Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I've never slaughtered a turkey but when I was living at home with my parents I helped raise and slaughter chickens. It's not a pleasant process but you get an appreciation of where your food comes from. My family has also raised pigs and the occasional steer for meat as well but we had a professional processor slaughter and butcher those. My parents still raise a few chickens but for eggs rather than meat (every time I visit I come home with lots of delicious free eggs).

A "balanced ecosystem" would be one without the feral pigs. This isn't like overpopulation of deer which is caused by eliminating natural predators and reindroducing the predators would solve the problem. Wild boars are not a native species, the predators for them just aren't there and never have been which is why they are so destructive. The only limits on their population is human hunting and food availability and pigs will eat just about anything so it's not much of a limit.

Fresh all the way. Whole nutmeg will last practically forever without losing it's flavor which is the main reason I use it. I love nutmeg but honestly I don't use it that often so it makes more sense from a shelf-life perspective. Same goes for a lot of other spices that I don't use frequently, whole spices just keep better.

My brother isn't quite an expat, he was in the military (and his wife still is) so he's been moved all over the world and US. Every time he visits home here in Maine the first thing he wants are the red natural casing hot dogs that seem to only be available in New England.

Now I'll admit I like lazagna with cottage cheese because I like the texture better with the larger curds and more liquid. However tomato soup? It's not like tomato sauce is hard to come by or expensive. I always have cans of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes on hand, they're pretty much the definition of a pantry staple.

Want to know what makes me a Maine foodie and not just any old foodie? I don't know or care want ramps are, the first food in spring I look forward to are the fiddleheads.

Forget the frugal aspect of it. When I have 50lbs of ripe green beans and another 50 ripening what am I supposed to do with them? They get made into pickles or blanched and frozen.

I've never canned anything I didn't grow or pick myself (either wild growing berries or farms that let you pick your own strawberries or apples which is a nice way to spend a day). Is it a necessity? Of course not. I could not go berry picking or throw out extra produce from my garden and buy canned veggies and jam but that's wasteful and honestly my homemade blackberry jam is a lot better than anything from a store. I live in a rural area, this is something almost everyone here does regardless of if it's trendy.

If more people are canning that's great! They're learning how fun it is and how much great variety of things you can make and can. How many stores stock bread and butteer zucchini relish? Or elderberry jam?

I was spoiled as a kid by my grandfather's kettle corn. I HATE microwave or movie theater popcorn (the fake butter smell is so disgusting). If theaters

By the way, as someone who grew up on a farm, popcorn does not look like sheep shit, raisinets on the other hand.

Awwww!!! I just adopted a bunny last week and he needs a little trip to the vet too (nothing serious, just needs to be neutered because we have 2 female rabbits).

As a pizza stick device this seems pointless. However I'm loving the shape and size, and I can see a lot of other uses for it.

I'll take any excuse to eat more sardines, I love them so much. That recipe did get me to try avocados again and find that I like them now (one of those foods I hated as a kid).

I really applaud Alton for losing the weight, it's hard to do especially when you really enjoy food. Got me motivated (we'll see for how long) I'm committed to making smoothies to drink while I work rather than pepsi. Since I love carbonation I took the soy milk out of the recipe he showed and added soda water. So far so good.

Hot greasy pizza, yeah nothing scalds the mouth like hot oil.

Worst cooking is no question, severe 2nd degree burn on my arm from hitting it on the inside of the oven door taking a pizza out of the oven. Since the oven was at 500 degrees it didn't take more than a brief bump. Still have a 1 inch by 3 inch scar on my arm. Lesson well learned.

I LOVE split pea soup. Anytime I make bone in ham I make split peas soup shortly after using the leftover bone. It adds wonderful smokey flavor to the soup and you get a little more use out of something that would normally be thrown out right away. I like to eat pea soup with warm buttered biscuits so good in the cold Maine winter.

I have no problem getting through the leftovers, while the soup is still warm I ladle it into individual storage bowls to pop into the microwave for lunch the next day or store in the freezer for next time I have a craving.