dcarch

It occurred to me that I can share this with you: What makes a blender work is the difference between the speed of the blades’ tip and what you are trying to blend. The bigger the difference, the better the end result. An expensive counter top blender can achieve over 30,000 RPM. A hand stick blender cannot go very fast because of portability and low power. Most of them are about 15,000 RPM. A stick blender goes much slower inside liquid, especially thick liquid, probably less than 8,000 RPM. You can get much better end results for blending if you try this technique, even with blending thick liquids: With the blender turned on, insert the blender in and out of the liquid. When the blender is out of the liquid, it achieves max blade speed immediately. When you plunge the blender at max speed into the liquid, the liquid is at 0 speed, maximum blending occurs. Very quickly, the blade slows down by the liquid, then you lift the blender out of the liquid again. In and out, in and out, keep repeating. dcarch

Personally I don't see the need to DW a wood cutting board. I have a home-made end-grain board that I use both sides, one side for clean the other side for not so clean. I use a high carbon steel scraper to clean the surfaces once in a while. For making salads, fruits and foods that require no cooking, I have a plastic board which can go into the DW. Bamboo and many woods are water-proof naturally. They make boats using wood. If I want a wood board to go into dish washer all the time, I would make one using stainless steel rod to tie the wood pieces together. No glue. Still, it will taste like DW detergent. dcarch

A pain to peel quail eggs. If you need hard-boiled quail eggs, you can get them in a Chinese store in a can, alread peeled. dcarch

FrogPrincesse – Tart art. EnriqueB – fine-looking dishes, especially the Cream of cauliflower with red beet chips. C. sapidus – Very good combination of ingredients, your Parsi chicken curry. Pasta primavera – Very sophisticated plating. The swirl design of the plate echoes the shape of the shrimps. SobaAddict70 – mine Pasta primavera never can look as good as yours. avaserfi – Nothing fancy, simple and good. The only way to enjoy dry-aged hanger steak. robirdstx – I keep looking at your Chicken Marsala. I think I am going to make that next week. patrickamory – WOW! Nice Persian recipes. mm84321 – Very well thoughtout and beautiful dishes. Kim – that is a very pretty salad, and well–balanced health-wise. Sinfully good NY Times burger. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A few dishes: Pot stickers with pickles cucumber and radish. The red is not coloring. Poached salmon Stir fried Hosta shoots from my garden. dcarch

Why spend the money for a full set of knives ? dcarch

" dcarch – your strawberries are especially amazing, my friend! Are they completely sliced through and then stuffed or only partially sliced? And what is sprinkled over?" Kim, that's very easy. Stick a tooth pick or skewer thru the strawberry, and you can do a spiral cut without the strawberry falling apart. I admire your ability in the leftover makeovers. It is an art form. dcarch

rarerollingobject - thank you for the secret of making perfect squid; get your self slightly inebriated first. LOL. Amazing BBQ'd king prawns, doused with yuzu tobasco. I have been trying to buy a yuzu tree. A gulf ball size yuzu is $3.00 here, if you can find it. Panaderia Canadiense – the fuzzy picture cannot hide the fact that your Valencia orange and ginger soup is beautifully plated. mm84321 – pictures of the unknown weed and it’s flowers. dcarch

Those are from my lawn. No they are not chives. I had found out that they are edible a few years back, but have since forgotten the name. The flowers open during the day and close during the night. May be someone can tell the name. dcarch Check out Oxalis, aka Shamrock plants. They're a common garden weed over much of the western hemisphere, and have edible flowers that look just like those. No, the flowers look the same, but the leaves are different. I will take a picture tomorrow. dcarch

I set the temp at 132F I had it in the bath for 24 hours. Then torched Came out good, dcarch

Those are from my lawn. No they are not chives. I had found out that they are edible a few years back, but have since forgotten the name. The flowers open during the day and close during the night. May be someone can tell the name. rarerollingobject, those of us who have tried to cook squid can instantly tell that your squid is a dish of beauty. Totally amazing in the exact timing in cooking. There is a very narrow window between overcooking and raw squid. Beautifully photographed too. dcarch

