a lone tumbleweed scrapes lazily across the chat room

Yeah, it's kind of dead in here.

I just learned a new word: Brook (verb) to tolerate

Usually used in the negative. I will not brook bigotry.

Calls to mind an image of someone tossing a bigot into a babbling stream.

I'm up for that!

So you do brook bigots, just not bigotry.

Interesting. :D

I'll never forget the day that I overheard my grandfather making an extremely racist comment. I was so appalled that I never again loved him like I did before.

Oh wow. I'm extremely lucky in that I haven't had to deal with that in my family.

It broke my heart. My brother hit him up for a ride to school for him and his friend that had spent the night. The friend was still upstairs, he and my grandfather hadn't met. Grandpa said, "Sure I'll give you guys a ride!"

Then the friend appeared. He's black.

Then my grandfather clearly said to grandma, "I can't believe I'm going to have a jungle monkey in my car."

That one moment rocked my world.

I never looked at him the same way again.

Never mind that the kid was a friend of my brother and a guest in my home.

@Jolenealaska words are cheap

Hi sweetie! :)

oh, it's sweetie now is it?

;)

how are ya

I just looked at the Fennel question. It looks to me like (s)he might make an extract, but I can't find a recipe.

of the seeds?

vitaminshoppe.com/p/nature-answer-fennel-seed-2000-mg-1-fl-oz/…-Product+Listing+Ads--40-60-_-BB-1067&cvosrc=cse.google.bb-1067&cv‌​o_cid=38178165589&gclid=CjgKEAjwzcWcBRCat43fy9e5i3ASJADXOBwu6iI6Ue0mhkqVr90IlBdf3‌​oypn6hwqlm5EhzVTvp09fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#.U5F1rSggsVA

Yeah.

yeah, that is possibly the most ridiculous URL I've ever seen

Isn't it though? I wasn't sure if it was going to fit.

Got that?

No, capital J

the 14th J is capital

ok, let's start again

funny, that's my pin number

oh, damn

now I have to change it

Just a piece of trivia about that scene. The computer display isn't exactly what he said.

Indeed

I read the comments :)

Now I'm watching the greatest 25 Picard quotes :)

Goddamn, Vash was hot

Oh Noes! The Star Trek YouTube vortex! I've been there, it's hard as hell to escape!

I love this one. The comments crack me up: youtube.com/watch?v=G_0dgKgSDgo It makes me think of our starred list. Quotes that are funny as hell out of context.

have you seen 'Riker sits down'?

she's gone again

I'm here. I'm also watching Chopped and experimenting with fennel tea.

you mean... I don't have your undivided attention?

Sorry, multitasking. The tea works!

My whole kitchen now smells like licorice.

there are worse smells

Oh yes. I actually kind of like it. AND I'm enjoying the tea. :) BRB, I gotta edit my fennel answer.

Hot tea doesn't mix well with a broken tooth. I've got to get this thing taken care of. My aunt and uncle will be in town next Wednesday. They want to take me out for a nice dinner. I'm afraid it's going to be marred by either a broken tooth or recent dental work.

@Jolenealaska carpe diem

or rather, carpe dentum

make hay while the iron is hot

I scrounged through my trash. I threw away an empty bottle of vodka a day or two ago. YAY! There's just enough left to experiment with fennel extract.

hmmm

how would you make it non-alcoholic?

I wouldn't. If it works well with vodka, it should work with propylene glycol. The question didn't mention alcohol one way or another.

but it does ask how to make juice, not liqueur

:P

Then he just says drinks. Glycerine would work too. I bet his use of the word "juice" was just a language snafu. Obviously you can't get juice from fennel seeds.

@Jolenealaska Not with that attitude

Have you ever had the Indian candied fennel seeds? I kind if like them.

yes, lovely

you often get a little bowl of them with your bill at Indian restaurants here

(of which there are many)

We don't have many at all. I bet if you asked 100 random Americans, fewer than 10 would know Tikka Masala.

Good

Tikka Masala is the burger and fries of Indian food

That's why I used that example.

We are about 200 yards from an Indian restaurant.

When the wind is in the right direction the exhaust from their kitchen extractors blows right into the house

It is the best advertising ever

'Welp, Indian tonight'

I used to live above a bakery. That was torturous. It's a wonder I didn't gain 100lbs.

