SLB

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.

That sounds about perfect, @Smithy. Not big enough to create agony if it comes out poorly; but just dense enough to cook slowly. On the peanut-butter-whiskey . . . I confess that I am ok with it. I mean, think of how it might play in a hard sauce . . . . I wouldn't drink it neat, but I'm sure I could figure something out. But my real question is for @kayb -- do you eat the full quarter each year? I realize I don't know anything about your household size. I've been splitting quarters with a friend, but the jealousy is beginning to get the best of me. I'm trying to figure out if I can handle a whole quarter at a time. [And I recognize -- this is not exactly a question that can be answered by one's Internet Friends . . . ].

Frijol Negro Santanero de Oaxaca.

I haven't found a huge difference in braising treatment of grass-fed versus regular commercial beef (as opposed to steaks, where the difference seems very serious). It's possible that i"m not sensitive enough; also, I usually cook pretty small roasts, so maybe I'm already in the habit of checking for doneness early.

This bean is specifically why I'm kicking myself for not keeping this box.

I got mine in NYC on Monday; but I'm now splitting the subscription with a friend, so I passed it on unopened. I have at least 10 pounds of beans in my cupboard as I sit here; that, combined with me wanting to throw some of my consumption/support toward my local bean growers, is why I thought it made sense to start sharing the bounty. Still -- sigh. I have FOMO, bad. According to Facebook, there is a bean in that box that I'd KILL to try. <deepbreaths> It's gonna be fine, just fine.

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.