SLB

I'm interested in a source of tasty pork rinds (not the hard cracklins, the soft puffy ones). I'd be happy to mail-order, I'd like to get a lot of them.

He lives where we're from, in Denver. Somewhere there! On the unpacking: that's the beauty of the TaskRabbit hire: you design the specific scope of the task.

Wow on the no-collar. I like . My brother had a similar surgery last autumn at c4-7, but the issue was severe stenosis. He was sullen about the no bending/lifting/twisting thing. The physical therapists were, in my view, geniuses. But anyway. Yes to food delivery, it'll be an adventure. And yes to the World Cup.

I think the FD meat is good, and the fish is excellent -- better than at my Fairway (the Harlem location). The produce has not been a hit for me, and I can't really recommend it. The notable exception is tomatoes, which have been uniformly fine. But I've gotten soft potatoes from them before! And almost every green or herb I've ever purchased has been wilted. I am not bothered all that much in concept by wilted herbs, or even wilted greens that are going to be cooked. But wilted lettuce drives me crazy, even though sometimes it can be revived a little bit. And nothing wilted is supposed to cost what it costs at Fresh Direct. Wilted edibles are supposed to come at a discount. I really enjoy grocery shopping, though, and I live in NYC where it can be really very interesting. So I only use FD for specific purposes -- once when I was sick, otherwise when I just can't make the time to haul to the store(s), etc. And once I've committed to ordering, then I go to town and get cases of beer and some table wine and a boatload of q-tonic and enough LaCroix to last for the whole summer . . . . I live up five flights of stairs, so anything that is a pain for me, once I've signed on for a delivery with them, they bring it. And yes, there are cases of LaCroix in my living room. Behind the couch. ETA: Sorry for your woes, Weinoo, wishing you a speedy recovery. That thing they say about not lifting . . . well, I don't know what happened with you, but I do know that this proscription is usually meant to be taken seriously. Take good care, have fun in the world of delivery. And don't sleep on Instacart, or hiring a Taskrabbit to go pick up your stuff at your appointed vendors.

I have a Bluestar RCS (I think this was replaced by the RNB, and I suspect that this is why I got a decent deal on the range). I love the simplicity of its function, I strongly prefer the open burners, and I love the power; but in seven years I have had to replace like three of the igniters and something major busted in the oven (not the convection fan -- the oven stopped working actually). Also, the upper rack is really just too close to the broiler -- I always need to use the next rack level, which is honestly just a bit too far away for true surface-cooking. I can deal with all of this, but it seems like more hassle than one should be dealing with at that price point.

Man, that soup book. It was beautiful!

I would like to see this -- anybody have a link? If not -- what was Bourdain's handle here? I can search for it. Awful.

Noted. On the hunt.

I really appreciated all the suggestions, and I'm working my way through them liter by liter. My current one is the house oil from Agata & Valentina, which is a grocery store near my office which I only really knew for its fish counter and exceptional prepared-hot-food lunch smorgasbord. I appreciate the wisdom here that what is sold in bulk is unlikely to be actual EVOO, and I'm not overly committed to the concept of olive oil; but whatever this is, it's nice and mild. I did try for awhile to switch out to a neutral oil for the places where I had been using the mild olive oil in cooking (i.e., I use grapeseed oil in dressings where I don't want any taste of olive oil); but it turns out that sometimes I do miss the taste of [what's passing for] olive oil in my sauteed vegetables and whatnot. I'll continue to experiment, will report back.

I didn't even know rinds could turn moldy. I better check, the ones in my fridge have been there for years. When I remember, I throw them in with the polenta. I'm going to try broth though, then I can boil it down and freeze it.

Oh, god.

The other thing that is bewildering to me, on top of the ravaging of the word "clean", is the perversion of the word "carbohydrate". It took me years of confusion to figure out that what a lot of faddists mean by "carb" is actually "starch".

