[Humanely raised veal]

Macrosan, apparently I have misconstrued some of your points.

That said, I'd like to examine a few things...

Me: 1. A certain level of food production equals a certain world population.  Food production is the prime (or a prime) determinant of world population.

You: Food availability is a natural delimiter on world population.

These seem pretty close to being the same thing to me.

The logical conclusion of the above is:

Me: 2. Inherrent in #1 is the idea that the world population will grow or shrink according to the amount of food available.

You: The more food we provide to the world, the more the population will grow, demanding ever more food.

Now, it is a fact that you didn't say exactly what I said. You only said that the population would grow as the food supply grows. However, the idea that the population will shrink as the food supply shrinks is part and parcel of your original statement. It also happens to be true in a somewhat limited sense. The population may not grow beyond the limits of the available food supply, so the food supply determines the maximum possible population. If the food supply grows, the maximum possible population grows. Likewise, if the food supply shrinks, the maximum possible population shrinks.

Me: 3. Increasing food production, therefore, inevitably results in an increase in world population.

You: The more food we provide to the world, the more the population will grow

Again, these seem like pretty much the same thing to me.

Where your statement above is wrong, in my opinion, is that it assumes the human population will always grow up to the maximum possible size as determined by whatever by whatever growth-limiting conditions exist -- in this case, available food supply. In fact, as evidenced by countries like Italy, the actual population may be smaller than the maximum determined by food production, depending on many other variables.

Me: 4. Due to #3 above, we should not seek to increase food production.

You: The whole argument for GM as a means to "feed the world" is specious. What the world needs to do is to decide how much food can safely and sustainably be produced on this planet, and then stop producing more. The population of the world will naturally adjust to that availability.

These are a little different, it is true. My statement could be taken to imply that we should not seek to increase the food supply above today's levels whereas yours seems to imply that we should not seek to increase the food supply above a level that we somehow determine is "safe and sustainable."

Me: 5. What we should to is determine the optimal world population, determine the level of food production that corresponds to that population and refuse to produce any food above that level.

You: What the world needs to do is to decide how much food can safely and sustainably be produced on this planet, and then stop producing more. The population of the world will naturally adjust to that availability.

You are absolutely correct that my statment here puts the cart before the horse. That said, I am not sure it is an "an exact reversal of your words." Rather than deciding on the desired population first and determining the level of food production that corresponds to that population, as I erroneously attributed to you, you advocate deciding on a "safe and sustainable" level of food production which then corresponds to some inherrently desirable population. No matter which way you look at it, it would seem that a big part of this idea would be to refuse to produce food beyond a certain level. And what exactly do you think would happen if the "safe and sustainable" level were less than the current level of consumption by the world population?

I hope I have not misconstrued or misrepresented your position. However, it must be said that whether or not you advocate the deliberate limiting of food production as a means of population control, your statement above would seem to indicate that you do, in fact, advocate the deliberate limiting of food production. You are correct when you say that whatever restrictions on the food supply happen to exist will delimit population. However, when you advocate deliberate limitation of the food supply you inherrently advocate limiting the population by these means. Because the fact of the matter is that, when you limit the food supply people will starve, people will kill, people wil succumb to disease and people will die. This is exactly what happens in the so-called "natural world" every day.

However, as humans the idea is that we want to be humane to one another. And the fact is that ample evidence exists showing that a limit on food production does not necessarily limit reproduction in an individual basis. This is to say that it doesn't limit the creation of new lives, it just limits the rate at which those new lives persist to reproductive maturity. In other words, it's not necessarily the case that mothers have fewer children... it's mostly the case that more of the children die before they can have children of their own. Indeed, there is every indication that cultural values adjust to this phenomenon so that women reproduce more, not less.

Another big problem with your idea is that it is very hard to determine just what is "safe and sustainable." That might mean tree-hugging organic non-GM farming and a relatively small human population to some people. However, it could also mean massive genetic manipulation of both plant and animal life along with other drastic changes to the environment -- including perhaps the total extinction of all forms of life not necessary to support human consumption needs -- to feed a truly gigantic human population. There is no reason to suppose that one choice is inherrently "safer and more sustainable" than the other. I certainly prefer the former, but one cannot prove that the latter wouldn't work just as well.

