Culinary Conversations

[worth1]

My job situation allowed me to stop at the HEB in Taylor Texas a farming community up north of me.
To my surprise and delight they had the 1 pound containers of fiesta brand chili powder and picked up a pound to add to my collection.
I haven't seen this stuff in a coons age at my HEB in Bastrop.

[worth1]

On my way from the store yesterday I remembered seeing some construction going on along side the now feeder road on highway 71 East.
I can't even remember what all was there 23 years ago when I first moved here.
But yesterday they had a sign up saying P.Terry's.
P.Terry's is a local fast food hamburger stand originally from Austin on Lamar and Barton springs road in 2005.
Not a corporation but a business owned by a husband and wife.
Since then they have opened this stands up all over Austin and surrounding area.
Now it seems they've came to Bastrop.

They tout the usual stuff black Angus beef all fresh and all natural.
Fries made in canola oil of which I'm not a fan of because I don't think any of this highly processed seed oil is healthy loaded with polyunsaturated fat.

I've never eaten at one even though I've driven by them a thousand times at least.

On the up side they pay and treat their employees well considering the work and they make the fries fresh from potatoes on the spot.
For a full time worker of which they consider 29 hours a week it starts at 15 an hour.
When they did this some time back the new guys where I worked got 12 dollars an hour to bust their butts on a construction site with no raise in sight.
That's a hard pill to swallow in my opinion.

Well anywho I thought I would post about the neverending changes in my town.
Fast food joints going up everywhere it seems.

[LindaJean]

Will there be any real hamburgers after the World Economic Forum destroys all the cattle ranches ?
Klaus Schwab wants us to eat cricket burgers ...

[worth1]

Will there be any real hamburgers after the World Economic Forum destroys all the cattle ranches ?
Klaus Schwab wants us to eat cricket burgers ...

Maybe only for the very rich.
If you look at prohibition all the really wealthy people had years supply of alcohol before they passed the bill.
I read the very people that passed the bill had huge stocks of alcohol.

[LindaJean]

Exactly .

[worth1]

Fastest growing city in America gets new HEB grocery store of mammoth proportions.
Georgetown Texas has been named the fastest growing city in America and it has a new HEB.
Located off highway 29 on the west side of highway 35 at Wolf lakes village.

It even has a 2 story BBQ place.

https://newsroom.heb.com/h-e-b-opens-wo ... eorgetown/

[LindaJean]

Wow, they better pray there isn't another plandemic lockdown.

[worth1]

Wow, they better pray there isn't another plandemic lockdown.

They never shut down or even slowed down hardly during the last one.
Maybe hours changed a little due to supply demand.

[worth1]

I've seen the HEB plus in Bastrop moved once at least and expanded I don't know how many times.
The parking lot is constantly packed.
People from all the small surrounding towns shop there.
Taylor Texas HEB will have to do something soon with Samsung moving in.

[karstopography]

I've seen the HEB plus in Bastrop moved once at least and expanded I don't know how many times.
The parking lot is constantly packed.
People from all the small surrounding towns shop there.
Taylor Texas HEB will have to do something soon with Samsung moving in.

They built the one here in LJ and immediately regretted not making it bigger. I know the store manager and he told me he pleaded with upper management to make it 50% bigger than they did. They’ve since expanded, but not nearly enough.

The previous HEB on the other side of town was so absolutely dreadful, dilapidated, cramped, tiny, not especially clean, that it messed up the HEB’s market research and strength of Market numbers. I refused to go to the old HEB even though it was the closest market to my house at the time. Anyone with half a brain could have told upper management that the condition of that old store was making their math all screwy, Jeff the current store manager tried, I could have, but upper management is never wrong .

We get the surrounding town traffic and this time of year a lot of people coming in from the short term beach rentals.

[worth1]

When will it all end.
Yetti is selling a 12 inch cast iron skillet for $400.
Once we had the designer jeans craze now it's designer skillets.
Hand cast to insure smoothness seems to be the catch phrase for cast iron these days.
And yes they're selling them like hotcakes.
In perspective you could buy about 20 12 inch Lodge cast iron skillets for the same price.

Here we are in a word where many people are just getting by and other people are paying $400 for a darn cast iron skillet.
The lunacy continues.

[worth1]

Yetti skillet.
https://www.outkick.com/yeti-cast-iron- ... 0-dollars/
Reminds me of the guy that bragged about his 400 dollar Harley Davidson Ring.

