Hello, Tildes food community! My husband and I are avid travelers, and particularly enjoy trying new and delicious foods in the places we visit - everything from local street food and mom'n'pop restaurants to high-end Michelin starred cuisine. It can be hard to narrow down the "best of" in a region, and thus-far have had some amazing meals, and some misses, while doing our own research. I'm hoping for recommendations of food travel vlogs of folks who are: not annoying, know good food and have reliable palates, and are willing to give honest feedback about the best places to eat. Any help and suggestions are much appreciated!

This is a question I've been wondering about for a while as a home baker and amateur food scientist. Why do recipes for whipped, fluffy desert components like whipped cream or buttercream icing always seem to call for powdered sugar? If I want to add sugar to a something, why would I also want to add the anti-caking agent (usually starch I think) for powdered sugar as well? Is that starch actually something beneficial for a whipped desert? Because as far as I can tell, the only time powdered sugar makes sense is when it's dusted on top of something or incorporated into a desert that is being mixed by hand and doesn't have the shear of a mixer to dissolve or emulsify the granulated sugar. And I've never had any issues just using regular granulated sugar and honestly prefer it to powdered sugar for icings, whipped cream and the like. If a recipe calls for powdered sugar, but it's being combined with a mixer or beaters I just use regular sugar and the results are great.

Anyone have any thoughts or experience as to what I'm overlooking? Or is it just a hold over from a time when electric mixers weren't common and you needed a finer sugar to incorporate the sugar by hand?

Tilderinos! I've been using a carbon steel wok for about two years. Whenever I have any recipe that involves throwing a sauce in - which is pretty much every stir fry I use it for - I suddenly have an awful time of trying to clean it afterwards. Last night after doing this it was still pretty crusty, and I'm still getting crud off as I wipe it.

If you're not supposed to use soap to prevent ruining the patina, how do you clean it properly? I see all sorts of advice ranging from water to not using water...

I was wondering what people use for finding recipes and meal planning when they have less "standard" dietary restrictions. I find that a lot of these tools have options for vegetarians, vegans, paleo diet, keto diet, low carb; or for common allergens like peanuts and soy. But I haven't found a way to limit more specific things (especially things, like fiber, that are generally regarded as beneficial, or things, like fructose, that are everywhere). I suppose just manually searching for and then looking through a bunch of recipes is an option, but that can also be challenging given that nutritional information on recipes isn't always complete. I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions that people have for this sort of thing because I like to eat but right now food is making me very sad.

(also sorry if ~health was a better place to put this, I wasn't sure exactly where it should go)

I have a Weber Summit S-670 grill that has a built-in smoker box and burner, and despite having this grill for a couple of years I have never before used that accessory. With the traditional grilling weekend coming up I figure I should give it a shot but I have no idea on what to make. What kind of easy or idiot-proof recipes would you recommend?