Dakki

Asparagus is more expensive than sirloin where I live.

With you on this. Some mornings I'll even skip the coffee. After a couple of weeks without hitting the grocery store (as discussed in the thread linked by the OP) my fridge is starting to look a bit bare, but the pantry is still rather full of canned and dried goods. Buying mass quantities of stuff on sale/wholesale is probably my biggest kitchen vice.

Menudo. Mass quantities, seriously.

That was hilarious. Thanks for posting this.

Reminded me of this post from another (non-food-related) forum I frequent: (Context: I was trying to teach her how to thicken a sauce with cornstarch).

I should read up to find the context but I'll ask, is that for USA or UK whiskies? Spelling seems to indicate Scotch but the last post was about American whiskey.

I think it's more a matter of choosing to cook for oneself instead of (watching TV/hanging out at a bar/playing video games/arguing about politics/reading lurid novels/writing Harry Potter fanfiction/whatever). In other words, it's not so much that people don't have time as that they'd rather spend their time doing something else. And, again, they often don't have confidence in their skills even if they do want to cook. Thus the importance of training outside the home.

Agreeing with slkinsey but I also feel home cooking is no longer a part of your average family's skill-set, any more than making clothes is. All part of the whole Industrial Revolution, specialization of labor thing. And it might have the same roots - it's hard to practice and pass your skills on to your kids when you're spending most of your waking hours at the workplace. Not to beat a dead horse any further but we should make safe, nutritious, economic cooking (home economics, practical nutrition, whatever you want to call it) mandatory from the Jr. High levels.

Since grams, milliliters and dollars/cents are all decimal I imagine it's much easier than trying to figure out than cents per ounce or fractions of a pound or pints or whatever.

My mother made chicken the way described in the OP, then used the drippings to make gravy with canned mushrooms and called the result "roast chicken." I should try to make that sometime, with fresh 'shrooms and a legitimate French name. Anyway, about chicken skin: I think it's the best part, and recipes that don't make the most of it don't get repeated.

My ales taste a lot better to me than anything I've gotten in a store or a bar, probably because I've tailored them to my taste. Plus I don't have to worry as much about consistency or how well the product ships or the long-term availability of ingredients like a commercial brewer does. That's all I've got.

Three parts soda, one part scotch, plenty of ice. If Blether is allowed to drink his with Coke I can do whatever I please.

Not every definition of manliness involves denigrating women, eating raw water buffalo, etc. EDIT: I assume you meant "degrading" but hell, it's past 3 AM.

The only BSD I know is Berkeley Software Distribution and I assume that's not it, unless you're implying True UNIX Beards are the manliest hackers, which I guess could be true. "Manliness" is utterly subjective and dependent on context and culture so I think the OP should just pick whatever definition they like and go with it.

Further blurring the distinction between cooking shows and food porn, I'm afraid.

+1 for Good Eats. The Thanksgiving Special was invaluable when I did the turkey (for the first time) last year, and I've watched selected episodes when dealing with unfamiliar ingredients or dishes on other occasions. Definitely a legit cooking show in my book. In parallel, I give you Kooking with Kandi, the show where exotic dance meets exotic dishes.

I have a 2 kilo box of frozen squid I'd somehow forgotten about. That's a lot of calamari for a single dude. In other news, I've gotten this far without buying anything but imbibables (is that even a word?), bread, and tortillas, none of which I think should count, because I go through a lot of drinks in a week and bread and tortillas pretty much have to be fresh. However, I ate the last bit of non-blue cheese in the house today so I might have to cheat a little and get some.

I'm under the impression prepared foods (frozen pizza, etc) have a much higher markup, which encourages the stores to promote them as much as possible. Coincidentally eGulleters might just be the last people to buy that sort of thing. Just my 2c.

Agreeing with Blether on the deep frying oil, except for the part where he pays 8 bucks a liter. That's just nuts. I get canola in bulk for maybe 1.50-2.00 USD/liter.

Balut? Never had it. I'd like to try it, Filipino friends tell me it's delicious.

I remember when SyFy was SciFi and all about Star Trek reruns and terrible, terrible original movies. Let it be known I refuse to watch a cooking show on this channel unless it involves James Marsters and an enormous shark.

Okay, so after hearing how great the stuff is in this thread, I went and made a batch based on Chris Amirault's recipe here. It turned out milder than I thought it would be really - the heat only comes in at the end, and goes away cleanly and quickly (based on spoon-tasting) instead of hanging in the mouth as I expect the heat in a habanero-based sauce to do. Flavor and aroma are fairly complex for a hot sauce. It reminds me a little bit of the mango-chile based hot candies sold in Mexico (if you dipped the candy in a mustard vinaigrette, I mean) but the vinegar and mustard content sort of precludes using it for confection or as a potato chip dip. I think the flavors are also too strong for use with seafood. The sauce inspired some pondering about coming up with my own fruit-based, spice-heavy hot sauce recipe - peach, papaya and tamarind immediately suggest themselves as the fruit base, and I think the mustard and vinegar content would be lowered in my own sauce. So, what does one do with it? A marinade for pork chops or grilled chicken is what I've come up with so far. What do the fans use it in?

Ugh sweet pickles. Replacing the liquid won't harm them AFAIK but it might give them too much of a vinegar flavor without actually removing much of the sugar. I'd give them to someone who can stand the stuff.

Blether, if you actually care what a tablespoon of that salt weights, you can measure out a lot of them (say, 100), weight it and divide. Not perfect but close enough for government work. BTW, glad to see you're doing okay. Media here has us all half-convinced the entire country is scavenging half-eaten pastries from trash cans and growing extra limbs. ScottyBoy, can you tell me what that pink pork tenderloin was like? I'll admit to being a scaredy-cat with rare pork and poultry, but if it's worth doing, hey.

Can't speak for anyone else, but to me bread just isn't all that. I don't especially like eating it and I don't especially like making it. (Shocking, I know.) I have other things to do in the time I could be making that small loaf, you know?