DISQUS

Logictech used to make left-handed verticle mice ... not sure if they still do.

We've got the market right at the end of the street. For a few weeks in fall there are some pretty amazing deals on vegetables so it's really cheap to can them. It's only time intensive. Just be sure to read a good book on canning because improperly canned foods can kill you! Here is a good freebie from the USDA

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publicati...

You'll need a pressure canner, which can be expensive. We have a huge "All American" which we got at Preston Hardware for one of these, and one of those (points to arm, then leg). You can get them online for a fair bit cheaper.

http://www.pressurecooker-outlet.com/930.htm

It gets more depressing, really. One study in the UK shows that 48% of the fossil fuels used in making potatoes are actually used in cooking them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/48070...

And as for the unexpected cascade effects of high oil prices, they can be really far reaching. Brazil is the world's biggest sugar producer. Because of the high cost of oil they have decided to convert all cars to ethanol in a staggaring timeframe like 5 years or something like that. So 50% of their sugar production is now going to ethanol production, and as a result sugar prices are skyrocketing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000100...

Home Canning is a good way to eat locally year round, BTW. Without all the salt :-) We just had local green beans with supper the other night. We have local carrots at our disposal year round too. It's a lot of work in the fall to can it all up, and we are far from being self-sufficient by any stretch, but each year we do a little more so we are getting closer each year.

up at dawn, check.

What was next?

I find it odd that the gal at google - who is in charge of the user experience nonetheless - uses pine and not gmail to crunch through her work mail. I would kill to have gmail available for work. I use it for my brewers' mailing list which often has 250+ emails a day, and it is indespensible for churning through them all in no time at all. The threading makes it trivial. And their motto of "search it, don't sort it" is right on. Any time I ever need to find anything in there, it is only a few seconds away by search.

Interesting article though.

BTW, Loblaw's in Westboro was clearing out Foodsaver brand bags about a month ago - everything for half price. Not sure if they still have any but we bought a lot at the time.

Walmart is a good source of cheap brand-name bags. And yeah, we put them through the dishwasher. It can be a challenge to figure out ways to get them to stay in place, but wedging them between 2 plates works well.

Hee, hee, my work here is done :-)

liss76 just got a big load of chicken and pork there friday, actually, and just sealed it up for the freezer earlier today.

We get our beef from a local farmer if you are interested. Though the min order is about 2.5 milk crates full which will fill 1/3 to 1/2 a regular fridge freezer. It's from a guy I used to work with but who got out of high tech to farm. He does 4 slaughters a year. Local farm-raised beef is pretty incredible taste-wise compared to your supermarket grade.

To give you an idea of cost, here are details of a few previous orders. It's a bit more expensive now but not much :

http://www.neap.net/2003-05-beef.html
http://www.neap.net/2004-04-beef.html

I really like subtitles when it's noisy in the room (kids :-)) or the audio is low/poor, or it's in a foreign language that I do understand because there will invariably be bits and pieces I won't. But that's always as a secondary to the audio. I really don't like having to chase them as my primary means of following the dialogue. But it's good to have the option so everyone gets to pick the way they like best :-)

| sed s/The 7th/7/

Oh the dilemma! Spend my next google ads cheque on this, or on a new 85L electric brew kettle?

I notice this is dubbed in english, which is great. I borrowed The 7th Samurai from my Sensei and while it was a great movie, I really get distracted by subtitles. If I were to buy it I'd get a dubbed version if available.

Blind vigilante swordsman! Woo-hoo!

Coincidentally the guys on my brewers list are talking about asian cooking, and one guy here in Ottawa just sent this, which I guess should have been obvious :

"Also, just to note: If you are ever in the market for a wok, go to china town and pick up a carbon steel one. They go for about $15. Once seasoned,
they are 1,000,000,000 times better than the shitty teflon coated $100 abominations you can get at fancy stores."

Wow, I just watched Daredevil last night and can't help but wonder whether he's based on this guy! Is this rental? Or on TV? I'd love to see these movies!

If you don't already know about it, here is a great place that also has an outlet here in town :

http://www.hendrixequip.com/contact.asp

- wok - make sure it's not one of those flatbottomed "pseudo-woks". The whole principle of wok cooking requires a curved bottom. The ones with the ring-holder even work well on an electric range

- preserves - lemons, tomatoes (as long as you do not add anything whatsoever but tomatoes) and jams are all safe to do without a pressure canner. Not much else is. Do yourself and your friends and family a huge favour and read a book! The 'bible' is "Putting Food By" (ISBN: 0452268990), but here is a very good freebie :

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publicati...

And something not on your list but you may find useful is a Food Saver vacuum sealer. Don't get a cheapie brand. Best price in town on Food Saver is Costco. The good models also have an attachment for vacuum sealing jars of different sorts (read: coffee!)

