The Frying Pan

10:46 AM

Go Jojo!

Nuke em all. Shog will sort em out?

@Cindy lol :)

@Jolenealaska Lately it seems like some of our regulars haven't been around. Like Jay and Elmer Cat. Have I missed them?

I should know how to search for the last time they were here, but I'm coming up empty. I know I spoke to Jay not too long ago.

Just wondering if they're okay. Hopefully just busy with life. :)

11:00 AM

It wouldn't surprise me if ElmerCat is suffering some election trauma.

Could be. It can get very stressful if you let it. Not that I never stress over anything, but I really try to keep it level. Especially with things I can't do anything about.

Stress can be terribly hard on the body.

@Jolenealaska How's your leg?

Better most of the time, it still swells after I've been sitting for a while.

Jay was last here 19 days ago.

I've had that terrible swelling a couple of times in the last 5 - 6 years. Both feet and legs. The swelling wouldn't even go down at night. Never found out what caused it but, each time, after a few weeks it resolved itself.

@Jolenealaska Glad it's some better. :)

@Jolenealaska Seems he was very busy with his new position.

Wow, we haven't seen ElmerCat for 97 days.

@Jolenealaska I thought it had been a good while.

11:15 AM

Time flies.

I would have guessed maybe six weeks.

The older you get, the faster it seems to go.

I have seen it tremendously this year.

I need to mess with my laundry. brb

11:52 AM

@Jolenealaska yes

I joined (or most likely, rejoined) twitter today. Not so much to participate, but just to keep an eye on a few feeds.

Even though I made a point to not select her in any way, she was following me within 45 minutes of me signing up for the account.

that's why you don't use your real name for anything

doofus

:P

yep

nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/politics/…

12:22 PM

jesus

you think about Trump more than Trump thinks about Trump

possibly :/ The Slap Yo Mama guy is back.

He was in the room here until a second ago

Interesting

There are words to describe such people. Did you see his last comment?

Maybe, I'll look. His activity on Unix&Linux is pretty much what I thought it would be.

12:35 PM

@Jolenealaska total troll

Yep.

eh, dosen't smell like my favourite troll, at least

We don't get too, too many. Who's your favorite?

@Jolenealaska ever seen me talk about recycle?

I don't think so.

12:39 PM

(gets a sock, goes to 20, pops into root access, gets abusive, gets banned)

We haven't had anything that egregious in the three years I've been here.

On the bright side, he's obvious as hell, to the point where I can recognise him entirely off how he chats

chat's usually a happy place

at most I just need to play babysitter

We've never had a chat troll that I can think of. I mean, not one that was trollish here (at least in the past three years). Hard to believe it's been three years.

lol

I've been on SU for... 7?

shortly since it came out of public beta, and was mentioned on /.

I wandered in here from a Google search. Took a wrong turn and stayed. Kind of like moving to Alaska.

12:50 PM

Hi folks!

o/

Anything new?

@Jolenealaska you're welcome

@Stephie not particularly

I like that hubby changed his job: hubby + home office = better lunches

(only a minor benefit, but still enjoyable)

I need a new job

one with lunches

12:57 PM

@ElendilTheTall my work place has lunches

Start looking for tech startups - they usually serve lunch.

they usually fold after 6 months as well

or casinos

Didn't say I had the perfect solution, did I?

you and your cappuccinos

1:13 PM

me and my caffeine addiction

I made coffee concentrate yesterday. Somehow it is much more potent than usual.

So you are a) going to drink less coffee or b) be really jittery?

(said in a joking, non-offensive way)

I just need to dilute it. I can't see how that could be construed as offensive!

I'm jittery and vaguely nauseous.

You do have limited control over your hands even w/o coffee...

Yes, but this is definitely the caffeine.

1:22 PM

There was the question over at Coffee SE on how to counteract too much caffeine. Unfortunally, the only way seems to ride it out.

