Cool and clear. Warming later. Nice day in other words. Like yesterday despite the chilly start.
I started the day doing some auction stuff, then messing around on the internet with my friends. Decided to make the carnitas in the slow cooker, but forgot to start that process going. Worked on fixing some things, but after spending 2 hours on it, failed.
Then I checked my texts and saw that I’d missed a call from my auctioneer. They wanted me to bring some more stuff by! They’d used up all the bins I had there already, and needed more stuff. Well. I’m your man! The boss had previously waved me off for this week because they were full up, but I guess they got that taken care of. So I scrambled to get the bins I had ready at the house, and to swing by a couple of storage units and grab a couple of bins worth of items…
D1 didn’t want to ride with me, so she got her own ride home from practice, and I did my drop off. That was the only way the timing would work. Eh, it all worked out and I got a few more things into this week’s auction. And I learned that D1 CAN get herself home, if she’s motivated. Funny how that worked.
I did get the carnitas in the cooker before starting all that mess and it was ready for dinnertime, and it was delicious.
I’ve got 4 solid crockpot meals that I can do with minimal prep and no extra shopping. If I can get a couple more, I’ll be even happier. The crockpot saves a bunch of effort and produces tasty meals, and it will do it for less expensive cuts. If it’s been a while since you used one, take another look. There are plenty of sauces and prepared seasonings to help you succeed.
Today I’ll do a couple of pickups, and kid chauffeur duties. I’ll try to knock a few things off the list in between.
Keep stacking.
nick
(title means “advancing” or “moving forward” (literally “forward-ing”) or so I’m told. It’s also the title of a pretty good album.)
Search online for “crock pot recipes”. If you can’t find something new which your family likes, it’s an indication of excessive pickiness.
(That’s my problem. I have dozens of recipes which I like but The Child will eat maybe a third of them. Heck, the crock pot cookbooks on my shelf have a couple dozen more that I’d probably like but haven’t tried because I know The Child won’t eat them. I actually consider that one of my major parenting failures with her, and I can’t figure it out. My wife isn’t picky and I’ll eat almost anything but our daughter is a picky eater. Oh, the shame.)
2020 would be too early for jabs to be a factor.
One of the culture war geeks I watch on YouTube did a recap of his drive to Florida for MegaCon yesterday, and he had some fun talking about the signs in Houston for the “Mobile Stroke Unit”, apparently funded by tax money or some kind of public service from the hospitals.
The jokes practically write themselves.
Is this suddenly a major problem in Houston?
The faster you get the r ight drugs, the better your outcome… iirc.
—–
chilly this am. Still have a dead thermometer though, I hate the screw holding the battery cover in place. Small detail but a reminder that our lives are regulated and costs increased, to an astonishing degree.
n
Reminds me of working at the local city pool in late high school/college. For the first couple of years there, we used gas chlorine. This was a big pool – 50 meters x 25 yards plus a diving well. We changed those cylinders with no safety gear (or safety instruction). Fun times. I at least knew enough to know that it was dangerous as heck. I did the disconnect while holding my breath, then ran out of the room for a couple minutes. Same thing for the connection.
RE: Recipes
I am always amused at the number of recipes that call for a packet (or several dashes) of Ranch Dressing Mix/Seasoning. All of the ingredients in Ranch Dressing are already in most people’s spice cabinet. The dairy is easy enough to find and the tang of buttermilk can be substituted by adding a small amount of vinegar or lemon juice. So, why do they call for a packet of Ranch Dressing Mix/Seasoning? MSG. It’s a low-key way of adding MSG to the recipe. You can’t tell people to add MSG as many will freak out. So, instead, you substitute in a packet of Ranch Dressing Mix/Seasoning in place of some common herbs and seasonings and conveniently add MSG in the process. It’s rather amusing how easy it is to sneak MSG into a recipe that way. All those moms at home that if asked would never put MSG in their home cooking, but will happily dump an entire packet of Ranch mix into them, Personally, MSG doesn’t bother me in the slightest. If I want an MSG flavor boost I will simple shake in some MSG from my shaker of pure MSG. 🙂
What kind if “recipe” would call for some pre-prepped mix like that? Real recipes call for actual ingredients. To me, that’s seriously strange…
It’s those quick-n-easy crock pot recipes that go viral on social media. Put in your protein, dump in a can of this, dump in a can of that, add a packet of this, and add a packet of that. Turn the crockpot on and in a few hours you’ll have a recipe “your family will love!” 🙂 They’re quite popular.
