Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Eating alone is one of the things that makes life worth living, and I always bring something to read as my dining companion if I don't have someone to spend time with, which is often. Some selections lately include Monocle magazine, New York Streetscapes, Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood Feeding Creatures, and The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality. I tend to read non-fiction more than fiction, but when I read fiction, I often find my food gets neglected a bit more....

Still, reading and eating are best friends, in my opinion.

There are some places I feel more comfortable with eating alone than in others. Cafes and teahouses are ideal. I actually touched on this topic in a blog post of mine: A Food Lover's Book of Days/Dining Alone. Life is Meals: A Food Lover's Book of Days by James and Kay Salter has a wonderful chapter entitled "Solitary Dinners" I really resonated with, and I think those of us who enjoy eating alone may enjoy it, too.

I have a quote from a book I was reading one Saturday, while eating, other solo readers and eaters might find interesting: “In roadside diners and late-night cafeterias, hotel lobbies and station cafes, we may dilute our feeling of isolation in a lonely public place and hence rediscover a distinctive sense of community.” - Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel.

People! Give me your coconut milk! This stuff is great for subbing as buttermilk for vegan baked goods, and I love making coconut sweet rice.

Since I moved into this place I live in now late last May, I haven't gotten much in terms of Pantry Ghosts, but I do have three different jars of molasses. Kept a jar at the boyfriend's, had one at my old place. Moved in with my parents, broke up with the boyfriend, and bought another jar for no reason. Now I have three, and molasses isn't something one uses terribly often.

And I have udon noodles of unclear age.

Hi there, I'm in the process of applying to SOAS of the University of London, and was wondering similarly about where to eat in London. Since I'll (hopefully) be back in university, I would be interested in cheap eats such as cafes and inexpensive curry houses (the Lahore Kebab sounds lovely), especially any in the Bloomsbury area.

I would also love unique restaurant picks as well, since my desired MA programme is Anthropology of Food. It would be nice to find inspiration for my studies in local dining areas.

Also, are there any good Vietnamese places in London?

ChelleyD01, could I ask you why you don't like green tea? I had been drinking a lot of tea and had a similar dislike for green tea before I found out green and white teas need to be steeped at a lower temperature than black and oolong teas. I have an electric kettle which regulates the temperatures for heating the water up, but if you're working with a stovetop kettle, you will want to take the kettle off the burner once the water has boiled, and let it sit for at least a minute to cool down before brewing green or white teas. These teas aren't as oxidized as black or oolong, so if one were to brew them with boiling water, it "burns" them, so they will have an unpleasant taste.

For tea suggestions from your list, I would direct you to Adagio. The website has a large variety of loose teas you may enjoy. The sample tins are good for about three or four cups each tin, if not more, and can be fetched for a decent cost.

I've become a fan of Rishi teas that I buy from Whole Foods, especially the Earl Grey. Here in Orlando, there are at least two shops/teahouses where one can buy loose tea: Infusion and Dandelion.

dhorst posted it earlier, but there is a list of company recalls available online, and some of the products include Health Valley Organic Peanut Crunch Chewy Granola Bars, Grreat Choice Dog Biscuit products, CLIF and LUNA bars, Whole Foods Carob Energee Nuggets, and an assortment of cookies from Trader Joe's.

cookingbooks was right: Just one more reason to get off our dependency on agri-business. According to this article, at least 491 people have been infected with salmonella poisoning, with seven deaths. To put it into perspective, the 2001 anthrax attacks killed five people, and infected 17.

Although I have seen the idea derided in the forums and elsewhere, President Obama needs to address food reform as urgently as he needs to address the issues of the economy, national security, the Iraq War, the situation in Afghanistan, health care and climate change. As Michael Pollan points out in his Farmer in Chief open letter, all of the issues Americans consider important all relate to our fractured food policy, with agribusiness using much of the fossil fuels the country imports, and contributing the lion's share of greenhouse gasses.

