The Frying Pan

1:33 AM

@rumtscho It's those damn Angles. Always being obtuse!

@Mien lychees? Or leeches? Because I've never seen the former in a supermarket here, but the latter do occasionally make an appearance.

BobMcGee

@Mien I was just at the grocery store building a pricebook for one of the local stores for the blog post, and there were NO lychees. But I have seen them at some stores.

Canned ones I can definitely find.

Cerberus

Ah, you're working on the Grand Pricebook!

BobMcGee

Incidentally, I just spent over an hour working through the grocery store collecting prices for the post. I hope it's worth it.

Cerberus

I can't wait!

How many European sets do you have?

BobMcGee

@Cerberus I've got to enter it into the DB still... and then maybe hit up 3-4 more stores locally.

Cerberus

1:37 AM

And do you need any additional data?

BobMcGee

@Cerberus I only have European data from you and Rumtscho

Shog9

@BobMcGee The only way to find that out for sure is to do an extensive price comparison of similar blogposts...

Cerberus

Take your time: I will be away in a possibly internetless zone next week.

@BobMcGee OK.

@Shog9 Why are you still a bird, but a penguin, this time?

BobMcGee

@Cerberus I've got it tidied up in spreadsheets, but don't yet have a good way to incorporate into the DB without doing something wacky to the table structure. :-/

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

Shog9

1:38 AM

@Cerberus Haven't you heard? Penguin bacon is the new big thing.

Cerberus

That sounds...fatty.

BobMcGee

@Shog9 I'd totally eat that.

Can't help but imagine it might taste like duck, and duck is delicious.

Cerberus

I wouldn't.

BobMcGee

On second thought, hold the penguin: "As for penguin meat, Dr. Cook said 'If it's possible to imagine a piece of beef, odiferous cod fish and a canvas-backed duck roasted together in a pot, with blood and cod-liver oil for sauce, the illustration would be complete'." south-pole.com/p0000083.htm

Cerberus

Haha.

Just so.

BobMcGee

1:45 AM

I think my mom would totally try to put it in a salad though.

She'll put anything in one of them.

Cerberus

Really?

But she's not even Dutch!

BobMcGee

Frozen corn?

Whatever cooked meat she can get her hands on? Random cheese (pick one: cheddar, parmesan, bleu, feta), pretty much any vegetable that is edible raw...

Cerberus

Hehe.

I sort of sympathize with her.

Certain crazy combinations work in salads.

You know what's good in a salad? Smoked salmon with walnut and vinaigrette.

BobMcGee

I can't argue with smoked salmon. It is delicious... expensive, but delicious

Cerberus

Expensive?

Good smoked salmon is fairly expensive, yes.

But cheap salmon is good enough for me in certain dishes.

Shog9

1:57 AM

Or you build a smoker and make your own...

(which I plan to do, as soon as someone presents me with a cache of salmon)

BobMcGee

@Cerberus There is no cheap smoked salmon where I am...

It's considered an expensive luxury food, and priced accordingly.

You also don't want to know what cheeses cost here. I priced chunk feta @ $5.99/0.5 lbs, or 21.5 Euro/kg

Gouda was like $5/pound and up, often over $10/pound

Cerberus

@Shog9 My friend swears by it, and her salmon is great, but it's just not perceptibly better than average supermarket salmon—but opinions may differ.

@BobMcGee What does the cheapest kind of smoked Salmon cost?

Cheapest kind is € 15/kg here.

It is low quality, but still good in all kinds of dishes, such as when you cut it into very small bits.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus More than I can afford, don't have a pricetag handy for cheapest... but I'm seeing $30/pound for Costco

(online). And they're generally among the cheaper stores, per unit quantity

Cerberus

Good smoked salmon is € 40/kg here.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus That sounds about right

Cerberus

2:05 AM

@BobMcGee So $30 would be fairly cheap?

Still, a mediocre steak is about the same price as 100 g of good smoked salmon...

@BobMcGee Is this the cheapest kind of feta?

@BobMcGee So $5/pound for Gouda is the cheapest kind?

BobMcGee

Wait, I found some for €26/kg, but it is dubious quality

@Cerberus That would be a guess at pricing for the cheapest one, on sale.

Cerberus

@BobMcGee Okay, then ours is much cheaper.

@BobMcGee Heh, OK.

I think it is much cheaper here. But I never bought cheap cheese.

