Public Service Announcement: New woks are not user-ready

Turns out if you just put it out there on the stove, what you will get is a terrifying smell of metal burning and a blackened bottom.  Also, fear.

There are several ways to "cure" a new wok.  One step not mentioned on that page is that you also have to wash it really good first because many woks are coated with, I don't know, a plastic coating of some kind.  That may be the source of the terrifying burning smell.

I plan to use the Oven Seasoning Method from the above link, allegedly endorsed by an authoritative-sounding source, The Wok Shop in San Francisco.  If there is, indeed, such a place, I would imagine they would know, right?

First, wash the wok thoroughly and dry over heat. Next, coat the wok, inside only, with cooking oil. Bake in the oven at 450° for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, let cool, wash (scour) and dry over heat again. Repeat this process three or four times. Your wok should look bronze in color when seasoned this way. Note: If your wok has a wooden or plastic handle that cannot be removed, cover the handle with a damp dishcloth then cover the dishcloth with foil before baking. This will keep the wood or plastic from getting scorched or melting.

Mushrooms in tunnels

I knew, of course, that mushrooms can be grown indoors, or otherwise under human cultivation. But I never considered the possibilities of disused transit tunnels.

Apparently different types of mushrooms prefer different temperatures, which makes sense. This one tunnel houses soil-based white button mushrooms, Cremini, Shimeji, Wood-ear, Shiitake, and Oyster mushrooms. But King Brown and Chestnut mushrooms require higher temperatures, so they are raised separately.

BLDBLOG has some interesting ideas about the subway tunnels under London, but the only subways I've used are in other countries, so I can't offer too much insight there.  It seems like some kinds of abandoned buildings might be able to be used in similar fashion, though.  Perhaps something could be done with some of those buildings in Detroit? 

Incidentally, shiitake mushrooms originate in China, despite the fact that we use the Japanese name. I had no idea "black forest mushroom" was just a synonym for "shiitake" either.

Public Service Announcement: Lemon & ginger

If something is stuck in your esophagus that prevents you from swallowing but allows you to breathe, you can relax your throat muscles with warm, weak lemon tea. When the throat muscles relax, this often opens enough space to allow the obstruction to be swallowed.

Lemon tea:
Heat water to "very warm" - keep it comfortable to drink
Add juice of a generous slice of fresh lemon

If you have had a serious throat obstruction (and/or been Heimliched), you may have trouble swallowing next time you try to eat. To avoid this problem, drink some lemon-ginger tea five minutes before trying to eat.

Lemon-ginger tea:
Cut a slice of fresh ginger about the shape of a dime
Put the ginger and some water in the microwave and heat to "very warm"
Add juice of a generous slice of fresh lemon

I got this info from a paramedic half an hour ago and it totally worked. No one even had to go for an ambulance ride.
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Julie & Julia

I saw this movie with my mom this afternoon. It's about a modern woman named Julie who learns to cook by doing every recipe in Julia Child's book Master the Art of French Cooking, all in one year.

I had heard the name Julia Child, but I've never actually seen an episode of her (apparently) iconic television show. The movie was seriously entertaining and a major dose of the warm fuzzies even without any existing knowledge, but I do wonder if I was missing some nuances there. And I had no idea that the titular Julie is a real person.

I was really pleased that it passed the rule without even trying. It issn't a feminist movie, it isn't going out of its way to make a point about the issue... it is simply, quietly, a movie about two women who really like to cook, and who have female friends as well as husbands. In fact, it almost didn't pass the reverse test- as far as I can remember, there is only a single scene where two guys talk about something other than a woman - and that is a guy getting questioned by Senator McCarthy's goons about whether or not he's homosexual.

They totally dumped on The Joy of Cooking in the movie, which I found kind of hilarious, since in my head the two books are, essentially, the same thing. But then, my cooking bible is Recipes for a Lady or a Man.

Among the things I learned from this movie: there were no French cookbooks in English before Julia Child published her book in 1961. It was a labor of love that took three women more than ten years to complete, and the original draft featured more than seven hundred pages just on sauces and poultry. They must have cut it down some for the final draft?

Julia Child learned French cooking in the late 1940s (1949?) from a class for American GIs to learn to be professional French chefs. It appeared in the movie that the GIs' tuition at the cooking school was being paid by the government, which surprised me. I guess that counts as vocational training. But I wonder if you could get the Army to spring for it today.

I really want to make chocolate mousse and boeuf bourguignon. Also: deboned ducks and aspic are freaky. Freaky and yucky.