slbunge

How about Saturday? I was in the area but I couldn't remember the address. So perhaps I just missed it. I was up at the end of Washington St where it tees into Court Street. Didn't see anything looking like what I wanted to find. Next time I'll be better prepared by calling them first to confirm that they are open.

I would give strong consideration to Chicago when speaking of North American cities. Similar to what people have said above in reference to the breadth of cuisines represented at all service range can be said of Chicago. In addition to the food prepared in Chicago, there is still a very neighborhood feel to 'ethnicity' that is fun for an outsider with an interest in food to explore on the street level. Though the neighborhoods are more of a melting pot than they once were, you can still find true-to-life Italian, German, Polish, Mexican, Chinese, African American, Pakistani, etc neighborhoods with small groceries, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries. And they are all reasonably accessible. One of the best Mexican, Central, South American open air markets in the US (or maybe the world?) is in Chicago every Sunday. Prepared foods, spices, groceries, market goods, and even power tools of questionable provenance. The place is teeming with people looking for bargains and looking to eat well. That plus the fantastic taco vans that you see around at lunch time make it a great city for 'south of the border' foodstuffs. In Chicago there are still very fine examples of the Old World European cuisine that has fallen out of favor in many American cities. Outstanding old-school German and Polish and Czech places that are still popular. Another strength is the 'soul food' cooking of African Americans who settled in Chicago's south side. The same folks who gave us Chicago blues still serve honest interpretations of the recipes they brought with them when they moved north. With its rich history as a port to transfer grains and meat and cheese from the center of the country to the rest of the world, Chicago has had the benefit of fantastic raw materials for being a food powerhouse. As a well-developed industrial city it now continues to get fresh immigrants from all parts of the world to help turn those raw materials into representations of the food from their homeland. It is a combination that seems to be working. So, though I adore New Orleans, have never been to San Sabastien (or Barcelona, Singapore, KL, et al), and need to spend more time in New York and LA, I would say that Chicago is worthy of consideration.

Congrats on getting the application done! Wonderful milestone to have behind you.

It floors me when some people respond with a bit of a turned up nose to baked goods or other home-made food as a holiday gift, housewarming gift, host/hostess gift. As if another thoughtless trinket is more appropriate. I'm also floored when people avoid home-baked treats brought in to work for a birthday in favor of grocery-store donuts and such.

Did you find anything interesting? This weekend I was in the area and looked for the baker's supply store mentioned above and couldn't find it.

Interesting. The bulk of the liver's weight should be blood (e.g. high water content) and the tissue is quite porous by design. That must be a bad combination in the fryer. The hot oil must be able to penetrate the surface and come in contact with the water molecules. With pan frying you probably get sizzle wherever there is contact with the oil but since far less of the surface is exposed to hot oil, no volcano. Was the volcanic response immediate and short lasting or did it seem to last all the way until they were cooked. Also, forgiving the ruined clothes and painful (I assume) burns, were they tasty?

Formaggio Kitchen has it (click). I have found the quality of their spices to be quite high. Not sure how they compare on price.

I use a scalpel because they are available to me. I can only get a depth of maybe a little more than 1cm into the dough before I run out of blade. Ultimately I think I would like to be able to cut deeper into the dough but I haven't yet purchased one of the blades that is shown in the pictures from the course. When I cut, the outside of the shaped dough has dried because it was chilled overnight. I usually oil the blade and try to cut very quickly to get a nice clean cut through the dried out layer and into the soft dough. By the time the dough has gone into the oven (only a minute or so later) the cut portion has opened significantly as the dried outer crust on the dough appears to be containing a more pliable exterior that wants to expand.

As another outlier who reads the Times reviews and thinks that they (used to) focus a bit too much on a 'certain' type of restaurant with a 'certain' address range, this cracked me up.

Hate to ask this but what sort of price point are you looking stay within? To save yourself $20ish in cab fare each way from Logan airport area to the restaurants of Boston of Cambridge I would recommend using the T (Boston Subway). The Blue-Line connects to the other lines at either Downtown Crossing or State and will only cost you $1.25 pp each way. It is safe, easy (and we'll help, I promise), and very well marked. No 9 Park is an excellent choice. They have a 'restaurant' that takes reservations and is sort of high end in price. They also have a 'cafe' with smaller plates that doesn't take reservations. The food and service quality in both areas is very good. No 9 Park is very near the Park Street T station that serves both the Red and Green Lines. Clio is very, very good but it is an expensive restaurant (we ate there last weekend for ~$125 pp with wine). Clio is very near the Hynes Convention Center stop on the Green Line. Slightly less expensive option is Sage in the North End. The North End is a reasonably intact Italian neighborhood just across the harbor from the airport. One bonus of going to a restaurant in the North End would be the ability to stroll around either before or after your meal. Great window shopping, excellent Italian pastries at the Modern Bakery (skip Mike's which will be more crowded). Sage has excellent food. Their risottos are fantastic and their gnocchi is pillowy and always well matched to the sauce that it is plated with. Good wine list. Make a reservation if you can. The whole North End is serviceable from the Haymarket T station which serves the Orange Line. This would be the closes part of Boston from the airport. (Note: there are other options in the North End if Sage is booked and you are intrigued by the exploring the neighborhood.) Sel de la Terre is a highly rated restaurant serving French bistrot-influenced fare. We haven't been so we don't have any first-hand knowledge. One bonus of this restaurant is that it is close to the harbor so it is only two stops on the Blue Line from the Airport. Very easy to get to. East Coast Grill is a good restaurant but is a bit tough to get to via subway. The seafood is fresh and it will be a bit less expensive than Sage. One bonus of a trip to East Coast Grill would be the ability to get an ice cream at Christina's afterward. Just a few doors down the street. Hope this helps. Edited to Add: One cool option if you are interested in the North End neighborhood is to take a boat across the harbor from East Boston where the airport is to the warfs on the edge of the North End. You can take a free bus from the Airport to the Logan Dock and catch a water taxi to Long Warf and it is a short trip the the Sel de la Terre or the other restaurants. Fantastic views of the city for $10 pp one way.