I should have some caffeine

I've only had 2 cups of coffee today

(Now guess why I searched there a while ago.... >.<)

(´ ˙○˙ )

You can hydrate frequently which helps a little, but don't overdo it.

Aside from pumping out your tummy, there's little you can do but kinda sit there with little beady eyes all-a-quiver for a while.

@Stephie Yep. That's alright, I will probably survive.

1:24 PM

And by the time you are shaking, pumping won't help much as the stuff is in your bloodstream already.

@Stephie when I was young and foolish, I managed to get myself into a proper, pretty serious caffeine and sugar high....

Oh I know why it's so much stronger than usual! They were out of my usual brand of coffee, and this was the first batch from stuff I haven't used before.

@Jolenealaska cold brew?

@Jolenealaska Yep, sounds plausible. Is it at least tasty?

@JourneymanGeek Actually, not quite. I have taken to making coffee concentrate in a crock-pot. I bring it to just barely simmering, and then I turn it off overnight.

1:29 PM

but then it sits in the danger zone! (´ ˙○˙ )

;)

0_0

adds that to the list of things his mom would consider an abomination ;p

But mom thinks cold brew is terrible, and I kinda like it soooo

Coffee connoisseurs tell me that it should be awful, but I like it just fine. I also seem to go through coffee more slowly.

Indian filter coffee

Indian filter coffee is a coffee drink made by mixing frothed and boiled milk with the decoction obtained by brewing finely ground coffee powder in a traditional Indian filter. The drink known as Kaapi, is the South Indian phonetic rendering of "coffee". The drink is also referred to as Mysore filter coffee, Kumbakonam degree coffee, Mylapore filter coffee or Madras kaapi. Outside of India the term "filter coffee" may refer to drip brew coffee, which is a distinct form of preparing coffee. == Beans == The most commonly used coffee beans are arabica and robusta. These are grown in different states...

We tend to do it 'this' way

I want to try vietnamese coffee

not with chicory tho

1:31 PM

with condensed milk

@ElendilTheTall in a sock?

@ElendilTheTall we do that too

They also sell coffee in a condensed milk can in some places

@ElendilTheTall that is a very dangerous thing to try, my friend.

Vietnamese iced coffee

Vietnamese iced coffee, also known as cà phê đá or cafe da (Vietnamese: cà phê đá, literally "ice coffee") is a traditional Vietnamese coffee recipe. At its simplest, cà phê đá is made using medium to coarse ground dark roast Vietnamese-grown coffee with a small metal Vietnamese drip filter (phin cà phê). After the hot water is added, the drip filter releases drops of hot coffee slowly into a cup. This finished cup of hot coffee is then quickly poured into a glass full of ice making the finished Vietnamese iced coffee. A popular way to drink Vietnamese coffee is cà phê sữa đá, which is Vietnamese...

ah

£2.09 for the filter on ebay

might be worth a punt

1:45 PM

I'm surprised you haven't had it. It's pretty common on menus here.

you have a lot more vietnamese than we do

think there's one pho place within 30 miles of me

Thai iced coffee is really good too.

They use condensed milk too, but the coffee is different.

dark roast, apparently

More ingredients than just coffee.

templeofthai.com/recipes/iced_coffee_oliang.php

I don't know if that's what I have had, but I suspect so.

brb - final laundry trip

that would appear to be Thai

1:57 PM

things other than milk or sugar in coffee? SACRILEGE

This time of year a lot of people here put pumpkin pie spice in their coffee.

Now that's just wrong on so many levels.

I don't typically recommend this but...

that's a offense worth the bastinado, pillory and stocks and keelhauling off a starship

Well, if you add whipped cream and sprinkles to the pumpkin spice, it's not coffee any more, but a dessert that happens to contain a shot or two of espresso.

