Mjx

'Cutting up', unless it's a whole animal, then it's 'butchering'. Things like cutting meat off the bone are 'dissecting'. I haven't come across much professional kitchen terminology, but biology looms large in my background, so its terminology does come up (although 'plate' does get used, for the same reason given by Beebs).

Still not the same freshness of flavours, still no control over the precise result. If a drink is simply something to hold while you're talking, or something to just pound back, these things don't really matter. Thing is, there are, believe it or not, many who actually enjoy preparing the components of a drink from scratch. These are people who are drinking for the flavour of it, who enjoy the equipment you use in the mixing of drinks (e.g. as seen in this week's blog posts), perhaps enjoying something about its history, too. If you have a gorgeous muddler or strainer, why would you want bottles of mixers sitting about?

Plain white for my plates, too, and I've never had any that were not. It's strongly the visual aesthetic: I love the way light washes about the forms. I'm a sucker for a good still life. However, I usually enjoy the colours/patterns of the plates my food shows up on at restaurants: When we went to Parma about a year ago, I loved the plates as well as the terrific food at places such as Ombre Rosse and La Bottega si Nota e Gusta. But now that I think of it, In the US (or at least in NYC), plates in restaurants are usually white.

This is going to come too late to be useful now, but if you like the results of your confit, just save the fat that renders off when you cook anything with duck. I don't know whether or not the breasts I get are remarkaby fatty, but I find that from just a month's worth of duck breasts (three or four full), I get enough for a batch of confit.

HAH! That reminds me of 'The soiled Kimono': HOW TO MAKE A SOILED KIMONO Mix 2/3 glass costly French champagne With 1/3 glass Japanese plum wine And top with a paper butterfly. But that might taste good. How about some Danish tippling, with the 'Fire Truck'? Take a plastic cup, and tip in some Jægermeister. Top up with Red Bull. Drink. Repeat until you feel jolly enough to begin dancing.

We're talking average supermarket thickness. My grandmother had gotten in the habit of buying chicken tenders (supremes) thinking that they were the tenderest part of the chicken. I've tried (and somewhat successfully, I might add) to show her that a thicker cut of meat cooked to the proper internal temperature is actually better because it is harder to overcook it and it will generally be moister. Same goes for pork chops. She isn't buying the extra thick ones, but she stopped buying the really thin ones that are basically cooked entirely in the pan as you suggested. I'd say the sirloin steak I cooked last night was probably about 1/2 inch thick. I cooked it about 2 1/2 minutes per side in the pan and then finished it in the oven for another five minutes. It was medium rare to medium, just what I was aiming for. I myself would not cook meat of those particular thicknesses in the oven; I really prefer the control and results I get on the stovetop. Unless it has to spend at least 15 minutes in the oven, I don't fire it up. Besides, when the meat is that thin, it gets tricky to accurately measure the temperature at the centre. However, I don't know whether this is idiosyncratic, or widespread practice.

Still happening in Denmark. It's easily scraped away.

This annoys me too, but I was thinking about it a lot recently and I sort of wondered at what point does the word become common enough in an English-speaking place that it can be considered an English (loan)word? I confess that even though I would readily nitpick about panini, I don't think I have ever ordered or heard anyone order "two cappucini"--"cappucinos" is a readily accepted plural form by all but the most hardcore. I've seen recipes in top-notch cookbooks by authors everyone here would respect if not adore, calling for "2 octopuses", and my best friend and I once had an hour+ discussion on the correct way to refer to multiples of a Toyota Matrix. Ever pulled out a single strand of Spaghetto to test for doneness? Tsk: It's a single 'spaghetto', not a strand of it! I can live with the loan word treatment/the use of the 's', it's the stacking of plurals that bothers me (at least when a cook book author or supposed restaurant professional does it). Seriously, I have no problem with 'espressos', but 'porcinis' makes me want to scream. Because I grew up bilingual, it's like hearing 'feets'; this is really hardwired into me. I'm equally aggravated by Italians doing fool things to English, by the way, and have the identical reaction to 'pinat bater' or 'rosbif' on menus in Italy.

