This was an article mentioned by that deserves a mention, and what better place than here to mention it :B

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry.....b0e6ac7092aaf8

People who bake use any excuse to heat up their ovens. They bake a cake to crown someone’s birthday, labor over cookies to celebrate a holiday, and whip up brownies because everyone loves chocolate. But it turns out that baking is about more than creating something sweet to eat. Baking, especially when it’s done for others, can be accompanied with a host of psychological benefits.

Baking is a productive form of self-expression and communication.

“Baking has the benefit of allowing people creative expression,” associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, Donna Pincus, told HuffPost. “There’s a lot of literature for connection between creative expression and overall wellbeing. Whether it’s painting or it’s making music [or baking], there is a stress relief that people get from having some kind of an outlet and a way to express themselves.”

For the rest, please click on the link mentioned above!

I saw this on my local WBZ Channel 4 Boston news station, and its a great idea to give those who need help, a head start to something better!

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/03/.....ddiction-chef/

Enjoy!

From Chris, your bacon-loving moderator:

There are two things that I would like to address here, and I'm sincerely hoping that I don't sound like I'm being ultra-sensitive to criticism and what have you!

1.) -> We post food. This means the recipes involved, the way that it was made, and, we hope you learn from them when we share them with you, the viewer! I still keep hearing, however: "This isn't art."

Not true. This is why we have this -> http://www.furaffinity.net/view/20173236/

But that also leads to part 2 of this journal...

2.) "This isn't plated properly, doesn't look appetizing etc etc etc"

How can I put this:

I will not disagree the point that, when food is properly plated, it does make for a great looking dish that you would want to eat. (, and comes to mind as true professionals who love to plate, as does )

However...

I, as the moderator of this page, am NOT going to force anyone that wants to contribute their recipes on our page to plate them as well! There are just some furs (including myself) that just want to post their food straight up!

Does that mean that we are going to eat that straight out of the casserole dish / cooking pot? Well, no, unless we are really, REALLY hungry :P

I post my dishes the way that I cooked them because that's how I roll. Eventually, it will go on a plate with something, along with a nice glass of chianti (or hard cider in my case) and I'll call it a day.

Every fur is different, and the way that they cook is different, and I will -never- have them do otherwise.

I would like to hear from others about these subjects, however!

From Chris, your bacon-loving moderator:

First, I'd like to thank for this idea, as she has a YCH of the same here - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22383731/ (Warning - NSFW!)

But since we all know that the actual pie day is on March 14th (as in, 3.14...PI...get it :P)-

I'd like to challenge all of the cooking furs on our page to have/make their best pie for pie day!

savory....sweet...hand pies...pot pies....creampies...*coughs* That sort of thing!

There are no prizes, this IS just for fun - but the end date for this challenge IS on March 14th !

What say you folks, who's up for this?

From Chris: Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cooking gadgets that make my life easier.

But then, I found this story, which you'll find either interesting or disturbing, take your pick -

https://food52.com/blog/18805-will-.....oking-sidekick

By Mayukh Sen:

"Yesterday, at the Consumer Electronics Show (also known as CES), an annual Vegas gala showcasing the latest in the forever-changing world of the Internet of Things, Delaware-based startup RnD64 introduced Hello Egg to the world. Hello Egg is a voice-activated, artificial intelligence kitchen assistant. Think of it as Alexa for the home cooking set. It looks like a Minion draped in black with a cyclopian blinking eye. The site for Hello Egg professes that this eight-inch ovular hunk will be “your home-cooking sidekick”; it also claims that Hello Egg “liberates you from the throes of mundane decision-making and frees up an extra day off for you each month.” (The promise of a day off comes with an asterisk that goes unexplained on the website.)

Operating under the assumption that cooking is a real slog, especially for us precious millennials ("Hello Egg is reintroducing home cooking to the modern millennial's life," the press release reads), Hello Egg, along with its web-based and smartphone app Eggspert, offers a three-tiered system. Users plan their weekly meals according to dietary preferences. Are you vegan? Gluten-free? Lactose intolerant? A dog? (There's a dog on the website!) Hello Egg will cater to you. It organizes users' shopping lists, ordering produce to be delivered straight to them. Then, it provides users with “easy-to-follow, step-by-step, voice-navigated video recipes." If you screw up, it's fine. Hello Egg has a cadre of cooking experts for its 24/7 support staff.