<ducks>

no need to duck, that's about accurate

yup

2:27 PM

New question has me flummoxed.

meh

clooooose

classic shopping question

The other one - minty yams

ah

4:45 PM

@Stephie He's probably got Japanese or Philippine sweet potatoes. That happens to me frequently.

I just can't give him a very good reason as to why it happens other than it just does with very sweet yams.

Now that's .. interesting.

too cute to eat!

I almost got a chance to pet a cat today. Almost :(

She was sitting on the sidewalk doing nothing, and I stopped and wanted to approach slowly. And then, on the other side of the road, there came a man with a dog, not on leash. The dog stopped to stare at the cat. The man didn't call it, just waited there. They spend 5 minutes staring at each other until he called the dog to continue. And the cat was too nervous at that time to be approached.

We have a family of stray cats that live in the parking level basement of our building

Everyone just feeds / takes care of them. They just had 2 more kittens.

I have seen such arrangements, yes. The problem is that nobody takes them to the vet.

5:02 PM

@TimPost it makes me think of these, which are just too damn cute:

amazon.com/OrangeTag-Bento-Accessories-Mould-Punch/dp/…

Okay so you're pretty sure it's rice. We're having a debate in one of our company chatrooms on if it's culinary foam or rice, or both.

It looks exactly like rice to me

all culinary foams I know of look like whipped cream

I don't have a guess, it just reminded me of the bento molds.

not only don't they have grains

they cannot have this slightly translucent look due to the air bubbles present

you know how, when you make something translucent into powder, the powder is white? like crystal sugar vs confectioner's sugar?

the same thing happens when you try to whip something

its color changes into a more white and more opaque version

I don't think he's food. He looks pretty plastic to me.

5:10 PM

shaping foam like a kitten would have been extremely challenging too, but that argument wouldn't hold on its own, because people do crazier stuff

@Jolenealaska to me, it looks like sticky rice

colored with soya sauce for ears and tail

you can see the sauce in a puddle around the tail

and glistening wet starchy-water-remains around his bum

the eyes are fennel seeds

Yeah I think it's sticky rice and they used a dropper to add some color

you can see where the color of the ear has seeped into the head. It is not just some color spilling on the surface of plastic or foam, it is soaked in the rice.

Now I see it. It helped to enlarge the picture :)

5:26 PM

You can create a dense foam that would work for that kind of thing if you infuse milk and then use a steam wand to just bubble the heck out of it. But that's technically stretching to call it foam.

I do that with lemon / salt / sriracha to top my scallops sometimes

but it still looks differently than this cat.

Mmm, foamed milk on sriracha. Cool. If I had a wand, I'd be running to try it.

5:51 PM

I'd go for a brush instead of a dropper, but otherwise I agree.

6:09 PM

hi @Jefromi

that citric acid question - it is sad for the poor OP. I don't know who had the audacity to make that sell.

@rumtscho hallo, and yeah, that's pretty ridiculous

They did ask about face masks, so they may not actually be depending on the chemical properties that much, but still, come on.

A face mask also depends on the chemical properties.

How are you doing? Will you wear a costume for Halloween?

I mean, yeah, it depends on it some, I wouldn't put acid on my face, but it doesn't depend as critically on the details as something you're actually going to eat and taste.

I'm good, no costume this year I don't think, how are you?

I didn't mean it as in "don't burn your face with strong acid". I mean it as "the difference between a mild acid and a mild base is pretty important". They both have a different effect on the skin, and can react with further ingredients. On a side note, if we disregard the rest of the ingredients, citric acid is much better than baking soda for the skin. But that goes pretty deep into homemade cosmetics :)

I'm well. Answering work emails, even though it is 8:20 PM. Should stop soon, but we roused some guys from another team with an "urgent" call and now I want to wrap it up.

(Right, acid vs base important, fiddly details beyond that ("what is healthy?") less so; substituting some other powdered base might not be a big deal at all even if it wasn't quite the same, while if you're eating it the flavor might be horrible.)

ew work at night, yeah, hope you're done soon.

