Tell us what you have cooked lately (that's interesting)

My understanding is that real wood is generally safer in this regard than a lot of plastic (unless you’re running said plastic through a high-heat sanitation dishwasher cycle after every use), insofar as microbes are pulled down into wood fibers and then sealed away as the wood naturally “closes up” as it dries, essentially suffocating any pathogens in the anaerobic environment.

Yup.

See here, @jpinard

[quote]But in the late 1980s, a UC Davis researcher named Dean Cliver – the de facto godfather of cutting board food safety – decided to investigate whether plastic cutting boards really were safer. Answer: not really.

Plastic cutting boards, Cliver found, are easier to sanitize. But cutting on them also leaves lots of grooves where bacteria can hide. Wood is tougher to sanitize, but it’s also (often) tougher in general – you won’t find as many deep scratches in the surface.

In addition, researchers have discovered that the type of wood your cutting board is made from also makes a difference.

“Hardwoods, like maple, are fine-grained, and the capillary action of those grains pulls down fluid, trapping the bacteria – which are killed off as the board dries after cleaning,” says Ben Chapman, a food safety researcher at NC State. “Soft woods, like cypress, are less likely to dull the edge of your knife, but also pose a greater food safety risk,” Chapman explains. “That’s because they have larger grains, which allows the wood to split apart more easily, forming grooves where bacteria can thrive.”[/quote]

It’s a small one, but yeah, no warping or cracks. Just fine.

I wrote all this up on Wordpress while I was travelling so pulling out a few links so you can read them:

The entire trip is documented at https://millerpdx.wordpress.com

I was going to to @ name for thankulatory input, but I realized doing it like 4 or 5x in a row was silly. So everyone one of you above - thanks for the stuff you’re posting. Being educated and exnandinf vistas is one of the great treasures in life.

Bought my wife a Boos board a few years back…for Christmas, iirc. 18" round. 3 inches thick. She loves it. Washes it with soap and water.

She has both the board cream @Skipper linked, as well as their mystery oil.

Thanks, looks like it was an amazing experience. I visited in 1990 and I don’t think Cooking schools like that were commonplace or I was just ignorant of them. Well, that and I couldn’t make toast back then either, was strictly a very happy consumer.

I’ve been accumulating a few grill recipes I want to try, and this week presents an excellent opportunity. My wife is slammed at work, so I’m on dinner duty. I couldn’t quite justify buying a week’s worth of special groceries three days after our last shopping trip, so I settled for today, Thursday, and Friday for experimentation. Day 1 of the Grillathon was a great success: fiesta lime shrimp, with spinach and black bean dip on the side.

http://imgur.com/cqEDZlL

Looks good! Though I’m not sure if I should be afraid of the consistency on that bean dip, haha :)

That’s hippo dip. Looks like a hippo.

I don’t blend things often. My wife sang, “Try the gray stuff, it’s delicious! Don’t believe me, ask the dishes.” :-P

:P

If you’re looking for a thicker dip next time you might try only blending some of it maybe? Or blending less vigorously. Is this an obvious thing to suggest? :P

It’s very dip-like in consistency, actually. It’s only over-blended to the point where it gets unsettlingly smooth when it sits for a little while.

When you do shrimpnlike that, how long do you cook it on grill? Also what kind of shrimp did you get? Kind you have to peel, or cook first, or just skewer and grill?

I did them four minutes per side, although my grill is also a little wimpy, so take those figures with a grain of salt. These ones were frozen ready-to-grill jobbers, already peeled and deveined.

Speaking of salt, today’s main event (Grillathon 2: Grill Harder) was skirt steak, marinated for a few minutes in a lime-cumin-garlic number then liberally seasoned before going on the grill:

http://imgur.com/w2JeMPr

Accompanying the steak were grilled grape tomatoes, grilled corn on the cob, homemade guacamole (not grilled), and, in the very bottom left, my thumb (also not grilled, though not for want of trying).

Tomorrow’s recipe sees me using a new ingredient, fish sauce. I’m a little iffy, given how much it smells like what it is, but the Internet hasn’t led me wrong yet on grill recipes. We’ll see how it turns out.

I occasionally get a craving for a nice Italian style hero and will hit the store and get a bunch of meats and cheeses to pile up on some nice bread. Never had a muffuletta before but slathering a sandwich I already like with spicy/oily olives and giardineria sounds AWESOME to me!

I wish you could smell this. It’s so good. Just gotta wait a while for it all to mellow out a bit :) There’s also a roasted red pepper going into this, but it’s still roasting!

Roasted red pepper sauna

My bread is too thin :[

Mozzarella/provolone/genoa salami/hot capicola with the olive salad on top. The deli was out of mortadella! :(

I am pretty sure this would translate to grilling very well and is amazing as is. If you’re ever looking to use up more fish sauce. Funnily enough, I used some just last night to flavor up some bland panang curry and it was nice!

@Eric_Majkut, I never really go for that particular style, but making myself a hot Italian sub (spicy hot not temperature hot) is one of my very favorite lunches to make for myself :-)

It seems probable to me that I actually do like fish sauce, given how many things I like from cuisines which use it, so that recipe will likely join the rotation.

Only tangentially related, but that guy’s theme music is the same tune used by a local celebrity.

Fish sauce smells horrible, tastes great. Same goes for anchovies, actually, at least as a mix in. Still not sure about them as a topping, eg on pizza.

First time I used fish sauce I was soooo afraid I was going to break the bottle and make the house I was living in smell like fish sauce for the rest of eternity haha