It’s the next evolution of those 1970s casserole recipes that called for a can of Campbell’s soup. I mean, who doesn’t have one or more recipes in the family cookbook calling for a can of Cream of Mushroom because nobody can be bothered to make a béchamel?
The recipes were published on the back of the cans, boxes, and mix packets. The Manfs did it to increase sales and consumption, housewives used them because they’re easy.
Think about chinese cooking. Yan Can Cook was a favorite show of mine. Every dish has a small amount of about 10 different seasonings. You have to stock and measure them, and it does take time that adds up.
Williams-Sonoma recipe books were similar- I threw all of mine out. 26 ingredients. tiny amounts. Worse if they were fresh, as you had lots left over that spoiled before you could use the rest.
Joy of Cooking is my go-to.
Simple but not plain.
n
What Chad said. I have a number of recipes which call for a can of something or a packet of prepared seasoning. Sometimes I’ll go the lazy route and use a can of cream of mushroom soup but usually I prefer to make a white sauce (which I learn from Chad is called bechamel) or even just pour in a pint of cream. Ditto for “a packet of italian herb mix”. Who cooks and doesn’t have containers of oregano, basil, and rosemary?
All else being equal, I prefer to avoid prepared food so that I can reduce the garbage which isn’t good for us: HFCS, other sugars, various fillers or thickeners, various additives of uncertain provenance and safety. I like to buy items which don’t have an ingredient list because they are ingredients. My wife and her mother are the same; moreso, if anything.
The Child understands this and generally appreciates that she’s getting good food and will (rarely) mention that what I make from plain ingredients is usually better than her friends’ parents make from packages. Still… she does like her poptarts and cheezits and Hungry Man Dinners and chicken bites with tater tots. I don’t sweat it. She eats better than most her age and until more, and more damning, evidence comes in, I’m not going to fuss at her about eating some junk.
Er… About a week ago I mentioned that “junk” is slang for male genitalia. I probably ought to modify that preceding paragraph. Not going to, but I probably ought to.
Y U no recipe?
Cooking – seasonings are the bane of my existence. I dislike the taste and texture of many dried herbs, but always having fresh herbs is not practical, nor is buying spices in small enough amounts that they don’t go stale before use, unless one has a Turkish, north African, middle eastern or Indian grocer’s shop next door.
On the gripping hand, I do keep things in stock that have a reasonable shelf life and don’t taste like sawdust, so this evening’s semolina pudding dessert was prettily coloured with saffron. Tasted decent, too.
I also find those recipes weird that call for a can of this and box of the other, especially packets of items that are household staples anyway, such as flour, sugar and salt. Another thing that irks me is recipes that use “cup” measures. Solids by weight (mass), and liquids by mass or volume, please.
Same. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer is a great reference and should be the beginning of everyone’s cookbook collection. Though, you have to have the right version of it. There were a couple of horrible attempts to update/revise it. I have the 75th Anniversary Edition which was published in 2006 and was very well-reviewed. The only edits they made were updating some obsolete text (essentially, where ingredients aren’t called that anymore). Irma Rombauer died in 1962, so the original version of her cookbook should go public domain in 2032.
If you want something more modern, then Dining In and Nothing Fancy by Alison Roman get a lot of love.
If you’re into historical/classic cookbooks, then these are widely acclaimed:
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
James Beard’s American Cookery
Mrs Beeton How to Cook
Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book
The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook
Shun MSG
Japanese friend turned wife onto secret Oriental flavoring 50 years ago
Ajinomoto
-Not Accent
-Plant based
-Super-hip Umami
-Costs more $$$ must be better
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ajinimoto&t=brave&iax=shopping&ia=shopping
I’ve got a network problem that is almost, but not completely blocking my desk top computer from seeing the internet; it is using a ethernet connection. My laptop, with which I’m writing this, is connected via wi-fi and has no problems.
The browsers (I’ve tried Brave, Chrome and Edge) and Thunderbird (email) often don’t to connect internet sites. Or they do if you wait for as long as an hour. Sometime I can restart the system and it works OK for few minutes to an hour and then it gets locked out. Windows Setup shows by my ethernet connection is fine. Connecting via wi-fi does not change the symptoms. The time out message says to check my Proxy Server. I don’t know what it is and google it and I don’t think I have one.
Specifically, when I open the browser, the default pages open and the first opens and displays screen of the opening page and the others time out. As you scroll down the first page of the first site only you see that you only have part of the opening page – I think the browsers displays what came in and is waiting for the rest of it. Opening any other site gets the time out error. I tried restarting my system and switching cable ports on the router.
l‘ve got fiber to the house and my internet via Roku is OK.
