I get this a lot as one of the few white people in my local 99Ranch/ HKMart/ SuperKing markets - people will see me picking up something that is more "western" like Brussels Sprouts and ask me what I do with it, how do you cook it, what does it taste like. Can you eat it raw? I've met such nice people for just a few minutes at a time. I love these markets.

I keep hoping to catch someone picking out fresh ginger and ask them how to tell a good piece from a bad piece - I just don't know what to look for. Should it look a little wet, or should it look dry?

Yes! For me it's roasted cauliflower, chopped rather fine. I prefer to do my Brussels sprouts spicy, with red pepper and lemon.

I wish someone would make a PSA about this. I have a big problem with people coming into my kitchen and popping my tomatoes into the fridge, thinking they are being helpful. GAH!

They have a big round cinnamon coffee cake with nice crumbles on top that I have bought for meetings. It is always enthusiastically received. I do like it a lot,myself, but if you put a piece on a napkin, you'll be dismayed by the oil spots it leaves behind. Needlessly fatty, in other words - it doesn't *taste* particularly rich. I choose it in a pinch, if I don't have time to bake a coffee cake myself.

I've learned to take the skin off the chicken and immediately take it off the bone when I get home - and put the carcass in the slow cooker overnight with some celery ends, onion ends, and carrot ends - I get a huge pot of incredible broth. And then I use the chicken during the week in recipes. Before, we used to eat about 4/5 of the chicken in one go and feel a little sick and dehydrated the next day (I think too much salt to eat at once).

Is this the Garafalos spaghetti? I agree, it's the best. I won't buy spaghetti anywhere else now!

I've wondered about Chino Wayne, one of my all-time favourite posters here on CH. I'm sorry to hear about his illness - and I hope all of our good thoughts make it through the hills and valleys to his wryly smiling heart.

This is exactly why I don't use the top "kiddie seat" part of the shopping cart, ever. I just shut that part of the cart and lay everything on the bottom of the cart. I've read too many stories of "junior had an accident while we were out shopping" - which is a shame, since it does make a nice place to put cartons of eggs and loaves of bread - things you don't want squished.

Would this work for pulled pork, do you think? We often do a Boston Butt slow cooked on the Big Green Egg, and by the time we shred the whole thing with forks we are almost too tired to eat.

I don't have a new find to report exactly, but I tried to go to Costco in Alhambra, CA yesterday and the entire parking lot was full. I got caught in the line of cars just circling the store, in the maze of the parking lot. Then a storm hit and it started pouring rain. I aborted the mission (returning some kids' science books we were going to give as Christmas presents that turned out to be comically bad - including one astronomy book that had an incorrect photo of Carl Sagan) and decided to come back another day. What gives? Is Costco running a special I don't know about?

Oh, wait, I take it back. I do have a find - Philippine brand dried young coconut. - that's something I was going to buy yesterday. It's in a bag like their dried mango, and equally delicious and addictive. I haven't had good dried coconut like this for years - about 7 years ago, Trader Joe's sold a little tray of it and promptly discontinued it as soon as I fell in love. This bag of Philippine Young Coconut is a real find for me - the coconut is soft and chewy, not dry and dusty. Nice big pieces for snacking, not really for baking. I think it was about $9 and lasted me 5 solid days of coconut gorging.

I figure the jars of rougie duck fat I gave to my husband count, because I've been enjoying gorgeous duck fries every few days since Christmas - not good news for my waistline, but oh, lord, so delicious.
I also gave him a potato ricer, since he's a big fan of mashed potatoes, and we tend to either under mash (smashed potatoes) or over mash ( gluey mess with a hand blender) and I plan on enjoying those as well.
We both had a lot of very fine Belgian chocolates in our Xmas stockings...and they won't see the end of January, that's for certain.
I received a Korean cookbook that I haven't cracked yet, except to notice that it has several recipes for kimchee that look rather ambitious. I'm more interested in some nice spicy soups once I work my way through this little potato obsession I have going on.

We love our BGE so much, I don't remember how we ever survived without it. Be sure to search online for "egghead" recipes that fans have come up with - you're going to have so much fun!
PS I just found natural lump charcoal at my Costco, something to keep in mind. It can really add up.

Lovebirds in Pasadena has air fries. It takes forever to get your order, but it's good.

Update: a 3-pack of Rougie duck fat arrived, beautifully wrapped, in time for Christmas (free shipping), and we had air fries made with 2 Tb of fat that same day. Bliss.

I really doubt I would pony up for this at a Starbucks - because I don't trust that they would use good non-charred coffee beans, but I will tell you that I've had coffee made with Clover machines (my husband's office licensed one of these miraculous devices before they did some special deal with Starbucks) and they are truly revolutionary. I can usually only drink a couple sips of coffee - and then I start feeling odd and shaky. I drink a tiny, tiny cup of coffee every morning (maybe 2-3 oz). We use Peet's at home. I can usually pick up all sort of bitter and nasty flavours - impurities? - in restaurant coffees. But I can drink an entire 8-10 ounces of coffee made in a Clover machine, and it is the smoothest, richest, most delicious beverage. I drink it and think - "this is why people love coffee." And know that I won't taste coffee like that again until I visit his office again.

