Human Bean
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Posts posted by Human Bean
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An oldie, from this thread
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What South Asian grocery stores in the western 'burbs do you like? The two I went to when I first moved here were very disappointing.
There aren't really any markets on the west side (apart from perhaps Uwjimaya) that are inherently worth crossing the river for. (I'm willing to go to the east side for visits to An Dong and Pacific Market, but I don't go to either one very often).
Perhaps the largest one is Asia Market (formerly Hong Kong Market), which was used to be a Thriftway, so it's about medium-sized. They used to be a contender for greatness on the west side, but have been in a bit of a decline since being purchased by Anzen awhile ago. It's about 3 - 4 miles from Uwajimaya.
One that I go to fairly often is Manila Market, about 3 blocks from the Beaverton Transit Center. Despite the name, it's run by Vietnamese, and is a reasonable, unspectacular neighborhood market.
The one I go to most often (because it's closest) is a little hole-in-the wall place called New Phnom Penh Market. When I make pho, I usually get the veggies, noodles and beef balls there. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about it, but if you like Cambodian videos, the selection appears to be very good.
There are at least three Indian markets within a 5 - 10 minute drive of my house; the closest is within walking distance (closer even than Fred Meyer, the nearest supermarket). The largest is called India Direct, in a little industrial park close to Sunset Higway. It's not huge, but has a good selection of spices, dry goods, and some fresh veggies. They always (AFAIK) have fresh curry leaves and turmeric, as well as a small vegetarian restaurant in the back, which supposed to have good food (I've never tried it).
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Fresh turmeric is avaliable at all the local Indian markets around here (Portland's "boring western 'burbs"), and fresh kaffir lime leaves are available at most/all Asian markets. There's a New Seasons near me in Hillsboro that I've never been to; I'll have to take a look. And I'll probably make a trip to Uwajimaya (Beaverton) this weekend; they have lots of produce, sometimes exotic. I'll report back on any interesting finds.
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As for tomatoes, Amen! In most parts of the US, tomatoes should not be purchased in January. And if they are, they should be imported from much, much warmer climates. (In which case, they'd probably be justifiably expensive. But also in which case, they'd probably be bred for travel, which makes them anathema in my book.)
Wow, I must be even more of a tomato snob than you! "...should not be purchased in January..." While I might be tempted to say, "should not be purchased out of season" (ie. other than late summer), I still insist on saying, do NOT purchase supermarket tomatoes at all, EVER; you're only encouraging them. NO!!!
Maybe you can get better tomatoes in your supermarket in season; I can't. Even the local farmer's market often has inferior tomato-shaped objects, in season, at a high price. Sorry, but if you don't grow them yourself, they're rarely REAL tomatoes, except in certain rare circumstances, at least for me. [snobbery to the maximum degree; sorry, but that's the way it is.]
Get home-grown, farmer's market, or, if all else fails, canned; otherwise, don't even bother. I don't care if the supermarket tomato is organic, hydroponic, on-the-vine, and hand-harvested by virgins; it's still crap; again, don't encourage them.
Lest it not be clear, the difference between Parmigianno Regianno (sp?) and that sawdust in the green can is as nothing compared to the difference between a REAL tomato and what is sold in a supermarket as a fresh tomato.
Apologies for the rant; we now return you to the Overpriced and Overrated thread...
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I think I will hold out for the UV laser solution.
Well, yeah, but that's for cheese; the onion laser has yet to be perfected. I guess you'll have to wait. I have several laser pointers; they make great cat toys but can't cut anything at all. OTOH, a UV laser may cut well, but the cat probably wouldn't even see it; just as well, as I don't wish to slice the cat anyway.
Um, on-topic? Well, I was getting to that...
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1/2 to a full cup of chopped garlic? That'd easily take more than an hour, perhaps up to two using that stupid thing, and result in far more wrist strain than you'd ever get doing it by hand.