On my computer in Windows setup, I added wi-fi and didn’t disable ethernet. I got a quick response from one link on chrome then it locked up also. The other browsers didn’t show and change (I’ve got all three open.)
Any suggestions?
Ajinomoto Umami is pure MSG.
Accent adds salt and a few spices to the pure chemical.
Ajinomoto used to be evasive on labeling, but that changed in the last decade.
@Bob Sprowl is there some way you can test your ethernet cable to make sure it isn’t the problem? Maybe temporarily run another cable from the switch to the computer?
@Bob Sproul:
My new laptop purchased last October had been experiencing slowdows – slow keyboard response, stuttering mouse scrolling, slow switching to tabs in FireFox in the past month. Slow waking up from sleep mode (would take 1 minute to get to PIN prompt). Programs slow to start. Full AV scan didn’t show issues. Did memory tests; OK.
System as 64G RAM, and 4TB SSD. SSD diagnostics normal. Task Manager analysis didn’t help. Closing browser
Finally decided to remove some previously installed programs. (I had cloned the previous laptop drives to get programs transferred over to the new system.) Went through the program list, sorted by date. Removed several programs. Not sure which ones, but removed older Office, One Drive, an older version of Affinity photo programs (the version 2 install left version 1 in place), and a few others.
Whichever program I removed resolved the issue. Things are fast like they should be.
So, perhaps looking at installed programs – sorted by date – and getting rid of anything recently installed, might be your first step.
Did you have a VPN client or firewall installed at some point? That sounds like an Ndis shim driver got left in the stack by an uninstall and no longer receives config information from the user level app.
adelantando as moving forward or advancing, yeah…
I learn a lot of things here, last but not least, english, sometime british english or better, slang from both sides of the pond.
But please, continue in english
Checking the hard cable is a good idea. Cables are often the problem.
I had a good quality CAT-6 cable from my cable modem to the wireless router fail without warning. It is not in a place where it moves around. But replacing the cable fixed some strange internet problems affecting any computer on my home wireless network.
Re-seating cables is sometimes a good idea. In my case, grabbing an unused cable out of the spare parts bucket fixed the issue.
I once had a small spider crawl up inside an RJ-45 jack. I found it after replacing the cable to the jack a couple of times; they couldn’t all be bad. So, yeah, it was a hardware bug.
“The unspoken problem with inheriting property”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-unspoken-problem-with-inheriting.html
“A recent article suggests that “Millennials are at the bottom of the real estate totem pole, but that could change soon as boomers are expected to pass down trillions of dollars over the next decade”.”
Shoot, my boomer wife just inherited several properties and stocks in 2020 from her 1932 born father and is still dealing with it.
Delete the network adapters in the device manager, all of them. Restart Windows after doing so as Windows will reinstall the drivers for the adapters.
If that does not work run Task manager and look at the performance tab to see if something is hogging the ethernet.
As advised by other, wise sages, check the cable. Get a new cable and try that. If that does not work carefully inspect the ports on the laptop and router for misaligned pins as they sometimes get cross-eyed.
Try another port on the router.
D1 didn’t want to ride with me, so she got her own ride home from practice, and I did my drop off. That was the only way the timing would work. Eh, it all worked out and I got a few more things into this week’s auction. And I learned that D1 CAN get herself home, if she’s motivated. Funny how that worked.
I am surprised that D1 is willing to ride with you at all. I was always giving rides to girls home from school. They usually made me replace my Eagles cassette tape with the Fleetwood Mac cassette.
Oh crap, they mentioned the magic phrase, “No, the polar vortex is not coming to devour Texas, but winter is probably not yet over”
https://spacecityweather.com/no-the-polar-vortex-is-not-coming-to-devour-texas-but-winter-is-probably-not-yet-over/
We can get a Polar Vortex in Texas through the middle of April in my experience. And we can get 100 F in Texas in the middle of April too.
“Ford sees new ‘reality’ for EV sales as costs challenge industry transition”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-sees-new-reality-for-ev-sales-as-costs-challenge-industry-transition-191955221.html
“Ford’s (F) latest quarterly results out Tuesday were the latest to underscore the challenge facing an auto industry moving towards an electric future — high prices.”
“”We learned that as you scale EVs to 5,000, to 7,000 units a month, and you move into the early majority customer, they are not willing to pay a significant premium for EVs,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said on Tuesday’s earnings call.”
