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Thanks PanCan! I was wondering about a mutation, because both plants come from the seeds of the same single chili fruit, and I've rotated the 'curly' tree several times, as well as switched the positions of the two plants, to see whether it affected the curling; so far, it hasn't. Taste fine, anyway.

Anyone have information about curling chilies? We have two smallish chili trees, and the chilies on one are mostly curled into tight, flat spirals. They taste the same as the normal chilies, and actually look kind of cool, but I was wondering what was going on. Is this just some sort of fairly common mutation?

I experimented with something similar. In terms of maintaining freshness, bread staled at a significantly slower rate than when wrapped in cloth and stored in a plastic bag. Unfortunately, the bread had a tendency to mould, which is a problem I've virtually never encountered before. This is partly attributable to the fact that the box was only opened once every 24 hours, when my boyfriend made breakfast and sandwiches for his packed lunch. On the other hand, if the box was being opened frequently enough to allow ventilation/moisture buildup, I'd guess that keeping the food under vacuum wouldn't make much, if any difference.

Leaving out the leavening doesn't make for a crisper cookie, just a flatter, slightly denser one (i.e. particularly suited to being handled a good deal while being decorated).

What do raw egg whites bring to a cocktail? Raw, they have minimal flavour (I used to take my eggs raw, since I dislike them cooked), and the consistency would be diluted in any significant amount of fluid. Are they added just so you can make the drink foamy?

Corollary to the preceding post: leave out the leavening in whatever recipe you normally use; they'll still rise a bit, but very little (I've done this).

'Surprise'. Yep, that's one way of describing that, and definitely worth a picture The possible 1000 words that might be prompted by someone finding an eyeball in their Scotch egg should be pretty good, too.

A 'spillehal' is a game arcade, not what you'd generally describe as a cosy or welcoming place. However, this one, at least, does have what strikes me as a charmingly Danish (and fairly amusing) take on the whole concept: the sign at the bottom (Altid kaffe på kanden samt kage/brød) notes that there is always a pot of coffee and cake/bread.

Thanks, liuzhou! Is this at the stand, or on your kitchen counter? If the latter, please post pictures of whatever you make with these.

I'd second the Fibrox, mentioned above. We have the 8" chef's knife, and although my hands are quite small (a bit short of 6.5" from the base of the palm to the tip of the middle finger), I have no problem with either the size or weight. It was recommended in Cooks Illustrated, and although I had intial reservations about the plastic handle, the price was low enough that is seemed worth a go, just to satisfy my curiosity. The handle is actually very comfortable in the hand, the blade holds its edge well, and all in all, I'm really happy with it.

I'm left-handed, too, and I love the Messermister. The OXO has a nice and squishy handle, but the Messermeister seems like the blade is sharper, and is one of those tools that gives that 'extension of your hand' feel. I don't know how many years we've had our peeler, but it's never been sharpened, and still zips skin off like magic.

Add goat to the mix, and call it 'here's looking at you kid' stew [sorry. Just... had to.] Hey! Where's that eyeball stand picture?! I really want to see how big this stall is...

Give us a picture, please! This is a gallery (and the title is, I think, fair warning), so if you can stomach taking the picture, we can handle gazing upon it in all its glory. And, if you cook something that includes them and add a picture of that, that would be the icing on the cake. I'm curious as to how big the stall is, since meeting even a heavy demand for pig eyeballs wouldn't seem to take up that much space.

Any of the ones discussed here work for you? I really like Messermeister's swivel peeler, strikes me as pretty hard to improve on.

Water. Wine, occasionally, particularly if we're dining out. The milk with dinner (or any meal) really blew my mind when we family movd back to the US; when I was a kid in Italy, this was just not a thing (don't think it is now, either).

I've recently found that rolled millet flakes make a solid stand-in for bread crumbs, both in coatings, and in things like panades and meatballs (I'm aware that consuming substantial amounts of millet – e.g. a lot of millet bread daily – carries the risk of a potential suppressive effect on the thyroid gland, but unless you're eating crazy amounts of 'breaded' foods/meatballs/etc., you should be fine).

If there is an ipercoop near you, they may well have it; I remember regularly seeing lemongrass at one in Milano, which always surprised me, for some reason.

Any polymerized fat/muck is best scraped off with an oven/ice scraper (depending on the surface), if you can manage it without damaging the surface beneath.

