@heartny we’re still trying to find a restaurant that makes a kind of Laotian rice cake that was available at a little hole in the wall place out on the west side of town. They closed, and we don’t know if they moved or just went out of the business.
@stolicat Yes, but it’s not common And because you don’t really know what’s in it, it could still be problematic if you have food allergies to deal with. I have to avoid salad bars, And salads in general at certain restaurants, because of canola oil.
@hchavers@Salanth I assume that you’ve noticed that the trailers that they use for those funnel cake kitchens have big vent fans in them which pull the oil fumes out continually. They also are not air-conditioned, for obvious reasons. It’s damned uncomfortable in there. Anyway, if you’ve got a good range hood that exhausts up through the roof, and you have one of the bottom dispensing gadgets to place the stream of batter into the oil, it becomes perfectly possible to make a decent funnel cake. Which leaves only the question of why bother…
@pmarin Personally, I’ve countered that question with “why not”.
It’s a bit of sourpuss turns into sour templar knight where I shrug at all the options, ignore my thinking process, and just charge and think of victory or an exit strategy at the seat of my pants, basking in what small adrenaline rush this provides.
@rtjhnstn I think I could probably do it, I just don’t want to have to make an entire barrel at a time. And getting what I would consider to be a good barrel for the aging would be a challenge.
@Salanth What’s critical for the aging barrel is what was aged in it last time. The very best whiskies (in my opinion, at least) are aged in port wine barrels. Those are typically several years old (the best are a decade or more!) before they are sold onward to the whiskey distillers. And it’s even more difficult to get a small barrel for the first part of the process with the correct char for the temp and humidity conditions around here. Small barrels with no char at all are easy, tthere are dozens of suppliers. But barrels with the char required for whiskey? With the right level of char for the conditions you are working in? Not so much!
My 81-year-old mother-in-law, who lives with me and my wife, has been learning how to make sushi! She’s made it twice so far, with MUCH improvement the second time. She is going to give it another go this coming week, and I am really forward to it. If she can learn how to MAKI, so can the rest of us.
@hchavers This is one that I’ve managed to get very right indeed, but it is a lot of work. And if you’re using pistachios, you really need good, not even close to stale ones.
@hchavers@werehatrack agree on freshness of nuts like pistachio and also macadamia. Probably any kind of nut actually. Because of the way the supply chain works, it’s very hard to get access to truly fresh products like this. Yes some come from around the world but often they spend weeks or months in a shipping container or back of an un-airconditioned semi truck.
@sicc574 The best Lebanese food I’ve ever had has been made at home! Raw kibbie was probably one of my first solid foods ever eaten. Lol I grew up with an amazing family of excellent cooks, I love my heritage! And don’t even get me going about the desserts…
@Lynnerizer@sicc574 I really miss a tiny restaurant that was in town quite a while ago for a short time - it had fabulous Lebanese food, but it was only big enough for about a dozen people to sit in at one time. They made the most incredible baba ganoush. Sigh…
@jnicholson0619@werehatrack Cinnabon is one of two foods ruined by working at the restaurant. Once you have them straight out of the oven with only enough cool down time to put icing on them all the rest taste kind of stale.
The other food is cinnamon twists from Taco Bell. I worked the midnight to 8am shift in a 24 hours store. We got stuck with cleaning the fryer. First thing we did once the fresh oil got up to temp was make a batch of cinnamon twists. Out of the fryer, into the cinnamon/sugar mix and then down the hatch. Those puffed up pasta were so good like that.
@jnicholson0619@werehatrack@yakkoTDI A third “food” that can only truly be appreciated at it’s moment of conception is fresh-off-the-production-line ice cream sandwiches. Eaten while the chocolate wafer is still crunchy and flavorful (think Nabisco “Famous” chocolate cookies) and the vanilla ice cream is still in the soft-serve state. Not the ones at the convenience store with the soggy wafers and the rock-hard but gummy vanilla ice cream. They are not even close.
i used to approximate these with those Nabisco cookies and good homemade vanilla ice cream, but those cookies don’t seem to be sold anymore.