“Farley added that as subsidies for EV purchases rolled off, pricing for EVs “quickly converged to hybrids.””
Yup, I would not touch an EV right now but I would buy a hybrid if needful.
And if Solid State Batteries ever come out with 600+ mile range, my position on EVs might change.
When you have wireless enabled, disable the wired adapter. Windows really doesn’t like having multiple network connections.
Things I would check (and many have already been mentioned):
Try a different port on the switch/router.
Replace cables. Pournelle’s law applies way too often.
Disable wired nic and only enable wireless. If that solves the problem, then get another NIC.
See if there is a driver update for your NIC (not from Windows, but the NIC or, if onboard, motherboard manufacturer).
Removing all adapters and rebooting to reinstall sometimes works.
My money is on the wired NIC failing.
“Did Craig Wright invent Bitcoin? This court is deciding.”
https://mashable.com/article/bitcoin-inventor-uk-lawsuit-craig-wright-satoshi-nakamoto
“The Australian has been accused of forging documents to support his case.”
“Keep a very careful eye on China’s economy”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/02/keep-very-careful-eye-on-chinas-economy.html
“The Chinese demographics are a total horror show, with Shanghai university recently publishing an article to the effect of “Urban birth rate of .5” or less, because “China.” Russia is on race to the bottom with them. I Remember Peter Zeihan (demographer among other things) saying that with the current data China would be at 645 million or less by 2050. NOT 2100. Fastest aging society in history. With lowest birth rate (worse than during the Holocaust) and worse than during the Black death. And absolute Enron numbers on their economy. And 1 child policy, now 2, now 3, now Please have kids you peasants! The demographics chart for China looks like a lopsided mushroom cloud. CCP admitted to over 100 million people dont exist, mostly women under 40. (The ones who have all the kids) over 30 million more men than women. Which is so much worse than it sounds.”
Wow.
re: cooking
In my 20’s and 30’s, then-wife and I cooked mostly from the cans and packets and bottles technique.
In my 50’s I divorced and was forced to cook entirely for myself, and I learned how to use mostly ingredients and a few cans and boxes.
Now I live with a good cook, I learned how to cook, I entertain myself with cooking videos. I also eat mostly carnivore.
I think our pantry has less than 20 cans and packets, if you don’t count spices, spam, sardines, and canned meat. But we have 9 different vinegars. Like balsamic, white wine, red wine, champagne, apple cider, white, …
The issue for me is prepping. I don’t eat box stuff, frozen meals, grains, or pasta. The cheap and easy prep stuff to buy is all stuff I don’t eat.
I have a stash of rice, beans, canned meat, ramen noodles, etc., but it’s precisely what they tell you not to do. “Don’t store what you don’t eat.” I ignore that advice but I’m aware of the drawbacks.
I eat carnivores (dirty, over the holidays), and my stored food is freeze-dried. It’s mostly stuff you don’t eat on Carnivore, but I’m thinking Barackalypse. It’s starvation food.
There are some interesting channels on YT about the history of the Western diet. I’m convinced you can live well on ruminant meat and fat alone. The problem is, being raised on the Western diet, it is hard to drop all the dishes of tasty food. I’m getting there. Cooking for myself is a breeze with my air-fryer steak cooker.
The clock on the headboard in my bedroom is a Logitech Boom. It’s all Squeezebox tech. I like it because I can go go to sleep listening to tunes.
Anyway. The other day at 4AM the display was cycling between the clock and “connecting to server”. It did this several months ago.
I thought Moa had crashed. Nope. Ok, maybe the Nanobeams puked. Nope. Maybe the Unifi that provides wi-fi? Nope.
It was the switch. I power cycled it and everything worked.
I have a spare switch. I don’t have a problem power cycling the existing switch every few months. Weekly? Problem.
I would not touch a Ford right now. We’re looking at another $3000 bill to fix things on the Exploder, and the vehicle is only eight years old.
At a certain point, when the Exploder is worth less than the labor on a new water pump, we’ll have to unload it. My wife may reach the breaking point long before that, however.
Every 60-70k miles for the water pump was the dealer service guy’s estimate. And you need someone trained to apply the silicone seal properly since a gasket is not involved.
A breakthrough in Solid State Batteries would require five years or more to put into a vehicle. Shortcut the pipeline and you end up with the Ford Pinto, which had a development time of less than two years.
