Profile

Mintaka

Not so starving student.

  • Location: Cambridge, UK
  • Favorite foods: Definitely carrots. I actually turned an orange tinge from eating to many. I've since cut back. A little.
  • Last bite on earth: Crosscountry skiing to a dinner of grilled elk tenderloin with blueberry port reduction at Tennessee Mountain Pass Cookhouse (a yurt with no electricity) in Leadville, CO.

British foods to bring to US friends?

Definitely Branston pickle. I also miss all the lovely cheese and some of the apple varieties, and blood pudding but that'll give you grief.

Video: Hunting Invasive Canada Geese in Virginia

@toad3000
Depending on the state, farmers can usually get permits to kill pest species that cause crop damage. Also non-migratory geese can be hunted (again depending on local laws) during times when migratory subspecies have left the area.
Kudos to you for knowing the MBTA though!! :)

Seriously Delicious Holiday Giveaway: Filet Mignon Roast from Pat LaFrieda Meats

Filet Mignon of course!

Video: Dumpster Diving at Trader Joe's

I have dumpster dived! Never gotten sick and had lots of tasty Whole Foods pastries still in boxes. Also, one bakery I went to would throw out their ugly breads in a different trash can and wrap them all up in plastic. Good free food for a college student.

When so much fine food is wasted in the USA, don't hate on people preventing some of it from going to landfills. It's their choice to eat it.

How to celebrate July 4th abroad?

This 4th of July I'm escaping back to the USA from England. I thought it was an appropriate time to leave the country ;)

I've only been abroad on the 4th once... and was so sick I couldn't really think of eating anything that day, so that's not helpful.

For Thanksgiving I hosted a meal for a bunch of Brit friends and they enjoyed hearing about the traditions. Could you do a little party for your German friends?

Weirdest Sausage We've Ever Eaten: Rattlesnake and Rabbit at Wurst Tex in Austin

One of my classmates, a fellow hunter, served me up a homemade pronghorn-elk-mule deer sausage. Delicious!

Goodbye, Dumpling

Farewell Dumpling, pictures of you always brought a smile to my face.

Favorite Obsure Ethnic Cuisine

Polish food for sure... There's a lot of Polish folk in CT so I was always really familiar with it but no one knew what I was talking about when I mentioned pierogis to my classmates in Colorado. Naturally I had to make some for them :) I also recently traveled to Poland solely for the eating. And boy did I eat.

Other regional favorite: Peruvian=

What's that sexy thing they do?

Super sexy: When my other half home brewed me his version of our favorite beer. Also when he cooks me up some delicious elk dishes... which he harvested.... or when he's half inside a WholeFoods dumpster fishing out something tasty and free.
We all have our quirks :)
@carmason- I like your little saying!

Cook the Book: 'Super Natural Every Day'

My fav healthy quick meal is oatmeal with spinach, scrambled eggs and Worcestershire sauce. It looks a right mess, and I wouldn't serve it to someone but I love it.

What atmosphere turns you on or off when you are dining out?

When I was a kid I loved restaurants that had paper placemats that I could draw on. I suppose it kept me quiet... and I definitely liked booths as a little one because then I could bounce around and not feel like I had to behave perfectly :p... fancy restaurants were the devil and luckily for my ankle-biting self I didn't really have to go to those.
My adult atmosphere preferences/dislikes have pretty much been covered by everyone above. But I do love me some taxidermy. I'm biased though, it reminds me of home. Only seen it in restaurans in Wyoming/Colorado, etc.

Lovin' some beef jerky !!!

My dad makes a maple-syrup sweet jerky using thin slabs of deer meat... kind of bizarre but I love it. Dehydrators are awesome! Another fun thing to do with it is to mash up blueberries with a spritz of lemon juice and make fruit leather (if you've got the right type of tray).
Good luck :)

Spot of Tea: Twinings Jasmine Green Tea

This is my daily tea! I love it, the jasmine hint is just perfect :D

Cambridge (UK) Beer Festival... any UK beer suggestions?

Hey! Thanks for the suggestions! I tried a few different local Cambridge perrys, ciders, and brews. Gave the Copper Dragon orange wheat a try and was happy with it. My favorite was a Belgian black currant ale... which you can hardly consider a proper beer but it was delicious! There were some great, smooth meads too.... really lovely event overall.

Care to introduce yourself?

Howdy,
I'm 22 year-old American now living in the UK and just about finished with my master's degree from Cambridge. I'm outdoorsy and love being in the middle of nowhere, which could explain my upcoming stint in chimpanzee census work in western Tanzania. I'm working on the field of community-based wildlife conservation.
But besides critters and trees I also love food. Cooking is my favorite way to relax as well as entertain.
I also do taxidermy. Sometimes on the kitchen table. Be careful in my freezer, because you might just pull out roadkill.

Serious Reads: How Bad Are Bananas? by Mike Berners-Lee

Thank you @thesatguy.

Let's not politicize that which is objective.

Denver and Fort Collins Eats

I went to Colorado State in Fort Collins, so I'm very familiar with some of the tasty food and fun activities there. Colorado is a very outdoorsy kind of place, so most of my time was spent hiking/rock climbing/etc., but for cultural things:
Mishawaka Bar usually has music playing and the venue is right on the Poudre River up highway 14
Colorado State University has a few small galleries and you can check their calendar if there's any events going on
There's a few FoCo farmers markets scattered about on different days, I'm sure info is online
I second Cycorider's Celestial Seasonings tour recommendation (Boulder). I enjoyed that, and there's also a nature art museum nearby.