Even seven years ago, there were a lot fewer companies that had an online presence. Hell, today, there are still plenty of companies that have no website.

If they do, you can do the Eddie Izzard in Italy thing to them - hop on your Vespa and say "ciao!" like you're the coolest person ever. You've got P. edulis flavicarpa - there's an additional level of ripeness indication with those. They'll turn purple entirely before they start wrinkling up like humiliated grapes. Well, after reading that, I ended up saying 'Ciao' to the lot (no Vespa, so I just had to settle for eating them in a devastatingly cool way), since I decided to hack one open and see how the flavour compared with the wrinkly-state ones. It was very good. So good that I gazed at the others, reflected a good two seconds on your earlier comment regarding the purgative effect of eating more than one, then decided to chalk up any distressing outcomes to 'science' (sounds way more respectable than 'greed'), and scarfed down the other two. The only thing that puzzles me is that the flavour for this particular kind doesn't seem to be significantly different before and after wrinkling.

Thanks! I've now got three purply-green guys sitting in the fruit bowl... I just hope they don't do that Eddie Izzard recalcitrant-ripening-fruit thing.

Can passion fruit be ripened, once it's been picked? The only ones locally available are unripe, so I've never bothered with them, but if ripening them is an option, I'd love to give that a go.

I always had a problem with 'best', when it comes to food [ingredients], since it suggests a weirdly subjective broad consensus, and because of this, it feels (to me) like your question can't work; swap in 'most appropriate' or 'favourite' for 'too good', and your question makes sense (but then become rhetorical).

The flavour sounds like dilute version of the passion fruit you see most often in shops, which only taste good when the outside looks like the fruit is too old, and has gone wrinkly. Does the fruit on these go to that stage?

Mrs. Beeton's book gives very similar ingredient lists and processes for both Scotch and Welsh rarebit: TOASTED CHEESE, or SCOTCH RARE-BIT. 1651. INGREDIENTS.—A few slices of rich cheese, toast, mustard, and pepper. [illustration: HOT-WATER CHEESE-DISH.] Mode.—Cut some nice rich sound cheese into rather thin slices; melt it in a cheese-toaster on a hot plate, or over steam, and, when melted, add a small quantity of mixed mustard and a seasoning of pepper; stir the cheese until it is completely dissolved, then brown it before the fire, or with a salamander. Fill the bottom of the cheese-toaster with hot water, and serve with dry or buttered toasts, whichever may be preferred. Our engraving illustrates a cheese-toaster with hot-water reservoir: the cheese is melted in the upper tin, which is placed in another vessel of boiling water, so keeping the preparation beautifully hot. A small quantity of porter, or port wine, is sometimes mixed with the cheese; and, if it be not very rich, a few pieces of butter may be mixed with it to great advantage. Sometimes the melted cheese is spread on the toasts, and then laid in the cheese-dish at the top of the hot water. Whichever way it is served, it is highly necessary that the mixture be very hot, and very quickly sent to table, or it will be worthless. Time.—About 5 minutes to melt the cheese. Average cost, 1-1/2d. per slice. Sufficient.—Allow a slice to each person. Seasonable at any time. TOASTED CHEESE, or WELSH RARE-BIT. 1652. INGREDIENTS.—Slices of bread, butter, Cheshire or Gloucester cheese, mustard, and pepper. Mode.—Cut the bread into slices about 1/2 inch in thickness; pare off the crust, toast the bread slightly without hardening or burning it, and spread it with butter. Cut some slices, not quite so large as the bread, from a good rich fat cheese; lay them on the toasted bread in a cheese-toaster; be careful that the cheese does not burn, and let it be equally melted. Spread over the top a little made mustard and a seasoning of pepper, and serve very hot, with very hot plates. To facilitate the melting of the cheese, it may be cut into thin flakes or toasted on one side before it is laid on the bread. As it is so essential to send this dish hot to table, it is a good plan to melt the cheese in small round silver or metal pans, and to send these pans to table, allowing one for each guest. Slices of dry or buttered toast should always accompany them, with mustard, pepper, and salt. Time.—About 5 minutes to melt the cheese. Average cost, 1-1/2d. each slice. Sufficient.—Allow a slice to each person. Seasonable at any time. Note.—Should the cheese be dry, a little butter mixed with it will be an improvement. (Source, http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10136/pg10136.html [this is in the public domain])