TicTac

I have tried crawfish a few times (lucky for us we can get them live here - thanks to fantastic Chinese supermarkets) and find them very muddy tasting. Nnagged a live lobster still in the box from NS the other day and had it (from the same store) and it was excellent. I would say crawfish are closer to shrimp with more of a muddy undertone (unless it was just my unfortunate luck over multiple batches).

That's all I remember from his cooking shows circa 1999-2002 Disgusting!

Does he still lick his fingers and keep on cooking!? That was enough to put me off many years ago!

Here is a fun little tidbit to share... My family has (what others always regard with a puzzled expression) a method of eating corn off the cob which I have adopted... So you eat the first 'row' (consider each kernel and its neighbours to the left and right, a row - for the purposes of this description....) as 'normal' This is where things take a turn for the 'odd' - after that, you take your thumb and basically run it below the next line of corn, slightly separating them from their neighbours to the South, and then with your bottom row of teeth, you basically nudge along that row and essentially pulling the entire kernel from the cob. The end result is a cob that is nearly spotless (minus the first row which suffered the preparatory pangs). Contest in my family was always who's cob was cleanest. LoL. Does anyone else do this?!?!

This is a chicken butt! It is delicious - much fantastic fat around that morsel. The oyster, as mentioned previously is a roundish piece of dark meat hidden right against a bone, which is extremely tender.

Treat them like a very fleshy tomato. Same family as the husk (or ground) cherry (or gooseberry). One can buzz them up with cilantro, lime and chili of ones choosing for a quick raw salsa. They are also fantastic sliced thin into salads. My preference is to roast them and create additional flavour profiles. Typically with onion, garlic, some chili and then zipped to make a very creamy salsa (a reaction occurs when these things get cooked and they are able to produce very creamy blends).

As far as bovine go, an aged (8 weeks is preferred) Rib eye wit the largest piece of Deckle I can get (and if I am friends with the butcher, just give me the entire deckle!) is easily my most desired piece of meat. Not far behind are veal sweetbreads. Seared crisp on the outside and still decadently creamy on the inside. A truffle and foie sauce should also accompany it! Nothing else touches those two, but I will also (quite) happily enjoy well executed pork belly, calves liver, beef cheeks, chicken legs (and backs!) and cow tongue.

If he wants his muscles back, he just has to get back into the gym routine! Jokes aside, my folks are headed on a road trip to PEI next week. They are returning to one of their favourite golf courses where at the end, you can head to the club house, for cocktails and unlimited buckets of free PEI mussels (aka muscles 😛 )!

And don't forget the Hellmans, Miracle Whip and any other generic 'mayo's you can find!

You are not far off! Lately I have seen some crazy celery prices. Albeit organic, but $4-5....come on, this stuff is basically just fiber and water!

And yet there is this ridiculous new celery juicing fad! I was at a local organic the other day and some guy bought $70 worth of celery... I just laughed.

Everything looks great. Minus the cream cheese in the sushi. That is plain scary.

A very good article on this silly fad. Talk about highly processed foods. This is it! Double edged sword. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/21/whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey-plant-based-meat-not-good-for-your-health.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Let's be real here - an 'air fryer' is simply a convection oven (and some of them I believe have rotational functions). My Wolf oven has a fan on it, and all this means is flipping the contents a few times. Presto - Air Fryer! It is a VERY big unit for its somewhat limited applications (family members have them).

Interesting line of thought.... When I was younger and a less experienced cook, I would love going out to nice meals (Michelin 1* type of setting). I still do (but I am far pickier where we spend our limited 'kid free time'), but I find as my cooking prowess has grown over the years, my desire to shell out $300-$500 for a dinner which I could (more likely than not) reproduce nearly as good (at times, if not better), lessens. We now gravitate to more ethnically driven finds which I would not typically make at home. For example, in our rotation we have a fantastic Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, North Chinese and Malaysian place. All of which can feed a family of 5 for under $60 quite nicely (OK, perhaps not the Japanese joint....). That trend will continue, I believe.

Perhaps, as @KennethT eluded to, some cultures around the world do, but in the grand scheme of things, I believe you are mistaken. At least, you can extend your statement to North America (much of the English speaking world), as technically there are 2 separate entities. Perhaps in England they and other English EU speaking parts they bunch them together.

But Which one do you love? Cilantro are the leaves, Coriander are the seeds....you are allowed to love both (but we want to avoid a lovers quarrel!), but differentiators are significant!

Those sunset photos are spectacular. Thank you for sharing with us, as always!

Anna - So sorry to hear you are not well. Here's to a speedy recovery and exodus from the pits of food hell!

As I have learned from a few in this thread, Mangosteens are 'ripe' when the circumference feels soft to the touch/press. This practice has led me well to find some fantastic beauties this season. $10 USD/lb is pricey. Here I am paying $4-5/lb CDN. My trick to open these whether ripe or slightly past (then the skin gets tougher) is to cut off the stem with a tiny bit of the rind as well, then make one big slit across the side and over that top sliced section, and sort of pull it open in 2 halves. Usually works.

You should not be jealous! Surely you can get your hands on some good Niagara or other local beauties?!

What are those yellow slices under the tomatoes?

Another attempt at cooking mostly from the garden. Had a few zucchinis get away on me so I made vegetarian lasagna with zucc's as the pasta sheeting (salted and grilled) and made a orange garden tomato sauce, accompanied by a ricotta/bocconcini/parm mixture. Layered with a few slices of mortadella for good measure.

A lower caloric diet (which fasting typically impacts) has been documented to have life prolonging effects. There was a documentary I saw recently on a village in India and a number of individuals who follow a low caloric diet and have average life spans in the 100's.

Looks like some nasty mold to me (I hate mold!!) Personally I would toss it, but others here will have far more knowledge/info than I on the matter!