Toliver

What if you put a rack in your sheet pan and put the basket on top of that? No need to worry about cleaning an oven rack and you get the air circulation you need with the rack under the fry pot. Just a thought...

Love that Boursin Trio (which is actually just a Duo since one flavor is repeated). Great for parties or just for home noshing.

This was on sale/posted back in 2018. I am posting it again in case someone missed it... Grace Young's "The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore" Kindle Edition $1.99US (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Use the "Look Inside" feature to see the list of recipes. I am a US Prime member and the price you see may vary.

My local WinCo was the first Southern California grocery store where I found frozen whole ducks. Who knew? WinCo's are also employee-owned, which is nice to know. I am jealous of your brand spanking new store!

I stumbled upon these at Walmart. I had never seen the brand before. Cazo de Oro Tortilla Chips Fire Roasted Hatch Chile flavor I thought they might have a little kick to them but nope. Instead they have just the slightest sweetness to them. The main reason I like these tortilla chips is because they're thick...much thicker than, say, comparatively wimpy Doritos Tortilla Chips. The bag says they're made from fresh tortillas and I believe them. These chips would make really good nachos and would stand up to the thickest dips around. Really good!

A new month yet again, with not much to look at... I found these this morning: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, "See You on Sunday: A Cookbook for Family and Friends" Kindle Edition $2.99US(eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Use the "Look Inside" feature and scroll down to see a few recipes. "Frostings" Kindle Edition $1.99US (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) There's a recipe for Rich Chocolate Frosting on this book's Amazon info page. Use the "Look Inside" feature to see the list recipes. I am a US Prime member and the price you see may vary.

"Peeps released an Easter Cookie Coop Kit, and it looks adorable" And when you eat all of your Peeps, you can eat the coop thus removing all evidence that the Peeps existed.

"Reese’s Announced A Brand New Candy Made Entirely Of Peanut Butter" Without the chocolate (see the photos in the article), they're very monotone.

A different recall, from the USDA: "J&J Distributing Recalls Ready-to-Eat Meat and Poultry Salads and Wrap Products Due to Possible Listeria Contamination" Granted it's not a huge amount of product being recalled, but it is due to Listeria so some serious stuff.

A follow-up to this recall. They have named the cheese and the company (East Coast brand I believe): "Listeria Outbreak Linked to Queso Fresco Made by El Abuelito Cheese Inc."

Taco Bell enters the Chicken "Sandwich" Wars. "Taco Bell's New Menu Item Is Both a Crispy Chicken Sandwich and a Taco"

This is my understanding of Spring Rolls versus Egg Rolls... Spring Rolls are wrapped in softened rice paper and they are not usually cooked/fried. In my local Vietnamese Restaurants, they are usually served with a peanut sauce for dipping. Egg Rolls (not Chinese but American Chinese) are always fried and are usually served with that nuclear pink sweet sauce in my local American Chinese Restaurants. With Spring Rolls, because the rice paper is semi-transparent, there is almost an art to wrapping the ingredients in a pleasant "artful" manner (like the repetitive shrimp arranged in the photo).

Some more finds from this afternoon: Hervé This' "Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor (Arts and Traditions of the Table Perspectives on Culinary History)" Kindle Edition $1.99US (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Use the "Look Inside" feature to see the list of topics. Not sure if it includes recipes. "The Eli's Cheesecake Cookbook: Remarkable Recipes from a Chicago Legend" Kindle Edition $2.99US (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Use the "Look Inside" feature to see the list of recipes. From Allen Dikker, the CEO and founder of Potatopia, the fast-casual all-potato restaurant, "The Potatopia Cookbook: 77 Recipes Starring the Humble Potato" Kindle Edition $2.99US (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Use the "Look Inside" feature to see the list of recipes. I am a US Prime member and the price you see may vary.

