Darienne

Thanks for the video Chris. Talk about real time.

We must be living in some kind of unreal bubble. My parents never made me eat food I didn't want to eat...although I can't remember anything I refused to eat besides soft-cooked eggs. (Still do.) And we never forced our children to eat things they didn't want to eat. But I don't recall any problem foods. We have folks over to eat a lot of the time and many of them have allergies and intolerances...we are mostly quite advanced in years...and they are always very clear about that. And so am I. If it's really difficult, they bring their own food or don't come for meals. Or I make food around their problem areas. I don't know why it's just never been a problem. But then I don't run a catering business or a restaurant or cafeteria. I guess we've just been lucky. There are a few things I won't eat. And that's that. And I always tell people if we are eating at their homes, and luckily seafood is so expensive around here that no one ever minds not feeding it to us. And honestly, we tend more to have folks to our home because we have two huge dogs who go everywhere with us and if you come to our house, you can bring your own dogs. We are known as "Dog Heaven" to friends. We are neither of us 'super-tasters' although DH likes more salt and more sugar than I do. (I sound quite self-righteous, don't I? Although I don't mean to. )

DescriptionSmilax herbacea is a vine with alternate, simple leaves, on climbing stems. The flowers are green, borne in spring. The plant at first looks like asparagus when it first sprouts out of the ground. The plant can grow over 8 feet tall without support, but will eventually fall over unless it successfully finds external support. As flowers start to develop, at first they look similar to small broccoli florets on thin stems.[5] One last thing about Canadian Smilax. Just found this passage in Wikipedia. Fascinating. 'looks like asparagus'. Love it.

Finishing up my story on Asparagus: For a few years now I have been following a wild plant on our farm perimeter walk called Smilax. It's an unusual plant in that it forms perfect balls of berries which start out pale green and eventually change colors to navy blue. I had never heard of them before and was very interested each year in following their progress. Even our local go-to naturalist did not know of them. So what I discovered this spring and thought was wild asparagus as it popped up in the field. is actually the young Smilax plant even though at first the stalk looked like an asparagus stalk. Yesterday I saw the miniscule clusters of berries and thought...oh my! that's Smilax. I had never been able to identify it in the spring before. And again I missed the flowers...they must be tiny?...which are noted as smelling like dead animals, thus giving the plant its nickname, the Carrion plant. So, thus ends my discovery of 'asparagus' out on the farm. Thanks for the help. Here's a photo of a Smilax plant, fall of 2013, for those who are interested.

Wonderful post, hbk. I particularly like the duck mousers.

Speaking of Churro vendors. The best I EVER had was extruded into an old cement mixer at la Bufadora in Mexico sometime in 1970s. :wub: It's the ONLY time in my life that I saw my Father make a pig of himself...I OTOH am accustomed to doing this when confronted with yummy stuff... We didn't save even one for my Mother who stayed by the car.

Our main supply of seeds in Ontario other than the most 'common' ones available in the 'normal' outlets would be Richter's. They carry only three kinds of tomatillo seeds: Cossack Pineapple, Purple de Milpa and Verde. And only one in plugs: the Cossack Pineapple. There just isn't the market for tomatillos in Canada I guess. So tomorrow, I'll order the Verde and just pay the charges. (Keep in mind that I have little idea of what I am talking about and may be all wrong about the entire subject. Thanks. )

It is frustrating to read posts about gardening with no idea of what region the poster lives in or what growing zone. But I do understand the need for that kind of privacy. Thanks for the advice. I live in Zone 5 and will try to get some seeds and plant them. Digging Dog: I'll have to send for the seeds. Tomatillos are not a local crop at all. They are never in the local grocery stores. We don't have much of a Hispanic population here in east central Ontario. Chris: have never allowed the tomatillos to seed because I container plant them. And I know NOTHING about gardening. A life-long achievement I fear.

My yearly planting of tomatillos has been totally thwarted this year. The seedlings are normally carried by only one local store and this year they don't have the little ones in the inexpensive pots. They have only singles in pots at $2.50 per and that makes it far too expensive for me to grow our yearly crop. Phooey. Not to mention that we had a killing frost last night and while doing our usual farm perimeter walk, we found almost all of the wild grape leaves to have died overnight and wonder if the little tiny beginnings of grapes will have survived. Last year we collected quite a crop which is still sitting in my freezer waiting for my jelly making chum to visit. I've found five or six stalks of wild asparagus on our walk and wonder if there's anything I can do to encourage them to spread. Each stalk is about 2 1/2 feet tall now and is branching out into the top which happens when you don't cut asparagus. Should I let this continue in this process or cut the stalks down? I have no idea. I'll see what I can find on Google. We didn't eat any of the fiddle-heads again. I was just too edgy about it without some knowledgeable type coming and giving the crop his or her blessing. The farm's apple trees have all bloomed and the blooms are fading now. Hope the frost will not affect the future apple crop badly. We have two mature trees in the backyard. The Mac looks well and has bloomed nicely. The Northern Spy I suspect is dying and quite rapidly. No idea why. Two years ago it (and the Mac) has massive crops which we could hardly handle. Now the Spy has only a few blooms and many of the branches are obviously dead. I keep thinking about returning to having a proper vegetable garden and then I continue to do nothing about it. The tomatillos were my one staple crop.

