The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

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TastyReuben said:
I don't know about you, but the remaining sugar is what I'd consider a dry ingredient. 😒
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Yes - and the recipe acknowledges this because it says mix the 'remaining' dry ingredients after adding half the sugar. So they know that sugar is a dry ingredient. This is a tricky one. Its not quite detailed enough. But when I read it through I understood it. It would have been more accurate to say (see my bold):

1. Melt some butter in a cake pan
2. Pour 1/2 cup sugar over melted butter
3. Mix the other dry ingredients (flour, etc)
4. Cream butter and remaining sugar
 
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Morning Glory said:
Yes - and the recipe acknowledges this because it says mix the 'remaining' dry ingredients after adding half the sugar. So they know that sugar is a dry ingredient. This is a tricky one. Its not quite detailed enough. But when I read it through I understood it. It would have been more accurate to say (see my bold):

1. Melt some butter in a cake pan
2. Pour 1/2 cup sugar over melted butter
3. Mix the other dry ingredients (flour, etc)
4. Cream butter and remaining sugar
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They didn't say "remaining," that was my paraphrasing. The direct quote is "Whisk together dry ingredients. Set aside."

That's why, say what you want otherwise, I appreciate the fastidious meticulousness of America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country. They can sometimes go a bit too far, but reading one of their recipes, it's obvious somebody sat down and put some thought into it, instead of just dashing it off and figuring, "they'll know what I mean."

Others may not agree, but I strongly believe that recipes should be direct and accurate, with as little room as possible for guesswork. A person shouldn't have to study a recipe, or stop and think, "ok...let's go over where these ingredients go...," if a recipe is a puzzle, it's defeating the purpose, IMO. This one was particularly pisserly (I just made that up, I think), because it's a fairly subtle mistake. I've read through this probably five times in as many days, but it's one that doesn't reveal itself until it's too late.

In my notes next to this step, I've added, "...except the sugar, you dumbazzes!" :laugh:
 
Morning Glory said:
In that case the recipe really was ambiguous/misleading!

It may be worth starting a new thread about recipe accuracy...
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I really have to consider the source when I read these things. This came out of a Costco "cookbook," one of those where every recipe lists their brand name ingredients, and those things are almost always poorly written. I should have known to go through and read it like an editor.

Good dish, though. :)
 
For reasons too dull and long-winded to go into, we mused last night on places (in the UK) that have the letter Z in the name. I was expecting a few, but after some pondering, we managed no more than half a dozen. There were a couple of suburbs we came up with as well, one in London and the other in Liverpool. This little game turned out to be trickier than expected.
 
Duck59 said:
For reasons too dull and long-winded to go into, we mused last night on places (in the UK) that have the letter Z in the name. I was expecting a few, but after some pondering, we managed no more than half a dozen. There were a couple of suburbs we came up with as well, one in London and the other in Liverpool. This little game turned out to be trickier than expected.
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They are not common here, either. Since my last name has a "Z" in it, I notice when I see things with the letter. BTW, we pronounce it "zee" here, not "zed." I had an interesting exchange with a hotel clerk in England many years ago when I tried to verbally spell my name for him.

CD
 
caseydog said:
They are not common here, either. Since my last name has a "Z" in it, I notice when I see things with the letter. BTW, we pronounce it "zee" here, not "zed." I had an interesting exchange with a hotel clerk in England many years ago when I tried to verbally spell my name for him.

CD
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It's not unusual to hear it pronounced "zed" where my wife is from, in upstate NY near the Canadian border. The local NBC affiliate is WPTZ, and you know how national network stars will do little promos for the local stations, like maybe a Saturday Night Live cast member would record a little blurb, saying, "Watch me and the rest of the SNL crew on WPTZ, Saturday nights at 11:30PM!"

They did one with David Letterman, way back when he was on NBC, and it went something like, "Be sure to catch me, David Letterman, right here every weeknight after your local news, on WPT...Zed? What the hell is 'Zed?'" I used to love that, because it was a little nod to the locals.
 
Just in case anybody's wondering, the biggest place we thought of was Penzance. There are also two sizeable towns with the splendid names of Leighton Buzzard and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. We also came up with Brize Norton in Oxfordshire (best known for a US air base) and Lenzie, which is near Glasgow.

The suburbs were Fazakerley, north of Liverpool and Belsize Park in north London.

I'll guarantee there are others.
 
I think the term zed had an uptick in usage on this side of the pond because of the following:

ShaunOfTheDead_PosterArt.jpg


Great movie.
 
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