Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

went to Ippudo last night. the ramen tasted great. BUT gave me a terrible MSG headache. i won't be going back. will stick with Momofuku, I guess. Or maybe I'll just stick with soba.

OMG SOOO YUMMY! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

Living in Hawai'i for eight years is imbedded in my DNA....Spam Musubi ....truly a Hawaiian favorite snack or meal if you have two! The method and recipe here is good - but I've only had spam musubi made with the spam fried in teriyaki sauce - then placed on top of the block of rice - and a strip of nori about 2-inches wide wrapped around the center of the spam.

Going back to Honolulu for my yearly infusion of Aloha....I may be a native-born New Yorker, but my heart and soul is Hawaiian!

In between visits each year, I make Malasadas at home and buy spam musubi at a small sushi place around the corner from where I live....when I saw "spam musubi" on their menu I nearly fainted! Visit my website at www.cookwithaloha.com

to yayajac: an article i just read said they are assuming the contamination happened after the nuts had already became peanut butter/paste, since the roasting process of the nuts would heat them to a high enough temperature to kill the bacteria

i'm not worried about any jarred peanut butter, just peanut butter-containing products.. i'm holding off on eating any products i have to see what companies continue to announce recalls

ironically enough, a few days before the recalls, i had just ordered several bags of Bear Naked Peanut Butter granola from their website.. so far so good though, they haven't made any recalls, hope it stays that way

*raising hand* slightly off-topic, but how many folks keep their pb in the fridge? My husband's great-grandmother did this, but it just seems weird to me.

Whaaaa? I've never had it with furikake added, seems unnecessary?Soy Sauce and Sugar.. is a kind of teriyaki sauce... hey have you tried making teriyaki with brown sugar instead of white?? I LOVE IT. But hey, Using a press is soooooo cheating. Come on kids, do it by hand like the pros. (could you imagine a sushi chef trying to show off using a press??)

Bigany... you're gonna die earlier than most just from stressing out about what you eat. You don't eat Spam Musubi everyday, you just eat it once in a while. Haven't you ever heard the 80/20 rule? eat healthy stuff 80% of the time, you can at 20% CRAP and still be as healthy. You'll be much happier too!!

Can you really re-crispify nori in a pan???

Funny... i totally made Spam Musubi Fried Rice by accident! I wanted to see if anyone else has done that

@wookie - Boiled peanuts was the first thing I thought of with the braised pistachios! Love boiled peanuts.

Wow. It was an exciting ride this season. I had a bunch of fun recapping each episode for Serious Eats. One thing I gotta say, though, is that I feel like everyone needs to take Lisa's image on the show with a huge grain of salt. And I'm including a big "mea culpa" with that admonition. When contestants say that Reality TV only shows a tiny portion of their words and actions, they're not kidding. There's no denying that film editing is a very powerful alchemy. Even if "Lisa," the TV character, was great fun to root against and rant at, Lisa, the civilian, definitely doesn't deserve any grief from us. Let's leave our harsh words for her on these posts, and from here on out just treat her like someone who loves good food as much as we do.

I would like to mention that if I could have Chef Ripert and all that lovely food, I wouldn't even THINK about cooking.

I'm happy for Stephanie, and I think all 3 made a strong showing (even, surprisingly, Lisa). Blais may not think he gave his 'best performance', but believe me, the man's a genius. One of my top 5 most memorable meals was at his dearly-departed "Blais" restaurant in Atlanta. If anyone's visiting Atlanta in the future, I suggest tracking him down.

I might even plan a trip to Chicago to try Stephanie's dishes in person. (Lisa, I'm not quite 'there' yet, but maybe in a few months...)

@Perky - yeah, I'm pretty sure Lisa has no soul....she's negative and whiny and has been in the bottom two like 8 times, she throws people under the bus in a heartbeat and accuses people of sabotaging her even though she's a crappy enough chef without any help. Last night was really the only episode they liked everything she did, and I think the only reason they praised her was because they were so surprised she didn't drop the ball like she has every, single, episode. The only reason she wasn't eliminated earlier is that she does her best to make other people look bad and will never take responsibility for anything, even if she clearly fucked up and/or was in charge of a group. And yes, she's also ugly. But that's beside the point.

Rant over.

@Perkymac - I'll tell you what you missed. Lisa was a horrible person all season long, and nobody liked her.

So glad Stephanie won... Lisa might have made a good meal in the finale, and may very well be a great chef, but she didn't deserve to win this competition, and I think it would have been disasterous for Top Chef to have her representing the best of this season when clearly Richard, Stephanie, Antonia and Dale are better chefs than she is.

Stephanie was my choice from the beginning. I am so thrilled she won. I was put off with Lisa throughout the entire competition. Even though Richard made it to the final three, he just didn't grab my attention. I do see braised pistachios in my future!