From this morning's BookBub email: The James Beard Award-winning restaurant Eventide's "Eventide: Recipes for Clambakes, Oysters, Lobster Rolls, and More from a Modern Maine Seafood Shack" Kindle Edition $1.99US (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) Use the "Look Inside" feature and scroll almost all the way down to see the short list of recipes from the first chapter. I am a US Prime member and the price you see may vary.

Interesting to see the recent Jack in the Box TV commercials advertising their new and improved chicken sandwiches...so what is new? They've added "liquidy" cheese (allegedly real cheddar cheese) to the sandwiches (on both the regular and the Deluxe versions). Not sure if it's enough to save a bad chicken sandwich.

Cookbook author and food writer Andrea Nguyen has said sort of the same thing when it comes to opening a jar of pickled veggies/kimchi (that you would open to add as an ingredient in a banh mi). "Open the jar and leave the room. When you come back in, the strong odor will be less offensive."

I ordered Chinese food from a local mom & pop restaurant last night. Here's a picture of the condiments I got with my order (which included egg rolls and fried shrimp): I never ever use the condiment in the bottom right. It's a sweet sauce....high fructose corn syrup that has a pink dye in it that looks almost like a day-glo color. It's what you usually get when you order deep fried won ton skins (sometimes with cream cheese in them)...or eggrolls. It has no flavor other than "sweet". I also find it humorous that they give you the same number of ketchup containers as the hot mustard containers. I wouldn't be able to eat it with just a one-to-one ratio....it would be too hot and sinus-clearing. I think I'm up to a 4 ketchups to one hot mustard ratio now. Yes, I'm becoming a wimp in my old age. As you can see, my order contained nary a container or packet of duck sauce/plum sauce. Again, it must be a west coast versus east coast thing. It makes me wonder what @Fat Guywould have thought of the discrepancy.

My niece and I use the same purchased dough every Christmas to make our sugar cookie cutouts. But even that dough can become "blobby". The trick (and maybe this would have helped with all of the recipes you tried and thought failed) is to put the cookie sheet full of cut out cookies into the fridge. By chilling the dough, they tend to keep their shapes better when baking them off.

If you have the carrots, cabbage and potatoes (and the pickling spices for the roast), you're good to go. As I've posted before on eGullet, I do mine in a slow cooker and it couldn't be easier.

I was grocery shopping at my local Walmart grocery store this past Saturday. I didn't blink an eye that the Easter candy was already out and sitting next to the Valentine's Day candy. However, they had cases of Corned Beef briskets for sale (notice I didn't say they were "on sale"...no sale prices to be found on the Walmart briskets). I was shocked that they're selling them now given it's more than a month until St. Patrick's Day.

From the FDA & CDC: "Outbreak Investigation of Listeria monocytogenes – Hispanic-style Fresh and Soft Cheeses (February 2021)" and, because they're not afraid to name the types of cheeses not mentioned above: "The FDA Is Investigating A Listeria Outbreak That May Be Linked To Cheeses Like Queso Fresco" The font bolding is mine.

All of you Grape-Nut fans, rejoice... "Grape-Nuts will be back on shelves in March" The Pessimist in me says this was all a publicity stunt to get more people interested in the cereal. I can't imagine any sort of "higher demand" for Grape-Nuts, of all things. Unless Grape-Nuts are 2021's version of the yeast deficit from 2020.

"Maria Guarnaschelli, influential cookbook editor, dies at 79" She was Chef Alex Guarnaschelli's mother. I saw the name and knew it from Chef Alex's work (and being featured on a lot of Food Network shows). Maria sounded like a force of nature, something I sometimes see in Chef Alex's appearances.

Kim, have you tried Popeye's Jambalaya? It's mostly rice, with some sausage and spices (not hot) & herbs.

"This restaurant owner buys out street vendors' tamales so they can come in from Chicago's freezing winters" He turns around and donates the tamales he buys to community refrigerators, free for those in need, and to homeless shelters. Such kindness! If I lived in his area I would patronize his restaurant (Korean-Mexican fusion...doesn't that sound trippy?) to pay it forward so he can keep buying the tamales.