nolnacs

Or you could buy a kevlar glove - that way you can have safe fingers and use a mandoline.

As does mine... it took a surprisingly large chunk of skin off of my middle finger on Saturday night. It's still bothering me too - typing is awkward and uncomfortable.

I'd like to try my hand at making lomo. Does anyone here have suggestions for seasoning percentages or quantities? From what I have seen online, garlic and smoked paprika are common seasonings, but is there anything else I should be considering?

In thinking about this topic, it is interesting how my constraints shape the way I have been cooking. I moved to Philadelphia a little over a year ago and quickly decided that I wanted to do most of my grocery shopping at the Reading Terminal market, the Italian market or the local farmer's market (Headhouse Sq). The only problem is that due to my work schedule, I can only make it to those places on the weekends. So, in response, I started planning weekly menus so that I would have all the ingredients that I would need for the upcoming week. Previously, when I was in Chicago, I tended to just pick things up that caught my eye and then cook based off those and perhaps a recipe that caught my eye. Much as OliverB commented, my cooking was often a bit repetitious. When I started menu planning, I started making a point of trying new recipes, usually 3 or 4 a week. I don't faithfully follow all of them, but I usually plan my alterations ahead of time (substituting or leaving out ingredients etc). It's been an interesting experience and I have definitely learned a lot, but I do wonder if I have perhaps swung a little too far the other direction.

I also like Trader Joe's selection of frozen seafood although I have not been as impressed with the tuna there as some of the other fish - salmon & cod in particular have been good.

I currently keep Cooks Illustrated, the Art of Eating and Saveur. I'm thinking I might toss the Saveur magazines though since I am running low on shelf space and it doesn't interest me nearly as much as the other two.

In fact, it was made in LaPorte, which is spelled LA PORTE and LA-PORTE on the slicer. I wonder when they started getting rid of the space. According to the Berkel website, in 1915 they moved from Chicago to LaPorte and changed the name of the company from the U.S. Slicing Machine Company to Berkel (after W.A. Van Berkel, the Dutch inventor of the mechanism that they had licensed). However, my machine says both LaPorte and U.S. Slicing Machine Company.... which is a bit strange.

I have two items that stand out for me. The first is this hand cranked Berkel meat slicer that I bought and restored a few years back. I'm not sure exactly when it was made, but the last date listed on it is 1916. It was found in the attic of an old country club along the shores of lake Minnetonka Here is some (slightly over dried) coppa that I made and sliced recently using the Berkel. The other item is the 9-1/2" Yoshikane gyuto that I got about a year and a half ago. It's a fantastic blade from a simply utilitarian perspective but I also love the hammered pattern.

I use Gourmet recipe managerto catalog all of the recipes that I have made. I've only used the linux version but there is a windows version as well. Recipes that I have not yet made go into a list that I use to plan meals each week - I generally try like to make 4-5 new recipes for dinner and the others are previous favorites.

I generally go sweet with my oatmeal and like other people I typically add dried or cut up fruit. In particular, I really like dried tart cherries which provide a nice counterbalance to the sweetened oatmeal (I usually add brown sugar or maple syrup). I also generally cook my oatmeal in milk, but the best oatmeal I have ever made I made with real buttermilk left over from a butter making experiment. I'm not entirely sure why it tasted so much better than normal milk, but it really made a difference.

I made some sous vide lengua earlier this week following this recipe from Serious Eats. Essentially I bagged the tongue with some cilantro, tomato and onion and cooked for 48 hours (I would do less next time) at 76 C. Nothing too fancy, but it was delicious. I do wonder though, how the tongue would turn out at a lower temperature, say 55 or 60 C. Has anyone tried tongue at medium?

Perhaps not as labor intensive as some of the pastry dishes that others have referenced, but dry cured sausages are probably the most technically challenging thing that I have ever made. Between the temperature when making, the bacterial culture, the different casing options, humidity and temperature while curing and how long to cure there is a lot to keep track of.

