dtremit

Appears to be available elsewhere at that price (W-S, Saks, Amazon, etc) in case it's more convenient — it's the best price it's ever been on Amazon, though it has been on sale for that price a few times recently. Weirdly the lowest price appears to be $84.99 at King Arthur Baking. Shipping brings it up to the same price as everywhere else, though. Now if only they'd have a similar sale on the glass-lidded braiser...

I think at this point, the higher end 2-man lines are all branded "Zwilling" and the lower-end 1-man lines are all branded "Henckels."

The mango of disappointment! I suspect we're hitting the end of mango season from some country or other right now. It's generally been a good year for them, though. Apparently mango imports from India are back for the first time since 2019. I always have wanted to find a case at a local Indian market but never get the timing right.

I don't think the air hole idea would work; I think it would just pull in air around the motor shaft at the top of the container. Chamber vac might work — or even putting the pint in a FoodSaver canister after processing.

Definitely jealous of all that you can get in and near NYC — I have heard legends about some of the markets! Do you mind me asking the name of that first place? It sounds like it might be worth a stop if we're passing through the area. That being said, we are still better off here in Boston than many many other places — and have way more options than we had ten or twenty years ago. There is not too much I can't find in terms of essential ingredients for most any cuisine I'm trying to make. On the flip side, the delivery services keep me from spending the entire afternoon browsing the aisles — the last time I went to the local Chinese market it took me about 90 minutes to get through the store!

I know what you mean — I am very particular about certain things, especially condiments. (The Sriraja Panich shortage a few years back was painful — I haven't even found another Thai brand I truly like.) I feel like SayWeee! and YamiBuy have slightly better selection of more traditional pantry items — whereas Umamicart's selection leans a *little* more towards more trendy brands like Omsom and Fly By Jing. You might be better off with one of the other two for your particular staples.

I didn't take a picture, but our latest delivery box was from a specialty cousin of these services — Umamicart. I'd been thinking of placing an order from some time and was motivated by a discount. Ended up getting a mix of produce (thai chiles and basil, bok choy, gai lan, curry leaves, and lemongrass), some fresh noodles, frozen buns, and a bunch of pantry staples (laoganma black bean, nam prik, pickled mustard, samba, ginkgo nuts, one of the fancy Omsom kits, and some rice and tapioca flours). Decided to limit my frozen order and avoid raw meat on the first order just so I could test their shipping (which was great). Pricing on some things is a bit higher than local stores, but not that much, and the produce quality was excellent. Definitely the freshest Thai chiles I've gotten in a while. Packaging was similar to Misfits with the thick insulation lining the box and frozen stuff in insulated bags within. Anything glass was super well wrapped; I might even dare to order fish sauce from them. Shipping was FedEx from Long Island City and *fast* — I ordered at 1PM on the 9th, it was out the door by 5PM, and arrived at 1PM the next day. Definitely would order again, though I also want to try the amusingly named SayWeee! for comparison. YamiBuy is another option, but they only do nonperishable stuff.

Agree 100% — celery leaves are wonderful, and have a rather different flavor than the stalks. My partner hates cilantro, and I've sometimes used celery leaves instead; they seem to fit in the same places.

We've ended up settling into a rhythm where we use Misfits / Imperfect to "fill in" during times of the year when local pickings are pretty slim. Despite them billing themselves as "subscriptions," it's easy to put either of them on hold. I particularly like that Misfits won't fill your cart automatically anymore; if you do nothing, nothing ships. (I've postponed Imperfect enough times lately that they just sent me a "50% off your next two boxes" offer. Max discount $25, but a $60 box for $35 is still a pretty good deal.)

That is an excellent deal on excellent spatulas — I paid about that for just the large one recently. They are quite handy for use in nonstick pans, and well balanced enough that I often find myself reaching for them in other pans as well.

The Gift of Southern Cooking (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock is $2.99 today. Other formats through BookBub

NP-GPC05 does have a "porridge" setting, though. I was always under the impression that "porridge" and "congee" were just different translations of the same option. The manual for my NP-NWC10XB (which has both "porridge" and "congee") seems to only differentiate the two based on the type of rice (short grain for porridge, long grain for congee, with a slightly longer cooking time). The instructions for preparing the ingredients are identical and clearly describe the same kind of dish.

I bought the NP-NWC10XB a few months ago — and at least from the pictures I can find, it appears that the pressure valve apparatus is identical to your NP-NVC18: The "grain filter" that covers the pressure apparatus is also the same part for both series: https://www.zojirushi.com/app/spare_parts/item/BU201011L-00 The line for the steel cut oats setting is much lower than any other measurement line, though: I'm wondering if that's actually the only real difference — a line to tell you not to overfill it. A lot of Instant Pot instructions also recommend adding a little fat to anything likely to foam — good enough excuse for me to put some butter in my oats!

