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May 3, 2010

Chicken with brown things
Posted by Teresa at 11:00 AM * 63 comments

2 - 3 chicken breasts
3/4 - 1.0 lb. Israeli couscous (the big kind)
2-3 onions
1/2 C. chopped blanched hazelnuts
1 small handful (1/3 C. if chopped dry?) mixed dried mushrooms
sage, oregano, basil, salt, pepper, other spices to taste
a pinch of smoked sweet paprika (optional)
butter or olive oil or both
1/2 C. dry sherry

Put the mushrooms in a bowl and pour a couple of cups of boiling water on them. Let them soak. Later, when they’ve softened and cooled, chop them up. Don’t throw out the water they’ve soaked in.

Put a little oil in a reliable frying pan and toast the dry couscous until it’s lightly browned. Turn it out and do the same to the hazelnuts. If you have two burners and two frying pans, cut up the chicken and start browning it. Meanwhile, chop up the onions and fry in a little butter until they start browning.

When the chicken has been browned, deglaze the frying pan(s). Throw the chicken, mushrooms, mushroom broth, and hazelnuts in together. If the onions are done yet, add them too. Add some water, or some chicken or vegetable stock if you have it. Simmer 30 - 60 minutes, depending on your chicken. Season to taste while it’s simmering. When it starts looking and tasting like it’s close to done, add the dry sherry.

Adjust the amount of liquid in the pan. There needs to be some. Israeli couscous takes a while to cook, and it soaks up stock while it does it. Don’t be surprised if you find you have to add more water before it’s done. When the couscous is reasonably tender all the way through, it’s ready to eat.

Two notes. First, this goes well with preserved lemons, sharp olives, tapenades and their relatives, or jalapeƱo harissa. Second, it’s a surprisingly filling dish. We got three meals out of it.

[Recipe Index]

Comments on Chicken with brown things:
#1 ::: Fox ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 11:52 AM:

Oooh. This sounds tasty - although I can't eat mushrooms, so I'd have to skip them or pick them out or something.

But what really interests me is this: If the onions are done yet, add them too. I don't know if I've ever seen an affirmative 'yet' that meant 'already' instead of 'still, ongoing, continuing' ("Put on a jacket; it's cold outside yet."). Groovy.

#2 ::: Fox ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 11:53 AM:

(D'oh. I didn't get in fast enough to not-post my comment with the misplaced [/em] tag. Sorry. /o\)

#3 ::: Theophylact ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 12:40 PM:

Sounds good, but my preference would be for pine nuts. For some reason, I like hazelnuts only in pastry (and if they're in my coffee, I practically have to spit it out).

#4 ::: Tom Whitmore ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 12:59 PM:

Looks pretty wonderful to me, and I may try cooking it tonight.

#5 ::: Suzanne ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 01:21 PM:

That sounds really good! Thanks for sharing (-:

#6 ::: joann ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 02:07 PM:

There's some stuff I've been using in place of harissa: local-made jalapeno/cilantro pesto from the local mideastern house o' foods. Contents: jalapenos, cilantro, olive oil, lemon juice. Works great in homemade leb-lebi. (All the harissa they carry is in tins, which I think is a storage issue; should be glass jars, seems to me.)

#7 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 02:08 PM:

Fox, I'll zap the first one.

Where are you from? If I were doing a careful second draft of that entry, I'd delete "yet" as unnecessary; but iirc, what I unthinkingly did with it is (or was) vernacular usage in the small-town Intermountain West.

Theophylact, artificial hazelnut flavoring in coffee is an abomination. Have you tried cooking with toasted blanched almonds?

#8 ::: Avram ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 02:33 PM:

Are non-reliable frying pans the sort of thing one should own?

#9 ::: Mattathias ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 02:39 PM:

Cast-iron frying pans, which are the only kind worth owning, generally take about a year of regular use before becoming truly reliable.

#10 ::: praisegod barebones ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 02:42 PM:

Fox @1, Teresa @ 7

What about that perennial chorus from car-ridden children 'Are we there yet?'?

Also, yum. Likely to try this in the next week or so.

