How is it different to any other naturally occurring chemical used to enhance flavor like salt, pepper, cumin, etc.? Why is it different when you use cheese, soy sauce, or other ingredients naturally high in MSG type chemicals?

Why not make your food taste delicious the first time without a bit of ‘enhancement’? 

I wouldn’t read too much into that.

Counterpoint. If someone does drive a bus and decides to smoke weed after they get home from work, who cares? The most innocuous drug on the list also happens to be the one with the longest detection time. 

If driving and heavy equipment are involved, I agree with you.

“I feel perfectly safe microwaving my sponge and using it indefinitely.”

Until I start hearing about mass deaths related to dirty sponges, I’m just gonna keep assuming the hot water and soap are enough to take care of things until it’s compacted and kinda stained.

Yep. I use peanut or regular olive oil for my sauteing needs. Peanut is a great neutral oil (also terrific for deep-frying basically anything). Extra-virgin olive oil only for lower temperature cooks, in salad dressings and marinades, etc.

On a bit of a tangent... Speaking of recipe writers who don’t know what they’re…

I like rapeseed oil too, as both an extra virgin olive oil replacement and for frying. It’s got a high smoke point so it’s good for frying but it’s got a really interesting grassy flavour so it’s quite nice in dressings when I want something a bit different to olive oil.  EDIT - Ignore me - I didn’t realise canola was…

I cooked a meal one time* for a family member who was visiting - salted halibut with giant beans, which called for brining the halibut in X amount of kosher salt dissolved in water. We had run out of kosher, so I grabbed the sea salt - which was not flaked or course grind, but just like regular table salt in that…

So you feel so special using seasoning + salt instead of seasoned salt. Good job.  It’s not so different.  Or are you saying you grind each spice by hand for each meal?

Last month I saw a cat on a leash in a Target. It was an early Christmas present. 

I love dogs, I’ve had dogs all my life, but a lot of people don’t like dogs and some people are allergic to dogs. Stop being an entitled jerk and leave your dog at home. He’ll be there when you get back. Dogs don’t belong in stores, on planes, and certainly not restaurants. And you can all take your bullshit…

Living in Mexico (and many other countries) has taught me just how distorted the view of food is in the US and Canada (where I’m from). It’s taken a lot to break through that conditioning and accept that beef is not supposed to be bright red by the time it gets home and it’s perfectly fine if chicken is yellow and…

Can you tell me when blue cheese turns good?

I can’t get over the weirdly uniform texture of bologna. It’s way to damn SOFT, yet not like a tender meat kind of way, but like a WEIRD soft to me.

God I love when people call combining foods of different cultures appropriation...but yknow when professional chef’s do it it’s called “fusion”. Was it appropriation when Roy Choi created the Kogi food truck, combining Mexican and Korean cuisine?

Give me a break dude, I don’t see anything wrong with this. I like that…

Garden centers often sell them alongside other herbs. You can also buy them online from a million places, from the big plant sellers like Parks and Burpee to smaller outlets. They cost maybe ten bucks. Look for "Laurus Nobilis" because other varieties of Bay aren't for cooking.

Fresh bay leaves are great. Old bay leaves don't do much.

But what if there aren't many different types of salt in my country and I want grains slightly larger than table salt but not straight up chunks of rock salt? May I use a salt grinder then, ma'am?