prasantrin

Diana's pizzas Half peppperoni and pineapple, half capicollo and artichoke hearts... with a regular crust, marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese Half spinach and roasted red pepper, half asparagus and artichoke hearts with a thin crust, olive oil and herb sauce, feta cheese My favourite was the spinach and roasted red pepper topping, with feta cheese and olive oil and herb sauce. It was a great combination!

Bumping this back up... I have a few hours the morning of August 12 to hit the Farmer's Market. Questions: Sahagun--I read on their website that their store will be closed in August for a holiday. Will they be at the farmer's market at all? I know, I know...a holiday is a holiday, but hey, it's only one day a week! Jim Dixon--his website says he should be at the market August 12, but I thought I read elsewhere that the market is limited to locally grown stuff. But Jim, if you're out there, you'll be there, right? Low BBQ--are they still around? And how early do they open for ribs? I've only been to the Market once before, many years ago, and I was in danger of going overboard with my purchases. But is there anything else I really need to try? Breads? Cheeses? We're leaving pdx on the 14th, so we can't buy too many perishables, but I'm bringing a portable cooler with me so hopefully I can bring back a little to nibble on during the drive back to Sacramento. If it lasts that long...

lesfen must be right! American-grown Japanese rice and but Japanese soy sauce (with kana on the label), Middle Eastern goods for her to bring back to Japan, Kraft Mac and Cheese for the kids, Sweet and Low and cake mixes (hard to find in Japan) and the biggest hint of all... Kosher salt!! But what's up with the Maxwell House? And as nakji points out, you can see the Great Lakes. torakris should be back home in Ohio right now--that's near one of the Great Lakes, isn't it?

I've been dying to make chile oil, too! I usually only use it on pizza, but I like it drizzled on french fries, eggs, fried rice, etc. and I like to add it to mabodofu to add a bit more spice. I think chile mayonnaise sounds great as a french fry dip! When you made it, did you heat the oil and/or use dried chilis? I've been too lazy to go through that whole process, and am too afraid of botulism to try it otherwise! I'd be interested in your method if it's easy and toxin-proof!

I had Diana's pizza last night. Pluses: A myriad of toppings, sauces, crusts, and cheeses from which to choose (most at no extra charge). Mix and match at its best. Minuses: Crust was tough--perhaps a bit overbaked? Kneaded too long? not enough? We had two pizzas--one regular crust, marinara sauce, mozzarella (their basic pizza) half with pepperoni and pineapple, and half with capicollo and artichoke hearts. I like their marinara sauce because it actually has flavour that comes through the rest of the toppings. The mozzarella they use is fat-reduced, which is a bit of a bummer, but it was fine. The capicollo, I thought, was sliced a bit too thickly but it was tasty nonetheless. The other pizza was thin crust (yeasted--they also have a non-yeast thin crust which I think has an extra charge), olive oil and herb "sauce", feta cheese (you can get a blend of feta and mozzarella, but we just got feta), half artichoke hearts and asparagus, half spinach and roasted red peppers. This pizza rocked! The feta was very salty--I think they need to rinse it more, but the spinach and roasted red pepper side was especially good. I didn't notice much of a difference between the regular crust and the thick crust. I have pictures which I'll post later. When you order the "specialty" toppings (like aspargus, spinach, artichoke hearts, capicollo) they don't skimp on amounts. And the pizza with feta had a lot of feta on it. Only two toppings (aside from extra and double cheese) have extra charges and they are oysters and anchovies. Their pizza isn't the cheapest in town, but it's not the most expensive, either. Our two pizzas (one medium, one large) came to $36 including tax. I think delivery was free (I had requested take-out, but I think there may have been a misunderstanding and they delivered it, instead--luckily it arrived just before I was to leave to pick it up). Would I order from them again? Definitely. I think it will become my default pizza place, now that the Academy Road Pizza that was on Pembina has disappeared. Was it the best pizza I've ever had? Not even close. Is it the best pizza in Canada? I have my doubts, but it was pretty good pizza (except for the tough crust).

Mine is in Japan so I can't even look at it to give you some advice. Maybe you can contact Bialetti Shop customer service for help. You can find the e-mail address on this page?.

As a consumer, I love the take-out desserts that come in reusable dishes. In Japan I haven't found that the desserts sold with reusable dishes are that much more expensive than those sold on disposable card plates or in disposable cups. The same store might have items sold with both disposable and non-disposable containers.