So, in sum, I think that FG is correct that we must seek ways to feed the world's population today. It is inhumane to do otherwise. Similarly -- and here is where I think the "first world" is failing -- we must aggressively seek to improve those other aspects of human existence that seem to go along with lower population growth. And I don't think it can be ignored that societies with plenty of food, with higher levels of affluence and education, where women are educated, have opportunities outside the home and are relatively free from oppression, and where sex education and birth control are ubiquitous tend to have low population growth. In my opinion, it may be the case that problems aren't solved by throwing food at them, but is certainly is the case that plenty of problems are created by a lack of food. I hardly see how it would be possible to create the conditions that might lead to lower population growth until people have enough to eat.

Now... I am only looking at a few sentences that you wrote. Perhaps you meant for it to come out differently, or perhaps you were just pursuing an idea that came to mind and think differently. I'm cool with that. What do you think then?

[Absinthe: The Topic]

I assume you refer to: "Duplais P. Traité des liqueurs et de la distillation des alcools ou le liquoriste et le distillateur moderns. Versailles: Chez l'Auteur, 1855" as cited in this article by Strang, Arnold and Peters? If, as you suggest, they have made a mistake in their translation, perhaps you could provide reference to the passage(s) mistranslated and what you believe is the correct translation?

This is indeed the source. I don't have a copy of Duplais to hand at present but if you will accept a passage from Bedel's Trait complet de la fabrication des liqueurs et des vins liquoreux dits d'imitation Paris, 1899, (which many people think was largely a rehash of Duplais) I can email or fax it to you. I fear that I may try the forum's patience as well as my own typing accuracy if I copy out passages of 19th century French distillers handbooks! However, when Duplais wrote the original work in 1855 no one considered thujone an issue and there would have been no way of measuring it with any accuracy if anyone had had the inclination to do so. Duplais was interested in distillation and producing liqueurs and eaux de vie so he quoted figures for g/l of essence of wormwood but not concentrations of thujone.

OK... now we're getting somewhere. Do you think it is the case that Duplais wrote a figure for g/l of essence of wormwood and Strang et al. misread this as a concentration of thujone? As you point out, Duplais would hardly have been able to measure the concentration of thujone anyway, which is a fact I can hardly think would have been unknown to Strang et al. In fact, I wonder whether the existence of thujone was understood at all in 1855.

So, what I am wondering is where the misunderstanding/mistranslation happened. Of course, I did not mean to suggest that you type long passages of 19th century French and several possible translations thereof. I thought it would be more along the lines of "Duplais says blah blah blah here and was really referring to X, but Strang et al. mistranslated it as referring to Y." Is it not the case that Strang et al. read something in Duplais that caused them to extrapolate what they thought was a reasonable extimation of the thujone concentration in absinthe based? Somewhere there has got to be the misunderstanding. I am just trying to get a handle on what it was.

I will certainly be looking at the other topics on the forum.

Great! Glad to have you aboard. And still looking forward to any recommendation of absinthe that might be available in the US, if you are aware of any.

[Humanely raised veal]

DDT, as far as I know, is quite benign with respect to humans.  The reason DDT was banned in the US and other countries was not because it is bad for humans but rather because of the effect it can have on the reproduction of other animals.  Specifically, it caused the eggshells of certain birds to be thinner, which resulted in fewer of of these eggs surviving to hatch.

DDT may well have a worse reputation than it deserves, but I would stop short of characterizing it as "benign" with respect to humans. The following piece, which is a defence of DDT, is at pains to point out that research does suggest a link between heavy DDT exposure and low birth weight and premature births.

http://web.ask.com/redir?bpg=http%3a%2f%2f...gourevitch.html

Ooops. I should have paid more attention to what I was typing. I meant to say "relatively benign" rather than "quite benign." My point was that the stuff isn't exactly cancer in a bag, and that there are plenty of things out there that are 100 times worse for humans than DDT.

Interesting quotes from the web page you linked to:

The critics were so successful that, although the administrative judge presiding over the hearings concluded that "DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man ... DDT is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man," the EPA banned it anyway in 1972

***  ***  ***

By 2000, a group of environmental activists, led by the World Wildlife Fund, was promoting a U.N. "persistent organic pollutants" treaty known as the Stockholm Convention, which would have banned DDT worldwide for all uses. Only at the last minute was an exemption added for public health use.

