The Frying Pan - 2014-09-24

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12:06 AM

@ElendilTheTall Or how few!

7 hours later…

6:38 AM

@ElendilTheTall How 'bout this for the tomato thing. It's not perfect, but perhaps compelling enough to convince people (who actually do like fresh tomatoes) to try it?

-4 tomatoes slices from two tomatoes, all as identical as possible, separated into two groups. Each of the two groups will contain the slice closest to the stem end and the slice the most distant. (I'll plan to make salsa, 'cause that's gonna take a few tomatoes to get just right)

-I've got little disposable plastic plates that will allow me to weigh the slices individually on my gram scale without losing any juice.

-I can then place in order, from the bottom up: the plate, a folded white paper towel, a rack, and the slice. I'll weigh the salt.

-I'd treat the 4 slices exactly the same, but for the salt. Say 45 minutes each side on the rack, then 5 minutes each side directly on the paper towel (the rack removed with as little water clinging to it as possible). Weigh the 4 plates separately (including water and paper towel), and then just the slices.

-That should give me the data of difference of moisture loss between the two groups and the white paper towel should show some evidence that the difference is just water.

-I'd finish up with a photo that demonstrates soggy vs non-soggy in a finished product. Perhaps omelets, grilled cheese sandwiches or 2 halves of the same pizza.

-It wouldn't be the avocado thing by a long shot, but maybe interesting to people who like tomatoes, but not the sogginess???

7:59 AM

hmmm

I'm dubious about the whole concept tbh

all you're proving is that salt removes liquid from stuff - we know that already

the people that think it adversely affects the flavour will not be convinced anyway

@Jolenealaska ping

Yeah, that's a point.

you know it makes sense

did you manage to get some sleep?

Yep...too much actually.

crazy talk

ooo, is today PT day?

I slept until like 9pm... when I finally zonked, I really zonked.

Yes, it is. The VA is picking me up at 3 pm for my 430 appt (thank goodness for my Kindle)

8:15 AM

it's what, 0015 now?

So today I'm just going to take half of my wakey-wake pill, just to be on the safe side.

Yep, 0015

So, of course now I'm wide awake. I'm going to lay down at 4am and just play Scrabble.

If I zone in and out a little between 4am and noon, I'll be fine.

i see

well, it's getting positively Autumnal outside

after the driest September since 1960, it has pissed it down all night

We've got frost in the morning now.

the leaves are turning, a chill has introduced itself

Ooh...you'll know this..

8:20 AM

time to break out the autumn/winter music

@Jolenealaska i doubt it, but go on

I e-mailed my application for Anchorides. The application itself is 6 pages. I sent each page as a separate attachment. After I sent it, I doublechecked my sent folder. All pages were there, all looked fine...

I even looked at the individual pages as a slideshow, from my sent folder.

ok...

I got a call this morning that they didn't get page 3.

???

meh, it happens

the fact that it's in your sent folder makes no difference

it's bouncing through all kinds of servers before it gets to its destination

That's the question...

8:23 AM

it can get lost at any one

@TomW mornin'

So it isn't bouncing back after the destination.

Hi @TomW

mornin' all

generally speaking, these days it's easier and more reliable to simply use Dropbox

zip multiple files together, put them in your Dropbox, then send the link

@ElendilTheTall depends on where you're sending it. Some organisations block 'file-sharing' sites

Have you reported Elendil yet for flagrant profile padding? Can we expect the profile police today? I'll make popcorn.

8:28 AM

@Jolenealaska damn it, I've done every one of those things

that's just the stuff I can tell you about

you think you were hot shit working for the NSA! missy, that ain't nothin'

but I've said too much

<sends drones to kill witnesses> sorry guys, national security and all that, I'm sure you understand

:) I've got to put together my dinner, it's all set up, it won't take long. Back in a bit.