BobMcGee

Even basic cheddar is often over $5/pound. I know where to find it for $2.50/pound for mild cheddar. Gouda is generally an import, so more expensive. Good gouda starts at about $10/pound, like with most fine cheeses.

Cerberus

It is like throwing away money, albeit little.

@BobMcGee I don't think we even have cheddar here.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus You have imports from Britain/Ireland.

Cerberus

2:09 AM

Wow, $10/pound for the cheapest Gouda is very expensive.

@BobMcGee Probably...but I don't remember seeing them in the supermarket.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus That's about what I'd expect to pay for decent gouda.

You can get really crappy gouda cheaper than that.

Cerberus

And how old will this Gouda be?

Young Gouda is much cheaper than old.

BobMcGee

Very young gouda, not fully aged.

Cerberus

The range goes from young to old here, with some grades in between.

Ah OK.

Let me see what I can find.

BobMcGee

The gradings of gouda will not match up, I think, between countries

Cerberus

2:14 AM

Oh, we have cheap "cheddar-cheese" at € 4.50/kg.

That will be disgusting, probably.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus I don't really pay attention to the price of gouda though, honestly. I know that unless I were to get a giant wheel of it, it'll probably disappear in a sitting or two.

Cerberus

Hehe.

True.

Your Dutch roots, huh.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus I've only seen cheese this cheap in one spot, and to do it I had to buy 5 pound mega-blocks.

Cerberus

Hehe.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus That must be it. I was raised on eating lots of cheese. Many, many meals at my dad's house were cheese and bread, or apples, or crackers. He had a perpetual block of cheese in the fridge.

Cerberus

2:16 AM

I can't even find young cheese.

BobMcGee

What do your cheapest cheeses run?

Cerberus

I would never buy young cheese anyway.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus We're not talking like a soft/wet cheese, right?

It's still semi-firm?

Cerberus

No, yellow cheese.

Yes, firm.

You can cut off slices.

Though it is obviously softer than old cheese.

BobMcGee

Well, no kidding. I mean we're not talking top-notch gouda gold here, aged from practically since they started to reclaim land from the sea.

The really good stuff runs about €40/kg.

Cerberus

2:20 AM

The cheapest cheeses I would consider buying start around € 10/kg.

Often closer to € 14/kg—depends on the shop.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus That's roughly pricing for standard, cheap cheeses, but name-brand versions. Grocery store cheese, not Fine Cheese (holds nose in air and sniffs).

Cerberus

@BobMcGee Actually, some of it was found on the bottom of the see when the water was pumped out.

@BobMcGee You sound like either a cheese connoisseur or someone who smells like cheese.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus I jest, but there's a definite difference in both price and marketing between grocery store cheese and Fine Cheese.

Like, pricing jumps from $5/pound to $10+/pound

In between there are things like premium cheddar / swiss / mozarella / etc

Cerberus

Cheapest feta (in oil, with garlic and herbs and pepper) is € 6.73/kg. It is actually quite good, I love it.

@BobMcGee OK, we don't have that distinction.

BobMcGee

Wait, I found a source for $3/pound feta!

Cerberus

2:24 AM

Good catch.

BobMcGee

Costco for the win. Apparently I need to shop there more for cheeses.

Cerberus

Good idea.

Is it nearby?

BobMcGee

Nope, it's about half hour of driving away. Roughly 2-3L of gas.

And it requires a paid yearly membership.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Ah, one of those stores!

BobMcGee

@Cerberus What's that supposed to mean?

Cerberus

2:31 AM

If I am allowed to compare such stores, I would no doubt get much lower prices.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus Sometimes, but not always. For certain products I know where to beat them

Cerberus

I am stuck with this fairly expensive supermarket because there are no others within 15 minutes' walking distance.

@BobMcGee On the nose!

BobMcGee

@Cerberus Time to buy a bike?

Cerberus

I have one. But...

Too much hassle.

And the members-only stores are very far away, almost half an hour by car as well.

I have a card.

But I've never been there.

I hate going to newer parts of town.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus Why?

Cerberus

2:35 AM

They're ugly.

Make me feel miserable.

Perhaps it is different in your town, but in my country all post-war neighbourhoods are ugly.

BobMcGee

In my town, it's pretty much all post-war

The last major war that actually took place within the US was the Civil War in the 1860s

... but most of the buildings were constructed post 1950, where I live. I had the pleasure of living in a townhome built in the 1950s at one point, and it was awesome.

Cerberus

Just look at this. It's awful. This is where the members-only store is.