But over the years, mainstream scientific opinion has absolved DDT of many of its supposed sins. Indeed, the Stockholm Convention partially backfired because it brought to light a slew of studies and literature reviews which contradicted the conventional wisdom on DDT. Like nearly any chemical, DDT is harmful in high enough doses. But when it comes to the kinds of uses once permitted in the United States and abroad, there's simply no solid scientific evidence that exposure to DDT causes cancer or is otherwise harmful to human beings.

Not a single study linking DDT exposure to human toxicity has ever been replicated. In 1993, Mary Wolff, an associate professor at Mount Sinai Medical Center, published a small study linking DDT exposure to breast cancer. But numerous follow-up studies with human subjects--including one large five-study review comparing 1,400 women with breast cancer to an equivalent number of controls--found no evidence for the link. David Hunter, an epidemiologist at Harvard University who ran one of the follow-up studies, says of the breast cancer connection, "the studies have really put that idea to rest." Similarly, various studies have contradicted initial concerns that DDT might cause myeloma, hepatic cancer, or non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Other reports over the years postulating human toxicity in DDT exposure turned out to be cases of correlation without causation. In its heyday, for instance, DDT was mixed with a variety of dangerous chemicals, sometimes petroleum derivatives. In every anecdote of death or human harm by DDT that Carson related, the chemical had been dissolved in some other, highly toxic, substance, such as fuel oil, petroleum distillate, benzene hexachloride, or methylated naphthalenes.

That's pretty darn harmless in my book. YMMV, of course.

As for whether or not the article points to a study that posits a link between heavy DDT exposure and low birth weight and premature births, as you suggest:

Matthew Longnecker studied American women who had lived during the period of high DDT use and suggested that high levels of DDT in the bloodstream of pregnant women might cause pre-term delivery and low birthweight, for instance. But public health use doses--two grams per square meter of wall sprayed indoors at most every six months--aren't likely to produce those concentrations. Since DDT is not absorbed through the skin, spraying DDT in houses is unlikely to expose pregnant women--or anyone else--to amounts great enough to pose a danger. And scant evidence suggests DDT gets into the environment in significant amounts when sprayed indoors

The emphasis is mine, and would seem to indicate that Longnecker's study didn't even correlate the presence of DDT in the bloodstream of these women, but rather simply observes that women who lived during the ara when DDT was in heavy use tended to have silghtly a slightly higher incidence of pre-term deliveries and low birthweights. This is not particularly convincing evidence, IMO.

[Absinthe: The Topic]

This article by Ian Hutton first appeared in Current Drug Discovery, September, 2002

It's not entirely clear to me whether Current Drug Discovery is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Regardless, Ian's interesting article does not appear to present experimental data as in a typical journal article and appears in the "Back Pages" section of the magazine.

This is not quite the same thing as writing a counter-article or response, or posting a "rapid response" to, say, the BMJ -- nor does it seem equivalent to submitting an actual experimental study to a peer-reviewed journal to be considered for publication. These are the two things about which I inquired.

Not that any of the above should be taken as a negative comment as to the interesting, provocative and informative nature of Mr. Hutton's article in Current Drug Discovery, which I think is pretty cool.

[Humanely raised veal]

As well as increased levels of herbicides, pesticides and estrogen which reduce the overall sperm count in men living in First World countries.

Evidence that this is actually the case?

Given the high death rate among children in Third World countries, having larger families increases the odds of some of them living to adulthood

However, one of the negative effects of Western medicine in these countries is that many more children are surviving to adulthood and yet there has been no compensatory change in the culture with respect to women or having large families.

As for pesticides (DDT especially) and other pollutants, aren't they far more commonly used and found in food sources in many countries with high birth rates than they are in places like Canada and the US?

DDT, as far as I know, is quite benign with respect to humans. The reason DDT was banned in the US and other countries was not because it is bad for humans but rather because of the effect it can have on the reproduction of other animals. Specifically, it caused the eggshells of certain birds to be thinner, which resulted in fewer of of these eggs surviving to hatch.