0.o dinner? How far behind is Alaska?

jolene does not conform to the normal rules of space and time

it is 0030 in Alaska

ah

yet it is dinner time in Jolenia

long story short, jojo doesn't sleep well, so is foot loose and fancy free when it comes to her hours

@TomW how are things in sunny Berkshire this fine morn?

8:49 AM

@ElendilTheTall you must be thinking of a different Berkshire

oh?

Land of the Berks?

is it not sunny?

far from it

spending my week off at home just chilling out

lucky bugger

well, they made me take it

did they make you chill out? no

8:54 AM

haven't been able to organise a holiday or anything, and I'm meant to be moving house soon, so need to keep my time free and my money in the bank

;)

you should be packing in that case

well, 'soon'

it's been months. Issues with solicitors.

tut

our move was mercifully smooth, but it still took 8 weeks

the previous owners had had searches done for all the usual stuff, about 8 months before

but we still had to pay to have them done again

of course

they only last 6 months apparently

one of them was checking for coal mines

funnily enough, no one had a dug a coal mine under the house in the intervening period

9:17 AM

Ha! :) Dinner time in Joleneia! It's good too, I got a little avant-garde cheffy.

oh yeah? did a dragged quinelle with your ketchup eh?

Little things...I made a rice noodle soup, quite freestyle with my rather ridiculously large collection of Asian condiments. I fried sunny-side up eggs, and used a bit of mirin and soy under the lid...eggs went on top of the soup.

sounds good to me

mirin, that's something I need to try

/buy

Weird but true that it goes well with a kind of aged Gouda and pickled hot pepper crostini.

Mirin is like sesame oil, if you haven't used it, you wouldn't get it.

But it's huge.

I do use sesame oil

but egads does it smoke

9:27 AM

But you see what I'm saying about its flavor?

yep

@TomW you're getting it too hot

It somehow makes everything taste so much more Chinese, yet if you didn't know better you'd think the dish was fine before you added it!

I've heard an audible 'poomf' and a billowing smoke cloud when it hits the wok before

i never stir fry with sesame oil (despite what jolene says), I always add it at the end as a flavouring

9:29 AM

@ElendilTheTall yeah trouble is, I cook on electric, 1-5 isn't hot enough and 6 is thermonuclear

Mirin is the same way, but Japanese.

groundnut oil is better for stir frying

neutral flavour, good high smoke point

and usually the next thing in is a big pile of cold, damp leaf vegetables

@Jolenealaska did you have the beef and oyster sauce?

Yes I did! And made soup with the leftovers.

It was yummy! Thank you.

I bet the smoking point of sesame oil is like that of EVOO.

7

Q: Chinese alternative to Olive Oil?

I'm actually in china and here olive oil is expensive and difficult to be found. I need it to fry slightly onion/garlic for ex. to prepare tomato sauce. What can I use as alternative?

substitutions olive-oil

I buy Kadoya Brand in a 56 OZ jug. This stuff doesn't smoke at home kitchen stir fry temps.

9:36 AM

is it just sesame oil, or is it toasted sesame oil?

amazon.com/Kadoya-Brand-Sesame-Expedited-shipping/dp/B002HMLMHY/…

toasted

Because the latter is what you usually find here, and I wonder if that makes a difference

very highly regarded brand in Japan

very, very toasted. Very flavorful.

user image

it doesn't say toasted....

now there's a good experiment for main

It is...it's very brown and toasty.

You're right!

Good one!

9:39 AM

well, I learned my chinese cookery from Ken Hom, who is a fucking legend

he says use groundnut oil for frying and sesame oil for flavouring, and by buddha that's what I do

I even have an IR thermometer and a quite hot stove!

