dcarch

For get about electrical appliances. Get propane. dcarch

Fish fat is not good. dcarch

Canned crab meat has become very good. There are many brands. They taste like freash crab meat. They are not cheap. dcarch

Due to weather and human error, recently, millions of people were cut off from electric power for a long time. There are many advices you can find on-line as to what to do with your food in the refrigerator and freezer. Basically, they advise you not to open the refrigerator door or the freezer door to keep the food cold longer. I am not so sure. Refrigerator: Air has very low specific heat, only 0.018 BTU for one degree F per cubic foot. Let’s assume there are 5 cubic feet of air in your loaded 40 F refrigerator, and your room temperature is 85 F, each time you open the door and the entire 5 cu. Ft. of air is replaced by room air, you are only loosing 4.5 BTUs. Not counting all the thermal mass of the metals, glass, food, plastic, beer, ---, if you have one gallon of water, for it to go from 40 F to 41 F, you will need 8.34 BTUs. Freezer: Not counting all the thermal mass of the metals, glass, food, plastic, -----. Assuming your freezer is 0 F. In a fully loaded freezer, let's assume you have one cu. Ft. of air in it. If you open the freezer door and that one cu. Ft. of 0 F air is replaced by 85 F air, you will be loosing 0.81 BTU, and OTOH, if you have one gallon of ice cubes, for it to go from 0 F ice to 32 F water, you will need 1,709.7 BTUs, or, open the freezer door 2,110 times. dcarch

Interesting thought... I wonder if there's evidence to support that. I feel like the US has pretty diverse eating habits. We're a wealthy nation with much available in our markets and representation in our country from other cultures all over the world. Do other cultures have considerably fewer allergy issues? The first thought that came to my mind when I read that was that most of the Asians I know have lactose intolerance. Many Asians are ideed lactose intolerant as well as alcohol intolerant. I my spending time in the Far East, I had not come across allergy issue like here in the US. I have many Asian friends, none of them has allergies, except one is allergic to shellfish. To me, the US has terrible eating habits when it comes to varieties. We are much better now. Meats, vegetibles, fish, fruits ----- there are so many things we don't have and don't eat. dcarch

Some what off-topic: It seems that cultures which have diverse eating habits have much less allergy issues. I seem to have seen a report that even children with severe peanut allergies can be treated by exposing them to progressively increasing amounts of peanuts ( Warning: Don’t try this at home!!!! Disclaimer:I am not a doctor!!!!). dcarch

It seems to me that gluten is an important part in Asian cooking/diet. I enjoy mock chicken made of gluten in Chinese shops. dcarch

There are those who really go for a polished edge that can literally split a hair (really, check youtube). Do you need that for the kitchen? Here are a few magnified views of a brand new blade for a surgeon’s scalpel. dcarch

Use a torch. You can get a lot of "outdoor" flavor using a torch. dcarch

dcarch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSQNVO3STF4

There are many pre-rubbed, pre-seasoned ribs in plastic. dcarch

Stupid idea to keep your veggies green: In supermarkets veggie department, and meat department, they use special fluorescent bulbs which have special spectrums to enhance the green color and the red color. ------------ BTW, Kevin Liu has a very good point. dcarch

There must be something else you can do. I seem to think that veggies in frozen TV dinners stay green, even you cook them a long time. What have they done to the veggies? dcarch

Percyn – Interesting meal combination, Burrito with Ramen. Looks good and sounds good to me. Paul Bacino – nice presentation od Caprese Salad. mgaretz – the sous vide shrimp looks beautiful with home made fettucini. Genkinaonna – your Corn soup with bacon and cheddar fritters is so professional looking. ScottyBoy – your Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho is so artistic looking. So is the salmon. OK, you convinced me. I went out and got two pounds of squid. C. sapidus – I can’t even pronounce the names of your dishes, but I can pronunce that they look fabulous. weinoo – the roasted quails look wonderful. Two would not be enough for me. Kim – incredible array of fine dishes, again showing the wide spectrum of your cooking ability. heidih – I can see the grape leaves indeed can work very well with pork. Prawncrackers – My two thumbs up for your Squabs. SobaAddict70 – very fine-looking Ratatouille. OMG! Heirloom tomato salad, with watermelon and white peaches, that is what summer is all about ! --------------- - - - - - - - - - - -- - I am happy to see Pollock in the fish market. I don’t know why they don’t have it more often here. It is a very nice fish. dcarch

