mamster

The one I'm using from Bread Baker's Apprentice calls for high-gluten flour (I've been using bread flour, but an acquaintance who works at a bagel shop said she's going to track down some Hi-G for me). Here's the formula; you sponge two hours, mix, and retard overnight. Sponge: Instant 0.31 Hi-G 51.4 H2O 57.1 Dough: Instant 0.16 Hi-G 48.6 Salt 2 Malt powder 0.94 Form 4.5 oz bagels.

I was going to talk about my experience with the Magnum, but JAZ totally nailed it, right down to my using my Magnum for black peppercorns and my old-school (Mr. Dudley, not Peugeot) for white. I'm sure someday I'm going to melt the Magnum on the stove, but it surprisingly hasn't happened yet, and I've had it for years.

This always happens to me at restaurants. People will bring me to their favorite restaurant and ask what I thought. First of all, I'm off-duty--do you expect your off-duty cabbie friend to give you a ride everywhere? Second, they don't actually want my opinion, just praise for their choice of restaurant. I can handle that.

Dude, that chef looks younger than Schielke! That is not right!

Heehee, Schielke got put on KP. I am so there next time!

Great! If I can make it over there in time, I can steal Fat Guy's laptop.

Oddly enough, a sample of this arrived unsolicited in my mail today. I squeezed the chocolate-colored syrup into a glass of whole milk, took a sip, and spat it into the sink. This stuff reeks.

Well, the summer counts for a lot--our summers are the nation's best, hands down. Lots and lots of 75-degree sunny days, although it's often gray in the morning and sunny the rest of the day. On the other hand, I like 60-degree overcast days, and I don't mind a spot of rain. Most people here, I think you'll find, are at least neutral on the weather and many like it; the ones who couldn't take it got out. Then again, I quite literally left southern California because I couldn't stand the weather.

Okay, now I am extremely jealous that you New Yorkers have multiple cannelés to choose from, and absolutely no one sells them in Seattle. I guess I'm going to have to get some molds, now that nightscotsman is leaving town.

Shoestring Fries 2 lb russet potatoes -Peanut oil for frying -Kosher salt 1. Peel the potatoes, but don't bother to peel the ends fastidiously. Cut them into matchsticks using a mandoline fitted with the fine julienne blade. Somewhere around 1/8-inch is good. 2. Put the potato sticks into a bowl of cold water, place the bowl in the refrigerator, and soak for an hour or two. 3. Drain the potatoes and dry carefully. Pour about 3 inches of oil into a saucepan or wok. Heat to 375 F. Add a handful of potatoes, but don't crowd the pan. There should be room to stir the potatoes. 4. Cook until well browned, about 3-4 minutes. Remove with a bamboo skimmer, drain on paper towels, sprinkle with salt, and serve immediately Keywords: Side, Potatoes, The Daily Gullet ( RG550 )

Certainly. I was going to say something like, "I'm sure George Germon wasn't the first person ever to grill pizza," but I felt like I was already playing tough enough. So, thanks, Armenians! Paula, if you don't mind, what are some of the toppings you might find on the Armenian flatbread?

Excellent, melkor, thanks. I winged it last night using less starter than that (because I didn't have enough on hand) and they came out okay but not sour enough. I'll give it another whirl this week.

What you need is new posters in your kitchen! How about a grinning Jacques Pepin? Me too. I hope the old high school speech team gene hasn't flared up too much.

lamington, the first example strikes me as more laziness than plagiarism, and the second as obvious plagiarism. Could you make an anonymous complaint, perhaps to your local equivalent of the National Writers Union? I guess the main thing I don't like to see is a truly unusual new recipe instantly lose identification with its creator. If George Germon had never ended up identified with grilled pizza and Cucina Simpatica never published because "people are sick of grilled pizza," that would have been awfully unfair. At the same time, I don't have a problem with a recipe of mine showing up on RecipeSource. So there's a line somewhere in between those things, but I don't know exactly where to draw it, or even how to figure it out beyond "I know it when I see it." Rail Paul, don't get me started on the aftermath of the Tasini case. Grrr.

I'm trying to write a response to this that isn't overly broad, but I'll have to cop out and say that I personally do not believe they have stolen your recipe and that you do not deserve to get paid for every use of your work. But I can't explain why without going on at length turning this thread into a debate about intellectual property. Suffice it to say, I hope, that it's my belief that creators and the public are best served by thin protection for IP, and I say this as a person who devotes a considerable amount of his time, paid and unpaid, to producing creative work.

