Ilaine

Can't find hardwood charcoal. Sightings welcomed.

My favorite was Old Iron Stomach's ribs, especially because they were hot, and I was cold. Also, ridiculously tasty. Tender, falling off the bone. Old Iron Stomach, the man with the hot meat. Huzzah! I wish I had tried the gluten free lemon bars. They looked sumptuous. I am doing low carb so felt virtuous at the time but now feel like a putz.

I am going through my pantry taking out gluten free foods that have starch, and will bring to the picnic. Segregated by packages that are still sealed, and ones that have been opened, if anybody has a use for the ones that have been opened. Most containers are sealed. Quinoa, oats, beans, gluten free noodles, etc. I don't think a food bank will take the opened packages, but it's all good food. I am eating very low carb these days and hate to see food go to waste. I will bring plastic shopping bags, too.

Chinese soup containers full of ice is a good idea. Starting that now. And plastic shopping bags full of ice from the ice maker is a good idea, too. Pack the freezer full of ice. Honestly, I need coffee more than I need food. I can run for days on coconut milk/almond milk/soy protein shakes, but without coffee, well, it's not pretty. How to make cold brewed coffee in a French Press. (America's Test Kitchen) Makes about 2 cups of coffee concentrate I like to make cold-brew with a medium roast, as I find it tastes more like coffee and less like the roasting process than dark or French roast. Light roasts tend to be too acidic. As with any kind of coffee brewing, it’s best to grind the beans yourself just before using them. The ratio of water to coffee is 1:1 by volume and roughly 4:1 by weight, so feel free to scale the recipe to suit your needs. If you don’t have a French press you can make the coffee in a pitcher and strain it through a fine-mesh strainer, and finally through a coffee filter, as in step 2. 3½ cups finely ground medium roast coffee (see note) Kosher salt (optional) 1. Stir together coffee and 3½ cups room-temperature water in large French press. Allow raft of ground coffee to form, about 10 minutes, and stir again to incorporate. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours (an hour shorter or longer is fine). 2. Using French press plunger, press firmly on grinds to separate them from concentrate. Pour coffee concentrate into coffee filter-lined fine-mesh strainer set over large measuring cup. Let sit until concentrate filters through, up to 30 minutes. (You should have about 2 cups of coffee concentrate; concentrate can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days). 3. Combine ½ cup coffee concentrate, ½ cup cold water, and pinch Kosher salt (if using) and pour into glass with ice. Drink. How to make cofd coffee concentrate. (Lyn Rosetto Kasper) Take 1 pound medium grind coffee. Add 10–11 cups of cold water. Leave it on the counter overnight. Strain in the morning. For hot coffee just add hot water to taste; for iced coffee, ice and water or milk. It should keep for 2 weeks in the fridge.

Or matches. They still make matches, don't they?

The zombies were having fun, the party had just begun . . . . The new storm deserves a new thread, is my opinion. DH just got home, stopped at Safeway on the way home, said that people were stocking up on bottled water, which I got at lunch (also Coleman lanterns and batteries). But nobody (but him) was buying bags of ice. Think ahead, people. Get ice before you think you need it. Cheap insurance. Don't be thinking, "well, maybe it will go north, and we don't have to worry." This storm is 300 miles wide. It's going to hit warm water soon, and when it hits, wherever it hits, it will be 400 miles wide. There will be power outages. It could be you. And all the lovely home made goodies in your freezer that you have put there since the derecho, what about them?

People are hitting the grocery store shelves early. I went to Springfield Costco at lunch, got water, batteries, and a couple of Coleman battery operated lanterns. They were being hit pretty hard by shoppers stocking up. A client of mine, who works at a Giant in Springfield, told me that they were out of water, bread, and milk. Asked Hubby to pick up bags of ice on the way home. We will put them in the freezer. Have to assess the food situation over the weekend. We don't eat much canned food, if we buy some and don't need it, we can donate to the food bank. Being from Louisiana, I may over prepare for Hurricanes, but, you never know.

