fresco

Sounds like the usual ho-hum magnificent eGullet Heartland orgy. Wish I was there. Failing that, maybe we can convince about 300,000 Mexicans to relocate to Toronto and start opening restaurants.

Hi Miguel, It's certainly true in my (limited) experience that Portuguese cooking puts fresh fish and simple preparations front and centre. Would love to hear some recommendations for great little neighborhood restaurants in Lisbon.

Couldn't agree more. Also useful for flattening cutlets and cutting up poultry. I've also used it to turn pork loin into chops (otherwise I think you'd have to own a meat saw) and to finish opening a tin of tomatoes when a shitty can opener missed a few sections. And if you put a sharp edge on it, you can use it to bone chicken breasts. Someone should sell these on late night television: "It slices, it dices...wait, there's more!"

The outside dimensions of this sink are 31 x 20.5, so it sounds like it may be possible. Thanks.

Nick, You sure about those dimensions? I just measured our double sink and the inside dimensions seem to be 29 x 16. I was hoping to buy a unit that would just pop into the existing space so we don't have to trash the countertop.

fresco... Go get in your car NOW and go get a big sink. Do not delay. My house had a big sink/little sink with the disposer combo. This apartment has the usual really dumb double sink. I curse that thing every day of my being. The air today is particularly blue because I am making stock and hastling the big pot, containers and everything else is driving me bonkers. I MISS MY BIG SINK! New house will likely have a big single sink for clean up. (Prep sink is in the island.) Interestingly, the one I had in the house was the exact same size as a standard double sink, but what a difference. I'll right, I'm convinced. We're doing this kitchen upgrade in stages. The DCS range vent got installed yesterday, and is great. But every upgrade involves a lot of wrangling and negotiating (and, let's be honest: begging) with trades about when they'll fit us in (there's a building/renovation boom on here now.) So I think the sink will wait till after Christmas.

(Sorry, but finding that statement in a thread about scallops kinda got to my funny bone.) Dave, I am wondering if the traceability issue is the issue of assuring that what you have is really scallops? Many years ago, some yahoos were importing chunks of meat punched out of stingray wings and trying to sell them as scallops. Stingray wings are really good for this scam because the texture and the muscle grain are really very similar. Electrophoresis was a new technique (I am dating myself here.) and I helped develop a diagnostic technique for identifying scallop juice versus stingray juice. Yes, we could have just cooked them and tasted them, because stingray doesn't taste like scallops. However, the prosecutors wouldn't take our word for it so we had to come up with "scientific proof". I really don't know if scallop counterfitting is much of a problem today. Maybe it is. I'm surprised that some entrepreneur hasn't tried to market these legally as "skate scallops" or some such imaginative concoction. Or maybe they have.

It's not in my nature to love cleaning. But I do love food, and these days, most of our meals are cooked from scratch, which means that from early morning, most days, the pots, pans and utensils are in use. For this sort of washing up, I find the dishwasher to be more trouble than it is worth, (loading, unloading, etc) but often fill the sink and draining rack four or five times a day. Based on this usage, I'm seriously considering having the existing two-compartment sink replaced with a model with one huge compartment. The floor also takes a beating and usually needs to be mopped completely at least once a day. But all of this is a small price to pay for the pleasure of freshly prepared food.

My notion of "good" bistro food is taking inexpensive cuts or ingredients--and that includes a lot of meats such as oxtail and offal, vegetables like cabbage, potato, carrots and onion and such fish and shellfish as skate and mussels--and preparing them simply and well.

Fish stock can--and should--also be made much more quickly than chicken or beef. If you can remember to save and freeze shrimp, lobster and crab shells they go well in fish stock. And you can freeze the stock once you make it.

I often wish I was organized enough to make lists of this sort, but I'm not and unlikely to develop the discipline. A grocery list on the back of an envelope is about the extent of my cataloguing ability. So far, no one has complained.

I have a few candidates, but topping the list is a shrimp deveiner. I bought it. It works, sort of, but so does the tip of a knife. What's yours?

Did you have a traumatic experience involving a turkey as a child? This is mild. Ask about chicken breast.

Do you use a thermometer? It sure makes a difference.

Are "day boat" scallops live in the shell? If not, there is a fifth category: farmed scallops sold live from tanks. They are raised on Canada's east coast, and I'm sure, on the east coast of the US. Probably not widely available, but worth searching out.

You've had cognac and/or Grand Marnier "go bad"? Cognac doesn't go bad. People go bad--after drinking cognac.

As long as you're not a plumber...

The arrival of beaujolais nouveau used to be a big (if overhyped) event hereabouts. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario still brings it in, but you don't hear a damn thing about it anymore. Or at least I don't.

Monica and Chef Sudhir Seth, Your breads look so good that they are probably illegal in many jurisdictions. I've made naan quite a bit but have to try some of your variations, plus, of course, all the other breads you have demonstrated. Think I've probably said this before on eGullet but it is worth repeating--naan is hands down the best tasting bread straight out of the oven that I've come across. It somehow makes any meal an occasion. Well done, both of you.

If you like caraway, you'll like akvavit. But you have to like caraway a lot.

Nope, akvavit. It's often (usually?) flavored with caraway. I bought a bottle in Denmark once. Definitely an acquired taste.

Anna, is this the stuff with caraway, or without?

I like rum or cognac with, but not in, coffee.

Maybe some of the experts could shed some light here, but I'd always thought the over-fastidious avoidance of dirt, bacteria and germs was more potentially dangerous than exposure to them.

It seems, according to this story, that toilet seats have been getting um, a bum rap and and desk tops have on average 400 times more germs: http://www.abc.net.au/wa/stories/s557278.htm