The Food and Drink Thread

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I took some of Trader Joe’s Miso Ginger Broth, a hand full of stir fry veggies, and tossed in some pork dumplings for a very nice , simple soup.

Rob
 
We just decided to make up a batch of Rendang on the spur of the moment. It's just simmering now; should be finished sometime around midnight. Watch this space.
 
Roasted a duck for when my wife got back, just plain duck, seasoned with salt/pepper, roasted with various potato-stuff. It went down very well, indeed.
 
I've been pretty good about doing more home cooking this year vs. last year.

Might try my hand at biscuits and gravy this weekend.

ETA: that's "biscuits" in the American sense. Per Wikipedia, "A biscuit in the United States and Canada, is a variety of small baked goods with a firm browned crust and a soft, crumbly interior. They are usually made with baking powder or baking soda as a chemical leavening agent rather than yeast."

Gravy on cookies would be pretty gross!
 
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I've been pretty good about doing more home cooking this year vs. last year.

Might try my hand at biscuits and gravy this weekend.

ETA: that's "biscuits" in the American sense. Per Wikipedia, "A biscuit in the United States and Canada, is a variety of small baked goods with a firm browned crust and a soft, crumbly interior. They are usually made with baking powder or baking soda as a chemical leavening agent rather than yeast."

Gravy on cookies would be pretty gross!
One time I had to explain to a Welsh friend what a biscuit is to us. I said “a scone without all the sugar.”
 
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After seeing this (there’s a whole series of Brian Cox pronouncing almost every Scotch there is)


I decided to try the Lagavulin 16. Jesus Wept. I’ve heard people say “smoky but with no peat bite” before, but now I know what that means. Think I’m going to start picking up a bottle per paycheck and starting working my way through the whisky world.
 
After seeing this (there’s a whole series of Brian Cox pronouncing almost every Scotch there is)


I decided to try the Lagavulin 16. Jesus Wept. I’ve heard people say “smoky but with no peat bite” before, but now I know what that means. Think I’m going to start picking up a bottle per paycheck and starting working my way through the whisky world.


God damn, you started right at the top! Great choice.

Let me know if I can help you with recommendations. I’ve been at it for a couple of years and still feel like a beginner.
 
God damn, you started right at the top! Great choice.

Let me know if I can help you with recommendations. I’ve been at it for a couple of years and still feel like a beginner.
I know zero about Japanese whiskeys. You get much into those yet?
 
I know zero about Japanese whiskeys. You get much into those yet?

Those are even trickier to get into here in Brazil, but I’ve had the Yamazaki Distiller’s Reserve and absolutely adored it. If I’d had it blind I’d swear it’s a Speyside, all honey and flowers.

The head honcho at our whisky club swears Yamazaki 18 is his “end of the world whisky” — but age-stated Yamazakis have stopped production as demand far outstripped production and they’ve run dry (or so we’re told).

I’ve never had the Hakushu (another distillery operated by Suntory) but it’s supposed to be a more exotic, herbal malt, with pine, spearmint, and smoke. I’m not sure I’ll like it as much as the Yamazaki but it’s on my wishlist for sure.

Nikka is another whisky giant with a huge portfolio. Their “Whisky From The Barrel” gets rave reviews (and is often rumored to be mostly imported scotch malt!) but I don’t know how their core range fares.

Last but not least, Hibiki Harmony is supposed to be a good introduction to Japanese whisky, but I have yet to try it.
 
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Has Suntory decided to get rid of the Premium Whisky labels? Near everything is being discontinued.
 
Has Suntory decided to get rid of the Premium Whisky labels? Near everything is being discontinued.

Their official stance is that increased demand has stripped their stocks and they need a few years to age what they have and/or step up production. This article has a pretty good run-down (and guide to their range).
 
Made crock pot Guinness beef over the weekend. Come out a little more done than I would have liked. Not burned or anything, just medium when I would have preferred medium rare. I was kind of winging it & not really using a recipe. Maybe I should learn to cook a roast in the oven rather than the crock pot, so I can have more control over the temperature...
 
