BadRabbit

I made something different tonight. I dusted some chops with ancho, garlic and brown sugar and served them topped with a tomatillo salsa. They were delicious. I'll have to try five spice on chops sometimes as that certainly sounds good. We don't eat ribs much because my wife and I generally try to watch what we eat. When we splurge on ribs, it's usually when I can do a full 8 hour smoke on them.

I'm buying a hand crank pasta machine and wanted to know what people thought of the different available brands. I've really been mostly looking at the Imperia that they sell at W-S but wanted to know if there were others I should look at. What kind do you have and what are the pros\cons?

I grill pork chops and loin roasts at least once a week and am growing tired of my usuals. My usual go to recipes are: Olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs from my garden (Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano) Reduction of orange juice, zest and brown sugar. Basic BBQ rub (paprika, ancho, garlic, onion, brown sugar) Now that grilling weather is here what are some other good ideas for pork on the grill?

Are the feet of ducks gelatin rich like chicken feet are?

It ticks me off we hardly ever get ramps this far south. I guess I'll have to make do with spring vidalias.

You can get it from beetles though.

Was this just a simple caramel? What was the consistency?

I've seen what seem to be really well done studies with proper blinding and controls on both sides of this issue (i.e. that these dyes cause problems and that they are completely safe). It's come to a point where you just have to pick a side. I do wonder, however, how homogenous the fields of nutrition and dietary studies are in terms of the academic attitudes towards foods. I live near and got my Master's from a university with a highly regarded medical school and teaching hospital. I also work for a health care company that employs nutritionists. So I've met and worked with quite a number of people in the field. Every person I've encountered seems to be someone who tended towards natural\health foods even before they went to school. I wonder then if this influences the consensus in the field. I would think that a group of academics who all got into the field because they believed in natural foods would tend to marginalize studies that said that "unnatural" ingredients were harmless while pumping up the significance of studies finding harmful effects from food additives. The selection bias in some of the social sciences is already a pretty well known phenomena. I wonder how much it infiltrates some of the harder science fields. All that is not to say that I think all food additives are good for you. I just tend to be skeptical of these things because of the tendency for these fields to be fairly homogenous groups. Also, I wonder if anyone has ever thought to do these types of studies using common natural ingredients like heirloom organic tomatoes. I imagine you'd have a study or two that said that there was a correlation between hyperactivity and tomatoes. I just bet no one ever thought to try this with a typical food. Edited to clarify

Question from a Gentile: What would make a cheese not kosher? Does it have something to do with the source of the rennet? I ask because I have never noticed my friends that keep kosher worrying that much about the dairy itself. I thought most of the restrictions regarding dairy had to do with pairings (such as not eating cheese with meat).

I love sour patch kids. I eat virtually no other candy except for chocolate and caramel (I don't eat any of it very often). My only problem with SPKs is that if you eat enough, they will sometimes burn your tongue and ruin your taste for a few hours. I am assuming that this is due to a common acid used in the coating. Is it just citric acid (or some other food acid) that is in a really strong concentration? Could eating too many cause more permanent issues with taste?

Heh. I think those of us who replied before you edited to clarify understood the initial question a bit differently than you intended... I'm looking at my initial post, and it looks kind of off-base, although I could swear it made sense when I wrote it Absolutely my initial post was confusing which is why I clarified. But the quote above was after I'd clarified to the other poster and he replied again along the same line.

I would say the second part is likely a result of the initial tendency. To others' points, if I wait until a couple of hours or so after waking, I can eat pretty much anything. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who need to eat within an hour of waking. I wake up absolutely famished.

It would be meaningless on this forum because of selection bias. The group is not a representative sample of the population at large when dealing with food.

Enameled cast iron often bares the same warning, a warning that I have safely ignored for 20 years with no problems.

Really? Do tell.

In my experience, I would say you are the exception to the rule.