Two college summers working at a major dairy on the production line has left lingering memories for me. OOF. Now i’m jonezing for a fresh 6-pack of those delicious sandwiches!
@pskemp2 I meant the newer chocolate Frosty. When I was a kid they had chocolate freckles and tasted much better. I think they lost their freckles in the late '90s or early '00s.
@pskemp2@yakkoTDI I was surprised how much I liked the orange as I’m not a huge creamsicle fan, but I do like sherbet. I don’t care for their vanilla at all. Never tried the strawberry when they had it. Chocolate is still my favorite by far, but it’s weird I don’t remember the “freckles” others mentioned.
@macromeh When I would visit a client in South Carolina we would have dinner at a restaurant that served Sail Possum. It allegedly was possum roadkill that was flattened so much that when you scraped it up you could make it sail like a frisbee. When I refused to order it, my client secretly whispered to me that it was actually trimmings from roast beef.
@macromeh I make exploding meatloaf. It’s a veal, beef and pork mixture. I press it into a loaf pan and make a well. I fill that with garlic mashed potatoes and top with shredded sharp cheddar. Then that’s topped with the rest of the meat. The taters absorb all of the meat and cheese fat, and when you cut a slice it has all the things. I think it’s why I’ve been married for 25 years
I Love the Nathans Hotdog carts in Atlantic city. I just talked about them lastnite. Ive tried cooking them a dozen times and they’re always gross. I guess they need the flithy disgusting 3day old water to make them taste good. I know its dirty & gross but i will eat 2-3 of em, no problem!!
It’s not impossible, only impractical to replicate the great beans at a solid BBQ joint. If I’m only cooking ribs or a pork butt, it’s a lot of work to get together sausage, burnt ends, rib tips, and all the other smokey treats that go into an awesome pot of beans.
@djslack@pmarin If you’re going to do brisket in the smoker from start to finish, it takes 18 to 24 hours. But perfectly good brisket can be achieved by smoking it heavily for 2 to 4 hours and then transferring it to the oven in tightly-wrapped foil for another 12 to 20 hours. Basically, start on Friday morning if you want to eat it on Saturday.
@Kyeh there is a guy, used to work as a nurse at the same hospital i did years ago, he loves making croissants and got a permit for a home kitchen and sells at the farmer’s market on the weekends he’s not working. they are super mediocrebotannouncedawesome
@Cerridwyn Nice! I’ve watched people make croissants and other flaky pastry on TV and I just would never be dedicated enough to do it myself. Not to mention my kitchen is ridiculously small, almost trailer-sized.
@jmbunkin Pizza is actually pretty easy to do at home. Takes a little practice, but if you can get a reasonable pizza stone and your oven can get to 500 you can make some decent pie. However, this is what happens when my family can’t decide on what type of pizza they want. I just make all the things.
@Cerridwyn@pmarin There is a regional chain here in Texas called Golden Chick, and some of its units make really good fried and roast chicken. (Others use too much salt; I think it’s a symptom of being a franchise.) But their fries are routinely amazing, and part of the secret is that they use lard in their fryers.
@werehatrack if you ever come across a Griff’s (burger joint, regional afaik and almost universally in shady parts of town) they fry their fries in tallow.
@Cerridwyn@pmarin You’ve got to double dredge and have a good hot fryer… and/or a good, deep cast iron skillet. I smoke a lot of pork shoulders and I take the trimmed fat and render it into lard. Lard is an unpleasant word, but you will have a clean plate if I’m cooking for you
@capnjb@Cerridwyn@pmarin I worked at a small family-run steakhouse in high school. They’d butcher sides of beef themselves and render the trimmings and cook all the fries in that.
Chai latte from my friend’s coffee shop.
Communion wafers.
Lacks body if you eat them at home.
/showme a religious rimshot
Rice cakes
@heartny we’re still trying to find a restaurant that makes a kind of Laotian rice cake that was available at a little hole in the wall place out on the west side of town. They closed, and we don’t know if they moved or just went out of the business.
