Food Preservation Disasters

...lurry of bad pickles and too-loose jams. Of course you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet and, in the interest of learning from mistakes, I thought I’d review two lessons learned. Not Using Tested Recipes I vow to use tested recipes from trusted sources. Both for food safety reasons and culinary reasons, it’s a good idea to use trusted sources for home preservation projects. Some of the recipes I tried were from unfamiliar books and dubiou...

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Plymouth Rock Monthly

...ebruary 1925 issue, at right, promises articles on, “Selecting and Packing Eggs for Hatching”, a poetically titled essay, “The Things We Leave Undone”, “Theory and Practice in Breeding Barred Color”, “White Plymouth Rocks”, “The Embargo on Poultry”, and “Breeding White Rocks Satisfactorily”. Incidentally, the Embargo article probably refers to a avian influenza outbreak of 1924-1925 that repeated in 1929 and 1983. By the 1950s interest in backyard...

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The Jerusalem Cookbook

...meatless offerings so far. Though there are a lot of veg recipes which use eggs, yogurt and cheese, there are also good vegan-friendly offerings. To give you a feel for the book, these are the recipes we’ve enjoyed so far. All are excellent: Swiss chard fritters (with feta and nutmeg) Roasted cauliflower and hazelnut salad Roasted butternut squash and red onion with tahini and za’atar Acharuli khachapuri (pastry boats filled with soft cheese, topp...

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Who Wants Seconds? Winner Announced

...gh we eat dairy, we do our best to eat grass fed dairy, and mostly our own eggs, and this limits availability and raises costs as well, so many of our meals are actually vegan. Okay! I know! Enough blathering. This morning we generated a number at random.org and counted down the comments until we got to our winner. And the winner is…. … Siri! Congratulations, Siri! We have Siri’s email address since she didn’t comment anonymously. We’ll be sending...

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Waking up on New Year’s Day with the world of long crowing roosters

.... Somewhat perversely, the long crowing trait makes for lower fertility in eggs and greater susceptibility to disease in chicks. As Humans have bred long crowing roosters for thousands of years, it’s a reminder that people have been placing fun and entertainment before utility for a long time. An anthropology professor I once had speculated that the musical bow came before the hunting bow. Other anthropologists theorize that chickens were domestic...

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