Say what you will about Mankcam Mankcam, that colorful scamp and purveyor of swo, but his people do make good wine.

Well those Californian wines go down pretty good as well :thumbsup:

I love Shiraz, but I found it harder to get over in the States (although things may have changed in recent years, or I may have been looking in the wrong spots)

But if you are interested in sampling some of my backyard drops, then check out the wineries from the Barossa Valley, the Hunter Valley, the Granite Belt, the Margaret River region, the Tamar Valley, and the Derwent Valley.

There are plenty more wine districts, but these often are recognised amongst some of the finest wine-making regions in the world.

Yeah it's not all just stubbies and vegemite down here :grin:
 
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Recently I started drinking Wakachangi Beer, made by our NZ Kiwi neighbours, and its a bloody good drop :thumbsup:





:grin:
 
Say what you will about Mankcam Mankcam, that colorful scamp and purveyor of swo, but his people do make good wine.
The Barossa valley is world class red growing country - it has the right soil and climate and produces award-winning plonk on a regular basis. Hawke's Bay and Marlborough in New Zealand have the right climate for whites and whites from these regions also pick up gongs by the truckload. For a rule of thumb, if you're drinking wines from down under, get Australian reds and NZ whites.

Fun fact: The French hoisted themselves by their own petard, almost destroying the relevance of their wine industry through a chain of events that they started in the 1970s. It all started when they managed to get the EEC to impose much higher hygiene standards on imported dairy than that required locally.

At the time the domestic French wine industry was using essentially medieval technology - the relevance of which will become apparent shortly.

This all happened back in warm, fluffy pre-Thatcher times when governments were still expected to provide public services. At the time, New Zealand had a big public R&D body called the DSIR - essentially DARPA for agritech. They spent a large amount developing sterile dairy production technology that could be kept clean very easily. This got adopted by the dairy industry very quickly, allowing NZ to continue flogging dairy products to the EEC in large quantities despite the Butter Mountain[1].

As it turns out, this technology was also very good for producing wine and was a major enabler for the New World wine industry. It allowed wine to be fermented at tightly controlled temperatures in vessels that could be guaranteed sterile. Compared to the essentially medieval technology used in Europe at the time it allowed good quality wine to be produced in quantity relatively cheaply and - most importantly - consistently.

While the good French wines are still good, bad French wines are terrible and by the 1980s one could get good quality wines from California, Chile, New Zealand, Australia and a host of other places at a fraction of the price of the better French ones. The French wine industry was very much caught on the hop and is still being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.[2]

And that, gentlebeings, is how the French hoisted themselves by their own petard and nearly destroyed their own wine industry.
Doraemon levels of unintended consequences there.
__________________
1 - The Dairy Board subsequently merged with the major dairy producers in the 1990s, forming a company that eventually came to be known as Fonterra. Fonterra is the second largest dairy producer in the world and something like 9% of New Zealand's GDP goes through this one company. Their best known brand is Anchor.
2 - It's also the reason I can find a bottle of chardonnay made by a winery next door to my parents' lifestyle block in a grog shop in Reigate. Unfortunately the vines got badly damaged by the grass fires of 2006 and the winery went under.
 
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Say what you will about Mankcam Mankcam, that colorful scamp and purveyor of swo, but his people do make good wine.

Had this one. Pretty good!

Australian vino is exceptionally hard to get down here (except for Jacob’s Creek, which Aussie oenophiles assure me is shite), which is a pity — big fan of bold, fruity reds and Syrah is one of my favorites. Northern Rhône reds are amazing but pricey; luckily I can get some amazing, very reasonably priced Chilean Syrah

The Barossa valley is world class red growing country - it has the right soil and climate and produces award-winning plonk on a regular basis. Hawke's Bay and Marlborough in New Zealand have the right climate for whites and whites from these regions also pick up gongs by the truckload. For a rule of thumb, if you're drinking wines from down under, get Australian reds and NZ whites.