How about … good salad bar ranch dressing?
Is there such a thing?
@stolicat Yes, but it’s not common And because you don’t really know what’s in it, it could still be problematic if you have food allergies to deal with. I have to avoid salad bars, And salads in general at certain restaurants, because of canola oil.
@melonscoop you’re just not letting it sit out long enough to age properly…
Funnel cakes.
How do they keep that wet batter from splashing hot oil everywhere?
@hchavers By dispensing it fairly close to the oil and not from up high? Also, the narrow stream has less mass.
@Salanth The splash of the mass is not the problem, it’s the sudden evaporation that carries hot oil with it.
@hchavers @Salanth I assume that you’ve noticed that the trailers that they use for those funnel cake kitchens have big vent fans in them which pull the oil fumes out continually. They also are not air-conditioned, for obvious reasons. It’s damned uncomfortable in there. Anyway, if you’ve got a good range hood that exhausts up through the roof, and you have one of the bottom dispensing gadgets to place the stream of batter into the oil, it becomes perfectly possible to make a decent funnel cake. Which leaves only the question of why bother…
@hchavers @Salanth @werehatrack sadly I’m getting to the point where “ the question of why bother…” comes to mind about nearly everything.
I’m hoping it’s a temporary funk I’ll get over.
But short of that, sometimes culinary pleasures like sushi, onion rings, questionable hot dogs, and of course funnel cakes, do indeed help.
@hchavers @pmarin @Salanth @werehatrack Especially when someone else makes them!
@Kyeh ^^^THIS^^^
@pmarin Personally, I’ve countered that question with “why not”.
It’s a bit of sourpuss turns into sour templar knight where I shrug at all the options, ignore my thinking process, and just charge and think of victory or an exit strategy at the seat of my pants, basking in what small adrenaline rush this provides.
Whataburger onion rings
Wok hei.
Braaiinns
Bourbon
@rtjhnstn I think I could probably do it, I just don’t want to have to make an entire barrel at a time. And getting what I would consider to be a good barrel for the aging would be a challenge.
What if you got some everclear or vodka and one of those mini barrels?
@Salanth What’s critical for the aging barrel is what was aged in it last time. The very best whiskies (in my opinion, at least) are aged in port wine barrels. Those are typically several years old (the best are a decade or more!) before they are sold onward to the whiskey distillers. And it’s even more difficult to get a small barrel for the first part of the process with the correct char for the temp and humidity conditions around here. Small barrels with no char at all are easy, tthere are dozens of suppliers. But barrels with the char required for whiskey? With the right level of char for the conditions you are working in? Not so much!
Twinkies
My 81-year-old mother-in-law, who lives with me and my wife, has been learning how to make sushi! She’s made it twice so far, with MUCH improvement the second time. She is going to give it another go this coming week, and I am really forward to it. If she can learn how to MAKI, so can the rest of us.
@DonBirren
We’re NEVER too old to learn new things! 
I LOVE IT!
Baklava, at least good ones.
@hchavers This is one that I’ve managed to get very right indeed, but it is a lot of work. And if you’re using pistachios, you really need good, not even close to stale ones.
@hchavers @werehatrack agree on freshness of nuts like pistachio and also macadamia. Probably any kind of nut actually. Because of the way the supply chain works, it’s very hard to get access to truly fresh products like this. Yes some come from around the world but often they spend weeks or months in a shipping container or back of an un-airconditioned semi truck.
Lebanese food…so amazing, but I dare not try to make it myself…
@sicc574 The best Lebanese food I’ve ever had has been made at home! Raw kibbie was probably one of my first solid foods ever eaten. Lol
I grew up with an amazing family of excellent cooks, I love my heritage!
