kayb

Put my brisket in the brine today. I'll IP it on St. Paddy's Day, likely. The IP IS a marvelous invention for cooking corned beef, I will have to admit.

eGullet has, over the past few years, cost me money -- my Anova (previously, until it died, my SideKic circulator, which introduced me to sous vide cookery); my Instant Pot ( @Smokeydoke -- get that thing out of storage; it will make a believer out of you!), my CSO, and we will not speak of how many cookbooks. A friend whom I've introduced to all of those appliances -- he hasn't taken the plunge on the CSO because he has such a tiny apartment-sized kitchen -- debates with me on whether the Anova or the IP is the #1 appliance. I'd probably go, just on frequency of use, with the IP; I don't use the Anova as much in the winter, although it gets a lot more use in nice weather when I'm grilling steaks. In fact, I'm already planning on SV'ing a dinner's worth of steaks to go back in the freezer and hold when we go to the beach for our family vacay later this year. The forum has, however, been worth every penny I've spent because of it. I've never bought anything (much) that I didn't feel was worth the price once I had it. And the entertainment is priceless.

It's not so much an aftertaste, or flavor at all, thing for me as it is a texture thing. I've never found a gluten-free baked good yet that had a texture worth a diddly-damn.

I have attempted a number of gluten-free breads and sweets, as I have a daughter who has celiac disease. I've never been impressed with any of them. I did find one muffin/quickbread recipe that was not abominable, if you ate them while they were warm. Reheating did not work.

It's a gorgeous stove. If you decide to get rid of it, I'd be tempted to road trip and come get it.

A friend brought me an ulu from an Alaska trip. It is, indeed, a fine, fine thing for herb-chopping. It lives on my counter for that very purpose.

So happy to see the mouse is back! I swear, I'm going to find a mouse cheese board like that.

FWIW, I use the back side of my heavy cleaver. Works like a charm.

FWIW, I often buy their small pork shoulder roasts, and have bought eye of round and similar when I wanted a specific cut and didn't have it in my freezer. And I'll recommend again (though this is on the wrong thread for same) Aldi's Appleton Farms spiral sliced ham. $1.69 a pound, and damn good ham.

When I was in there early this week, they had none. My brine is cooling and the brisket (about a five-pounder) will go in this afternoon. The Ruhlman recipe.

Read your earlier post about the Mauviel. I'm jealous. Welcome! Glad to have you here.

I am blaming @Toliver for this purchase, although he did not post it. The last ebook I bought from one of his posts, I had paged down and was looking at the other recommendations when I came across Nadia Hassani's Spoonsful of Germany, here. Now, I love German food like a fat kid loves cake. Purely love it. Can only eat it when I cook it, or when I go to Little Rock, as there's no German restaurant in Jonesboro and not a decent one I'm aware of in Memphis any more. (However, Little Rock does have The Pantry and its sister, Pantry Crest, which I highly commend to y'all should you ever find yourselves in Arkansas' capital city. And by the way, any of you who live in the Philadelphia area, the Austrian Village in Huntingdon Valley is absolutely superb. Red cabbage of the gods.) So I had to look. And I had to buy. At $6.99, it's not an amazing bargain, but after looking through the sample, I decided it was worth the price. Cuisine in divided into regional dishes -- north, east, west, south. I have bookmarked so many pages it's ridiculous. And here it's about to get warm weather, when I don't cook a lot of German meals. But I did order some King Arthur pumpernickel flour, and I'm going to try their pumpernickel recipe. There are a number of spreads, etc., in the book that will make good spring lunches. Thanks, @Toliver.

So, did he like it?

I guess it all goes back to what you're willing to pay for a meal. On one end of the spectrum, there's the $15 minimum wage movement that would add a couple of bucks to your Big Mac combo at McDonalds. On the other, if you're going to lay down $150 for dinner at a premium restaurant, would it really be an issue if that tab were $170 instead, the difference going to increase salaries, all other expenses assumed to remain constant? I personally wouldn't object to either (though $15 an hour is probably low-moderate income in NYC, but in many places in rural America, is a pretty decent wage rate). A meal is not necessarily a function solely of price, else we'd all eat at home all the time, and dine on beans and hot dogs. I eat out for one of two reasons -- convenience, or to enjoy a particular dining or taste experience I'm either not capable of creating at home, or lack the enthusiasm to do so. I expect a price tag for that. Early in my working career, I remember when average lunch prices crept above five bucks it made me cut back on how many days a week I ate out. I don't think an average lunch today going from $10 to $12 would have the same impact. I don't eat out as often any more, but when I do, cost is generally not a consideration.

