dcarch

Don't mean to go off topic: Knife making can take you years of learning and practicing. Or you can have a very useful knife made cheaply, if you have a few simple tools. Since I didn't want to spend $500; A knife I made: a 330mm single bevel yanagiba. $20.00 tool steel (D-2 steel) on ebay. Tool steel can be excellent for kitchen knives. Tool Steel is made for cutting steel. Shape the steel with an angle grinder into a blade you want ( you can buy an angle grinder from HarborF for less than$20 if you don't have one) Send to have the blade cryo-hardened and tempered ($20) Sharpen the hardened blade yourself, add handle. dcarch

I think we are talking about this. I could be wrong: dcarch Many use home made knives for shaving noodles there is also this one

I happened to watched on youtube a day ago. They used a home-made shaver to cut. dcarch

Not sure what you are asking, but just in case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring dcarch

Just ignore it. It's not doing anything. A Silent Spring dcarch

Toilet paper holder! dcarch

Boing -boing-boing Upper righthand corner. dcarch

Can be very good for opening up pork intestines, scaling small fish, scraping meat off bones. dcarch

That blade shape I think sometimes is called Counter Strike blade shape. Very functional for gardening and a blade shape for hunters and for self-defense. I am sure there are some kitchen uses. I can't think of too many. Knife shaved noodles? dcarch

Not an unusual blade shape for gardening knives. dcarch

Someone asked about cooking malabar spinach: SV trout, on stir fried malabar spinach. And another asked about eggplant old v.s. young, which is more bitter. Asian eggplants are not bitter , young or old. dcarch

Another way for quicker roasting, whole bird presentation, for stuffing, for easy of slicing, without chopping the bird into multiple parts, is to remove all bones without opening up the bird. Yes, it can be done. All the bones including thigh bones, wing bones, etc 100% removal, leaving only meat and skin. Feels like a rubber chicken, LOL! dcarch.

Beef will not get tender no matter how you cut it. Cross grain cutting, pounding, ---- make it chewable, but not tender. Buy prime grade beef, marinate it with papaya extract , you will have real tender beef. dcarch

To get a frozen turkey to room temperature takes a very long time, long enough for part of the bird to get into food safety danger zone. A warmer bird helps, but not that much. Thermal conductivity is a physical constant, you can't make heat travel faster, you can only make travel distance shorter, which is what I was doing. dcarch

Yes, I have done that, but that takes longer. Two ways I have tried: a. A heated thermal gel packs inside a food safe SV bag. b. Electric 50 watt heater with PID control inside a SV bag. The bird was whole, not trussed. Because I don't like soggy skin which you will get if trussed. I can't think of another way to have the chicken (turkey) cooked uniformly to about 140F - 145F very quickly and at the end with very crispy skin. If the bird is cooked, say in an 375F oven, there is no way that part of the meat will not be cooked at 212F. There is a big difference in juiciness between meat cooked at 212F and 140F. Why is placing a heater inside the cavity takes a lot of work? Seems less work than deboning, spachcocking, trussing ----. dcarch

To me, roasting chicken and roasting turkey represents a great challenge. There are so many parts in a very thick and very cold bird, each requires a different way of cooking it. Here is a method I am trying out, with a chicken first, then I will be doing it with a Thanksgiving turkey. 1. Chicken is dry brined all over, under the skin and inside the cavity. This is very easy to do. Refrigerate chicken overnight. 2. Take the cold chicken out of the refrigerator into the convection oven set at 170F, and at the same time cook the chicken from inside out with a heater inside the chicken's cavity. This solves the universal problem of quickly and evenly cooking a big cold bird with thick meat. using very low temperature. The convection oven dries up the skin, which is required for the skin to be crispy. 3. Once the internal temperature reaches 140F, The bird is taken out and into the refrigerator for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, get the oven's broiler fired up at high. 4. Take the bird out from the refrigerator after 20 minutes and put it into the broiler. To help better making the skin evenly crispy, use aluminum foil as reflectors, shiny side facing the bird at 45 degree angle. Broiler cooks by infrared and aluminum reflect IR. This setup minimizes soggy skin. Sounds a very complicated way to roast a chicken or turkey. I don't think so, especially not with what the end result I can get. dcarch

I like dark meat. Ducks, 100% dark meat. I like duck eggs, they are larger and the yolks are also much larger than chicken eggs. You can find in NYC stores duck tongues. Interesting, one day I will buy some. You can find smoked ducks. I also like duck liver sausage. Another interesting thing in NYC stores, deboned duck feet. How do they do that?! dcarch

I think there is Kosher butter. No? dcarch

I don't think there is lead based black pigment. Flat black paint is always used in solar ovens for food. In any case flat black will soon be glossy from greasy fingers. dcarch

One of the factors, how salty is it? dcarch

Nothing you do can kill off ants. Vast areas in Texas and in Florida were under very deep water for a long time. Do you think there will be no more ants in those areas? dcarch

Some of them eat caterpillars. dcarch

Massive aerial insect spraying is being done to prevent mosquitoes in all the states effected by Irma. Guess how healthy that is to all the bees and to all the other beneficial insects. Guess how that will impact the delicate enviro/eco balance. dcarch

Beekeeping, just like urban chicken, is a code violation in most communities. dcarch

There are so many kinds of eggplants. I don't think you can generalize. dcarch