Rats... I can do it with my knife in an hour. Actually, I usually do a cup at a time and it usually takes me a little over an hour if I use the big cloves.
At the risk of being redundant, imagine turning a pepper mill for an hour, or even a half-hour. Even with frequent breaks, it's still tedious, and possibly not good for those carpal tunnels; that's the Genius Garlic Cutter.
After thinking about it for awhile though, the idea of adapting it to fit a variable-speed electric drill seems almost feasible-- wish I'd thought of it earlier. It's a non-trivial project, but if you want lots of perfectly consistent tiny garlic cubes, it might still be worth considering.
The price of the gadget is still somewhat off-putting though; trying to add a fitting for a drill might make it even less desirable. YMMV.
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Dried pasta: I've found that some varieties cook up gummy, no matter how I try to vary the cooking times. (I'm talking long pasta here.) Two specific brands are on my bad list. I won't mention them --
Don't tease; feel free to mention them, if only as a warning for others. For dried pasta, I find Ronzoni (domestic, not expensive AFAIK, to be good enough for me.)
I'm still thinking about the original premise of the thread, but Mudpuppie's sig reminds me of something that I always rant about: supermarket tomatoes. They're certainly not overrated, but they're definitely overpriced at ANY price. Friends don't let friends buy supermarket tomatoes. (Fresh tomatoes, that is; even an indifferent canned tomato is better than those those flavorless globs of tomato-shaped cellulose and water that supermarkets sell).
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I used to have one of those things that cuts garlic into perfect 1/16 inch cubes that was mentioned awhile ago. It's called the Genius Garlic Cutter...
You have found my holy grail of gadgets. I have mentioned my lust for just such a thing on other threads. I don't care if it takes a week to clean.
Sigh! If only I'd known, I'd have sent the infernal contraption to you, and probably have paid the postage myself just to get rid of it.
1/2 to a full cup of chopped garlic? That'd easily take more than an hour, perhaps up to two using that stupid thing, and result in far more wrist strain than you'd ever get doing it by hand. Great if you're a fan of carpal-tunnel problems, not so great otherwise. [Although, if you're an Alton Brown fan, you could probably figure out a way to graft a fitting onto the thing to adapt it to an electric drill; this didn't occur to me at the time, but might make it manageable. The cutter has a very fine-pitched screw thread on it, meaning LOTS of turning, and seemed to require more force to turn it than seemed reasonable; it didn't seem like lubrication would help.]
That said, if you're really keen on one of these, search Google or Amazon for "Genius Garlic Cutter" and you will find what you're seeking. Amazon has it for $25 (way too much, to me anyway) in a bundle with a (pointless) peeler tube-thing, and a (pointless) metal tray to hold the finished product.
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I used to have one of those things that cuts garlic into perfect 1/16 inch cubes that was mentioned awhile ago. It's called the Genius Garlic Cutter, and was a gift. While it did a good job, it was a PITA to use; it took several minutes to crank out those perfect little chunks (and more minutes later to disassemble and clean the thing), versus just a few seconds to make larger, less perfect minced garlic by hand. I threw the thing away.
Another useless gift that I got was one of those automatic apple peeler-corer things with the crank and long screw that rotates the apple over a cutting blade. All it ever did was make a big mess of the apple - it would fall off the prongs that hold it on the screw, and the mechanism that's supposed to follow the contour of the apple and neatly peel it did a horrible job. I tried sharpening the cutter to razor-sharpness, and that didn't result in any improvement at all. I put it back in it's box, stashed it in the garage, and left it there when I moved.
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I've already PM'ed ExtraMSG, and although I haven't yet done mercenary work, I have an Edgepro, and know how to use it.
As with all pushers -- er, promoters -- um, whatever, the first one is free. I'm not really advertising anything here, because there's nothing to advertise, but PM me if you're interested.
I wouldn't trust MY knives to a commercial sharpening service, but then, I've never had to.
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One thing: is the sharpener good for both Japanese style knives and European style knives?