In some places here you can get an Indian calzone - lovely chicken tikka pieces, charred in the tandoor, in a good Indian gravy, baked in a fresh naan

Yum! :) In addition to my vodka fennel extract, I'm doing a flavored vinegar just for giggles. I wonder if I will ever find a use for that?

hmm

might be good with fish

perhaps an oily fish like mackerel

cut through the oil

I was kind of thinking along those lines. I've been watching Chopped, it makes me think like that.

You might like The Flavour Thesaurus

lots of ideas for flavour combos

I ground my fennel too fine. It's going to be a pain to strain.

I bet I would like that.

coffee filters?

amazon.co.uk/Flavour-Thesaurus-Niki-Segnit-ebook/dp/B004FGMZCQ/…

$8 on the Kindle! I'm looking at a sample now.

D-Day today

I like the way it's written. Very conversational, not textbooky.

70 years ago today I probably would have been face down on a beach in Normandy with several holes about my person

So it is. I met a man who dropped into Normandy, he manned one of my VFW food booths.

It's the last time they are commemorating it on the beaches

WHAT??

Prince William is accepting the 'last salute' later

Why are they stopping the tributes? That's history we shouldn't forget. That's like taking Anne Frank off of required reading lists.

I don't think they're stopping them completely, they're just not doing big commemorations after this one

Is there a particular brand of Garam Masala you like?

Or better yet, a recipe?

I'm happy to toast and grind my own spices.

As long as I don't have to spend a fortune.

Oooh Frontier brand is highly rated. I can probably get that in the bulk aisle of my grocery.

It is much better fresh

pre-made stuff is fine the first time you open it, maybe the second, but it rapidly loses its flavour

buying it in bulk is not the way to go

you are much better off buying whole spices and grinding as and when

It's super inexpensive to buy small amounts of spices in the bulk aisle. I'll spend 15 minutes selecting the 20 most perfect bay leaves. I end up paying like 50 cents. A bottle of bay leaves in the spice aisle runs more like $8-10. So far I've been really happy with this brand, but I do like making my own spice blends.

if they're whole spices, go for it

This one looks pretty good: allrecipes.com/recipe/garam-masala-spice-blend I looked at Epicurious and FoodNetwork, but those recipes didn't look as good to me.

Have you ever heard of using dried rose-buds in it?

nope

2 tablespoons of turmeric is a lot

in my experience too much turmeric can really fuck up a dish

it's medicinal and bitter

I always add it a little at a time

Me neither: epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Garam-Masala-240907

that looks fragrant

Turmeric is weirdly astringent. Have you ever seen saffron in it?

no

saffron is more Persian/Middle East really

but there is no one right GM recipe

you have to develop your own

make one, tweak it, try that, tweak it again

I tend to go heavy on heat. I like cumin a lot too, I have to be careful with it. I haven't done a lot of Indian and I tend to go on little kicks. I think Indian might be my next culinary kick.

well, GM is only one of many spices

you would add chilli powder/chillis as well as GM

and more cumin and coriander usually

The fennel question guy asked about mixing the fennel tea with some kind of fruit juice. Can you think of a fruit that could be compatible? The tea just taste like fennel seeds. I added honey and it was nice. Milk complimented too.

pineapple might work

I just tasted the vinegar. THAT is interesting stuff.

flavoured vinegars and quick pickles seem to be very de rigueur these days

I love anything pickled.

so many people take the pickles off their burgers here

fools

That fennel vinegar is going to make a really interesting salad dressing.

foolish, foolish fools

I'll take theirs!

Now this looks interesting: bonappetit.com/recipe/beet-and-fennel-soup-with-kefir

I detest beets

they taste of soil

@ElendilTheTall OMG I used to do that too.

@Cerberus philistine

Well.

It's just too overwhelming.

Really? Wow. I've known a few people that hate beets. I don't get it.

Yeah I don't get the hatred either.

Dislike, I can understand.

@Jolenealaska they taste of soil

even pickled?

yup

pickled soil

@Cerberus girl

What I rather mean is that you can't taste the hamburger any more.

You you taste pickle with something else.