Coming +1. This Saturday I am going to attempt recipes for Paleo bread, Paleo biscuits, and flax crackers, gluten free and low carb. Hopefully one (or more) will work, and I will share. I just might get wild and crazy and make some Chairman Mao braised pork belly. Hmmm. Braised pork belly on Paleo biscuits? Dean Ornish would not be amused! Parenthetically, the DR picnic conflicts with the Slow Food Snail of Approval Awards Party, which looks like a blast, but I love you guys better.

I eat at Buz and Neds every time I go to Richmond, and what I really, really love are the collard greens. Ambrosia. Used to love the herbed grilled garlic bread but now am gluten free. The brisket recipe has been changed recently, they slice it very thin, and it's tender and delicious.

For a completely different shape, lasagna noodles, try grilled eggplant or grilled zucchini.

Zora, you can get infinite page views on the New York Times. if you clean out your history, temp files, cache, cookies, etc.. On my PC, I use CCleaner which is free, and removes all that stuff in seconds. On my iPad, I manually delete history and cache in Settings for Safari. There probably is an app for that.

How long to simmer roasted bone beef broth? I have had two large slow cookers going since 7 pm and they look and smell pretty good.. Maybe it's actually stock. Not sure of the difference. Roasted beef bones, some with meat, shanks and ribs, some roasted carrots and leeks, and water.

And Buz and Ned's is still the answer to everything. Although Bob Sykes in Bessemer, Alabama, may be, as well.

Under the Olive Tree in Tysons Corner Mall has a wide variety of incredibly fresh and tasty extra virgini olive oils. Right now they are getting just pressed oils from the lower hemisphere. The displays tell you the polyphenol level, the level of oleic acid, the free fatty acid (FFA), and other information. This is the good stuff. Parenthetically, the similarity between the photo for the Sapore store and Under the Olive Tree makes me wonder if they are both customers of Veronica Foods' "open a store" promo? Never been to Sapore, no desire to park on Capital Hill.

Japanese overfishing for sushi and sneering at who? I would like to see the movie but anticipate my irony meter might hit the red zone. Anyway, where is it playing?

Mason jar sightings? Actual sightings, not "there used to be a place" please? I am looking particularly for a gallon jar for kombucha, but smaller ones, too.

Too many tomatoes! Heirlooms, not paste. What to doo.

You need to add something liquidy for the texture. You might prefer milk, or heavy cream, or half and half. I like almond milk or kefir, the less, the better. And if it's not sweet, you need to put in something sweet. Frozen ripe bananas are plenty sweet. I have diabetes so the only sweetener I use is stevia. You use the tamper while the mix is running. It's done when you see four little mounds on the top of the puree, one at each corner of the container.This is the strawberry ice cream recipe from the Vitamix site. http://www.vitamix.com/recipes/ There are even videos on youtube. This one is pretty funny. Here is a cute vidoe by a real Vitamix lady. Shows the tamping procedure and the four little mounds. I dunno but at that price, I am taking their word for it.

A Vitamix won't replace the Cuisinart but it will replace the blender. I keep the Vitamix on the counter and the Cuisinart in another storage area with the crockpots and the rice cooker. I use the Vitamix every day for a protein smoothie before I run out the door to work, so it may be more realistic to say that I keep it in the sink, soaking, until I get back home at night. (Don't want to mess up my work clothes).The company literature says "It cleans itself" if you process a batch of water with a few drops of dishwashing liquid, but "it cleans itself" does not apply to fish oil and the oil from coconut milk (components of my breakfast smoothie). You do need to scrub those out, by hand. I wish I could put it through the dishwasher. Have I mentioned that I really like the "ice cream" it makes from frozen fruit? Banana is my favorite, but peach is nice, too. Ordinary mortal blenders can't do that.

The question is the Dirty Harry question. You have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?