I recycle happily in accord with the NYC law, although this podcast made me ashamed of my un-diligent rinsing: http://outsideinradio.org/shows/onebintorulethemall With respect to the arguments above, I do use cloth napkins. I genuinely prefer them on function, but the actual reason I use them is because I am cheap. I use about one a week. I still do use more paper towels than I totally understand, though. I need to figure that one out. I do not have a toaster or a microwave; I use the oven or a double boiler for those functions, so I think this means that my energy use is incredibly inefficient. I use a no-rinse dishwasher. My understanding is that not only do most of the new dishwashers not require rinsing, but the theory of the current dishwasher detergent is that there is food-residue on the plates to prompt an enzymatic reaction; the detergent needs something to work against. My dishes are definitely clean, unless I have failed to properly scrape. I recently began segregating food waste for composting, which involves me deploying part of my freezer for collection and part of my time for hauling it to a collection site. It's been startling to see how many vegetable trimmings I toss; my ancestors near and far have all got to be howling in their graves. Honestly it's motivated me to begin to rethink a lot of things -- I don't think I can commit any more time to food prep, which is the commodity that seems required to make use of trimmings other than compost (I don't have animals to feed) -- but it seems to be kind of nuts. I certainly wish I'd committed to composting years ago. And the other thing that has become unavoidably troubling is the fact that my non-recyclable (landfill) garbage is entirely soft-plastic packaging. I don't even buy prepared food and I seem to have all of this packaging all the time! It's stunning.

Very useful feedback. I can't wait for my hocks to get here.

How does the bacon seasoning compare to the hock-jus for seasoning? Has anyone here had both? My tentative operating assumption is that the bacon seasoning is stronger. I use pork stock a lot, smoked-hock-based for mild and smoked-neckbone-based for strong. On that -- I would LOVE a tip for where to find some neckbones of the quality of the hams in these threads. I'm going to call the purveyors on the list to see, but any leads would be appreciated.

Here's what I got back from Anson Mills, cut and pasted: Your Carolina Gold Rice and Sea Island Red Peas are new crop .. meaning they are live (viable) and aerobic when milled. They have associated robust and unique aroma/flavor profiles when cooked. When stored ambient, both will lose that lovely aroma/flavor profile because it will volatilize when you open the bags for cookery. Stored frozen, this will not happen. With regard to your fresh cold milled to order hand pound emulation Carolina Gold Rice... because we choose to emulate how rice was prepared from scratch paddy rice a la minute for cookery before the industrial revolution, we hull/mill so that we just nick the outer bran of each kernel leaving the inner bran layer and germ intact... this form can oxidize and/or spoil stored at room temperature even though we vac pack on CO2 envelope at -10 F. to protect this rice for shipment at ambient temperatures for about 2 weeks only. We mill this way for flavor.. Carolina Gold Rice is suppose to be "non-aromatic" rice.. milled new crop "partial white", which is how we mill to emulate hand pounding.. it is slightly aromatic which we love.

So. Anson Mills came up on the cooking with grains thread, and I realized that I am dying to know -- who really freezes their Anson Mills goods? Every.Single.Item I've ever gotten from them has come with instructions to freeze or use, but . . . . I do tend to freeze the corn products, because my mind can grip the notion that rancidity could be a possibility there. But I just got a box of rice, and I can't understand why I would freeze rice. Or the peas, frankly. But. I want to know: are y'all freezing your rice? Am I going to be grieving???

After reading this thread, I'm going to order some of the Anson Mills rice, which I've never had before. Their polenta is my very favorite on the planet, though, and I can't recommend it enough. The other corn products have a justly-earned rep, but I personally think there are a lot of good cornmeals out there, if we're talking basic cornbread opportunities. That said -- I hate how at Anson Mills you have to either buy a tiny pouch of an item or 10 pounds. I don't get why this works for mail order. By "works" I mean works for the retail consumer. Sigh.

I think beans are good-looking! (ps -- sucking up in order to get a spot in the bean club)

Me too! It's my favorite kind of exercise! Stay tuned.

For me, this is the utility of the fatties: I won't eat as many. They function like a true "side". Cause with [any variety] of French Fries, I'll eat a mountain of them in bliss, and then lick the salt off the plate after. It's not really the taste that gets me all fiended out, it's more like the texture or something. I don't know. But I get so lost in french fries I sometimes can't remember nothing about the protein.

I know plenty of African-Americans who won't even eat watermelon in the company of white people, because they don't want to bring to anyone's mind anything even close to one of those horrible pictures. This is old-school, for sure; but it persists. It's a trope that's left a pretty deeply felt sense of insult.

Here's an article on the history of the derogatory association of watermelon with an irrationally negative view of African-Americans: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/how-watermelons-became-a-racist-trope/383529/

I thought line cooks at fine-dining-type restos made good money. Actually, I really thought I'd read that this was the case in "Kitchen Confidential" way backalong. So that's why I was startled.

Woah.