Definitely. It's actually better on the Japanese knives, because the bolster on the Euro knives can get in the way.
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If you had Cool Whip, you had it good.
We had "Dream Whip". It came in a freakin' box, fer cryin' out loud
I remember Dream Whip - ugh! Cool Whip was ambrosia compared to that stuff, but Dream Whip (perhaps better referred to as Nightmare Whip) was available long before professional food technology developed Cool Whip.
This reminds me of another common dessert back in the day-- a Jell-o company product called Whip N' Chill. Anyone else remember this? It came in a packet; add milk, whip with a hand mixer, chill in the fridge, et voila, a modern chemically-synthesized dessert based (very loosely) on the old-fashioned concept of a mousse. It came in several flavors, and seemed pretty good at the time (although I was just a kid, and didn't know any better).
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SOS (aka creamed chipped beef on toast) made regular appearances at my house - I saw it was already mentioned. We were fed it once every week or two, probably as an economy measure. I think the other ingredient besides the dried salted beef slices was Campbells' Cream of Something-or-other soup. The final product definitely looked worse than it tasted, but it didn't taste that good either. All-in-all my mom wasn't such a bad cook though, but like some of you, we didn't get too many fresh veggies. I don't understand why we were almost always served canned veg though; I'm sure frozen were available.
My father didn't really do any cooking except for grilling; his version of grilled steaks were thoroughly charred on the outside, nearly raw in the center. My parents both seemed to like this; it put me off steak for life.
And, ah yes, ReaLemon - I'd pretty much forgotten about that until it was mentioned earlier. It was a staple at my parent's house. Vile, nasty stuff; not even vaguely close to "real."
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Hi beans,
No direct quoting here, but about flash, do they really want to alieniate people that are blind or otherwise can't see their not particularly informative website? (Rhetorical question.) They can do what they like; they hit a minor nerve with me. (BTW, I'm not blind, just obnoxious
)And to be mildly pedantic this time, NO vodka has any carbohydrates at all. Unless they have added sugar (or perhaps other flavorings.) It's like saying that some particular brand of mineral water has no calories (implying that others do-- it just ain't so.)
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No carbs??? Um, emperor, clothes, you do the mental images....
Their site isn't a real website, it's some flash abomination (personal peeve, the web is about system and OS-independence, not about cute proprietary animations.) Be that as it may, I was able to at least see the little no-carb artwork.
Gimme a f'ing break; without being pedantic, I'll just say that advertising no-carb vodka is the same as advertising a cholesterol-free vegetable oil. Gah. [ Jinmyo]
And, given my generally plebian tastes, I don't see the point in 'premium' vodkas anyway, but that's a subject that has a thread elsewhere.
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I don't have glassware that I'd worry about chipping or scratching - I'd worry about chipping a TOOTH if one of those things made contact.
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George Tichbourne uses 440C in his line of knives, as does the very cool set of kitchen knives from Benchmade.
Those Benchmades sure look nice! My everyday pocket knife is a Benchmade, so I'm familiar with the company in general. The chef's knife looks like it might be a winner-- nice belly and width, no bolster, but it's hard to tell from a small picture. ATS34 would be better than 440C, and Benchmade has plenty of experence with ATS34, but 440C would probably be okay.
Unfortunately, they only seem to be available as a set, and I don't particularly need the others. However, I live about 20 miles from their factory; I think I'll call them and see if they might sell just the chef's knife, maybe they might sell small quantities of "factory seconds" or something.
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I'm not avoiding beef as such, but I'd also like to see the prices drop.
I found it surprising in the recent media coverage that beef spinal cord tissue has been banned since 1997. Every time I've made beef stock in the recent past, I've used what appear to be neck bones as part of the mix, because they were cheap. They also appeared to have spinal cord in them, or at least some kind of whitish tissue. Was I mistaken? Until I get a positive ID on these particular bones, I think I'll avoid them.
It's just about time to make another batch of pho...
