Human Bean

You could try growing taller - to keep your eyes further from the food. Okay, not very practical... How about: sharper knife, work faster, but be sure to keep fingers away from sharp fast knife? I find that the many possibilities for serious injury is one thing that makes cooking interesting. The ACTUALITY of serious injuries isn't that fun though. But seriously, I'm no speed demon in the kitchen, and rarely get more than a mild and transient eye irritation from one or two large onions. If I had to do several pounds, it would probably be different though. You are correct; I was wrong. I saw it in the tips section of Cooks Ill a few months ago; I tried it, found it wasn't faster or better for me, and forgot the crucial detail of turning the quartered onion to only make vertical cuts. Thanks.

I'll admit, I don't know the method. Please share. I swear, I keep getting more sensitive to onions. It's getting so bad that my eyes are burning just reading this post. I'm very short on time at the moment - anyone else, feel free to jump in here. Jacques Pepin illustrates this in La Technique, it's easier to see than describe: Pull off the loose roots (less messy that way) but leave the root end of the onion otherwise intact. Cut the onion in half from top-to-bottom (stem end to root end), peel. Put one half cut-side down (flat) on the board, and trim off some of the stem end to leave a nice clean vertical cut. Again, leave the root end alone, it holds the onion together for the next steps. Cut a series of vertical slices top-to-bottom (again, stem end to root end) in the onion. Do not cut the onion all the way into seperate pieces, leave them attached at the root end. Space the cuts farther apart for larger dice, and closer for small dice. Cut some horizontal slices (parallel to board) but don't cut into seperate pieces (again, leave intact at the root end.) Closer cuts for smaller dice. Now, slice the onion into dice (vertical cuts) across the width of the onion, starting from the cut stem end, and proceeding towards the root end. Repeat with the other half; fix any overly misshapen pieces. Voila, a whole chopped onion with no tears involved (I hope). Tip: Making the cuts parallel to the cutting board can be a bit tricky; it may be easier at first to cut each half into quarters, and do the preliminary slices on one of the quarters at a time, but it'll take a bit longer. Again, it's easier to see being done than describe in words; a little practice, and it'll be obvious and second-nature.

Chopping onions - the standard pro method is often seen now on cooking shows, but for quite a long time, we amateurs were unaware of it. You still hear people say, "Chopping onions makes me cry; what can I do about it?" And lots of crackpot methods are still passed around (have a lit candle nearby, scuba masks, etc.) When done right, you don't have time to cry. Not in a home kitchen with only one or two to do, anyway. Maybe a suitable topic for the eG mini-courses, even though it's fairly well-known by now?

Zero Laxative Effect??? Huh??

The local newspaper's weekly food supplement recently had an article on fresh turmeric (I had no idea such a thing existed, but is readily available at local Indian markets). Anyway, they had a recipe for "New Potatoes with Peas and Coriander" that I quite like after trying it. I have no idea if it's 'innovative' and may not be 'real' Indian food, but it's good. It's certainly not designed for 5 lbs of potatos, but could be modified or cooked in smaller batches. And the first time I made it, I didn't have new potatoes, just the regular ones; I don't think it matters. The recipe is copyrighted (from "Ginger East to West," by Bruce Cost, the article says), so I can't post it, but perhaps the ingredients, separated by cooking stages, might prove useful: 6 to 8 small new potatoes 1/4 cup peanut or vegetable oil 1 teaspoon ground cumin 2 teaspoons minced fresh turmeric or 1/2 teaspoon dried ground turmeric 1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger 2 small fresh or dried red chilies, coarsely chopped 1 cup chopped fresh cilantro 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, or to taste 1 teaspoon garam masala 1 tablespoon ground coriander 1/4 cup fresh lemon Juice (1 large lemon) 6 tablespoons water 1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas Happy cooking. [i toast and grind the spices myself; none of those potentially embarrasing shortcuts but I don't have time limits or need to quickly get food on the table for a family.]

I know this is marketeer-jargon, but somehow I find the idea of a restaurant (chain) as a "concept" is vaguely disquieting, in a way that I cannot quite explain. Something like restaurant as theme park; Chuck E Cheese definitely qualifies in the theme park category. Jim Dixon appears to feel the same way, judging from the thread subtitle. This might inadvertently give the impression that it's a 'food court' thing. Not so, Noodlin' [okay, this is a really dumb name, but what do I know?] and it's sister restaurant Beach Shack are in their own buildings, close to the street, in what used to be parking lot. Furthermore, Beaverton Mall is in the process of renaming (er, re-branding?) itself as Beaverton Crossing or somesuch; I guess the idea of a 'mall' is tacky and so-twentieth-century, or something. To give the, um, slackers some credit (and clarify), it was those slackers' vehement opposition to having a McD in their neighborhood that killed the proposed 'restaurant', not a failure of the McD drive to continued world domination. Yay, slackers! [i can't seem to find an appropriate emoticon for 'retch'.] That remains to be seen; I expect they'll be successful, at least in the 'burbs. "Here-baked breads" is also heinous (MsRamsey, spot-on), but is probably just in keeping with the declining trend in US literacy... Maybe I could quickly trademark this nonsense verbiage (if that wasn't their own plan all along), and sue them for infringement...