Thanks for bumping this topic up on the list, I'm on my second pass at Sourdough for this season now that the temperature has fallen to acceptable levels to allow the oven to be on for hours at a time. I'm a bit embarrassed by my poor treatment of the starter I had at the end of the spring when I last made bread. I traveled with me in the car when we moved half-way across country and it was not fed for about six months. Though there was quite a bit of liquid separation and a disconcerting color to the starter when I pulled it from the fridge two weeks ago I decided to start a feeding schedule and see if I could get it back to health. Lo and behold it worked. My first loaf with the newly energized starter was a success (success in my terms means edible though weirdly shaped). Thanks again Jack for the starter. As far as Chufi's comment is concerned, it seems like your oven is too hot. There are lots of folks who have more experience than I, but I use a standard US consumer-grade oven (no fan) with a baking stone on the floor and the bread directly on the stone. I shoot for 450 F (232 C). That seems to be the best temperature for my loaves to allow for good crust development, some spring to stretch the slashes that I make in the loaf, and a fully baked interior after 35 to 40 minutes. I usually move the loaf from the stone to an rack in the oven for the last 15 or 20 minutes of baking to keep the bottom from getting over done.

Our last trip to New Orleans (October 2003) we had a fantastic lunch at Bayona. A bit pricey for everyday lunch but very relaxed atmosphere, attentive (not fawning) service, and a fantastic list of wines by the glass. If you have the ability to get out a bit, I strongly recommend Domilise's for Po Boy's. Dot Domilise was in the house running the show on the day we were there. Is Uglesich's still open? Well worth it if it is. In our opinion the shrimp Po Boy was nothing special but the soft-shelled crabs were outstanding. It would be a bit of a hike on foot or you could get part of the way out there via streetcar. Another place to try, though they may not be open for lunch, is K-Paul's. Perhaps it is touristy but I think it suffers less from the throngs (throngs like me, that is) than some of the old guard places. I think the place was not hitting on all cylinders for a while and suffered a bit of a downturn but we had a very nice meal upstairs there. Though it might seem ho-hum, the blackened drum is worth a try if it is on the menu. Another restaurant that is out of the quarter and worth investigating is Brigtsen's. Again I'm not sure if they are open for lunch. Beautiful garden district home that is a cozy restaurant. Very solid interpretations of Louisiana cooking.

They aren't cheap but for $65 you can buy one that stores temp and time and then you plug it into a USB port on your PC and can plot out the trend (look here). Might be good to check the overall freezer compartement (outside of your cart) and then check the 'inside the cart' temperatures and compare. As far as I know, freezer burn is due to localized drying of the food due to moisture lost to the rest of the freezer. Wrapping tightly in non-permeable plastic is certainly the best way to minimize freezer burn. The problem I was trying to address is one where the temperature cycles above and below freezing. If your freezer is doing that you will actually be encouraging more migration of water molecules from the baked goods. Edited to add: By the way, are the freezer burned items always on the same side of the rack? I ask because if you have some air circulation pattern inside due to a failed gasket you should see the burn happening in the same locations. Increased airflow will vastly accelerate sublimation (ice to vapor) or evaporation (water to vapor). Just a thought.

I love my hometown and the quirky college campus where I spent more years than I should have, but you are better man than me for surviving 5 days in that coop. Great report.

We also do nutritional yeast when we are looking for more than just salt. Seasoned salt and lime juice can be tasty. We use Penzey's seasoned salt.

Apparently they hold the booth open for him but he usually eats at the bar.

There's a bakery/restaurant in Cambridge, MA called Hi-Rise that has a 'Sin' sandwich on the menu. Nutella and dark Valhrona chocolate on brioche, grilled. Thankfully I saw it on the menu after I ordered my sandwich.

We have cooked 'Corn Squash and Rice Loaf' from Nava Atlas' Vegetarian Celebrations cookbook. As I type it I realize that it tastes and looks far better than the name sounds. Essentially it is served unmoulded from a loaf pan and it should be bound well enough to slice. Quite tasty.

My two favorite meals as a kid were Spaghetti-Os and Chef Boyardee's Beef Ravioli. Neither were complete without a heaping spoonful of small curd cottage cheese. Yep, my friends thought I was weird.