Alkaseltzer. For... heartburn. Sorry. But it is about the most unromanic thing I can think of, aside from prune juice. I don't actually think prune juice is disgusting, so how about prune juice, tonic water, and gin? Bailey's (which I do find disgusting) and gin? With a sour grape as a garnish? Why should it be red? Red so all Valentine's Day-ish. But if you want red and bitter, there's always Campari.

I guess you can't build a profitable industry on common sense, and people seem to adore gimmicks: I know several who, every morning, weigh their diet bread and put a 'diet spread' or two on it, accompany it with egg replacements and bacon-identical (apart from composition and flavour) strips, put imitation cream and artificial sweetener in their coffee, and finish it off with 'lite', 'fruity' (not fruit; 'fruit flavoured') yoghourt. To me, that makes way less sense from every standpoint than grabbing an espresso and half a dozen almonds, but they seem to enjoy their ritual mortification of the tastebuds.

My parents became vegetarian for ethical reasons when I was two or three. Oddly, my earliest food memories slightly predate that: I remember making small animals from hamburger meat, and the sides of beef and rabbits hanging at the butcher's (this was in Italy); I don't believe I've ever not known where meat came from, and I can't recall it ever troubling me. My parents never really discussed their decision with me, just made it clear that they believed eating animals was unnecessary (since other foods are so plentiful) and wrong. Although I agreed with them in principle, I continued to eat meatwhen I visited people on my own. I think inhumane treatment of animals is unnecessary and inexcusable, and cannot justify my consumption of meat on the grounds of necessity; I just like it. But I do think about this every time I buy meat, and it affects my choices. And, although I have no problem cleaning or butchering an animal, I do find the slaughter very disturbing; I helped a friend slaughter some of her chickens once, and was shaking like a leaf when it was over (and not just becuase I was a bit worried that she might take off one of my hands with the hatchet). But I still eat meat. From my parents' standpoint, they failed with me (my brother and sister have never eaten meat), and I'm not certain how that makes them feel, but this isn't somthing I can really discuss with them. I don't know how I'd discuss this with a child, but I'd certainly want there to be no ambiguity about where meat comes from, right from the start (a butcher shop makes this much easier than a supermarket). My brother, incidentally, has always been difficult about food, and would cheerfully not eat for an entire day or longer, rather than eat anything he didn't like. Not many parents can withstand that: mine certainly didn't. To this day, he'll consume most things made of flour, orange juice, apples, and chips. And a variety of weird protein potions for bodybuilders (he lifts, and he's massive). I think that's about it. However, he has four omnivorous children, so I guess it's possible to overcome parental weirdnesses.

By jove, you've got it! Oi! No need for sarcasm... That was simply the indisputable starting point for my scintillating argument.

Hm... if the cuts are very lean and tender, you may be better off just cooking them on the stove, over fairly high heat, so you get adequate internal cooking, and good browning, too. Or are we talking thick chunks?

Would you be more specific about the kind of meat you're cooking? You can't cook all meat the same way. Your best bet is probably to get a reliable cookbook; you don't even need to commit to buying, you can get one from the library. For reliability, it's hard to beat The Best Recipe, by America's Test Kitchen.

. . . . While I'm not arguing with the fact that not eating tends to be accompanied by a shift to the lower end of one's metabolic rate-range (and eating, if you're hungry, shifts it up; not exactly 'jump starting', however), this still doesn't make it clear whether it is the actual eating of breakfast that supports weight loss, or whether the weight loss you see with this pattern is an artefact of a certain kind of disciplined thinking/behaviour. I often delay breakfast until 10.00 or 11.00, and just have coffee before that. Sometimes, nothing until lunch. Lots of reasons for this: I'm often not hungry until late morning (eating when you're not hungry is seldom advised), and I don't eat before, or immediately after I work out. Also, traditional breakfast foods pose a bit of a problem for me: I don't like eggs, am lactose intolerant, and become very drowsy and fatigued when I eat most starches, which is not the best state in which to start the work day. If I do eat something before lunch, it's generally fruit or almonds. I work at home, so I could make something more complex, but don't usually feel very enthusiastic about that. By 11.00 I usually start some sort of lunch thing, unless I've got a pressing deadline. If I start the day eating small, it tends to set the tone for the day. The way I look at it, part of losing weight (I need to lose about seven kilos to get to a healthy hip:waist ratio) is eating less. To accomplish this consistently, you have to be realistic and honest about when and how you can best accomplish this, which means identifying when you are more or less hungry, and planning accordingly. This makes breakfast optional for me.