I really like the sourness of lemon, but vinegar, meh. Sometimes.

A List of Things Which I Do Not Like To Eat: seafood (with the exception of the occasional piece of cod or similarly bland white fish), beets, broccoli or its ilk, brussels sprouts, parsnips, cauliflower, fresh fruit (but not through choice), tarragon

not drastically bad

I have known people who will only eat ham, chips and crisps

I drink the juice of pickled hot peppers. When I make potato or tuna salad for myself I tend to use more pickles than potato or tuna.

We share one. I don't care for tarragon, but I like all the anisy things. Like fennel.

tarragon makes me feel sick

horrible, pervasive taste

bleugh

It just seems that a milligram of tarragon overpowers everything else.

precisely

pervasive

like stale garlic

my mother used to drive me mad putting stale garlic in stuff

you might as well chuck the whole thing out

Have you ever had black garlic?

"You can't taste the difference" she would say

"YOU can't"

@Jolenealaska no

I love it. It's fermented for a long time. It's like roasting squared.

i've seen it in the supermarket, but it's expensive and I wouldn't know what to do with it

@ElendilTheTall Thank you for this list!!

It's 3am. The birds are chirping about sunrise. I love this time of year.

Wow, you're even northerner than we?

@Cerberus no problem - I think a brown frame would be most appropriate

@Cerberus she's a Christmas elf, didn't you know?

@ElendilTheTall Not golden?

@ElendilTheTall I didn't know you believed in Coca-Cola...

cookingwithjulie.com/black-garlic-oli

Okay, so you are one whole box farther to the north than Lindy and I.

61.2167° N, 149.9000° W

That.

So you are a little above Oslo and Stockholm.

So Jolie, what's your List?

This time of year it never really gets dark. Dusk just melts into twilight.

Foods I hate?

We get a few hours of darkness.

Yes?

Only uni and liver stick out in my mind. I don't like tarragon, but it wouldn't have occurred to me if Tall hadn't mentioned it. I don't like red wine or scotch. I can't even be in the same room with canned peas.

I love fresh or frozen peas though. The smaller the better.

Ah, the List is taking shape...

Here's a weird one. I don't like strawberry ice cream. I like strawberries, and I like strawberry sherbet or gelato, but I've never had a strawberry ice cream that I like.

Every Thanksgiving I try to like pumpkin pie, but I never quite manage it. I don't like sweet potatoes or yams, but once I had one of those in tempura and it was fantastic.

Not even home-made strawberry ice-cream?

Without dairy.

I don't like commercial strawberry ice-cream either.

I've never had it homemade, but I've had premium store-bought. I don't hate it, but I don't care for it.

There are lots of foods that I used to not like, but I like now. And I've done a total flip-flop on the Miracle Whip vs Mayo thing. I'm in the mayo camp now. Except for potato salad.

Not sure what that is...

Perhaps you should try home-made strawberry ice-cream, it's basically just lots of strawberries with sugar.

@Jolenealaska Oh, add alcohol to the list if we're doing drinks as well

@Jolenealaska what is miracle whip?

it sounds deeply artificial

The flavor? All alcohol?

@Jolenealaska all alcohol

i use it occasionally in cooking, otherwise nada

Miracle Whip calls itself a salad dressing, but it's used just like mayonnaise.

realsimple.com/food-recipes/shopping-storing/food/…

ok

so it's commercial mayo by another name

Pretty much. Less fat, tangier.

If I am pushing the boat out, I will make my own mayo for potato salad

but otherwise it's got to be Hellman's

Americans are pretty divided. Miracle Whip people don't want mayo, and vice versa. I eat Hellman's Light 'cause I got used to it once so I no reason to go back to full fat. No other brand of light mayo though. Only Hellman's tastes right.

i saw a show a while back on how they made it

it is weird

at one point the mixture is brown

Hmm. I wonder how it is that Hellman's Light can legally call itself mayonnaise, but Miracle Whip can't.

Is that Hellman's? That's brown at a point?

all commercial mayo AFAIK

Weird.

I Googled about it and came up with this: cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/15611/… That always seems so weird when that happens.

what?

Googling a question and ending up back on Stack Exchange.

well, we are the font of all gastronomic knowledge, dontchaknow

My dad Googled something a while back and he got an answer written by me :)

"What sexual position gives me the most pleasure"?

