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Thoughts about the Ninja airfryer AF400EU vs. the Philips Avance Collection Airfryer XXL HD9650/90? I know nothing about the overall quality and results of either brand's food-prep units, but one or the other appears to be on the horizon for me. Mostly, I'm interested in getting good results with roast chicken and something approximating fried fish, for one or two people at a time. I prefer a fair amount of control over my devices, and don't much care about preprogrammed settings. Longevity and reliability matter, and...is one easier to clean than the other? Anyone care to weigh in on one or both these units? Thanks!

By sterilization, I mean properly and thoroughly sterilizing all the tools and containers that will be used, good hand hygiene, making sure that the recipe/instructions you're using are from a reliable source, and following the instructions to the letter. It's only a bit tedious the first time, when you have to think about it. And never as tedious as botulism. Not all cases of botulism are diagnosed/reported, as food poisoning is often misdiagnosed by the patient as 'stomach' flu (not a real illness: flu attacks the respiratory system), and why take chances on something very unpleasant, when avoiding it isn't that difficult? You deserve better protection than 'fingers crossed'. Please remember that neither C. botulinum nor its toxin is perceivable by taste, scent, or appearance.

https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/prevention.html https://fermentationassociation.org/the-safety-of-fermented-food/ https://www.wildfermentationforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3654 If you follow sterilization and pH guidelines carefully, you should be fine, but this is definitely not something to be casual about, as food poisining is unpleasant, even if you recover from it. ETA, C. botulinum and its toxin cannot be seen, smelled, or tasted.

Caffeine is an important flavour element in coffee, if you remove it, you lose some of the bitterness that gives it structure. Being able to edit out allergens would be brilliant, especially for crops that are used on a vast scale, given that things like peanut oil show up all over the place.

My objection to this particular form of gene editing is essentially the one that was discussed earlier: it seems kind of pointless. If someone dislikes some quality of some kind of produce, why eat it? There are so many varieties of produce, pick one you like, instead. I mean, I find bananas revolting, so I just don't eat them. If someone offered me bananas that had the texture/flavour of strawberries, I still wouldn't eat them, because actual strawberries exist. Then again, I also think decaffeinated coffee is silly; if I want something without caffeine, I have water or madeira or something, not a sad version of coffee.

@scott123 Any chance of going halves on the Costo block with someone?

Can anyone recommend places in the centre of Edinburgh with reliably good, preferably unpretentious, full breakfasts? I've been there a few times, and found one place that was good, though not open every day (The Square), many that were poor to mediocre, and one that was laughably bad (Southern Cross Cafe: slow, surly service, tepid coffee, cold toast, rubbery eggs, rubbery bacon, clammy baked beans, mushrooms that suggested poorly-preserved slugs, fried tomatoes that looked like open sores). There must be better! I'm specifying the centre, because I'm travelling with someone who needs breakfast more or less as soon as he gets up, and we'll be staying in the centre. Thanks!

Quick heads-up for those encountering inconclusive low-FODMAP-diet results: if you're in the elimination period, and your results are inconsistent/confusing, check the labels of every medication and supplement you take for FODMAP, especially for the sugar alcohols, because they're frequently used as bulking agents in pills. My doctor recommended I look into the possibility of FODMAP being the cause of various inconvenient symptoms, but didn't offer anything in the way of detail, just told me to look it up, which I did, but not as thoroughly as I should have done. The results were inconsistent, except when I was travelling, and tended to forget to take my nutritional supplements; in these cases, my GI problems subsided completely. I'd love to say I put two and two together out quickly, but I only figured it out when I was looking at the ingredient list on my calcium supplement, and noticed maltitol in the list. Then I looked at the rest of my nutritional supplements, and every damn mineral supplement contained maltitol (not the vitamins, for some reaason). I switched to FODMAP-free supplements, and things have been just fine since then. Most supplements and medications seem to be available in FODMAP-free versions, but if you're taking something that does not offer that option, taking a spoonful of psyllium husk seems to mitigate the worst of the consequences (I did this while I was using up the last of the maltitol-containing supplements: I couldn't afford to just throw them away). ETA I know that a well-informed doctor will discuss the possibility of this problem (also, thorough discussions of this online address it), but many doctors don't think to mention it.

But that wouldn't be just below the upper half of the bun, and doesn't resemble a persimmon at all.

I think that's the egg.

Perhaps restaurants and catering firms could begin building in the option of taking home leftovers by marketing it as a part of their sustainable/environmentally responsible stance; they could even make a profit on it, if it was carefully thought out ('Our portions/spread are/is generous, bring containers to prevent food waste, or we sell elegant, reusable containers for this purpose!'). It may sound cynical, but if the end result is reduced waste and an increased awareness of this problem, it'd be worth it. Besides, I know plenty of people would like to ask to take away leftovers, but feel too embarrassed to do this (I do). This would just mean making people feel a bit smug about it.

I often add winter squash or sweet potato puree to tomato-based dishes, especially when I'm using traditional Mexican herbs and spices. It adds an earthiness that I really like.

Could you use one of those containers intended to hold kitchen utensils? Many are shorter than you want, but I'm fairly certain I've seen ones that have roughly the dimensions you need, and they come in a variety of materials that would last mor or less forever.

Laab moo with a dressing of fish sauce, lime juice, roasted peanuts, dried shrimp, chillies and palm sugar over a bunch of lettuce, because I couldn't find a green papaya for the originally-planned salad (pre-ground toasted rice powder in the laab, because the one time I made it myself I over-estimated what 'low heat' meant, and after one hour the rice was was barely darker, but I decided to grind it anyway, and it seems to have been too hard...all in all, it took two hours).