A couple of years ago, I smoked walnuts and added them to an apple pie. The pie's theme was sweet, spicy and smokey so it worked rather well (basic concept was apples sauteed in butter and pan deglazed with maple syrup mixed with smoked walnuts, smoked paprika, aleppo pepper and cinnamon).

Nathan - if you do an event in Philadelphia, I can guarantee that I will be there!

I don't think I have seen anyone mention this dish at Han Dynasty in this thread yet, but the spicy cucumbers are unbelievably good. I admit that the combination sounds a little strange (at least it did to me before I tried it), but it works perfectly. There is a hint of sweetness to go along with the heat of the chili oil and the crunch of the cucumber. If you have not yet tried this dish, I highly recommend it.

I bought this Wide mouth jar sealer from Amazon to use with my foodsaver. There is a standard width one as well. I'm not sure what kind of lids you are using, but I have used this with a 1 gallon mason jar to good effect.

So it turns out that they also use a ceramic pot at times so it can't be induction. I've found a bunch of electric radiant ones on Amazon, but I am not certain if the 1500 watt ones will work any better than the 1300 that they already have.

I'll have to check to see if the pot they use for hotpot (it has a divider down the middle) is magnetic. If so, the Max Burton one looks promising.

Does anyone have any recommendations for making Chinese hotpot? I was at my in-laws for Thanksgiving and the electric burner they had was not sufficiently powerful to keep the hotpot boiling as we dropped in all the food. I believe that the unit they had was 1300 watts and was made by Waring. I don't think that they want to use a gas burner on their table so that is probably not an option. Any ideas?

I am deeply, terribly addicted to the Just Dried Mangos that Trader Joe's has - they have a shelf life of about 2-3 days in my kitchen. All the other dried mangos that they have are too cloyingly sweet for my tastes, but the unsweetened ones hit the right balance of sweet and tart with a nice chewiness to boot.

I had a subscription for Saveur for a while and let it lapse. About 6 months ago, I saw a promotion for a very cheap description and decided to give it a second chance, but the results are not any better. I have a hard time explaining why I dislike Saveur so much perhaps because I really don't understand either. It seems like the sort of magazine that I should be interested in (by the way the other two food magazines I subscribe to are The Art of Eating and Cooks Illustrated). I think I find the tone of the articles... the voice of the magazine to just be offputting. I wouldn't say that it is pretension although I think that does contribute. Am I crazy? Does anyone else have this problem with Saveur?

I went to the Mosefund for the same class back in January and I have to say that if you are interested in the subject of butchery/offal/meat curing that it is definitely worth attending. As for the meat, absolutely delicious. I ended up making some incredible guanciale and pancetta from some of the meat that I took home.

A spoonful (or three) of honey roasted peanut butter (from Kauffman's at the Reading Terminal Market) then dipped in the jar of Nutella. Oh delicious.... so I guess that it fits under most unhealthy not least tasty

Now this is something else entirely. If the question is whether the government should regulate the salt content in the lunches provided at public schools, then I have no problem saying yes. Even the most strident libertarian (guilty as charged) can't see much of a problem with that (although there would probably be questions about what level of government should be doing the regulating and whether there should be school lunches at all... but I digress). However, the idea of going beyond that is just horrifying. If you can justify regulating salt levels on the basis of obesity levels, why can't we have mandated exercise regimes? Monthly weigh ins? Admittedly, those suggestions would be somewhat more difficult for the government to implement, but are based on the same principle. Personally, I find the concept of public health to be somewhat baffling. It's clear enough in terms of contagious diseases, but to include obesity which is the result of individual choices (whether the child's or the parents') makes it so broad to include everything that could negatively impact health. Driving too fast results in deaths from car accidents- public health issue; adultery leads to great personal turmoil and stress thereby negatively impacting health - public health issue; negative review at work leads to suicide - public health issue. I am being a bit facetious about all this, but I just have a hard time grasping public health as a coherent concept. P

Absolutely not. If you don't want salty food then don't buy it. If you are in a store or chain restaurant - look at the nutritional information. If you are at a local restaurant, tell them to hold off the salt. It's just that simple. Furthermore, if enough people want processed foods with reduced salt content, manufacturers will start making them.