#11 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 02:44 PM:

Avram @8: I have always gone by the adage that your frying pans should be able to do serious cranial damage if brought down on someone's skull with reasonable force. If the pan will dent, throw out the pan. Culinary tool and defensive weapon...

And Teresa @7: I heartily agree. Any flavoring (as in, flavoring the beans prior to brewing) in coffee is a sin against the Great Caffeind, who becomes enraged when his sacred bean is thusly defiled. Your reaction reminded me that I had the distinct displeasure, several years ago, of having an espresso pulled using flavored coffee beans - not only is this a sin against the glories of coffee, but that machine will need to be totally stripped if its owner ever wants to make acceptable espresso again. The flavoring agents of abiding foulness get in to all of the gaskets and such...

#12 ::: eric ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 02:54 PM:

Mattathias: My experience with cast iron is that it's not reliable, even after 5 years and a ton of cooking. It's gotten better now that I'm using rice oil for some things, but panfired potatoes or fried tofu are still hit or miss. Moisture content is a big issue. The crispy crust can get stuck enough to the pan to come off and make little crispy bits in the pan and not nicely crisped exteriors. I actually find non-stick a lot more consistent for frying.

Also, they're like trucks. Slow to heat, slow to adjust temperature, and not all that consistent from one place to another. And if they lose their head of steam, it's hard to get the temperature back quickly. They may have more even heat than thin steel or thin aluminum, but a thick aluminum pan will beat it hands down. It all comes down to the balance of thermal mass and thermal conduction. If you need it, you need it, but it's certainly not the answer for everything.

I compliment my cast iron with a 12" AllClad stainless skillet which I love. I didn't really think that there was a huge difference, but. Yeah, I like that one. Eggs get done in a 10" really heavy aluminum non-stick pan that's only used for eggs. It's lasted 5+ years now, and is only starting to be non-perfect enough that I'm thinking of relegating it to second string and finding a new one. But then, I like flipping eggs with just a flick of the wrist and no tools.

#13 ::: praisegod barebones ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 03:01 PM:

Benjamin wolfe @11: I feel the same way about coffee used to flavour other things. (Now that my country of residence's largest brewery has learnt to produce beer that tastes of coffee, I look forward to their devoting similar efforts to the apparently much trickier task of producing beer thatb tastes of beer.)

#14 ::: John Murphy ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 03:11 PM:

I make something like that at home a lot. I like the hazelnut idea, I'll have to try that! (I used to use pine nuts, but had a nasty experience with them last year)

I'd recommend trying it with boneless chicken thighs, if you don't mind the dark meat / fattiness: it lends a lot of extra flavor. I like sherry in this, but prefer fresh lemon juice, especially when using the thighs. Oh, and if you keep chicken broth or stock around in small quantities, it's better to top off with that than with water. (Though frequently very inconvenient)

#15 ::: Theophylact ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 03:36 PM:

Teresa @ #7: Yes, absolutely. Also with walnuts (a favorite in Persian cooking), pecans, cashews (West African) and peanuts (which aren't nuts but might as well be). I've got a great recipe for pasta with walnuts, and lots of Thai and Indonesian peanut-based recipes.

As for coffee, these days I buy mine at Quartermaine's, a DC-area roaster which deals only in unflavored coffees. Like Benjamin Wolfe @ #11, I hate running good beans through a supermarket grinder that's had some godawful candy put through it first.

#16 ::: C. Wingate ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 03:48 PM:

It's hard enough to defend my Teflon from the kids than that I should have to defend cast iron from them too. Besides, my eldest would drop them on his toes. My theory is to eschew flimsy (again, my eldest dropping them) but to go cheap enough so that I can brazen out replacing them when they get tired.

#17 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 04:09 PM:

Praisegod Barebones @ #13: I am with you on that one - I have had a couple of coffee stouts (even helped make one) that were worth consuming, but for the most part, I want my beer to taste of beer, not of other ingredients.

#18 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 05:31 PM:

TNH: What can be substituted for onions for someone (Gail) who can't stand 'em?

#19 ::: Melissa Mead ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 06:06 PM:

That sounds delicious, and I don't even like mushrooms!

