Saving shrimp shells sounds right up my alley - do you have a recipe?

great! I’ve got one in the basement, for about six months now (it stays about the same temperature year round), but it hasn’t lost much weight and is still on the squishy side.

my plan is to leave it alone until it has lost 1/3 to 1/2 of its weight. i am really curious, how you will tell if it is done, if there is some objective criteria you are using, ie, not just “ask fred”? it is okay if you want to answer in your column.

SO!

It has been over a year since this post. How did that prosciutto turn out?

I had a simliar experience with grape jelly a few years ago. In my case, what I thought was going to be 16 jars turned out to be 12, but what jars they were!

Did you find you had some extra jars afterwards?

Oh no! I have been making g&ts with way too much lime. I do like a gimlet though, so maybe that’s why I didn’t mind. Question: now that I am all out of limes, is it okay to substitute lemon? Or should I just make a different drink?

I always have a problem with pea weevils with all peas, and with shelling peas it is the worst. After reading this I am thinking maybe I plant them too late and leave them on the vine too long. But I still want to wait a few years before trying again. Any tips for dealing with these little fellers?

Interestingly, my browser calls out Zester Daily as malware - is Zester poisoning my computer, or has it just been labeled that way as part of this food culture battle?

I think it is always healthy to pick apart Michael Pollan - at least it shows you are reading carefully.

I demand my food be labeled accurately, but abhor them being applied to myself.

I’ve heard that peppers are notorious for cross-pollinating easily and creating unexpected hybrids. How do they go about creating the new varieties?

Our neighbor’s tree starts dropping apples on our garage in early August, but we had no idea what variety they were. To save cleaning up the mess later, we went and picked pounds and pounds of them this year, and they are just as you describe - sweet, tart, and aromatic. The tree is at least 60 years old and produces an amazing crop about every other year. Thanks for the wisdom!

The Urban Farm Store in Portland also has a custom organic layer mash. Our birds love it but make a mess of it - which must be part of why the Payback is more efficient.

I’ll definitely check out what Naomi’s has to offer.