Let's talk about food

My favorite chili recipe starts with "open three cans of beer."Two cans go into the pot, and one can goes into you. Basically you brown a pound of hamburger, a cup of chopped onion, and a little can of tomato paste (before the beer). Add those two beers, a can each of kidney beans and navy beans, and blow out your tastebuds with cumin, chipotle, ancho, and cayanne chile.Sorry, no better recipe than that. Good cooks cook from taste, not from books. Has anybody else discovered you can make one hell of a pizza with nothing more than one of those Boboli crusts from the supermarket, a drained can of diced tomatoes, a liberal sprinkling of olive oil, and a double handful of cheese? Try it out, sometime.

Hey, if we're not supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?

In other words, Crashfrog to a "T", babe. I wish I could take credit, though. Just some phrase I heard from some renny rats, one time. (You know, ren folk? Renaissance Festival enthusiasts?)

Yeah, they're fond of appending monikers like that to themselves, like "Fair folk" (kind of a riff on names for elves, etc). "Renny rats" was something I just sort of came up with when I wrote the post. Man, but you gotta love ren fest food, don't ya? I love to sit down with a huge turkey drummie and a big ol' mug of beer. Which is probably why I love this T-Shirt so much:Well, had my turkey leg and a mug-o'-ale. Who's up for some wenching?

Coriander? That's interesting. I usually use chipotle/ancho, cumin, onion salt, and lime.Chipotle and ancho are the must-have chilies. If you're into the smoky/spicy thing, as I am, I suspect you'll find these to be awesome additions to your spice toolbox.I get my spices from Penzey's Spices, a supplier out of Wisconsin, but thanks to the internet, you can order and they ship everywhere. HomePage | PenzeysSpice thoughts from others? I'm a big spice fan.

Not to mention that the chili powder adds those smoky notes I love in a good guac. If you use chopped chilies its better to trim out the seeds and that white shit. Otherwise the heat is just over powering.Wear gloves, if you have them, or dip your fingers in a little vegetable oil, before you handle chilies. And for God's sake don't touch your eyes for like two days after handling them.

Use a dark (French) roast, as espresso beans are very darkly roasted. Also if you have something like a French press:that'll give you the boldest flavor from your beans short of an actual espresso machine (which are what, 30 bucks at Target?)

Unless you're looking at the fresh draw in a demitasse, I doubt you could tell the difference between espresso and good French roast from a press.In other words, don't rush out and get an espresso machine unless you like to drink espresso. If you just want a good cup of coffee pick up a french press.

I've never had a problem finding it in any supermarket chain large enough to have its own deli area; it's usually around there with the other fancy imported cheeses and olive tapenades and stuff. Otherwise its often near the cream cheese.It'll probably have a date on it to tell you how long its good for, probably a while unless you open it. I wouldn't keep it around for longer than 2 weeks, just as a guess.

I do own it, and it taught me how to make a decent omlette, which I thought was impossible, so I'd say that's a pretty high reccommendation.It covers a lot of cooking technique that's generally so basic other cookbooks assume you already know it, so that's nice. I read it a lot when I was just starting out. It has tips on how to choose cookware, what you need in a kitchen/pantry, etc. Lot of illustrations.I do also have the Bittman book, but its so large and unwieldy that I don't generally take it out too often. Plus I don't cook from recipes much.I get the Penzey's catalogue (free) and it has a lot of great recipes (their seafood chowder recipe was so good). Also my mom got me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated, which is a magazine that a lot of you here would really, really like - they really deconstruct recipes in a scientific fashion, they prepare many different variations on popular recipes and then feed them to a test panel to determine the best one, all the while examining the science behind the cooking. It's a really great magazine and I've learned a lot from it. (Like not to crowd beef when I'm browning it.)

Yeah, I imagine that's the case. A lot of stuff we eat is an "acquired taste", right?I don't always go with what they recommend, myself - part of being a good cook is cooking to please yourself and your guests. Everybody's going to have different tastes in that regard. What I like is that the thorough deconstruction they do gives me a pretty clear idea of the latitude I have to play around with the recipe to suit my own tastes.

Hey, Schraf, you must know a thing or two about cheese, right?How come I can't do a decent cheese fondue to save my life? It either separates completely, with the cheese solids on the bottom in a stringy mass with milk-water on top, or else the cheese proteins break up, but I can't get them to smooth out and I wind up with a gritty mess.I sense it has something to do with pH - not enough beer, wine, or lemon results in the coagulation of the cheese proteins and the cheese-mass scenario; more acid clearly breaks up the proteins but I must still be doing something wrong to get the gritty consistency. Generally I'm just doing a kind of pub fondue - light pilsners and firm cheeses like cheddar, gouda, or gruyere, plus brown mustard. Cornstarch (mixed with water first, natch') to thicken if needed.

I did read it, but unfortunately, my apartment was burned out in a fire so I haven't really been able to cook. Or post much.But your suggestions, as always, are expert, and I cannot wait to put them into practice in the kitchen.Once I have a kitchen.

1) Douchebag in another apartment lights an unattended candle and falls asleep. This is sometime Sunday morning. (alternative narrative: lights a joint and passes out.)
2) Wakes up/comes to to find his bedroom in flames. Proceeds in uncharacteristically rational fashion (i.e. calls 911 and evacuates).
3) Firefighters arrive from firehouse about two blocks away.
4) Yours truly and the missus awake to find sirens and smoke puring in through their window (smoke is currently blowing in from around the corner.)
5) Yours truly dons pants, shirt, and shoes and grabs cell phones and wallet, runs outside, and observes that the building is on fire. Wife does same.
6) Fire spreads into walls and up a pipe chase into the roof area, guts most people's bathrooms (including mine.)
7) Firefighters enter the Crashpad and fight fire in bathroom and in roof area (Crashpad located on top floor) by tearing down my bedroom ceiling, unbeknowst to me. All yours truly sees from the vantage point of the driveway are firefighters bursting in my front door with hoses, and smoke bursting out same door in thick greasy clouds.
8) Fire is contained. Hours later we're able to re-enter the premises. Apartment is unlivable, bed and computers under piles of rubble and wet, loose cellulose insulation from roof, and all the rest of my stuff, while structurally intact for the large part, has been succulllently hickory-smoked.The long and the short of it is, unlike most of the rest of the unlucky bastards in my apartment building, our stuff was relatively unharmed and, Mrs. Crashfrog's mother being an insurance agent, the importance of renter's insurance had been well-impressed upon us. Others were significantly less fortunate. So, we're holed up in a hotel about halfway through the process of the recovery company contracted by my insurance boxing up my stuff and taking it off to be cleaned and stored, as the wife and I look for a new apartment. The landlord says he'll dissolve the lease at our discretion and, as the fire occured on the morning of the first, we hadn't yet sent in the rent. (Sucker!)Also we're totally uninjured, again unlike a few of the other residents. So, it's all good. Well, being homeless sucks. But it could have been well, well worse, and there's a lot of people for whom helping us is a top priority. So, in the grand scheme of things, not that bad.

Mine might have, had I bothered to put the battery in. I don't know about his but apparently, the only injuries were smoke inhalation among the guy and his family and a woman above them who had to jump out of her second-story window and fractured her ankle. So apparently everybody got out in time.