Hm. Sounds like a lot of steps to me, especially for a product that promises ease and simplification. If Hello Egg's official website doesn’t totally explain the intricacies of this product, a promo video from a few months back offers some clarity.


Does this make sense now? This sleek, animatronic egg will relay cooking instructions to you as you prep for your meal. And the egg, that bon vivant, will keep “a lively conversation going expressing itself through looks and winks.” Just what I want for a cooking companion. This artificially intelligent egg reads newspapers, forecasts your weather, streams music, but never at the expense of convenience. It still sets timers for your food!

Hello Egg has received boosterish press from tech media in the past 24 hours, with few expressing caution at its necessity or adoptability. For anything close to skepticism, you’d have to go back to last September to coverage from The Verge, Vox Media’s tech website, which wondered what true cooking innovations Hello Egg had to offer that didn’t already exist in books and techniques that people have followed for years. Maybe a winking egg is better than having another female voice for an AI assistant, a rather unbecoming trend that conflates femininity with domesticity. Hello Egg swears to do "much more than you can expect form your smart home assistant.” As for me? I’ve never had a smart home assistant, so I’m not quite sure what to expect."

From Chris:

has a Facebook page, for anyone interested in cooking...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1587456864614796/

Of course, I prefer THIS webpage, but that's just being biased :P

***UPDATED LINK***

From - your cooking mod -

gave me the idea for this, so I thank you for that bud!

Now - speaking for myself, while I do have a rather substantial cooking library, with at least 44 cookbooks in my own personal collection (and climbing XD)...

But, the cookbooks that -I- can't go without, and have used from when I was first a pup, was The New York Times Cookbook with Craig Clairborne and the Joy of Cooking, which I mentioned in my last post on my own page.

Therefore, I have a two-part challenge:

1.) Please put the cookbook that you love, have tremendously learned from and can't live without here...

AND

2.) Cook at least ONE recipe from that cookbook as well (you are encouraged to use the recipe as is, or, put in your own tweaks to 'update' the recipe as you see fit!)

What say you my fellow chefs?

...I spotted this article in "Eater" not that long ago, and being the comic book geek...er...pangolin that I am, I thoight it was too good not to share....

P.S. - Yes, I know all about the Japanese cooking mangas (I.e. Shokugeki No Soma and Iron Wok Jun)!!!


"Chicago’s Fat Rice restaurant is unassuming from the outside. Neighboring corners host a gas station and auto parts store. The word “restaurant” is painted in yellow and red above a gray awning that might look like the entrance to a seedy nightclub if not for the brightly illustrated posters taped to the windows. Drawn by cartoonist Sarah Becan, they were an early addition to the restaurant. “When we opened, we didn’t have a sign — the inside is dark and the music is relatively loud,” says Fat Rice co-owner Abraham Conlon. “I wanted to have these bright, comic-esque posters in the windows that illustrated… that this is a fun place.”

The restaurant’s cuisine is inspired by Macau, the wealthy gambling haven on the southern coast of China where the longtime presence of the Portuguese eventually influenced the territory’s food. “The cuisine we focus on brings in a lot of different elements, things that feel like they’re not going to go together,” Conlon says. So perhaps it’s no surprise that its new cookbook The Adventures of Fat Rice, which features traditional food photography by Dan Goldberg, photos of Macau, and drawings by Becan, is a similar hodgepodge of styles.

'Cookbooks are beautiful and amazing things, but I don’t know that people cook out of them anymore.'

Because Becan’s art features so heavily in the restaurant, using comics to illustrate certain recipes was a no-brainer. But while it wasn’t a stretch for Fat Rice to put comics into their cookbook, in doing so, they’ve joined a growing number of cookbooks that have turned to the format.

Amanda Cohen’s Dirt Candy: A Cookbook, published in 2012, used comics to show both the restaurant’s backstory and how to make its recipes. Lucy Kinsley’s personal memoir Relish: My Life in the Kitchen coupled graphic novel narratives with illustrated step-by-step recipe instructions. Chop, Sizzle, Wow, a simplified, comic version of the classic Italian cookbook The Silver Spoon, was published in 2014. And most recently, Robin Ha’s Cook Korean! used a graphic novel format to illustrate how to make Korean dishes (ranging from kimchi to acorn jelly salad), and tell the history of the cuisine and how people serve it.

The format has proved popular with readers. Though Dirt Candy’s original location only had room for 18 diners at a time (the restaurant has since moved), the book is now in its sixth printing — proving that a good cookbook can go a long way to extending a restaurant’s reach.

