Toliver

I concur. I also got this as the main point of the article...that more is going on here than lack of willpower or poor food choices; That we're fighting our own biological evolution. Understanding what is going on inside of us should be the first step towards figuring out how to circumvent it/prevent it from happening.

I've posted about this before...Cooks Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen experimented with garlic, comparing pre-peeled versus fresh peeled. They found that in cooked dishes, they couldn't distinguish the difference between pre-peeled and fresh peeled. They use pre-peeled garlic in all of their cooked recipes to save on prep time.

There was a study (click) where scientists took some of the stomach bacteria ("gut flora") from obese mice and inserted the bacteria into the stomachs of skinny mice. The skinny mice started gaining weight (of course, this made we wonder if they performed the opposite kind of transfer...skinny to obese, would it make a difference, too?). There was another study (I can't find the link to it) where mice were bred to have no sense of taste. They were given two kinds of water to drink, one plain and one with sugar. Even though they couldn't taste the difference between the two types of water, they kept going back to the sugar water. The scientists theorized that something internal, perhaps bacteria in the stomach, were driving the mice to the sugar water. So how are Weight Watchers, et al, going to help me fight something biological like this? To say "Oh, just eat right and eat less" smacks of the mythic Marie Antionette response of "Let them eat cake." It tries to simplify what science has found to be quite the complicated problem. Perhaps science can find a way to counter or block the chemical/hormonal/bacteriological impulses that drive us to eat more calories than we should. I'm all for it. After all, the tools we have now for losing weight don't seem to be working too well.

I've never been a fan of the traditional ham hocks and black eyed peas. I have friends who eat it every New Year's Day "for luck". I say make your own luck. I really enjoy corned beef and cabbage and thought why wait until St. Patty's Day to eat it? That has become my New Year's Day meal for good luck. My slow cooker makes it so easy to prepare for the lazy day that New Year's Day has become. Hey, traditions have to start somewhere.

Regarding the higher prices, if I recall correctly there was a shortage of vanilla beans a little while back...something about a crop failure in one of the main bean producing countries. I remember at the time emailing my friends to stock up on vanilla since the price was going to go up.

When I left on my yearly Christmas vacation a week or so ago, I saw that the McDonald's here in town and in San Diego were still selling the McRib. So now the question is have they become a regular unannounced menu item or are they still seasonal, albeit longer than usual?

Penzey's also has a Shallot Salt that I think is a little too mild to cook with. The flavor just seems to get lost. But I've found that it works better (meaning you can taste it) when using it as a finishing salt.

Yes, I agree with this. I do graphics for a living and all caps are less easy to read than a mix of upper and lower case, especially with stylized lettering. If you're wedded to the font due to business reasons, that doesn't mean everything you print needs to be in that font. Use it for baked good titles, your business name, etc, but something like descriptions or ingredient lists can be set in a simple Times Roman Italic (a little stylish yet easy to read). Good luck with the packaging!

You could try YouTube. You may have to adjust the settings (at the bottom of the YouTube web page). Here's an You may have to tweak your search query because you could end up with a huge list of english language cooking shows making italian food. Good luck. edited to add: You could also try posting your request on the eGullet Italian forum. They may have better web links for you.

Laws vary from state to state. California is an "At Will" state meaning the employer sets the conditions of employment and as an employee, you can quit whenever you want if you don't like those conditions and as an employer they can generally let you go whenever they want if you fail to meet those conditions. However, deducting money from someone's paycheck because a piece of the food processor is missing and they were the last to be seen with it sounds hinkey and illegal to me. The same thing with money "missing" during a shift so you dock the paycheck of everyone who worked that shift. You can't do that. You can't base your actions on circumstantial evidence which is all you have. And if you had concrete evidence, you'd be dealing with the actual culprit instead of spreading the blame over all the shift workers. And if I were a shift worker and you tried to deduct money from my paycheck for something you can't prove I had anything to do with, you'd be talking to my lawyer. Been there, done that. Businesses have insurance for a reason. Businesses set up procedures to deal with employees when stuff like this happens...three warnings and then firing them, for example. Deducting money from someone's paycheck for something you can't concretely prove? Not such a good idea.

Whole other issue... there are links between very high consumption of sodium & fermented vegetables & stomach cancer. I believe the issue in question was the source of the preservation/fermentation in East Asia...which was, to a large extent, sea water. An article I read on the subject made a distinction between this type of fermentation versus home pickling via vinegar which is more of a norm in the western world (and doesn't have a corresponding high rate of stomach cancer).