@TdeV I don't have an APO, but I've run into some similar spacing issues in some of my other smaller ovens when trying to broil tall things. They don't fit with the rack in the top position, and the next position down moves them too far away. My solution has been to move the rack down one position, and then invert another pan as a "spacer" in between the rack and the pan with the food. If you used a spacer pan just *slightly* shorter than the difference between racks, it might get the pan to just barely clear the probe socket.

I'm speculating a bit, but my guess is there is probably not a universal answer here due to the different element diameters of various induction cooktops. One that works well on a small element portable burner might not work well on a large element cooktop, and vice versa.

@blue_dolphin and others — forgive my ignorance of the nuances of Brix, but in practice does the distinction between fructose, glucose, and sucrose matter for something like sorbet texture? I'm thinking here mostly in terms of using canned fruit and fruit purees, where the percentage of sugars is known — e.g., the can of unsweetened mango pulp I have has 17g of sugars per 130g serving, so about 13% sugar by weight. However, it doesn't break those down any further. If I add 62g of a 100% sugar syrup to that, I'd end up with something right at 25% sugar (48g of sugar in 192g of total mixture). That also doesn't seem too far off from the recommendations in the CIA document @blue_dolphin linked (ideal concentration of 40-60% for "sweet" fruits). Is that level of calculation sufficient for the lay person, or does one really need to delve into the composition of the sugars in the fruit in question?

You have all goaded me into another small appliance purchase! For those of you who are waiting for a deal, Woot! has refurbished Creamis on sale today — $99 for the 5-program and $116 for the 7-program. I was about to pull the trigger on that — it's definitely a good price — but it's not clear who refurbished it, and the warranty is just 90 days through Woot. After a bit of comparison shopping, I realized Kohl's had it on sale for $199, which after their current 25% coupon makes it $149 new. Plus you get $30 in Kohls cash (after the purchase is complete) which is just enough to get a 4-pack of the spare pint containers. I decided $149 for a new machine and four extra pints seemed like a better deal than $116 for a refurb (plus I can get it in a fun color).

@DocD out of curiosity, what's your favorite?

Staff note: This post and the next were moved from the 'Imperfect, Misfit, Etc. (The Food Delivery Services)' discussion, to maintain focus. Definitely a good plan for beef that comes thawed. I'm always looking for ways to avoid thaw-refreeze cycles, though (and I sort of assume most ground beef you buy fresh has been frozen). Though maybe that doesn't really matter for ground meat anyway. It occurs to me that I could probably also cut one of the 1lb cubes (the kind that come vacuum packed) without thawing it, given a little elbow grease. I have done that successfully with 2lb tubes of breakfast sausage from the warehouse club and a heavy serrated knife.

That would be great for something like mapo tofu where you only need ~4oz of ground beef. (Pity they don't have it for pork, which I use in smaller quantities more often.)

@Greg Jones Oh, interesting. Maybe yours is already the new rate for your area and I was on a grandfathered plan of some sort.

You might do better with Weee! — my impression is that Umamicart's selection is more skewed toward high-end products whereas Weee! is closer to what I find in a typical Chinese market. For noodles specifically I noticed they had a large selection from Twin Marquis (which is sort of ubiquitous here in the Northeast).

Email from Misfits last night — looks like they are raising shipping from $4.50 to $7.99 for existing members (with the suggestion that new subscriber shipping is higher). They also mention adding more grocery staples to the offering, and some kind of loyalty program that will include shipping discounts. I don't begrudge them the increase — $4.50 was almost certainly unsustainably low, and we can just place larger orders less often. Not ordering much from anyone right now — we are well stocked with vegetables from our CSA boxes. And fruit selection — a big reason we've used Misfits/Imperfect — is kind of dismal everywhere at this time of year, with citrus tapering off and not much else ramping up. Our garage stays at ~45F and has turned out to be ideal for storing apples; we're well stocked there from before the orchards closed, and just supplement with reliable stuff like kiwis, pineapples, clementines, and bananas that are easier and cheaper to get via local curbside. Still really want to try an order from Umamicart or Weee! — but I dragged myself to the local Chinese supermarket yesterday so it isn't really pressing.

I have nothing useful to add — but I'm really glad to know I'm not the only person who can't get a lame to work!

We got some good ones from Misfits recently, though they were in a ~3lb bag. The bag advertised them as "Raspberry Oranges" which I found myself weirdly offended by 🤣