FoCo food: BeauJo's, definitely with honey on the crusts
-Ras Ka is near campus, is tiny, but full of delicious Ethiopian-inspired food
-Austin's and also Coopersmiths have some generally tasty/fancier burgers and steaks (including bison!)
-Choice City Butcher has awesome sandwiches
-Chocolate Cafe only serves chocolate. And its delicious!

I was always generally happy with food in FoCo :D Another option is to buy some delicious food at the Food Coop and then go picnic along the Poudre River or go up to Lory State Park and enjoy the resevoir/red rock/foothill scenery.

I'm going back there this week too! Writing this up has made me realize how much I miss Colorado :D

It's Pimm's O'Clock!

Thank you @Kenji for speaking only of punting at Cambridge and not at 'the other place'... I'm a biased student :)

I'm definitely taking advantage of Pimms and punting down the Cam these days :D It's a tradition I wouldn't mind taking back to America with me!

Words That Should Be Words: Disrespectchup

I avoid the disrespectchup by simply eating ketchup straight out of the bottle and not ruining it by adding food to my ketchup :D

NCAA Final Four: Which Team Wins for Best Food Town?

Colchester, CT native approves :D

Our Favorite British and Irish Crisps, Candies, and Other Snacks

@jrmanor.... I'm not looking forward to the day when I have to leave the land of 2L Strongbow. The states need to get on board with cider for sure.

I'm really partial to Garibaldi... yum to everything!

Food Prices Continue to Rise, an International Food Crisis Looms

What we need are better food distribution networks, IMHO. Don't forget that Malthusian narratives aren't the only ways to paint the picture of dynamic human-agriculture-technology interactions. (Ester Boserup!)

Crap... too much academia lately. Must. Quit. Essays.

Who amongst us, has the best pickiest eater story?

Oh! And a friend's grandma wouldn't eat fettuccine because the name sounds like feta and she didn't like feta cheese.

Who amongst us, has the best pickiest eater story?

My cousin as a 7 year old threw a fit when her dad poured maple syrup on her pancakes instead of on the side. She wouldn't eat until he made her new ones.
Let's see... I also know someone who doesn't like bananas or peanut butter. I didn't know that was possible.

I can't help seeing pickyness as a serious character flaw. I'm usually pretty non-judgmental, but if someone doesn't like vegetables, I don't like them! (A bit of an exaggeration...) It really irks me, even though it is none of my business.

Meet & Eat: Carrie Vasios, Serious Eats Intern

I love banana black bean empanadas! Hope you have fun with your internship :)

Cambridge (UK) Beer Festival... any UK beer suggestions?

Hey lovely SE'ers!

I'm checking out the Cambridge Beer Festival this week and word is that there will be 80 different types of ciders (!!!) and over 230 beers from 100 breweries. I haven't ventured outside of the pub standards for beer here in the UK (I'm an American doing UK grad school) and I was hoping to discover some new tasty brews at the beer festival. I suppose I could try sampling 310 alcohols but I have a sneaking suspicion I'd end up dead so can anyone share some favorite British brews? Especially from smaller breweries? I'm not a fan of IPAs or very hoppy beers, nor do I like super sweet, fake-tasting ciders (e.g. Kopparberg).
What should I look for?

Cheers!

The Food Lab: The Science of Pie Dough

The Food Lab: The Science of Pie Dough View Slideshow Get Recipe

If there's one thing that instills fear into the hearts and minds of American cooks, it's pie crust. I know. At one time, I was one of those people. Pie crusts were the Mumm-ra to my Lion-O, and it was all because they were a mystery to me. What makes them flaky? What makes them tender? And most importantly, how come mine used to come out like pliant pieces of leather instead of buttery and delicious? More

Cakespy: Cadbury Creme Eggs Benedict

Cakespy: Cadbury Creme Eggs Benedict

Can Eggs Benedict be recreated in a totally sweet form? You bet your bottom silver dollar pancake: say hello to Cadbury Creme Eggs Benedict. It's made of stacks of doughnut, brownie, melty Creme Eggs (complete with oozing yolk!), and a topping of rich frosting, all accompanied by a mound of fried pound cake to give the effect of side potatoes. More

Hot Dog Of The Week: Perro Caliente

Hot Dog Of The Week: Perro Caliente

[Photographs and original artwork: Hawk Krall] This week's dog is perhaps one of the craziest things I've ever eaten in my life. After first reading about Colombian hot dogs, I assumed they were just a variation on Mexican hot dogs. Boy was I wrong. The Perro Caliente is something totally different. With no plans to visit South America anytime soon, I was happy to discover that Queens in New York has plenty of Colombian fast food restaurants serving various incarnations of the Perro Caliente.... More

Nuts for Filipino Comfort Food: Kare-Kare

Nuts for Filipino Comfort Food: Kare-Kare Get Recipe

"Every family's kare-kare is a little different." [Photographs: Lee Zalben] Kare-Kare View the complete recipe here » I used my recent diving trip in the Philippines as an opportunity to taste firsthand how Filipinos have woven peanuts into their culinary tradition. A few weeks ago I wrote about a disappointing chocolate peanut doughnut from Mister Donut I had at the airport in Manila. In all fairness to Filipino food enthusiasts out there, I should have started with this story. In Cebu, an island in the southern Philippines, I stayed at the Shangri-La's Mactan Resort & Spa and was excited to meet Adolfo Lopez, the hotel's executive sous chef. When I told chef "Dolf" that I wanted to try some peanutty... More

Rice Krispies Sushi

Rice Krispies Sushi

No, there isn't raw fish in these Rice Krispies treats, just good old-fashioned marshmallows, Swedish Fish gummies, and Fruit by the Foot (or Fruit Roll-Ups). My friend made them for me as a Christmas present and they were so darn... More