But comic cookbooks can do something for home cooks, too — make recipes less daunting and easier to follow. Cookbooks are still in demand, but many — with their overly aspirational food photography — wind up as coffee-table books for the kitchen. Cohen describes today’s cookbooks as “inspirational,” more focused on visuals than the cookbooks of the past. “Cookbooks are beautiful and amazing things, but I don’t know that people cook out of them anymore,” she says.

Once upon a time, the cookbooks that found their way into most homes were often written by home cooks or organizations like Women’s Day, Conlon says. Text-heavy books like Joy of Cooking were never meant to be used for decoration; they were kitchen tools. But when restaurants started writing cookbooks, that all changed. In the UK, sales of celebrity cookbooks rose by 250 percent in 2012 alone. Julia Child was teaching people the art of French cooking; cookbook authors of today are selling a lifestyle, a brand, or some combination of the two, sometimes sacrificing usefulness in the process. Food from these cookbooks are more “statement” than “weekday meal.” As a result, most people today turn to Google or websites like Allrecipes.com when they’re hungry.

Comics help cookbooks become fun, “so people wouldn’t necessarily be intimidated” by the recipes.

“I’m sure there are some people out there who cook from a book but, from a restaurant’s standpoint, it’s an advertisement for the restaurant,” Cohen says. Conlon describes his cookbook in a similar way. “It’s a cookbook, but it’s also cataloguing something we’ve done over the past two years of the restaurant.” He hopes people will cook from Fat Rice and says the team tried to present their recipes in a “fun light… so people wouldn’t necessarily be intimidated by it.”

In the Fat Rice cookbook, the comic instructions fall into two categories. So-called “wok comics” look like traditional comic strips and show step-by-step instructions of how to use a wok to make some of Fat Rice’s recipes. “Thing things,” named for the helpful hand in The Addams Family, are simpler comics that show cartoon hands going through the process of shaping empadas (a type of fish pie), dumplings, and papo seco (Portuguese bread rolls)."

For the rest, please go here - http://www.eater.com/cookbooks/2016.....ook-comic-book

From Chris, your bacon-loving mod:

...I'd like to give my (rather belated) thanks to all of our members and chefs who have shared their recipes with our group. I was....away for a bit, for personal reasons; however, I definitely appreciate all the support that -I- personally got from a few furs for getting me through that rough patch.

And I'd like to think our group is more than just about sharing our cooking recipes. It's about sharing the love we put into making it and the love of sharing that knowledge with others as well. So without that...yeah, this would not be a better world, trust me.

On a side note...

IRON CHEF AMERICA is returning back to Food Network !!!

http://www.eater.com/2016/11/28/137.....rk-alton-brown

With Alton Brown, no less :

And a second side note...

Who knew "Ron Burgundy" could inspire a restaurant :P

http://la.eater.com/2016/11/29/1378.....727.1480458798

Let's keep things cooking folks!

From Chris, your cooking mod:

We would like to mention one of our members as they have a student restaurant of their own, and mentions said place here - http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7921863/

"Good Afternoon!!

To all the Furries in the Portland, Oregon metro area please come and have lunch at my student runned restaurant. SHARP (the restaurant's name) is Open! Except, this is the last term the restaurant will be open. After this class is over, the restaurant will be closed forever. Our class is trying to go out with a bang and break the record of customers in a single day.

We are open Thursdays and Fridays from 11:30pm to 2pm. We do stop seating at 1:30pm.

Sharp is at 34 NW 8th Ave, Portland, OR 97209

Our menu rotates every three weeks. The first three weeks we served a European inspired menu. Now our menu is derived from Middle Eastern Flavors.

Apps- couscous salad with marinated lemons and balsamic vinaigrette.
Hummus plate made with tahini and chickpeas

Entrees- lamb Gryo burger
Rock fish with rice pilaf
vegetable Mousaka

Dessert- Firnee a pistachio cardamon custard or pumpkin Brulee custard
Baklava

For any furs that don't live in the Portland area please spread!! It will help us reach our goal. The food we serve is top notch. Hope to see you in the dining room!! Thank you!"

From Chris, your cooking mod -

I spotted this article on the BBC News Website, and I thought it was rather interesting, so see what you think!

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37800097

"Why do we love and hate different tastes?

By Sean Coughlan

"Why do people like one type of food and really dislike another? How much are our responses to food, including putting on weight, influenced by genetics?

