SLB

I go to a lot of meetings, and am generally known for being the most miserable attendee (even when it's my meeting); but I would be THRILLED to go to Anna N's. The thread alone is killing me.

Hmm. While the Post has a, uh, range which differs from the NY broadsheet rag, I'm not sure it's actually less credible. I appreciate Fairway's statement; but Fairway would not be the first company -- or person -- to protest: I know it looks like it, but I'm not broke, not at ALL! I mean, I used to do it all the time, myself. But, fingers crossed for fake news.

https://nypost.com/2020/01/21/fairway-planning-to-file-for-chapter-7-bankruptcy-will-close-all-stores/?fbclid=IwAR2xhzHdJelrjXX3ElK9SXbvVne6mS011eOJzZt7ZJ1-McUQylQaZfP8YwY I consider this a disaster, honestly.

Clearly, I was wishing that, too! In seriousness, I remember when there was room for the gin and vodka in the freezer . . .

My freezer is about full: quarter-beer; side of pig; side of lamb. A small amount of flotsam and jetsam, including service meats; marrow bones; about one and a half chickens worth of parts; and several vegetables that I don't like that much. When I went to defrost it to get it ready for this meat to come in, I discovered that I am in possession of ten smoked hamhocks. I have no idea how that happened.

I have never experienced that, either. My only thought is, soap.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/dining/indian-pickle-queen-usha-prabakaran.html?fbclid=IwAR2AyZ9A2QtSrd_MyLEJ8TmP0lJ0mc_LtF65N4SV9nzjPYcPYiGeEHBlDRE We need more from this woman!

Thank you, this is helpful.

A few years ago I was into baking bread, and had been making my way through "The Bread Bible" when my routine blood tests revealed that it was time to stop eating so much bread. I had also been using Rose Levy Berenbaum's pre-ferment prescription to adjust bread recipes from other breads to incorporate a pre-ferment. Her pre-ferment prescription involves some of the flour; part of the yeast; and all of the water. Altho I've cut WAAY back on bread, in general I've been using the pre-ferment method with any yeast breads, including vaguely sweet breads. So, I'm making a cinnamon bun recipe for a Christmas brunch (I have no other cooking obligations!); the recipe involves two rises. Is there any reason not to do a pre-ferment when the liquid is milk, and not water? I'm sorry to ask a question that may be incredibly rudimentary to accomplished bakers, but I really have no idea!

Thanks, all. Happy Holidays!

So, I routinely heavily-salt meat a day or two in advance of cooking it, per Judy Rodgers' formulas. But -- there's no advantage to doing this to meat that is going to be poached, right??? We're talking about chicken, here. I occasionally poach otherwise-unsalted chicken in heavily salted water with an eye toward shredding for fillings. But here I'm making the Eastern-Carolina variation on chicken-n-dumplings (which is known as "Chicken-pastry"); so the water is going to become the broth-basis of everything. Given that, I'm not inclined to heavily-salt it for the poach of thick chunks of meat, I'd salt it for vegetable-additions with an expectation that everything is going to be consumed together. But unless the water is salted roughly equally to the meat, any pre-salting of the meat is going to be leeched into the broth, leaving the meat tasting basically wherever it was to begin with, right? Maybe the texture will be different, but I never was pre-salting for texture . . . . I think I better just follow the recipe, and not worry about bland meat. I am tired. This feels like something that should not be so hard to figure out. But -- I am tired.

It was the ONLY seasoning in use in my childhood besides regular salt and pepper. Oh wait, and paprika on the devilled eggs. Basically, every.single.thing tasted like lawry's. So, basically I hate it and haven't touched the stuff in over thirty years. It's a ferocious prejudice, I really should force myself to give it a fair taste.

Got it. Shelby mentioned this guy in response to someone's query on ducks: https://honest-food.net/ And he has a podcast that I'm now listening to, which featured a great episode on salami basics and another on curing whole chunks; and then I went hunting the threads on the subject, which brought me here. Definitely no pressure on the documentation project! But know that I'm rooting for you and everybody this winter. Happy Solstice, peeps, and good eating.

Can anybody point me to this thread? @DiggingDogFarm?

"I dunno. Habit I suppose. ☺️ Or maybe I was a butcher in my past life and I have a strong attachment to that white butcher paper......." Interesting! I myself love butcher paper, and loved using my fake-origami skills to get all the meat surfaces covered. And my hardware store dude seemed intrigued that I, perhaps alone in all of NYC, purchased freezer tape. And also I love sharpies. But then I bought a foodsaver.