KennethT

I've grown basil inside very successfully - even without artificial lighting - just in my southern facing windowsill that gets a lot of light... I'm sure I've posted pics of it in the gardening thread - it was the genovese strain and had leaves the size of my hand that were extremely pungent. I grew them in a deep water culture/nft hybrid hydroponic setup.

Yes, fans are important for a few reasons - not just to develop thick stems. They are also necessary because stagnant air will cause a humid microclimate around the plant which will cause the plant to slow photosynthesis, slowing growth. It also reduces transpiration which will cause calcium deficiency in the leaves leading to tip burn. The humid microclimate also leaves the plant more susceptible to molds/mildew as well as other diseases. ETA: if you only have 1 plant, you don't really need a fan on it, but if you have a bunch of plants grouped closely together, you definitely should have some ventilation...

@rotuts Good advice. LEDs are a good choice because they do not radiate much heat towards the plants - which is not to say they don't get hot, but are made with a heat sink to suck out the heat. Plant stretch (when they get leggy) is definitely caused by not enough light, but is also determined by the wavelength of light it is getting. Far-red is known to help mediate germination in some plants - too much far-red will cause plants not to germinate at all. High amounts of far-red will also cause plant stretch and some research shows that high amounts of far-red will also decrease oil/flavor production... so, for purely vegetative growth (what you want when growing herbs/lettuce) you want a higher amount of blue in your light. Back in the pre-LED days, that meant using a metal halide lamp for veg. growth (it has a bluish tinge) and then switching over to sodium vapor lamps to induce flowering (it has less blue and more far red - it looks like the old type orange-ish street lamps ).

her article was good information for a home gardener. Those a little more serious can find lots of research online - you need to know about PAR to judge a quality of a light, and then the ppf requirements of your plants...

I do a lot of indoor gardening (less so at themoment, but life gets in the way) but from what I can see from their website, the LEDs are really underpowered - especially for any type of fruiting plant unless it's also getting strong sunlight in a southern facing windowsill. Basil also likes lots of light. Beware - as basil grows, it becomes a HUGE water hog - I had a basil plant drink over a gallon of water a day! I've used a lot of the relatively cheap LED lights found on Ebay - some are better than others, but if you get a 250W (or even a 100W for just herbs or lettuce) light, it will be much better for your plants... and as @gfweb says, you can see my grow light in my apartment window from down the street.

I wish I could frowny-face and like at the same time. Sorry to hear about your troubles, but the outside looks great!

I don't know if anyone else remembers this, but many years ago, there was a tv show in the US showing a guy eating a bicycle - he first cut it up i(even the tires!) into very small pieces (like the size of a medication capsule) and then proceeded to swallow it piece by piece.

I've found the food on all of the pan Pacific (or the other direction) flights I've taken to be pretty good in coach. Granted, I've only taken 4 airlines - mostly EVA, whose food is never spectacular, but always at least tasty and for sure edible. In addition to the dinner and breakfast, they come around with a snack in between - coming out of JFK, the snack is typically a fried chicken sandwich with spicy mustard, which has been heated... it's actually very tasty - I usually have more than 1. They also have an area filled with other snacks and drinks to help yourself if you want to get up and stretch your legs, but the flight attendants come around with trays of water and juice pretty regularly. Of all the flights I've taken, Singapore Airlines had the best food (this was about 12 years ago) - even in coach, and even when compared to a lucky upgrade at no extra charge to biz class on Air France from Paris to NY. They had a lot of choices, and all of them seemed well prepared. They also handed out Haagen Dazs ice cream after "dinner", which was stored in styrofoam boxes with dry ice. Midway through the flight, they gave the extras away as part of the snack area in the back of the plane.

Thanks - I'll try that

Last night's salmon variant - green papaya som tum... Salmon cooked sv in 115F bath to core 102F in fish sauce, soy and sweet soy sauces, then torched. The green papaya was good, but I'd kill for green mango (which doesn't exist here). I'm still trying to figure how to get my dried shrimp light and crispy like I've had in Thailand. Most instructions I read are to rinse the dried shrimp, then dry fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes... it comes out ok, but the shrimp are still a little dense for my taste. I've also tried soaking for 10-15 minutes then the medium heat dry fry.... I wonder if it would be better to soak then do a high heat dry fry?

Wow... 82 minutes for rice.. Is it growing it too?

Me too...

I like the idea of a shochu, or maybe a sake that is light and floral. I'd mainly consider something high in acid to complement the fattiness of the scallops and uni butter... maybe a champagne?

Beautiful chocolates! How do you make the golden leaf pattern in the lower right? It almost looks like a fractal tree.

@haresfur You have an evaporative cooler? Do you mean an air conditioner or the greenhouse type "swamp cooler"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler

I went to LM some years ago while Yannick Aleno was there - one of the best meals ever. They did a crown of squab made with a savory sugar shell that I dream of - and recreate once on a while at home when feeling a little flush!

I also find it interesting that you don't have limes in China - even as close as you are to Vietnam - but that you have lemons. Many times I have been in SE Asia (where there are no lemons, only true limes) and servers have called something lemon, even though it was a lime. But I attributed that to a language issue - every time I saw that, they had never heard of the word "lime", but only knew "lemon" as a translation for the Thai (most times it happened in Thailand). But the fact that they used the word "manao", which I know to be true limes told me it was a language issue.

I've never seen such an active slingshot market!

If you do a lot of airbrush work, I would get a compressor with air tank and a long hose as suggested by @dcarch. The motor may be loud, but it won't run all the time - once it reaches pressure, it will just run for a minute or two when the pressure in the tank drops below a preset level. In my facility (it's not a chocolate facility, but we do paint spraying) we keep our pressure in the lines at about 100 psi - but the spray gun only needs 25-30 psi, so we have a filter regulator at the spray booth to clean the air (there are filters that will filter all water and oil) and maintain proper pressure for the spray gun.

Wow - that wall of windows is great!

@Ann_T I wanted to like this, but I'm sorry to hear about Moe... I hope he's doing better and will make a full and speedy recovery!

Chocolate mousse?

Meringue?

I don't know if the trend was started by Batali, but he was certainly an avid follower. All of the Momofuku restaurants in NY (except for Ko since I've never been there, but it may be the case there as well) were ridiculously loud as well - as well as many many others. I have always thought that part of the reasoning was to make people feel like they don't want to linger, thereby allowing the restaurant to turn the tables faster.

I imagine you'd need a knife though, unless you're doing it caveman (or cavewoman to be precise) style!