Our power was out for 60 hours, and we've thrown hundreds of dollars of food away. Some things in the freezer that were packed in solid did not thaw. It was just too hot for my husband to grill the things that were thawing, it was over 90 degrees in the house and no cold beer, but I admire the people with strong constitutions who did that. Judging from the way the neighborhood smelled (no smoke), nobody else was out there, either. We have an old fashioned copper line to the house, did not think to check that. I grew up in hurricane country so have always wanted to keep a copper phone line just in case. Soup, is your phone line copper or fiber optic? If fiber optic, no surprise that went out but if copper now you have me worried. I do have a battery operated cell phone charger but there was no cell phone reception at the house for at least a day, and could not get internet on my fully charged iPad, either. Funny, after we lost power Friday night, the iPad could still get internet but in the morning, no. We drove around Saturday morning charging the phones, looking for coffee and gasoline. Found both early at the University Mall in Fairfax. Everybody at Saxby's was very nice. The people in line at the Sunoco were very well behaved. I do have a question about what to save and what to throw out -- miso. We have half dozen different kinds of miso, which we have saved, but wondering whether it is safe. It is all the artisanal, non-pasteurized, long-fermented type, and I think it is probably still good. Found this on Food52: Good long term fermented (2 years and more) and non-pasteurized miso has a pH of 4.6 - 4.8, relative humidity between 48% and 52 % and a salinity rate of 8 - 11 % : these conditions make it suitable for very long conservation. At least 3 years in the fridge and 6 months at room temperature (the official labs says that "it is non potentially dangerous!"). For such a long period as 8 - 9 years, it may have dried, darkened, gotten stronger and the taste may be quite more acidulate. You may smell and taste it and see if you still like it. If white or blue mold has developed on the surface, just scrape it away, smell again and taste. Miso is safe food. http://food52.com/ho...ng-does-it-keep I am kicking myself for wasting a nice container of roasted beets -- I should have poured vinegar on them. And the cucumbers and the celery. Pickled beets and giardinaria. I will think of it the next time we lose power. Probably going to trash the nice big jar of China Moon hot chili oil, it has garlic in it, and no vinegar, so I fear botulism. Refrigerator looks strangely empty. http://seattletimes....80_chili25.html

DeBaggio still has tomato plants but this is the last weekend before they close for the season.

Not too late to plant tomatoes. For real. Trust me on this. But you can't start from seed, it requires plants. For Father's Day in 2011, I bought my husband five Earthboxes from DeBaggio, offering him to buy all of them at the Amazon price, offer accepted, and husband planted the weekend after, late in June. The plants were also from DeBaggio. Very nice plants. We got, seriously, hundreds of tomatoes. Earthboxes, while ugly, and environmentally questionable because they are made out of plastic, have huge advantages. After you put on the plastic mulch cover, it's a sealed environment. Water does not evaporate. Pests do not get into the soil. You won't have blight problems. I am otherwise Ms. Natural, and have turned most of our property into a wildlife refuge and pollinator habitat, but when it comes to tomatoes, Earthboxes rule. If you buy leggy tomato plants, plant them deep and sort of sideways. The stems, if buried underground, will make roots. Roots are good. The part above ground does not get confused, it knows to grow straight up. Tomatoes are actually vines, they can deal with it. Buy your tomato plants from DeBaggio and you will not regret it. Buy your Earthboxes from Amazon, the price is good, unless young DeBaggio will match it or at least come close.

I know a lot more about crawfish and oysters than I do about crab but the same thing is true for all three. They taste of the food they ate and the water that was their home. This is the reason the crabs at Cantlers are so good, the water is superb. Blue crab from the Gulf of Mexico and environs is very tasty and available when blue crab from the Chesapeake is not because the climate is warmer. I would not turn down Louisiana blue crab, no, it is sweet and good. But in Louisiana you are more likely to be served heavily breaded and fried crab cakes and forget Old Bay entirely. Maryland style is better. In Louisiana crabs are boiled in a spicy court bouillon and are a little waterlogged. Steamed is better. If the crabs are farmed and fed garbage they will taste like garbage. This is the biggest problem with imported crabs.

By George, you're right! I have a pack of Wang Globalnet "Korean style starch noodle" in the pantry and it calls itself vermicelli. On the back side of the package, it says (among other things) Flavor the rinsed "AL-DDLE-JAB-CHAI" with various spices such as sesame powder, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, onion, and garlic, adding sliced meats and vegetables, which makes "JABCHAI" in other words "CHOP SUEY." And there you have it. Apparently.