I'm about to head to university (McGill, woohoo!) this fall, and I will be living on residence. I do have an apartment style rez, which means no meal plans. I'm pretty happy for this, because I do cook at home and this will be a good way to continue my love for food.

I'm going to be taking a toaster and slow cooker over there from home; the oven/stove and refrigerator are already there. I know I can do a lot of cost/time effective meals with the slow cooker, but I do need some recipes, beyond knowing how to cook dal and beans (which are about the only things I can cook in the slow cooker).

What do you serious eaters recommend for taking in terms of pots/pans and kitchenware? Keep in mind I will be sharing my apartment with one other person.

As well, I have another question for anyone living on res, sharing a roommate, or people who cook for themselves: how do you manage the grocery shopping, and the sharing (if any) of kitchen tools or pantry staples?

I don't want to be eating ramen noodles for 4 years, but I still want to be able to control my budget. As well, McGill University is about a 7 hour drive to my parents' place, so going back and forth is not an option.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

So I went to Fairmont Bagel in Montreal during the summer, promptly bought a 15 pack for the freezer back home in Toronto. All the bagels were divinely delicious, and one particular variety was amazing. It had dill, salt, and garlic flakes. It was the only salted bagel variety in the pack. Does anyone know which one I'm talking about?

I was at the local Asian supermarket and I saw some black chicken, which I had first seen on an episode of Top Chef a while back (the one with the geoduck as well).

After some wikipedia "research", I found out that the chicken is actually bred like that, and actually called "Silkie". I always used to think it was smoked in charcoal or something (say yes to benzopyrenes LOL), but it turns out the meat and bones are also a darker colour.

Word is still out if I want to get it, but the important thing is if the family likes it, because I usually have a good bit of input on the grocery shopping/meal planning for my age (senior in H.S.), and I do NOT want to lose that over a black chicken experiment went wrong.

Have any of you serious eaters seen/tasted black chicken? I have read it is used in soups, and it is the size of stewing hens so I'm guessing a similar prep would be in place. As well, what other meat/poultry/other animal is on your to try list? As well, which ones make you squeamish?

P.S. At least I don't have to catch it myself, I've heard a few stories of my dad trying to catch a rooster for dinner for the guests that were coming over for dinner in rural India 25 years ago.

I finally saw mangosteens in person for the first time in my life and had to pick them up. $8 for about 7 mangosteens seemed like a pretty good deal to me, considering I'd read quite a bit about them in the blogosphere. The first mangosteen was rotten, sadly, but the two after were pure heaven. I still have four remaining, which seemed a bit hard and underripe. So serious eaters, do any of you have a particular tropical fruit you love?

I finally went and bought fiddleheads. They are in season in southern Ontario right now, but I have no idea what to do with them, so I only bought around a cup and a half. If they're good today, I'll definitely buy some tomorrow too. Any recipes would be greatly appreciated by the very entertaining and knowledgeable SE readers/crew!

I was having an interesting conversation with a female friend of mine (I'm male), and apparently, there's quite a few chefs that are admired for their looks (I heard the names of Anthony Bourdain and Tyler Florence). What about you, serious eats reader, do you ever watch a show just because the chef is drool-worthy?

Disclaimer: I've watched a few reruns of Everyday Italian, if you know what I mean, BUT the recipes are actually good.

I'm pretty new to seriouseats, but I was wondering if there could be a way to notify you if someone commented after you, or responded to your comment (example: "@deepitbhatia"), something similar to facebook, where when you view your account, you can see if someone has responded to your comment.

I bought a box of General Mills Vanilla Bean Latte granola bars, for snacking on throughout the weak. To my surprise, it had high maltose corn syrup as the first ingredient. I know that maltose is a disaccharide with two glucoses, but how does this differ from high fructose corn syrup? Is it better or worse?

note: I'm posting from Ontario, and our laws don't specify labelling HFCS, it can say "glucose-fructose" and that's also an ingredient, although far near the bottom of the ingredients list.

DECA in our school is doing a fundraiser, like every year, for the Herbie Fund, which gives life saving surgeries to children in third world countries. We sell food during lunch periods as part of the fund raiser. What recipes do you recommend for easy to prepare, delicious, relatively mess free foods that can appeal to a wide variety of teenagers? (over 2100).

I'm a high school student that happens to play football in the fall and rugby in the spring and summer. I just can't seem to find more than a handful of foods that can re-energize me and put me on track for the rest of the evening so I can work productively without feeling worn out.

Granola bars failed (too much sugar, I think).
Nuts work...but there's gotta be some more foods that keep me going, at least from 5:00-11:00 PM.

If there are any athletes, or if you have any sort of experience with energy-boosting, lower sugar foods, please, voice your expertise in the comments! What do you do?
(Sorry JEP, I borrowed the format of the topic title, I hope you don't mind).