I understand that but that's not the point I'm making. I didn't grow up eating Rogan Josh yet I enjoy it immensely at dinner. Breakfast is the only meal where I don't like change and new things and I've noticed this same attitude in others. Also as a side note, why is breakfast so much less varied than other meals? I know that's not the case in every culture but it certainly is in a lot of them. Actually, the point I was trying to make was, asking why people eat certain things for breakfast is like asking why certain regions have a particular cuisine, it is what is readily available. Culture influences food immensely, You eat grits for breakfast because culture modeled that, and cereals a breakfast food. Plus, certain foods contain certain vitamins and such that promote a healthy start to the day. Your point has nothing to do with the original discussion which was not about why breakfast foods are different in different cultures but why people are generally less adventurous at breakfast than they are at other meals.

All those things exist in normal kitchens (though not quite on the same level). It still seems like the incidence rate on those shows are high. My guess was that a lot of the guys on these shows are accomplished chefs who don't do a whole lot of prep work anymore and don't have the knife skills that they once had or at least can't process at the speed they once could.

I watch quite a few of the food contest shows (Chopped, Top Chef, Hell's Kitchen, etc...) and the frequency with which someone cuts themselves is really amazing. It seems nearly every episode has someone with a blood engorged latex finger covering on their left hand. I've worked in high pressure, high speed kitches and people are going to occasionally cut themselves but it didn't happen every night or even every week (maybe not even once a month). I still process at rapid speed when I'm cooking at home and I haven't cut myself in over a year. Why are these professionals cutting themselves so much?

The Merry Table Creperie in Old Port is really great. They play some really good blues music and have one night a week where everyone is expected to speak French (no English allowed or tolerated). I highly recommend it. ETA: I had the tartines as an app and the ham crepe. Both were exquisite.

I think that's it in a nutshell. When it comes time to break the long night's fast, nobody is in much of a mood to experiment. Just waking up and starting the day requires physical and mental energy enough. That makes sense. That also might explain why a lot of American breakfasts are just different permutations of about 5 ingredients. When you think about it, pancakes and sausage, a ham omelet with toast, waffles with a side of bacon, eggs Benedict, and a bacon egg and cheese biscuit are all basically just pork, eggs, flour, fat, and leavening (with seasonings and sometimes cheese).

Yes, I've been to one. Sure, you can get large egg dishes at diners, but note they call themselves "waffle house" and not "egg house." On the other hand, there are shops dedicated to such calorically-dense foods as ice cream, chocolate, pastry, and cheese. Is the Ben & Jerry's Vermonster sundae a manly dish? I certainly think so! A waffle house sells more eggs than anything on it's menu. Nearly every breakfast meal comes with them. They certainly sell more eggs than waffles (which incidentally have eggs in them). I was obviously joking but I really think you'd be hard pressed to find a restaurant that features one ingredient more prominently than a diner does eggs at breakfast.

I understand that but that's not the point I'm making. I didn't grow up eating Rogan Josh yet I enjoy it immensely at dinner. Breakfast is the only meal where I don't like change and new things and I've noticed this same attitude in others. Also as a side note, why is breakfast so much less varied than other meals? I know that's not the case in every culture but it certainly is in a lot of them.

I am a southern American and thus have a very specific idea of what breakfast should be. I need eggs, some form of cured pork, a bread item, and preferably grits. Period. Having pastries or a brioche muffin is about as far as I can go outside my norm and still enjoy it. I view cereal as something I can eat in addition to the eggs etc... if I'm really hungry. I never eat cereal by itself at breakfast time. I am a very adventurous eater and enjoy foods from all over the world yet I find myself completely intransigent at breakfast time. It is completely offputting to me to think about having soup (as some Asian cultures do) or beans (like is often seen in the UK) at that time of day. I didn't even eat cold pizza for breakfast as many of my friends in college did. I know I'm not alone in this because when talking to friends who are coming back from abroad, they always mention how much they missed breakfast and don't understand how this or that culture eats _______ for breakfast. Why is breakfast different from other meals in terms of people's willingness to try something outside their regional norm? Edited to Clarify

I was thinking the same thing. I made an immersion circulator at home and the PID cost me $35. Who wouldn't pay an extra $50 for a really accurate and steady oven? My only concern with a plug and play PID is that they usually take too long to regain temperature after drastic changes in system temp (like the one caused when you open an oven door). Still, this is likely just a simple programming change. They make PID controllers for gas though the algorithm is different and they require special actuators. Edited for spelling