AlaMoi

Canada (I hope!) has more sensible "rules/laws" than (every USA state is different) we do. for odd ball booze needs, I buy the miniatures - like you get on airlines. per ml cost is higher - but if a 'whole bottle' is just going to sit there for the next four decades, it's a good approach.

cider, and most fruit juices, are acidic. acids "chemically cook" proteins. spritz lermon juice on salmon and watch it turn white - just like when it starts to cook by heat.... an overdone (time wise) acid marinade can be very un-good in terms of 'tender' - and imho pork is probably the most sensitive to that issue.

Shel - yuppers. a boiling pot of water has more than one temperature. .....as does a pot of oil for deep frying, etc etc etc. the ThermaPens are extremely good gear. I picked up a Chef Alarm on sale - it's another superior piece of gear. tastes like xrap; works great!

infantile botulism is a special off-shoot - most of the "growed up rules" do not apply. most seriously, the digestive tract of infants can allow spores to (ah chit) grow/reproduce/whatever - I've been taken to task on those verbs - so I'll just avoid the language issues and simply say: when it comes to small humans, other rules apply.

...the bad guy garlic.... actually any herb can be a problem. and fresh herbs in oil - as they contain more moisture - are "more worser" than dried herbs for oil infusions. potatoes infused into oil can be a problem. it's just not that many people infuse their oil with potatoes. few, if any, restaraunts serve customers home-made infused oils, because....there is this potential problem..... or spoiled meat, or rotten eggs, etc etc as to timing - anything 'confit' is basically cooked to death, so a longer time is not a big surprise. standing in the road is only dangerous when there is traffic present....otherwise you can stand in the road for hours without a problem. I buy a head of garlic less than once a month, so my risk - per the presented analysis - is half that. people who grow their own garlic, by that argument, have no risk - because they don't shop for garlic. every year some number of people die from "home picked" mushrooms. I love mushrooms. I do not pick my own mushrooms because I don't know enough to not kill myself. I do know how and why to use a pressure cooker, so I do.

... introduce corn and, drum roll please, two hundred years later, corn was _still_ 'cattle feed' the concept of 'sweet corn' has been exceedingly slow to catch on in Europe - despite the apparent use of corn/sweet corn in the 'new world' before Europe got out of diapers. I send a German classmate an assortment of corn cob holders every other year or so - they did California for spell - they eat corn - but cob holders are unknown in their area. "....sometimes veiled apology about their cuisine, as compared to their European counterparts." uhmmm, was that a veiled apology or a contrasting blatant bragging? you cannot go to another region, much less country, in Europe and not hear the 'dissing' of (uhmmmmm) anything not cooked 'here.' not unusual; see "redneck" lived in/on both continents - years and years long. not a "if this is Tuesday it must be Belgium" based opinion. and sorry to opine, English /British / UK food - home of the colonists - does not get very far up my scale. when living in Europe, I made a point of flying into and out of UK before needing a major meal. lunch I could handle. after that it was time to go home. I've had really good food in USA, I've had really good food in Europe - Arctic Circle to south of the equator. I've had really bad food in USA, I've had really bad food in Europe. I have a seriously big time disagreement with gfweb's assessment that (USA) poor people could not cook good. they used the ingredients of the day. for example, rich pre-revolutionary cooks did not do "gluten free" or transfat free or sugar free or HFCS free ir GMO free - basically everyone on the social scale used the same ingredients. it's just that poor people did not have a staff of twenty in the kitchen to expend all day making some tasty morsel from the same stuff that only occupied half a fork. hence, hoe cakes. it must be a typo-thought, but johnny cakes are not from New England.

not quite sure what the screen pre-stone bit brings to the party, however,,, "sometimes limp in spots" rings a few bells. the theory of a 'stone' is to provide instant, direct stone-to-dough heat. a home oven preheated stone cannot provide the 600-650-700'F heat of a commercial (pizza) oven. home ovens don't go much, if any, above 550'F - lest they set afire the wood cabinet surroundings. soggy spots or soggy bottoms-in-toto just mean the crust is / was /still is / re-became "too wet" either the water could not 'cook out' or the hot cooked dough 're-steamed' it soggy. direct contact with a stone methinks is going to be a lot more effective at rapid heat transfer than a screen - which can only offer really good air contact. past that however, if you take any baked good out of a hot oven and set it on an impervious surface, the steam still escaping from the dough is trapped on the bottom and the bottom goes soggy. my pizza goes directly on the 500'F preheated stone, when done, is removed to a wire rack - allowing the crust steam to escape without re-soggifying the bottom crust. then to a wooden board for cutting.