Wow! What a great picture! Mine certainly never looked so good--I think I need some new serving dishes...It looks like it's suspended in champagne jelly. About the cream vs milk, you can actually use either, but we're a full-fat family (which could help account for a number of things ) so we've always used cream (and with all that water, the cream practically becomes milk...). But you could use milk, or a combination of milk and cream, for the cream or you could probably eliminate the water completely and just use milk and cream for the liquid. It's a very very flexible recipe. I would even consider adding some other fruit puree or juice instead of some of the cream/milk/water. I'd like to try adding some yoghurt to it to add a bit of zing, but I haven't gotten around to trying that, yet. But if you ever decide to try adding cream cheese, please use a stick blender so the cream cheese doesn't end up as chunks in your pudding (my mother has some bad memories of the results of that experiment!). (And just to give credit where credit is due, the recipe originally came from an aunt who got it from somewhere else, but my mother has claimed it as her own.)

That's great! Stewart's? That's kind of sad for me. When we first moved to Winnipeg in '69, my mother used to go there and talk to the original owners about Jewish food. They were quite surprised that my mother knew so much about Jewish food, but her family harboured a Jewish refugee during the war (in the Philippines), and that woman taught my mother a lot. The current (?) owners are Argentinean, I think, and were former clients of my mother's. Oh, no! That is bad news for me! I arrive on the 11th! Which is today my time, tomorrow your time. I had thought I might stop by on the way home from the airport to pick up a few things for a late dinner. Alas, I shall have to stop in a peek at your specialty food store offerings. Maybe I can find some interesting things to bring back to Japan. If you happen to have a bit of dacquoise hanging around one day, let me know! I'll drive anywhere for a dacquoise!

Pam, what are your hours and do you have any tables? I remember you said you might have a few tables, though your new place wouldn't be a sit down restaurant. Just wondering if I should plan to take out, or if I might be able to eat in--even just a little snack, or dessert, or plus....

Have you tried Academy Pizza? It's not quite in your 'hood, but it's probably the same distance from your place as Diana's (maybe even a little closer). I like thin crusts with some chew, and theirs is the best take-out thin crust I've had in Winnipeg (though it's still not in the Napolitan crust range).

Diana's is relatively close to my mother's house, but I've never tried it. For some reason, I thought it was only take out and bake yourself pizza, and if I'm getting take-out pizza, I ain't gonna bake it myself unless I'm throwing leftovers in the toaster oven. But it seems from their menu that they also have baked take-out, so maybe I'll try it this time around. It doesn't seem much different from any local pizza place, except they have a slightly better selection of toppings than some others. I'm guessing I shouldn't use Napolitan-style pizza as my base for comparison, though. For eatrustic, here's the March 2006pdf table of contents from Pizza Magazine, listing the winner of the 2006 Best Pizza.

Are you hoping to teach in the public school system? Each province has different rules about who can teach in their schools, but unless you have a teaching certificate, you might be out of luck. Most cooking classes in schools are taught by BHEcs who also do their certification in order to teach in schools (at least in Manitoba). If you want to teach secondary school-aged teenagers, then you could try setting up classes for teenagers through a local restaurant, community center, gourmet grocery store, or perhaps your local community college would be willing to set up a class for teenagers as part of their community outreach programs (if they have any). Incidentally, I used to spend summers in Nelson, visiting an aunt who lived there (she lived there for about 30 years, and just left 5-ish years ago). It's such a beautiful town. Maybe you can have some classes during the summer, when all those millionaires are vacationing in and around Nelson with their kids??

I'm not CanadianBakin' (but I am Canadian and I do bake!), but I use mine for scooping cookie dough, but also muffin or cupcake batter, and I use the smaller ones for truffles. I also use them for portioning out certain savoury foods, like mashed potatoes. Do you have a lot of springform pans? They're a little more difficult to get in Japan, and I don't remember seeing a lot of them in Singapore (though I wasn't looking specifically for them). So if you don't have some already, you might consider getting one or two for cheesecakes or other cakes. Maybe you can use some of your gift money to get a step-up converter?? Then you could get more electric household goods from the US, and actually use them! From your list, I'd get rid of the peel unless you have extra money to use up, especially since you do mostly cakes and cookies right now. Since you like doing cakes, have you considered a full-range of cake-decorating supplies? Or at least the ones you don't already have? Edited to add: I would also add some expensive ingredients to the list, that I wouldn't normally buy myself. Like very good quality chocolates to use for baking, or pearl sugar (so I could finally make Chufi's Sukerbole recipe).

A schmoo/shmoo torte is chiffon cake with chopped (ground?) pecans, served with caramel sauce. The topping (can I call it icing?) is usually whipped cream. Won't help in this case, but it is delicious and simple! Edited to add: it might be angel food cake, and not chiffon, but I can never remember...

Maybe you can use a black marker to colour over the ghosts and pumpkins on these Wilton liners?

I just noticed M peeking out at you from behind that chair! She has this ultra-cute, "Where the heck are you going Mommy? You'd better not be leaving me here alone!" look on her face!

