Thanks for the feedback! Raw really isn't an option for me. I've never fed my cats wet food -- in part because I'm so frequently gone on weekends, and mostly because they seem to bolt it right away, and then seem so unhappy for the rest of the day. (Or in the case of the Siamese, he throws it up and then goes hungry!) I understand all cats are different, but in 35 years of cats, I've never had one suffer from dehydration or bad teeth. I understand the possibility of dehydration (we have three water bowls and a dripping faucet!) but isn't hard kibble better for cats teeth? I know I've never had any problem with cats developing tarter, while many of my friends who fed their cats wet food had to brush their teeth regularly. (I did have a 19 year old cat who developed an abcess, but I think it there were some other issues there.) My Siamese is eating Innova kibble, and seems to like it. As long as there's always some in his bowl, he keeps it down okay. The big girl doesn't seem to care for the Innova regular or light -- altho' if she doesn't have enough in her bowl she'll eat his as well! I'm beginning to wonder if good "light" food really exists for cats. Since I've started reading labels, and rejecting those with a lot of corn and wheat filler, it seems like you're left with such skimpy portions that the cat is unsatisfied. I had hoped ingredients like "pea protein" and barley and oats would help fill her up without bulking her up. But a quarter cup in the morning and a quarter cup at night gets inhaled in a matter of minutes. And doesn't seem to be helping with the weight. Maybe "light" cat food is a mirage, and the only hope is (as with humans) to eat less and exercise more. Poor girl. I knew she was a bit overweight at 13 pounds, and she lost a pound in the first year she lived with me, but at the last vet visit they told me she should weigh 7-8 pounds. The Siamese does his part by running her ragged, and she and I play with toys in the evening, but that weight is not budging. "I'm not pudgy, I'm Rubensesque..."

rgreen48 I think you might be right. Or at least it sounds right to me! Everything that I've read points to cross-pollination only affecting the seeds inside the vegetable or fruit. The results would only be seen in the following year's produce (if grown from saved seeds). I'd really like to know why this article states otherwise? Would a sweet pepper be hot if they were growing next to a hot pepper and you saved seed from it? I have grown edible pumpkins from saved seeds of the previous year's harvest and they were grown together with ornamental gourds. I ate them and they were all fine. Nothing strange! I could see what they are saying though in the article. I know that they can and do cross pollinate, therefore it could be risky business. I guess from now on, I will buy seed fresh every year (at least the varieties that I will be eating).

"Stew" like meatloaf, are as individual as the people who make them. ;-) But there is some science to it, once you research the subject. Browning the meat - whether to dredge first or not? I dredged the meat before browning it because that was what my mother did. Then I followed a recipe from an old Farm Journal Cookbook that didn't dredge, and all the sudden it was a whole new game. After some research on the subject, I discovered the flour interferes with the browning process (you don't get a good sear on the meat), flour often burns at the high temperatures needed to brown meat, and also makes the bottom of the pan stickier due to adding the starch from the flour, and flour can give an undesirable "raw flour taste" to the stew. If you want to thicken your stew, wait until the end and add a slurry or zap part of the vegetables in a blender and add them back. Browning develops flavor in both the meat and the sauce. Make sure you have lots of heat for this step and don't crowd the pan. It may take 2 or 3 batches to get all the meat browned properly. If the pan and fat isn't hot enough, it won't do the job. If you don't brown the meat first, it will simply stew in its own juices instead of developing the flavors from searing. Browning meat caramelizes the sugar in meat (the Maillard reaction). FYI - searing the meat doesn't "seal in the juices" as we were taught in Home Economics, browning is for developing flavor - not juiciness. To salt, or not to salt.... If you dredge the meat with flour/salt/pepper mixture, the salt draws out more juices and the meat dries out. This is often why people who dredge or salt the meat first use large chunks of beef for stew - to compensate for the toll taken from salting before browning. If you wait to add the salt to the stew after the meat is browned, it produces juicier beef (and also pork if making a pork stew), and you can use smaller cubes of meat and still have moist, fork tender meat when done. The last thing I would purchase is so-called "stew meat", which is always over-priced "meat scraps" and from an unknown portion of the animal, probably the bottom round. I prefer a cut from the chuck, including the shoulder, the top blade, and the chuck eye. I'll also use top round or sirloin tip. Eat it with a spoon, or a fork and knife... I'm a spoon person for a stew (with lots of liquid), but that's just a choice, neither is right or wrong. I prefer meat and vegetables cut into 3/4-inch size pieces so I can get a little of everything on the spoon at once. I don't want to have to tackle a large chunk of meat with a knife and fork, then 1/2 a carrot or a small potato - I like it all together in one nice tidy package. Otherwise I would make New England Boiled Dinner. Variations... -If there is enough liquid, you might want to add some dumplings. My mother used to make tiny dumplings with sage in them when she made chicken stew that was to die for ;-). -There are recipes that add dried fruit (apricots or peaches) to lamb stew. - Add peas or lima beans - I usually add both. - A touch of Worcestershire sauce, a teaspoon of lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, are nice add-ins at the very end, along with fresh parsley.. Simmer the meat mixture for a couple hours, but add the vegetables later in the cooking process (about 30-minutes before it's done) so they don't cook to mush and retain some texture and individual flavor. I'll add peas and lima beans just long enough to cook through (10-15 minutes). Try leeks or shallots instead of onions for something different. Less meat.... I don't use a lot of meat in stew due to cost, and to compensate for that I'll add chewy/meaty vegetables like Portobello or shiitake mushrooms, eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, or even hominy. From "On Food And Cooking" by Harold McGee - "Stew involves more liquid, smaller pieces of meat [than braising], and generally longer cooking times than the braise. In a stew, we want the flavor of the meat to permeate the large amount of liquid, so we tend to let the meat be cooked well beyond the point at which it is "done". In both cases, though, the end point in cooking is rather fuzzily defined as "fork tender," and so timings are not terribly precise." -Grainlady