Look at it here:

amazon.com/Kadoya-Sesame-Oil-11-oz/dp/B002HMN6SC/…

I don't know why they don't say it, but it's toasted.

my housemate has started cooking exclusively with coconut oil

hipster

remarkably, she's really skinny. I wonder if that will change

For any vegetables I use butter when I can. It's just so nice

have you ever cooked carrots entirely in butter?

as in, 250g of it?

amazing

9:44 AM

like, poached?

confited, yeah

@TomW What brand of Sesame oil do you use? It seems that yours has a lower smoke point than mine, so your brand would be good for a smoke point experiment.

Tesco own-brand

the only one they have I believe

lol, good luck finding that in AK

Yeah, I think that will be a no-go!

9:46 AM

Is this page visible to non-UKers?

Yep!

UK's premier exploitative and probably-corrupt megastore chain

but they do Clubcard points!

Oh I'm not complaining, I use them

I will bestow upon thee my rather nice dressing recipe that includes sesame oil: 3tbsp sunflower oil, 1tbsp sesame oil, 1tbsp rice or white wine vinegar, 1tbsp ketchup, 1tbsp soy sauce, 1 clove of garlic, grated

9:49 AM

I wonder if they'll ship to me. WOW, that's cheap. I can't look at a small bottle like that for much less than $8. That's why I buy it in jugs from Amazon.

whisk it all together, thank me later

@Jolenealaska I have a bottle four times the size of that for the same price, from the local Chinese supermarket

soy sauce is likewise much better value there too, 1 litre for 1.50

@Jolenealaska is that just because AK is expensive?

@TomW do you have an Asian supermarket near you? They are amazingly cheap

I read something on the BBC about remote parts of Alaska being incredibly expensive for basic fresh stuff at certain times of year

We really don't have a good Asian market. We used to, but it closed. Now to get stuff like that, you have to go to the New Saguya. It leans heavily Asian, but it's got hard to find products from all over the word. For things that I can find elsewhere, they have a huge mark-up.

9:53 AM

e.g. $20 cabbages

Yes and no...In remote places (Barrow) things like fresh milk are prohibitively expensive.

seewooreading.co.uk

@ElendilTheTall probably. I've always been a bit tentative going into those sorts of places in case I realise I can't recognise anything on the shelves and stand there looking like an idiot

@TomW see above

all the labels are in english

whenever I go, half the shoppers are British stocking up on soy and rice wine

Here in Anchorage, we don't really notice how expensive our groceries are until we visit outside. I go to the grocery in Iowa...

9:55 AM

you can also usually get the Japanese curry paste too, if you like Katsu curry from the likes of Wagamama

tastes exactly the same

Holy crap! Produce especially (except what grows well here) is 3-4X the price in my grocery than in Iowa.

@Jolenealaska....three thousand miles away?

@TomW she's from Iowa

ah

gotcha

sorry, I'm acting like your PR man here jojo

"Ms. Jolene will not be answering any more questions" <Jolene sits stony-faced behind massive sunglasses>

9:58 AM

hee..no prob! You save me from having to type it! :)

user image

there it is, left centre!

golden curry

#swag

gorjus

that's the hot one, medium is gold, over on the right

user image

Squid brand fish sauce (far left) is a massive global monopoly

it's the only one I ever see apart from supermarket own

user image

Pearl River soy sauce there left of centre - the best Chinese soy

user image

all the sesame oils you could ever want!

I should warn you that if you go, you will realise that all Chinese restaurants just buy everything in massive bags and bottles and dump it all together

buckets of sweet and sour sauce etc

I am ok with this

Yeah, the polythene jug of bright pink Generic Sauce did unnerve me somewhat

user image

they seem to have a good range of woks too!

10:04 AM

NO WAY??!! You haven't seen 3 Crabs?! That's Thai (although it's actually made in Hong Kong for the American market). I thought THAT was the ubiquitous brand. (also very highly regarded)

changing subject slightly, my favourite brewery puts out yet another special brewdog.com/product/cap-dog

@Jolenealaska i've only ever seen Squid brand

amazon.com/Three-Crabs-Brand-Fish-Sauce/dp/B00279PU6G/…

is this going to start another Squid vs 3 Crabs war?