@BobMcGee So 1950s style is generally liked in your town?

BobMcGee

@Cerberus You've got to understand, this is a fairly newly developed area. There's some stuff that predates 1950, but not a huge amount.

I agree that that picture is a damn ugly chunk of town though. It looks so run-down and sad!

Actually, our Aldi looks like that, despite being new construction.

Cerberus

I know! Like an industrial zone.

This is a random post-war neighbourhood.

In my city.

Depresses me.

@BobMcGee I think your typical white-fence architecture with a porch and all looks a thousand times better than our modern houses.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus Yeah, I agree... it seems like there is a lack of cohesive neighborhood planning there

Cerberus

2:45 AM

A random street in a suburb of Philly.

Looks much better.

Of course it doesn't help that it's always raining in my country.

@BobMcGee That's the worst part: everything is planned to the mm here.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus You mean they planned for ugly?

What were they smoking?

Cerberus

Weed, obviously.

People are crazy here.

BobMcGee

I don't think there's any amount of weed where those planned layouts look nice

Cerberus

At least architects aren't allowed to tear down monuments, and much of the city consists of mainly monuments. But any newer neighbourhood will be ugly.

Let alone town on recently reclaimed land...

maps.google.com/…

This is the "town square" in our largest post-war town.

BobMcGee

I lived here at one point: maps.google.com/…

Cerberus

2:51 AM

Looks like a prison courtyard.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus That's pretty Brutalist indeed.

Cerberus

@BobMcGee That looks quite nice.

@BobMcGee There's modern Dutch architecture for you.

I can't zoom in on your houses.

So I can't see the details.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus Try moving further along the road... it will zoom better

Cerberus

OK.

BobMcGee

I suppose I could upload a photo

Let me load Lightroom

Cerberus

2:55 AM

It looks like a friendly neighbourhood, but I still can't see much detail.

I saw this when I was looking out the train window:

maps.google.com/…

BobMcGee

That is beautiful.

Wish I lived there.

Cerberus

No you don't.

BobMcGee

This was the side view from my old house (the 1950s neighborhood):

Cerberus

It is a boring town.

BobMcGee

And, the back yard:

Cerberus

3:02 AM

Nice.

Nice colours.

BobMcGee

Boring or not, it looks peaceful and relaxing, and I see bike-friendly paths everywhere.

Cerberus

Heh.

BobMcGee

@Cerberus Yeah, it looks a little weird because it's shot at sunset and I had to muck about with the exposure

Cerberus

So it looks as though there were no hedge or anything between one house and the next?

BobMcGee

No, the houses are actually joined units of 3-4 houses

Cerberus

3:03 AM

So is this considered a town-ish neighbourhood?

BobMcGee

Kinda. It's a neighborhood development

Cerberus

@BobMcGee Huh, how does that work?

@BobMcGee What is that?

BobMcGee

They're rental houses, owned all by the same company and constructed by one company at the same time.

Several houses are linked together, sharing one or two walls with adjoining ones, and then the back and front yards all merge together.

The cat LOVED it there.

She could roam and terrorize the local wildlife... and be terrorized by the other local cats.

Cerberus

So people don't have their own yard?

@BobMcGee Lovely.

Is it like a commons?

BobMcGee

@Cerberus Kinda like that? Each has its own front/back lawn, but the complex paid professional people to take care of the grass and landscaping for all the units

It was a nice setup. Expensive though.

Cerberus

3:11 AM

So how are the lawns separated from the front and back gardens?

BobMcGee

No, it's all kind of open

It's hard to describe

Cerberus

Ah OK.

BobMcGee

I think the maps place might be better

Cerberus

It sounds like a commons to me!

BobMcGee

I guess so?

Cerberus

3:12 AM

So you have an area near your front door or something where you're supposed to have your own stuff, but there is no separation between your area and your neighbour's?

BobMcGee

Yes, pretty much

Cerberus

OK.

Having absorbed this knowledge, I am ready for bed.

And overdue.

I wish you a good night!

BobMcGee

and yourself likewise, Cerberus

Good to have a chance to stay and have a proper chat without chores/work getting in the way

Cerberus

Which means you will have to do those later?

Well, bye!

BobMcGee

@Cerberus No, it means I did a bunch of them the last couple days.

BaffledCook

11:01 AM

@Cerberus That looks familiar :-)

@Cerberus, Rotterdam has some nice neighborhoods.