[Absinthe: The Topic]

One of the main points of argument in my article is that 'vintage' absinthe did not contain the high concentrations of thujone claimed in various literature references and that this makes it unlikely that it is solely responsible for the secondary effects of absinthe. I deduced this because Arnold, the most widely quoted source for information on thujone concentrations in 19th century absinthe, seems to have misread the original French reference book by Duplais and has probably confused thujone with oil of wormwood when extrapolating the figures. The figure of 200+ mg/l of thujone has simply been requoted over and over because the original source material was not checked.

I assume you refer to: "Duplais P. Traité des liqueurs et de la distillation des alcools ou le liquoriste et le distillateur moderns. Versailles: Chez l'Auteur, 1855" as cited in this article by Strang, Arnold and Peters? If, as you suggest, they have made a mistake in their translation, perhaps you could provide reference to the passage(s) mistranslated and what you believe is the correct translation? I am also curious as to why you think it might be that this error has not been remarked upon in the scientific community. Or do you suppose you are among a very small minority that has rechecked the original information? I'm not asking this facetiously, I really do wonder.

Have you ever thought of writing to one of the scientific journals or posting a comment on the journal's web site in response to an article they had published citing the figures you think are erroneous?

I also believe that thujone is stable under the conditions found in absinthe and that modern GC is measuring what was present when the absinthe was made as no degradation products are visible on the output trace.

Might there be other explanations for why your gas chromatography didn't find any degradation products? For instance, might any such products have reacted into still different forms over time? Or might they have precipitated and formed a sediment in the bottle? Or is is possible that the sample which you tested was not representative of all 19th century absinthes?

Finally it would not be possible to extract the high concentrations of thujone using distillation of plants (although it would be possible using essential oil extracts such as were (and are) used to make inferior absinthes).

Ah, but isn't this part of the point? Presumably most of the people suffering absinthe's alleged ill effects were did not have sufficient means to drink the expensive stuff. Unfortunately, I rather imagine that there aren't too many 100 year old bottles of carefully preserved rotgut absinthe hanging around in old cellars waiting to be tested. I would be very interested to see the CG analysic results of some really crappy absinthe, as I strongly suspect that contaminants and non-ethyl alcohol were responsible for most of absinthe's reported effects not explainable by alcohol intoxication.

I will shortly be repeating my earlier GC analyses with a greater and more diverse collection of vintage absinthes.

Great! I look forward to seeing your results. Do you intend to write them up for publication in a scientific journal?

Thanks for your contributions and welcome to eGullet, by the way. Assuming your culinary interests extend beyond absinthe, you should check out our other forums as well. For what it's worth, I am rather in your camp when it comes to the alleged mind-altering effects of the various substances in absinthe other than alcohol.

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

1. Tomato Mozarella and Eggs -- courtsey slkinsey. This one went over well. Although I had to watch it cos I dont have a stone

Yay! Glad you liked it.

I am getting ready to do a big pizza party for a friend's birthday, so I'll take pictures of my various specialties and try to post.

[Humanely raised veal]

Hmm... I am not sure "twaddle" comprises a particularly effective refutation of FG's points.

Macrosan, let me see if I can sum up what I see as your core argument here:

1. A certain level of food production equals a certain world population. Food production is the prime (or a prime) determinant of world population.

2. Inherrent in #1 is the idea that the world population will grow or shrink according to the amount of food available.

3. Increasing food production, therefore, inevitably results in an increase in world population.

4. Due to #3 above, we should not seek to increase food production.

5. What we should to is determine the optimal world population, determine the level of food production that corresponds to that population and refuse to produce any food above that level.

In principle, this would actually work. Availability of food is, generally, a population-limiting factor. It works in a Petri dish and it could work on the world population of humans. However, the way population is limited by food production (aka food supply) is via starvation, disease and premature death. This is not exactly something I think we should be visiting upon our fellow humans.

As Steven points out, humans do not act like bacteria. They will not placidly die of starvation when they reach a growth-limiting condition. Rather, they will kill each other, they will terrorize those with food, they will reak havoc with the environment -- they will do anything they possibly can to avoid death by starvation.

I would suggest that there are better and more humane ways to control a world population that is growing to dangerously high levels. It has been amply demonstrated, for example, that lower population growth is strongly correlated with educational levels, career opportunities outside the home and overall freedom from oppression for women in a given culture. Overall affluence and education are also strongly associated with lower population growth. Let's start talking sex education and birth control while we're at it.