[worth1]

Why do so many people think adding oil to butter will keep it from burning?
This simply isn't true but it's been a common belief for years.
And the so called experts on YouTube continue to promote this false information.

Many of you have seen me put butter on my gravy.
I make the roux with oil and then when it's cooled off or I add liquid I add the butter.
If you make a very light roux you can get away with butter but adding oil won't stop it from burning.
It's the milk solids in butter that burns not the actual butter fat that burns.
This is why clarified butter has such a high smoke point.
If you already knew this fine but maybe some don't.

[worth1]

I stopped off at the store today to get a few things.
I'm making peppers onions and sausage for supper.
Then I spent way too long looking at cheese.
The cheese I wanted cost from 16 to 20 dollars a pound.
Not gonna happen.
Not today anyway.
Maybe when they close the store I'll sneak in as a stocker and grab up the whole wheel and run out.
Officer, "What did he steal?"
Real store stocker, ”A whole wheel of cheese."
Officer, So you mean to tell me an old man came in disguised as a store worker and ran out with a whole wheel of cheese?"
Store worker, " Yes sir a whole wheel."
Officer, "May I ask what kind of cheese?".
Store worker, "It was Pecorino Romano imported from Italy and made with sheeps milk”
Officer, "Well alright then, can you blame him, have you seen the price of that stuff?".
Hey look over there.
What?
Over there.
Hey where the the police officer go?

[karstopography]

We had Oaxaca cheese cubed up a couple nights ago with tomatoes and cucumbers, I love Oaxaca cheese.

Today, my daughter taught me about using ricotta as a spread on sourdough bread instead of mayo. Sandwich went like this, butter toasted bread, then a smear of ricotta, then turkey breast, she likes avocado, but we had none so I used a gold medal tomato, yummy.

I bought some 18 month old gouda, I didn’t even look at the price. It’s really good.

I’ve also got a wedge of Pecorino Romano in the fridge.

I love cheese.

[worth1]

Yesterday during my cheese adventure I discovered they had cheese curds.
I've never seen it before.
This reminded me of the poutine or whatever the devil it's called up in Canada.
That stuff they make with french fries brown gravy and cheese curds.
I tried it but without the curds.
I couldn't get past the brown gravy part and not a fan what so ever.
And I make good brown gravy.
Not likely the curds are going to make it better.
Now I'm trying to figure out what I can do to make it "Texas style" so I can stomach it.
Y'all northern folks got some strange food going on.

[pepperhead212]

In Indian cooking "curds" simply means yogurt.

It always seemed strange to me that "aged" cheese has never taken a foothold in Indian cooking, given the fact that fresh cheese, or paneer, is much of the protein in the diet of the vegetarians there, and the presence of the English through much of India for centuries. Of course, pizza and other fast foods have a lot of cheeses made for them, as they do everywhere, but the European type cheeses just never caught on.

[worth1]

In Indian cooking "curds" simply means yogurt.

It always seemed strange to me that "aged" cheese has never taken a foothold in Indian cooking, given the fact that fresh cheese, or paneer, is much of the protein in the diet of the vegetarians there, and the presence of the English through much of India for centuries. Of course, pizza and other fast foods have a lot of cheeses made for them, as they do everywhere, but the European type cheeses just never caught on.

Considering what little I know about the food of India the English type cheese wouldn't go well with the food I've had based on Indian cooking and spices.
Maybe it's the heat.

[karstopography]

In Indian cooking "curds" simply means yogurt.

It always seemed strange to me that "aged" cheese has never taken a foothold in Indian cooking, given the fact that fresh cheese, or paneer, is much of the protein in the diet of the vegetarians there, and the presence of the English through much of India for centuries. Of course, pizza and other fast foods have a lot of cheeses made for them, as they do everywhere, but the European type cheeses just never caught on.

Paneer doesn’t require animal derived rennet to make whereas many or most European cheese traditionally does. Animal derived rennet in cheese is not consistent with vegetarian lifestyles.

[worth1]

I have a vegetable derived rennet but I've read it doesn't do well for longer aged cheese.
But wait a minute, cheese isn't vegetarian.
But there are different levels of the practice as well.
Some places in India don't allow the eating of any beef products but milk maybe.
I glad I don't follow or have to follow any of this stuff.