so the spores are not the method of reproduction?

alterating . . . verb. any kind of messing with DW's fresh dug new (red) potatoes. (g) dig, boil, salt&butter. dat's all Folks! methinks the flavor compounds of garlic are more readily conveyed in oil than water - just my unscientific thought....

burnt garlic is not high on the list of "tasty things on a dinner plate" considering the huge (relative, by experience) amount of salt required in a cook-by-boil to notice any taste effect on potatoes, lots and lots of fresh crushed garlic might work. I'm guessing something like 10-20 times as much as one might 'think' needed. I'd go with the infused oil drizzle at roasting / browning / pan fry stage. see the thread about garlic and botulism. use a commercial infusion or prepare & use you own veddy fresh stuff. oh, and big crystal sea salt - think "pop rocks" flavor beads. I grow Red Pontiac potatoes in the garden. I'd likely get shot daid by DW if I suggested alterating a new red potato. but that's just us.

separating the bits of fictions and facts . . . anything that has soil contact can be 'contaminated' with botulism spores. when the spores reproduce - they create, as a by product - a toxin. the toxin produced is a protein. not a bacteria, not a virus, not a spore, not a Martian. one can consume botulism spores by the cupful on a daily basis with no ill effects because there is no danger until the spores "reproduce" so, how does that happen? first, the spores have to survive. botulism spores are killed by a sustained temp of 240'F/116'C. this is why the "boiling water" canning method is no longer recommended for most vegetables; pressure canning is required to reach that temperature. but my grandmother always did her tomatoes . . . forget it. "modern" tomatoes have been bred to be low acid. unless you're canning a known high acid heirloom tomato, the red thingy in the pot is not your granny's tomato. the required reproduction environment is: very low oxygen content, a pH above 4.6 (or so, not every source agrees to the tenth), and a smidgen of water. hence the advice to add acidic stuff like lemon juice, etc., when canning 'stuff' - commercially "infused" oils use various chemicals to ensure the pH stays well below the +/- 4.6 range, and they have seriously better control of the process. all these "efforts" are aimed at preventing the botulism spores from reproducing. should all the efforts fail and the botulism spores do reproduce and do produce the deadly toxin, comma..... the toxin being an organic protein is killed at less than boiling water temperatures (i.e. 212'F / 100'C) officially the recommendation is to vigorous boil all canned goods for ten minutes prior to consumption. refrigeration slows the potential reproduction, boiling kills the toxin - please feel free to chose your own course of action - I'm not testing either theory; I'll go with the pressure canning route.

a long growing season helps - they do just keep growing.... you might not immediately suspect it, but Alaska grows some of the biggest. they get many hours of sunlight per day - even tho the number of days is less. see #9 here http://www.oddee.com/item_96650.aspx but compare how good it looks with http://giantgardening.com/rec_cauliflower.php which is no longer the record holder. UK has a long cool climate for brassicas.

baking powder has baking soda as an ingredient - if you have cream of tartar, bingo. see http://frugalliving.about.com/od/condimentsandspices/r/Baking_Powder.htm otherwise as above...

I'm not a big Martha fan - she did give my grandparents place a nice review ('cuze the name dropping....) - however this is really good http://www.marthastewart.com/893511/cauliflower-and-leek-gratin I use light cream vs. whole milk.

one is polished, has riveted handles, a magic stay kool handle. not a lot of other specifics on those pages - but thickness of the stainless would be another point - seeing as it weighs mystically about 2 lbs more.....

....Put in an egg at 62C in for exactly 75 minutes and calibrate using the if you take the egg out of the freezer, does not work if you take the egg off the counter, does not work if you take the egg out of some part of a refrigerator at some unknown temperature, doesn't work. science is based on science, not eggs.

some clarification on terminology may help. as you likely know, salt water does not freeze at 32'F - "meat" has salts, etc. - "meat" does not "freeze" at 32'F poultry may be kept by FDA rules at (something below 32'F, I'd have to look it up) and still be considered "not frozen" - ie "fresh" now..... the fresh water inside the cavity and / or organ pack can, and does, freeze sooner, temp wise. 'frozen solid' is not fresh; but some chunks of ice in a "fresh" bird can-and-does happen.

