Alex

Possibly. Still lots of time to decide. Would you serve it alongside the risotto, as with osso bucco, or would you have them be separate courses?

Thanks, winedoc. I haven't seen any recipes that make use of celery. What you wrote about the broth makes sense. I also have the Silver Spoon cookbook; it's indeed an excellent reference.

Tammy, is it Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes? What, exactly, are the acidic foods you're supposed to eliminate? (I assume you don't mean acid-producing foods, which is a whole 'nother animal, and a bogus one at that.) I imagine citrus and vinegar, but what else? After you reply, I'll post about "resistant starch."

There are a couple of very brief topics that are only peripherally related to my questions -- a seven-post one from 2007 and a two-post one from 2012 -- so I'm not going to even bother with links here. I've made risotto many, many times, so I'm not asking about basic technique per se. About 5½ weeks from now (ergo, lots of time to figure this out), I want to make an authentic risotto alla Milanese, and I have some questions about it. I'm going to refer here to "classic" and "modern" recipes. "Classic" = three of my go-to dead-tree books from the 90s by Marcella Hazan, Lidia Bastianich, and Lynne Rossetto Kasper. "Modern" = web recipes from Mario Batali, Grace Parisi, and Anne Burrell, along with ones from Serious Eats, Williams-Sonoma, and Saveur. 1) To marrow or not to marrow? That is a question. Classic recipes say yes (although Kasper says she prefers hers without); modern recipes don't include it. Why the heck is that? I do have some very nice marrow bones at home, so that's not the issue, but I was wondering what, if anything, would be missing from the aroma and taste if I omitted it. 2) Hazan and Kasper add the marrow at the start, while cooking the onion; Bastianich adds it after the first ladle of stock has been absorbed. Any thoughts here? 3) Speaking of cooking the onion, there seems to be no clear preference in the recipes for olive oil, butter, or a mixture of butter and oil. Unsalted butter seems more appropriate to me. Do you have a preference? 4) And speaking of stock, Kasper uses poultry; Bastianich and Hazan use beef or meat stock. All of the modern recipes use chicken stock. Any thoughts about why that is? I imagine there's a not-insignificant difference in the taste of the final product. 5) All of the classic recipes hold back some stock in which to dissolve the saffron, then add this liquid part-way through the cooking process. All of the modern recipes, except for Parisi, dissolve the saffron in the big saucepan of stock before starting to add it to the rice. (Parisi crumbles the saffron and adds it to the wine in the pan, prior to adding any stock. Weird.) Any ideas why? Have people just gotten lazy over the past 20 years or does it truly not make a difference? Thanks!

Welcome, Miriam. It's always good to hear from my (long ago) home town. I'm curious -- have you thought about a formal course of study toward your goal of becoming a pastry chef? I'm sure NYC has some excellent programs. We're extremely fortunate here in GR that our community college's culinary program has an incredible professor for that part of the curriculum, Gilles Renusson. Here's his dessert list for this semester at the program's restaurant.

Thanks for the heads-up, rro. I'm looking forward to it. And great timing (for me) -- I just finished reading Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture. It's been nearly 30 years since I lived in Japan for a little while, in unagi country, and I still miss the food from time to time. People often are surprised when I tell them I enjoyed some of the best French cooking, ever, at a modest little place in Middle-of-Nowhere, Shizuoka-ken.

My local supermarket runs special produce sales on Wednesdays. This past week, there was going to be a 6-oz clamshell of raspberries for 99 cents, but they couldn't get a shipment at all. (Literal) rainchecks were issued.

Enrobe them in chocolate

What a bizzaro recipe! Mine -- which is basically Cook's Illustrated's -- has 200 g unsalted butter, 60 g unsweetened chocolate, 2 large eggs, 1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract, 2/3 US cup cake flour (Wondra brand), 1 US cup sugar (all caster or half caster, half light brown), 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt. Baking time is 25±5 minutes. I love Anna's trifle suggestion. My favorite trifle of all time was a special at Traffic Jam & Snug, in Detroit, way too many years ago: chocolate brownies or cake, cognac (I think), fresh pears, chantilly cream.

Brilliant!

There's such variation in the basis and amount of the shipping charge, shopping around is usually your best strategy. As palo said, some places base it on weight, some on price. Some have free or fixed shipping no matter what, some with a particular minimum purchase, some with a coupon. I always check coupon/sale information sites like retailmenot, flamingoworld, and rather-be-shopping. I also recommend registering at eBates.

It's gumbo night! Paul Prudhomme's recipe (including his quick roux). Locally made andouille from the good folks at Crane Dance Farm.

I wanted to go, and I talked with the parent organization about it, but my being a regular poster on eG wasn't sufficient to warrant a media badge, so I'd have to register as a "Trade Guest" for $100. I'll pass.

Does your library's website have a "Recommend a Purchase" feature? Ours is great about following up on recommendations, especially if I provide a URL other than Amazon's in the "Where you heard about this item" box.

As you might guess, the nugget with the mic is saying "Crispy"; the one on drums, "Crunchy."

TJ's nationwide applesauce recall

I picked up Samarkand at the library today. I sat down to read it over lunch. I went upstairs and ordered it. Tonight I'll be making one of the recipes (the one the author cited as his favorite). Hey, I'm getting old -- no point wasting time.

The Mulefoot Gastropub in Imlay City, MI (pop. ~3,600), 42 miles due north of Detroit's (in)famous 8 Mile Road.

Our two go-to markets carry the brand, but we've never tried it. We usually eat plain yogurt, then add just a bit of fresh fruit and granola -- less sugar, lower cost -- but when the situation calls for a flavored yogurt, I'll buy Brown Cow or, occasionally, Chobani. I find fruit yogurts cloyingly sweet now, although Brown Cow coffee is pretty good. (Hey, a coffee bean is the seed of a fruit. Close enough.) Ms. Alex probably would home right in on the salted caramel Noosa. And the strawberry-rhubarb. Good thing I do 99% of the shopping.

Now, if it could also play the Death Star theme while looming ominously, well, it might just be worth a grand.

I already did let her know and gave her the link to your post; she and I have even exchanged a few emails by now. Nice person.

Gorgeous stuff, Rob. How did you learn about her work? I browsed through her website, including, of course, the "Shop" section. Most of the pieces were beyond our current budget (we have to save for a trip to STL and a meal or two at Bulrush, y'know), but I had to buy this beautiful display piece, which actually is a rattle! It also prodded me to learn about terra sigillata, which I knew nothing about.

Pearls Before Swine: A president after my own heart

Here's the link. The key word in the original post is "seems." The culprit also could be a government agency in Mexico -- or even elsewhere.

I'll let others handle the salting/drying aspect. However, I'm a big fan fan of frequent flipping, a la Serious Eats. (He also advocates salting then air-drying on a rack in the fridge. De-smelling never hurts, either.)