jsolomon

I'm glad I'm not the only one. My mother consistently turns out great pastry doughs/crusts. Me, I swear like a sailor whenever I try. My goal would be to become competent at cooking seafood and soups.

Welcome to e-Gullet! My favorite cookbooks are Barbara Kafka's "Roasting" and a cookbook called "The Bread Bible". The cookbook that I also find myself always turning back to is "How to Cook Everything" Finally "Intercourses, an Aphrodisiac Cookbook" is a fun one to have around.

Pan, this is correct. However, this land costs those ranchers nothing or next to nothing because it is shit ground. You may be able to graze 1 head per 4 acres on that ground. There may not be a good well there either. The ground is well-nigh unsuitable for running cattle... or much of anything else. Lewis and Clark mentioned some of those areas as "The Great American Desert" for a reason. It is unproductive land and would sell for next to nothing on the open market. Also, recall that most of these animals are sold off of grass to a feed lot for finishing. Feed lots don't buy downer cows, either. Saying that grass-feeding ranchers are the problem is like blaming Gurney's for the root rot on your too-well-watered basil. It's at the wrong stage for the ranchers to have any effect because they no longer have the cattle.

Hmm, don't drink beer with preservatives, and drink 2 liters of water before bed is usually my surest cure. Otherwise, my roommate swears by Denny's and I swear by 2 1-liter banana bags (anybody wanna guess what I volunteer as?) Edit to add: and a bloody mary that had LOTS of tabasco and pickled pepper brine. No celery, but a sharp dill pickle, too

Very interesting. jhlurie, Assuming access to decent health care is readily attainalble, there is no reason for anyone to have any type of ongoing ulcer today. There are drug, antibiotic, and surgical treatments. Being a recently recovered (yet unemployed) college student, there is one damned good reason: poverty. I usually look at peppers as something that aids the digestive tract. If there is something that causes true upset, I usually suspect seeds. But, I've heard of several studies along the lines of fifi's that indicate that spicy food is typically benign if not even beneficial toward the digestive tract. At some occasions it acts as a counter-irritant, a la icy-hot, which will tend to aid in the recovery from digestive pain. Of course, if there is an active lesion somewhere, spicy food can be as irritating as rubbing salt in an open wound. Premedicate with beer :remove tongue from cheek:

Jensen, That's a serious grinder you have there! How much grinding do you do? My parents have an old hand-crank grinder that works great for any job less than about 10 lbs.

I decided to go with majority opinion. I had the fish tacos. There were a few spots that I wasn't real certain on, so I will let everyone know what I put on them, and hope for some pointers in how to have a better fish taco experience next time. Flour tortillas, shredded grilled swordfish (cold), shredded cheddar cheese, black beans, medium Pace® picante sauce, shredded iceberg lettuce, homemade mayo with cilantro and tabasco There were a couple technical difficulties with the mayo. I used fresh squeezed lemon juice and 1.5 cups of EVOO. But, it just turned out too loose. Also, the salsa was overpowering most of the flavors of everything else. What do people normally put in their fish tacos? It was a good enough experience that I'll do it again. But, it needs a lot of improvement before I serve it to anyone but me.

NeroW, I have a neurologist friend who chews coffee beans all of the time. When I need to stay "up" for long periods of time, I also chew coffee beans. My experience is that the caffeine lift I get comes on quicker when chewing coffee beans than when drinking cuppas. This is because the caffeine crosses through the mouth/gums readily and is in the mouth longer when you're chewing coffee beans. I drink 3 strong cups of coffee a day. When I chew coffee beans to bolster that, I find 3-5 an hour is sufficient. Edit to add coffee beans are a good source of fiber, too!

Tonight I was having guests for dinner. Unfortunately, they had a family emergency and couldn't make it. So, the swordfish that I had grilled for them is cooling in my refrigerator. The problem is I am in Nebraska and really have little idea what to do with fresh fish, much less leftover. Are there some good leftover ideas people would like to share?

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. My old boss that we called "Saint Anne the Decapitator" always said that when she was finding yet another way to *ahem* cut the fat.

And from the editorial cartoon mill.... http://realpolitik.us/03image/mw122903.gif

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It is a bacteria that is immune to most, if not all, of the US's last-ditch-effort antibiotics. Not good stuff at all. I think I just read that it cannot be killed by heat either. I think you are confusing Staph with its toxin. Dead staph + staph toxin still cause illness/death. But, if there isn't enough toxin to cause illness/death, then heat is certainly an adequate safeguard. I forget if its 140F or 160F or 180F, though.

I have to support Katherine and FFR. I got salmonella at a fencing tournament once. If I wouldn't have had a girlfriend who was used to taking me to the ER and nursing me back to health (I did the same for her on several occasions) I would not have made it. That first 4 days was not fun to say the least. Afterward it still took 3 months to get my GI tract back in shape.