My impression (derived in the US, Italy, and Denmark, so it's admittedly limited) is that mixers are popular where most of the drinkers are teenagers - I'm speaking of the EU for that - or get-togethers that are essentially piss-ups, so alcohol level + high-speed drinkability are the primary concerns. As others have already pointed out, most of what mixers try to provide is fairly straightforward to make from scratch, and worth it if you care about flavour. I didn't drink until I was well into my twenties, so I've never actually tried a mixer; no one I knew by then used them. Once, at a party, I almost tried mixing grenadine into rum, but I automatically looked at the label, and was beyond disappointed to see that it didn't actually contain pomegranate, so I passed (fake fruit flavours are fairly awful).

Stacking two plural forms--usually Italian and English--makes me stomp (not run) in the opposite direction. For example, 'Paninis' actually translates as 'rollses'. Not checking the accuracy and spelling on a menu just seems incredibly unprofessional (by now, the use of Italian and French is far from a novelty in the restaurant industry), and makes me suspicious of what else may be neglected by management/staff. How difficult is it to remember that Italian words never form a plural with an 's'?!

I've got a couple of the Oxo ones laying about, you can find them in quite a few supermarkets, if I remember correctly.

I thought about this for just a few moments, and already my mind is boggling at the possibilities. Good point.

Super! An overview of Queens and Staten Island's food highlights is long overdue... WHAT?!

I use a sponge until it stops working, but I've switched from actual spongy scrubbers to the Goodby Detergent scrubbers, which last forever (can't even remember when I got the one currently in use, but I think it's about a year). Partly out of curiosity, I'm trying to determine the smallest amount of garbage I can produce without living like a nut case, and these are part of my project (but I still use detergent). They rinse clean very easily, and handle the occasional dousing of boiling water I use to keep them sanitary.

I thought the only differences were general, for example, a narrow flute for holding champagne bubble longer, or a balloon glass for brandies and such. But I've never had the impression that it was really that nuanced an issue, particularly given that every individual has a slightly different array of taste buds and olfactory receptors.

I'm confused about not wanting to explain what it is, which is what I believe is known as 'curly kale' in English... is that something that has sort of coarsely amusing associations for many, like prunes (which the industry has taken to calling 'dried plums'), or..?

I'm wondering how carob powder would work as a base, rather than a flavouring. My recollection of eating the pods is that they didn't have a pronounced flavour, but tasted pleasantly sweetish and sort of... warm. In a certain sense, not unlike chestnut flour. The only agreeable carob recipe I can recall making involved adding a fair amount of instant coffee, a bit of cardamom, and rather a lot of sugar to the carob drink mix my parents bought as a substitute for chocolate drink mix (carob is inseparable from irony, in my mind; my parents were all over carob, partly because it contains no caffeine, and chocolate has a little... not as much as carob drink + instant coffee, however). A number of bevergages from cultures in warm climates are seed- or root-starch based (e.g. horchata), and carob also seems to be used for this purpose.

Incidentally, in there is a tea/pastry (?) shop connected to the DKNY shop on West Broadway that I will probably never enter, because of its unfortunate name: Tisserie. I have a hunch this is intended as a derivation of 'tisane', or a cutesy shortening of 'patisserie', but in Danish, 'tisse' means 'pee'. I just find that too gruesomely hilarious to make it possible for me to even enter the door (wasn't it once standard practice to check would-be foreign words intended as names for any possibly awkward significance?). The first time I saw this, my jaw just dropped. Then, I reached for my camera... I know a LOT of people in Denmark.