Ironically, the Pinto had a lot of parts scavenged from the Escort which went on sale in Europe at about the same time with a much longer development cycle. Eventually Ford just imported the Escort, which Iacocca was too arrogant to consider doing in the first place.
Yeah, Iacocca had minuses.
I had to go to campus today as part of the “This time we really mean it” initiative, which requires eight hours per day for three days per week while the management talks layoffs … again.
Cough.
Anyway, I got to hear Cutie Pie (Hannity) driving home, and he must have received the Bud Light talking points from Trump since he went on for about 30 minutes on the subject.
Shill.
Yeah, I’m not a fan. The van is a 2004 with all of 55K miles. Runs great. The power locks? They work sometimes. The right rear brake was making noise so we took it to the dealer. Get some Professional Eyes on the van. Oh, and the ABS light is on and off at random times.
So, the Ford dealer can’t fix the ABS problem because Ford doesn’t make the part anymore. Can’t tell us the trouble code because of “liability reasons”. Yet…. I have faulty brakes and that’s not a liability issue?
So much for Factory Trained mechanics.
I would not touch a Ford right now. We’re looking at another $3000 bill to fix things on the Exploder, and the vehicle is only eight years old.
At a certain point, when the Exploder is worth less than the labor on a new water pump, we’ll have to unload it. My wife may reach the breaking point long before that, however.
Every 60-70k miles for the water pump was the dealer service guy’s estimate. And you need someone trained to apply the silicone seal properly since a gasket is not involved.
Another water pump for the Exploder ?
I have had zero problems with my 2019 F-150 4×4 so far at 41K miles. Wait, I had to replace the battery and windshield wipers. And the first set of crappy tires lasted only 17K miles (I replace tires early since I drive it like I stole it).
The only good thing about Hannity is that he’s able to get some interesting guests. Other than that, he can drink bleach for all I care.
A breakthrough in Solid State Batteries would require five years or more to put into a vehicle. Shortcut the pipeline and you end up with the Ford Pinto, which had a development time of less than two years.
Toyota is claiming Solid State batteries in their vehicles in 2027. I will believe it when it happens.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45942785/toyota-future-ev-battery-plans/
Re Network Problem: Tried a new ethernet cable. I only had a cat 3 or 4 cable. Problem remained the same but I had Wi-Fi enabled also. Unplugged the Ethernet cablean rebooted the system. All is well. I’ll have to test the ethernet cable by itself in a few minutes to isolate the real problem. I prefer ethernet to wi-fi.
Re Explorer water pump relacement. My son did this a couple of weeks ago in my shop on his 2016 Tarus with 180,000 miles. The drive gear on the crankshaft changed at some point and we got the wrong one in the kit. Had to wait a almost a week for the right one. A two day job took 8 days. Its running fine now but it took a few days to get the cooling system topped off and the oil presure light to stay off all the time. HIs car lloks like new so and is othewise in great shape. We would do it again. Thinking about looking for Fords with this problem that are in other wise great shape to buy cheap, fix, and sell. Income tax implacations are the main reason he not doing this yet.
Anyway, I got to hear Cutie Pie (Hannity) driving home, and he must have received the Bud Light talking points from Trump since he went on for about 30 minutes on the subject.
Shill.
Very wealthy shill. He is claiming 600+ radio stations at the moment. And Fox News is paying him $25 million/year.
The only real problem I have had with my 2014 F-150, 134K miles, is the sliding rear window defroster has quit twice. That also disables the mirror defrost as the circuits are in series. The second time the window failed it was covered by Ford’s parts warranty which also covered labor even when done by an independent shop. That window was $600.00, labor was $400.00. I did have to replace the battery one year ago, my third battery. The OEM tires from when I bought the truck lasted me a little over 80K miles. I am only on my second set of tires. I have been told that the twin turbo will start having real problems at 150K and I should trade the truck before that mileage marker is reached.
We have a 2016 Explorer. The chronic water pump issue plagues the Taurus, Explorer, and Edge of that generation with the V6 design. Lots of vehicles will have the condition develop with enough time.
The problem with the water pump replacement is that most people don’t find out that the seals on the pump went until it is too late and the engine goes ‘splody.
We were “lucky” in that the coolant leaking out of the weep hole got into the alternator and fried it. The tech replacing the alternator had seen the problem before.
I’m starting to understand why Ford was testing a new Crown Vic in Chicago in early 2019, probably based on the (then) rear-wheel drive Explorer platform finishing a run through the development pipeline. Complete idiots could maintain a Panther platform vehicle.
