Full-throated endorsement

Welp. Been nice knowing y’all.

Lest you think that 6% fat milk is a fantasy, I assure you: it is real.

We ALL do. That’s the problem. 😖

“Two HOURS?!” I said, offended, as if I had any skin in that game. Mine falls somewhere in between. Although when I clocked my husband fishing oysters out of his and arranging them, uneaten, on the edge of his gumbo bowl, my enthusiasm for making seafood gumbo took a hit.

We do like a zaftig cast iron pan.

Tasso is one of those things I don’t mind making my own self. Takes a while, but it’s a little bit on day one, a little bit on day three, and before you know it, you’ve got enough to vacuum seal, freeze, and last the year. I get antsy if I don’t have meat projects underway.

Years ago, I introduced my FilAm boyfriend to an old Cajun friend. I’m cagey about who I let into my kitchen and, especially, who gets to handle the equipment. But for two nights, all I had to do was make drinks and stand aside while those two butchered birds, made sauces, and argued about rice.

There we go. I like cast-iron. I like the way it holds heat and, for the most part anyway, keeps it evenly distributed. Btw, if you’re planning to open a shop called Katsu, Karaage, and Beignets, I’m all in favor.

That’s what I’m looking at for the next few weeks. Easy enough to do with the pots, spiders, and thermometers I have. But I do have a project coming up that will require a lot of frying, ongoing for maybe more than a year, so dedicated equipment makes a bit of sense

Ahhh. I had not been thinking about it as a steamer, but of course that makes sense. Family and friends have used that model for frying party amounts* of lumpia by frying them upright in the basket.

* no one leaves hungry, plates foisted upon guests to bring home, get some pancit on there, too.

Oh, I don’t need a slow cooker. Like you, I braise in Dutch ovens and Magnalites. That had just come with the original gift.

I’ve heard good things about the Presto big kettle. It’s on my short list, so thank you for the extra thumbs up.

Well, the main dog does not get hurt. That’s true. I saw that there were some “making of” videos knocking around, but I didn’t watch any of those. But maybe tonight when I get some free time…

If I drilled the bottom, it could be. The thought did occurred. Maybe w mint for cocktails or Waldmeister for May wine.

But I come from a family of hoarders and every time I visit them, I return home, scan the place, and think “What else can I get rid of?” A crockpot planter is not in my future.

Our neighbor has built a sluice to direct debris from his yard into ours. Setting aside the legality, it’s such a monumental gobshite move that I figure that’s an invitation to chuck my garbage over the fence into his yard. It’s what he would have wanted.

A gift from my brother when I went away to university. He thought I’d be assembling more slow-cooked meals than I ever did, but that fryer component was a banger. Make-do fondue pot, kushikatsu, bitterballen, papas rellenas, fritters of all kinds. Countless kilos of fried nuts.

It was a good run.

It does, yeah. I haven’t check the Brix reading (which will probably be compromised because of tiny particulate matter that has come off the nuts surfaces) but the sugar/water ratio has changed as well. Some water gets vaporized, some pulled into nuts. Syrup at the end is brown and thick.

Germany still sells (I picked up a package recently in Munich for a friend’s birthday back in California) Fruity-Bussi.