That sounds like a nice different contrast. How did you treat the tapioca pearls - boiled in a seasoned broth and folded into the rice or?? In deed, I wanted to add some complexity to a simple wild rice dish by giving it a contrasting texture. The tapioca was simmered in clam juicy then folded into the wild rice. The clam taste makes it appropriate to serve the dish in a sea shell. dcarch

I have not posted in the past many days. I am amazed by the incredible display of gastronomic wizardries by everyone. Been very busy with work, getting the garden ready for spring and income tax obligations. So please pardon my enjoying your work but not commenting. I did take time to prepare an Easter meal. Sous vide leg of lamb on hosta shoots from my garden. Asparagus with oyster mushrooms. Real wild rice with tapioca. Strawberries with cream filling. dcarch

A non-customer uses your bathroom, falls down and gets hurt. He can sue you for big time money just the same. dcarch

Thank you everyone. SylviaLovegren, yes, forsythia blossoms are edible. They are just for looks, not nuch taste to them. Panaderia Canadiense and Rotuts, this was not a difficult way to stuff a cabbage. The key is to have a pot of very hot water to dip the head of cabbage in to cook the outter leaves just soft enough to peel back without damaging them, but not to cook them "welldone". Depending on your recipe on how much is your stuffing, at some point, you can cut out the heart of the cabbage. After you put in the stuffing, you can easily fold back the leaves, and it will look like the head of cabbage has never been openned. Just a tip: If you are doing a very large head of cabbage using pork ot chicken, make sure you check the internal temperature or precook the pork or chicken first. It was fun to see the surprised look on your dinner guests' face when you bring out a whole head of cabbage. They were surprised again when they realized the inside was stuffed. dcarch

When Cabbage was on sale on St. Pat's Day, I got too many of them. Got to use them up. Let me share with you one way to stuff a cabbage. dcarch Openning up the whole cabbage Stuffed Stuffed and cooked Plated

It is simple to stablize the chimney starter. Get three small C clamps to clamp on the bottom edge of the starter. dcarch

Get a small metal container that has a very tight lid. After you have done cooking, dump the hot burning charcoal into the container and cover it. The coal will soon be extinguished and can be reused. Somehow I think there needs to have some holes made at the top of the starter to improve vertical ventilation, otherwise it may not be hot enough. dcarch

If you can hookup a small charcoal grill with a hair dryer or a leaf blower, you can have a furnace hot enough to melt metal. Similar to this one: I recommend a variable motor speed control so that you can vary the heat. dcarch

It is possible that shorter people live longer, but of course I was only pointing out that there are places where non-organic food culture does not prevent long life expectance. dcarch

Oh come now, that isn't even remotely valid to your assertion. Many of those countries have very significantly different farming practices and regulations, different eating habits, etc. Their focus on "organic" may well be different, but partly because half the stuff US agri gets up to isn't legal there anyway, or not an issue in the first place. And their life expectancy are very tied up in availability of health care, diet etc. Correlating that to the concern over organic is utter hogwash. Or pink slime, or something... I have been to two of those places, Hongkong and Macao. They only import farmed seafood from China, pesticized produce, MSG in dishes, ----etc. No health care system in those places. dcarch

I'm a little curious about which locations you mean, and the source of information regarding indifference to organic food. I just Google "life span/expectance by country" dcarch

Random thoughts: 1. The more animal (beef) parts we don't eat, the more cows we will have to kill and higher prices for meat. 2. Areas with The longest life span, are areas where people don't care about organic foods. dcarch

Thank you for doing this whole topic. It has been fascinating. dcarch

You may want to consider this meanwhile: Use any ice cube tray. After the ice cubes have formed, take the tray out fron the freezer for a few minutes. Pour the ice cubes in a container that you put in the freezer. This is great for the summer time or when you have guests. You can make a big bucket of cubes and never have to struggle. dcarch

I've done it plenty of times. It doesn't turn out to have discernable little chunks of undercooked bacon in it. It mostly just adds some juiciness and that bacony smokiness. I'd suggest this falls into the "don't knock it til you've tried it" category. I am sure it will make the burger taste good. My point is eating raw bacon safety. dcarch