Fortunately/unfortunately for Ford, Impeachment squashed any hopes that CAFE would be pulled back to something sane. The new rear wheel drive Explorer platform has been a problem for the company since the first year.
Not all Cat 6 chipsets are created equal. If the problem persists with a new cable, try a different router.
When Cat 6 was fairly new about a decade ago, I went through five commercial grade routers in my lab in the Northwest until I found one that the SDR hardware would tolerate.
Ted O’Baxter (Limbaugh’s name for Bill O’Reilly for the uninitiated) was the guest at the top of the hour. The Bud Light shilling filled the other 30 minutes, with Hannity’s “work wife” playing the devils advocate on the other side of the argument.
Normally, the drive from campus home is less than 15 minutes, but I stopped with a load for the hazardous waste collection event. I spent about half an hour in line to drop off.
I was in the Neutral Zone where three cities overlap unincorporated county land so I wasn’t sure about touching my phone while behind the wheel in line, which carries a $500 fine in two of the cities IIRC.
The guest to have today would have been Gina Carano, who is suing Disney with Musk’s help, but Hannity is also an apologist for The Mouse at times.
Pissing match.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13056775/oklahoma-police-officers-sheriff-swat-team.html
Ha ha!
May be bad blood because the sheriff is investigating the local PD for how they run the animal shelter…
n
Stopped in HEB to get my ‘scrips filled, and they had choice NY Strip on sale for $7. Bought limit, of course. Picked up another 12 pounds of brisket too.
n
also:
“If Wright is indeed Nakamoto, it would mean he has intellectual property rights over Bitcoin”
Mostly not, according to the judge:
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/08/craig-wright-loses-bitcoin-copyright-claim-in-uk-court/
White paper was 2008. Wright’s first claims were 2016.
Issuing the white paper under a pseudonym is a strong indication that the author did not wish to assert intellectual property rights. Thus pointing to the absence of other claims or the failure of sleuthing to reveal the identity of the author is not persuasive.
The apparent forging of documents is damning. If the weight of the evidence strongly shows forgery, it should be a fatal blow. [One of the inconsistencies cited is the use of fonts not available when the document was allegedly created–the same torpedo that sunk Dan Rather and the forged Texas National Guard documents.]
One strong bit of proof is evidently not forthcoming:
Wright is the defendant. His adversaries will have to prove that he is not the author, but failure to do so will not prove that Wright is the author. If Wright insists that he has the proof but will not show the court do to “core belief” in privacy it seems inconsistant with his eight-year crusade to establish legal control.
nick, read your email. Thanks.
– whatever else the DM does, they follow up on every story they publish that can be followed. At least as far as I’ve been able to determine.
n
@Chad
I would add:
Jane Brody’s Good Food Book
Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet (and most of the sequels, particularly Italian)
The Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book
The White House Cook Book
for French: Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking
for Mexican: Rick Bayless’ Mexico One Plate at a Time
The raison d’être for canned soup and spice packets is twofold: time and complexity, with both having an element of expense.
Cooking for one removes the joy of sharing table with others, and adding the time and expense of shopping, buying a bunch of things that you will use part of before they age out, spoil, or you get sick of them.
[I recall one episode of the French Chef where Julia says “go to and get a monkfish”. When I first saw that episode minimum wage was two-something and a monkfish was $50+, if you lived in a city with a seafood market. ]
Peruse the catalog of Ultra-Prog Spice Company and you find wonderful things and a strong suspicion that the margins on mixes like Taco Seasoning must be really good. [Not to mention the boxes of little jars]
Ever read labels with salt being first or second in a lot of mixes, and suspect that it’s in there because it’s cheap? To convert sodium to salt multiply by 2.5:
Serving size: 7 grams. Sodium 540 mg → salt 1.4 grams→20%
I am blessed with a local company that sources spices and is reasonably priced by the ounce, not by their container. They have excellent taco seasoning that has half the salt.
Buy the good spices that you use frequently, and the less expensive that you use infrequently. Do not store them above the range–that’s the number one killer of spices. I have glass jars in several sizes with tight-sealing lids that I wash and refill as needed.
Get yourself a good pepper mill and grind your own pepper. [Start with the pre-filled plastic version in the spice section at the grocery store]. They’re often found at garage sales and thrift stores, often unused wedding presents. Paying a couple bucks is a lot better than $30-50 for a set. My standard wedding gifts include a salt/pepper set with good sea salt matched to the hole size of the salt, and good whole peppercorns.