Ah. You learned your manners from this comic too. As the girl in the manga says: "Could you stop belittling me...? I can tell that much without eating it." If you respected this forum, you would know that if you want people to read things and watch videos you post them here. Sometimes we will go out of our way to follow links, but posters do not expect that all will. In ANY discussion forum, if you specifically want something to be read, you provide a link. I could Google, but why would I just to do your work for you, especially since one of us already had? The translation in the manga is very inaccurate. It's sufficient to kind of carry the meaning to an English speaker who can reinterpret it to make more sense. Your problem has been on insisting on using the language from this. The manga is right, though, where it said it in a sideways manner, that you can't make a "western" style dish with miso. :) It then says that beef belly is what is most commonly used for stew, but that's not true in North America, at least (I can't speak for the rest of the West), where, as you've seen, the go-to is chuck, which is from the shoulder. Then they compare the preparation of the stewed oxtail to soft shelled turtle burger! That is something we don't have, so I can't comment on the preparation. I'm pretty sure that our local turtles, where I live, are endangered and not allowed to be killed and eaten, though perhaps someone is farming them... And there are turtle pets. I suppose you could eat that kind if you wanted to... So, the last chapter you linked is where you got the ridiculous notion that boeuf bourguignon is "the origin of beef stew". That's another poor translation or misstatement. It might be the first one codified in a cookbook, or it might be considered by some to be the finest beef stew, but beef stew's "origin" is from about the time cavemen learned to cook meat in a vessel and had an animal of the family bos (beef) to eat. The manga proceeds to discuss "garniture" and "garnish" interchangeably, and use it to mean decoration, as we advised you from the beginning. They're talking about the vegetables, not the many cuts of beef. We do not normally put "croutons" in beef stew. Beef stew is also not strained. The juices/gravy and stew are served in the same dish. At the end, he brings out all these different cuts, does seem to be preparing each separately, as the young lady in the video did, because, as we said, it's the only sensible way to do it. His goal isn't a beef stew, it's to wow the judges of a fictional contest. I don't see a recipe. The whole thing is a fiction of a cooking contest. Like much fiction, it isn't completely realistic. That's fine for a story. Just as many manga hair styles cannot be achieved without glue, this all parts of the beef thing can't be achieved without a lot of pots, and the result isn't an actual Western beef stew, even though it seems to have won the contest. Which is what we've been telling you from the beginning without reading your book. Unfortunately, the lack of comprehension is on your side. The manga does not in any way controvert what we have said, though now I see where you got some of your misinformation. While it may be true that serious cookery is presented in manga form somewhere, in these chapters of this book it is not. It's a typical Young Adult story about winning a contest against a cheating, leering competitor, the cooking details are practically nil, and are hazy where they are presented. That is because they're there because the story is about a cooking contest, and serve the movement of the plot. They are not meant to be the presentation of a recipe. I see no reason to spend more of my time on this, so I will not bother with the anime, which one assumes are more of the same.