I’ve never bought a jar of pasta sauce or pizza sauce, and it somehow perplexes people. It’s like 3 times the price of making it at home, and all I need to do to make it at home is open a can of crushed tomatoes and usually stir in some spices that dont even need to be measured. If I want to get really fancy, I might simmer some garlic and tomato paste in olive oil first, but still, it’s all just one saucepan with no measured ingredients, and it’s done before your pasta is done cooking, anyway.

If you have something that works for you, ignore me, but personally, I don’t like cans of diced tomatoes. Diced tomato typically has calcium chloride added. Without getting into the nerdy detail, the calcium prevents the tomato from breaking down. You dont want to open a can of diced tomato and find that it’s all turned into sauce.

When you do want sauce, you do want the tomato to break down, so any tomato product with added calcium hinders that. I like to buy cans of crushed tomatoes because that’s basically the same thing as diced but without the added calcium.

If you have something that works for you, ignore me, but personally, I don’t like cans of diced tomatoes. Diced tomato typically has calcium chloride added. Without getting into the nerdy detail, the calcium prevents the tomato from breaking down. You dont want to open a can of diced tomato and find that it’s all turned into sauce.

When you do want sauce, you do want the tomato to break down, so any tomato product with added calcium hinders that. I like to buy cans of crushed tomatoes because that’s basically the same thing as diced but without the added calcium.

I make stuff like pizza often enough where I want the cheese to be able to melt better. The starch/cellulose probably also effects how it melts into a sauce.

I actually dont ever buy pre-shredded cheese, mainly because it’s usually not good cheese to begin with.

Doesn’t matter, they both have the butyric acid smell since it’s an essential component of the style.

Parmigiano Reggiano has basically never spoiled for me. Since it’s aged, there’s not a lot of water for spoilage. The only cheese that I ever have spoil are really fresh cheeses.

if you want to sell pre shredded cheese, you have to use something

I wonder about this. If you just grate a bunch of cheese and stick it in bag, obviously, it will stick together a bit, but I wouldnt mind it if all I had to do is rub it between my hands to make it fall apart.

I dont need each shred to be completely loose. I would be willing to pay that little extra for grated cheese that isnt treated with the anti-caking agents. I want my pizza cheese to be a choking hazard.

Butyric acid (the baby vomit smell) is a quintessential component of parmeggiano reggiano.

I used to be meticulous about trying to dial things in with software, and I got really good at it. Then somehow my database got corrupted or overwritten with blank entries (I think I installed a later version of the software and that messed things up). I tried to get back to where I had been, but it was disheartening, so I just went feral.

You can get really, really in depth. Everything from recipe development and inventory to the actual processes.

For example, you might design a beer with three different grains, and it would calculate resulting gravity after your mash, and the color of the wort. Then it would know the boil-off rate based on the power of your heating element and dimensions of your boiling vessel, so it would give you the post boil gravity.

There’s a million things to use it for. Consistency is really a big one.

Bezos, though I dont think it’s a bunker compound.

20.6011343, -156.4220373

In this case, it’s just the default number of sig figs Google maps gives. The satellite view literally shows the big hole being dug for the bunker, too.

NZ does the “golden passport” thing, so lots of billionaires have bought citizenship there. Maybe Peter Theil was the one in headlines for making a compound there?

Yeah, I thought it was strange because famously a grand jury will indict anything, but there werent any details in the article, so I looked one up with more detail.

https://www.kotatv.com/2026/03/14/south-dakota-supreme-court-affirms-stand-your-ground-ruling-survival-bunker-shooting-lawsuit/

It’s in kauai, hawaii. Specifically, right here:

22.2016232, -159.3485761

Like the other commenter noted, these aren’t rich people, they are prepper types. A billionaire isnt getting a $55k bunker.

The guy who did the shooting is apparently a former cop turned EMT.

The person he shot also wasn’t a worker trying to do his job, it was a guy who worked for the company who told a mutual acquaintance that he was going to that guy’s house specifically to attack him. When he got there, he asked the guy if he’d ever killed someone, and then he said he had killed someone with his bare hands. He then started going at the guy, who shot him and then immediately rendered aid.

Not to defend a guy eho is probably a nutjob and a jerk, it sounds like a reasonable act of self defense to me.

I have tinctures of a bunch of citrus fruits (basically just soak peels in high proof neutral spirits) in small spray bottles, and they work great for that. It’s nice for at home when you want to add a little lemon aroma to something, but dont want to cut into a lemon just for a section of peel.

They wouldnt be too smart if they were, because it’s not a meat allergy, it’s an alpha -galactose allergy, which is a sugar present in most mammals that people eat, but also many other foods, like carageenan, which is in many vegan products and medicine.

Theoretically, the surface texture is different, leading to different sauce stickage. The surface is different (more craggley, hence the color difference) due to the bronze sticking to the pasta more. I dont know if this actually makes a difference by itself. I know ethan chlebowski (and probably a million other people have done side by side tests).

Bronze cut pasta will allow more starch to dissolve into the cooking water, which is the real secret for getting sauce to stick, especially if you are using the pasta water in the sauce. The starch water helps stabilize emulsions, and adds viscosity to the sauce. You can enhance this by using less water to boil your pasta (saves time, fuel, and water, too). Alternatively, you can go completely rogue and just use a cornstarch (or flour, but corn probably works better) slurry to improve the sauce, and save the money on the pasta itself.

My secret is basically paying attention to different uses of chilis. Hot sauce, chili oil, chili powder, whole chilis, and chili flakes can all provide heat, but they do it in different ways.

Hot sauce also provides acid, which is good for some things. It’s obviously also water-based, so it dissolves into aqueous solutions.

Chili oil can incorporate other flavors that can’t be extracted in aqueous solutions, and it won’t affect any crispy or crunchy elements the way hot sauce would.

Chili power, when labeled “chili powder” is often underwhelming (this is highly dependent on region/culture as different peppers are used in different places). Cayenne is obviously good for heat, smoky paprika is really good for any time you want a little smoke flavor. Anything that actually calls out the specific pepper can be great.

Whole chilis are great. Specifically, I really like to use dried Mexican chilis in different blends. I’ll also use fresh peppers, but they provide different things to the food.

Chili flakes have a similar problem to the powder where if they dont tell you what type, it’s probably not great. I specifically like ancho chili flakes and Aleppo pepper flakes, both of which typically dont have the seeds, which I find unpleasant.