And could the taste of food be chemically re-engineered to appeal to particular groups, such as the elderly?
A unique summit of some of the world's leading chefs and top scientists put our complicated relationship with food under the microscope.

This "Brainy Tongue" experiment, a collision of science and cooking, took place in San Sebastian in the Basque region of northern Spain, a seaside resort famous among food lovers for its Michelin-starred restaurants.

It was staged at the Basque Culinary Center, a university entirely dedicated to researching food.

'Unpeeling the layers'

Heston Blumenthal might have been a pioneer of scientific precision in the kitchen, but his latest passion is investigating how food can be so strongly linked to memory.

Whether it's the scents of a seaside holiday, ice cream bought as a childhood treat, or a box of cereal, he says a meal can be a way of "unpeeling the layers" of emotions.

Chef Andoni Luis Aduriz said restaurant customers wanted a shared experience-
He says: "We bury things, and then when you start talking, 'Do you remember that cereal? Oh yeah, variety packs. I loved it when I got the toy or there was the bag that wouldn't open properly.'
"You have this discussion at the table, you start revealing, you start opening up your own memories, you start opening up with positive nostalgia, the floodgates open."

Mr Blumenthal says he wants to experiment with how a restaurant can use "storytelling" to coax out those memories.

Science of taste

He says chefs need to recognise the brain is the "gatekeeper" for enjoying food and before a mouthful goes near the lips, the brain has made millions of computations.

And his "restless perfectionism" continues to test the "difference between perception and reality". "

The rest you can read with the link above, but its rather intriguing!

This is a new request that comes from who says:

"Hey! Weird request, but would it be possible to get a "Recipe recommendations" on the FACCC for chanterelle mushrooms? Just came into five hundred grams of 'em and wanna play around!"

I dunno about you, but, -I've- always liked chantrelles (and they are NOT cheap where I live either :B)!

So if you would like to put in your recipe here, or a link to your dish with chantrelles, lets see what we can do!

This is a recent journal from that I think deserves a mention, I apologize for not getting to it sooner :B

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7812457

"who's hungry? i am, that's the problem, but i hate eating alone. so here's a fun game we can play!

suppose we're having a massive potluck dinner, you have to list four dishes you'd bring, your reason for loving them, and why it's good potluck food. then you tag two people and they have to do the same!

for the potluck i would bring.

1: these little things my brother taught me to make when i was in seattle. you take a Ritz cracker, spread some whipped cream cheese on it, sprinkle on some capers and top that with a piece of smoked salmon. they're DELICIOUS and easy to make a ton of, especially if you have help. they're great party food.

2:My staple is my Nacho casserole, i love the stuff because i can make tons of it for a pittance and it's a huge hit with my friends and family, especially one of my friends, if i tell him i'm making it, i can expect a visit from him in about an hour. i'd crank up the cheese and add meat for the potluck and put some quac and sour cream on the side, I'd also have some olives in it, because why not.

3: no potluck is complete without salad right?at least that's what the most health conscious of us would say since an average midwestern potluck is the nutritional equivalent of 5 state fairs, meaning that it's like eating a tub full of fried mayonnaise balls. not healthy at all. so i'd bring a nice caprese salad, tons of it. tomatoes mozzarella and basil in a balsamic reduction and olive oil? yes please. simple and delicious and quite nutritious, plus cheap!

4: Dessert is always good. i'd bring my favorite Applesauce, made to my moms recipe, chunks of Macintosh apple boiled down with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, great stuff, it's a big smell of my childhood and i love sharing it with my friends. takes a while to make but my parents have a tree in their backyard so i can get the apples for free."

So who's in, any takers?

From Chris:

I came across this rather interesting article on the Food 52 webpage - https://food52.com/blog/17940-whisp.....chicken-sounds

And it's rather interesting, since it deals with the 'psychology' of food - with what sounds we associate with food, for example, and how it makes us respond to it! (It goes without saying that there's definitely a 'Pavlov' effect at work :3)

So I wonder:

What are the best sounds you hear, when you are cooking / have made a dish?

UPDATE: There is also an article about this in the Boston Globe, quite recently!

https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifesty.....SIN/story.html

From Chris:

I've been seeing from more and more restaurants, where they give you loads and loads of food...but you still can't quite finish it *dies*

Or, if you serve a really big meal, sometimes you get stuck with the extra plates!