And don’t even get me going about the desserts… 
@Lynnerizer @sicc574 I really miss a tiny restaurant that was in town quite a while ago for a short time - it had fabulous Lebanese food, but it was only big enough for about a dozen people to sit in at one time. They made the most incredible baba ganoush. Sigh…
I make lots of cinnamon rolls. Good ones. But there’s something about a Cinnabon from the 80s/90s that just cannot be duplicated.
@jnicholson0619 Precisely. Even Cinnabon can’t do it. Of course, they don’t even try anymore.
@jnicholson0619 @werehatrack Cinnabon is one of two foods ruined by working at the restaurant. Once you have them straight out of the oven with only enough cool down time to put icing on them all the rest taste kind of stale.
The other food is cinnamon twists from Taco Bell. I worked the midnight to 8am shift in a 24 hours store. We got stuck with cleaning the fryer. First thing we did once the fresh oil got up to temp was make a batch of cinnamon twists. Out of the fryer, into the cinnamon/sugar mix and then down the hatch. Those puffed up pasta were so good like that.
@jnicholson0619 Better call Saul.
@yakkoTDI wait, cinnamon twists are pasta? The thought never occurred to me but it makes perfect sense.
@djslack @yakkoTDI cinnamon twists are people!!
/image Soylent green is people meme
@jnicholson0619 @werehatrack @yakkoTDI A third “food” that can only truly be appreciated at it’s moment of conception is fresh-off-the-production-line ice cream sandwiches. Eaten while the chocolate wafer is still crunchy and flavorful (think Nabisco “Famous” chocolate cookies) and the vanilla ice cream is still in the soft-serve state. Not the ones at the convenience store with the soggy wafers and the rock-hard but gummy vanilla ice cream. They are not even close.
i used to approximate these with those Nabisco cookies and good homemade vanilla ice cream, but those cookies don’t seem to be sold anymore.
Two college summers working at a major dairy on the production line has left lingering memories for me. OOF. Now i’m jonezing for a fresh 6-pack of those delicious sandwiches!
Gas station sushi
@sjk3 particularly the stuff made with fish that has never been frozen.
Gas station vending machine “fresh” egg salad sandwiches
@sjk3 You just can’t get the same kind of salmonella that they use.
@sjk3 You mean this kind?
If a sandwich could really do what they did for Fry, I would be very interested to try it out (assuming I remember the rest of the episode correctly).
Wendy’s frosty
@pskemp2 The new Frosty or the old Frosty with chocolate freckles?
@pskemp2 I just take vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and stir it until soft serve consistency. Surprisingly good.
@yakkoTDI the newest frosty is orange but not as good to me as choc or van
@katbyter yep. that is good. also try instant coffee but ( might need to melt it first
@pskemp2 I meant the newer chocolate Frosty. When I was a kid they had chocolate freckles and tasted much better. I think they lost their freckles in the late '90s or early '00s.
@pskemp2 @yakkoTDI I was surprised how much I liked the orange as I’m not a huge creamsicle fan, but I do like sherbet. I don’t care for their vanilla at all. Never tried the strawberry when they had it. Chocolate is still my favorite by far, but it’s weird I don’t remember the “freckles” others mentioned.
@pskemp2 yuck phooey! No coffee in my ice cream!
/giphy bleck
The meatloaf at the local Country Inn restaurant. I think they grind up the leftovers from their weekly Prime Rib night to add to the mix.
@macromeh certainly they grind the trimmings in. From Prime Rib and from hand cut steaks. Waste not, want not.
@djslack @macromeh and you’ll never notice the finely-ground rodent bits.
@djslack @pmarin
Mmmm - rodent bits…
@macromeh When I would visit a client in South Carolina we would have dinner at a restaurant that served Sail Possum. It allegedly was possum roadkill that was flattened so much that when you scraped it up you could make it sail like a frisbee. When I refused to order it, my client secretly whispered to me that it was actually trimmings from roast beef.
@macromeh I make exploding meatloaf. It’s a veal, beef and pork mixture. I press it into a loaf pan and make a well. I fill that with garlic mashed potatoes and top with shredded sharp cheddar. Then that’s topped with the rest of the meat. The taters absorb all of the meat and cheese fat, and when you cut a slice it has all the things.
