dcarch

Baked trout with crispy skin. dcarch

Depending on your location, it is important to start seeds early indoors for your garden. You can gain a few months advantage in harvesting, especially for late season varieties. I had always used my MH electronic lights for my seed start setup. They work, but they are not ideal. They use a lot of electricity (400 watts x 3), take a lot of room and expensive bulbs need to be replaced. There have been great advances in LED light technologies recently. They are cheap and powerful. I decided to build a few myself for my seed starting setup. LED lights do need to be properly designed. They are current and temperature sensitive or they can be fried in a fraction of a second. The most difficult issue is heat dissipation. They need very good heatsinks. Heatsinks are expensive. I found that it is cheaper to get an aluminum griddle ($16), cut it in half and make two heatsinks. I use two 150 watt COB LED chips ($8 each) for one light and a couple of brushless computer fans I have from my old computers to cool the heatsink. WOW! It’s bright!! I will not need to replace bulbs for many years. I am pleased with the end result. I will have 4 lights for my seedling setup. dcarch side-by-side MH vs. LEDs. LED

Nope. But that may be my next project :-) dcarch

It will be not be much bigger than the 1/2 griddle. I will be making 4 units. One griddle cut in 1/2 to make two. I will be using two griddles. dcarch

No. dcarch

Nope. But you are getting warmer. dcarch

No, no, and no. Hint: It will be electrified. dcarch

Making something for my garden. Would you like to guess what I am making? dcarch

If your lover is a rabbit. dcarch

Carats and Pearls Corned beef is mostly fat. I am not a fat eater. Using sous vide to cook the beef tender, so there is no need to cut cross grain. I was able to pull the corned beef to remove most of the fat and made a very traditional corned beef meal, carats , pearl potatoes, cabbage and corned beef. dcarch

Thanks Smokey. In researching the world of smoking, I have found that there are many things I don't like: 1. You can't smoke inside the house. 2. You can't smoke in the winter snowing. 3. You can't smoke when it's raining. 4. you have to stay up all night for long smokes. 5. You can't cold smoke in the summer. 6. difficult to control temperature. 7. Difficult to control quality of smoke. This smoker that I built overcomes all the above. It is a smoker with refrigeration and mechanically ventilated, and digitally controlled. dcarch

I have no intention to persuade anyone. I just want to disagree with the picture the writer is depicting that restaurants are all: “Restaurants are rife with abuse, mental health issues and addiction” "I really wanted to call attention to the pretty severe mental health crisis that is happening within the industry, and frankly that is ruining and taking lives." I agree that restaurant work is tough and there are problems, but all the restaurants I know have mostly happy worker ( about work environment, not pay scale) . she also says some people with existing mental health issues are drawn to restaurant work. "There is something especially about kitchens that might draw people who might suffer from particular issues, or be driven by particular issues — whether it's depression or anxiety or OCD or bipolar or something — where the condition they're dealing with is actually what drives them in the profession," she said. What!!!!!! Is she serious??? I also would be grateful if you can point out to me if in anyway my comments are not consistent with OP's statement in her/his original post. dcarch

Thank you for explaining your view. I did not understand your previous question regarding my employment situation. I thought my response to OP linked article is very clear, that ""This profession, which on the surface of it is all about pleasure and sustenance, there's a lot of darkness happening behind the scenes of it,"" applies to many other professions. dcarch

What is your point? dcarch

"This profession, which on the surface of it is all about pleasure and sustenance, there's a lot of darkness happening behind the scenes of it," she said. "I really wanted to call attention to the pretty severe mental health crisis that is happening within the industry, and frankly that is ruining and taking lives." If she thinks this applies mostly to restaurant profession, I guess she has never worked for Harvey weinstein and in his business. “So far, she says she's heard from hundreds of survey respondents from around the world.” No, not even close to a survey. Restaurant business is very tough, but in general it is not as dark as she pictures. dcarch

Thank you. You are very kind. Thank you. Just having a little fun with simple traditional (In USA) holiday food. The green is indeed pesto, mixed with mustard sauce. dcarch

SV corned beef, 72 hours, medium rare and fork tender. Trimmed the corned beef for tomorrow's hash, and trimmed the cabbage for cole slaw. Left with a square meal on a cold day. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all! dcarch

Too exhausted from shuffling snow. A quick meal of SV salmon with crispy skin and shrimps. dcarch

The basics: Depth of field. dcarch

A quick make-over. Piece of cake. dcarch

But if she stuff the chicken inside the duck and the duck inside the goose ------------------------- chicduckoose!!! dcarch

bigger picture. dcarch

Looks like chicken. You can see a chicken wing on top. But that would be strange to have a chicken without its head for new year. dcarch

It has nothing to do with fair or unfair. The ultimate economic law of supply and demand governs. There are too many line cooks. dcarch

How many inches of snow did you get today? We got 14 inches (NY), very wet snow. So heavy the snow blower couldn't do anything. What's good for all the back breaking work? Pork hock and black beans. dcarch