SLB

I don't understqnd the cucumber thing either, and I am agog to report that I've found it to actually work. Could be a fluke, but I was losing it over the bitter CSA cucumbers. And then it vanished when I started trimming ends and rubbing. Anyway. The old timey thing I still do for nostalgia alone is scrape the surface of steaks with a dull knife. To remove, you know, dirt. [**I think the concern is that the butcher, or store, is selling you an item has fallen on the floor]. As I was taught: if you rinse it (like we do with chicken), you will rinse away the beef juices. Hence: scrape. I also clean my greens for a long time in heavily salted water, much longer than is actually required for today's market greens. One flank of the women's side of my ancestry meticulously removed the green leafy aspect from 100% of the veins of collard greens. Repeat: ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. No veins. None. Not in any single leaf of green. I do not do that anymore . . . .

Wow. I'm glad you're alright. And the apron is looking mostly alright, too.

I always wear aprons too. I love aprons. I'm sure I've posted about this here . . . I am intrigued at folks who don't need them -- I am one filthy prep person. Honestly, my aprons tend to last about two days before they have enough food on them to draw vermin. It's usually meat blood and grease. I have two winter workhorses; two summer workhouses (linen); and a pretty apron for when there's company. They all hang on a pig hook:

I just about fell out this morning, my regular seafood selection jumped up 18%. Although I'm a bit of a reflexive cheapskate, I hadn't been paying too much attention. I buy meat in bulk which flattens things a bit, and I shop mostly for one these days so the produce increases don't end up costing all that much. And possibly most important -- with the disappearance of my restaurant spending, my food spending overall hasn't felt particularly punishing. But I was shook this morning, and am now legit scared.

This is exceeding the topic, and I hope for a teeny indulgence to note in response-- you know what is excellent with an orange note? Beans. Bean soups, sure. But any kinda beans. I got that from Ms. Wolfert, years ago. Orange beans are the bomb.

I haven't been in this thread in a while, which was dumb! This sounds wonderful, I'm going to try it with my routine pumpkin sub: sweet potatoes. I admit that this substitution is much more workable when the pumpkin is a minor player; but I'm going to see. I eat pumpkin when it lands in my life, but I don't care for it all that much, so I don't ever really want to buy it. I just got my new delivery of California tangerines last week, only to discover that I still have juice in the freezer from last year's tangerines. So I am looking for ways to get that space back; this is right on time!

I was about to post the Exact.Same.Thing. It's the photography. Your pictures make me need the book. Repeat, need. Sigh.

Planters' roasted are good. But -- y'all, Sunnyland from Albany, GA. [which I've always heard pronounced Al-Benny", "Al" as in the name.]. Anyway. I wouldn't mess around with the exotics, mostly the prices rival grass-fed beef. I would stick to the peanuts and the pecans. I have brought these as hostess gifts, they are so good. https://www.sunnylandfarms.com/ I admit, I love peanuts. I remember as a child not understanding the slur against President Carter at ALL! ETA: A podcast on peanuts which I thoroughly enjoyed. There is a transcript here, but know that the audio version is just delightful: https://gastropod.com/peanuts-peril-promise-transcript/

@weinoo, how come? Whatever the reason, it sure is beautiful.

I saw a feature film related to this topic on a plane back in November: "Pig". https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/dining/pig-movie-nicolas-cage.html It was one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. And I like 'em weird. To be sure: it was beautiful; but the narrative was improbable in a manner that, for me, did not cohere. I kept thinking something crucial had been edited out.

I understand. Although the local fisherperson at the Thursday Columbia farmer's market -- the one near me and the one I organize a teaching schedule around -- is a serious jerk. So I stopped buying from him before the pandemic. On that -- right now, I am not really going into stores, which eliminates one of my favorite options: Agata & Valentina. But I appreciate knowing what on earth the problem is with the Pierless website. I'll deal. It's gonna be fine. It just was a bad morning. And there are fifty-leven pieces of salmon I wasn't looking for taking up a whole lot of space in my freezer.

Ugh. That is quite a narrative. Old squid????? Pierless's website isn't functioning for me, but I may have to work harder at it. Good grief.

Yes, I'm negotiating the refund/correction now. @rotuts No -- Most of them are not tails.

"Snafu! We'll cancel your subscription for six weeks". I'm trying to get the bass out of my voice, but am preparing to ask them to send me what I actually ordered. In addition to these 24 pieces of salmon that are now crowding the meat in my freezer.

I think I might be cursed with this mail-order fish thing. My first mail order from Wild Alaskan failed to arrive, and sat in a Fedex facility for two day. Ix-nay to that fish. The second order was missing the halibut cuts. I went on and cancelled that subscription, thinking that The Universe Was Telling Me to Buy Local. So, this past Christmas I signed up for a fish subscription from the famous Fulton Fish Market, which is now in the Bronx and not down on Fulton. Four 6-oz pieces of various finfish, plus one pound of shrimp or scallops. The hope was to explore different types of fish, to get away from my salmon habit, and to vanquish the shrimp aversion I have had since eating and rejecting a bad one way back in '95. Well. My first subscription order arrived today. It included two 6-oz portions of striped bass; a pound of scallops; and TWENTY-FOUR 6-oz portions of frozen salmon. A mixed up order which they called a "snafu". W.T.F. I was not raised to find fury in a bounty that happens to not be exactly what I wanted. For most of my life, the idea of a million pieces of good salmon falling off of a truck would've been a serious, serious blessing. However. I.Am.FURIOUS. I don't want to eat salmon very other day until the g*d*** equinox. Rather: I WANT to eat various beautiful delicate lovely wondrous OTHER FISH. But obviously there is no reason to keep getting subscription fish of any sort. I am embarrassed about how furious I am. But I.Am.FURIOUS.