Burger King's french fries get thicker (click) I wonder what the "coating" consists of? How about that...french fry shellac! If the new fries make an appearance in your neighborhood, take one for the team and report back on them.

My mom uses round steak for her Swiss Steak made in her pressure cooker. It comes out quite tender. She also use round steak for her Chicken Fried Steak. She uses corn flake crumbs for the breading which I think adds just the slightest sweetness. You can also ask your butcher to run the round steak through their tenderizer machine. Every little bit helps.

I think the problem with getting ketchup out of a bottle lies with the ketchup itself, not how slippery the bottle is. Ketchup a non-Newtonian pseudoplastic and behaves oddly in terms of its viscosity. Specifically, the more stress that's put on it, the less viscous it becomes. That's why you can squeeze it out of a bottle in a stream like a liquid, but it stays put on your hamburger and doesn't run off. Ketchup is a type of non-newtonian fluid called shear thinning. Another example is paint. When you apply stress with the brush, the paint flows, but once it is applied it doesn't continue to flow, even if it's applied rather thickly. Non-Newtonian fluids are cool. I am sure you have played with cornstarch and water. It behaves oppositely from ketchup: the more stress you put on it the more viscous it becomes. For a fluid to be non-Newtonian it just has to have a non-linear relationship between shear stress and shear rate (related to stress and viscosity). I love an SSB! Thanks for the education.

Subway is starting to offer coffee...Move over Starbucks? (click) Introducing the Subway Café I find this interesting because Starbucks has been tackling this sort of café from the opposite side. They started out with the coffee, tea and pastries and are trying to expand their food side of the business. Has anyone been to the these new Subway Cafés?

I really like the fact that the onion in the McRib is a chunky onion. They are thickly sliced/cut, not diced. I can't think of another McDonald product that uses similar onions. Logically, I would think the corporate mentality would be to use the onions they're already using on other McDonald's products (like the diced onion on the Quarter Pounder) to save on having to source differently sliced onions. A good example of this mentality is Taco Bell and how every "new" Taco Bell product just uses the same ingredients used in every other Taco Bell product but they are just reconfigured. Has anyone else noticed the chunky onions?

I believe this weekend is the last weekend the McRib will be offered by most McDonald's. Eat up!

My mom has a set of recently sharpened Cutco knives but she still uses a dull knife she got at the dollar store. I asked her why and she said because it fits her hand better than the other knives she owns. She has mild arthritis and I guess this crappy knife is the most comfortable-in-her-grip knife for her to use. I'm going to ask my brother to sharpen the hell out of it. A dull knife is a dangerous thing to use.

I just read an online article stating that they will be on sale through Nov. 14th. I was able to finally taste one this past weekend. The unctuous porkiness was as good as I remembered. I am curious though...it seemed a wee bit smaller/shorter than I remember. Am I imagining this or did they slightly downsize it? edited for spelking

I think this is correct. "Ondulante" translates to wavy. Edited to ask: So what's the verdict regarding the OP's question? Does he then have two kinds of lard in that measuring cup...a "white" lard (more pure with little to no flavor) and then a "meaty" lard where it has the flavor of the original meat/protein?

Signs proclaiming "The McRib is Back!" are all over my local McD's. Has anyone bought one yet? My problem is that I haven't been around a McD's during a mealtime. My timing is off. Gotta work on that.

"Lazy" sounds so negative and makes little sense considering your volume of output. Spin it positively and just say you're "efficient". Kerry and Anna, Thanks for doing this dual blog. My question is, when you find you just don't have a required ingredient, whether for baking, cooking (eg, dinner) or cocktails, do you abandon the recipe and make something else or sub in another ingredient and just make do? And which of the three do you think is less forgiving of a substitution?

Talk to the Whole Foods manager and see if they can order the larger containers and/or the lowfat variety. It doesn't hurt to ask. Thanks for blogging again!

Is this the season for cauliflower? I spotted huge heads of it at my local grocery store. Not thinking properly, I bought a huge head and after cutting it up I couldn't fit it all on a cookie sheet. I'd say I still have a third of it in my refrigerator, waiting to be roasted. My roasting pan overfloweth!

Yes. This. I use it when roasting veggies (cauliflower, carrots, etc). It's great for covering casseroles/lasagnes, too. The cheese/sauce on top doesn't stick to the foil.