SLB

My order from Wild Alaskan Salmon has arrived. Everything was rock-solid and the fish looks marvelous. But the order was missing the halibut portions, sigh. I'd say, they're not quite ready for prime time. If I decide to keep ordering non-local stuff -- the flash freezing is really an advantage over getting vaguely fresh stuff that I then freeze -- but if I do this again, I'll try the company weinoo has recommended.

I got a referral to Wild Alaska Salmon from a very, very seafood-picky friend. So I signed up along with my neighbor. I felt anxious, because it seems like I ought to be supporting Atlantic fisheries. But they had this black cod, and I was feeling sorry for myself . . . . Well. My overnight delivery has been sitting in Yonkers for the last four days. The first delay was unexplained. The second delay was "undeliverable, damaged packaging". The third delay was "delivery restrictions". Last fedex memo was, will be attempted again on Tuesday. Which is a full week after it was packed. I got an inappropriately chipper email from them offering me a replacement, at no cost to me! I told them that, yes, they would be replacing it at no cost to me. And if not this week, don't bother. So. I have no reason to believe the fish is less than stellar. But you do have to be dealing with, sigh, pandemic shipping. I'm probably gonna deal with Pierless in Brooklyn going forward. Unless this Black Cod turns out to be life-changing.

Mine are Messermeister, and I have been thrilled with them for almost 30 years. Mine are close to what s second from the left in this picture: https://www.messermeister.com/collections/culinary-tools-sets-scissors

I'm in for trials.

St. Jude's seems like a wonderful company. The shipping costs are breathtaking! I'm actually thinking about that 24-can approach. It feels like a whole lotta tuna. But I guess I could send some to my brother. Who eats a whole lotta canned tuna.

An all-drawer upright. So.Damn.Sensible.

Shelby, I like this soup with the black lentils (usually I use black Beluga, except when I have RG Black Caviar). And I use whichever green is on hand. Finally. I use a lot of sausage: https://smittenkitchen.com/2013/01/lentil-soup-with-sausage-chard-and-garlic/ I don't think the black caviar lentils have a particularly distinctive taste; it's their texture that stands out. I REALIZE THAT OTHERS MILEAGE MAY VARY. My point is, it subs in nicely wherever you want a lentil to stay relatively firm. <cough>, salad.

Whose canned salmon do you guys like?

@btbyrd. I like how you live.

That certainly explains the robustness of the Bluestar broiler-pan. That thing is heavy, it annoys me. My bluestar experience annoys me generally. I love its concept. But mine has got some problem too much of the time. Also, someone dropped one of the grates and it broke, and BS won't replace just the grate, you have to buy the whole assembly. The broken grate of mine pieces together alright, which is how I roll. And I live in a vibrant city where there is someone, not even a Brooklyn Hipster, who can make me a new one. Pre-pandemic, anyway . . . . I will say this: that drip-tray concept is one-hundred-percent perfect. I've never had that before. I have had open-burners before, but you lifted the top of the stove on some kind of hinge, and proceeded to clean one-handed. The tray rocks.

I'll check it out! Along with a pandemic prayer.

This perfect ad flashed across my facebook page recently. I laughed for possibly an hour. The video isn't as . . . snarky, or whatever you call this Bonnie-n-Clyde aspect to the still shot. But, still. I need humor. I live in NYC.

I'm coming, too. Just as soon as I can get there.

My manual does not say that, @Barrytm (my model was going discontinued in 2011, so maybe yours is newer?), but in any case I'v been using the second rack. Which is actually a little far from the broiler. But so far I've made it work.

I have not. I need to.

I have had an RCS for about nine years, and I second the sense that the simmer is just too damn high. And I think the broiler is actually too hot for the top rack. Or else the top rack is too close to broiler. And the boiler pan which came with the range is heavy. Heavy-plus-hot . . . sigh. Also? I am surprised at just how frequently the igniters need replacement. Some other part of the oven died on me after about four years of use, it cost a FORTUNE to repair. Finally, the housing gets very hot (they may have put more insulation in the later models, actually). But I occasionally have small children over here, and while it's of course appropriate to *always* stay on guard with toddlers in the kitchen, I feel unusually nervous with this piece. It's possible that I got a lemon, one which didn't reveal itself until shortly after the warranty expired. Certainly no one I know has had as many complaints about their Bluestar as me. I love its simplicity of design as well as appearance. When I got it, I just knew I would be taking it with me when I moved on from my current home. But I've come to think, I'm gonna be leaving it.

Oh, you know I would! Honestly -- that's probably the business I wish I was in, making old people food they actually want to eat. But I'm in NYC, and she is in rural Maine. Someone made a mistake in there . . . And yes, I'm checking with a local cook who makes take-out food, but she's actually having inventory problems, herself. But I'm digging into Schwan's now. (I'm also enjoying how similar it sounds to the tv dinner of my childhood: Swansons!). Thanks, all!

Thank you all, for both the condolences and the recs. It's a weird time. And -- to stay on topic, sort of -- you can't even bring a dish, you know? My family would put their foot into those repast dishes, you know what I mean? And now, everybody has to stay away, just to try to make it through.

