jsolomon

I've been drinking them for years. I'm a big fan of the snake biter ale. Drink heartily because they are charming beers.

Additionally, large ham roasts are also well-suited to this treatment, and can be had fairly inexpensively. Also, this time of year, good cheap vegetables can be found in the squash family. I have been working my way through the winter squashes relatively cheaply for the past month or so.

Ideally, the label should have helpful information. To help promote this, I attempt to only buy wines that have helpful information on the label. What does that end up meaning? Well, my fiance thinks I'm a wine snob because we end up having normal-looking bottles with generic-looking one- or two-color labels. The French imports generally have an apellacion controllez and an area (yeah, I can spell English, but I'm lost at French). American have a varietal or a varietal breakdown. Port, is well, port. The way I look at it is getting to know wine is like becoming a chemist. There is no instant-gratification way of doing it. You have to get out there and spend both time and money. Many of the people that this VV stuff is marketed to are the people who are interested in instant gratification wine, and I think it will lower the general discourse on wine, especially where it comes to labeling. The way I feel about it is if people don't want to take the time to learn my language (wine's) then they ought not feel left out of the conversation. On the other hand, if they're working toward becoming functional in it, I'll give them a hand.

What about MD 20/20, the original one-dimensional, forgettable wine? Is that a different un-hip dumbness? Or are the two correlated?

Absolutely not, read the remarks above mine. I do have to say that on the epidemiological side of the coin, McDonalds is very high quality food. I don't recall having ever heard of a case of food poisoning at a McDonalds, and with their daily volume, you have to begrudgingly be impressed. McDonalds takes a lot of care in the movement, preservation, and cooking of their food that takes a lot of careful planning and top-down involvement of everyone in the corporation. They, from what I can tell, do nearly as well as many pharmaceutical companies (and better than some, too). I look at McDonald's definition of quality the same way I look at a chemical supply house's definition of quality: they present their food as being 100% of what they intend to sell. I know that if I buy high-quality arsenic from a company, there will be approaching 100% arsenic, and certainly 99.9%. By the same token very high quality arsenic can be detrimental to your health. What I don't understand is why McDonald's is such a target and places like ConAgra or Pizza Hut aren't. Certainly an individual Pizza Hut pizza with its options of super-greasy toppings have more heart-stopping power than an equivalent number of servings (4 or 6) of Big Macs. ConAgra, with its super-processed industro-food options also does bad things--like provide us with cheap trans-fats to cook our food in and add to them. But, it's McDonald's that's singled out. Is this a me-too phenomena with complaining, or just a tendency to hear hoofbeats and think zebras?

I always thought it was spelled scoche. But, yes, imagine my surprise when I came across that vocab in my first Japanese class!

That reminds me of when a former girlfriend made "the fudge factor" to give to one of her chemistry professors in undergrad. She made a pan of fudge to give the professor. They are humorous in a rather tragic, overworked method. But, this, it would be that humor if we worked in a kitty litter factory, or the Animal Science department. Sadly, we don't. The good news is the research group is evenly split over it being funny and it being disgusting. A much higher number of disgustoids than I would have bet on. This is the box that my students would make a cake for me from: Click for the image edit to bring back in line with fair use policy

Someone brought this into work today. If you can't read the label on the paper plate it says "kitty litter cake. help yourself" Is anyone else disturbed by scatological food passed off as something normal rather than satire? My momma told me not to eat poop.

Their style you can mimic with Excel or OpenOffice.org's Calc.

Oh no, you should still be concerned about mercury. A non-pregnant friend of mine got mercury poisoning, apparently from eating tuna steak (I think she ate it a few times a week). She had to go through a rather unpleasant series of chelating treatments to get it out of her system. ← After being in both emergency medicine and research at the University level for the past ten years, I can assure you that most mercury poisonings both in the workplace and at home are very, VERY unlikely to have come through the food chain. I am very sorry to hear about your friend, because chelation therapy truly is a toxic therapy (but necessary sometimes). But, every instance of heavy metal poisoning I have seen, or read about epidemiologically have come from other areas in the environment.

Unless you're pregnant, I wouldn't worry about the mercury, either. The main points of mercury warnings can be filed under the heading "scare-mongering".

