prasantrin

Yowzers! That was scary! It looks like there's a tentacle wrapped around a chopstick there--you can see the suckers on the poor guy. The hair on my arms is standing up from looking at this picture...really!

Ooooohhh!! Mayonnaise on bread is one of my guilty pleasures. It has to be on toast, though, or on very very soft white bread (think Wonderbread). I'm not sure where I picked it up from (I remember eating them in junior high, so it might have been from a junior high friend), but I do love them.

I think the Acadian poutine is different. I might have asked about it on eGullet before (maybe to Shaya?), but I can't remember. My former co-worker said it was sort of like arancini, but made with mashed potatoes instead of rice, and steamed in cheesecloth. I can't remember what usually went in the middle, though. Does she have any good Scottish recipes you'd care to share during your blog?

Where's "around here"? Around where I am, I doubt there's a single Asian restaurant (Chinese or otherwise) that has butter for the rice, but I'm in Japan...But I don't even know of a single Chinese restaurant back home (Winnipeg, Canada) that would give you butter for your rice. Butter on jasmine rice would definitely be a sin. And can we talk about licking your fingers? I had only ever seen Caucasians (not all Caucasians do it, I know, but the only people I'd ever seen lick their fingers had been Caucasian) do that. However, when I was in Yemen, I noticed that my "less sophisticated" driver also licked his fingers when we ate (and made smacking sounds), though my guide didn't. In countries where you eat traditionally eat with your hands, is licking fingers acceptable? Our Afghanistani friends had told us it wasn't acceptable in Afghanistan, but I'm wondering about other countries.

I hope I'm not too late to add on! (I have a bad habit of forgetting where I've posted...) Thanks for the offer of your mom's char siew bau. I'd love to see it, but no hurries. It's getting a bit too hot to cook much in Japan, so I probably wouldn't be making it until the fall. I'd love to see the spice cake recipe, too, if it's not too much trouble! And I hope you'll start a topic on all your and farmer boy's adventures when he visits Malaysia! I know he doesn't like to have his picture taken, but I'd love to see his reaction if you take him somewhere that has lots of weird animal parts and such for sale. Who knows, he might end up liking them! (This might be too personal a question, but you're moving back to the Netherlands, right?)

Cool! Are you a native Nova Scotian, or a transplant? If you're native, do you know anything about the Acadian poutine? I had a co-worker who talked about her grandmother's poutine, and I always wondered exactly how it was made.

I don't even put chocolate chips in my Korova cookies. I forgot they were supposed to have chocolate in them until it was mentioned here! Chufi made some delicious looking chocolate chip cookies from the Dorie Greenspan book. I really wish I had my book here, because if I did, I would be eating some right now! Chufi made them look like the perfect chocolate chip cookies! edited to add: I found the recipe in my files, so I'll be making them tomorrow or the day after--if I gain 10lbs, I'm going to blame Chufi! (But don't tell her! )

When I can, I prefer to use a knife and fork to peel my shrimp because I hate it when my fingers smell like shrimp!! The only problem is that I suck at peeling my shrimp with my knife and fork, so I usually just use my hands. My mother can do it really well, though, but that's because she was taught to do so.

There will be a Sept. 1 release of Forty Creek Special Reserve. I don't know the price but doubt if it will reach $50. It is a blend of barrels that the whiskey maker, John Hall, has set aside over the last few years. You can register with Forty Creek for a numbered bottle, with a name and date (your choice) on the label. I don't know if you can wait that long, but a liquor store manager might be able to get shipment in the latter part of August. Apparently Mr. Hall distills his grains separately, rather than mixing the mash. He seems to have a unique approach and has done well in competitions, when many older Candian whiskey has not fared so well. ← I did a bit of research. It sounds very promising, and the price isn't too much above my limit, so it would be do-able. But you have to pick it up at the distillery (in Grimsby, ON)! According to the info on their website, it got the highest rating of any Canadian whiskey. The tasting notes make me want to try some, and I don't even like whiskey! As an aside, even though I'm Canadian, I write "whiskey", but according to Forty Creek, that spelling is the American spelling, though the Irish also now use that spelling, as well, while Canadians and Scots use "Whisky". It's different from the usual American vs British spellings, where the British spellings usually have the extra letter(s). Odd, I think...

Did you sprinkle the salt on before baking or after? What kind of salt did you use? The first time I tried it, I sprinkled salt just on one piece of already baked brownie. It was very coarse sel marin de guerande. It actually made the brownie taste bad, because it brought out all the flaws of the chocolate I used. I'm going to use better chocolate next time, but still don't know how to incorporate the salt into it (sprinkle before or after baking?).

Are your char siew bau homemade? I've tried a couple of recipes from the cook-off, and haven't found one I liked. It's the char siew part that's stumping me. If yours are homemade, care to share your recipe? And congratulations on your visa approval!

Thanks! She usually drinks her whiskey straight, so that might be a good choice, too. Is there a particular one that's better than the others? MLCC only has danfield's private res whisky-williams and churchill. Does that sound right? It's just over $20.