It's really remarkable to me that the Clover machine renders coffee drinkable for me. What in the world is it doing? I will say, you can see lovely *pools* of coffee oils on the top of the beverage as it is being made, and a very thick crema. It gives you very fine control over all of the parameters - temperature, pressure, water volume, etc.

I've tried the same seaweed salad from the Alhambra,CA Costco - too sweet for me as well. I also don't care for overly sweet sweets - I'm to the point I actually prefer to make most of my desserts because store-bought desserts taste more like sugar to me than the chocolate or strawberry or whatever flavour the dessert is supposed to be. When I make a recipe I often cut the sugar in half, just to suit my palate. So I think if you are similarly sweet-sensitive, this seaweed salad is not your seaweed salad!

Ah, popping them in the oven to dry a little might be the way to go for me. Thanks, great idea.

I know, right? This was on a weekend, and the guy confessed that they do their best business trolling (I mean patrolling) neighborhoods writing up people doing weekend projects without permits and watering violations. He let me off with a warning. He also told me to trim my trees back from my roof. The same trees I'm not allowed to remove because they're protected - and one is leaning on my house! (Live oaks). Oh, to live in LA. I do love it here. Restaurants like you wouldn't believe! Beautiful produce year-round!

I'm glad to hear it - I have some coming as a xmas present for my sweet husband to make french fries and whatever else he can dream up with it but like the OP am relying on reviews. i'm buying the smaller jars, though, and there are a few reviews of that:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001...

This is my method, too. I take a perverse pleasure out of seeing the grit collect in the bottom of the bowl. It reinforces my behavior, too - makes me realize I really do need to do it. A big white bowl is best for maximum visibility of the detritus.

We're always on water rationing here in LA -- my lemons and oranges in my yard can feel the difference, definitely. I don't wash my car and for most of the year it wears a fine patina of golden pollen. But I wash everything I eat, except bananas, oranges, and coconuts.
We had one of these gushers on our street last year too! For a WHOLE WEEK last summer water was gushing down our street. Everyone in our neighborhood called and complained about it.
Then this fall, one day I washed down some muddy storm-muck from my driveway with my hose (for less than one minute) and from out of nowhere a city official pulled up in front of my house and threatened me with a ticket.

I'm so glad to hear everyone's input on this! I might give the peeling a try - but now I don't feel so bad about taking so long washing the mushrooms (or my lack of success with the damp-paper-towel method). I might just put mushrooms with leeks in the "takes forever to prep" category.
My leeks? Always FILTHY. What have they been doing? Playing muddy football?

We do this every February. We try to go the entire month spending literally as little as possible, just clearing out what we have in the pantry and freezer. I'll buy a minimum of fresh ingredients, but it's really quite remarkable how little we spend that month (About $60 for the whole month.). A giant thing of eggs and milk from Costco, and a couple runs to SuperKing for fresh veggies. You start to get really creative with what you have. At the end of the month, we can think about what do we really want to stock the pantry with. It's really fun - we call it "The Great Experiment." Once or twice we'll splurge and get a coffee out and it seems like an INCREDIBLE indulgence to pay that much when you realize you haven't spent that much in a couple days on food.

I'm so, so bad at this - I don't know what it is, but I'm wiping mushrooms with a damp paper towel and there is *still* plenty of dirt on them. The only thing that seems to get them really clean is if I soak them a little and swish them around AND rub them with my fingers -- and then they need time to dry out. Besides this labour-intensive prep and the spacing out in the pan that requires cooking in two or three batches - it often puts me off cooking mushrooms. And I love mushrooms!

Any tips?

You know, it's funny, I never wear aprons in the kitchen either. I don't find them comfortable at all. But I brought home one of my labcoats to use when I run my juicer, and it's amazing how many flecks of green and orange appear on the sleeves and the front. I recommend picking up a labcoat! It has pockets and everything. And I can move easily in it. You can buy them in any uniform shop.

Hee hee hee! I love catching people doing embarrassing things like that! It makes me feel so much better about all the embarrassing things I've done myself. Like ordering food "to go" in a drive through. Yes, that was me.

Very sensible. And fair!

The whole "show us your papers" for pseudoephedrine thing makes me nervous - because when I'm stuffed up with my yearly cold, it's the only thing that prevents it from turning into full-blown bronchitis for me. I'm convinced they're going to ban it outright and I'll wind up in the hospital every year.
The whole process also makes me feel guilty, even though I'm the most ridiculously law-abiding person I know. I've never even gotten a traffic ticket.

It happens to me constantly in LA traffic. This is from a smoker in front of me, blowing smoke out of their window. I can smell it, even though my windows are rolled up, because there is a vent that pulls outside air into my car. I've become adept at the quick - push the "shut the outside vent" button on my car maneuver. It has a "recirculate air" symbol on it - you can't do it indefinitely or you run the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. If I don't do that, the smell seeps into my car.

Homemade linguiça! How do I get on your Xmas list! Sigh.