Cerberus

12:17 PM

@BaffledCook But no new ones, right?

derobert

12:30 PM

Hmmm. Something must have happened over the weekend. @Shog9 looks like he has had his head reattached.

rumtscho

@derobert you don't read the transcripts?

derobert

@rumtscho Nah, I'm being lazy.

In fact, lazy enough, that I barely bothered to edit that to fix the typo.

rumtscho

He has an army of quasi-sockpuppets. That is, he has associated each site on the network with a different e-mail, and each e-mail with a different Gravatar.

Cerberus

Hi. Do you always read the transcript?

derobert

@rumtscho Ah. So that's his new network-wide avatar now?

rumtscho

12:35 PM

And he can choose which one he uses for joining a chat room. In fact, he hasn't used the detached-head-gravatar for months, he had this chiaroscuro portrait with the bowler hat, and when I asked him what happened to the head, he changed the account to something new.

@Cerberus yes, I do

Cerberus

OK.

rumtscho

But don't worry, I haven't caught you saying something bad when you thought you were speaking to somebody else privately.

Cerberus

Heh.

derobert

@rumtscho Do I detect a barely-vocal "... yet." after that?

Cerberus

I am not worried.

Just...impressed.

@derobert If not yet, then I am out of things to try.

derobert

12:40 PM

@Cerberus Tells us how carefully she reads the transcripts, I suppose.

Cerberus

Hmm.

derobert

She probably just greps them for 'rumtscho', 'Rummy', 'robot', etc., and ignores the ret

Cerberus

Hehe.

rumtscho

@derobert Oh no, I am careful.

Cerberus

So we can just insult the Meccano set unpunished?

rumtscho

12:42 PM

@Cerberus Do that, he's the black sheep in the family anyway

derobert

@Cerberus Appears that way!

rumtscho

It is just that I am not easily insulted (or shocked by not-too-sensitive comments about other people or situations)

Cerberus

@rumtscho So you deny involvement?

@rumtscho Good.

rumtscho

@Cerberus involvement in what?

derobert

LOL... scifi.blogoverflow.com/2012/08/…

rumtscho

12:49 PM

@derobert I haven't watched the episode yet, so will wait until afterwards to read the post.

Cerberus

@rumtscho In whatever the Meccano set does. You deny remote-controlling it?

rumtscho

@Cerberus Now, now. Let childish pranks be bygones.

Cerberus

Fair enough.

msh210

3:59 PM

Hi, all.

BobMcGee

Hi, msh

Mien

@BobMcGee Okay, thanks for replying.

msh210

We recently got ramekins so I decided to try something I never have before, shirred eggs. They're quite good.

Also have lots of cholesterol and saturated fat, but, hey.

BobMcGee

@msh210 Y'know, I've heard of shirred eggs, but never baked them before. How hard are they to make, compared to (say) a creme brulee?

msh210

@BobMcGee Never tried to make a creme brulee and have no idea how to. But shirred eggs are easy -- at least the recipe I used is.

I used this recipe, with modifications to account for ingredients I didn't have: allrecipes.com/recipe/shirred-eggs

BobMcGee

4:06 PM

Oh, that's easy as can be! All I need is some heavy cream and chives...

msh210

@BobMcGee (I didn't have heavy cream, so used whipping cream; didn't have fresh chives so used (less) garlic powder(!); and didn't have Parmesan so used feta. :-) Amazingly, it came out good anyway -- though a bit salty. Perhaps it'd be much better with the right ingredients, though.)

BobMcGee

Whipping cream vs. heavy cream is no big deal -- reduction of fat and richness, but still not bad, as long as you don't try something wacky like half-and-half.

msh210

@BobMcGee ...or skim milk. :-)

BobMcGee

@msh210 gags

We have a strict no-skim-milk policy in my household. You can't do anything useful with it in cooking or baking.

msh210

@BobMcGee We're not cooking-literate in my house. We don't usually have any sort of cream -- we use lowfat milk in things. We happened to have cream in the house the other day (which, coupled with our new ramekins, is what made me think of making shirred eggs).

BobMcGee

4:10 PM

We don't usually carry cream either, actually... it's perishable and quite expensive right now

This fridge has a nasty habit of dipping below freezing in some spots, and this can wreck a carton of cream

@msh210 You pull it out and are like "ooh, time to make some tasty ice cream!" or "ooh, cream sauce" and then what you get is a milky icicle.

msh210

@BobMcGee Maybe turn the fridge down?