FG got there right before this post, but I'd vote for the Swing-A-Way, but more in the context of cheaper is just fine, rather than absolute best. That Rosle definitely looks awesome though.

I've mentioned my favorite knife elsewhere (and more than once), but it definitely fits here. Chinese cleaver, purchased for $8 at an Asian market quite a few years ago. Stainless, full-sized, and holds an edge. Slices, dices, chops, and purees (well, almost) and includes a handy surface for scooping up the cut stuff. I don't own a big heavy German chef's knife; the cheap Chinese cleaver gets the job done just fine.

I live rather uncomfortably close to this place, and saw the construction taking place, but had no idea it was open yet. Even though I live in a boring western 'burb (ahem, "dead zone" might be a bit harsh ), I have no particular desire to patronize this establishment. I could probably make most of that stuff at home if I wanted to, and if I have any desire for noodles, it's in beef broth with beef, bean sprouts, basil, etc. I'll give them credit for interesting marketing, and it's a nice scam when you can charge $4 for a plate of noodles, butter, parmesan (probably not p. reg.), and garlic. The food cost for that must be almost 40 cents. It's interesting to see that the same company also owns the Beach Shack restaurant, which is located at the same mall. Never been to it, but there's a billboard advertising it, and I think that "fun" gets higher billing than "food" in the text - this doesn't sound good. Burgerville is worth a try - definitely a cut above the McBurgerKingWendys stuff. Edit: remove redundant redundancy and spurious line break.

NBC web page HERE. They're starting to shows promos for it; lots of fire and yelling.

With a long weekend and elevated temperatures, iced tea seems like a good idea. I came up with a pretty good tasting brew with what I had on hand: 3.5 parts (by volume) cheap Darjeeling (Lipton Green Label) .5 part Chinese oolong (Ti Kuan Yin) and a trace of Japanese green. Cheap Darjeeling seems to be a good foundation for an iced tea; Assam might also be a good choice, but I don't have any of that right now. The oolong adds some complexity to the flavor - not much is needed; it can easily be overpowering, and if I'd wanted iced oolong, I'd have made that. The Japanese green is probably not necessary; I had it, so I put some in. More than a trace though, and it might add too much grassiness to the flavor. It doesn't look as though it'll be as warm today as the last few days, but the iced tea experiments will continue.

The somewhat new (and somewhat expensive) Lay's Natural plain chips ("Sea Salted") are my current favorite; mass-market, but better than the mega-mass-market chips. Although I live in the Pacific Northwest, and have ready access to Tim's Cascade chips (the jalapenos are excellent, but the spicing seems to be inconsistent - some are wimpy, some are good), I've never seen the cheeseburger chips in my local markets - do I need to go to prison to get them?? [Not an option I'm considering merely for the sake of chips, but free room and board might have it's advantages... ]

I've seen Spam mentioned a lot, but didn't notice if anyone suggested you apply your mad smoking skillz to it. Smoked Spam sounds downright goormay, perhaps served with one of those mustard-based BBQ sauces on Wonder bread.

I don't have a set amount or ratio of spices to add to the ground turkey (mainly go by experience, intuition and smell), but I add in more-or-less descending order of amounts: commercial 'poultry spice', fresh-ground black pepper, garlic powder, crushed red peppers (YMMV on this), and liquid smoke (sometimes, and YMMV again).

I'd have to disagree with that; wild or not, if it's not sour, it's not sourdough. Any sponge that's maintained long enough would probably come to have local wild yeasts/bacteria dominate its makeup, but it's either sour or not. My benchmark is San Francisco sourdough; there is at least one Portland bakery that claims to use San Francisco-derived starter, but it's just not the same. The real (San Francisco) thing used to be available locally as frozen loaves; I haven't seen them lately, but then, I haven't looked. BTW, Jim: "Oil for food": [Edit: Trojan shill alert!! Ban any further mentions of olive oil or salt, please. It's the right thing to do. ]

I'd read this thread before, but yesterday I was in a cookware shop, and in a minor fit of gadget lust, bought one of the Polder dual oven/food thermometers that Stone mentioned above. (*) I returned it today and got my money back. Straight out of the box (er, plastic clamshell, whatever) the oven temp sensor didn't work. At all. Fiddling with the cable a bit could sometimes get it to read Lo instead of Hi, but that was about it. As Stone said elsewhere, never again. Maverick ET-73 is looking like a new lust object; any follow-up on it? (*) Well, maybe it wasn't entirely gadget lust - when I entered the store, I was beset by a bevy of beautiful babes who were otherwise berift of customers. But I didn't totally lose it, buying hundreds of dollars of junk I don't need to impress some temptress shopkeeper. I got a replacement probe ($6) for my ancient Polder thermo-timer, which continues to work like a champ, apart from the occasional probe wire that dies from thermal overdose (one on the grill, dunno how that happened; one got broiled to death, I should have known). Previous eG threads have suggested wrapping the wire with foil to make it more heat-resistant - that should also apply to the other thermometers, since they all seem to use the same probes.