I like my KitchenAid food processor, with the exception that the bowl is not as sturdy a plastic as I would like. It does a good job chopping, shredding and slicing veggies.

Awaiting that answer as well; they DO look marvelous. What cut of roast was it? And what was the tenderness status, as compared to more conventional medium rare roast beef preps?

I think this has been addressed before, but I forget what all was said. What about picking up something to go at a restaurant? I did that last night, and tipped 20 percent, out of habit. I tend to do the same most places I pick up something, although I don't suppose the money goes to the kitchen staff, which did the bulk of the work involved in preparing my order up to the point I walked out the door with it. I'm pretty much a 20 percent tipper unless service is just horrible and I can't see a reason for it (they're shorthanded, frantically busy, kitchen could be source for delay, they're obviously inexperienced). If it's a small check, it'll likely be more. One exception is my favorite meat-and-three place, where you order at the counter, get your own drink, and when your plate is ready, they call your name and you pick it up at the counter. My standard lunch is about $8.50 (meat and two veggies, drink). If I'm paying with cash, I'll usually just drop my change from the $10 bill I use in the communal tip jar on the counter. Stopped while on the road last month to eat lunch. Had to get change before I could leave a tip. Got to talking to the cashier and just forgot to go back to the table and leave a tip. Was several miles down the road before I realized it. Felt horrible about it. On the way back through the next day, I stopped at the same place (different time of day) with the tip and some extra in an envelope with a note of apology and a description of the waitress along with the time I was in on the outside. Hope it got to her.

Oh, dear sweet baby Jesus. It's too much. It's just too much. My best shot isn't even on the target, so I won't take it.

There are (at least down here in God's country) both sweet and unsweetened versions of Jiffy. One might could use it. I get the same results with Martha White Self-Rising Corn Meal Mix. Except for the sweetened, of which I keep two or three boxes on hand at all times, because one needs it to make corn pudding. Which will be coming upon the menu for Easter, which, like Thanksgiving, is all about traditional foods -- ham, corn pudding, asparagus, deviled eggs, green peas. (Yes, I know those bear no resemblance whatsoever to traditional Passover foods. Go figure.)

Aaaauuuugggghhh.

Having had Mexican for lunch and suffering from the after-lunch lull, and not being a frequent baker of sweets, this was a bit easier for me to pass.

I love to cook. But I'll be damned if I love it enough to work at that pace, for that pay (if I had the skills to do it in that sort of atmosphere, which I don't). I'm grateful that some people do. But dammit, folks ought to be paid a living wage. If I were to have a kitchen-based business, it'd probably be going to people's homes and preparing dinner party, brunch or lunch meals for small groups. Someone on eG used to do that, may still be; I don't recall the name and haven't seen him post of late. I have no clue if it's more financially sustainable than being a line cook. I wonder whether the line cook salary vs local cost of living (a single individual can live decently, if not wonderfully, many places in the South for $30K a year, for example) is fairly standard around the country.

I'm sorry it didn't work out well. The batter needs to be REAL thin; much thinner than you'd make for regular cornbread. Maybe just a little thinner than pancake batter. And you need at least as much or more tomato mixture as you have cornbread batter. The original recipe, which is included in my blog post about it here, calls for equal parts milk and cornbread mix (or combo meal and flour). FWIW, I like it better without the chile powder/cumin combo; I prefer just salt, black pepper, bacon and cheese.

Oooh, I can taste it now. I've wondered how it would be with canned tomatoes. I may have to try it! Please let us know how yours turns out and how you like it. I made one for a church potluck and it was all gone, and three or four people came by and wanted the recipe. (You gotta love a little church where people know you by the container your dish is in....) I'm not sure why I grew up in a world where cornbread and tomatoes were staples, and no one ever put them together in a single dish. I think this is one of the best summertime dishes going.

Forgot, until I was reminded, I was going to repost the pictures that didn't come through of the more tomato-ey tomato cobbler. Here they are: You can see these are significantly more tomato-ey than the one posted upthread (on Feb. 20, and I'm not sure how to link to the specific post). Thanks for the reminder.