Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Tips:

If you're in Spain, learn more Spanish.

If you're a foodie in Spain, learn more Spanish with an emphasis on food-related terms.

Then, ask more questions, like:

Camaron fresco, por favor?

They're fresh. They need some treatment, per your choice. Maybe deveining. Since they're fresh, yes, they need cooking.

Not too hard.

I'll bet Joe or his daughter would love to know about it.

How about throw them out and buy them only as you need them in the future? Why you'd have a drawer full of unused muffin liners simply impies a muffin-lust that has yet to be realized.

Way too much hand-wringing here.

- Fix the parenting first. Where now are all the holier-than-thou parents whose kids adore asparagus, etc.?

- Fix the cafeteria food. Healthy, tasty food isn't that hard.

- Don't worry about BANNING fast food, which is completely, utterly stupid and a Utopian-oriented thought from nincompoops (as much as we'd all like to ban it).

- TAX fast food. Heavily. Cigarettes, for example, are taxed heavily in California. Why not fast food? There are simple ways to decide which restaurants' offerings are taxed.

- We restrict alcohol sales to those above 21. Why not restrict sugar sales to those below 18? Yeah, it seems nuts -- but we do it with alcohol. Not that hard, in my view.

But you see, this really leads to be bigger discussion. What's the purpose of banning fast food next to schools? To drive down FF consumption?

Uh, yeah, then it won't work at all.

If the goal is to drive down FF consumption and -- ultimately -- improve public health, then let's really do it. Let's tax TV consumption by the hour. Let's seriously impose a tax on certain foods with little/no nutritional value or with higher-than-average levels of fat, sodium and cholesterol.

Let's tax anything that leads to sitting on the couch or poor diet, and let's give tax credits to the healthy alternatives.

Tongue in cheek here, okay? But doesn't "banning FF within 1/10 mile of schools" sorta miss the point? Teachers are graded and fired on how well they teach -- parents should be graded and penalized on how well they feed. Schools and communities, too.

Be serious or just shaddup.

Lame. Can we keep it to actual food instead of cute shit?

If I've got my hands on a deer neck -- particularly an older one -- I'm not thinking sweetbreads at all.

I'm thinking venison chili.

The best chili, IMHO, is made with tougher cuts (think "exercised"), cut into smallish cubes (maybe 1/4 to 1/3 inch) and simmered for a long time with the best chili blend, some great broth, and perhaps some onion and garlic.

Please don't feed Damon. :)

Damon, tonight I winced and then bit into your post anyway. Once again, way too much self-indulgent backstory.

It's really not the length of your posts that I mind. It's the set-up. Perhaps you could spend all those words on the burger and dining establishment itself. Or, at a minimum, please sub-head three sections:

My Backstory
The Actual Review
Final Conclusions

Please, pretty please? Because the former does nothing for me in terms of enhancing the latter two. No offense intended. I appreciate a good story.

But I also appreciate serious eats. . .and burgers.

FANTASTIC post, Carey! My Lord, I'm craving a croissant.

Okay, based on only this long-winded inside joke, I can only guess the following, since it seems there was clearly a get-together that ended oddly.

Keep in mind -- before anyone freaks out on me with PC crap -- this is just for fun, and meant to actually encourage get-togethers. There will always be hit or misses. :)

Izatryt: Mild, slightly boring, diplomatic, practical. Very much a mental person. Thinks and says. . .not much, in person, unless a bond is there.

Carol: Bristly, often mildly-drunk, fake tan, thinks she's younger than she is. Former cheerleader. Still a bit bitter. Thinks she knows more than she does. Constantly seeking approval and nasty to anyone who doesn't give it. Says more than she thinks.

Dearrie: Very polite, wallflower, often a victim but with a killer, wry sense of humor, too. Thinks more than she says.

Izzy, CarolMISSFLORDIA whatever, Dearrie, and I right?

As dbcurrie said, 20 dishes will give you 20 dishes. Perhaps these 20 "dishes" will give you thousands.

Pasta
Rice
Veggies (steamed, sauteed, blanched, braised, roasted)
Basic dough
Potatoes (baked, boiled, mashed)
Tomato sauce
Gravy (brown, et. al., sauce)
Any cream sauce
Oil/vinegar emulsion
Searing meat
Basic meat cooking (pan, broiler, grill)
Roux (any fat/flour combo)
Cooking fish
Roast chicken
Melting cheese into a liquid base
Properly assembling a basic casserole
Breading (dry/wet/dry)
Eggs (hard boiled, fried, poached, etc.)
A good broth (veggie, chicken, beef, etc.)
A good mirepoix

Hey, LPC --

I hope it's okay if I share feedback, since "this place runs just fine."

Is it okay?

LPC: You and anyone else are welcome here. Really. Honestly, seriously, you are welcome here.

Okay, thank you, LPC. I appreciate that.

LPC: But there's also something else. . .

Yeah, yeah, we'll get to your "something else" in a minute here, bud.

LPC: As others have pointed out this community has been around for a while now.

Dude, can you chill? It's pretty clear SE's been around for a while. But thanks for that.

LPC: It's also owned and operated by some folks who are quite intelligent. They are in here all the time making sure things are running well. . .

I agree! Things ARE running well. Case in point, this thread -- it hasn't been deleted yet because these intelligent webmasters and webmistresses "get" the difference between offering an opinion and "trying to make changes to what they want to see." If they ran these boards the way you might, it'd be Europe in 1933. But that's another story.

LPC: There are folks who think hamburgers and pizza aren't serious enough for a place called Serious Eats (missing the real point). . .

I actually found AHT and Slice a long time ago. Who would think those foods aren't serious enough? And I'd love to hear you explain the key and missing "real point," on behalf of your tender masters.

LPC: . . .Those who think certain words should be banned from use (yes dammit, I'm a foodie)

Okay, calm down now, buddy. . .you're a foodie. Established.

LPC: . . .Those who think the place needs a redesign, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

It does need a redesign, my friend. I hope it's okay that I suggest that. Many others have, too. Even your tender masters would agree to that, given the responsiveness they've shown when given suggestions. Take a note.

LPC:. . .These are unnecessarily harsh and are not the kinds of things we do around here.

"We"? Or "you"? Like you said, LPC -- it's the job of the owners/operators here to decide what is and isn't done. Not you. Like many here, your over-inflated sense of ownership is turning this board into a massive clique. Thank God that the owners/operators have shown a more open-minded, even-handed fairness than some of the small-minded, ego-driven posters here. So far, the operators' fairness has prevented this board from denigrating into a Chowhound -- your efforts notwithstanding.

LPC: Any censorship belongs to those intelligent folks who own and operate this place

I never asked for censorship, LPC. What brought "censorship" to mind for you? f you read my post, I clearly asked whether or not people agreed or disagreed with me. That's called expressing an opinion and asking for a vote -- not that my vote would mean anything, as it shouldn't -- again, as you said, the ultimate monitor here is the owner/operator.

But my original post was an opinion and a "yay/nay."

If you have other issues with this, I suggest you contact me at charmingamanda93 (at) yahoo.com. Yes, that's really my name (wink). And yes, I'm really willing to take you down privately, as opposed to continue this on this fine site.

Deal?

Getting back to the actual topic -- the contestants on this season's Hell's Kitchen look like a bunch on inbreds.