I remember seeing St. Jacques tourneeing on one of his teevee programs. He was, of course, awesome. Personally, I don't see why seven sides is the ne plus ultra of sculpted veg, but I can see that it's a viable torture for cooks-in-training. I can't do it, never even tried; don't particularly want to. There's a video at my local library where some massively famous chef demonstrates the fluted mushroom thing; he does it quickly, effortlessly, and pretty much perfectly; I'm sure it must be easy after the first few hundred (or thousand)? I admire the skill, but don't feel the need to emulate it...

Not that I'm aware of, not being an expert in chicken-farming. They do (AFAIK) receive rather large doses of antibiotics though; makes them grow faster and larger, but doesn't prevent the common bacterial contamination of poultry at retail, so we hear. The bacteria contaminating poultry are becoming largely drug-resistant, due to the use of antibiotics; eventually, the poultry industry will have to clean up their act once they've run out of effective antibiotics. Unfortunately, by the time that happens, human antibiotics may also be mostly ineffective, since the industry generally uses the same (or nearly so) antibiotics that humans use. There are token efforts to separate human antibiotics from veterinary ones, to avoid the resistance problem, but profits stand in the way of long-term common sense.

A few random things: I read somewhere quite recently that to date, there is no GM wheat available yet, but the first one(s) will be available soon. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in many (most?) crops, US agriculture is already way too productive, leading to huge surpluses, price supports, and other things to try to rebalance an unbalanced system. The US would like to sell the surplus crops to places like Europe and Africa. But Europe and Africa don't want to buy them. This is fine with me; if they don't want to buy them (for whatever reason, valid or not) then the US shouldn't try to force them to buy it by browbeating, WTO actions, etc. Subsidising the surplus production does cost the government a lot of money, but if they REALLY believe in the power of the free market (which they say they do, but are lying), then they should let the market sort itself out by itself. The way to do that is for the producers make things that people want to buy. If there's a huge agricultural surplus that nobody wants to buy, then the producers are producing the wrong things. It's in their own self-interest to buy what people want, rather than whinining at the government to try to coerce the (non-)buyers. [sorry about the mostly political mini-rant. Obligatory food-related content: I like to eat.]

I may not agree with some of the choices, but these are completely right: In many cases, it's better anyway. Buying Asian shrimp, it's the only way to go. For fish, if they quickly froze it on the boat, it'll be better than something that took an unknown time to reach your local market. But you can't always be sure; I'd generally pick frozen rather than an unknown 'fresh'. This I have VERY strong feelings about, having had a lot of garden tomatoes. Any tomatoes from a local supermarket are not worthy of the name. They may look like tomatoes, but they're merely tomato-shaped bundles of water and cellulose. Doesn't matter if they're hothouse, hydroponic, stems-on so-called tomatoes, they're still beneath contempt. If you don't grow them yourself or get them from a local farmers market in season, you're better off getting the canned ones. DO NOT buy so-called tomatoes from a supermarket; you're only encouraging them to continue practicing massive fraud on the public. [At least where I am; your mileage may vary, but I doubt it very much.] Edit: Bugger; fix quote. But maybe I'll let you know how I REALLY feel about mass-market tomatoes sometime.

I'd say that basil is the poster child for the difference between fresh and dried; both have their merits but they're entirely different; each has their own uses in a particular context. To say that dried is somehow invalid is absurd. I'd add ginger to the list of vast differences between fresh and dried (though I haven't had dried ginger in ages.)

I actually find this idea somewhat appealing, or at least amusing. Shameful though it may be to admit, I've actually indulged in those cheese-like things in a can on rare occasions (typically involving immoderate consumption of ethanol and/or extreme laziness or both.) Although I'll occasionally partake of the aerosol cheeselike stuff (Mmm, bacon-flavored), I am rather a peanut butter purist; sugar and hydrogenated whatever are right out. Peanut butter has peanuts and salt, and nothing else. Which seems to rule it out of appearing in an aerosol can, unfortunately. For no apparent reason, I don't think I'm willing to relax my standards for peanut butter in a can ('cheese' in a can can be enjoyed as a thing in it's own right, but not really as cheese. At the moment, I can't think I could say the same about aerosol 'peanut butter'.) But I agree with Suzanne F that the idea of individually-wrapped slices of peanut butter (like those slices of american cheese) is utterly beyond the pale. [Did that ever actually make it to the market in wide distribution, or was it just someone's dream? I have no idea.] It has some merit WRT portion control, but I can't imagine it meets my defintion of peanut butter as peanuts and salt.

For some reason after reading lamb's post, I was struck with a mental image of feces in a tube. [Apologies for sharing that, but it had to be done.] It points out a fundamental (er, so to speak) flaw in the product concept. In order for it to work, it'll have to be colored blue, like so much other food for kids now.

Seems to me that if you take whatever quantity of ginger (FG's "ginger coefficient") and cook it until it's "brown and crisp" (per the original recipe), you'll have merely roughage (fiber), not ginger; the ginger-nature will be pretty well gone.

Sounds good - I'm in, if only for solidarity among the small group of us that willfully rejects the hegemony of that city in the north.