So there is my challenge - if you get leftovers from your next big meal, I'd like to see a new dish made out of it!

Any takers?

This comes from who says:

"Hello, I was wondering what's the best seasonings and best way to cook a pork shoulder roast? This will be my first time cooking one(in about a week or so) and I don't know anything about it or things to serve with it. Thank you in advance."

Now, on my end I have - http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18127160/

And there's also 's recipe for roast beef on , which I see no reason why it cant be applied to pork.

Has anyone else come across any interesting recipes / variations they'd be willing to share?

This is an interesting journal from !

~ http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7721915/

"here's how it goes. you list 5 foods you love and your reasons why you love them, if you can, list where you like the food the best from even if it's just home made. then you tag up to two people to do it as well

here i go

1: green bean casserole: normally i don't like green beans, but once you smother them in cream of mushroom soup with roasted garlic and mix in some french fried onions with a top layer of more french fried onions, it tastes like a gift from the gods themselves. i make it at least twice a month, whenever i need a bit of a pick me up or something hot and filling. so i like it better when i make it myself.

2: Tortas: i LOVE Mexican food and it should come as no surprise that when i discovered the mexican sandwich, i was instantly hooked. beans, spicy pork, onions avocado, salsa, cilantro, jalapeno, cheese, mayo, lettuce and tomato all on a soft bread that i can never find to buy myself? yes please, there's a taco truck two streets over from where i live that sells the best Tortas, they're huge, delicious and only cost like four bucks. well within my budget!

3: pancakes: oh pancakes, you sneaky things. you're dessert disguised as a breakfast. i don't make good pancakes myself, they always turn out wrong for me but there's this local place in the middle of the city here that means a lot to me and that serves the best buttermilk pancakes i've ever had, they're as big as the plate and they give you three of them with a big thing of butter on top and a selection of syrups, i usually go for blueberry. oh smittys, promise me you'll never leave me.

4: crab rangoons: i love seafood, i just barely ever get it because here in idaho it's really pricey, i understand that if you live near the ocean, it costs a little less but i only ever get seafood if it's on sale. and that's rare here. i love these crunchy dumplings full of crab meat and cream cheese so much that i wish i could have them every day. but i can only get them when we go to Happys chinese restaurant here in town, not that i'm complaining. they're cheap and delicious, well their main dishes are the rangoons are a bit spendy....

5: apple sauce: i'm not talking about the store bought, babyfoodesque kind of apple sauce, i'm talking about the home made kind. my mom makes applesauce every year when our apple tree produces apples, it fills the house with the smell of cinnamon , sugar, nutmeg and apples and makes me eager to sneak into the kitchen and steal a spoonful when my mom isn't looking. it's full of chunks of apple, as well as the saucy parts so it's bursting with appley flavor. it's a big part of my childhood and i love it a lot."

---

Well, all right, here are 5 foods that WE love (not including BACON of course, because that would be biased :P)

1.) Sushi - I can say, with pride, that I have been to *nearly* every single sushi restaurant within the Massachusetts and Rhode Island area. And there are a few great ones I know of - JP's Sushi Cafe, in Jamaica Plain, Boston; Takara Sushi, in Canton, MA; and Sakura Cafe, in Providence, RI. Yes, they are not cheap; yes, it is raw fish; but YES, it is delicious.

2.) As for Mexican, I dont mind that either, but I lean more towards things like chile rellenos, fish tacos, huevos rancheros and sizzling beef / chicken fajitas, with FRESH pico de gallo, not the canned crap. Something like that, I'll head to "El Azteca" over in Attleboro, MA. (and they're very reasonable in the $$$)

3.) 16 weeks has pancakes....but, why did you not mention waffles? Waffles = sex :P You can find sweet waffles; you can find savory waffles. And then there is Chicken and Waffles...which is orgasmic. Belly in Cambridge, MA is on my bucket list; though I've had IHOP's version, which pretty decent.

4.) Clams. No, not "that" kind of clam...I mean, the bivalve you boil, fry, or stuff into a clam fritter, quohog or etc. I wont deny its a New England thing, but dammit, there is just that something about those sweet, salty bellies that are just delicious :3 Evelyn's Drive In in Tiverton, RI has the best, but there is another clam shack in Warwick RI - the Rocky Point Clam Shack, which is lovingly dedicated to the long gone Rocky Point Park (and has a lot of their memorabilia as well)

5.) Ice Cream. Lets face it, you can't go wrong with that, whether its from the grocery store or a place you know thats near you. One of the best that -I- know is again in Tiverton RI - Four Corners, to be more precise - Gray's Ice Cream, which even has flavors in frozen yogurt! (ask for their rum raisin...*drools*)

So with that I tag and !