HA! :)

10:06 AM

@ElendilTheTall attack its weak points for massive damage

@TomW tee-total, sorry. you'll get no enthusiasm from me. ಠ_ಠ

> Subtly sweet, with big resin and chocolate notes, balanced by spicy and smoky flavours

@ElendilTheTall in that case you especially wouldn't like much of Brew Dog's stuff

translation: it tastes like beer

extremely heavily hopped. The palate takes time to acclimatise to hops I believe

I'm sure

10:07 AM

non-drinkers find them awful except in very small quantities

@TomW Unlike Tall, I enjoy booze once and a while, but not beer. Bleech :)

Bavaria do a 0% alcohol Wheat beer which is nice

that's probably the opposite of hoppy - it's almost fruity

@Jolenealaska more of a Bailey's and Aftershock slammer girl, eh?

;)

@rumtscho morning rumi

I've become all too accustomed to it and need to drink considerably less. I'm doing a trial run for Sober October to see whether I can hack it atm

do you go out much?

I imagine my tee-totalism is made considerably easier by being a friendless recluse

Someday I'll admit my favorite drink. That day is not today. It's downright embarrassing.

10:10 AM

@Jolenealaska I'm going to say... Midori

Lots. Pub after work at least once a week, usually twice

then usually out at the weekend

ah

well that will make it trickier

Midori..ha! Not even close :)

still, there's always draught cola drink

Buckfast

MD 20-20

something else awful

10:11 AM

White Lightning

Carlsberg Special Brew

After 2 fillings yesterday, my tipple of choice is Adam's Ale

what was that caffeinated alcopop that got banned?

Warp Nine?

I have no clue really, I haven't been in a pub in years

Four Loko

10:14 AM

no, no, no, and, no

OK, I see why it was banned

like Red Bull but 12% alcohol

jeesus.

@TomW christ

that's like caffeinated wine!

yep.

on a spookily relevant note: mashable.com/2014/09/22/starbucks-beer-flavored-coffee

Oh Yuck!

10:18 AM

yeah, malt doesn't need to be fermented. Malt drinks aren't a new thing, but roasted...might be

10:31 AM

<whistles>

Funny thing, I tend to open lots of pages while I chat. Today I happened to do a Google for crostini because my spellcheck choked on it...

here :) just typing slow...

... (my spellcheck chokes on anything remotely culinary). Just now I went to close it and quickly saw the search results.

The first page is just full of high level/celebrity/cookbook chefs, teaching how to make crostini.

Even just plain crostini.

Hello everybody.

Hi rummi!

The old problem of the nutrition tag has been bugging me for the last few days.

Next up, how to boil water...

10:36 AM

@rumtscho I've been losing sleep over it myself ¬_¬

I proposed two possible solutions on meta, and also explained the background why I want to tackle it now

6

Q: Can we rename [nutrition] to [nutritional-content]?

People often think that because there's a nutrition tag, nutrition questions are on topic. So: Are there any on-topic questions which can be described by nutrition but not nutritional-content? Is there another better name? nutritional-content is good because it clarifies that we only discuss wh...

discussion tagging

If you're interested, please go over there and add your thoughts to both possible solutions. And of course also the older proposals in the question and in Aaronut's answer.

@ElendilTheTall I know it might sound arbitrary to you, but you are not the moderator who recently scared off a very promising new user user by having to follow a confusing rule.

The only thing that bugs me about your suggestion is that it further muddles the issue for people without a strong command of English.

@Jolenealaska I have two new suggestions. The one is about renaming, the other is to remove it completely. I am not sure myself which one I'd prefer, so I wrote them both up for discussion.

As for the command of English, I don't think it's that much of a problem.