Now... the problem is that it is very hard to start even thinking about these things in areas where the population is concerned with the quotidian task of trying not to starve to death. In this light, it is possible that providing adequate food to these areas could eventually lead to lower rates of population growth, as the local culture becomes better able to address some of the elements I mentioned above -- not to mention getting rid of some of the oppressive dictatorships that, not coincidentally, are precisely the people who stand in the way of the effective distribution of food in areas under their control.

Consider this fact: high levels of food production per capita correlate with low population growth; low levels of food production per capita correlate with high population growth.

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

I consider the ovo/lacto veggie arguments are to somehow rationalize the consumption of non vegetable foods by folks who still want to label themselves vegetarians.  I don't buy it.  I'm a bovo porco vegetarian, a veg who also consumes beef and pork. 

Hee! I have no idea what I'd call myself, then...

Actually, most "vegetarians" tend to define their eating habits by what they don't eat rather than by what they do eat, so it seems like any term for one of these dietary pracices that is defined by inclusion rather than exclusion is bound to run into trouble.

As for me, I've been placed in a situation where I have no choice but to consider the local pizza joint's "Portabella Special" for dinner.  Thin crust, fresh made tomato sauce, buffalo mozz, sliced portabellas, sliced red onions and basil infused olive oil drizzeled on top prior to serving.

[sARCASM]No choice! Man... that sounds like a fate worse than death. You might as well slit your wrists now and get it over with[/sARCASM]

[Friends/Relatives' imposed food conditions]

I see it alot with my non-European friends where they tell their children/guests that they'll eat what's on the table, or not at all.  Whereas Europeans tend to bend over backwards to make whatever their kids/guests wants to eat -- even if it's not the menu.

Really?! That's not been my observation. Rather quite the opposite.

[Friends/Relatives' imposed food conditions]

Related question.  Does family, esp when you see them regularly, count as "guests" in this context?

Not to me. My mother certainly made very little accomodation to my tastes when she was doing the cooking. Her rule was always "I am cooking something I like for dinner. If you don't like it, then you can either have nothing or you can cook dinner for the entire family." I adhere to the same rule when cooking for my parents.

NB. Both my parents are only children and the grandparents have all gone to their great reward, so I don't have a lot of this kind of thing to deal with.

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

sam's right.  let's move on. 

No right or wrong there, as far as I can tell. But thanks for the pithy comment.

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

All fruits are vegetables but not all vegetables are fruits.

Hmmm... interesting. I did a little digging, and from what I can gather there is no particularly clear botanical definition of "vegetable." I did find, this, however, which said:

A berry is defined as "a fleshy fruit formed from one compound ovary containing one or many seeds" that does not resemble a pepo (melon) or pome (apple). That nets you tomato again. Tomatoes are botanically berries. The cite for this can be found here.

This is somewhat muddied by the fact that "vegetable", as people understand the word when talking about edible plants, does not have a botanical definition. "Vegetables" as they are referred to are defined by their use rather than by any inherent feature of the particular plant, and it is in this group that people most often place tomatoes.

The definition I have always used was something like this: fruit = the ripened seed-bearing part of a plant when fleshy and edible; vegetable = herbaceous plant cultivated for an edible part, as roots, stems, leaves or flowers.

Your point about eggs and cheese coming from animals is well made, of course, although the whole notion of "vegetarian" seems a bit nebulous to me as it has so many permutations and the exact meaning of "vegetable" is not entirely clear. Perhaps it would be more accurate if more clumsy to say something like "voluntary herbivore."

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

Of course cheese and eggs aren't vegetarian either...

Well, if you really want to get technical, neither would anything with tomato... since a tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable.

With pizza, I think it is usual to suppose "lacto-ovo vegetarian." Of course, my idea of vegetarian is greens cooked with smoked ham hocks... but that is for another day.

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

Fig paste and Goat cheese

Yes. I forgot to mention that one. It's very un-traditional, but I do like a pizza with fig preserves, gorgonzola, ruccola and sea salt (the greens added off the heat). No pom/mozz on this one, of course.

