Rachel Perlow

What about clarifying the butter to increase the fat content of what you're using for croissants? You could even chill it in a pan of the shape needed for wrapping in the dough.

That's what I was going to say.

That was just beautiful, Brooks. I wish I had such a book of my grandma's recipes.

Jason wouldn't take a picture of it!

I don't care for a coffee grinder for nuts. You can still get oily over processed nuts very quickly -- only in small amounts! Great for spices though.

At first I thought they might have been making them with larger peanuts, but a good sampling showed that they're around the same sized peanuts, with more chocolate. Sounds like you'd prefer the regular peanut M&Ms, which do have a more peanutty taste. What age kids are you working with? I thought peanut products were pretty much verboten at any child oriented event these days. FYI - plain M&M's contain peants too, as the chocolate in all M&Ms contains a percentage of "regrind," which is all the deformed plain & peanut M&M's ground up and added to the chocolate.

I'm loving this thread. I think we should just call it a vacation blog!

I feel it is time to shut this Q&A down to new questions. There are about 20 topics that Alton needs to get to in the public forum, and dozens still waiting to be released from the moderation queue. We'll be leaving this open for Alton to reply to questions as long as he is willing. But unfortunately, I doubt he'll be able to get through everything, so there's no point in accepting more questions. A lot of the questions that haven't been released seem to be ones that should be posted in our regular forums, so I hope the new members who came to eGullet for Alton Brown's Q&A stick around and post them in the appropriate forum. Actually, as I have time over the next few days, I may move some of these myself. Like this one, about grinding nuts, which I felt would get a good response in the Pastry & Baking Forum. If your question did not make it to the forum and you would like the text sent back to you so you can post it elsewhere on eGullet, just send me a PM (click the Messages link, under the Members link, in the upper right hand portion of the screen) and I'll send it back to you. Thanks for your understanding and I hope you enjoy the rest of the Q&A even if your question doesn't get answered. ~~~ May 30, 2004 Congratulations to the following members for winning a copy of Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen. Please send me your mailing address so AB's publisher can send you your book: chicagowench FoodMan LemonZest PoetsGirl SWoodyWhite In addition, Alton said he will try to get to some more of the remaining questions this weekend. Unfortunately he's been having trouble with his ISP. We all know how that goes! ~~~ I just wanted to add a big THANK YOU to Alton Brown for participating in this eGullet Q&A.

Because peanut M&Ms vary in size, I thought I'd point out that I tried to select average sized regular and ogre sized peanut M&M s for the above picture. In addition, the largest regular sized peanut M&M is approximately the same size as the smallest ogre sized M&M. However, the difference is on the inside. The regular one will be big because of a bigger peanut. The same sized ogre M&M will have more chocolate around a smaller peanut. In addition, I've contacted Mars (the company that makes M&Ms) with a link to this thread and a request to make ogre size the default M&M, but with the regular colors! Hopefully, they'll respond online. I know, I'm nuts.

Ah, but the rub is that it is Science Fact.

The main difference, to me, is that Tony seems more humbled. Usually on Cook's Tour, he's out to have a great time. Learn some, yes. Be shocked, sometimes. Be the adventurous tourist for those of us in our living room. This was like all that and more, and you got to see Tony anxious. Truly anxious. More than when he had to consume the very fresh snake parts. You get to see him confused, but then surprised and happy. Overall, however, it has a feel very much like Cook's Tour, as I believe it was shot to be part of that series.

That was a really cool show. I hope it finds a home so that everyone can be blown away by it as I was. So many times I sat there saying, "what is that?" "how the fuck do they do that?!" In many ways it reminded me of a Burt Wolf PBS special, but in a good way and so much more intense. I know that either Jason or I would be squeamish during some of the courses consumed by Tony during his meal (i.e. cannoli of rabbit brains, fish cotton candy) at El Bulli (pronounced boo-yee, not boo-lee as I thought). But, if we are ever so fortunate as to visit the restaurant, we have vowed to try everything. How could we not?

As this Q&A passes the halfway point, I thought I'd take a moment to let you all know where we stand. Normally, during a particularly busy Q&A we might close the forum to new questions to allow the guest to finish the Q&A by Friday. However, Alton is doing his best to get to everyone's questions and didn't want us to do that. But out of consideration for his time, and in the hopes of stimulating a deeper discussion, we're going to slow down on approving new topics, while we ask him some follow up questions. Please note, if your question doesn't make it through the mod queue, you will still be eligible for the book giveaway drawing at the end of the week. Thanks for your understanding.

The Perlows are in (northern NJ). Do you have to shop special for the event, or can you use inventory already purchased? I've got a bag of IQF sea scallops in the freezer that are dying to be used.

We got some. At Target, by coincidence. Planning on posting some pictures later tonight.

So has this "event" already happened? Is there a date set? How about an upcoming weekend as a time frame?

Check out the eGCI Cooking for One class.

Mmm. Pizza Crave -- now you've got me craving felafel!

I wonder if it has anything to do with being frozen? I know most of the NZ mussels are sold frozen, with the shell already split. I vastly prefer the live PEI ones.

Where is he going? If it's local to me (you know where I frequent), I could stop in and let him know what you want. Wouldn't that be a hoot! It would probably scare him, me standing there like in an airport with a "Blovie" sign.

I don't think nibs are the shells of cocoa beans, they are cocoa beans, just not grind very finely. If you ground them up some more, they'd be cocoa without the fat pressed out. By steeping them in milk and sugar, you are essentially making eating chocolate.

Unless she's a buyer's agent, she's working for the seller. You are paying for the home inspector (right?), talk to him all you want. It sounds to me like you went with the first inspector she recommended (since she seems so familiar with him). Regardless, you are the one paying his bill. You use his report to help you plan home maintanence and improvements. So while you don't need to say "screw" her, you do need to let her know that you know she is working for the sellers. The home inspector works for you and you'll talk to him all you want. Of course, if he's charging you by the hour instead of for the job, you may want to just let him get to work instead of allowing him to talk your ear off.

So, mrbigjas, where'd y'all end up?

What a tremendous response we've gotten for Alton Brown so far! It's only Monday morning and there've already been over twenty topics posted, amazing. I'd like to ask everyone to be sure to read through the questions already posed of our guest, before posting their own, to avoid duplication. Second, just because we're accepting two questions per user, doesn't mean you have to ask two questions. Thanks for the great response everyone. Note: Since there are already 31 topics here for Alton to address, we're going to not release any new questions from the queue until he gets a leg up on answering these. Hopefully, we'll be able to release some more soon.

That picture reminded me of the deep fried Po'Boy served at Jacques-Imo's in New Orleans.