I'm sure it's available wherever you get your podcasts!

I think this technically might should be in the media thread, but this podcast episode is about fish CSAs, and seafood-by-mail and why it's good for fisheries and small-business fishermen (fisherwomen?). I first learned about Hank Shaw from @Shelby, who mentioned his website somewhere. I thought this was a good episode.

I have finally only this year, at 51, had good fruitcake. This one was Haitian. God.Gawd.a'MIGHTY. I'm on a mission, I mean I'm joining the @gfron1 train. And I'm gonna candy all kinds of random fruits this year, and see what I can come up with on the homefront next autumn. 2022 Project!!

I hate washing dishes. I hate it beyond reason. Growing up, I was outraged at the extent of the task. Now, in my adult self, everything that could conceivably go in my dishwasher, does. In my world, this includes a whole lot of stuff that other people do not put in the dishwasher. For several pandemic months, my dishwasher was broke, and I nearly had a nervous breakdown. It actually was the thing that returned me to restaurant dining. Anyway. I went to wash some pans this morning that had been soaking in the sink for something like two days. Because I hate doing dishes. One of them was a Chantal 4qt baking dish, in which I baked some ribs and burnt a whole bunch of rib wondrousness all over what used to be the white enamel, somehow on the outsides too (although, in fairness, that was probably some crud I failed to remove some other time I used the pan, because I hate dishes enough to disgrace my home training by putting them away less than totally clean). Anyway, I went to wash the pans because I would like to use that sink again soon, like maybe today. And there is a crack in the bottom of the Chantal 4qt! A crack! Through to the bottom of the pan! Meaning: I GET TO THROW IT AWAY!! I DON'T HAVE TO WASH IT!! People!!! I feel like celebrating the Birth of Baby Jesus!! HOSANNA!!! That is all.

I did this with very delicious tangerine slices, and they made for some *excellent* camp drinks.

After a metabolically destructive foray into bread baking, I have basically been eating a low-carb diet for the last six years or so. I do eat on the higher end of low-carb, which I seem to be able to tolerate well at my current level of muscularity. At times, when trying to accomplish something specific, I have gone keto for a limited period of time. Usually it's to restore metabolic flexibility when I've accidentally (but not usually surprisingly) tripped myself into the carb-craving gluttony. Anyway, because I don't have problems digesting vegetables, I can eat any of 'em that grow above the ground. I don't eat a whole of sweet corn (it helps that I don't like it unless it is, specifically, Silver Queen). The key for me is to always force-finish a measured and large quantity of full protein, and eat whatever else of the other food that I feel like. And my basic go-to meal when I can't think about anything, is a nice piece of meat and a sauteed green vegetable. Or -- a salad! Otherwise known as raw green vegetables . . . . I like rich sauces, and think it's an awesome age-old way to trick-out some basic meat, simply cooked; but unfortunately I seem to have become a person that is too tired to make them all that often. The simplicity of my home cooking these days is kind of strange given how interesting my food was fifteen years ago. I admit it makes me nervous sometimes, that i've gotten downright boring where I used to be, quite frankly, pretty flippin' exciting. But. It is an easy enough diet for me, since I love all the meats and, at the moment, can afford it in good quantities. And once you become accustomed to what it feels like to have an even blood sugar almost all the time -- the insulin excursions become unbearable. My cousin was trying to get me to have rum cake for breakfast over Thanksgiving, and I had to explain to him just how homicidal I would become for the morning monopoly tournament if I even thought about such a thing . . . . . It's amazing how very very sweet everything becomes due to the natural sweetness in many foods, when you only eat a very tiny amount of refined carbohydrates. For example, soda now tastes like the stuff you drink for the glucose tolerance test: diabolical. And I further confess: so does balsamic vinegar. It tastes like candy.

Oh, heidi, man. My mother, who never had much interest in the *taste* of food -- I think that may have been her depression scar, that "if you're hungry, you'll eat it" mantra which numbed her out to all data coming from the actual food -- anyway, my mother in her last two decades or so became enamored of Lowry's Seasoned Pepper. Everything was coated in it. Ev.Ry.Thing. I kind of figured that there must be something in there which pierced that veil of numb. When I cleaned out that spice cupboard, there were over ten jars packed up in there. Coupons!

Okanagancook for the win.

Dumb question, @andiesenji: you sub in the leftover syrups for Karo 1:1? I guess the actual thing to actually do would be to actually watch the brix in the original syrup . . . .

Honestly, that Heinz option made me really sad.