Fun fact: The French hoisted themselves by their own petard, almost destroying the relevance of their wine industry through a chain of events that they started in the 1970s. It all started when they managed to get the EEC to impose much higher hygiene standards on imported dairy than that required locally.

At the time the domestic French wine industry was using essentially medieval technology - the relevance of which will become apparent shortly.

This all happened back in warm, fluffy pre-Thatcher times when governments were still expected to provide public services. At the time, New Zealand had a big public R&D body called the DSIR - essentially DARPA for agritech. They spent a large amount developing sterile dairy production technology that could be kept clean very easily. This got adopted by the dairy industry very quickly, allowing NZ to continue flogging dairy products to the EEC in large quantities despite the Butter Mountain[1].

As it turns out, this technology was also very good for producing wine and was a major enabler for the New World wine industry. It allowed wine to be fermented at tightly controlled temperatures in vessels that could be guaranteed sterile. Compared to the essentially medieval technology used in Europe at the time it allowed good quality wine to be produced in quantity relatively cheaply and - most importantly - consistently.

While the good French wines are still good, bad French wines are terrible and by the 1980s one could get good quality wines from California, Chile, New Zealand, Australia and a host of other places at a fraction of the price of the better French ones. The French wine industry was very much caught on the hop and is still being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.[2]

And that, gentlebeings, is how the French hoisted themselves by their own petard and nearly destroyed their own wine industry.
Doraemon levels of unintended consequences there.
__________________
1 - The Dairy Board subsequently merged with the major dairy producers in the 1990s, forming a company that eventually came to be known as Fonterra. Fonterra is the second largest dairy producer in the world and something like 9% of New Zealand's GDP goes through this one company. Their best known brand is Anchor.
2 - It's also the reason I can find a bottle of chardonnay made by a winery next door to my parents' lifestyle block in a grog shop in Reigate. Unfortunately the vines got badly damaged by the grass fires of 2006 and the winery went under.

Fun story, didn’t know that.

I’m told NZ Pinot Noir is pretty good too. (Not much of a Pinot Noir man myself.)
 
Had this one. Pretty good!

Australian vino is exceptionally hard to get down here (except for Jacob’s Creek, which Aussie oenophiles assure me is shite), which is a pity — big fan of bold, fruity reds and Syrah is one of my favorites. Northern Rhône reds are amazing but pricey; luckily I can get some amazing, very reasonably priced Chilean Syrah



Fun story, didn’t know that.

I’m told NZ Pinot Noir is pretty good too. (Not much of a Pinot Noir man myself.)
There are some decent reds that come out of new Zealand but not on the scale they make them in Oz.
 
I made Pozole today. It was good enough for me to have eaten it before thinking to take a picture.
My mother-in-law makes a great chicken pozole. Unfortunately we've not been able to find hominy (nixtamalized maize) here so my wife can't really prepare it.
 
I did some decent beef sausages tonight. We didn't eat them all, and left the remainder out on the grill to cool. I heard a scraping sound some 20 minutes later and discovered the boy cat in the process of dragging one off the counter to the floor, so he could legitimately eat it.
 
I did some decent beef sausages tonight. We didn't eat them all, and left the remainder out on the grill to cool. I heard a scraping sound some 20 minutes later and discovered the boy cat in the process of dragging one off the counter to the floor, so he could legitimately eat it.
I split one of the sausages and gave each dog a half. They were in heaven. :grin:
 
I've been giving one of my co-workers rides to and from work while her vehicle gets fixed. When I dropped her off today her mother gave me some homemade pork tamales that she had just prepared.

No pictures, because I was too busy stuffing them into my piehole.
 
I dont have any pics. But the wife isnt feeling good, so I was on my own for supper. So I fried up some sausages, onions, and peppers. Turned out very tasty.
How is your wife getting on?
 
Got a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket on Sunday. Chicken sandwiches for lunch over the past couple of days. This weekend I'm going to make up a batch of chicken soup.
 
Today for lunch, I cooked a bison steak and made a salad of lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, and red bell peppers. Also had a Hawaiian roll with butter and honey. First time cooking bison. Wasn't much different than cooking beef.
 
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