A+ drink idea. Happy slightly-belated birthday. :)

Claire. Good grief, this sounds stupidly good. I put it on my list of Stuff To Do Very Soon literally within seconds of opening the page. I already have a big jug of some really good kimchi in the fridge, so all I need is the meat lump.

I recently discovered Taskwarrior for CLI-based to-do lists, and habitctl seems like a really good companion to it. Very nice.

Mayo, sweet relish, tiny pieces of celery, same with red onion, plenty of black pepper, a small spoon of sugar, and a little pinch of salt. The basic dad recipe. A few capers optional.

Oh, wow. Wow. I totally missed this story. That’s one hell of a medical event to make it through. I’m really sorry to hear about the long-term health consequences, but hey, sweet new van, right? :)

I’ll be honest here, I was all set to be That Person and leave a dumb comment about the best way to make a tasty turkey burger being to throw them away and buy some hamburger. I prefer to use the ol’ turkeybits in chili or other highly-seasoned applications where the kinda weak-sauce turkey flavor is complimented by…

I’m a little late to this party, but one of my favorite, utterly simple summer sides is just a mild quick-pickle cucumber and white onion.

You missed a serious opportunity for a Frosty Alexander by adding brandy. Creme de cacao optional. How could that *possibly* not be good?

Using coarse salt by the pinch has actually both improved my cooking and made my life easier over using a fine table salt in the kitchen, and I think going back would be a mistake. Rarely am I regularly making a recipe that’s so precise with the amount of salt that I need to measure it carefully. Pinch, taste, pinch,…

I do what I can to amuse :D

I actually really want to try this, because it does sound kinda good, but I have a confession. I’ve never peeled a bell pepper in my life. Is that a thing that people do? Or is this more Hazan trickery, like that bland sauce that people who don’t like flavorful things won’t stop talking about?

Thank you for the sympathy. I’m better now. Especially after the ham article, because I got to talk about ham gravy again.

I’m a diet coke kind of guy when it comes to beverages, but for my ham, i use (non-diet) pepsi with brown sugar and dry mustard. As the pepsi heats up it seems to break down and release a hint of some really ham-friendly flavors, almost a little clove-y.

You have my attention. Proceed.

The color of this drink makes me irrationally angry. I bet it tastes fine, but it looks like something that should be maybe mango (with chile) or something else seriously fruity. Knowing the ingredients, it is basically the complete opposite of that. As a result my tongue-brain won’t stop furiously screaming at the…

Ah, Claire, you’ve just hit on one of my favorite things in the world. I don’t think a hot bowl of mussels is as common or appreciated as much as it should be for how relatively easy it is. It does seem fancy, but really, it’s about as easy as pants.

No.

Drinkin’ vinegar is great stuff. There are some excellent fruit vinegars available that dilute down really nicely, and they’re out of this world if you use carbonated water. Some are fairly sweet, but a little added sweetener can help other vinegars that are less so. I don’t have the bottle handy, but I also found a…

I usually stick with baking soda to make my pots and pans shiny again, and to get tea/coffee stains out of my mugs, too. It’s cheap, doesn’t take too much scrubbing, and the result is always immensely satisfying.

I think you’re generally right to at least be wary of flavored things, but the rangpur lime gin is really well done, imo. I was always a fan of seagram’s lime twist gin, too, which is both cheap and tasty. That’s about as far into “flavored” as I like to venture. I haven’t really tried any of the fancy craft gins…