I checked out all the links provided, thanks for your help! They all seem to want me to buy huge quantities, but for home baking, I just can't use that much. I can get a 400g bar from Tava for AU$32 including shipping (the shipping is $12 alone). There's also the problem of shipping during the summer, which is when I'll be home. I guess I will have to plan on picking some good quality unsweetened chocolate when I'm in the US in August. I'll be in Chicago and Minneapolis, so I'm sure I'll be able to find something in either of those places. I also found out that I can order cases of unsweetened chocolate from a Japan-based mail order company (they bring in cases of stuff from the US). It will still be expensive (about $1/oz, plus I have to buy a case). They only offer Baker's, Hershey's Premium, and Ghirardelli's. Baker's is clearly out for me, but does anyone have an opinion of Hershey's Premium vs Ghirardelli's unsweetened? I don't really like the eating chocolates of either of those companies, but maybe unsweetened baking chocolate will be different?

Even though I'm not a big chocolate fan, I really wanted the chocolate flavour of the brownie part. And for me, blondies just aren't caramel-y enough for what I wanted. But I do like blondies as blondies, but not as caramel brownies. That sounds good! Shortbready base, caramel layer, then brownie on top! I'd try that...if I weren't so lazy! And an update about my caramel brownies...after two days, I liked them a lot more. The flaws of the Baker's seemed to fade a bit, and the caramel part became nice and chewy--especially the caramel that didn't get any brownie on it. The caramel brownies also seemed to get less sweet as time went on. Other people's opinions were far less critical than mine. One person said they were "orgasmic", and another made little moans as she ate hers. Even my Japanese co-workers really liked them, despite their sweetness. I saved the last few for my mother (she came to Japan for my birthday and mother's day), and she said they were "excellent". She's not a big fan of chocolate or supersweet things, either, and she's normally as critical of food as I am (she once had to write a review of a dinner I made for a home ec class, and she wrote, "The burnt onions added an interesting flavour to the dish"). I would definitely make these again, using the same brownie recipe, and the same caramels but perhaps using less than 200g for the same amount of cream, or adding more cream to 200g of caramels. Perhaps that would help tame the sweetness. And I would definitely use different chocolate, so that means my next experiment will have to wait till the fall.

We used to go to a Chinese restaurant that had fairly large diamond-shaped pieces of dough that were fried. The dough was sweet, but I don't remember if it was sprinkled with sugar. It may have been a specialy of that particular shop, but I don't know. The owners were Hong Kong Chinese, so it may have been a Hong Kong thing? I loved them, though, and I used to get really pissed off because I'd forget which Chinese doughnut I liked, and I'd accidentally order the long doughnut (yu tiao?).

Thanks! I looked at the MLCC website, and they carry all of those brands, so I'll have a good selection to choose from. I'll take a look around my local stores, first, to see which ones (if any) I can find here, then choose one of the ones I can't find. Thanks again! You've been a big help!

I hate it when I see people pour soy sauce on their rice. Sends chills up my spine! I also hate it when people in Thai restaurants insist on using chopsticks to eat their meal. Thai people don't use chopsticks unless they're eating noodles or Chinese food, but I guess because we're Asian and all Asians must use chopsticks....

Or perhaps chromedome in NB? I was hoping for some kind of blog about the opening of his restaurant! But a blog from Shaya would be most exciting, as well!

I don't think fried sweet things are really traditional in Japan. There are sata andagi (fried sweet dough) in Okinawa, but those are a local specialty. There's a website out there with the history of fried dough, and some fried doughs from around the world (not all are sweet). It's really a commecial site (they sell some kind of sweet dough), but it has some interesting information on it.

Revisting an old topic... I'm headed back to Canada for the summer, and want to pick up a gift of Canadian whiskey. I first thought of Crown Royal, in part because it's....distilled? brewed? in Manitoba and that's where I'm from. However, the gift is for a rather discriminating whiskey drinker, and from what I've read about Crown Royal, she probably won't care for it too much (I read it was a bit sweet, and she doesn't really care for sweetness). I don't know what brand she usually drinks, though, so I can't offer any hints as to preferences in flavour profiles. I'm not looking to spend a fortune--preferably $30-40, $50 tops. It should be more than just drinkable, but it need not be out of this world (and I'm sure at my price point, it won't be). Any suggestions?

The Japanese millefeuille is just like the French one, but the Gateaux aux Crepes are usually called mille crepes. I love the lightness of Japanese cakes, too. They're so much more delicate (than most North American cakes, anyway), but I don't have a favourite. It's too hard to choose!

I want to see it! I've been having a harder and harder time kneading bread (carpal tunnel, tennis elbow), and I'm not getting good results from food processor bread. Brioche has been off my list for a long time because of all the kneading, so I'd love to see your recipe!

I wanted to ask a question in Chufi's recent food blog, but I couldn't keep up and I kept forgetting (guests in town, marking overload, etc.)! My mother once saw a Dutch cookbook that had a recipe very similar to the Thai haw mok (or however you wish to transliterate it), kind of like a steamed fish mousse/paste/custard (but she thinks the Dutch version didn't have curry paste or chiles). Is this a traditional Dutch dish (not haw mok, but fish mousse/paste/custard)? Is it common? Will it ever appear on these pages? (not that I'm hinting! )

I think you need to do it. Not because it's for charity, but because it gives you an opportunity to learn something about yourself. You'll either learn that you love it, and it will be something you can develop, or you'll learn that you hate it, and you should channel your professional energies away from it. Either way, you're getting something out of it.

I just remembered, we have a small bottle of Tab (maybe about 10oz or less) from the late 1960s. I know they still make Tab, but do they still make it in bottles?