What we have here is not a failure to understand the word, but of people understanding it too well.

nutrient-composition would be better than nutrients-composition imo

It is so obvious to them that "nutrition" means "what is healthy", that all our arguments sound ridiculous to them

10:41 AM

or perhaps nutrient-content

I hadn't read the last answer, as I cursored down, I thought it was old and deleted. brb

Adding a tag which is different to understand, but is obviously not directly understood as "everything nutrition", may confuse the users in the sense of "I don't know when to use this fact", but will prevent them from thinking "They have a tag for nutrition, so nutrition is obviously not off topic", which is the main issue here.

@ElendilTheTall I thought of that too, but see the end of my answer. I prefer composition, exactly because it is the less common word when talking about nutrition.

I know it's hard, normally in information architecture, we are very hard trying to find terms which will very obviously convey our meaning.

to me, nutrient composition suggests 'what makes up nutrients' not 'what nutrients are in x food'

But in this case, the goal is to bring people away from an intuitive, but wrong, interpretation

And we cannot give them a word for the correct interpretation, because it is a concept not commonly used in our culture, so we have not developed a word for it.

@ElendilTheTall This is a very interesting aspect, I hadn't thought of it this way.

whereas nutrient content is a an existing phrase meaning the amount of nutrients in a food

10:49 AM

@ElendilTheTall Yes, but sadly it is very frequently used in "contains stuff which is good for you" context.

It's a hard problem, I don't know which is better. This is why I asked for the discussion.

well, if any reference to nutrients or nutrition is going to leave the door open for misinterpretation, then close the door

if in doubt, leave it out

@ElendilTheTall so, what is your personal preference? Delete it altogether, or use nutrient-content?

delete it

it's too easily misinterpreted

You don't have to decide right away, but I'd appreciate it if you could leave it on the Meta question, where it is documented for others who want to participate in the discussion

I need to read again and ponder - but right off the bat, I would consider an completely on-topic question, and how it should be tagged...

10:54 AM

I don't think I will do anything about it before Jefromi has noticed it and told us his reaction. He had the initial idea, and also I'd like to see as many people as possible participating in this thing, because it has been an old and difficult policy problem. I wish I could reach more people than just you chat regulars and Jefromi, but truth is, nobody else reads Meta (not even myself :( )

@Jolenealaska Both solutions will involve suboptimal tagging and lower discoverability, of course. But I think the trade off is justified.

@rumtscho yeah, I never do

"Does blanching broccoli before roasting eliminate more vitamin c than just roasting alone?"

I have no particular answer in mind, just the question.

How would that question best be tagged?

horrible-green-foods

In order to answer my small question (how to tag this), I would need to think more than I care to at the moment.

@ElendilTheTall You kill me! :)

But, I think the best answer to that small question, is likely also to be the best answer to the larger question.

I'll ponder it when I'm more alert and inclined to ponder.

Right now I'm drinking hot chocolate and trying to think of puppies. I want lullabies in my head, but I can't get rid of Tim Minchin's The Good Book.

Decidedly a poor lullaby.

@Jolenealaska I'm completely OK with tagging it blahncihg and roasting. It doesn't touch the main purpose of the question, I know.

11:09 AM

Actually, it does.

If that's the best way to tag the hypothetical question...

Then do we really need a nutrition tag? Maybe not.

Maybe I can fall asleep...is it a hypothetical question or a hypothetical question?

it's a hypothetical, non-hypothetical question.

@Jolenealaska <bows>

@Jolenealaska We need a nutrition tag for the case where somebody wants to find all questions about the amount of Vitamin C, carbohydrates, flavonoids, etc. in any food, no matter if it's after roasting, or boiling, or something else. But I say screw this use case, and burninate the confusing tag.

I think I can! (maybe) I'm going to crawl into bed with my Kindle. perchance to dream I'll ponder more clearly on the morrow!

G'night, at least for now.

11:24 AM

night

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Sep '1424

The Frying Pan

Sometimes hot, always heavy. (cooking.stackexchange.com)

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