#20 ::: Jon Baker ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 06:43 PM:

Looks like what we call chicken paprikash, only with couscous in lieu of rice. The hazelnuts are an interesting touch. Do they make it sweeter?

#21 ::: Andrew M ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 06:52 PM:

Praisegod Barebones@10: But the 'yet' in 'are we there yet?' isn't affirmative; it's in a question. You can't (in my dialect, anyway) respond by saying 'Yes, we are there yet.'

#22 ::: Earl Cooley III ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 07:16 PM:

Mattathias #9: Cast-iron frying pans, which are the only kind worth owning, generally take about a year of regular use before becoming truly reliable.

So, you have to suffer through a whole year of slowly improving cooking for that? How much would it cost to hire someone to use a cast-iron frying pan for a year so that it's ready? Hmmm, after a year, the seasoner might not want to let it go, the culinary version of the classic moral dilemma that faces surrogate mothers....

Are certified pre-owned cast iron frying pans available?

#23 ::: P. Kight ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 07:19 PM:

Oh. My.

I have everything in hand except for chicken. Off to the store, then (although I'll get thighs rather than breasts, which I find to be rather dry and tasteless.)

Thank you! I don't lurk here for the recipes, but it's lovely when one shows up!

#24 ::: Mark ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:06 PM:

P. Kight, welcome! The recipes are a perfectly good reason among a legion of perfectly good reasons, but best of all is not to lurk at all - jump right in whenever you feel ready.

#25 ::: Older ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:09 PM:

Funny about that "yet". I had to go back and re-read the post when someone commented on it. Sounded perfectly all right to me. A lot of old usage survives in Oregon, on both sides of the mountains.

#26 ::: mimi ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:16 PM:

Thanks for this--it's incredibly difficult to think of healthy meals during exam time. Made it tonight, with some small variations: chicken thighs instead of breasts, pine nuts instead of hazelnuts, and a whole grain mix instead of the couscous. Absolutely delicious!

#27 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:24 PM:

This recipe is on my list of Things to do After Things Get Back to Normal (I am in Nashville, where certain areas of the city and surrounding environs are flooded).

#28 ::: Andrea Phillips ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:34 PM:

Do the hazelnuts add so much that the recipe isn't anything special without them? We can't do nuts of any stripe due to allergies. Even pine nuts and sunflower seeds kick in the nut-aversion.

Also, special request: If you have any recipes involving buckwheat groats, I would very much like to see them.

#29 ::: David Harmon ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:37 PM:

Older #25: Hey, I'm from New York and later Boston (before moving down South to Charlottesville, Virginia), and it sounded perfectly normal to me too.

#30 ::: lorax ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:53 PM:

Ingredient-finding note: I have also seen large couscous sold as "Lebanese couscous". It's not 100% clear to me whether this is political (this was at a Middle Eastern store where prominently labeling something as Israeli may not have been a selling point) or a slight varietal difference, but it's another thing to look for if you're looking for large couscous.

#31 ::: Mattathias ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:58 PM:

eric @12: I've had very poor luck with nonstick skillets. The nonstick doesn't stick well enough to the pan to do any good. I find a thermometer helpful when frying, to address the temperature variation as you put in cold stuff that comes up to temp, but I'm pedantic that way.

Earl Cooley III @22: I'm not parting with any of my cast iron, that's for sure.

#32 ::: Allan Beatty ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:59 PM:

Many of the recipes here are too ambitious for me, but this one is close enough to something I make often that I feel confident giving it a try.

How much sage do you prefer to use? Without an amount in the recipe, I'd probably use more than anyone else would like.

#33 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 08:59 PM:

Lorax @#30 Unless I am mistaken, there is no difference in the product save the name - I have bought identical items under both names. Regardless, I often have a bag or box in my cupboard, as I am fond of it.

#34 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 09:48 PM:

#23: Hey, Jez -- fancy meeting you here! There are several other people here that you would remember as well.

#35 ::: Madeleine Robins ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 11:22 PM:

Teresa--given that hazelnuts would kill my beloved family, is there anything you would suggest as a substitution? Cause otherwise it sounds kind of gorgeous.