Awkward Thanksgiving that year...

I'm think I'm safe except possibly on the IMDb politics board or this room.

This room is indexed by Google

Does your dad know your name? ;)

Oh yeah. It's my email and I use it everywhere. Same avatar everywhere too.

just a matter of time then

so, how's that LIBERAL ATHEISM working out for you @jolenealaska?

Dad's an atheist too, so we're ok there.

ah

Good ol' Dad

how does his politics differ from yours?

As a matter of fact, Dad and I see eye to eye on just about everything. I'm a little left of him on some things, but not much. He shares my attitudes about bigotry in general and he's very non-judgmental. He was approached about becoming a Iowa State Supreme Court Judge, but he declined. He said he would hate it. He would have been great at it.

probably the best type of person to do it!

Yep.

"The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one"

Yep.

@ElendilTheTall Why Hellman's?

It's not great.

it's the best commercially made one

I'm sure you can find better ones.

They have a new balsamic mayo that's really yummy.

We have a local brand, for example; but I have tasted French brands that are also a lot better.

(I tried Hellman's once, but found it meh. It's just one among many supermarket mayos.)

@Cerberus i'm sure, but they cost a lot more usually

for slapping on a sandwich for some tang, Hellman's is adequate

But it's still cheap, for how much you use of it on a daily basis.

I pay about €4 for a jar that lasts months.

Christ man, I like Hellman's, get over it!

Hehe.

kicks over jar of Hellman's

you're like a 3-headed dog with a bone

With a jar of good mayonnaise, rather.

licks mayonnaise

if I want good mayo, I make my own

If i want mayo, I use Hellman's

has to admit that perhaps licking 99% fat is not super wholesome

If anyone from Hellman's is reading, yes, you can use that catchy phrase, and yes, I will take that cheque for $1,000,000

Ton's Majoneis is as good as home made.

Wow, it's brilliant!!

So creative!

Egg yolks or whole eggs? Blender, food processor or whisk?

Depends

Duke's mayo > Hellmans

Hard.

Miracle Whip is snot.

@PrestonFitzgerald no one asked you, man

;)

@Jolenealaska I think you can get good results with all methods.

@PrestonFitzgerald Thank you!!

@Jolenealaska yolks, food processor usually

depends how thick I want it

I haven't made it since I got a stand mixer, that would probably work well

I have a question.

What are the most common things that can go wrong when using a whisk?

With mayo?

Aside from not adding the oil drop by drop.

Yes.

Because at home I've never had any problems with mayo, but in the cottage it always fails, also when my brother does it.

And we couldn't understand why.

We used normal eggs bought the same day, and normal oil.

We washed the glass bowl beforehand.

We washed the whisk.

One time, it appeared to work, but then it separated into a horrible mess after adding more drops.

This is my go-to. It has never failed me. I usually use vinegar or juice from pickled hot peppers instead of lemon juice.

Hmm that is more or less what we did, except half the amounts and no sugar.

thekitchn.com/homemade-mayonnaise-separated-140473

or youtube.com/watch?v=-g32N31UwbA

adding the oil drop by drop and whisking like the dickens is the about it

opposable thumbs help a lot

It has now been a full 2 weeks since we have seen SAJ.

@Jolenealaska yup

I see no way to determine whether or not he's alright

we only know his initials and a vague job description

I can't even remember what city he lives in

Are those really his initials? I seem to remember him saying that they were random. He lives in Gaithersburg.

He was born in August, 1967.

I'm fairly sure they are, his first name is Scott

> seen 18 hours ago

Well! Ok, one time I'll buy it was a cat nudging the mouse, but not twice. Well, that would seem to say he's alright. Good.

now the question is, why has he buggered off?

perhaps he felt he was spending too much time here

Weird that he didn't say anything. He has to know that just disappearing would cause concern. For someone who doesn't like drama, that's a lot of drama.

considering he doesn't do much actual answering on SO, it's like he goes there just to see if he has any messages...

Yeah could be.

It's odd.

Maybe he doesn't love us anymore.

It's my fault, isn't it?!

@PrestonFitzgerald yes. yes it is

I will be scarred for life.