KennethT

I only recognize the first one - I've seen it in my local Thai store - they said it's the typical pickled mustard used as an accompaniment to Khao Soi - and indeed, looks like what I had in Thailand with it. Make sure you thoroughly drain the yellow liquid, and rinse/drain the mustard well - the packaging liquid is disgusting.

@TropicalseniorThat sounds like an amazing experience!

@adey73I'd be worried that you wouldn't get great heat transfer doing that. Unless both the steel and the aluminum were both perfectly milled flat (which they're not), there will be a (relatively) large air space between them acting as an insulator.

Pretty cool. Was that vibrating sound coming from it or a low flying plane outside?

I never knew there was such a thing as an unripe, or ripe for that matter, eggplant... I thought they were like zucchini in that respect. They don't really ripen - they just get bigger.

@dcarch and @TicTac Exactly. Vietnamese Coriander aka Rau Ram

More pickage...

Gotta harvest a lime...

My yu choi is going crazy! I harvested it down to only a few sprigs just last week...

Back in 2008, my wife and I spent a few days around Xmas time going to Puerto Rico. We flew into San Juan (all the way on the east side of the island) but our hotel was all the way on the west side of the island. There's actually an airport on the west side also, but we wanted to drive across the island taking in the sights, and a certain lechoneria in the middle of nowhere. Best. Lechon. Ever.... ETA: Along the way, we also found a lady frying fruit pies over charcoal on the side of the road... I didn't get a picture, but they were fantastic!

Tomatoes can't really be perennial, no matter the location. Indeterminate tomatoes will live and keep growing so long as there is no frost - but after about month 10 or 11, will be come less and less productive. Determinate tomatoes have a specific life cycle - they grow vegetatively, then flower, fruit and finally die - regardless of temperature - they usually transition from vegetative growth to flowering depending on hours of daylight (or darkness). This is why commercial growers in greenhouses grow indeterminate tomatoes since they will be productive for almost a year before they need replacing.

It definitely does look their they're gunning for those 3 *.... looks wonderful!

Just because he was eating alone or looked different from other guests doesn't mean that he is a Michelin inspector. I have a friend who was once a Michelin inspector, and while he is still not allowed to divulge details from his experiences, I know that he was always at least with his wife, if not other people as well. Also, another friend has a friend who is friends with Sam Sifton (used to be food writer for the NY Times) and she once accompanied him to dinner in a place he was going to review - there were 4 people at the table that night, including Sifton... But, it is nice to hear the server say that everyone is treated like they were a high-powered reviewer!

There is no shame in wine tasting at 10AM.... some professionals start even earlier!

It's amazing how much produce a supermarket can throw out each week in the US. Most of the time, supermarkets wind up throwing out produce that started out as not cosmetically perfect, because many US consumers associate cosmetic appeal with freshness and flavor. This is why most farmers (especially the large agro-corps) in the US grow crops that are engineered or selected for cosmetic uniformity and appeal as well as shipping stability and storage, rather than for flavor. Sorry to derail this thread, but I have been doing a lot of research lately as I'm prepping to start some indoor farming to sell. I have some unused warehouse space that I think I can put to good use! But growing for a business is different than growing for fun - so it's important to understand the average consumer... hence the research since most people who are active on this site are certainly NOT average consumers!

I love those toilets! We had one in our hotel in Saigon last year... I joked that I never wanted to leave the bathroom!

@liuzhou I'm sure the transliterations I am using are Cantonese based - as the Cantonese (lots from HK) were the first to come to NY over a hundred years ago. Only relatively recently (last 10-15 years?) have there been more and more restaurants and shops owned by people who spoke Mandarin or something other than Cantonese. I gather there's been a large influx of Fujianese in the last several years.

What a fascinating story... thanks for sharing.

Yes, definitely water tolerant... also acid tolerant and chemical (strong oxidizer) tolerant... I swear I'm not trying to sell this stuff!

That's it... another time (I don't know if I wrote about it or not) I used the GS successfully - but didn't use it in slurry form - I just added the powder to the pureed shrimp by weight, then spread between two sheets of plastic wrap and refrigerated. After set, I sliced them into fettucine-like noodles and cooked sous vide.

The loctite 1min epoxy looks ok - but it won't be as strong as JB Weld. As you can tell, I'm a huge fan of JBW - I've used it for repairing all sorts of things - an industrial perchloroethylene degreaser, high pressure water lines, parts that will hit high temperatures. It's great. Once cured, you can drill it, tap it, file it, etc.... https://www.lowes.com/pd/J-B-WELD-2-oz-Epoxy-Adhesive/3377874

What type of glue is the loctite? Is it a cyanoacrylate? Many of those types of glues (even in gel form) don't work well on porous products. If you have a way of clamping it together, I would use an epoxy, or JB Weld, which is amazing, but takes a long time to cure.

Many years ago, I made seafood noodles using GS - back then, I had quite a few conversations with the Ajinomoto NY area rep who gave me a lot of advice to shorten the learning curve... I wrote about it in a few threads here, but I don't recall the names of them...

I used to drink a lot of Lung Ching (Dragon's well green tea) - although, when I had it in Beijing they called it Long Jian. Now, on the weekends, I like a nice Jasmine in the morning, and usually either a Taiwanese oolong (only lightly fermented) or a Ti Kwan Yin (the one I get is pretty heavily fermented). I wish I could get some of the Ti Kwan Yin that I had in Hong Kong - it was only mid-level fermented - not as grassy as the Taiwanese Tung Ting that I have, but not nearly as heavily fermented as what I get at home. At work, I can't deal with loose leaf tea so I have to use tea bags... so for that I have a Japanese Sencha that's pretty good and pretty inexpensive. My local Japanese mart sells it for about $4 for a box of 20, and I can get two steepings out of a bag.

Also, the drive out to Etxebarri is great... Reminded us of Lord of the Rings...