Had good quality sushi (we only tried the maki not the nigiri) at a place in Copley Place near the Westin last evening. It is called Osushi and is located on the second level. Small and a bit noisy but we were not disappointed with our $45 meal (for two, no drinks). For kitchen supply shopping, the fancy place is on Newbury and called Kitchen Arts. Nice stuff but leave your wallet at home. I'm still searching for a place for commoners like me...perhaps a restaurant supply place that sells to the public.

It seems to me that something has happened to your setup that is forcing this freezer burn. If you had success with your cart within a freezer approach before, it should work now. Essentially with your cart you are minimizing the airspace around your pastries which is what you want to do. Before you go changing your tried and true practices you may want to look at some of the mechanical systems with your freezer. I would agree with the person who susbpected a gasket on the door of the walk-in or the perhaps even on the cart. Another potential issue is the 'de-icing' or defrost cycle of the walkin. Another issue might be the performance of the freezer. For example, if the freezer temperature is higher than what it was before you started having the freezer burn problem then you might start looking at potential issues with the system. Easy things to check are the timing and length of the defrost cycle which will result in periods of higher temperatures while the system is driving ice off of the coils. Perhaps the condenser needs a charge or needs to be cleaned as it is struggling to keep up a bit more than usual. Are you loading more foods into the walk-in right before your cart goes in that would temporarily raise the temperature and allow significant moisture migration before freezing? Essentially all of these things would be about the walk-in temperature riding too close to freezing and allowing too much time for the pastries to cool. A cheap recording thermometer from your freezer mechanic might help diagnose some of these problems. Keep in mind, also, that when you see the tray sweating that the moisture is from the air in the warm room, not from your pastries. Seems to me that the layer of condensation on the frosting that you are most certainly picking should actually help buffer you from freezer burn because it will be what is evaporated as the tray goes back into your cart.

I'm so glad someone else thinks that OreIda they changed the recipe and the new product is not as good. I have still been buying them when I need my fix but now I'll be looking for the house brand when I'm at the store later this week.

Curious where you are staying. Might affect accessibility. Depending on the weather, you might want to take the redline T (subway) out to Cambridge during the day while you are on your own. Take a walk around Harvard yard which is still basking in fall color. Warm up with a stop at the Fogg Art Museum. A short walk away is the Hi Rise Bakery that would be a great stop for lunch (their vegetarian sandwiches are fantastic). Around the corner and down from Hi-Rise on Huron is Formaggio Kitchen which has a wonderful cheese selection and lots of fancy food items from heirloom Italian dried beans to French fleur de sel caramels. Back up near the Harvard Square station you will find one of the Toscanini ice cream outposts which is worth a stop even on a cold day. I recommend either grape nut or the burnt caramel but there are other strong contenders (bananas foster for example). I googled to see about Kosher status for both Hi-Rise and Toscanini products but was not successful. I'll keep poking and update if I find something. For vegetarian fare I'm thinking that your best options are Thai or Indian. I have had decent Indian food from Indian Samraat on Mass Ave fairly close to the river (between Comm and Beacon?). Dok Bua out on Brookline has very good Thai with a cool little grocery area for hard to find Lao and Thai ingredients for home cooks. Dok Bua's location on Harvard Ave in Brookline, actually, seems to be in the heart of the Brookline Kosher restaurant scene based on my terribly unscientific survey of the area as I'm looking for parking. I also know from talking with a number of reasonably recent immigrant Jews from the former Soviet union that there are quite a few Jewish folks living in the area so it would seem if there were a good Kosher restaurant that might be the neighborhood. For sushi, I don't have great ideas. We ate at the sister restaurant to a place called Uni last night and have heard very good things about their 'sushi'. They are less of a sushi place, though, and more of some sort of 'fusion sashimi' place. Quite expensive but I have heard it is worth it. I has also heard very good things about Oishii but it is all the way out in Chestnut Hill. Just got a tip about a place called Sushi One somewhere near Copley but I can't confirm. Most of the sushi I have tried here to date (have only lived here since June) were pedestrian. I'll keep thinking as long as you haven't left yet. Oh, and let me know if you need addresses.

I think that the big problem with leaving a burner on all night is the 'flame out' condition that might come to pass. For example, you have the stock simmering at low flame and the a gust of wind blows out the flame. The burner stays on releasing gas into the building. If there is enough gas and you do not notice, the next time an arcing device is used (lightswitch) you could have serious problems. I admit that it is an unlikely event but there is some risk. An oven is designed to have the flame source reasonably protected from air movement and would be less risky. Another thing to consider if you decide to do use the burner or oven all night is to purchase a CO detector. If you apartment is reasonably tight, a very long session of stove operation and no forced air changes (from an open window or opening and closing an exterior door) can result in an elevated CO level that will make you drowsy. Again it is an unlikely event but there is some risk. What about using a slow cooker? They are electric so there is not product of combustion to worry about. Probably the worst event I can think of would be a ruined pot if you were to leave it on so long that the stock boiled away dry. You can get them on ebay pretty cheap.

Bravo.