dtremit

@palo I think that's actually about the median Amazon price for the skillet — it bounces around a lot, but it's usually somewhere between $12-16.

That looks great! Would love to see the recipe when it's complete.

I'm going way off topic here, but I love the layout of his kitchen. So much packed into a compact working space (though I know the room around it is quite a bit larger). We are about to move into a house with a fairly compact kitchen (which I'm sure we'll eventually redo) and I've been scrutinizing the layout in his videos really carefully for inspiration.

Thinking of trying a new, local option in this genre this week — Friday Food Market. I don't know much about them, but a local shop published a referral code the other day. Apparently they work with local distributors and clear out excess inventory at the end of the week — you select items online on Friday, and they drop off the items on Saturday. Will be interesting to see what their prices are like — they apparently vary week to week, so you don't know until the store opens Friday morning.

I wondered that when I got some of these, but they taste *exactly* like a normal sprout. With the addition of *very* thin shredding, this is pretty similar to the Brazilian method for collard greens (couve a mineira). Those have to be cut really, really thin, though.

I'm not sure if that association between the Plains and "good steak" is outdated, or just fictional, but it certainly doesn't seem like it has a lot of relevance in an era of highly concentrated meat processing. Being closer to a Cargill plant isn't going to get you a better steak, and smaller producers are much more geographically diverse. I have a feeling the last time it held true was sometime in the 19th century, before the advent of modern refrigerated transport. That said, as a Midwestern boy, I will stand up for the institution of the Midwestern steakhouse. Maybe not in Omaha, but the experience of going out for a steak (or better yet, prime rib) dinner in Chicago is better than anything I've found on the East Coast. (As an aside, I used to travel a lot more for work and made it a point to try local fast food wherever I was. The only meal I ever couldn't finish — Runza — was in Nebraska. Edited to add — in fairness, the best was in Kansas, at the Cozy Inn in Salina. They've used the same cast iron griddle for their burgers since 1922.)

It seems like a pin or two could be very helpful with something like a bone-in rib roast; one could put them between the bone and the meat to achieve similar results to a boneless roast. I imagine the donut effect would also be much less of a concern for something you're not trying to cook medium rare — thinking of say a big pork shoulder. Curious what brand you have and/or what other brands you're familiar with. The link in the original post to eBay is long since broken. Looking around on eBay I can find something called a "King-Pin" but it doesn't reference heat pipes or anything similar. Also uselessly it has a thermometer built in — which would always be in the wrong place, of course.

Agreed on items commercially frozen by the producer — but sometimes if a product is re-frozen or gets partially thawed in transit I notice an issue. I think pretty much all Imperfect's meat leaves the warehouse frozen; I have had it arrive anywhere between rock hard and nearly thawed. I generally try not to refreeze anything that isn't completely frozen when I receive it.

Is it possible that it has something to do with freezing and thawing?

Are those the *giant* brussels sprouts the size of baseballs? I can't quite see in the picture. We got those a few weeks ago and they were quite good -- I ended up halving them, par cooking them in the microwave, and then searing the cut side in cast iron. It's interesting — I have never seen that kind of soft paper "inner box" from Imperfect, but I have gotten it from Misfits a few times. I wonder if the two box issue is actually not capacity but weight? If they stack boxes on top of each other on the truck, they may have to keep them under a certain weight so that a stack of X boxes never crushes the one on the bottom. They may have hit that weight when just the limes and garlic were left. (Why they then *refrigerated* the limes and garlic, I have no idea; we get those outside the insulated bag all the time.)

There is a pretty big problem with counterfeits on Amazon: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/6/24/18715584/amazon-counterfeit-book-problem-nyt-project-zero

@Toliver I have been noticing the same thing. Must be January, all the cookbooks on sale are for the fad diet of the moment.

I don't think we've had any issues with Imperfect potatoes when we've gotten them in the past — guessing it was just a bad batch. Have not ordered any in a while as we are getting them in our winter root CSA. I know it was a challenging season for potatoes in much of the northeast due to the weather — our summer CSA lost a bunch of their crop and some of what was left was bad in the middle. So they could have gotten some local ones that were subpar. I will say that both Misfits and Imperfect have been great about crediting for anything damaged or unusable (though sometimes their email support is backlogged a day or two).

That's basically what we do. I tend to select for stuff that will keep well and don't hesitate to skip deliveries (or delay them by switching weeks). OOC, which of their chickens do you like?