We all have different body immunological responses. It’s up to you. I grew up in an area with no refrigeration, eating smelly food all the time. (Lots of powerful seasoning to cover up the smell) Now, for myself, if the meat kind of stinky and kind of slimy, I just wash the meat, cook and enjoy. The only time I insist on 100% fresh meat is when I am making sushi. :-) dcarch

Now you will need a high vaccum pump. With the interesting clear liquids that you are getting from various foods. Use the high vaccum to boil down the clear liquid at very low temperature to super concentrate the flavor. You may even be able to crystalize many liquids. Imagine chicken broth crystals, clearly interesting substance. dcarch

How about a beef-tini? Yes, add a shot of Beefeater, centrifuge, not shaken. :-) dcarch

How about a clear carbonated beef stock? It would be lovely to sip beef "soda" thru a straw with a few ice cubes. Disgusting? How would you know? :-) dcarch

I had to laugh a little." Buffet ---- food is not too good?" LoL. I am very surprised!!! Sorry :-) That altar in many Chinese restaurants, as I understand, is not any kind of organized religion. It is more of a superstition. Supposedly, it will bring good luck and lots of money. dcarch

Why? Cleavage? False eyelashes? dcarch

The cleanest water is actually in your toilet tanks. Don't flush if your water supply is disrupted. dcarch

Ugly tomato, transformed into a beautiful Appetizer course! Ugly crustacean, metamorphosed into a gorgeous spaghetti with lobster dish! Magical!!!! dcarch

I don't see stocking up food and water. Power outage due to storms don't generally last for too many hour. I don't remember water was cut off due to storm unless you have a pump and well. You are not talking about a major earth quake. Do fill your gas tank if your tank is not full. Gas stations cannot work with power out. Do check in advance where you can get dry ice in case the power does not come back before the food in the freezer is about to thaw. If you find your food in the freezer thaws too quickly, your refrigerator is defective or has very poor insulation to begin with. Replace it soon. You have been wasting a lot of electircity all along. If you don't have a backup generator, get a small 12v inverter. A 400 watt inverter is around $30.00. Plug in the inverter in your car and let the engine idle (outside), with an extension cord, you can have TV, e. mail, computer, a light, charger for you phones, etc for many hours. Depending on your car's generator, you can get a bigger inverter to run your refrigerator. dcarch

Good link. Here are the issues: Most material has some hydroscopic properties. Wood, paper, potato chips, --- even plastics. The question is how much. Salts are well known for their very strong affinity to water, they are very hygroscopic, so much so that they are used frequently as desiccants. Many salts, such as snow melting salts, if you don’t cover the bag, they will soon absorb so much water that they liquefy into a puddle of water that they absorb, which is known as Deliquescence. If you put salt, a strong hygroscopic substance next to rice, guess which way the water is going to go. For argument’s sake, let’s say rice is a stronger absorber of water than salt, in a salt shaker, which is open to moisture in air, how can it keep on absorbing water like a perpetual motion machine? There is no known desiccant that can last forever, certainly not an extremely weak one like rice. dcarch

OK! Look, I just found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_chloride Sodium chloride, "-----Sodium chloride is sometimes used as a cheap and safe desiccant because of its hygroscopic properties, making salting an effective method of food preservation historically; the salt draws water out of bacteria through osmotic pressure, keeping it from reproducing, a major source of food spoilage. Even though more effective desiccants are available, few are safe for humans to ingest.---" As I suspect, when you put rice in salt, actually the salt is keeping the rice dry, not the other way around. Salt is much stronger in grabing moisture than rice. dcarch