6:34 PM

That's like saying cocaine is a great substitute for powdered sugar. In most cases, you're probably right, but you never know what someone had in mind for sugar ...

@TimPost now you got me wondering whether cocaine caramelizes!

It probably pyrolizes rather than melt, but I don't think it turns into a sticky syrup, that's pretty carbohydrate specific, and alkaloids are different (is cocaine an alkaloid?)

@TimPost I'm not saying it is a good substitute! just that their use case makes the details possibly matter slightly less, so maybe the shop keeper was like "um you want a white powder to put on your face, knock yourself out"

@Jefromi Oh I know. I was thinking of what the shop keeper might be thinking

Keep arriving at .. yeah, he wasn't.

yeah, definitely not

@rumtscho yes it is

6:40 PM

@rumtscho I was responsible for chocolate souffles dusted with caster sugar going out to a dining room full of really snobby mean people. I often fantasized about making that switch, just couldn't afford it.

As long as that one doesn't end up on HNQ...

6:59 PM

@TimPost that would have made the place a big hit with a certain crowd - them feeling so in their comfort zone....

@Stephie Only time I'd ever send souffle with plastic straws instead of tableware :)

Real fancy straws, I suppose... .

7:17 PM

Yup, the ones with Tom and Jerry characters on top.

So I did some short ribs in my old bobble-top 8 quart pressure cooker, and I've been reading about these new pressure cookers with dial regulators and such, and I'm not finding any compelling reason to switch. Are they really any better?

It seems like they got simpler (look, it's a picture of beef, I'll pick that one!) but I can't see any advantage over the bobble tops.

Dunno. Mine seems to be nearing the end of its life, so perhaps some research is in order? OTOH, I use it so rarely, I might just not replace it.

My stove went on the fritz about two months ago and I haven't replaced it yet, because I need to remodel a bit in order to get the 5 burner I want to fit. (literally 10 centimeters short). I've been using those canister gas camping stoves and one of those smart electric ovens, so I can't really braise properly without one.

Awwww, that's a bummer.

@TimPost I want one of these:

amazon.com/Instant-Pot-IP-DUO60-Multi-Functional-Pressure/dp/…

@Jefromi The lid is vented for rice.

7:38 PM

@Jolenealaska Huh, can be vented but also can hold pressure?

It doesn't cook rice under pressure.

Now wait a minute, I looked for what I read earlier, and apparently I was mistaken.

@TimPost I haven't used my oven and stove (not a combo) for three years - the house we bought came with a kitchen. And it also needs remodeling to fit "my kitchen" that currently is stacked in the basement. A project that got moved to the back burner (pun intended) for various reasons. But I really, really want my carefully chosen appliances back. Ironically, they are the same brand as the ones I'm using now - but the better versions. Meh....

Right, that's what I'm saying - if it's vented for rice, then it has to close that vent in order to hold pressure.

I just read something about it a few days ago and could swear that it said to vent for rice, but maybe it said that for slow cooking.

makes sense for slow cooking too

I guess you can just leave the lid cracked or something.

7:46 PM

The lid has a vent or pressure setting.

okay, that was my first question.

It's a lot clearer from some of the other pictures or the manual: instantpot.com/wp-content/uploads/IP-DUO/…

also wow this sounds awful:

> Please note, after the “Porridge” program is finished, do NOT put steam release handle in venting position; otherwise the porridge will splatter through the steam release. Please use Natural Release.

Interesting, it seems like it steams under pressure too?

> The “Steam” key is designed for steaming purposes. You can steam vegetables, seafood or reheat food with the steam rack provided. When steaming vegetables and seafood, please note that using the “Natural Release” method for releasing steam will likely overcook the food. You will need to use the ‘Quick Release’ method to release the pressure as soon as the cooking time has reached.