#36 ::: debcha ::: (view all by) ::: May 03, 2010, 11:49 PM:

Wow, that sounds fantastic. My kind of dish - savoury, filling, proteins and carbs in one pot. We've already had our first 85+ day in Boston though, so I might need to wait for a randomly cool day or the fall.

#27, Benjamin Wolfe: How are you holding up with the flooding? Have you been displaced?

#37 ::: P. Kight ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 12:01 AM:

Mark@#24, Lee @#34: Thanks! I've had ML on my feed-reader for ages, and do surface from time to time, but a really good recipe* will bring me out of the woodwork every time.

* Which, having made it for dinner and most of a week's worth of lunches, this definitely is!

#38 ::: Bruce Arthurs ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 12:38 AM:

Trader Joe's has the occasional flavored coffee that's done without extracts or artifical flavorings. I currently have a canister of their Gingerbread Coffee -- you can look at the ground coffee and see the tiny bits of minced dried ginger floating around in the mix -- on my shelf.

I also like some of the flavored coffees available at Sprouts. French Caramel Cream is my favorite.

#39 ::: Lizzy L ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 12:40 AM:

Trader Joe's sells Israeli couscous. I had some for breakfast this week. It was good.

My favorite chicken dish is a very simple roast chicken with carrots, red potatoes, and onions that was created by Thomas Keller (yes, that Thomas Keller) for people who can't cook. The recipe calls for leeks but though I love leeks I don't like them in this dish so I leave them out. The core seasonings are salt, pepper, garlic and thyme, and it's utterly delicious. But it's a made-in-oven dish, not a stove-top dish.

I can't use cast iron pans; they're too heavy for me. I have a non-stick pan made by Calphalon that has kept its coating very well.

Pine nuts, yum, but expensive. Would walnuts work? I love walnuts.

#40 ::: Mattathias ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 05:15 AM:

re: gingerbread coffee: One of my favorite ways to make coffee involves brown sugar, cream, powdered ginger, and cinnamon. Unfortunately, pollen season is coming on strong, and I must leave out the cream for the next couple of months.

#41 ::: TexAnne ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 06:19 AM:

Mattathias, why does pollen require you to leave out the cream?

#42 ::: theophylact ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 06:20 AM:

Tell you what else is good: Pistachios. I've made a wonderful Turkish lentil soup with pistachios. The recipe came from Gourmet; it's not online at Epicurious, and I no longer have a copy of the issue it appeared in, but I could reconstruct it without difficulty, or if you have the cumulative index you could find it there. The key ingredients are a cup of coarsely chopped, skinned pistachio nuts, added at the very end of the cooking, and a garnish made of melted butter and cayenne pepper, added at the table to taste.

#43 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 10:28 AM:

Debcha @ #36: Nope. Quite literally high and dry. I live about three miles from downtown, up on a substantial hill. The flooding is localized to downtown and low-lying areas near the Cumberland (this is not to say it is insubstantial; a good portion of the tourist district is under ~10ft of water, and for the country music fans here, the Opry has taken considerable water as well). The main impact for those of us lucky enough to be out of the direct flood zone is that the rising waters took out one of the two pumping/treatment stations, so all of Davidson county has been told to conserve water until further notice.

So, other than the aforementioned water issue, I am fine - even with the flooding.

#44 ::: Victoria ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 10:39 AM:

Eric @ #12

In my experience, cast iron skillets work better on gas ranges, than electric ones. But then, I don't do a lot of cooking with dishes that require or have a quick temperature change. The key, for me, is to let the skillet get hot before putting the first ingredient in. Ramping up the temperature to max at the start is key for getting the best use out of cast iron's cooking properties.

And never, ever put them in a dish washer. It ruins the finish/seasoning.

#45 ::: Don Fitch ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 11:00 AM:

Thanks -- sounds great... though I'll probably try it with rice & walnuts (& thigh-meat chicken), definitely using a broth of chicken cooked in vegetable stock (the garden is currently producing an abundance of mirpoix+ vegetables, and chicken leg-quarters can be found at 39 cents per pound, to help satisfy my innate thriftiness).

