sng sling

My Dad used to swear by sweet pickle relish and peanut butter on toast or crackers as a hangover cure... Edit -- spelling

A South African friend of Italian descent showed me how to grill the rinds over a gas burner flame. Made a delicious nibble. I've heard that the microwave will work in a similar fashion...

For what it's worth, we have a fairly new Le Creuset grill pan (maybe 2-3 years old) that is enameled on the bottom -- just cleaned it after breakfast this AM. Our older LC items (30+ years) have enameled and untrammeled bottoms. I have no idea why, though. I'd appreciate any info just out of curiousity..

I'd second Ryugin, but if you want something other than Japanese cuisine, Monna Lisa (French) in the Marunouchi Building is pretty spectacular. If you crave excellent Italian, you might try Piatto Suzuki in Azabu Juban.

We buy the Williams-Sonoma frozen croissants for home. If I recall properly, the thaw and proof time for them is 6-8 hours at room temperature. We usually leave them out at bedtime and bake them off in the morning. They increase in size by about 3x. Never had any trouble. Hope this helps.

Sorry for the delay. I'm like a squirrel and forgot my own post!! Can't recall its name, but it was the Italian restaurant on the top floor of Isetan in Shinjuku 3-chome. Hope you get a chance to try it.

We popped for a Vita-Mix about a year ago, ostensibly to make better smoothies, but it is/was a really cool toy. However, the main advantage relative to our previous Kitchen Aid is that the ice or frozen fruit becomes completely smooth rather than pretty smooth. The justification to upgrade is kind of shaky. Another aspect of the smoothie topic is the cost of smoothies outside the home. Our health club offers a $5 smoothie with yogurt and/or soy milk, choice of fruit (all frozen in bags), with added cost options of peanut butter, whey powder, etc. Even using the most generous ingredient cost there is perhaps 75 cents worth of food in the blender. That might be a better gross margin than pizza! I find that the active bacteria yogurts are good for me, and smoothies are a very easy way to add this to my diet. Whey protein powder, as mentioned above, adds protein without adding fat. Soy milk is also said to be good for health, but I don't like the taste. In a smoothie, it is undetectable. Berries (fresh or frozen) allegedly have strong health benefits and taste good. Banana, peaches, and mango work well. Good quality frozen fruit is better than mediocre out of season produce. If you use fresh fruit, you obviously need a handful of ice to cool things off.

There's a whole cottage industry in Photoshop how-to books in your bookstore, and maybe even your library. I bought one for Photoshop Elements 4.0 (haven't updated in a couple years) and found it very helpful. You'd naturally want one for the current version..

Places here in Houston sometimes offer chopped herb mixtures with the oil. Another thought is the Middle Eastern herb/spice/nut mix called "dukkha" (not sure about spelling), which serves a similar purpose as a bread dip.

.....get started. Or if you'd like to help, but you don't know how: maybe you know a nearby excellent restaurant or chef. You could mention to them in passing one day the gist of my story and report back to me their thoughts on it. What would they think about employing some crazy Canadian white kid for room and board? ←

We have a chest type freezer in our Houston TX garage that cost less than $200 at Costco. It's run reliably for about 5 years, and I couldn't tell how much it adds to the electric bill -- it's overwhelmed by the A/C. I figure that if the extra work of fighting Houston summers causes it to last a couple years less, then we'll replace it cheaply. Lots of folks here retire their kitchen fridge to the garage when they redecorate or upgrade. Seems to work out well.

I've had generally good responses by asking the wait person about the dish as I finish it. "This was really great; can you tell me about the ingredients/method?"

Most of the heavy duty cleaners are also an eye hazard. Be sure you are using some kind of eye protection -- especially while applying or scrubbing when the stuff can get splashed around...

When I read the NYT article, it struck me that the recycling possibility was limited. Recycling multi-layer plastic bladders is tough because there is (likely) a nylon or mylar layer in the bladder to prevent oxygen transfer. Much of recycling depends on being able to sort out similar types of plastic. The "milk carton" type paper containers are layered with plastic resins to keep the cardboard from getting soggy and leaking. These don't decompose very well, since the plastic layer "protects" the cardboard in the landfill. Taking away the eco value and recognizing that boxwine is almost always so-so, makes box wines a doubtful deal at best.

Very difficult to weld cast iron, especially if you plan to heat it later. with enamel baked over it, even worse... Sorry.