caitmcg

Fred certainly proved himself a liability to Nonnatus House (and Dr. Turner’s maternity home and surgery), not because he’s not a qualified repairman or because he has Reggie assist him, but because he blithely and unthinkingly spouted off all of Nonnatus’s business to the BOH president after he introduced himself as such. Fred only looked a a bit abashed when he looked at the man’s card after the fact. Conversely, I have a friend who became pregnant at 44 (unplanned), and she said when she missed a couple of periods at that age, her first thought wasn’t pregnancy, it was perimenopause.

Sarah Snook is pregnant, so they may have written it in, knowing she’d be showing by the later episodes.

Yes, and in fact, Downton Abbey frequently portrayed this.

I like coffee and cardamom in browbies

She was barely surviving, which was the entire reason she married him.

I mean, most ideas Greg has come up with on his own have been pretty hare-brained, so while his MO since S1 has been (ineffectual, to say the least) self-preservation, at best he’s failed upward. Plus, the Tom and Greg show is Succession's comic relief, hence a shrewd Greg doesn’t track. Connor: Truer words…

I can easily see working tart green apples into a Thai-inspired dish, and even peas, but cheese would be a bit of a stretch.

But it’s still a few minutes less than an hour, with time for the same “behind the scenes” repeated each week, so that doesn’t really track.

I can attest to this fact. My very favorite grilled cheese is a nutty aged cheddar or Gruyère with chopped kimchi and thinly sliced crisp apple or Asian pear on whole-grain or sourdough bread. The kimchi works brilliantly here, but it’s really key to use an aged cheese with some character.

But Luciana made the comment specifically about traditional pub food when she first came to London, not about restaurant food in general. She basically said the pub food was not good then (nineteen years ago) and had come a long way in quality.

Alan Sepinwall has a a glowing review in Rolling Stone.

The episodes on Netflix in the US are the same as what airs on PBS, so yes, they are the edited versions. To my knowledge, the only ones that don’t get the PBS edit are the Christmas episodes.

It’s kind of surprising that no one went for fried rice. That seems like a no-brainer, given that it’s best made with cold, day-old rice. Cook the rice and prep all the inclusions/seasonings on the prep day, then turn it into fried rice on serving day.

Also, it has been interesting to hear, from French TC winner Samuel (booted this episode) last week and I believe Gabri this week, that in their home country versions of TC they don’t shop, they only use the producer-stocked pantries. So not only are they shopping in a different country and context, they won’t have had to budget and shop retail for the contest previously (and of course, just shop/order wholesale for their restaurants).

If Samuel's dish didn’t have a lot of salt, I’m not surprised he lost, especially given the more subtle flavors. Tom likes his food well-salted, and many have been axed from LCK over the years for going too low on salt for him.

I’ve learned that a thin film of oil makes sticky ingredients slide right out, so if I’m baking something with oil, I measure that first and pour it out to leave a film, and otherwise I smear a little drop of neutral oil around in the measuring vessel. Makes them easier to clean, too.

By prunes, do you perchance mean the fresh Italian prune plums, as they’re usually called in the US vs. the dried fruit? Late summer/early fall is their season.

I generally find Bonne Maman preserves to be very good, and I also like their apricot fruit spread. The one flavor from I do buy is black currant, because it’s the main source available to me. Presumably because of their laxative properties. Other than fancy (expensive) imports, the best prunes are the Sunsweet Amazing, which are large, plump, and moist — and the bag does say dried plums in large print, and prunes in small print. Costco has them for a great price.

Do use a cookie dough or a yeast-risen dough for your hamantaschen? I’ve only made them with the former, which I think is more common, but I know the yeasted dough is traditional for some people.

It’s really a thing here due to the Irish immigrant population. Otherwise, we have no saints day or other religious holidays aside from Easter and Christmas (which are public holidays). St. Patrick’s Day is more a sentimental thing which, as I understand it, is fairly divorced in practice from anything in Ireland.

Well, not unless Jesse Armstrong is just lying about it to save face, given what he says in the New Yorker interview.

According to PBS, season 12 will premiere Sunday, March 19. And the BBC announced that it has renewed the show through season 15, taking it up to 2026.

I also have Edd Kimber’s first book (bought as an ebook bargain), though I haven’t actually used it. Same for Chetna Makan’s street food book, Chai, Chat, and Chutney. But I also have, and have used, her first baking book, The Cardamom Trail: Chetna Bakes with Flavors of the East, and everything I’ve made from it has been great. And I’ve got her new book, Chetna’s Easy Baking with a Twist of Spice (another ebook bargain), and the recipes look interesting and appealing. I recently took Benjamina Ebuehi’s new book, A Good Day to Bake out of the library, and while I didn’t have a chance to bake from it while I had it checked out, the recipes looked good (her recipes are easy enough to preview via her blog and Guardian column). A friend gave me Ruby Tandoh’s new cookbook for Christmas, but that’s not baking.

Out of curiosity, whose books haven’t you liked?