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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.

How important is the amount of space available in which to install it? If it recirculates, it seems as though it wouldn't need much more space than is needed to accommodate it, but I may be mistaken.

@weinoo @Duvel Please tell me more about the range hoods you're using, including where you got them!

Does anyone else have a kitchen without a range hood, and have you found a useful workaround? The building I live in was built in 1937, and the kitchen is small, narrow, and has no range hood; presumably, it never did, as I don't see any place that it could have vented, though the original window may have had one pane modified to accommodate a vent. The current window is just one large sheet of glass, so that wouldn't be an option, now. I cook quite a bit, though I don't fry much, but I'd love to not have to scrub the entire kitchen every time I sauté or stir-fry. I've looked for some sort of effective alternative to a conventional, installed range hood, but haven't found anything. Have any of you?

Why ('havtorn' is sea buckthorn)? The miso feels like a pointless, try-hard ingredient here, but the sea buckthorn is what strikes me as the note that would make this a one-bite-then-bin item. It is extremely acidic and fruity (I love it on its own), and there's no other ingredient in this combination that would make it play nicely with everything else; I'd expect it to almost stab the palate. I want to say I wouldn't try this if you paid me, but I'm probably going to get one, and encourage my boyfriend (who is more adventurous than I am about food) to take one for the team (do not get me started on whether or not this truly qualifies a croissant ).

@paulraphaelClearspring produces a brown rice for sushi that has a very pleasant cooked texture, and I'm fairly certain I've seen it in NYC. I used it for risotto, to settle the question of whether or not this is truly doable: the texture is good (not at all mushy), though the surface of the rice has a bit too much presence to make for a strictly traditionally-textured risotto (but I think this would be true of any brown rice).

'Peperoncino' is just the generic name for the array of capsicum varietals (i.e. chillies), so some of them aren't particularly spicy.

But it's used to mean so many things other than filled chocolates, including many sweets that involve no chocolate, and those ice cream...thingies, if they still exist.

Has anyone mentioned 'bonbon' as a word that needs to go? Apart from being twee, it's applied to so many different things that it means nothing in particular.

There's some discussion of this here, too:

Its use is prohibited in infant formula and organic foods, but otherwise, it is permitted food additive (at least, since 2018).

Extremely sad about this, the forums will be less for this.

I'd just go with a royal icing, add a bit of finely-ground edible charcoal, and press some canvas against it before it fully hardens, to give a rough, dull texture. Is an icing a must? I once thought it would be a great idea to make empandas with buckwheat flour, and although they were tasty, the crust was a surprise, a concrete grey; buckwheat flour may be an option that would let you skip an icing.

I did see that it was supposed to be vegetarian, but since some of the experiments have included cream, it seemed okay if it wasn't vegan..?

Have you tried agg white as a gelling agent? Not only does it tolerate heat, heat actually sets it. You could make something along the lines of a Swiss buttercream, but omit the sugar, and use mushroom-infused cream instead of butter (e.g. https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/swiss-meringue-buttercream/); also, it should be easy to pipe.

Only in the homes of artisans. Whose craft is making pizza

From 1892, Drinks of the World, courtesy of Project Gutenberg.