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It is a bacteria that is immune to most, if not all, of the US's last-ditch-effort antibiotics. Not good stuff at all.

I am not avoiding beef or beef products. However, my family produces its own beef and we have a custom meat packer in my hometown. So, we provide our own beef. Also, I will not be avoiding beef or its products from the grocery store. IMO, I am still at greater risk of choking, being shot, dying from MRSA, or overdosing on caffeine. What I will be doing, though, is writing several letters to the USDA and FDA about wanting some change because I don't see any reason that there should have been as large of a beef recall if there were a few more steps in the process of certifying "downer" cows as safe for consumption. Edit to add: In honor of this thread, I am eating a hamburger for breakfast. Moo moo buccaroo

Tryska, while a reaction of this type is not common, it has been known to happen with many drugs or other things. I have heard of people having allergic reactions to ibuprofen (certainly much to small to attach to an antibody itself) and various therapeutic steroids. It's really fascinating about how and why this happens. But, I will leave it at there are certain small populations that get allergic reactions to non-allergenic foods and drugs, including aspartame.

Brad, not to be pedantic, but triglycerides are fats/oils. Their chemical structure is three long hydrocarbon chains attached to a glycerol molecule (hence triglyceride) Now that the chemistry lesson is over, here is what I did during wrestling to fend off weight: Broth/stock-based soups are spectacular. Eating hot broth will generally make you feel fuller with fewer calories due to the water content. Cruciform vegetables: cauliflower, broccoli, etc. They are LOW LOW LOW calorie foods. Most fruits you can eat with impunity. Keep in mind, though, that the sweeter the fruit, the more sugar, hence calories. But, if you reduce fats and eat the same volume, you are reducing total calorie intake. Salads, also. Low-calorie dressings. Hopefully you can develop a taste for simply vinegar/lemon juice and salt and pepper. Simple but good dressings. Grill and broil a lot. Instead of oil to make meats juicy, cook them at higher temperature for a shorter time (you may have to adjust meat thickness to get it done properly). Use fresh lemon juice and good spices (I like fresh black pepper) for taste. Number 1, though, is exercise. If you break a sweat for 15 minutes with quality aerobic exercise 3+ times a week, you will do yourself much more good than diet alone. For example, this summer, I ate primarily homemade al fredo, butter everything, cream soaked zillion calorie everything. But, I road my bike in rush hour traffic for 6 miles twice daily. I lost 15 pounds on that diet... and exercise. Also a good suggestion is a children's vitamin daily while you are losing weight.

I'm currently searching and haven't found anything helpful yet (darn 28.8 connection at my parents' house), but I would assume that a cranial radiograph of a normal beef animal's brain and a cranial radiograph of one with or close to symptomatic BSE would show a difference. Ergo, X-ray their noggins before they go to the kill floor. A digital x-ray machine and training for a small crew of people at a slaughterhouse/canner house would be my suggestion. In terms of cost per head, I would assume that it would be in the $.05-.20 range for installation, training, and usage over the lifetime of the machine. Even if they go through 1 a year. That's probably going to be quite cheaper than any other laboratory method, as well as quicker. I would also hedge my bets that it's going to be just about as good.

Yes, but according to this website (I haven't read everything, but...) they have already awarded a Nobel prize for the prion theory. That's pretty good evidence that it's beyond phlogiston.

I'm a little astonished that a packer who performed a 10,000 lb beef recall due to this animal 1: would take a former dairy cow, and 2: would only slaughter 20 animals a day. I can't see the profit in someone so small taking such low-grade beef. But, given the timeline of everything, they may have only slaughtered 19 on that day. The tests take a while, so for the release to happen around 5:30 p.m. EST, they may have only been slaughtering for less than 1 hour. FG, a little further in the USDA page they state That doesn't cull a downer cow before it's cut up and mixed with 40,000 quarter pounders pre-cheese. Now, don't get me wrong. I see importance in this reducing Listeria and E coli infection rates in consumer beef. But, those you can destroy by cooking. With prions, the implicated proteins in BSE infection, the infectious critters are much too stable to be destroyed by normal cooking methods. Thusly, we need different standards of testing to reduce/eliminate the risk of BSE getting in the food supply. The way I see this best being done is to not let downer cows get killed before testing. That did not happen in this case. Mabelline, with prolapse downer cows my buddies usually have ground up for hamburger, also. But, it goes into their freezer, or to the dog food plant. Perhaps I've been spoiled and have just ended up on philosophically different ends of beef processing than some of you. But, I don't see why we shouldn't keep diseased animals out of the food supply. I am unsupportive of this policy: from Yahoo's storyMy stance is that it is not difficult to spot an ill animal. Those should be separated before the killing floor and tested to some extent before slaughter. There are many rapid (sub 1 hour) and inexpensive tests that can be done for many diseases. There are probably equally as rapid and inexpensive tests for BSE coming down the pike. We should develop and implement those tests to keep our food supply safe.