there is no shame in getting one's thermometers calibrated. ThermoWorks offers a calibration service; there are many many other labs that offer calibration services. not all to many cooks do that. for $200 you can buy a ueber high accuracy ThermoPen (+/- 0.04'C) and have it calibrated regularly and then you'll know. as has been noted in this and a few trillion other threads, not every cc of water in a circulating immersion bath is _exactly_ the same temperature. so first one has to look at the advertised accuracy of the "thermostatic" control in the bath - if the accuracy is +/- 1F degree, add in the physically not possible to eliminate volume variations, there's no sense in looking at checking for +/- half a degree. a decent 2nd thermometer only assures you can check the sous vide equipment and have some confidence it is working properly. if there was a 2 degree difference last week, and this week there's a 5 degree difference, well - then you know something is likely 'off' a very valid point presented above: if you set up a poll asking for the perfect temperature - of any verbal description ie rare thru charcoal - you will not get 100% agreement. especially from people using sous vide because they are going by what their gear reads, not a calibrated thermometer.... if your bath reads some number different from a good thermometer, and that difference is stable and repeatable, the other point made above is: go with experience. if the bath produces the result you want when set to X, then set it to X again. taste&preference is a funny thing - assuming somebody somewhere has a perfect thermometer/temperature control and writes a recipe to sous vide Z to temp Y - and assuming you have a perfect thermometer/temperature control to duplicate that, you may still not care for the result. yes, it needs to be close. after that it's all experience and preference

ThermaPens are good equipment. their forte is "instant" - soooooooooooooooo, could be overkill for something you're looking to cook in for hours. but, what the heck. here's the problem: situations which require really good control have their instruments calibrated (at least) annually. anything you buy comes / may come "calibrated" - but things change with time....electronics are horrifically notorious for that - I've got some glass&mercury lab thermometers that have not been calibrated in ten years, but in the preceding 20 years were never to be found "out of calibration" so I'm thinking they're likely still 'ok' if you are looking at tenths of a degree, boiling / freezing water is iffy anyway. atmospheric pressure, dissolved solids, etc.

I fed 'em a schedule. baseball practice until 9 pm? some re-ordering of priorities might be appropriate. either that or have the school district reduce the baseball coach's seven figure salary to five figures so the coach is not so apt to run practices to 9 pm.

I'm glad you took some time to research this. you may already have stumbled over the following sites, but as I posted before, on the internet every opinion has a different opinion. so it is a good idea to consider the "qualifications" of the source. http://www.naturalnews.com/015959_heart_health_cottonseed_oil.html http://www.cottonseedoil.com/about-cottonseed-oil/ http://www.cottonseedoil.com/ http://www.cottonseedoiltour.com/cso-factsheet/ http://www.acala-farms.com/why-cottonseed-oil/ the only thing these sites "prove" is "posted on the internet" does not mean anything. there is one flaw in the soup: not every place that deep fries foodstuff uses Mel-Fry - or 'the same of something else" - the decision to stop eating fried (deep fried?....) foods is - depending on which health guru you follow - not a bad thing. but formulating that approach based on the incorrect idea that every deep frier on the planet uses Mel-Fry is not valid.

ack! you're right. the OP 'steeped in grotesque dirty chemicals' appears to be unimportant per later posts.

suggest searching for claims of heart healthy on cottonseed oil canola oil it does not matter what source I might cite or you might cite. some people believe in science some people believer in Livestrong, Mercola, third world witch doctors, etc. anything anyone comes up with that says X is good for your heart will be contradicted by somebody citing internet source Y that insists it is fatal for your heart. like the dude once said: "A mind, terrible thing to waste"

difficult to find? only if you don't have a search engine. here's the objective stuff: Additional Information: Ingredients: Cottonseed oil, canola oil, TBHQ and citric acid added to protect flavor, dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent added. Code Date: Alpha plant designation, julian date and year. Attributes: SKU 40017-MFF Calories 120 Calories from fat 120 Child Nutrition Label (Y/N) No Cholesterol mg 0 Dietary Fiber g 0 Fat g 14 Kosher (Y/N) Yes Organic Label (Y/N) No Protein g 0 Saturated fat g 2.5 Serving Size 1 TBSP Servings per case 1920 TBSP =============================== TBHQ is tert-Butylhydroquinone (tertiary butylhydroquinone) and is not listed even in California's list of proposed things that kill you. citric acid is vitamin C, that's highly dangerous and dimethylpolysiloxane is equally as dangerous. the Europeans can look it up under E319. for people who like to scare people, it is linked to every unpleasant condition known to man.

what's so bad about it? it's a blend of cottonseed and canola. now, canola comes from rapeseed - which in the mustard family - and we all know where mustard gas comes from - so it is obviously a deadly compound. next problem is the cottonseed oil - comes from cotton mouth snakes - which are as we all know - poisonous vipers. two deadly compounds in one!