SLB

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.

I think the health claim of quinoa is that it's that unicorn known as the grain which supplies an actually complete protein. Making it fairly essentially to the people who ate it as a component of their native normal diet. I believe the only other grain with this unicorn status is amaranth. I don't understand the health claim of kale at all -- in fact, more than one horticulturist-type has told me that kale will remove industrial pollutants in soil, which would seem to mean you would NOT want to eat a whole lot of it, at least not any that was foraged. I fully agree that is is not any more healthy than other leafy green vegetables. Anyway. Although I typically eat very few grains, right this moment I am availing myself of tasty grain salads. And happily stumbled upon this old thread. [As an aside, this cookbook on the subject looks stunning: https://www.kitchenartsandletters.com/products/grist-a-practical-guide-to-cooking-grains-beans-seeds-and-legumes. This moment of mine is going to pass in a few weeks, so I'm not buying it, but I sure do want to go look at it.] I'm eating farro (probably my VeryVeryFavorite, the texture is just perfect); hominy (I guess not a grain, but satisfies in the same way); freekeh (unsure if I'll be buying any more of this, ever); and quinoa (which I don't like, but it was in the house and like I said, I on this high-grain junket right now). What I realized I want next is -- well, what I want next is grits. Cornmeal is my favorite grain-like substance in the whole world, and I will often use soft polenta in place of rice -- but other than that, I kind of want a bulgur salad. My understanding is that, like corn, bulgur is milled in a fashion to where it retains a bit of incomplete protein. Which helps avoid the blood sugar spike. Along with whatever fiber is left. Aside from size, is all bulgur the same? Or is there some brand of bulgur that is more delicious than others?

I have had success halving a recipe for a bundt cake (or a cake designed to be made in that kind of pan), and then baking the half-recipe in a loaf pan. But can any-ole' cake recipe be halved and made in a loaf pan??? I guess I mean, can a cake recipe meant to be baked in a regular cake-pan be successfully reduced and baked in a loaf pan? It seems like the pan might matter . . . . Help! Please! Quick! I'm helping a five-year old struggling with the covid-divorce of her parents make a cake in a few hours for one of the parents. Everybody but me is quite grumpy, and needs cake, but not a big-ass cake that is going to just sit around and make the parent sad when the kid leaves for the other parental home. Aii.

@TdeV, how do you like "Food Drying with an Attitude"? I may check it out.

Seconding their use in soups and braises -- I find the texture of not-entirely-rehydrated items to be a nice complement to the other soup components. That aside -- I am the cook for my hiking group, which led me to eventually get into dehydrating (one of our group is strong as an ox and will carry anything anywhere including full bottles of liquid courage; but at some point I realized that I was being downright abusive and perhaps I could just, you know, dehydrate the food component of our actual meals instead of making her carry frozen blocks of what-have-you.). Anyway, I have now looked into a number of cookbooks for dehydrated backcountry eating. As @chromedome has pointed out -- the aim of this type of food is obviously distinct in that it maximizes calories per ounce. In the backpacking context, it also prioritizes the kind of tastiness that will induce an exhausted person to eat more (hello, salt). But who knows, it may give you some ideas. In order of favor: "Backcountry Eats" by Kevin Ride (he also has a blog, or used to); "Dirty Gourmet" by Aimee Trudeau, Emily Nielson, and Mi-Yan Kwan (a lot of the recipes in this book are not from dehydrated components); "The Dehydrator Bible" by Jennifer MacKenzie, Jay Nutt & Don Mercer (not just backpacking, actually only has one chapter on camp food) "Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook" (not backpacking either) "The Dehydrator Cookbook for Outdoor Adventurers" by Julie Mosier. Unfortunately, the Time Life Good Cook book on "Preserving" does not contain a lot of recipes using dried foods, although it does have a section on the technique. On the leather thickness problem -- it got easier for me when I bought myself an offset spatula. I then eyeball for variations in translucence. It's aggravating when the middle isn't fully dried but the edge is approaching crispy, so I tend to push more material outward, which creates a bit of elevation at the edge. Then -- when the major portion of the leather is done, I can just cut off the still-moist edges and eat them right then. Like licking the beaters. If you store your leathers in the freezer, you don't have to worry about residual moisture, but it is annoying to have to freeze something which one was attempting to otherwise preserve.