jsolomon

Dammit. Now I've triggered another udon craving. I'll have to mix some up and eat it before I cook the edamame

I only eat it one way because of the ease and speed of making. After cooking the udon, I toss them with soy sauce, a little rice wine vinegar, scallions and Thai garlic chili and pepper sauce

The problem is snarfing it down... I feel like a baker who's eaten all of the brownie dough afterward, though... a fair amount of work, and only one full belly to show for it...

Every now and again, I get a HUGE craving for udon. I've made it a couple times, but I have this distinct proclivity to cook it all off and snarf it down before I know what's happened. Does anyone else suffer from these symptoms? How do you treat them?

Alas, kosher salt is all but unheard of in Nebraska. Would something like crazy salt or mixed-up salt be a good substitute?

If you're looking for sweetness and texture, especially being sweet, and something to go with the smoke, I almost invariably put acorn squash in all of my stews. Also, ham hocks. Definitely ham hocks. Sounds like a helluva party, though!

FYI, nomex is what many of the firefighters around wear to not catch fire. Also, the military sells them for machine gunners to wear whilst changing hot barrels on M-60's Call me crazy, but that sounds like two pretty good testimonials to me. I think you can find nomex cheaper (but it is very chemically similar to kevlar if I remember organic chemistry correctly)

Sounds like pig-boilin' time...

Best liver I had was chicken in what was described as Kurdish pate. 6 ingredients garlic (10 or more cloves) fresh cilantro (chopped medium) good chicken livers EVOO salt pepper put EVOO in pan with garlic and cilantro and fry them for a bit to flavor the oil, then remove the vegetation and sear the livers in the oil. Remove from heat, and process, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. This buddy said that how he had it in Persia was as a street food. Liver was marinated in EVOO, garlic and cilantro, grilled and basted with marinade, then all wrapped in pita and snarfed down from street vendors.

excellent! I even have a fridge full of beer! FYI, yes, they are still in the pods. If I had a digicam, I would post what they look like. EDIT: confirm pod-people beans

whatever happened to a dry rub? I wouldn't suggest the EVOO unless it is a very lean set of ribs. While bison is leaner, it isn't much leaner if it is grain fed. Calories is Calories and if you're in the black at the end of the day, you play the marble game.

I had my parents and a couple of their friends over for supper on tuesday before we all went to a concert. The friends are organic farmers around my hometown and they brought some fresh edamame. But... I don't know what I should do with it. They just said, "Here, this is edamame. It's fresh, we grew it ourselves." Help?

I always liked the Cowboy Junkies or Bimbetta whilst cooking.

This article by Ian Hutton first appeared in Current Drug Discovery, September, 2002

I agree that this suggests that these fine vintage absinthes probably did not have much thujone. But, I'll also put out that a proper steam distillation will tend to bring out into the distillate many alkaloids that are naturally found in plant products. For instance, if you steam distilled coffee, you would find caffeine in the distillate. That being said, steam distillation is an evil process from a "good separation scheme" standpoint. It's too long, provides poor yields, and requires baby-sitting a lot more than, say, an ether or benzene extraction (something similar was probably used to make the inferior absinthes). Think of it as brewing coffee by extracting the coffee flavors from beans using the absolute cheapest vodka you can find and then dumping that liquor in boiling water to drive off the alcohol to make coffee. I would rather chew on donkey's sphincter than drink that coffee. It would taste perfectly despicable because the essential liquors you get from a steam distillation are much different than those you get from a benzene solution because steam is not benzene, and these things have differing solubilities in the two substances. What I did imply, and I will state it more strongly this time is that good absinthe will not be an acidic beverage because you would turn your thujone into something quite awful in the bottle instead of your stomach. So, if your absinthe tastes like road tar, it's because 1: it was poorly made, and 2: it is old. As for how long this would take, that depends on factors of temperature and pH, mainly, and I do not have enough experience with real absinthe to be able to hazard a competent guess. Unfortunately, my qualifications are not as august as ihutton's (being more of a physical chemist, myself), so I shall defer to ihutton.

Great, now I'll have to cave on the craving and let you all know how it was...

A night of sampling different sake offerings in Nebraska with a Japanese national chemistry researcher and discussing regional "cuisine" in America.

Anchovy and pickled ginger pizza

Wow... all of these stories make my continuing argument with my S.O. about what food items nuts go in. I, following my mother's and my father's example, believe that nuts go in a bowl to be eat out-of-hand, or in breading and into hot oil. S.O., however, believes that nuts go in everything, especially chocolate. Fortunately, the ribbing about this is still good-natured, and I will eat things with hidden nuts, but refuse to cook them except for special occasions.

Great to hear that you're doing well! EDIT: Edited because I didn't look at date-stamps, so this reply is more appropriate

Call me somewhat cynical (I have been in Emergency medicine for 9 years now) but, I think you could probably make a reasonable facsimile with some coffee cherries and a 3 year old (or a pig if digging through Huggies doesn't seem like your thing) Also, corn seems to sometimes foil a horse's digestive system. Anyone for Seabiscuit coffee? EDIT: eschew antidisobfuscation

That is probably a really good idea. I just gave it off the top of my head... no actual experience involved.

2 cheap hot dogs, spinach and sauteed sweet corn salad with thai chile sauce and fat free ranch dressing (left over from my roommate's girlfriend who just got voted off the island) and two bottles of Snake Dog IPA from Flying Dog Ales. EDIT: Drank the beers before I ate the food... 2 is spelled two, not to.

I did this with Roger Welsch's recipe for a cherry aperitif made much the same way. What he said was one handful of sugar per pint of cherries and fill with bourbon. He called it "cherry bim" in his book "Digging In and Pigging Out". Pretty good, and supposedly good for gout. I don't know about that, but the stuff made me good and stoopid when I got a hankerin for some cherry covered ice cream. Oh yeah, it was very VERY tasty, to boot.

I agree wholeheartedly with Katieloeb on the pink wines. For the gratin, I would go with one of those lovely red sparklies, or (if your palates aren't overworked already) a port. But, I think a mid-range pink sparkling wine would be great, just like a tentatively flawed pink wine goes so well with those super-fresh big summer tastes.