Potstickers. Dumplings. I'm seeing a definite trend here! And I like it!

Back in university I studied Russian for a few years, and every year we had "Vjetchjerinka" - or "Russian Night". One year I and a fellow student cooked Borscht and Perogies for 125 people, based on recipes from her Babushka. Here's the perogy recipe we used :

Dough :
- 2 cups flour
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 to 1/2 cup water

Filling #1 :
- 1 cup dry cottage cheese
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 tbsp chives

Filling #2 :
- 1 tsp grated onion
- 2 tsp butter
- 2 cups cold mashed potatoes
- 1 cup grated cheddar

I don't have details on how we put them together, but I think any basic potsticker recipe will do. All I can say is it must have been pretty easy if I did it back then ;-)

FYI Preston Hardware (Italian-Canadian owned and operated) has a very good selection of pasta makers and shapers - many of them for making various types of (Italian) dumplings. And most of them are pretty cheap.

Incidentally they also have a better selection of brewing supplies than most brew shops in town. And an excellent selection of Italian cookware otherwise not available in the city (though much of it is $$$)

Well, my cheeky response was going to be a picture worth a thousand words - AAPL charted against MSFT. But I checked and 1 year rolling AAPL is up 50% over MSFT, 2 year rolling up 400%, and 5 year rolling even more!

It really is boggling how Microsoft manages to hang onto such a market share. Actually, no it isn't. They were about to be split up in an antitrust suit when Bush took office and declared that the US gov't had no interest in pursuing it. Somewhere out there is a statistic of how much Microsoft contributed to his campaign ...

OK, weeb's working again.

Stainless-Steel Kitchen Shears
45K45.01 $22.50

http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=1&a...

I just got the following error when trying to post my comment on the poultry shears. I then hit the "back" button in my browser, then hit "Submit Comment" again and it worked fine.

---snip---

WP-Hashcash Check Failed

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If you are using Google Web Accelerator, a proxy, or some other caching system, WP-Hashcash may not let you comment. There are known issues with caching that are fundamentally insoluble, because the page being written to you must be generated freshly. Turn off your caching software and reload the page. If you are using a proxy, commenting should work, but it is untested.

This comment has been logged, and will not be displayed on the blog.

Something IMO better than a cleaver when dealing with chicken is a good pair of poultry shears. Far more precise than a cleaver, though obviously not as versatile. Lee Valley sells a good pair. I'm having some weeb problems right now otherwise I'd post the direct link.

Hey, good work! I've been making stock for years now. One thing I find that really speeds things up is a pressure cooker. I used to boil for 3 or 4 hours but now get the same job done in about 30 to 45 minutes in a pressure cooker. You just gotta be careful not to go too long with chicken as it can liquify the bones :-) When I'm done I also pressure-can it in mason jars instead of freezing it, since we've got limited freezer space. It stores well on the shelf for at least 3 years that I've had it.

I also don't separate the fat until it's time to use the stock, because for some things you can actually use the fat (e.g. making gravy). After canning it is right on top of the jar (of course), so when you open the jar you can decide whether or not you are going to use the fat. If not, just spoon it out and discard.

Using a jar of stock is a quick way to make a yummy meal. On saturday I made an awesome Deer and Noodle soup and posted the recipe to my blog

http://www.bodensatz.com/article.php?story=2006...

Home made soup in minutes!

Hmmmm, I'll have to have a close look at the Text_Wiki library. I do a lot of that sort of thing on my websites both at home and at work, and currently have my own function to implement a subset of this sort of functionality.

BTW, that's not to say that I haven't been drooling over that Kitchen Aid burr grinder. :-) I'm still using a rotary blade and have been keeping my eye out for one of the antique wooden box burr grinders. Though a friend just told me that President's Choice sells a burr grinder for 30 bucks. He says it's way better than a rotary blade, but still a far cry from the Kitchen Aid. But for the price I think it will be my first step in that direction. Will have to go to the Superstore sometime this week to check it out.

Burr grinders are all well and good, but if you really want to take your coffee consumption to the next level, you want to try home roasting. The cheapest place for green beans locally is Aladdin http://www.coffee.ca/english/home.htm. And you don't need no fancy, expensive roaster. You can get pretty amazing results with a hot air corn popper of all things! Just be sure to get one with the louvred heating system, not the screen. Just look down into the chamber and you'll immediately see the difference. Actually, I've had a local professional roaster tell me the corn popper is better than most of the home roasters you can buy.

Some links :
http://www.sweetmarias.com/instructions.html http://www.lucidcafe.com/homeroast.html
http://hbd.org/mailman/listinfo/coffee
http://www.coffeegeek.com/
http://www.toomuchcoffee.com/