We've recently seen tomatoes, jalapenos, spinach and beef come under fire. Right now, it's peanut butter. Soon, it will be something else if the government doesn't begin action to change the state of agriculture and food manufacturing. I support those who have urged us to make our own peanut butter, or to buy from small businesses, but we all know a grandmother, a young niece, a little cousin who can't take matters into his or her own hands. It is for them, the ones who are most susceptible to being killed by food poisoning and for those already affected, we should instigate our elected officials to rebuild our food system.

Although I've been known to enjoy peanut butter in smoothies, on pancakes and even burgers (fo' real!), I'm not all that fond of peanut butter snacks. I don't care for peanut butter cookies, for example, nor do I buy any candy with peanut butter, such as Reese's. And I think those crackers with the peanut butter in-between are vile, although I remember eating a few Ritz crackers with peanut butter as a kid.

If my peanut butter in a jar is fine, as it should be since I bought a few jars of organic peanut butter months ago, then I feel pretty safe. I may be disinclined to eat peanut butter from another source, though, like at a restaurant or sandwich shop.

I was in high school in the 90s, and the Lunchables and Capri-Sun comments are on-point. Another alternative use for Pop Rocks would be to sprinkle a few atop cupcakes. I think that would be pretty fun.

Remember the Orbitz drink with the little balls that were magically suspended in the beverage? That stuff was barely on shelves for a year, it seems.

Just nothing with Olestra, please. Good luck with your party!

Wine and love, he spoke
of these ideals. I preferred
pale ale and silence.

I couldn't subsist on only three veggies. I'd die of starvation as a vegetarian.

My top three veg would have to be tomatoes, corn and carrots, with potatoes and zucchini lurking in the wings. I know as soon as I post this comment, I will have a dozen other essential vegetables I couldn't part with. Mushrooms, olives, cauliflower, eggplant, black beans, avocado....

Three veg that could drop off the face of the earth: okra, beets, brussel sprouts. I dislike onions, but I don't mind if they are in soups, salsas or stews in small amounts. Onions are omitted from the rules, but if they weren't, I still wouldn't want to put them on my verboten list, even though I don't eat them unless they're snuck in my food.

You can't sneak okra, though. Bleh.

I lean more towards the sugary end of the pool, although if I overindulge, I need to have a little bit of something savory to sort my tongue out. It also goes the other way, like when I crave something sweet after eating a savory meal.

Remarkably, although I still have a healthy sweet tooth now, when I was a child I thrived on sugar. I would eat bags of hard candy like Jolly Ranchers, and I'd attach myself to gigantic jawbreakers the size of mini-asteroids (2 inches across!) like a leech. My Halloween candy would be gone in a couple of days.

Now, though, I don't often go for candy at all. Beloved sweets as a theoretical adult include Dagoba Chai chocolate bars, dense coconut tea cakes (no icing, but a sugar-rum drizzle would be fine), apple crumble, snickerdoodles, blueberry scones, Asian pears (aka pear-apples), pan au chocolat, banana pancakes with peanut butter, dried cherries, lime cookies, mango and sticky rice, Philippine sweet rice....

If the Nordic Ware Rice Cooker is made of plastic, I wouldn't buy it, as I've become a little apprehensive about microwaving food in plastic.

What kind of rice are you looking to cook? For white rice, these rice cookers seem fine. I have an Aroma rice cooker my parents bought in the early 90s that still works great, so I would lean towards the Aroma Cool Touch. The handle is a nice feature, making it portable if you wish to take cooked rice over to a friend's house for a potluck. My concern with the Panasonic and the Rival versions are the lids they both have, which look as if they could potentially slip off if they get bumped, or may not cook the rice properly if the lid isn't on correctly.

Not to complicate your decision-making further, but I happened to notice a rather glowing review of the Fujitronic FR-803.

Oh, I should have mentioned in my other posting: Girl Scout Cookies. Specifically the cookies known as Samoas, also assuming the moniker of Coconut DeLites.

Partially hydrogenated oil never tasted so good.

Even more decadent is the Samoas ice cream from Edy's. I haven't had it myself, but if you're going to be bad, why not be really bad?