Mjx

Oh, okay: I don't use wikipedia much for itself, but for the references listed with the articles, so your expertise on this matter exceeds mine by several orders of magnitude. When it comes to citing what lies in the territory between common awareness (e.g. US stop signs are octagonal, most bread is made of flour of some sort) and easily checked by going to the source (e.g. HP Sauce contains vinegar), citations might actually erode credibility to some extent. Case in point: As an undergraduate, one of the assignments for my Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy class was to write up one of the dinosaurs. Since I'd been interested in animals, including dinosaurs, since I was a kid, and had an accurate and retentive memory, I knew (i.e. had internalized to the point where I had no recollection of the original source) the bulk of what I was writing about. I wrote up my essay, and then, since I have a horror of being accused of plagiarism, looked up every piece of information I'd included, and found solid, credible references for each. My bibliography was practically an almanac, and the entire things was solid. I got a B+ on it. The reason was that I hadn't 'contributed any of my own knowledge', I'd (apparently) 'just looked everything up'. And it wasn't an unreasonable assessment, even though I was miserable about it; part of writing articles and essays is bringing something of one's personal knowledge to the table (otherwise, why write about that specific topic, unless it's part of your job) I'm careful about finding references to support my statements (depressing dino essay experience notwithstanding), and cheerfully pestered a well-known author with biographical questions, to make sure I had accurate dates (online sources were looking dodgy), but just as different forms of media demand different reference formats, so (I believe) do different types of information require different levels of formality, when it comes to reference material. Or, taking it as a question: If one were to mention the warning to not give nuts to children under six that appears on the jars of Planter's products, would phoning and citing a trade board for this information make for greater credibility than taking a picture of the statement on the label itself? I'm only talking about information of this sort, which may be confirmed (or refuted) by anyone to whom the information is relevant (e.g. here in Denmark, everyone knows about 'grownup liquorice', and has the opportunity to see the warning; I don't think you could so easily find it in the States, and would probably have to bribe the average child substantially to eat so much as one piece ). If in doubt, though. . . yep, I'd err on the side of caution. I confess to this paralysis; I really do worry that I won't have cited the most reliable source, and have been spending hours tracking down seminal sources of information, which are often government sites, then I worry that they may be inaccurate, owing to some agenda. So, I spend a lot of time wondering what consitutes a 'best source' for a given piece/type of information (e.g. should I find documentation to support the statement that liquorice comes in colours other than black?).

The cornmeal I've seen about, whether for polenta or anything else, is quite fine; grain selections are restricted to 'what everyone buys' and 'hip now, entirely forgotten in two years'. So I can find quinoa (a novelty here, surprisingly), and various forms of buckwheat and rye (traditional), but that's pretty much it. I've also just discovered a further obstacle in my boyfriend's lack of unenthusiasm for any grain that is in pieces smaller than rice (or anything 'squishy'), which put paid to last night's intended use of quinoa. Yeah... we had shrimp and rice. But I haven't given up yet.

I've been offered money to write reviews. As far as I'm concerned, that's enough to undermine faith in any guide.

Finding the two basic ingredients here is proving a not only a challenge, but is providing some interesting insight to Danish food culture: For example, shrimp are almost exclusively eaten on sandwiches here, so the larger ones are difficult to find. Since making anything even remotely authentic is not going to be possible until I get back to NYC, I've decided to use the concept of shrimp and grits as a point of departure for composing a Nordic-inspired version, using small shrimp, and traditional/indigenous rye or buckwheat.

