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When you do tell us, make sure to let us know if they divulge a %cocoa solids or other info about the stuff... I'm interested to know if the ruby thing is a concentration of solids thing so it can only come in a very limited range of % or if it is a processing thing and you can get ruby from 30-80% like other chocolate types.

Thai style nduja?

Just saw a friend on FB mention this article, which sort of fits in with the discussion and is a worthwhile read: https://www.tastecooking.com/buddhist-mock-meats-paradox/

And TftC, no, they should not be chitinous or like biting your fingernails .

I've read season is pretty much all summer... April/May through to September... and that jives with availability around here. I'd imagine that they could be a year round thing if some aquaculture guys figured out how to trick the crabs in a tank into thinking it is molting season. Must be a water temperature thing, and if there's anything in a tank you _can_ control, it's the temperature. This seems like a paper with more than anybody might possible care to know about production of the beasties. As the paper says, they'll harden up within hours of molting unless you yank them right out of the water.

Good pick, Del Maguey makes good stuff. I've had the drink at D&Co.... it's nice. I've never tried the Crema de Mezcal... did you also add the agave syrup?

Oh, and Smokeydoke- Your thoughts back in January about scotch and mezcal brought to mind the observation that those two spirits are very much alike in their intensity and potential to be very smokey. Both are stuff you'd need to try in small portions before dropping the dough on a full bottle of something you might not like... some scotches are very polarizing... Some people love Ardbeg ... but I find it has a disturbing undertone of low tide to it that I just don't like. Probably gets it from being aged in a coastal warehouse rather than inland. There are lots of categories of scotch, so make sure not to give up on the whole scotch thing just because one of the categories doesn't make your taste buds dance. Mezcal is similarly differentiated, though more uniformly smokey, I think...

Strega is definitely a fun sub in for yellow chartreuse. I'm going to have to try making my own falernum as well... though the bottle on my shelf has not been seeing much use, so I wonder if it is worth the bother... but the joy of homemade is that I control the batch size.

I think that the one-off nature of this challenge makes it unworkable. The idea of starting from zero and cooking something on a budget is totally unrealistic for most people. We all have a pantry/freezer of stuff we've built up. Dipping into that stuff is just a part of how cooking happens for most people. Nobody pretends they have a bare cupboard and a $5 bill to put dinner on the table. As for challenges, I've seen people talking about the "SNAP challenge", e.g. live for a month on a food stamps budget. I think seeing how people in various places face that could be interesting. We'd get to see what various localities' cheap eats are... Setting the challenge to a bunch of foodies, and allowing dipping into the pantry, would be a fascinating read and perhaps some inspiration. Watching somebody go shopping with a $5 bill and make a single meal is not so interesting.

Where in the EV? Is this the new incarnation of the Indonesian joint on 4th just west of 1st that has gone through several names and business concepts over the past decade?

Giving that a try right now. Had s-v lamb chops for dinner... mixed bag juice about 1:1 with boiling water and heated on the stove until crystal clear. Now in ice cube tray for my next batch of scotch broth.

Was it this: http://eatthisny.com/2010/01/07/tony-100-best-09/14-raw-shrimp-salad-at-ayada/ ? That is yummy!

This conversation just brought to mind a thought-- now that we live in a world with such technological wonders as juicers in it, is there a point to making vegetable stock, when instead, you could weigh out 2:1:1 onions, carrots, celery and a sprig of parsley and run them through the juicer? If the aromatic flavors are the objective, why not have an ice cube tray of aromatics juice to use on demand? I should do the experiment myself... but has anybody thought along these lines and done any investigation in that direction? Juice, clarify, freeze, drop into recipes as needed?

I think that the "stock" that people get all rapturous about and say how much it improves things is not the vegetable stock you're working with. It is the long simmered animal bones. That extracts gelatin and really does have a nice effect on mouthfeel that boxed broths don't match. Recipes often suggest that water is OK to substitute for vegetable stock...

I agree 100%. M&R red is not something I'm happy to encounter.

When you say your boozery has nothing fussy or exotic, just how basic are we talking? Do they have rum from anybody but Bacardi? What percentage of the shelf space is devoted to vodka? If you're in a just-the-big-brands-and-lots-of-vodka zone, you're not going have much luck making cocktails that are interesting until you can get some herbs and make your own syrups to add flavor to the neutral booze. That's more of a summer project. Tho, anybody can mail order bitters, which add interest to some of the blander stuff.

