Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

This is clearly a viral marketing gimmick for Heinz. I don't even believe that this thing works, given that even USB 3.0 can only put out 4.5W. Isn't it pretty, though? Why don't we get Heinz blue cans here in North America? I guess we need a picture to tell us what beans are.

Looking forward to hearing how this turns out. My cheese experiments so far have confirmed that megapasteurized and homoginized milk are a pain in the but. I've heard there are differences between how different animals' milk cheeses up, but the biggest difference I see is that cow's milk sure costs a lot less than goat. I can't even find sheep milk around here.

I've got a feta specific culture hanging out in my freezer, and I expect it would be just as happy to wake up to a meal of cow lactose as it would for goat lactose. If yours works out, I'm going to try it too (at least for the first batch).

Cookbooks, and duck fat.

piccola, not sure if this is actually what you meant, but they do not just use the liver and throw out the rest. In fact, the breast of fat ducks are so prized that they have their own special name too "magret du canard". Not sure what happens to bills or feathers, but it shouldn't be any worse than other duck farming.

But if you are looking for the friendliest of foie, here is Dan Barber talking about it.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_barber_s_surprising_foie_gras_parable.html
On an episode of The F Word, Gordon Ramsay had a blind taste test of that versus conventional foie gras and easily identified the conventional as hte better tasting of the two, but still it is nice to know people are trying different things.

I oppose calling them opposites, and instead propose we call them opponents: they are competing to gain entry to my belly.

The slogan is necessary. Somebody has got to challenge the vegetarian conspiracy against girls.

Even if it weren't in response to this shirt, PETA and the rest of them would continue to prey on the body image insecurities of teenage girls.

Don't eat animals, they're made of FAT and you are what you eat, fatty. Plants don't have FAT*, they have oils (never mind that they're pretty much the same thing),so if you don't want to be FAT, you'd better start eating them tubby. Or just don't eat anything.>>

I don't know if the vegetarian community is conscious of it, but it depends on this sort of propaganda. Even if it is damaging, it increases enrollment which is necessary for their community's survival as other vegetarians come back to their senses and realize that meat is good and a little bit is not going to kill anybody (or make them fat).

They have evolved to keep membership by perpetuating amongst them the idea that they can never go back because somehow vegetarianism damages the systems in your body that digest meat. They don't tell you that up front.

So you jerks at PETA, keep telling girls that if they eat meat they'll get ginormous and have to cut their breasts off. But you'd better be prepared for the world to figure out that you are full of crap.

Ok, so I have still done a terrible job of explaining this. It's not that the food is the same shape as the original Kiki or Bouba. If you did the experiment with two foods instead of two shapes, which one would people guess was called Kiki and which Bouba.

Lets say that you had a hot pepper and a bowl of sour cream and told somebody that in some made up language one was called Kiki and the other Bouba. I bet most people would guess that the hot pepper is Kiki. Some food is not obviously a Kiki or a Bouba, but a lot of foods are.

I tried to put a link in the original post but it didn't take. Let's try again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

Maybe you had to see the show. I think it explained the idea as it relates to food much better than I could. Don't know if "In Search of Perfection" airs in the states, but it must somewhere on the internets and is worth the search.

Fennel = crazy delicious

I put it in my lasagna. I grind some fennel seed in my coffee. I even have fennel flavoured toothpaste (Crest extreme herbal mint).

I understand that it's not too popular. Fennel is the jazz of flavours. It requires a bit of understanding to be appreciated.

Most people today do not want to be challenged by a flavour. The "tongue tastes" (sweet, sour, salty, meaty, fatty) are winning out over nose flavours. People drink out of straws so that they don't have to smell their beverages. Boring brown food is king as proven by the popularity of the failure pile in a sadness bowl.

A coworker explaining his hatred of black licorice compared it to the similarly shaped red candy. "With the red stuff I could eat it through the whole movie".

Well who said you were supposed to eat licorice like that? One is enough. Somehow our internal gluttons demand for us to eat only that which can be continuously stuffed into our guts without waking up the part of our minds that appreciates flavour. It is a sort of willful ignorance.

If you don't like fennel, please consider that maybe you are wrong. As much as you are entitled to your own opinions, in this case, you are just being picky. Please go to the bulk store and buy one tiny piece from the licorice allsorts bin. Try to remember the first time you tried a really hot chicken wing. Harness that sense of adventure and try this little candy. It's not bad for you. It's not even bad. It is flavourful. It is interesting.

This was my birthday cake growing up and was always served with the first strawberries of the season. I have made my own a few times but it sure does take a lot of eggs. I guess it frees up a lot of yolks for creme brulee.

One of my great mess en place moments involved realizing I didn't have any vanilla, ten egg separations too late. There was no turning back, so I used the only extract on hand, which happened to be mint, and some cocoa. As much as I love mint chocolate, this is a downgrade from the real deal. I strongly recommend double checking everything (and there are only five or six ingredients) before you start.

Two of my best friends are vegetarians, which is in stark contrast to my drastic omnivorism. Since they have no religious or medical reasoning (just some vague ethical and perceived health reasons) and because they are close enough friends, I feel ok about trying to undermine this part of their lifestyle which I see as inconvenient.

I have found hope in their newfound love of Portuguese custard tarts. They discovered them on their own without any interference from me and they certainly didn't consider the lard content. I wasn't sure if I should tell them, but decided that honesty was a good policy.

Can a refined animal product (from a pig of all creatures) be the trigger for the collapse of their food system? Regretfully, I hope so.

I must stop using internet as a confessional.

In defense of my nominee:

bravian, I should point out that as a Canadian, the word Mr. Smith is actually saying is "flavour". A chef reminding the audience that food should be flavourful has got to be less annoying than Tyler Florence saying "alright" every 43 seconds.

Dave, I think dork may be too strong a word, but I will concede that he is corny. Does he tilt his head a lot? Yes. Does he make a funny surprised face whenever he tastes anything? Certainly. For many people, I think this makes him less intimidating. That's an important part of a teach-you-to-cook style tv chef and has contributed to the popularity of the likes of Rachel Ray. Unlike the queen of the garbage bowl, this guy has the professional cred to back his stuff up.

I'd like to see Bonkers make a comeback or maybe I'd just like to see the ads again.