Doesn't wikipedia usually have a large note at the top of any article that lacks citations, or has questionable/inaccurate information? I have a question about digging up a citation for what is known, at least by oneself (I'm not talking about 'I think/believe/feel', but 'I know'). For example, I know from personal experience that in Denmark, many liquorice sweets containing ammonium chloride (aka salmiak) are labelled 'for adults only'; I've seen this with my own eyes, and certainly understand enough Danish for this to be very clear to me. But if I mention this in a wiki article, is it acceptable to simply note this in passing, or should I find a reference (possibly only available in Danish) that states this (when it comes to discussing the reason for this labelling, I'd definitely include a reference; I'm just talking about mentioning the existence of this labelling)? The former option would lack a citation, but is verifiable by anyone who wishes to do so, whether they happen to be visiting Denmark, or contact one of the candy manufacturers. The latter option, digging up a citation (essentially, data mining), would involve documentation, but would also imply that my knowledge is only second-hand (not to mention the fact that citations aren't implicitly accurate, and verifying them requires as much work as verifying a personal statement). How does this work? I can't consider my reading food labels (or personal observation of practices and techniques) in the category of original research, so those guidelines don't quite fit.

The only classes I found listed (in either English or Spanish) online are in Mexico. Perhaps a shop that sells Mexican food, and that has a notice board may have something to offer; you might even put up a note asking about this. From looking at some images and recipes, I get the impression that if you have the ingredients and equipment (fantes.com has a pretty decent selection of molds), this is one you can pretty much think out, once you've read up on the behaviour of gelatin.

Not that I've seen; this is a smallish town, and I'm trying to think whether there's any speciality shop I've missed; I don't think so. So, I'm going to be making shrimp and quinoa.

This may seem horribly like missing the point, but is there any acceptable, perhaps even common substitute for grits? I'm having no luck finding them, here... none at all.

I have seeds: spinach and rucola. Every year I plan to grow baby greens in trays, and then inevitably fail to get around to it. So, I'm hoping that the packets will serve as a reminder. The only growing spaces we have are the window sills and two small balconies, so my idea is to focus on plants that are happy in containers. Incidentally, for those of you who have more extensive gardens, the Farm in my Pocket site has a lot of practical and interesting information (I enjoy reading it, even though I have no occasion to apply most of the content), as is the Hedgewizard site it grew from.

I've found that a restaurant's treatment of something simple/cheap gives a pretty good sense of their overall attitude: If I order a cup of coffee, and some fries with gravy (stop laughing and rolling on the floor, already), or cassoulet (in a place that doesn't pretend it's something fancier than it actually is), and the waiter doesn't curl his or her lip, and the food is carefully prepared, I'll probaby be back.

Thanks! I was starting to think that I'd have to just pick up some things at L'Epicerie when I was in NYC, and I didn't really love the idea of transporting bags/jars of white poweders through customs, and having the TSA folks open and paw everything with dirty rubber gloves.

Almost forgot, Reese's cups for me too, but for a completely different reason: Last time I got them, I stopped at a news stand to get some; I hadn't eaten all day, so I'd unwrapped them, and was starting in on one while waiting for my change, and I glanced down at the newspapers, one of which had a screaming headline about a man who'd been decapitated by a momentarily stalled lift while trying to help a woman inside. This was so shocking and depressing, I backed and wandered away without getting my change, and binned the remainerd of the candy. Can't look at the damn things without thinking about this. Ugh.

One other thing that I love about the CJ-4000 is that it has a power cord, so if the batteries go while I'm in the middle of something (my old OBH did this routinely, and devoured batteries, into the bargain), you just plug it in, and carry on. Whatever model you get, I really do recommend getting one that has this feature.

Woo! Thanks Do images need to be uploaded to the wiki's database before being used in an article? It sort of looks that way, but I may have completely misunderstood. (I see there is no emoticon indicating 'clutches at hair') [Raises hand] English teacher over here.[/raises hand] How many times have I taught semi-colons? How many times will I screw them up? Please. Like KA said, someone will come along and fix them. You may even, if they're the right kind of person, bring them a small amount of joy for having made the mistake. . . . . Yeah, I know, and I'm always reminding people that copyediting your own writing inevitably falls short of perfection, since you know what you expect to be there, and don't see what actually is there. But in my own mind, I figure I'm expected to not drop the ball on these things. Ever.