You are not Gordon Ramsay and don’t want to be one of his students. You finger is dirty, uncalibrated, and burns easily. Get a Thermopen. It will pay for itself using it on chicken alone, but it will also teach you that your beautifully browned cinnamon rolls are hiding a slightly doughy and undercooked center. Probe and find out.
Speaking of probing those grill thermometers with the long probe will let you find out how good your kitchen oven is at heating uniformly.
Other things you should buy for the kitchen that you might not have:
Parchment paper
Bamboo toast tongs
Egg rings
Under-cabinet cookbook holder
Nice glasses for the cook’s beer and whisky.
I went to the eye doctor yesterday for a routine follow-up on my left-eye retina surgery from 3 years ago.
My right eye has deteriorated to the point where I need the same surgery on it. We decided it can wait a year, but now that I’ve slept on it, I think I may get it done later this year.
I’ve been shooting every Tuesday for months now, and I’ve noticed a lot of trouble with focus and clarity. Can’t focus on the front site, can’t see the target clearly, red dots don’t help much.
After the eye doctor, I went to the range and shot with an eyepatch on my dominant right eye. Target acquisition was quicker, and groups were smaller. Still shooting right-handed, but left-eyed.
Left-handed shooting improved, too. I did have trouble with my astigmatism, but it was still clear enough the red dot (which is green) had a distinct center to it.
Next week, I’ll try rifles. I may need to move my 45 degree offset backup sites to the other side. And I haven’t practiced left-handed rifle at all, unlike pistols.
My best friend is a right-handed left-eye dominant shooter, so he always shoots rifles left-handed. I assume I can learn.
>> D1 didn’t want to ride with me, so she got her own ride home from practice, and I did my drop off. That was the only way the timing would work. Eh, it all worked out and I got a few more things into this week’s auction. And I learned that D1 CAN get herself home, if she’s motivated. Funny how that worked.
@nick, I’m guessing it’s not too long that D1 has her DL, at which point you’re whole outlook on this will change. Not to mention your outlook on your auto insurance bill. BTDT.
“Dad, you’re using the pickup, okay if I borrow the Explorer? Oh, and you filled it up with gas, right?”
>> I’ve got 4 solid crockpot meals that I can do with minimal prep and no extra shopping. If I can get a couple more, I’ll be even happier. The crockpot saves a bunch of effort and produces tasty meals, and it will do it for less expensive cuts. If it’s been a while since you used one, take another look. There are plenty of sauces and prepared seasonings to help you succeed.
And these. Definitely recommended for faster, easier clean-up.
When I had my torn bicep repaired and had my arm in a sling for months, I took a personal training session at my local range to learn the proper way for me to shoot lefty… surprisingly it took tipping the gun slightly (hollywood style) to put the sights in line with my dominant right eye. I could hit “minute of man” but I wouldn’t have wanted to put it to the test.
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@denis, no recipe because I use a prepackaged mix 🙂
https://www.fronterafoods.com/cooking-sauces/garlic-pork-carnitas-slow-cook-sauce
which is very tasty but needs additional salt.
n
I like sauce mixes and envelopes with taco spice, or quacamole spices, or gravy… or beef stew, pot roast, etc.
I stock a LOT of gravy because it’s cheap and can stretch a bowl of rice or pasta and help combat appetite fatigue.
Sauces and spice packet are a time saver, and make preparing tasty food easy. Disaster preps should be easy, you’ve got enough stress and demands on your time.
I will occasionally make something completely from scratch, but it will be something simple, like as not.
n
(I think everyone should have at least ONE meal that is restaurant grade, and suitable for company you want to impress. Mine is lamb rib chops 🙂 )
I can do a pretty nice prime rib roast too.
My wife uses a similar liner for dutch oven cooking with the Girl Scouts.
I just soak the ceramic crock pot overnight with Dawn and give it a quick brush before loading it into the dishwasher. Almost everything will come loose when soaked overnight with Dawn.
n
>> (title means “advancing” or “moving forward” (literally “forward-ing”) or so I’m told. It’s also the title of a pretty good album.)
Don’t really go by me as I took French in high school (helped the two times I was in Montreal), but shouldn’t it be ¡adelantando!
>> I’ve got a network problem that is almost, but not completely blocking my desk top computer from seeing the internet; it is using a ethernet connection. My laptop, with which I’m writing this, is connected via wi-fi and has no problems.
Shouldn’t be a cable issue since @Bob mentioned this:
>> So, perhaps looking at installed programs – sorted by date – and getting rid of anything recently installed, might be your first step.
