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The dampness is good for growing mushrooms, anyway.

Hairynuts Disco

I know him! He worked on the Fiords with Slartibartfast!
Who’s real name, it seems, was Phartiphukborlz, which was unacceptable to the BBC.

Perhaps they’d have accepted Hairynuts Disco?

In an amazing coincidence the internet changed my life today and it actually involved Chestnuts.

I love them in my Turkey Stuffing, but I freaking hate peeling them…. or I did. Today the internet taught me that after you cut the X’s in the shells, but before you roast them in the oven wrapped in foil at 350 F for 30 minutes, you first soak them in very hot water for literally one minute. Then towel dry, wrap in foil, and roast.

The shells came off so easily I had 85 percent whole peeled chestnuts and got perhaps 95 percent of the nut meat. I never once even had a bad thought let alone said a bad word. It was a total revelation.

And now the internet teaches me about chestnuts and hairy nuts disco.

Wow. What a day!

Happy Thanksgiving to Stoaty and Uncle Badger. I hope you have lots of pie to enjoy today.

I bought Uncle B a special chestnut peeler thingie once. He loves them, too. I think it worked okay.

I buy dried chestnuts from either the Italian or the Chinese grocery. Yeah, I guess that’s cheating, and I probably don’t want to know about the wages and living conditions of the workers who peel them. But they are SUPER convenient.

Thank you, Some Veg! Yes, Stoatie did by me a (Japanese) tool for peeling chestnuts and while it kinda-sorta works it’s still a bind to do a whole pile of them – and badgers lurve chestnuts, too.

I shall try your technique… as soon as the damned shops have some in stock.

In the past chestnuts used to appear on sale here in the late autumn. Now they make a brief appearance, if you’re lucky, around Christmas. You can get vacuum packed ones year round and tins of French puree (another great favourite) but the thrice accursed supermarkets have decided people don’t want them any longer so they have cut back on stock.

Equally infuriating. another winter/Christmas treat, nuts in shells, are getting scarcer. Pre-shelled nuts have an inferior flavour but they have edged the real things off the shelves in many shops. As so often, easy is the enemy of good.

Hairynuts_Disco is the name of my new Path of Exile character. That is all.