#46 ::: Debbie ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 12:40 PM:

For people with nut allergies: you could try substituting roasted chickpeas (perhaps without the seasonings?).

#47 ::: eric ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 12:45 PM:

The best thing that I've seen written about cast iron pans is at the Cooking Issues blog.

They are like mad scientists with a kitchen. Very good stuff.

#48 ::: Fox ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 01:11 PM:

Boss @7 - thanks. I grew up in Cleveland in an approximately New York family (dad from Rocklyn County, mom from way upstate - a soda island in a pop lake, we were), which isn't remotely Intermountain West, granted; but I'd also never encountered this particular "yet" in my linguistic travels. Good thing we always keep learning. :-)

praisegod @10 - as Andrew @21 says, the interrogative "yet" is different from the affirmative one. "We are at grandma's yet" means we're still there, not we're already there. But if the recipe calls for adding the onions when they're still ready, by me that implies there may come a time when they're not, and you'll have to begin again with new onions. ("Begin again with new onions" - decent name for an album?)

#49 ::: praisegod barebones ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 01:45 PM:

Andrew@21, Fox@48

Point taken, at least up to a point. But it seems worth noting that Teresa's affirmative 'yet' is embedded in a conditional clause, which may be making it behave a bit unusually.

Consider the following dialogue:

'Are the onions done yet?'
'Mfmm'
'Sorry, didn't catch that. OK, if the onions are done yet, add them to the liquid'

NB : IANAL (linguist)but seen in that context it feels like a syntactic analogue of semantic backformation.

Also Teresa - apologies for dissecting you usage like that.


#50 ::: gaukler ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 01:50 PM:

For TNH, from the same blog, Citrus!

#51 ::: Mattathias ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 01:58 PM:

TexAnne @41: I'm not allergic to dairy per se, but have noticed that milk and cream worsen my pollen allergies. I'm allergic to more or less everything that blooms, so if I can reduce symptoms by cutting out dairy for a couple of months I'll do it. Around 1st of May I go cold turkey on ice cream, cream in coffee, cereal with milk, etc.

#52 ::: Lee ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 02:15 PM:

Benjamin, #43: By "the Opry", do you mean the Ryman or the new place out by Shopryland? Both of them are in locations that seem to be vulnerable, according to Google Maps. The Opryland Hotel (laughingly referred to as "historic" in the article I saw) has had 10 feet of water in the lobby. I suspect that the Hermitage, which really is historic, will have had problems as well. And have you heard anything about the downtown library?

#53 ::: Linkmeister ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 03:41 PM:

Benjamin Wolfe, I'm with Lee. The new Opry opened in 1974, Wikipedia tells me. That has "new country" history contained within, but it sure doesn't have the history that the Ryman does. One of my favorite albums is Emmylou Harris's At the Ryman, recorded in 1992.

#54 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 08:27 PM:

The Ryman Auditorium is fine - they are far enough inland that the flood did not reach them. The Grand Ole Opry House, which they have used since 1974, got flooded. The pictures I was seeing yesterday showed 3-4 feet of water in the main hall, and I know they were taken before the Cumberland crested yesterday.

In fact, there is talk of moving the Opry's shows back to the Ryman until they can reopen the normal building, although (to my knowledge) nothing has been settled yet.

As far as I know, the Hermitage did not get flooded - at least, none of the local news outlets have mentioned anything, and they have been fairly on the ball about this.

#55 ::: debcha ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 08:41 PM:

Benjamin Wolfe, happy to hear you're not directly affected. I'm sure you feel a little like I did earlier this week - neither the town where I live (Cambridge) nor work (Needham) were among the thirty or so communities affected by the water main break that led to a boil-water order in eastern Massachusetts, so even though most of my friends couldn't drink the water, I could. Never has having clean potable tap water felt like such a luxury.

#56 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 08:55 PM:

Heh. I grew up in Newton, and got to spend the weekend hearing my youngest brother (and various friends who live in Boston) make unhappy noises about the boil-water order.