Relevant to the above, I happened to see this today:
https://www.techradar.com/computing/software/microsofts-official-pc-cleaner-app-is-now-on-the-microsoft-store-and-makes-big-promises-about-speeding-up-your-pc-for-free
>> I am surprised that D1 is willing to ride with you at all. I was always giving rides to girls home from school. They usually made me replace my Eagles cassette tape with the Fleetwood Mac cassette.
What is this “cassette tape” that you talk about??
@nick, I’m guessing it’s not too long that D1 has her DL, at which point you’re whole outlook on this will change. Not to mention your outlook on your auto insurance bill. BTDT.
– yeah, I’m thinking older volvo or subaru, something with a massive crash rating, not too powerful, and big enough to survive a crash, but small enough to be a good learner… D2 has already expressed her desire for the Ford Ranger…
n
>> “”We learned that as you scale EVs to 5,000, to 7,000 units a month, and you move into the early majority customer, they are not willing to pay a significant premium for EVs,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said on Tuesday’s earnings call.”
BTW, not sure if its good or bad, but if you’re considering buying a used EV, it appears that the bottom has fallen out on prices.
shouldn’t it be ¡adelantando!
– why yes it should. On my phone getting the leading inverted punctuation is easy, on the win8 keyboard? I’d need the character map, and I was too tired.
n
Shouldn’t be a cable issue since @Bob mentioned this:
–except that he mentioned the cable was still connected, and it sounds like the PC is confused about something on the wired connection, which it could still be trying to use even with wifi connected. The most screwed up I ever got networking was back in the day when I tried to get “share this PC’s connection” to work.
n
I’m trying for an early bedtime tonight. I’m beat.
n
>> BTW, not sure if its good or bad, but if you’re considering buying a used EV, it appears that the bottom has fallen out on prices.
Pricey at around $1K, but oh so tempting: https://www.autoblog.com/2024/02/06/chademo-ccs-charging-adapter-nissan-leaf/
>> There are some interesting channels on YT about the history of the Western diet. I’m convinced you can live well on ruminant meat and fat alone. The problem is, being raised on the Western diet, it is hard to drop all the dishes of tasty food. I’m getting there. Cooking for myself is a breeze with my air-fryer steak cooker.
If some of the shows on Nat Geo showing sustenance living off-grid in Alaska are for real you see many natives living mostly on ruminant meat, fish and fat.
>> So much for Factory Trained mechanics.
My experience is that any good mechanic is working at a reputable private repair shop. Better pay and less hassles.
Because the impending battery replacement cost has skyrocketed.
“NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab laying off 8% of its workforce”
https://www.space.com/nasa-jpl-layoffs-february-2024-mars-sample-return
“Budgetary issues have forced the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA’s chief center for robotic planetary exploration, to reduce its workforce by about 8%. The cuts affect roughly 530 employees and 40 contractors, according to JPL officials, who announced the news yesterday.”
Sad.
Because the impending battery replacement cost has skyrocketed.
I am sending one of my employees to an engineering conference in Oklahoma in a couple of weeks. It is 900+ mile round trip. He has a Nissan Leaf+ (240 mile range). He figures that he will need to charge for an hour each time at least five times. So, he is taking my old 2008 Highlander.
I agree with you. Mine is roe venison backstrap. Always gets a “wow”, and it is surprisingly easy, apart from catching the deer, that is.
Joy of Cooking – absolutely. My mother gave me the 1975 edition, probably when I went off to college. I have since adapted the recipes I use the most, by replacing “cups” with weight measurements.
My mother’s earlier edition I gave to elder son, but he doesn’t believe in recipes. He just stands in the kitchen and throws stuff together. The first few years his cooking? Awful. Now? It works. Last summer, he decided to bake some cookies while visiting. It was fascinating to watch: take a mixer bowl, throw in this, dump in some of that, mix, roll out, bake. No scales, no measurements, just eyeballing it. I think he did taste the dough once. Anyway, the cookies were yum.
Spices and such do get old, certainly, but the ones you use a lot won’t have the opportunity. We do a lot of TexMex stuff, for example, so we grow our own chilis and still buy lots of chili powder. I also go through a lot of cinnamon and ginger for baking. Less frequently used stuff like nutmeg we buy whole – which keeps for a long time – and I just grind up a bit with a mortar and pestel when we need it.
I can see the pre-prepped mixes being promoted by the companies on their packaging. I suppose that’s how it happens. There’s less of that in Europe. Not zero, but less, so the separate mixes and such aren’t a staple of cooking…