From Chris:

I spotted this article in Twitter from Saveur....and I'm sure you'll find it a bit disturbing as I did!

http://www.saveur.com/american-food.....SOC&dom=tw

AMERICANS WASTE 160 BILLION DOLLARS OF FOOD, IN PART BECAUSE IT'S NOT PRETTY ENOUGH

High standards for perfect-looking produce means tons of "ugly" fruit and vegetables get dumped before they ever reach grocery stores

By Amanda Arnold

"The incredible amount of food Americans throw away every single day is no new topic, but an article in the The Guardian today suggests that our inclination to put food in the trash instead of our mouths is worse than previously estimated. Where it was previously reported that we were throwing out around $100 billion worth of food annually, the article reports that the number is closer to $160 billion, or half the monetary value of all the food we consume.
One of the main sources of food waste has to do with an issue that permeates all of American culture: unrealistic beauty standards.

The issue isn’t as simple as individual consumers throwing out food or a supply-and-demand imbalance. While a lot of waste comes to Americans tossing away leftovers, or restaurants scrapping tubs of mashed potatoes and sides at the end of the night, one of the main sources has to do with an issue that permeates all of American culture: unrealistic beauty standards. We like our apples and pears and squash to be perfectly symmetrical and bruise-less, which puts an unmeetable demand on growers to provide the blemish-free produce that we want. What’s not attractive gets left to rot away in the field, given to livestock as food, or simply thrown straight into a landfill—before it ever reaches grocery stores.

What does this mean? According to research in the Guardian article, a whole slew of issues that harm the planet: global pollution, a loss of water and land resources, and overflowing landfills. “Within the US, discarded food is the biggest single component of landfill and incinerators,” the article notes, which illustrates the weight—actual and figurative—of the issue. And aside from the environmental impact, there’s the 795 million people around the world who are more often hungry more than they’re not, according to the World Food Programme.

While some groups are looking beyond appearance and trying to give ugly fruits and vegetables a second chance, like Fruta Freia, major supermarkets like Safeway, Costco, and Walmart have yet to adopt such practices.

“The power of the retail chains creates fear along the supply chain, from the family farmer to the major producer,” the article reads, stressing the importance of the major corporations. You can support your local farmers’ market that sells the heirloom tomatoes that have split open, but the majority of Americans still shop at these chains.

There’s no one solution to this problem, and none of them are simple. But maybe, next time you’re on the hunt for summer squash, consider a local grower and don’t be so quick to toss aside the one with a brown blemish that’s shaped like a foot. That old “don’t read a book by its cover” saying extends to eggplant and peaches, too."

I strongly believe in NOT wasting food - too many people go hungry (even in America, sadly to say)!

And for more of what's behind this idea, please go here -

http://www.saveur.com/why-anti-food.....vement-matters

From Chis, your bacon loving mod -

I got a rather interesting note from -

"Do you usually post packed lunch ideas?

I'm looking for easy, quick and healthy packed lunches to make to work every day :3"

I think this sounds like a great new challenge folks, and you can do this a number of different ways -

Bento style, most economical, fast and easy (please no pb & j, that doesn't count :P) etc!

What do you say folks?

From Chris, your bacon loving mod:

I found this story on Twitter not that long ago, and I think you'll find it rather interesting!

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/h.....eath-1.2678854

2,000-year-old bog butter unearthed in Co Meath


A prehistoric 10kg lump of bog butter thought to have been a gift to the gods has been found by turf cutters.
The creamy white dairy product, which smells like a strong cheese and is believed to be about 2,000 years old, was unearthed by Jack Conway, from Maghera, Co Cavan, while he worked on Emlagh bog in Co Meath last week.

The find, while not unusual, has been given to the National Museum, where it will be preserved.

Andy Halpin, assistant keeper in the museum’s Irish Antiquities Division, said the discovery was significant because it was found in the Drakerath area where 11 townlands and the boundaries of three ancient baronies met.

“These bogs in those times were inaccessible, mysterious places,” he said.

“It is at the juncture of three separate kingdoms, and politically it was like a no-man’s-land - that is where it all hangs together.”

Bog butter was often buried to preserve it to be dug up at a later date. Other research has shed light on it being buried as an offering to the gods or spirits in the hope of renewed prosperity.

