Eating frozen fish is more environmentally friendly, much of the time, than eating fresh fish. Frozen fish can be transported with less fuel. Fresh fish, to stay fresh, has to be flown using big-carbon-footprint planes. More on that argument in this essay at nytimes.com. Not sure where we stand on the coast here. I suppose local fresh fish is fine, but stuff flown in from Chile is less fine.
It turns out that Alberta Pure vodka, which seems to be the cheapest on the liquor store shelf, is cheap for a reason. It tastes like the smell of rubbing alcohol, even if you mask it with orange juice. The plastic bottle should have been a clue. Plus the lack of a website praising its virtues. A colleague says I should try Grey Goose instead. It has a pleasant taste, she says. It also costs quite a bit more than Alberta Pure.
Twenty Things Worth Knowing About Beer, from oatmeal.com. Some things I learned: store bottles of beer upright, and a certain culture was inclined to drown you in beer if you made a bad batch.
They made chocolate dresses at a chocolate trade show, and models wore them. Pictures are here, at nzherald.co.nz. I didn't delve into it enough to understand why the chocolate didn't melt.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola logos over the years. Some misinformation about this has been clouding the Internet. This post at underconsideration.com clears the clouds.
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You can now buy your very own sous vide machine for the home kitchen, for around $500. It's the Sous Vide Supreme, which cooks food vacuum sealed in a plastic pouch that's placed in warm water. The food cooks slowly, bathed in its own juices, and that makes the food more delicious, sous vide boosters say. The machine's job is to keep the food at a constant temperature, typically the temperature at which you'd like to eat the food. Sous Vide Supreme's website says cooking time can range from 20 minutes for piece of delicate fish to 72 hours for a piece of meat that needs tenderizing.
Sous Vide Supreme's website is here.
A story about the machine is at nytimes.com -- It's a review of the machine and some reflecting on the sous vide technique. Despite having a machine, you still need to pay attention, and you might do some swearing, we're told.
Sous vide for home cooks -- Website of an enthusiast.
There's concern that in the hands of the inexperienced, sous vide is not safe. The cookingsousvide.com website has a section about that. And so does Wikipedia.
Super-famous chef Thomas Keller has a book about sous vide called Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide. Here's the entry at amazon.ca
Keller talked about sous vide last year during an appearance in Washington, D.C.
