KennethT

How 'bout some blackened catfish? Jambalaya? I once had an amazing jambalaya at Coop's in NO that had rabbit as one of the meats... it was crazy good... and Crystal hot sauce...

@chromedome Yes, we'll almost definitely be storing something on top of the cabinets - although I really don't know how much space we'll have - whatever it is, we'll make the most of it I'm sure. I LOVE the idea of the toe drawers. I'm definitely going to talk to my contractor about that!

I like the idea of the utensil bar - it's basically the same function as my pot rack but against the wall and without the shelf on top... but I don't think it'll work in my situation. I found a photo of the kitchen as it stands now (prior to demolition) - the new kitchen will be similar - but we're updating the cabinets (both top and bottom) and pulling out the range, putting more cabinets in its place. Behind where the range is now is open to the living room. The ceiling will be dropped to 7' - which will be just above the top of the cabinets. The cooking will largely be done on 2 portable induction burners - one high powered 230V one and either a Control Freak or Paragon, which will be done in the area to the left of the dishwasher - the cabinets above replaced with shorter cabinets and a recirculating hood. Also, that corner section of wall on the left (with the outlets) will be taken out and will have space for another cabinet. So, unfortuantely, I don't think there'll be room for a utensil bar either....

Not yet... working on it!

@mumkin I'm actually happy to get the stuff that lives on top of the pot rack (which is hard to reach) into a cabinet because they get a fine film of aerosolized oil on them due to their lack of use. The pot rack holds 10 pans, of which I use 4-5 very regularly. One of the pans it holds is a 14 year old giant All-Clad wok which has been probably been used less than 5 times on account that it is terrible. I'll probably look into selling it on ebay before I move. Depending on how much cabinet space we'll wind up having and how we'll split it between pantry and cookware, some of the cookware will either live in a closet in another room or the closet in the other room will be the pantry... the kitchen design makes it so there really are no sides to the cabinets either - except for 1, which is part of the "hallway"... Edit: the "other room" would be the bedroom....

In my current small NYC kitchen, I store my cookware with a pot rack suspended from the ceiling. While my kitchen is small, the layout allows the pot rack location to be handily available, yet out of the way so I'm not always running into it. I will be moving soon and am currently doing renovations and am running into an issue. The layout of the new kitchen doesn't have a nook where the pot rack could go where it won't get in the way, and the ceiling height is probably too low for one anyway (7 feet). The only place I can think of storing the pots/pans when not in use is in a cupboard where real estate is precious. I also have no wall space from which to hang any pans.... Any other ideas? Maybe I'm missing something? How do you store non-stick pans in a cupboard without accidentally scratching the surface from time to time?

That's really interesting. I'd love to know more about it.

Completely nontraditional Viet bun ga.... With fennel and blood orange

I find that the flavor of ginger gets muted in the freezer. I keep it on the shelf with the garlic/onion/shallots, etc. How long it keeps depends on how old it was when I got it at the store! That can vary quite a bit. Galangal keeps a bit better in the freezer, but when defrosted it weeps liquid and is mushy - so if you were to use it, I would slice it thinly while it is still frozen so you don't lose all the juice. It still isn't nearly as powerful as fresh though.

This is my first time with any aged white tea, so I am open to everything. I'm going to save the leaves (well drained) and continue the journey next weekend.

Started tasting this yesterday, then continued today: 6g in my 150ml yixin tea pot. I did quite a lot of watching of mei leaf videos (wow he is wordy!) but I thought I got a good hang of what aged white tea is all about and how to brew it. Following his instructions, I used about 200-205F water, the first 3 infusions steeped for about 20 seconds, and then increasing the steep time by 5 seconds for each additional steeping. So far, I'm up to 8 steepings. The first few steepings were creamy with lemon zest, and quite tingly on the sides of my tongue. As the steepings progressed for 3-6 I got a lot more forest floor - dried leaves, chanterelle mushrooms and dried twigs. Steeping #7 turned a corner and as it cooled became intensely dried apricot. Like I stuffed 5 soft dried apricots in my mouths and just chewed for a while. #8 still has the over-riding flavor of apricots but not as soft dried as #7 - more like a heavier dried apricot.

If only international shipping wasn't so expensive, I would be thrilled to take them off your hands!

We need a "groan" button...

I got my sample last night and have been preparing to taste this weekend. Very exciting!

Indeed!

When I was in a very popular Xinjiang restaurant in Beijing, they had a lot of herbal/flower teas. We had a really nice rose tea. Edit: not that that is necessarily indicative of what is true to the area itself... but the restaurant was highly regarded

During my (extremely brief) time in China and SE Asia in general, I'd agree that I never noticed any splintered bones - even though it was quite common to find a leg piece (for example) cut crosswise into 2-3 pieces. I think my local NYC places, no matter how "authentic," have extremely blunt cleavers...

@Anna N I don't know about in China, but here in NYC where regional Chinese food has really become a trend in certain neighborhoods, possibly due to a huge influx of mainland Chinese students attending NYU, many times chicken on the bone sees the bones quite splintered. I can't tell you how many times I would eat a piece of chicken have have to pick bone splinters out of my mouth. By the way, this also happens at the Malaysian restaurant I favor, as well as a Vietnamese one and an Indian (I think they're from Bangladesh though) one near me...

Is it similar to mine? I'd love one of those box things...

I can't wait!

If we're going to do this, I have a couple things I can contribute... I have a TWG Tikuanyin Imperial that I brought back from Singapore...https://twgtea.com/teas/loose-leaf/ti-kuan-yin-imperial This is a lightly oxidized oolong - lots of green notes. I also have a pretty heavily oxidized Tikuanyin that I get regularly at a shop in NYC - https://mcnultys.com/collections/oolong-tea/products/tikuanyin It has lots of roasted notes - I make this gong fu style on the weekends when I have time.

I've been looking at recipes online for potato masala and they seem to consistently say "use whatever potato you like" - but surely, there must be a textural difference if you use a waxy potato vs a starchy potato... which is more traditional? How do the different results vary?

Here's the final results: It was pretty good - but one thing I didn't think about is the fact that the underside of the chicken doesn't get any browning in the CSO, so the shrimp paste was still a little raw tasting - shrimp paste goes through a radical transformation when fully cooked. This is why the shrimp paste works well in traditional satay because all of the surfaces get a nice browning on the grill... like this: Also, when I got home from work, my wife and I decided to go with a lime/fish sauce/garlic/chili/cilantro sauce rather than the curried peanut sauce... it's a lot healthier!

Right - I figured it would be about $0.50 for a taco...

@BonVivant Are those prices on the board typical? Is that the price for 1 taco?