8:16 PM

sounds awesome for you, maybe a little error-prone for someone with less experience who might be more likely to spray hot porridge out the release vent :)

I've never used a pressure cooker. It's been on my list for years.

10:08 PM

@Jolenealaska I used one some when I was in high school, seems like one of those things that's a big time saver and pretty easy if you make a token effort to know what you're doing, and maybe a disaster if you're careless.

I'm anxious to try corned beef and this:

theprairiehomestead.com/2016/04/…

I understand that the eggs just slip out of the shell. It's supposed to make perfect soft boiled too.

I'd make deviled eggs all the time if peeling wasn't such a PIA.

10:39 PM

hi all

11:12 PM

@Arrowfar back again?

@Jefromi Yeah. Um why do you ask?

you've seemed quite determined to leave before, just curious what changed

Nothing changed.

I come and go as I please. If I feel like not using the site for a while I delete my account. It works for me. Everyone is different.

If you are asking because account deletion is work for people here then I understand that. I won’t delete it this time.

I see. Yes, most people who aren't using their account simply stop using it, rather than deleting it.

Yeah. nods

11:21 PM

This is so sad :(

smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/…

Speaking of Pakistan, hi Arrowfar.

Hello Jolene. how goes it?

Pretty good. Going to bed soon.

sorry if my coming and going seems odd. well it is past midnight here, see you guys tomorrow.

Cya!

Actually it is 4:20 AM here.

Damn I am late.

Bye

11:25 PM

Hello anyone here?

@Arrowfar Nothing odd about disappearing for a while, just the account deletion.

Guys, I have a question if I may. I read that before cold smoking, meat e.g. fish should be fully cured. Does that mean salt should travel to the very center of the meat or something else?

Seems like a fair question to ask on the site.

oh ok

lol

fwiw I think the short answer is that "fully cured" means that you've used a process that makes the food safe at room temperature, because cold smoking holds the food in the danger zone the whole time. (and in general food safety folks don't recommend cold smoking at home at all)

11:37 PM

oops i cannot find the article now, but im sure it said '... before cold smoking, meat e.g. fish should be fully cured'. so that wouldnt be consistent with your explanation jefromi. i mean you said fully cured is when something is safe at room temperature. so how does it become safe at room temperature prior to being cold smoked?

14 messages deleted

sorry u did say 'a process..'

"fully cured" i.e. "you have applied a curing process which makes it safe at room temperature"

ok i got it - i will post it. but i think i need to ask when does something become fully cured

for cold smoking.

Well, it's always possible that I'm wrong, but... I did already explain that.

Answers will explain it in more detail though, so go for it.

11:41 PM

ok thanks

@JamesWilson What kind of smoker are you using? What is the temperature of the surroundings?

Lots of people in Alaska cold smoke salmon, but only when it is chilly outside.

I'm not using a smoker at the moment, just doing some reading and trying to understand the process/terms.

@Jolenealaska do they actually smoke below 40F?

The usual notion of cold smoking is at a bit above room temperature, so well into the danger zone.

I purchased cold smoked salmon from restuarant and shop however i doub't salt penetrates to the very center. therefore im wondering what is meant by fully cured.

40-60F No warmer because cold smoke is usually actually warm smoke.

11:55 PM

@Jolenealaska so... not actually quite safe, but enough that people get away with it

in other words what is the process to get if fully cured prior to cold smoking or anything else one wants to do.

@JamesWilson you're making some assumptions and mixing things up here

assumptions such as?

You don't necessarily know that the restaurant/shop did exactly what you read was safe elsewhere.

And you're still stuck on the "salt to the center" thing as fully cured, but like I said, fully cured just means you've followed a curing process that's known to work, it doesn't necessarily mean something specific about how much salt there is where.

@Jefromi Yep. I've never known anyone to have problems, but home cold smoking is not for the timid.

11:58 PM

yes so the question is what processes fully cure something or when do you know something is fully cured using salt? i think thats the question.