Those are the wrong snails to use for escargot. You need the much large brown garden snails. That said, cross your fingers that you don't have them in your area. As far as I'm aware, your snails are mainly scavengers. But the kind of snail varies from one part of the country to another -- where do you live anyway? -- as well as their dietary habits. You might run your image past the folks in your county's Extension Service office to determine if your little snails should be a source of fear & loathing. Locate your county's office with this map: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/ Here is a link that might be useful: locate your county's Extension Service office

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Yes! We recently went out of town to do our grocery shopping as our local grocer is the only game in town and they take advantage of the situation with ridiculously high prices. One of the stores we visited had a one day only special - 40 pounds of either chicken thighs or boneless chicken breasts for $10. Only 25 cents per pound! We snapped up a box of the thighs, and when we got home, packaged them in groups of eight. We grilled a pack the other night and they are really nice quality with none of the bruising that is often found around the bones. I think they may have been packaged for restaurants. Since the lockdown started and shortages have been an issue, we've seen quite a few restaurant packs of various food items at the grocery store due to the closure of so many restaurants and the re-directing of food to the grocery stores. Whatever the reason was that the market had them, I was thrilled!

Went to a very good Chinese restaurant last Friday. Very good Chinese restaurants are uncommon in Portland, land of bad ethnic food. This one is a bit of an under-known gem. There is a Chinese family who own one of the larger seafood stores in town, full of tanks of live fish and crustaceans. They decided to use one wing of the building for a restaurant, mostly for owners, staff, and family. So on Friday evening, only about four tables of twenty were occupied, one by a boisterous group of ten or so who I think were said staff. The food was very good, no one seemed concerned about the empty tables, and The Ratio was excellent. The Ratio is number of Asian (or, if you are being very demanding, Chinese) customers divided by total customers. Typical ratio in Portland Chinese restaurants is 50% which is very meh to a Ratio conoisseur and requires lots of General Tso’s Chicken and the like on the menu. Good ratio is 80%. Friday was 95%, with SMWBO being only non-Asian (we count DD in the numerator). Parenthetically, my snarky mention of General Tso's Chicken is not meant to denigrate "American Chinese" cuisine, which I consider a valuable culinary heritage in its own right. Since my dad is living with us now, we try to go to more "genuine" Chinese restaurants, and this place will be a regular stop. I look back on last Friday as our family's last arguably healthy day. Sure, I'd been tired and slightly headachy the previous few days, but that's not usual - work, not drinking enough water, unseasonably warm/muggy says, etc. That evening, SWMBO looked at me, felt my forehead, and exclaimed that I was "clammy". Later that night, after she put DD on her plane to Paris via New York, SWMBO started feeling unwell. By the weekend, she was quite unhappy, in bed, calling for endless bowls of jello, and burning though our supply of Covid tests. By Monday, she tested positive. DD, in Paris by then, also tested positive and reports being mildly tired and headachy. Yesterday, my dad tested positive; he informed us that he had cold-like symptoms a week or two ago, but now feels okay. I was negative and have so remained, but SWMBO claims that I must have had Covid last week, because this has to be my fault. She feels mostly better by now, but has nonetheless started a course of Paxlovid. My dad may start a course as well - still trying to figure out drug interactions. Edit: has started. SWMBO and I have studiously avoided Covid for three years, but she finally got it and maybe - she claims, with NO PROOF - I did too. My dad too. So far, our cases appear very mild, with SWMBO getting the most jello-in-bed mileage out of hers. DD and DS had it last year, DD was fairly sick while DS wasn't, but DD’s current case seems very mild. She is sending me texts about the great new seafood store that opened near her apartment and “i had moules gratinees and duck in a honey lemon sauce which was SOOOO GOID” at a new restaurant, so I think she’s feeling okay. (I am thinking about going back to Marseille to work/hang out for a few weeks in January, and looking forward to seeing these new places.) A close friend who takes my dad grocery shopping has Covid now and is quite sick indeed, albeit medically her case is still “mild” by definition because she is not hospitalized. Another friend got it a couple months ago and was even sicker, had trouble breathing. So basically it feels like Covid is “back” and thank goodness we are all vaccinated multiple times.