BobMcGee

@msh210 It's not the overall temp, can't set it any lower or stuff will start to spoil, it's just certain spots

rfusca

what you need to do is install a few small heaters in your fridge

BobMcGee

@rfusca Maybe I could just wire in some overclocked GPUs running computations? Kill two birds with one stone.

rfusca

better yet, just make the fridge sentient and use the cooling for its processing power

BobMcGee

4:15 PM

I feel like somehow there's a thermodynamics problem there

It would depend on airflow around the fridge to cool the overall system

rfusca

what-if.xkcd.com/5

BobMcGee

@rfusca Saw that... it's quite brilliant.

rfusca

@BobMcGee i've been enjoying his whatifs - particular the baseball

BobMcGee

Yes, that was amusing

I think this buys XKCD a new lease on life and vitality

rfusca

yup

derobert

4:29 PM

Seems like a small fan in the fridge would solve this problem, for cheap...

BobMcGee

@derobert You mean, like a battery-operated one?

THat's a definite notion

rfusca

but that wouldn't rigger the robot revolution

BobMcGee

@derobert It would appear I am getting an authentication error when I try to view the wordpress admin page for the blog?

Any idea on how to work around that?

cooking.blogoverflow.com/wp-admin/ yields an error 500.

@rfusca how do you know the robot revolution hasn't already happened over at google?

rfusca

@BobMcGee a valid concern

derobert

@BobMcGee works here....

@BobMcGee bug @Gracenote over in chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/115/stack-exchange-community-blogs about the login

@BobMcGee battery-powered, or find some way to get a small power cord in (e.g., for a 12V fan)

@BobMcGee you could also try normal stuff, like removing cookies for blogoverflow

BobMcGee

4:43 PM

@derobert That's worth a shot. It looks like something also changed with the auth system.

derobert

Yeah, they switched it to have a common login with the main site

BobMcGee

Hrhm, maybe if I just clear cache and all cookies it'll sort itself out.

Cerberus

Oh, SE's lovely authentication systems.

BobMcGee

I guess what I was looking for is, is there a logout page?

derobert

@BobMcGee not that I know of

BobMcGee

4:47 PM

@derobert Lovely, well clearing out browser data it is

derobert

@BobMcGee I'd try it for just *.blogoverflow.com first

BobMcGee

@derobert Well, that resolved it. Weird that I have to do that manually... turns out Chrome is more of a pain to delete specific cookies in than Firefox.

derobert

@BobMcGee you could report the bug to the aforementioned GraceNote.

Cerberus

@derobert Ohhh that Grace Note.

For a moment I overlooked your aforementioned, and I was utterly lost.

Mien

5:19 PM

hi @ElendilTheTall

it's been a while

BobMcGee

6:12 PM

@derobert If it occurs again, I will.

ElendilTheTall

6:48 PM

@mien hey

Mien

how are you?

ElendilTheTall

whenever I check in, there's no one around

alright, you?

Mien

Fine, ty :)

I'm working during the day now.

ElendilTheTall

like a chump!

;)

how did the mighty Belgium do in the Olympics?

Mien

7:02 PM

Quite terribly :D

3 medals, no gold.

Mien

8:24 PM

-2

Q: What is more cognitively developed, a chicken or a cow?

Recently, I've decided to try and embrace vegetarianism. This embrace is largely for ethical reasons — to step back from anthropocentrism and lead by way of example. However, I don't want to be to adamant in this pursuit as I get started, and I do realize that sometimes I'll probably just g...

animal-cognition

Sobachatina

"to step back from anthropocentrism and lead by way of example" Wow. I'll bet he's a lot of fun at parties.

Cerberus

Ahh our favourite former candidate-moderator!

rumtscho

11:17 PM

@derobert are you here?

I just created my blog post, it is camera ready.

You can edit right into wordpress, I trust your edits without a change track. If you have comments or very large edits (such as 2-3 sentences at once), you can do it in a text processor or leave me info in parentheses direct in the text.

@jefromi if you want to edit my post too, you are welcome. It is in wordpress, Cherry berry nut 2/4.

everybody else, if you want to give an opinion too, see it here: cooking.blogoverflow.com/…

rumtscho

11:51 PM

@Sobachatina please go to the draft linked above and read the part about spiced jams. Tell me if you are OK with mentioning your wife this way. (Does she want more attribution, or does she rather prefer to be left completely out?)

Transcript for