I ordered a vegetable box from some vendor at the Union Square Greenmarket; I admit I was disappointed at just how many radishes came in it. Radishes and rutabagas. Very little *spring*. But I'm eating it. I think of rutabagas as thanksgiving food, but I guess I have every reason to be thankful right this moment -- I've lost three family members and one friend to Covid so far (each of whom had serious risk factors); but I'm hanging in here, healthy. We actually did a funeral over zoom last weekend. @liamsaunt, those Maine marfax beans are delicious. I actually have some soaking now -- I order them from Baer's Best, a delightful Maine farmer who grows several New England heirlooms beans. It was funny to come across your picture! On food, things are fine up in here. I've had three vegetable deliveries in six weeks, plus one large order from Murray's Cheese; and I always had way too many beans around. I had filled my freezer with beef and pork and lamb in January. So there is plenty of high-calorie eating around here. That said, I'm now hunting for on-line vendors of frozen meals. I know that the "TV Dinner" game has changed for the better, and I've got a 77-year old loved one in rural Maine who just can't go out for a few more weeks. I'm made all kinds of arrangements to get her meat and vegetables, but now I'm thinking we just need to get some prepared meals up in there. Does anyone know of any online vendors who sell direct-to-consumer frozen dinners? I mean, decent-tasting ones???

@Bernie, tell it. I wanna go back to albums. With label-maker labels. Preferably that my mom made, but . . . . On the recipes. Sigh. I'm currently toggling between EatYourBooks plus my Evernote file. My EatYourBooks is not complete, Im still, slowly-by-slowly, uploaded my personal file. Honestly, I don't think the family recipes will ever make it there (or anywhere electronic); but I also think that my family recipes are lodged in a place in my memory to where -- when I want them, I'll remember that, and know where to reach. Thsi just isn't true for anything acquired after about 39. But -- before I was hipped to EatYourBooks, I used to have a ritual of rounds -- a round through the binders; a round through the card file; a round through the Evernote; and finally a round through the Main Books. **I will note -- for much of my life, I did have a really very good memory for food. I couldn't remember a recipe, but I could remember that I had grabbed something interesting re this particular ingredient, and then go hunting; so the rounds were more like trying to find something I already knew was there. That, I think, has become a thing of my youth which is now extinct. At a minimum -- it's reliability is extinct. Which I noticed first at work. Now I come across shit I swear I've never seen before . . . . Anyway -- this laborious but regular search-function did actually have the side-effect of severely narrowing my notion of which recipes were worth clipping. Anything that was even a little similar to something I already knew? Nah. So I don't add as much as I used to. And the metrics are different -- it really has to be *new* to get clipped for trial. Which may be a kind of doom . . . .

I'm happy to post it here, unless Steve registers an objection.

I don't think I've ever cooked that brand of hominy (I have a full bag from some bean club dispatch); but I have cooked other dried hominy (probably Goya), and it didn't take a million hours. I do soak it though; I have no idea whether that is traditional. I don't actually like canned hominy that much, it has always tasted too *gummy* to me. Try the pressure cooker, maybe? Don't go far from the stove though, that stuff foams like nobody's business. [I guess now everybody uses an instapot for this, which may have new technology re blocked vents. I have the old-timey Presto, with only audio cues.].

@andiesenji, bringin' it. Good to know.

I confess that I did not know that "stain" was the same as "dirty". As I write this, I can see the cognitive dissonance. But I think of a "stain" as a kind of a cosmetic thing. So, in other words, the stains on an otherwise washed tea towel would not trouble me. Not even a little bit. You know, my home might be a bona fide biohazard. And the cutting board thing . . . I'm just gonna take the Fifth on that. I have a lot of confidence in bleach. I use more of it than any single one of my peers. So . . . . I throw out tea towels when they get hole-y, not when they are stained. But I don't actually throw them out. Rather, I demote them to rags. I live in a rag home, not so much a sponge home. The non-oil rags are washed with each use; this is how I grew up. I think of sponges as like a marketing gimmick, I think it's a holdover from my depression-era parents. When I first moved out, I switched to sponges. And then I was like, nah . . . . I think this article is really weird, to tell the truth. Downright weird. [EDITED TO ADD: I use dishtowels to wash dishes. They don't get washed each use if the humidity has permitted them to genuinely dry; but there are a lot of them and they get washed frequently. I realized on reflection, what we're talking about here is using sponges for DISHES. I use dishtowels for dishes, and rags for other cleaning.].

@JoNorvelleWalker, unless you're working with a recipe, you just pick random. If you sweat the selection, you'll keep saving them. Just pick random. **one thing to note: I separate out big beans, which I prefer to use in salads in summer. And I separate out lentils, which I also pretty much confine to summer. And, finally, I separate out the black-eyed peas, which I don't usually eat except for new years (no reason for this -- I would eat black-eyed's year round, but now with all these other beans, it just seems . . . unnecessary). So there's not usually the full-twenty to pick from. Randomly.