Welcome Mark to eGullet. Confectionery is one of my favorite topics and I'm always happy to learn something new from the experts.

The experiment was bold and innovative. Good for you. ps. I hate Twizzlers also. Loved them as a kid...but maybe they tasted different back in the 40s. OTOH, DH still loves them. He bought a package in Moab and ate them at his leisure over a 2-month period.

Went to Snopes, my favorite site for urban legends...and yes, some cheap Mexican vanilla does contain coumarin which is definitely not something you want to put into your system unknowingly. http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/vanilla.asp

Another interesting aspect to this question might be the cost of electricity in the various States and Provinces. Our Hydro (what we call it in Ontario) bills are usually between $181 (lowest in 2014) and $272 (highest in 2014). We keep our heating thermostat lower than anyone else we know in winter and don't have central A/C. I would not call myself a prolific cook. We lived in Utah for 6 months in 2008/09 and were stunned by the low cost of electricity there. We paid about $30.00 a month for living and cooking in approximately the same way.

In Ontario, many households, including ours, are on Smart Meters for electricity. This means that between certain hours during winter hours and then somewhat altered hours during summer hours we have three levels of cost for electricity. I could try to use this scheme for cooking and baking...but I don't. I work in the kitchen during peak hours and don't see that I really have a lot of choice. We didn't choose to have Smart Meters either. So when you get down to it...I don't do much if anything to save energy in the kitchen I guess. Which isn't exactly what you asked for, is it?

Sorry, Heidih. I Googled 'self-incompatible' and just can't get the meaning in plain English. Could you please do this in just a couple of sentences for me (and possibly others) if it's possible. ...and why it should matter... Thanks. I've grown tomatillos for the past five years. Not well, as I have the blackest thumb in all captivity. However, I do get enough for our own use and tomatillos are one thing which is NEVER in the local grocery stores or markets. (Probably available in Toronto.) I container plant and my containers are a weird bunch of miss-matched items and so I have to water the plants according to container. You'd think with 100 acres that I'd do better than that. But there you have it. It is what it is.

OMG. I saw chocolates with a Durian filling. Now I really am jealous!

Kim, your cake looked delicious to me. I would have eaten it gladly. In fact, if anybody ever made me a cake, I would swoon from delight.

As hard-shelled gourd artisans...that's what my avatar photo is...my DH and I are very familiar with the 'calabash' and its uses in the world. (I use the word 'calabash' in quotation marks because the actual calabash comes from a calabash tree and although a dried calabash looks like a dried gourd to a great extent, it's not the same thing.) You might be interested to know that this milk substance is often mixed, in the dried and cleaned out gourd, with fresh animal blood for a meal. Don't know the name of this mixture, but it's not something which I am eager to try. Not now; not ever.

Why the proviso: 'not inside the house'?

That eggplant looks divine.

Well, if anyone IS an expert in this case, it is you, good sir. I said only what I had read on Wikipedia. Recado rojo or achiote paste is a popular blend of spices, originally used by the Maya peoples. It is now strongly associated with the Mexican and Belizean cuisine, especially of Yucatán and Oaxaca. The spice mixture usually includes annatto, Mexican oregano, cumin, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, garlic, and salt.[1][2] The annatto seeds dye the mixture red, and impart a distinctive red-orange color to the food. I know see that some of the names are used hither and yon by different folks...a lot like everything else in life. Still I am glad of the reason to look it all up again. However, I can tell you about canned beans and what they are, being pretty much of an expert in that area. Alas. (And said to the Bean Man...)

Been there, and done that with the bleach. But they still have only a 'life' to live. Particularly if visitors come...

Mine go daily into the microwave and I read that this is enough. Yes? No? Then I cut off their corners after a while and they become floor, door, etc sponges and we don't' mix them up. Then to the cellar for use there...and so to the garbage.

I noticed on our last visit to Utah...we live in Ontario...that I had trouble finding decent sponges and ended up tossing several kinds as useless. Just checked my sponge supply and they are 'no-name' brand, but still good. Could it be an international situation? What we have versus what you have? We also buy our sponges at a local cleaning supply house, Swish. And they are very good. Never had a sponge bleed color. Very strange to me.

We have run through (and given away) several dehydrators in the last umpty-one years. And now we have another one, gifted by our raw vegan daughter. Salton, 5 tray, conventional style. She made some cracker things while she was last here and I take it she uses hers constantly and didn't realize that I already had one (now given away). I've dried a number of things over the decades...and then ignored the dehydrator for months on end. (Sort of like the bread machine, pasta maker, etc...all of which were given away) I just can't seem to work it into our lives. Help.