[Absinthe: The Topic]

please read this if you are interested about recent studies on thujone and absinthe:

http://www.absintheonline.com/acatalog/Thujone.html

Interesting/relevant passages from this article, in my opinion, include:

What is more likely to have caused harm to regular absinthe drinkers is the adulterants used in the cheaper varieties. Absinthe existed in a quality pyramid much as wine does today, for each quality brand there were many more indifferent and positively harmful versions being sold cheaply to those who could not afford to buy a reputable brand. Common adulterants were cupric acetate (to provide the valued green colour) and antimony trichloride (which provided a cloudiness when water was added in imitation of the milky appearance of diluted absinthe). The purity of the base alcohol used for lesser brands would also have been questionable, and toxic levels of methanol from poor rectification would have been a real possibility. An additional aggravating factor is that as the cheaper brands were lower in alcohol than the quality brands, around 45% abv for ‘absinthe demi-fine’ compared to 68 or 72% for ‘absinthe superior’, someone drinking the cheaper version and seeking to obtain the same effect from the alcohol would have needed to consume more of the absinthe and hence more adulterants.

and

In conclusion, there is no evidence that absinthe ever contained the high concentrations of thujone that would have led to detrimental effects or that it has hallucinogenic or mind altering properties. The health problems experienced by chronic users were likely to have been caused by adulterants in inferior brands and by the high levels of alcohol present. Claims for beneficial effects must also be treated with some scepticism as again, the detrimental effects of the alcohol would presumably outweigh any benefits. It seems likely that the phenomenal success of absinthe during the 19th century was due to one factor, the French love of aniseed drinks. The modern equivalent of absinthe, pastis, is by far the most popular distilled spirit in France with 125 million litres being consumed annually.

This article was apparently originally published not in a peer reviewed journal, but in a magazine called Current Drug Discovery which is a publication of Current Drugs, Ltd. which is, in turn, part of Thomson Scientific, a division of The Thomson Corporation.

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

Hmm... add some pancetta or bacon, and I do believe you might have the world's most perfect breakfast.

I thought it had to be vegetarian toppings?

Well yeah, you're right.

But bacon is a food category all by itself, necessary to long life, wisdom, and incredible physical beauty. Sometimes I plumb forget it's merely meat.

I understand and share your enthusiasm

No bacon. Guanciale.

[Pizza Toppings: Simple/Elaborate, Traditional/Unusual]

tomato, mozzarella and eggs, a la slkinsey .... more info please...

Make a regular tomato sauce/mozzarella pizza (going very light on the cheese), then carefully crack several eggs right on the crust right before you slide it onto the baking stone (you're going for maybe 1/2 of the pizza surface covered by egg). The eggs will "fry" right on the crust. Take it out of the oven when the yolks are still nice and runny. Sprinkle with minced parsley and drizzle with evoo. This recipe only works with a well-heated baking stone and a thin crust (otherwise, the heat doesn't come through to fry the eggs). I like to make this one with thinly sliced with home-roasted red peppers sparsely strewn across the top before adding the eggs.

Some other interesting vegetarian pizze: Make a regular tomato/mozzarella pizza (easy on the toppings as always) and then top the pizza out of the oven with a salad of mixed wild/bitter greens and thinly sliced red onion dressed with the very best evoo (I usually add a covering of prosciutto, but that isn't exactly vegetarian); fresh (not canned!) slices of artichoke sauteed in evoo until brown and crispy are delicious on a pizza with a little red onion; make a pizza crust with no tomato or mozzarella -- instead top the pizza liberally with greens you have blanched and sauteed in evoo with garlic and crushed red pepper... at the last minute, throw on some dollops of strachino cheese (tangy mild soft cheese from "tired cows"); and, there is always fresh (or even frozen) porcini mushrooms drizzled with the very best evoo and sprinkled with an interesting sea salt at the table.

[Q&A -- Straining, defatting and reducing Unit 3]

I also do a big reduction in order to save space in the freezer. One thing I find, however, is that this practice inevitably results in a fairly dark stock (due to maillard reactions, caramelization of sugars, etc.) even after it is diluted back to normal strength.

