Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

It's 12:09am and I just sat down with a piece of whole wheat toast slathered with homemade cashew butter. When I don't have the CB handy, it's usually a piece of toast dipped in a small cup of very strong hot chocolate.

@steamsoldier: I've frozen my bacon fat, then grated it into my ground beef when I want a little extra fat in my burger patties. It works quite well.

I always store it in the freezer in an airtight container. As far as I can tell, with this method, it keeps forever.

I always have lots bacon fat in storage because I prefer to cook my bacon in the oven low and slow...usually 300-350 on convenction. Renders tons of fat and really concentrates the bacon flavor. I think I got this technique from an America's Test Kitchen episode a few years ago?

Yeah, Weggies is in a class by itself.
TJ's jarred/frozen are far better in quality than what you get at other chains (even "premium" stuff like WF's 365) in my experience. But I agree that it's not a supermarket in the sense that it could be the sole place that a family shops for food. I go to my regular store once or twice a week and TJ's about once a month to stock up on frozen veggies, jarred sauces, etc.
Northern California readers are just getting to work now, so I imagine we'll see some commenters showing love to Nugget, a personal favorite of mine.

Erin, I had a similar shift in cravings over the last several years. When I was in college on the east coast, I did the proverbial stop at In-n-Out on the way from the airport every Christmas. But at some point in the last ten years I realized I was waiting a couple extra days before my first double-double and almost always having my first southern Cal meal at Wahoos.

Their tacos are great, but not appreciably better than some of the other fish tacos in LA, but add in their rice and beans and the meal becomes to die for!

Wow, profiles this week on SeriousEats and Gizmodo. Not too shabby.

Though I can't help but think he'd rather see these features running once the app is live on iTunes. [groaner coming] I guess I hope Chef Ruhlman's ratio of pre-launch/post-launch blogosphere coverage is not too high.

I've had a theory for a while about Doug's service. As mentioned in the article he is super friendly and always chats with you during your order. With the huge line behind me, sometimes I'm a little self consciuos about taking too long once I've reached the front of the line (years of going to Pat's in Philly will do that to you).

But here's my theory...Doug has figured out the exact pace of service that makes sure that tables on the floor are opening up at the same time as orders are placed and parties go to sit down. It's uncanny. I've never had to wait for a table to open up--even though the line outside always has more guests than can be seated at once. I think he intentionally chats up speed-orderers like me, and moves along slow pokes using his internal, sausage-powered clock. Anyone buying into this?