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Food Thread: The Unbearable LIghtness Of Brussels Sprouts

I love 'em! Brussels Sprouts are tasty, great textured, are infinitely malleable, so they can be sweet or tart or spicy or salty or fatty. Well, they are always fatty, because if I am not cooking them with bacon they get a large dousing of olive oil.

But around these parts, the Brussels Sprouts crop has been crap. They are woody, tough, and I have noticed more rot and bug evidence than usual. Is there a coming Brussels Sprouts blight that will rival the Black Death? Is Big Vegetable, in its infinite wisdom, getting rid of Brussels Sprouts the way they deplatformed snap peas?

Because this is a big deal! How can I make Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, or more accurately, Bacon with Brussels Sprouts, if one of the four ingredients is substandard?

Anyone else notice this, or am I the only lunatic?

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I like RFK Jr. A bit. He is an iconoclast, and our government needs more of them. He is also no fan of Big Pharma and their tenacious grip on our government and media (via oceans of cash!).

But he is also loony-tunes!

RFK Jr. Says Government Going to Figure Out What's Causing Food Allergies

"It's pretty easy to figure this out, and we will figure it out," Kennedy said at the Washington event held by the Food Allergy Fund.

Biomedical research is insanely difficult, not least because the metabolic and immunological pathways of the human body are immeasurably complex. And the human genome and behavior are also pretty complicated, so eliminating confounding variables to arrive at a statistically valid result is not "pretty easy" at all!

Kennedy said he does not think the spike in food allergies is due to avoidance, citing that his own home was filled with peanut products, yet five of his children still developed allergies, and that countries where peanut butter was introduced did not see large increases in peanut allergies.

Yeah...I really don't want a secretary of HHS to be ignorant of the difference between anecdotal evidence and statistically valid evidence.
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I don't have any idea what happened, but it was delicious! And the damned thing almost pushed the top of my baking Dutch Oven off!

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Artificial tongue uses milk to determine heat level in spicy foods

I can think of many uses for an artificial tongue, but none of them involve avoiding spicy foods. Isn't that part of the excitement of eating hot stuff?

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In answer to my question from last week about drinking hard liquor with meals, here is commenter "Pastafarian" with an answer!

Pretty much exclusively. I don't care for wine. I'll drink it, when in Rome yada yada. But it doesn't really enhance food, to me. It's just too much grape-skin "earthiness" (dirt) and tannins. Blech.

Now a nice old fashioned (bourbon, rye, or rum) goes really well with a steak. So does a Manhattan.

And margaritas go well with Mexican food, and Mojitos with Cuban -- properly made margs and mojitos, tart and bright, no bottled sour mix involved, fresh-squeezed or muddled limes only.

Aside from the fact that no civilized human being would make an Old Fashioned with Rum, I like the cut of his jib!
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Germans think their bread is the best in the world. Here's why they might be right
The Italians and the French might argue the point, and I think the writer is also conflating quantity and quality.

Of course, I sent the article to Muldoon, who is a fellow sourdough aficionado, and he had the best response!

I think the writer of that piece had a flawed translation from the original German. What it actually said is that Germans are the best in the world at loafing.

[HatTip: Kindltot]
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I am gutless, and never take the proffered lollipop, whether it is at the bank or the barber. Yes, my long-time barber has a bowl for the kids! Smart guy.

The Dum Dum Dilemma: Can A Grown Man Help Himself To A Bank Lollipop Without Looking Like A Creep?

But that doesn't mean that I don't want one. Maybe I should consider it "hard candy on a stick," that way it isn't quite so child-like!

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A friend graciously gave me some genuine grown-in-the-USA garlic, and I am going to taste one clove and plant the rest, because my pathetic failure last year is an anomaly...right?

Send all of your extra antelope to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!