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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.

Not a sweet, but something I often bake in small batches: empanadas. I make large batches of filling and dough, and they keep in the refrigerator (or freezer) for making a couple at a time, as I want them. Sometimes I do make a large batch and freeze them, but they're nicest when they're freshly made, and I can add some fresh herbs and such to the filling before baking.

From what the OP said, it seems as though serving cassoulet as something for two is (was?) traditional, but your portion sounds remarkably large. Perhaps they served extra, to compensate for how long you had to wait..?

Part of what I'm wondering is how much this reflects current cocktail trends. When I've discussed this product with friends who are bartenders, they've been rather unreceptive. And every single one mentioned @pastrygirl's thoughts about getting the glasses clean. But CR must have done some focus-group work before launching this, it must have some appeal to some group, somewhere..?

I came across 'RimLicks' as the latest cocktail trend on Chef Rubber's Instagram account. I confess I think it can look kind of pretty, but I have many, many questions, including 'Isn't this potentially spectacularly messy?' (what with people absent-mindedly tipping their glasses this way and that, to get the last bit of this stuff off the glass) and 'Has CR's marketing unit considered the implications of this name?'. Has anyone actually seen this in the wild, so to speak? Thoughts..? ETA, I keep trying to get the spelling of this product right, but on CR's web site and Insstagram account there are four different spellings, and I've no idea which is correct/official.

I love pea shoots, but I wouldn't cook them unless I had concerns about the safety of eating them raw.

I have to admit that when I saw the jelly sweet, I thought it was very pretty, and the inclusion of osmanthus intrigued me...but I'd forgotten about goji berries being a so-called superfood.

Thanks, @liuzhou, and yes, the first and third pictures are of the same cake. I suspected that 'honeycomb' was what was intended by 'bee nest', and it was honey flavoured; steaming would explain the texture, which was very springy. Wish I'd got more. I've had osmathus-flavoured sweets before (Thai, I think), but they were osmanthus only, and very slightly disappointing, because the osmanthus perfumed the sweet, but didn't bring any bitterness or other complexity, so it was a bit cloying. The goji berry/osmanthus jelly was interesting, because the berries had no textural presence at all: I could see and taste them, or at least their very welcome acidity, but texturally they'd completely merged into the gel. @heidi, the texture was a tiny bit like injera, but more resilient: I kind of hate to use the expression 'tensile strength', because it may suggest inedibility (and this was great!), but I'd describe this as having more tensile strength than injera (which I actually had a few days after this), a bit more chew, though it wasn't really chewy.

Recently, I had these in Chinatown (NYC): I was curious, and wanted to know something about them, but it was busy and loud, and the lady behind the counter didn't speak much English, so I left none the wiser: anybody know something about these? They were quite delicious!

Would it be possible to fill a mould, then put the filled mould in a vacuum container, and expand the filling that way?

Thanks for sharing your gorgeous trip! Everytime I've flown through Iceland (read, 'all I've seen of Iceland is from the air, Keflavik airport, and what you can see from its windows'), I've promised myself an actual visit. The Scandinavian countries are almost weirdly enthusiastic about chillies; part of it may have to do with the fact that you can easily grow them in a pot, even in a nordic climate, but I suspect that the traditional cuisines, which tend to be unrelentingly bland, do make some heat a very welcome addition in the kitchen.

I've already begun...I know a decent recirculating unit is going to cost a bit, and I'm trying to figure out how to pull this off.

This is now at the top of my (very short) wish list

Thank you, and apologies for being so slow to reply: I was buried in work. This is appealing, though a bit expensive, and I'd probably have to leave it behind when I move...and I wonder how difficult it would be for me to install on my own. Installation looks relatively straightforward. There's a more or less open space immediately above the stove: I have a very tightly edited selection of kitchenware, and put away almost everything except my microwave and vacuum sealer (they're covered in a thick cloth; the black thing to the right of the stove), because cleaning any more often than I already have to would drive me mad. I'd love a window fan, but it isn't an option, because the window is one large pane, and either tilts open at the top (it's like this almost year-round), or can be opened completely, which is great for ventilating in a hurry, but otherwise useless if I'm cooking, because it opens against the front of the stove: I'm intrigued by people's extremely varied experiences with recirculating fans; it sounds as though are a lot of useless models, and just a few effective ones.