Y'know, one of my favorite comfort food pairings is ham and bean soup or ham and split pea soup with cabernet sauvignon. One other addition to all of the advice we've given you is ask the waitron/wine store slave if they've tried the wine you're looking at. If they say they have, ask them about it. Ask them what they would eat with it. If you don't get a specific answer like "this would go well with a garlicy pork dish" you're probably not getting a very considered bit of advice, and it's time to move on to another shill or another bottle--one that is better described by the person you're talking to. Wine salespeople are like butchers and fishmongers. Develop a good relationship with a reputable one and you'll be doing yourself quite a service. With the breadth even small wine shops offer, they are likely to not be terribly snooty about the "obvious superiority" of one wine over another. They're just people in to move their product and enjoy their lives. Hopefully both of these intersect in a happy place.

Just as a test, (after reading upthread some more) You may want to try a bag with everything but the spare ribs, or even, one bag with sauce, one bag with veg, etc. See how those bags act. What kind of mushrooms and how are they treated before bagging?

Eh? Check the temperature profile out here. Bacteria do grow at those temperatures. I have some in my lab that just to get to grow, I have to incubate at 130F. I'd still say, better safe than sorry. If you're really curious, I'm still recommending talking to a microbiologist and letting them open/culture one bag to see what is really going on.

From what you're saying, this sounds to me like it was thermal stress or thermal shock that caused the glass to break. The kicker is, if your glass is stressed, it could be stressed for a long time without you knowing it. Then, it just takes one insult and... glass confetti. It's possible the person opened the door too quickly, or someone bashed a corner of the door and the glass couldn't take it any more. But, I'm relatively certain that it was just a question of when. At the time it happened, your glass likely wasn't long for this world. I'm definitely with andiesenji on the non-abrasive cleaners. Not insulting your glass when you clean it is definitely something to keep in mind. Although, with how much it cost to replace, I'm certain that you take due care.

Good news! I'm likely not being activated! (Of course, I had to sell my soul for it, but that's another topic)

Nothing says "Good rice" like the naturally cooked kind. Nature is the best rice cooker. Void where prohibited. Do not use under the influence of barbiturates or ether. Avoid use while pregnant. Avoid use at all costs. World Peace through beer.

I went to one of the few restaurants in my town that even comes close to a proper dining experience. The food was very good. Their in-house beer was also without smirch. But, in a 50 minute quick meal (we were catching a movie afterward), I think my table got visited by 4 different servers nearly every 3 minutes. Is it valid to complain if the servers seem to hover?

One of the engineers I work with asked why American chemical engineers are more powerful than Jesus. When I said "I don't know", he replied, "Jesus only turned water into wine. It took an American chemical engineer to turn beer into water".

Oh my, with a list like that, my advice is to pick nearly any vegetable or meat and "go nuts". Try it in some savory french toast custard and serve it with a spicy sage pork sausage. Yummy!

I am the oldest thing in my pantry. When I am not in my pantry, I think I have some jams that are fairly elderly. Mostly road-ditch plum jams.

Hi folks, I just found out some interesting news. I'm getting activated to go overseas with my military reserve unit. Here's the deal. My fiance and I enjoy wine quite a lot, but our local wine shop essentially only sells regular-sized bottles which is fine for two to enjoy in an evening, but a tough task for one to do regularly. I am looking for two things: half bottles of wine by the case, and quality. If I'm going to surprise her with a couple of cases to enjoy while I am gone, I want to make sure she can order more, and that they are wines she'll enjoy. Do you know of anyone who can help supply me with these in Nebraska? Those who can distribute to Nebraska are also fair game.

I don't have a food processor. Would a blender provide a sufficient substitute for the food processor techniques?

Sorry, I'll change my boots before I post next time

Reduction-oxidation reactions are the stuff of aging, there's no question about that. However, if you are doing this in a minute (kinetic-control) vs over years (thermodynamic control) you are bound to have some different chemistry going on. It's not like you're just folding proteins or electrolysing water. I think some of the simple compound chemistry changes, things dealing with malleic acid and the like, will be the same between old wine and new wine. But more complex things dealing with some of the proteins breaking down, etc... those won't be quite the same. It'll be a reasonable facsimile, but a '72 Chateau le Hoity-Toity will still have a better depth of flavor over a '04 McVino le Blech run through the boot-camp-inator. But, if it helps bring higher quality wine to more people, I tend to support its use in controlled areas.