.

I love curry leaves. Depending on the size batch, I will use at least a sprig, maybe 2. If you have a curry plant, you never want to pick individual leaves leaving "skeletons". You always want to take a branch from where it emerges from the stem. This will also have the benefit of spurring the plant to put out more branches! 2 birds....

Many years ago, my father and I had a multi-month long "duck-off" where we made competing versions of whole roasted ducks. The best way, by far was a real pain, but worked really well. I gave it a short dunk in boiling water - maybe about 5, 10 minutes or so (it started boiling, but only got back to a simmer by the time I took it out.) After I let it drain, and then air dry on a rack in teh refrigerator for 3 days. Then a low/slow roast. Most of the fat was rendered, the skin was crispy, and the meat was good.

I'm right there with you, but I think they should be put in the fireplace and burned in effigy as a warning to the rest of the vile red creatures lest they cross your threshold.