As chance would have it, I helped a friend with a huge backyard cook-out in Queens on Saturday. Among other things, he gave me 8 large chickens on Friday which I completely deboned and marinated in chimichurri to be grilled at the party. As a result, I now have a huge bag of raw chicken bones in my freezer waiting to be made into stock next weekend. Man... Big Apple Meats is such a cool place for this kind of thing. We got an obscene amount of meat for something like a hundred bucks.

[Q&A -- Knife Maintenance and Sharpening]

End-grain boards are obscenely expensive but, as I'm sure you know, they are the only way to go.

You can ge them at IKEA for less than 20 bucks... real end grain.

[Q&A -- Pit Roasting a Pig]

What is your take on the barrel roaster method as opposed to the pit?

I imagine Michael and perhaps others will weigh in on this, but I thought I'd add my own 2 cents as well...

Pigs that are cooked in a closed environment such as the "barrel roasters" you describe strike me as more "smoked" than "roasted." As a result, open pit roasting such as Michael describes tends to produce meat that is less smoky but has more "roasted" flavor. This is probably a result of several things: A) there is less smoke around the pig; B) the pig is roasted over direct heat as opposed to indirect heat; C) because the pit is open, the cooking environment is not as moist; D) due to B and C, there are more crispy bits and roasted-tasting compounds produced by a combination of direct heat and slight dehydration at the surface.

[Q&A -- Pit Roasting a Pig]

This makes things a lot easier, as the pig can defrost overnight in the bathtub or another suitable large container without any health concerns.

Well, I would imagine that one health concern would be the heart-attack when someone unsuspecting walks into the bathroom and sees a sow soaking in the tub!

I do have some pretty damn funny pictures of a pig defrosting inside someone's bathtub...

[Homemade Macaroni and Cheese: The Topic]

FWIW, I don't think you need to add a whole lot of cheese to the bechamel sauce. Add some, sure... but the rest of it can just be grated and tossed with the other ingredients to melt in the oven. This will eliminate a possible source of problems and simplify the whole procedure.

IMO, another important element is to cook the pasta well below the threshhold of "al dente" as it will finish softening in the oven. This probably works better with things like penne and ziti than it does with elbow macceroni.

As for the orange color... maybe a little tomato paste in with the roux?

[Absinthe: The Topic]

I went to PNAS and glanced through the research article and the commentary in PNAS...

Thanks for the links, Trillium. Interesting reading. I thought two pargraphs in Olsen's response were of particular interest/relevance:

Absinthe was widely regarded as imparting pharmacological effects beyond those of alcohol alone, such as stimulating the imagination and aphrodisiac action, as well as producing hallucinations. Except for the toxicity, there is little research evidence supporting this view and more study is needed.

and

Now why would a drug with toxic and convulsant actions possibly be considered pleasant or at least desirable? A speculation that thujone might behave in a manner similar to tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient of marijuana, was ruled out (22): thujone has a low affinity for cannabinoid receptor binding sites but none of the pharmacological actions, such as locomotor activity (open field test), immobility (ring stand test), and analgesia (hot plate test). Thus cannabinoids, but not thujone, are central nervous system depressants, like a sleeping pill. Thujone, like picrotoxin, is excitatory on the brain (analeptic). Such an agent may produce mood elevation and antidepressant effects. One may note the anxiogenic and possibly alerting effect of GABA antagonists, as opposed to the anxiolytic, sedative, but also amnestic effects of GABA-enhancing drugs like benzodiazepines and ethanol (9, 10, 23). Do not forget, however, that in absinthe one is balancing the effect of thujone with the intoxicating, disinhibitory, and depressant effects of ethanol, not to mention those of the other herbal ingredients of oil of wormwood and others added to the myriad recipes for absinthe now in existence.

[Q&A -- Understanding Stovetop Cookware]

. . . The main thing to consider with these pans, really, is the nonstick coating . . .

According to their web site, Berndes uses Autograph as its non-stick coating for its SignoCast and Tradition lines.

Autograph is Dupont's premier PTFE coating...

Thanks Dave. Good catch! That is certainly good news to potential buyers.

That said, my understanding is that a major factor in the durability of a nonstick surface is the number of coats applied (I think this is the difference between Calphalon's "Commercial" and "Professional" nonstick lines, for example) and we do not have any data on that AFAIK, although a closer look through their site may reveal some.