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The Sterns (of "Road Food" fame) recently recommended a place I've never heard of, Reo's Ribs in Aloha (western 'burb, if you're not familiar with it). Link to it's mention on the Splendid Table site.
I've never been there, but it's pretty close to me and on my list of places to try.
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I just read Alton Brown's latest work, GEAR For Your Kitchen (only mildly amusing, not a must-read, try your local library if you're interested), and he had the following to say about vacuum-sealers:
"Although professional cryovac [sic, this is actually a trademark, or registered trademark, or somesuch] can greatly increase the shelf life of certain foods, in the average home kitchen there's just too great a risk of botulism."
He may have a point, but I think that he's largely wrong here.
My limited understanding of botulinum is that it's an anerobic bacterium; vacuum = no air, hence his worries, perhaps. Also, it doesn't like (or survive?) extremes of pH (reasonably acid or alkaline foods aren't susceptible to botulism), but many foods don't qualify as particularly acid or alkaline.
I think that botulinum is inactive at refrigerator temperatures or below (ie, freezer), so it's not really a worry if you take food safety at all seriously. If your refrigerator is at a suitable temperature, the bacteria may still be alive, but won't grow, hence you are safe (botulinum bacteria themselves aren't the problem, but the toxin they create is).
If you left (say) some vacuum-sealed meat out all day on the counter, you might have reason to worry. But then you'd have at least as much reason for concern if you left it out without the vacuum seal.
Is Alton just plain wrong here, or is he merely being overly paranoid? (erm, lawyers, mumble grumble)
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When is my kimchi ready to eat?
I made my second ever batch of kimchi a couple of days ago. I'd made a batch several years ago, and it turned out quite well, but it's been long enough that I've forgotten the details of what I did.
It's a basic cabbage kimchi, improvised by looking at various recipes, then doing what seemed right at the time. When freshly made it smelled good, but obviously didn't have the depth of fragrance that it should ultimately have.
It's now been sitting about 48 hours at about 19-20 degrees C, and I think it's got about another 24 hours or so to be 'done,' but I'm not sure. How do I know when it's ready to refrigerate?
At the moment, it's fragrant enough to be noticeable in the kitchen and immediate vicinity; it still smells right, but isn't overpowering.
Today, there were a few bubbles in the liquid (among the cabbage and at the top) but not many.
Needless to say, there is no evidence of mold or bacteria. If there were (and I think it'd have to have MAJOR problems for this to happen), I'd toss it.
I think I'm looking for a bit more smell, and some more bubbles, but I'm not sure. Advice?
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I really dislike the Altoids ginger flavor - it's not quite to the level of hating them, but close.
If you want ginger candy, find an Asian market and get Ting Ting Jahe -yum! Try to get fresh ones though; when they're fresh they're nicely chewy, but tend to get harder as they age.
BTW, I've never thought of the taste of fresh ginger as 'hot'. Habaneros are hot; ginger is just ginger.
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I received a 6001 (black; wanted the transparent blue, but they were out) a couple days ago - so far, it seems very nice. Fast, accurate, looks good too.
I have a very old set of lab weights from 20 gm - 1 kg, and tried them on the new scale. In every case, the scale indicated the correct weight +/- 1 gm, which matches it's spec. My only (very minor) reservations about this thing has to do with warnings in the manual about how this is a precision instrument, and you should never overload or drop it, lest it be permanently damaged. While they may be overstating things a bit, I'm nonetheless treating it rather carefully thus far.
Superbowl Food
in Cooking
Posted
Kobe beef burger - frozen patties from Trader Joes. Actually from Wagyu cattle in Idaho, 1/2 pound patty with a 29.5% (!!
!!) fat content. Defrosted, grilled; the fat was rendering off them like crazy. Served with pepper jack cheese, mesclun greens, and local IPA.
This may have been the best burger I've ever eaten. But then, I'd had a few beers by then, so my judgement may have been somewhat impaired.
I've got another one in the fridge that I cooked and saved for later, so we'll see...