We came very, very close to going to bottled-only here; one pumping station got flooded out - the big news today was that the one that was still in action missed being flooded out as well by less than a foot (and was saved by county inmates who volunteered to fill and stack sandbags).

#57 ::: TexAnne ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 09:24 PM:

Mattathias, 51: Thank you. I wonder if it would work for me....

#58 ::: fidelio ::: (view all by) ::: May 04, 2010, 11:46 PM:

The word I have heard on the Opryland mess is that both the first floor of the hotel, the Opryhouse, and the shopping mall were pretty much full of water, as was the Pennington Bend area near there. Although the Ryman may have had some water in its basement, it's in decent shape other than that and will be used as the substitute venue for the Grand Old Opry until the Opryhouse is cleaned and renovated.

Lower Broadway was flooded for at least two or three blocks, and the Schermerhorn Symphony Hall just south of Broadway on 4th Avenue had water in its basement--possibly from backed-up drains, or from water running down from the hill just to the south of it. The Country Music Hall of Fame, across the street from the Schermerhorn may have some water in its basement spaces as well; they were sandbagging there pretty feverishly yesterday as the river rose.

Across the river, in East Nashville, LP Field (the latest name for the place where the Titans play) is flooded on the field and in the lower levels; the Juvenile Court Building, which is right by the stadium, had considerable water on the first floor. The Metrocenter office park, which is on the north side of town, in old bottomland, has a lot of flooding, and the levee there is seeping in a worrying way. I've been out of the office yesterday and today as a result, and will be out again tomorrow.

There was also extensive flooding on the west side of town, in the Bellevue neighborhood, as the result of flooding on the Harpeth, as well as in the areas close to Mill Creek and Richland Creek. Parts of Williamson County were affected by the flooding on the Harpeth as well. (Franklin will have to replace the old downtown bridge, I think.) Lavergne in Rutherford County was also affected by local streams flooding. Ashland City and Clarksville (which is right by Fort Campbell) are also badly hit by the flooding on the Cumberland. They had to open the floodgates on the dams on the Cumberland and the Percy Priest Dam on Stones River lest the dams be topped. There's also a lot of flooding in the western part of the state, on the Tennessee and other, smaller rivers and streams.

I think the Nashville area got something between 13 and 15 inches Saturday and Sunday.

Benjamin Wolfe is right that we had a very close call with the Omohundro Water Plant--it can only produce about half the usual amount used by the city, and so this town has a lot of dirty laundry right now.

One of the more appalling sights I caught on the news Monday was a house in the Pennington Bend area, completely surrounded by water and on fire. It burned to the ground, because it could only be reached by boat.

The Red Cross shelters for evacuees accepted pets this time--it's been long since time for that old policy of humanoids only to change.

#59 ::: Mattathias ::: (view all by) ::: May 05, 2010, 11:58 AM:

TexAnne @57: It's no magic bullet, just a bit of help. I'm still allergic to pollen either way.

#60 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2010, 11:02 PM:

Eric @ 47:
Darn you. I fell into that blog and didn't come out for a long time. The post on how to cook a very big lobster is fascinating.

#61 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2010, 11:45 PM:

Erik @ 60: I have been reading that blog since they started it... and I can still sink several hours into re-reading their posts. I have been sorely tempted by their offer of clarification materials.

Weirdly, I was down with a stomach bug this weekend and reread the entire blog - it is still enjoyable when food seems like a very, very bad idea indeed.

#62 ::: Erik Nelson ::: (view all by) ::: July 13, 2010, 11:59 PM:

do you mean for making clarified butter or for clarifying the writing?

#63 ::: Benjamin Wolfe ::: (view all by) ::: July 14, 2010, 12:05 AM:

Actually, none of the above. I was thinking of their offer to sell, to their readers, a couple of enzymes - Pectinex Ultra SP-L and Pectinex Smash XXL - the former can be used to dissolve the membranes in citrus fruit, the latter is used to clarify juices.

I am really, really tempted to get some Pectinex Ultra - the idea of getting pure citrus peel for baking is just cool. And I have so many good uses for it.

Why yes, it would make my kitchen even more of a mad scientist arrangement than it already is. So?

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