Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Well, acroninj, if you visit a vegan or vegetarian friend for dinner, I don't think you'd failry expect them to cook up a roast just for you. And, vice versa.

One thing that muddies this issue is the notion that veganism and vegetarianism are necessarily belief systems. Obviously, they are for many people who believe that eating animals is morally offensive. However, many people become vegetarians (vegans, less so I suspect) for simply reasons of health and taste.

In any case, many people appear to take the presence of anyone who acts or thinks differerently to threaten the way they act and think.

You know, what's really depressing is the number of people who seem to think that anyone doing something out of the mainstream is uppity, arrogant, and preachy. It's as if they believe that anyone who fails to match their image of a "normal" person is a personal threat. I can only assume that they're the same folks who thought studying in school was only for people who were uppity, arrogant and preachy. Look where that got them.

Yes, the beans are missing, and so is the grease.

Personally, i hate the stuff, but, if you insist, it certainly is a great excuse for a London trip.

This is a nonissue. if you are too damn lazy to pour some wine into your glass, I will suggest that you are dining in a restaurant not to enjoy the food and the company, but rather to wallow in the egocentric pleasure of being waited on. I.e., it's your chance to pretend your a medieval monarch.

Those soup recipes that want me to take about half of the really hot brew and give it a whirl in a blender and then pour it back in. Not happening here. (For those who haven't tried this, you need to use repeated small amounts of the stuff and hold the blender lid on very carefully, 'cause hot soup seems to expand exponentially when it's blenderized. It's a great way to acquire some new burns.)

Baking is that thing that happens in the back of bakeries.

My $400 food processor hasn't made anything besides hummus for the last year or so.

Good cookies are hard to find in the UK. Store shelves are lined with "digestive wafers", i.e., hard brown graham flour wafers. Too each their own.

Adam is right, though. Oreo's stopped tasting like chocolate a long time ago and the filling tastes like plain confectioners sugar.

Pretty much anything with good dark chocolate and almonds.

Used to really like what I've been told was the "old" Mars bar. Then I bought a Mars bar imported from the UK, after someone told me it was still the old style, and found it to be much like a 3 Musketeers.

Anyway, the Mars bar that I remember was chocolate, almonds, and caramel.

Am I remembering that right, or am I way off track? Did the Mars bar change?

Sometimes it's just honey.

What's everyone's opinion of TJ's wines and coffees? Does filling the coffee containers with nitrogen really do anything? I mean, the air is 75 percent nitrogen, so is oxygen going to rot the beans?

I tend to buy extra virgin Colavita for everyday. I only splurge when the olive oil itself is going to be a dominant taste component. If I'm cooking something with a lot of strong flavors, I can't taste the diffrence between cheap and expensive oils.

I bought an AeroPress, which is also a manual device that relies on muscle power to push water through the grounds. The handles might provide enough leverage to make this thing usable, but the AeroPress is not for the weak.

I'd rather spend the 60 quid on something else.

Envy, 'cause she's got all that money.

Look, anyone who can cajole people into cooking at home instead of ordering a pizza, and anyone who shows travelers that they don't need to eat another mundane meal in a franchise joint, ought to be applauded.

Is she introducing people to the highest culinary standards? No. But, you can believe she's introducing most people to a higher culinary standard.