You need to figure out what mode you want to be drinking in... quick and boozy, like a Manhattan or Martini; tall and fizzy like a Gin and Tonic; dry; sweet; wine-like; bitter; slushy; booze-soaked fruit... there's lots of directions you could go in. "I want a cocktail" is a lot like "I want some food". You've gotta be a bit specific, or you might get escargot instead of creme brulee...

It's for making ice cream, not cocktails...

Saw this article in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/grandmas-food-how-changing-tastes-are-killing-german-restaurants/2018/03/19/de4c4994-0b93-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html?tid=sm_fb. I wonder if the issue is that German restaurants that had the social cache to be big money fine dining venues have lost that advantage. I've never been to any of the spots mentioned in the article. The best German food I've found in my corner of the USA is adjacent to Fort Dix in NJ, obviously aimed at folks who had been stationed in Germany and gained an appreciation of the local food there. Not a fine dining joint by any means. Looks like its building began life as a fast food joint and got retrofitted into what it is now. Excellent schnitzels and spaetzles. What is your experience of German food in the USA (or where you are) lately?

The new location is 20 miles from me... I really need to get down there and try their stuff... Something to do after this round of snow.

You've gotta take into account waste and leakage, so I'd say that $.20/l is more reasonable an approximation in my own case... but the minimal cost difference for a 10lb and a 20lb fill might make up the difference... I'm now wondering if I want to retire my 10lb tank.. but I just don't think I want to do that.

The Jasmine is one of my favorite cocktails...must give this variant or your riff on it a try. I've been using Ikea's elderflower syrup instead of orange liqueurs, so will probably add that spin of my own to it.

What you're looking for is: 1) a tank: https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Cylinder-Handle-CGA320-Valve/dp/B0088P10OO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521297900&sr=8-2&keywords=20+lb+co2+tank&dpID=31zyh6yydfL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch 2) a regulator: https://www.amazon.com/Taprite-Primary-Regulator-3741-BR-Draft/dp/B00PZM6H7S/ref=sr_1_11?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1521297972&sr=1-11&keywords=co2+regulator 3) a gas line: https://www.amazon.com/16-Gas-Line-Assembly-Ball/dp/B0064OI77Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1521298041&sr=1-3&keywords=ball+lock+gas+line&dpID=419E02PgkoL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch and 4) a carbonator cap: https://www.amazon.com/16-Gas-Line-Assembly-Ball/dp/B0064OI77Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1521298041&sr=1-3&keywords=ball+lock+gas+line&dpID=419E02PgkoL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch If you wanted to get crazy fancy you might get a diffusion stone like this, to help the gas get into the liquid faster by virtue of much larger surface area of zillions of tiny bubbles: https://www.amazon.com/Diffusion-MRbrew-Micron-Kegging-Homebrew/dp/B0728DY9P7/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1521298188&sr=1-1&keywords=diffusion+stone&dpID=41cQ61Gfa%2BL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch That whole lot comes in at right around $200... You can carbonate anything in a bottle that takes a standard soda cap. Stay away from glass bottles, as most modern glass is designed to contain pre-existing carbonation, but not beefy enough to reliably take a carbonation charge without going all glass grenade.

Forcing CO2 into solution is easy... you don't need anything more than a good source of CO2, and a pressurized vessel. A 10lb CO2 refill at my local welding shop (where I've become a regular over the past decade or more) costs $22... That provides me with about 6 months worth of all the carbonated beverages I might desire. Since I'm a homebrewer, I've got a heap of 5 gallon kegs, two of which are dedicated to seltzer duty and reserve seltzer duty. I've also got a few "carbonator caps", widgets that have the same connector as the kegs do, but then screw onto 1 or 2L soda bottles. Put whatever you want into the soda bottle (I use plain seltzer bottles because soda flavors can cling), chill it down to 33F, hit it with 50PSI of CO2 and shake for a minute, and you've got a lovely bottle of fizzy stuff.

An old friend from college is fronting a food/exploration show in the Asian market... I've watched the first episode and it seems interesting in a less edgy Bourdain-esque sort of way. Rather than being focused on a place and its culture, it is focused on a disappearing dish and the people who still know how to cook it. Here's the link to stream it.