I am not exactly sure a farmer is what you want. In my area of Nebraska the cattle-growers are somewhat removed from the situation we have seen unfurled in the news. Caveat: This is my experience in the Sandhills in Nebraska. It is probably not the same elsewhere. The cattle that are slaughtered are raised by person 1 as a cow-calf pair for a while. Calves are weaned and separated from mother at which time they are tagged, fly-dipped, inoculated for diseases, etc, etc. They are then grown on pasture until they are ready for market. When they go to market, they are not finished cattle. Typically at market, they get purchased by a feedlot. There they are kept in concentration compared to their earlier roaming days. They are fed grain with additional meal mixed in. Composition of the meal: I don't particularly know. I grew corn and hogs while in my youth. Now, I'm a chemist in the medical field. Most feedlots already have a futures contract on the animal that they purchase to finish. Most feedlots also have a zillion cattle compared to the ranchers who birthed the calf. I don't know what happens to the futures contract if the cow/steer goes down in the feedlot. Once left from the feedlot to the packing house (when the futures contract is paid out to the feedlot) the packing house, especially a volume packing house, is certainly going to try to maximize profit. They do not have a personal relationship with the consumer the way I do with my butcher. Nor do they have a relationship with the original cattle-grower. The buyer (one person out of very very many) at the packing house home office has contact with the seller (one person out of very many) at the feedlot, neither of whom get shit on their boots, in my understanding. We're starting to get to a large number of levels to have things filter through. Now here is the part that I see as the grand failure of the current process: the inspector (who should be there grading every animal IMO, but isn't) is not on the killing floor kicking out animals that are downers. The inspector, when he/she is there, [FG, here is where I come a little cleaner than my not-quite-true statement] is lot- and spot-inspecting meat along the fabrication floor. Now, there are good reasons to have that type of inspection. But, the inspection before the killing floor is reached is where our system of inspections broke down.

The free press is a wonderful thing, FG. However, I think there are several things that they are leaving out that we may want to also ponder. USDA inspection of meat is a wonderful thing. However, USDA inspection of meat is voluntary and for grading purposes only. When it comes to the US meat supply, the USDA has no ability to provide any sort of sanction. To my knowledge, FDA inspection/certification is much like when the city food inspector comes to a restaurant. Rarely do spot inspections happen. Again, I do not think the FDA has the ability to recall food or provide any real sanction. The real meat-packing industry that I see as a resident of Nebraska (can anyone say Con-Agra? Tyson? IBP?) is one that hires low-wage, often immigrant--often illegal variety--employees, has a history of locking fire exit doors (and subsequently having employees crushed when el Emigre comes) and cutting deals with local hospitals and doctors for OTJ injuries to be treated off the books. This is an industry bent on profits almost solely. At least from my point of view. So, the volume meat-packing industry certainly seems to have the will and drive to not care about slaughtering a downer cow for human consumption given the way they consume their workers, which if this caused a 10,000 lb beef recall said meat-packer is certainly a volume packer. However, the other thing that chaps my hams is the dirty SOB dairy producer (individual or corporate) should have better morals than to sell a downer cow for human consumption. I understand that once a cow stops giving milk that she is eligible for slaughter. I support this. But, I don't support it for animals that stop lactating due to illness. However, I do not eat sick animals. I do not eat diseased plant material either. It just doesn't make sense to me. To continue the analogy further, the Red Cross does not accept blood from ill humans. This is because disease processes produce toxins. I really don't need to ingest more of them than I do already. There was a conscious decision to put an obviously diseased animal--with well known symptoms of a highly publicized disease--into the feed trough. I just cannot get around seeing at least 3 ethical failures in the providers of our food supply. I think this was a major failure of the USDA, FDA, and we should be outraged and vote with our dollars, or at least provide evidence of our disgust to the meat-packing industry.

Yeah, I always call neurotransmitters "brain poison" too. Keep in mind, though, being closely related to sugar doesn't always count a whole lot in the body. There is a beast known as "invert sugar" that is chemically exactly like sugar except for it being the mirror image of our much-beloved alpha-D-glucose. Seriously! This is no Star Trek thing. This stuff is not biologically available as an energy or flavor source. [whisper] Fortunately, Mother nature provided for water to provide enough impetus for alpha-L-glucose to spontaneously switch to alpha-D-glucose so we're safe [/whisper] Edit to fix crazy inscrutible quoting foul up.

Oh, the normal type we keep on farms... tractors, plows, irrigation pipe There are nails and staples and pieces of barbed wire that cattle are just naturally around that they ingest. The magnet is to keep the jetsam from the flotsam and from traveling through their digestive tract and causing grave injury.

I don't know much about two and two, but in another forum, 7 and 7 may be discussed...