Mr Halpin said the Emlagh discovery, 12ft below the surface, may never have been intended to be unearthed as there was no evidence of a cover on it.

Such finds are common in Ireland and Scotland and the product, which appears as a waxy substance, was often placed inside a wooden casket or animal hide before being buried.

Turf cutter Mr Conway reported the find to Cavan County Museum before it was handed over to the National Museum, where it will be carbon dated.

Top chef Kevin Thornton has revealed he tasted bog butter, but archaeological experts are reluctant, describing the material as crumbly and with a distinctive smell like strong cheese.

“Theoretically the stuff is still edible - but we wouldn’t say it’s advisable,” Mr Halpin said.

---

UPDATE - This is for -

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/far.....e-black-market

They strike at night in daring raids that net binfuls of loot to sell on the cheap.

Forget, jewels, cash or electronics, it's the humble avocado that has police and orchardists on the lookout for thieves as record high prices driving a thriving black market fed by large scale thefts of the popular fruit from commercial orchards.

Hundreds of avocados have been stolen in bulk from growers in the eastern Waikato in the last two weeks.

There have also been reported thefts in the Bay of Plenty areas as short supply in the off-season drives demand.

The cunning thieves are raking immature crops under darkness and onselling them to local markets and sushi stores.

Police believe record high prices of avocados is helping fuel the black market. Statistics NZ figures show avocados are responsible for a 17 per cent increase in fruit prices in the last year, and are now 5.8 per cent higher than they were in July 2005.

Last month a 200g avocado cost $4.48 on average, compared to $1.64 in May 2015.

Over Queen's Birthday weekend about 350 avocados were stolen from an orchard on Capamagian Dr in the Athenree area.

Waihi police Sergeant Aaron Fraser said police have one suspect in mind.

"There is someone making a living of stealing avocados and selling them on to the black market."

"Anything that is going to make them money, they are going to hook on to."

Police believe the culprit went into the orchard in darkness and spent hours plucking fruit from the trees.

"They must have spent a few hours there taking fruit off the trees, loading them into his own car. We are not sure if he parked the car down the driveway or kept it on the side of the orchard."

"We believe it's a man who resides in the eastern Waikato area, in relation to these ones [thefts], but it does happen all over the show."

He was likely on-selling the fruit to markets or smaller stores and dairies in the area, Fraser said.

"He turns up with a few crate loads of avocados, they probably think he's an orchardist."

New Zealand Avocado CEO Jen Scoular said the organisation was working with local police officers in targeted areas and had sent out alerts to growers.

Avocados were not ripe until September or October, which meant most of the stolen fruit was early season and immature, said Scoular.

Stolen fruit was also typically "raked" from the trees, rather than picked, and therefore likely to have a long stalk of 3-4cm or no stalk at all.

NZ Avocado Market Manager Bevan Jelley said some thieves were brazen.

"We have reports of people driving utes into orchards and filling up the entire back tray, growers are finding blankets and duvets in their orchards with piles of avocados in them - thieves have picked and been interrupted."

"There's certainly a large scale theft going on and the large numbers of it going on," said Jelley.

Most stolen fruit was onsold at local farmers' markets, to small independent stores and dairies and sushi shops. Larger supermarkets typically had to meet specifications relating to origin and grade, whereas small independent shops were not restrained.

"They are selling it wherever they can - someone has walked into a sushi shop with a crate full of early season avocados." said Scoular.

Jelley said independent foodmarkets in south Auckland were a target market for those pedalling stolen fruit.

"That's an easy place for people who are undertaking the thieving activity to get to a large number of independent fruit shops. It's only an hour to two hour drive up the motorway."

From Chris, your bacon-loving mod:

had noted me with this: "Can you do a small journal piece on Grits please?
I seriously don't comprehend what the heck they are. I understand the basic ingredients and some of the history (thank you google) but they are so uncommon here in Australia that I truly don't understand the uses, flavour and appeal."

Well, for starters: http://www.cookcfb.org/articles/ent.....story-of-grits

"Get Your Mitts on Some Grits!

You could call this story, “guilty as grits.” A memorable scene in the 1992 film “My Cousin Vinny” involves the defense lawyer humorously trapping a prosecution witness in a contradiction by using the cooking time of grits. The witness testifies that his breakfast took him five minutes to prepare, but the lawyer Gambini sets the record straight that the recipe for regular grits requires 20 minutes of preparation time, not five minutes.

