141–150 of 159 posts
I learned that its easier and way faster to quarter tomatoes and freeze them, then to can.
It might be easier and faster but they will lose a lot of flavour during the freezing. There's a reason you don't refridgerate tomatoes.
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You can make popcorn in a saucepan, it's easy and fun. Gourmet popcorn (different kernels) also tastes far better even than the bulk kernels you can find in the store.
It's hilarious. I grew up in the rural midwest and I was taught to make "popped corn" on the stove in a pot with a little bit of oil by my grand mother. I love it this way, so does my wife, and I still prefer to make it this way to today. However, we had a very good friend over recently and I made popcorn for the 3 of us on the stove and she thought it was way beyond weird. She actually bought us one of those air pop…
Tomatoes are practically weeds. They grow like crazy, and you can eat heirlooms as sweet or as savory as you like. Sometimes I think I didn't know wealth until I had a cherokee purple straight off the vine. You can practically make sashimi with it. Now I'm just gonna come out and say it: fucking with genes worries me. It only takes one unforeseen toxic externality for the whole thing to turn out very poorly. (dangers…
>dangers of monocropping Nothing to do with biotechnology or genome editing. In fact both technologies can and will be used to make crops more diverse. >turning plants into intellectual property There are specific plant breeds that are already closely guarded IP. Not to mention, this is like being against software because software patents exist. >whatever the hell happened to pugs Selective breeding? That's what is r…
Sure. I'm not strongly anti-biotechnology.
On reflection, the two points that really bother me.
a) genetic modifications are usually for stuff like "keeping potatoes from bruising because people don't like the look of bruised potatoes." Or "keeping tomatoes flavorful so people can keep mindlessly buying them out of season." They're always fixes that allow the consumer to remain as passive as possible.
b) I've never hear a single scientist make a good argument against GMOs. What, like you can't come up with a single possible downside? I think what finally convinced me to vote for Hillary was seeing the best arguments against her, by people who really hated her guts (like, really, the worst you have are dark insinuations?) I want to hear someone creative/knowledgeable come up with their best argument against GMOs. Like, they got hired to find the worst case scenarios. I just feel like I've never heard that argument articulated well.
Anyway, there are two possibilities: a) this issue is so amazingly stupid that no informed person would ever be bothered by these practices. b) there are real--if unlikely--toxic externalities to genetic modification, but no informed person wants to share them because they don't want to feed the fire of ignorance.
And, yeah, the dismissive tone of scientists I've talked to, coupled with their apparent ignorance, has not reassured me that this conversation is being had in good faith.
amazing tasting tomatoes still exist around the world, if you are on vacation in Italy in the summer buy some "cuor di bue" tomatoes at the supermarket and they will be amazing. Of course if you happen to know somebody that grows them and you can pick them off the plant they will be even more incredible, but even the "normal" supermarket ones are going to be orders of magnitude tastier than anything you can find in N…
Amazing tasting tomatoes are also very easy to grow yourself. Tomatoes are a hardy vine, and hard to mess up, you just need plenty of sunshine. There are seeds available for many heirloom varieties, and when you grow them yourself, you pick them at the peak of freshness. I particularly like the Early Girl variety. It's a bummer that you can't re-plant the seeds from most tomatoes, which are F1 hybrids, so the next ge…
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Amazing tasting tomatoes are also very easy to grow yourself. Tomatoes are a hardy vine, and hard to mess up, you just need plenty of sunshine. There are seeds available for many heirloom varieties, and when you grow them yourself, you pick them at the peak of freshness. I particularly like the Early Girl variety. It's a bummer that you can't re-plant the seeds from most tomatoes, which are F1 hybrids, so the next ge…
You mention that there are plenty of heirloom tomatoes that area easy to grow. Two sentences later you say that you can't replant the seeds because they are F1 hybrids. I think a clarification is in order. The general consensus is that if a tomato is an heirloom it is not a hybrid, and vice versa. I have had excellent luck with growing plants from collected seeds for any of the heirloom tomatoes I've grown. With hybr…
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That explains why most every dog breed that competes on looks and becomes popular gets messed up. Also American breeders have this odd habit of taking large dogs that should be about 80 lbs and breeding them into behemoths, usually to the detriment of the dogs
Russians did this with the German Giant Schnauzer and created the Black Russian Terrier. Their Giants are also significantly larger than the ones with German heritage, but both are recognized as the same breed.
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That explains why most every dog breed that competes on looks and becomes popular gets messed up. Also American breeders have this odd habit of taking large dogs that should be about 80 lbs and breeding them into behemoths, usually to the detriment of the dogs
You are being too nice calling it a habit. Breeding behemoths is what sells. People will pay a premium for the pick of the litter (which is code words for "the biggest"). I don't have any problems with dog breeding per se, but the market forces are seriously broken. EDIT: In addition to pushing for bigger dogs, it's also profitable to drive down food and vet costs. Kennel clubs like the American Kennel Club are scams…
My thinking- you should breed for performance, health and temperament.
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And there is a new breed of the same fungus that is attacking the modern banana - the Cavendish - and as of yet, there is no replacement banana that we can substitute if the Cavendish gets wiped out.
There are loads of awesome bananas out there, they just either aren't so soft and sweet or don't ship well. Within the last year I have had lady-finger, apple and Fe'i bananas and various plantains. All delicious! I want to try red and blue/ice-cream but am having trouble finding them in the UK or on my travels...
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It's hilarious. I grew up in the rural midwest and I was taught to make "popped corn" on the stove in a pot with a little bit of oil by my grand mother. I love it this way, so does my wife, and I still prefer to make it this way to today. However, we had a very good friend over recently and I made popcorn for the 3 of us on the stove and she thought it was way beyond weird. She actually bought us one of those air pop…
Waiting for the oil to get hot, and cleaning up afterwards, are both basically wastes of time. I remember switching to air poppers happily.
I can tell you that getting the oil hot takes all of ~2 minutes and it's not like I'm standing over top of the stove waiting for it to happen. Cleaning up takes about 30 seconds to wash the pot, the lid, and whatever bowl I used to hold the popcorn. If I ever find myself thinking, "Geez, I really wish I had that 3 or 4 minutes back" then I'd be trying to find out what's really going on in my life that is making me feel that way. I can tell you with certainty that it sure wouldn't be the 3 or 4 minutes it takes to cook the popcorn and then clean up a pot, it's lid, and a bowl afterwords.
My thing with air poppers is that the oil imparts a flavor that you obviously don't get otherwise and which I happen to prefer greatly to air popped popcorn.
There's a similar problem with popcorn. Showing my age card here, but back in the 1970's popcorn actually tasted like corn , which seems to be a difficult concept to explain to anyone under 40. It all went south around the same time that microwave popcorn became popular. People always ask if I don't like tomatoes when I eat around them in salads or remove from burgers. Nope, I love tomatoes, that's why I don't eat fl…