Have you ever been unable to republish one of your recipes because someone had plagiarized it on a web site?

Hey, the Elite is also there. I forgot.

cakewalk, I feel your pain. Seriously, your post made me think a lot. Some recipes are definitely better written than others, and I'm not trying to excuse careless recipe writers. If it sounds like I don't have one central argument, it's because my feelings on this subject continue to evolve. Probably I made this piece too general when it could have been more personal. More than any other single influence, Cook's Illustrated taught me how to cook. I've made probably over a hundred recipes from the magazine, and I can't imagine going a week without making something I learned from CI or a variation. I think of it as about the best beginner's resource you can have outside of a personal trainer (cooking trainer, not fitness). But in cooking from CI, I made mistakes. A lot of mistakes. A lot of going out for pizza because I screwed up. I'm not a brilliant natural cook like tighe's mom. Luckily, I never had illusions that learning to cook would be easy, but I still felt like quitting many times. What if that Sunset bread hadn't come out well? Or if it had come out as the author intended but you didn't like it? I'm trying to argue a middle path here; I'm about equally annoyed when a professional chef says to throw out your recipes and when a beginner cookbook says, "Cooking is Fun and EZ!"

And if you want to know what the Broadway Pagliacci is going to look like when it's done, it's going to look just like the Lake City Pagliacci, the one near Pancho Villa. That block containing the four Asian restaurants is slated for demolition and redevelopment next year; at least, that's why Diversity Hair Design said they moved out. Obviously, that could change at any time with the market, and usually these things happen later rather than sooner.

fresco, I think you're right, but I don't think it's a bad thing. It's awesome that people have the option not to cook. If it meant that I no longer had access to quality ingredients, I'd complain about it, but I've never faced so much bounty in my life. Do I go to the huge gourmet store, the farmer's market, or the huge Asian grocery? How about all three? Sure, I'd be delighted if the average person were as excited about cooking as I was, or if they had my taste in music or movies, but there's little to be gained from going back to a situation where people have to cook to survive, and it's not possible anyway. There are probably people who would like to spend more time cooking but absolutely can't afford to take the time. I'm a little skeptical of what these people are using their time for now, but I do feel sorry for anyone who is honestly in this situation.

Oddly enough, Simple to Spectacular was sitting on the couch when I took the photo. I'm all for cooking with a friend or relative as long as you can keep from driving each other nuts. Thanks for the comment, Richard. Olney is a treasure, and I haven't read as much of him as I should, although I did read some of his bizarro autobiography.

Now that I have a working sourdough starter thanks to jackal10, I'd like to make sourdough bagels. Any tips on what percentage starter to use? I intend to use commercial yeast as well; I just want the flavor of the starter. I'm using a 100% hydrated starter. Obviously I'll play around with it, but I have no idea where to start, even.

"700% more slippery" would be a good advertising slogan if it were true, though.

I would make a good agent. "That sounds like a great idea!" I would say, and then I would forget about it while eating a bag of Fritos. Fat Guy - The right kind of butter to use is Rich Creamery Butter. Something I was going to put in the article and forgot is that I'd like to write a book called What's Wrong With This Cookbook?. Every recipe would have at least one egregious error to encourage cooks to think for themselves. For example, the strawberry shortcake recipe would call for three pounds of ground beef, and the reader would have to figure out that authentic strawberry shortcake only has one pound of beef. Katherine - The "something missing" is three pounds of ground beef. The crux of my argument, if there is a crux, is that no matter how detailed a recipe is, it cannot possibly include everything you need to know to make the finished product. Part of the recipe is inside your head. And yet, especially if it's a well-written recipe, it looks like it does. That's the definition of specious. For some reason, I find this line of reasoning very interesting. I enjoy things that are complex. If cooking were really as easy as Cooking for Dummies would have you believe, cooking would be boring as hell.

Well, I'm not willing to go as far as Klc and other in indicting recipes. I think recipes are a perfectly good way to learn to cook as long as you have reasonable expectations about what they can and can't do for you. If you can't start generalizing techniques after working with recipes for a while, you're probably the kind of person who would have had trouble understanding the techniques in the first place. As for nature vs nuture, who cares? Anybody can learn to cook reasonably well. I usually compare this to learning to play folk songs on the acoustic guitar or juggle three balls. Nobody can do these things on the first try, but everybody can do them with practice. Still, people seem surprised when learning to cook gives them trouble.