I know a bit about tea, enough to feel daunted by the idea of tackling it. So, I probably will, although I'm sorting out another article at the moment. Which brings me to my question: How do you set up a Contents box at the top of an entry? I flicked back and forth in the article on eggs, comparing the code and the actual page result, and I can see that putting ==at either side of the heading== has something to do with it, but when I tried it in the prosciutto article, I still didn't get a Contents box, so I've obviously screwed something up. If there's an explanation of this on the site, please let me know, and I'll have another bash at it. Thanks!

Just looked up what beignet are in the US, and I can see how the advice to not make them in advance makes sense (the ones I grew up with, in Italy, are iced profiteroles with pastry cream, rather than ice cream). Incidentally, if you really want to bring individual-portion sweets, Italian beignet really do lend themselves to being made in advance, and assembled at the last minute, and you could ice them in the colours of a King cake (or use green, purple, and yellow sugar over a white or chocolate sugar icing).

I haven't had any problems with Word copy/paste (I'm on a Mac, and using Firefox). I know, I know... typos are nothing, really, but I'm a copyeditor, so if I screw up on spelling or punctuaation, I feel like crawling into a hole

If we're talking about the same thing (and since you mention frying, I'm sort of wondering), you can make the shells, pastry cream, and glaze ahead of time, and assemble them at the last minute, which really simplifies transport.

Is the minimum capacity of 11 lbs carved in stone? Because I can really recommend (okay: I adore mine) the Jennings CJ-4000 scale, but it only weighs up to 4 kg, or about 8 lbs, but apart from that, it meets your criteria. It also has a great warantee (10 years, if I remember correctly). 'Fluid ounce' is misleading: it's a volume measurement, so you'd want a measuring cup/pitcher for that.

I never could figure that out myself, since the serving sizes usually seem small to me, and I'm not a large person (and I have a not-particularly large appetite). Maybe they're sized to be easily multipled, since many people seem to have a harder time with division than multiplication. Most likely, the quantities just strike the people who determine serving size as nice, tidy amounts, and they like that.

I've been writing my entries in a Word document (including any coding for links/brackets), then copy/pasting the text into the wiki, and definitely recommend it. The idea of doing hours of reseach and then having the result vanish into the ether makes my blood run cold (just for variety, the blood ran hotly to my face yesterday, as I realized that the one article I had written directly online had two typos I'd overlooked).

Maybe a cultural thing? The only time I ever noticed a man doing that, he was also eating a hamburger impaled on a fork, and acting as though it was a very ordinary thing to do; he was an exchange student at the Graduate Center at 34th Street.

Last time I had a gas stove, I decided to clean it after living in the place for a year, and found a wee, mummified mouse.

I have wormy spelt flour in the freezer. My boyfriend proudly bought up masses of it when it was deeply discounted (Huh. Wonder why...), but didn't notice that there were those webby-looking bits around the folds at the top and bottom of the bags. I didn't have the heart to mention it (it weighed a ton, and he did it as a special favour to me, because I don't tolerate wheat that well), and couldn't bring myself to toss it, either, since it's so expensive here, so I sifted a bag, and concluded that the worms were mostly on the outside, and shoved the lot into a plastic bin liner and put that in the freezer, where they've been sitting at -16C for a month or so. The kitchen floor sometimes gets embarrassing (feet make sticking noises when I walk across it, although not since the flat's been up for sale), and the inside of the oven is atrocious looking with the polymerized and blackened fat of dozens of roast chickens. I'm afraid that if I try the pyrolysis feature, I might burn down the building, so nothing changes, apart from my scraping the inside of the glass door with a razor blade, giving a fine view of the encrusted interior. I console myself by reflecting on the fact that since the oven is used regularly, usually at 200 C or higher, it's actually not germy. I also have a really nasty-looking copper-clad frying pan that I have tried to clean on several occasions, but I cannot get the brasso to do its thing for me.

Lipstick?