I think it’s why I’ve been married for 25 years 
I Love the Nathans Hotdog carts in Atlantic city. I just talked about them lastnite. Ive tried cooking them a dozen times and they’re always gross. I guess they need the flithy disgusting 3day old water to make them taste good. I know its dirty & gross but i will eat 2-3 of em, no problem!!
It’s not impossible, only impractical to replicate the great beans at a solid BBQ joint. If I’m only cooking ribs or a pork butt, it’s a lot of work to get together sausage, burnt ends, rib tips, and all the other smokey treats that go into an awesome pot of beans.
KRULL! A SKULL! BRETT HULL! AWESOME!
@djslack Yep, overdone-to-dried-out but not carbonized rib tips make amazing pork stock if they were not slathered with sauce before smoking.
@djslack @werehatrack a lot of real good BBQ (not grilling) requires people to get up at 3AM or earlier to get the proper slow-cook & smoke action.
@djslack @pmarin If you’re going to do brisket in the smoker from start to finish, it takes 18 to 24 hours. But perfectly good brisket can be achieved by smoking it heavily for 2 to 4 hours and then transferring it to the oven in tightly-wrapped foil for another 12 to 20 hours. Basically, start on Friday morning if you want to eat it on Saturday.
Oreo cookies.
Croissants
@Kyeh there is a guy, used to work as a nurse at the same hospital i did years ago, he loves making croissants and got a permit for a home kitchen and sells at the farmer’s market on the weekends he’s not working. they are super mediocrebotannouncedawesome
@Cerridwyn Nice! I’ve watched people make croissants and other flaky pastry on TV and I just would never be dedicated enough to do it myself. Not to mention my kitchen is ridiculously small, almost trailer-sized.
@Kyeh I’ve done croissants at home. Just to see if I could do it. Took an entire day and it was 81 layers of butter. A bit of work.
They were very good and I just needed to check a box. Going forward, I’ll probably just spend the $10 at the market
@capnjb I admire that and wish I could have tried one!
@Kyeh I’m a fan of the process. But once I’ve proved I can do it I don’t mind handing it off to someone who can do it en masse.
Allsup’s Burritos
IYKYK.
After a few of these you’ll make your own essence.
Pizza
@jmbunkin Pizza is actually pretty easy to do at home. Takes a little practice, but if you can get a reasonable pizza stone and your oven can get to 500 you can make some decent pie. However, this is what happens when my family can’t decide on what type of pizza they want. I just make all the things.
Proper Southern fried chicken. Not too salty. Not too greasy. Not like things from the big chains.
Maybe with waffles, but only if the waffles are tasty and savory and not loaded with sugar.
@pmarin or loaded with malt, waffles, not the fake belguin kind
@Cerridwyn @pmarin There is a regional chain here in Texas called Golden Chick, and some of its units make really good fried and roast chicken. (Others use too much salt; I think it’s a symptom of being a franchise.) But their fries are routinely amazing, and part of the secret is that they use lard in their fryers.
@werehatrack if you ever come across a Griff’s (burger joint, regional afaik and almost universally in shady parts of town) they fry their fries in tallow.
@Cerridwyn @pmarin You’ve got to double dredge and have a good hot fryer… and/or a good, deep cast iron skillet. I smoke a lot of pork shoulders and I take the trimmed fat and render it into lard. Lard is an unpleasant word, but you will have a clean plate if I’m cooking for you
@capnjb @Cerridwyn @pmarin I worked at a small family-run steakhouse in high school. They’d butcher sides of beef themselves and render the trimmings and cook all the fries in that.
Any soup at a good diner that’s made in a enormous pot that has been continually replenished and cooking since 1962.
@ProfFate There are still people here in Texas that remember the Terry’s restaurant chain fondly.
Popeye’s red beans and rice.
Anything can be aped at home if you have the right tools, patience, or aren’t afraid of the massive cleanup afterwards.