I usually use a vertical container (cup or jar), which has a small footprint, corrals drips, and ensures that nothing runs back along the handles.

It does make sense that insects are sold as novelties/snacks, the price will reflect that, but these mealworms are actually being sold alongside things such as regular and vegan mince, apparently meant to be consumed as the/a principal protein in a meal, so the prices should be comparable, especially given the actual production costs.

@Smithy Thanks! For people to actually begin to consume insects in the West, the price barrier has got to be minimized, because for now, at least, no one is going to pay significntly more for insects (which are far, far cheaper to raise than conventional livestock) than they'd pay for ribeye in a higher-end supermarket. I feel like a hypocrite, but I had to pass on the mealworms: protein that costs about EUR 67 per kilo/USD 33 per pound is not something I can really afford, and I know this is true of a lot of people. Even people who can easily afford that are likely to have strong reservations about that price point for insects.

Here's a question: leaving aside your feelings about eating insects, what do they cost in your area? This past Monday I revisited the question of eating insects in an EFL classroom discussion. I'm in Denmark, and the discussion—which addressed the aesthetics of eating insects and the environmental impact of raising vertebrate meat vs insects—didn't become extreme: feelings about eating insects ranged from enthusiastic, to 'sure, why not', to 'I don't like the idea, but it deserves a fair trial'. Tuesday, I decided to put my money where my mouth was, and to experiment with some insects. I meant to do this before, but conveniently forgot; I'm not enthusiastic about the idea, but it's increasingly clear that eating meat at the current scale is not sustainable (e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/good-grub-why-we-might-be-eating-insects-soon). A few years ago, most supermarkets had some sort of insect product, but not any more. The only place that carried any insects was the supermarket in one of the local departmentmental stores, and they had a much smaller selection than before: just frozen mealworms and grasshopper young, though they were out of the latter. At least the choice was simple! I took a quick look at the back, because I was curious about the amount of protein per 100 grams (17.6 g, which is decent), and saw that there wasn't much in the package, just 150 grams. And these were imported from Belgium, rather than being a local product. I'd already noticed the price, DKK 74.95 (USD 10.85/EUR 10.05), which wasn't fantastic, given the amount, but then I took a closer look at the kilo price. DKK 499.67 (USD 72.35/EUR 67.02 per kilo) is 25% more then the kilo price of the shop's most expensive cuts of beef (and the not-present grasshopper young are even more expensive). This pricing is problematic, because not only does it add to the barriers to buying and consuming insects, but it makes no sense at all: one of the points in favour of raising insects as food is that it is very cost-effective, especially compared to raising conventional livestock (also, insects are easily raised at home, which means that competitive pricing is a must for commercial success). Are these prices widespread throughout the West? I'd really like to hear what prices you're seeing for mealworms and other insect protein, where you live.

Thank you for posting this, Dave. No words for how sad this is.

@heidih, @TicTac, @Anna N, @Kerry Beal, @blue_dolphin, @haresfur, @DianaB, @KennethT, thank you so much for these suggestions (@Kerry Beal, what is Shaker pie?). My plan is to look at all these recipes, and see which involves the shortest cooking time, because I'd really like to preserve the exceptional scent these have. [I ate another of these, because I felt I should give them a fair trial. It was rough. I think part of the problem is that the skin is as thick as a regular lemon, so the peel to pulp ratio is a bit skewed.]

Many Jews are secular, and regularly consume things that could never be kosher under any circumstances (including pork). However, it's not unusual to feel a tiny pang of guilt about this, or to at least feel that you should feel guilty about this...which gives rise to lots of jokes about Jews and non-kosher/trayf food

Today I picked up a basket of what are described as 'snacking lemons': They're 4 to 5 cm long, and meant to be eaten whole, peel and all. They were just DKK 20 (a little under USD 3), so I thought 'okay, I'm in!' These smell amazing. I washed a couple, then ate one whole, and it was a bit of a struggle, because eating the peel felt and tasted strange, waxy-oily and so intensely lemony that it made me think of some sort of household cleaner, and I tried to not think about the fact that citrus oil is a major component of cleansers that are used to remove graffiti. When I finished it, I found myself wondering, 'what have I done???' My lips burned in a way that suggested contact with some sort of solvent. I drank a lot water. After a while, my lips stopped burning, and I was left with the strange sensation of drinking something carbonated, even though I was drinking plain tap water. Once the effects of the first lemon faded, I sliced another, and incorporated it into a wrap. It wasn't terrible, but the assertive peel didn't add anything that thrilled me. The pulp is about as acidic as an ordinary lemon, which I liked in the wrap. I haven't decided what to do with the rest of these: has anyone tried these, and if so, how did you use them?

For peperonata, the peppers are sliced into strips, so the only way to include the seeds would be to put the stripped core beside the strips during cooking.

The standard recipes don't include vinegar, but in some regions (according to the recipes, Abruzzo and Sicily) it's sometimes added, and some recipes mention the option of doing an agrodolce version.

It does, though I've done this only a few times. I tried to reproduce some delicious cinnamon rice-pudding empanadas that I had at a place in Park slope (now gone), and this filling froze really well. I just portioned out amounts equal to the amount in one, froze them on baking paper, and stored them in a silicone bag. Fruit fillings have tended to get a bit watery, though.