Well, now that cook time depends on the grits to be consumed. Most commonly found are “quick” grits (yellow or white) in which the germ and hull have been removed. Grits are usually prepared by adding one part grits to four parts boiling water, sometimes seasoned with salt or sugar.

They are usually cooked for 5–10 minutes for “quick” grits, so the lawyer Gambini needs to do his homework. Now, whole kernel grits do require 20 or more minutes to be ready to eat, or until the water is absorbed and the grits become a porridge-like consistency. Whole kernel grits are sometimes called “speckled.” As the boiling water transforms the ground kernels into a porridge, the water boils until enough water is absorbed or vaporized to leave it semi-solid.

As grits expand when they are cooked, they need to be stirred periodically to prevent sticking and forming lumps. They may be served with grated cheese, butter, sausage or country ham red-eye gravy. Grits have also been known to be served with fish such as fried catfish or salmon croquettes. Shrimp and grits is considered a breakfast delicacy in the Low Country of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Another popular variant is Charleston-style grits, where the grits are boiled in milk, instead of water, to give them a creamy consistency.

'Grit' and Bear it!

Although many conjure up thoughts of the South, grits are actually Native American origin. Mainly regarded as a breakfast fare, grits consist of coarsely ground corn, or sometimes alkali-treated corn (hominy). Grits are similar to other thick maize-based porridges from around the world, such as polenta, or the thinner farina.

Grits can also be fried in a pan or molded to create a firm block; the resulting block can be cut with a knife or wire, and the slices fried in a fat such as vegetable oil, butter, or bacon grease. The word grits derives from the Old English word “grytt,” meaning coarse meal.

This word originally referred to wheat and other porridges now known as groats in parts of the U.K., maize being unknown in Europe in the Middle Ages. The word "grits" is one of the few words that may properly be used as either singular or plural in writing or speech and can be used with a singular or plural verb. The word grits referring to a food, should not be confused with “grit,” which can mean either “courage” or “a small particle, like fine sand.”

Grits have their origins in American Indian corn preparation. Traditionally, the corn for grits was ground by a stone mill. The results are passed through screens, with the finer siftings being grit meal, and the coarser being grits.

Many communities in the United States used a gristmill until the mid-20th century, with families bringing their own corn to be ground, and the miller retaining a portion of the corn for his fee. In South Carolina, state law requires grits and corn meal to be enriched, similar to the requirements for flour, unless the grits are ground from corn from which the miller keeps part of the product for his fee.

Three-quarters of grits sold in the U.S. are predominantly in the South, stretching from Texas to Virginia, which is also known as the “grits belt.” The state of Georgia declared grits its official prepared food in 2002. Similar bills have been introduced in South Carolina."

But please also note, grits are not -just- grits, either. (In fact, there is at least one restaurant that has created 100 different dishes with it.) In Italy, there is polenta; In Mexico, its masa; and Im sure other variations for many other different countries!

What's your take folks :B

*...This time, it's personal! :P

*coughs* Anyways...please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a fur of moderate wealth, and taste...

My name is Chris, or the main mod for this "new" (or rather, redone) page!

"Why u do this?" I hear you say :3

As you may or may not know, the hacking done to FA made everyone reset their passwords for their own particular pages.

In being straightforward and transparent...-I- was not the ORIGINAL owner for the FACCC page, at all.

That honor went to someone else who is no longer on FA, and all of their info (email, passwords, etc) was associated with that page.

I certainly tried to get some kind of response to this issue from...well...anyone...and I did not receive nor see help coming any time soon.

Therefore, I had no choice but to start over.

Let me be clear: I absolutely refuse to let something that I love - the art of cooking - to just fall by the wayside and die. And if I lost interest (or even, I'll put it out there, my "oomph" - my muse, if you will!) I would certainly be the first to put it out there in this journal. No, Pangy don't play that, not gonna happen.

This -is- my art. This is something I want to share with you, for those who want to cook, want to learn, or just want to try new things. And through this: I have a lot of furs that I have learned from - a lot of them, I call friends - and more, that there are a lot of them I admire, quite highly.

I can only promise that I will try to maintain the same standards that the original FACCC page had. (Notwithstanding the occasional bribe of BACON, of course :p)

But I look forward to keeping this page going, as long as it takes, with many, many delicious dishes that are meant to be enjoyed!

Any questions, please feel free to put them here!