@Chris Hennes — I'm sure there's some regional variation, but I've done the same or similar comparison a couple of times and Imperfect comes out about 25% less in most cases. But Boston is admittedly an expensive place to shop. If I were going to the nearby produce market I love, I'm sure it'd be a different story, but that place is so crowded that I was careful about when I went *before* the pandemic. Interestingly, the organic items at Imperfect are sometimes slightly cheaper. I have noticed that with pears lately — they're $0.50 more but you get three instead of two. And it definitely varies by item — I often will take out a few things because they seem overpriced or add more of something that's cheap.

Just because some of it gets to market doesn't mean a majority of it does. A 2019 study by Santa Clara University showed that about a third of the edible produce grown never leaves the farm.

Frequently but not as consistently as other things, I would say. Almost always parsley and (I think) cilantro (which I don't buy on account of my partner's loathing). I know I've also bought thyme and a mixed herb clamshell, but I haven't seen those every week.

You can skip up to five future deliveries — it's a little confusing at first because it's on the "Delivery Schedule" page, rather than the "Subscription" page. But if you're on a biweekly plan, it means not having to do it very often. Currently my account gives me the option to skip through March 5th. I prefer Misfits' "hold" feature, though. And I *really* wish both services would let you schedule a subscription every 3 weeks, which is actually a lot closer to what we need. I've been able to hack it a bit by changing from "even" to "odd" weeks at strategic times.

You can definitely do this — I have! But if I remember, I will screenshot or capture the available selection on Monday. Your day will vary, but for me, the shopping window runs from Monday at noon to Wednesday at noon, for Friday delivery. At any point before that Wednesday noon time, you can go into your account and skip the delivery. (As an aside, I find the best strategy for the widest selection of items is to log in once at the beginning of the shopping window, and then to check *back* sometime towards the end. Imperfect fills your "default" cart based on your subscriptions, and then you add or remove things from it as you like. So some things that are sold out at the beginning may become available as people remove them from their defaults.) We really like the Capra lamb tamales, when they're available (though you have to like lamb).

I do agree — and I think it gets amplified if you're using them in a recipe that's high in fat (like an onion dip). Extra acid often helps — particularly lemon — and salt levels seem really critical. I do wonder if maybe the butter is contributing -- if it's not clarified, then the caramelized milk solids are probably also adding some sweetness in a way that an all olive oil onion wouldn't. (I also find I don't like the traditional mix of sour cream and mayo in onion dip — I strongly prefer an all sour cream dip, or even a mix of sour cream and Greek yogurt.)

I agree with Vivian Howard that the direction matters, but I'm not sure I follow her reasoning. To my mind it has more of an effect on texture than time. I believe it's because of the shape and orientation of the cells in the onion; you rupture fewer of them going vertically. Kenji talks about this in exhausting detail in this article on slicing onions for burgers, and does note in this article on onion cutting that pole-to-pole onions should be sweeter because you're producing fewer pungent compounds in the slicing.

Enfrijoladas today, roughly following Rick Martinez' recipe for technique. We had a ton of leftover orange-scented black beans (from Joe Yonan's Cool Beans) and I used those in place of the bean / garlic / onion from the enfrijoladas recipe. I followed two of the recipe suggestions and swapped in root vegetables for the chorizo (roasted bicolor carrots), and topped each enfrijolada with a fried egg. Very good; in particular, the technique of brushing the tortillas with oil and browning them is much easier than the technique of passing them through hot oil briefly that I've seen elsewhere. Think I'll be borrowing it for enchiladas soon.

I think this Tefal is also a discontinued item — the online manual I can find for it has a date of 2006, and the various Tefal websites I've looked at in Europe make it look like they've gotten out of the oven business.

Late to this, but we have recently discovered purple barley, which is lovely. To my palate, it has a nuttier flavor than the regular stuff.

@Barrytm — thanks for your perspective on this. We are finally moving someplace with a yard in a few months, and I think you are confirming my basic outdoor cooking acquisition strategy. My thought is to start with a nice gas grill (which is what I have the most experience with) and an inexpensive electric smoker, and maybe add a pellet grill a few years down the line if I really feel like I'll use it. It helps that it sounds like most of the issues with the Masterbuilt and other similar smokers are with the electronics, which are the part I feel most comfortable tinkering with. Do you have strong feelings about the two sizes of Masterbuilt?