That's good to hear. I'm not a huge fan of dinner parties where pasta is the main form of sustenance (we might be having sandwiches, too, I hear), and the mention of "Alfredo Sauce" on their menu has me a little worried. But at least you make it sound better than the Olive Garden! Do you have any particular favourites? A lot of the stuff on the menu reminds me of...well...the Olive Garden, so it's a bit difficult to judge what might be good. We eat anything, but there will be some vegetarians there, I think, so at least one of our three or four choices must be vegetarian.

I think just my suggesting it might make it an automatic no-go. The "official planners", who have done very little in terms of actually planning anything, reject any ideas they don't have, themselves. I think that's why Simpatica got rejected. They went there looking for things wrong with the place, just because it wasn't a place they thought of (started out with "It's too hard to get to" (it's a 6-minute drive from where most people will be staying), and progressed to "the chicken was sickly yellow and still raw in the middle (red)". They didn't want to like it, and they made sure they didn't. I was hoping for that! I think I can talk my mother into joining us, too! I had sent her the pictures, and even after what my aunt said, my mom said we had to try the food for ourselves! I hope they still have the crab strata when we get there, because my mother would love it!

There's a Filipino dessert called Sans Rival, which is similar to dacquoise. It uses thin layers of cashew meringue, interspersed with thin layers of cashew buttercream, ending with a layer of buttercream with toasted cashews sprinkled on top. It's one of my favourite Filipino desserts. The recipe about two-thirds down this Filipino Dessert website is pretty much the standard recipe. You can also make it with thicker meringue layers (less time-consuming to make that way), but it's better if the layers are thin.

I know she sometimes uses it in brownies, and people love them. I think it would be great in Linzer Torte! Or swirled in another kind of chocolate-y dessert! (I sometimes think of going to TO, just to try your tarts!)

Ages ago, I asked about restaurants that accommodate large numbers. Now that the party is approaching, and no reservations have been made, the official planners have decided on catering from Pastini Pastaria. I searched the board, but found nothing on the place. Has anyone eaten there, and if so, what do you think of the food? The official planners, by the way, nixed my first choice (Simpatica) after brunching there last weekend. They had something bad to say about everything they ate (I think they went in there expecting to dislike it, just because someone other than them suggested it, but that's just my guess!). But I'm still going there for Sunday brunch, even if I have to go alone!

Not my recipe, and I've never made it (but I've tasted it and it's delicious), but here's a recipe for cherry almond jam. The recipe was posted by an rfc friend who is a Minnesota State Fair blue ribbon winner, and if I remember correctly, this was a blue ribbon winner one year. If you click on the link to see the entire thread, you'll also find a recipe for cherry honey relish, and cherry chipotle relish. For straight cherry jam, she says she uses the recipe from the SureJell pack. Haven't tried it, but the jam is now part of the Gedney State Fair jam line.

I made my quiche a couple of days ago. It's good, but I prefer a pate brisee crust. I did have a couple of problems, but they were probably of my own making. First, there was a lot of puffing around the rim of the quiche. I think I shouldn't have left so much overhang (as the original Bouchon recipe suggests having). It doesn't seem to work as well with puff pastry, though perhaps if I had remembered to poke it a few times with a fork, it might not have puffed quite so much. Second, the bottom of the crust was quite soggy. That may in part be due to my forgetting to heat the milk/cream mixture before adding it to the eggs (so my filling was more akin to just baked eggs rather than custard), and perhaps in part to my short pre-filling baking time. Third, I did parbake the crust. I baked it for about 15 minutes with pie weights, then took the pie weights out, filled the crust, and baked. With the pate brisee crust, you're supposed to bake with the weights, remove them, then bake for a bit longer without filling. Then you add the filling. But after 15 minutes at 375, the rim of the crust was getting quite puffy and brown, so I thought it would be better to fill it rather than bake it longer. Was that a bad idea? If I had baked it a bit longer without the weights, I'm guessing the bottom would have crisped up a bit more. But wouldn't it also have puffed more, too? Finally, I only made 2/3 the recipe for the filling because my pan is smaller than required. I thought my proportions were OK ( 4 eggs, 1 1/3 cups each of cream and milk, as opposed to the 6 eggs and 2 cups each of cream and milk), but maybe I screwed them up somehow? Oh, I also forgot that my milk was not 3.8% but 1%! Easy to forget in Japan, since 1% milk is not often found. So that might have affected the filling, which in turn affected the sogginess of the crust. Here are the pics...it was still tasty, regardless of how it looks!

You mean different ideas from, erm, 'us'? Except I am more "them" than "us", if you're going to make that kind of distinction. I am part Thai, Chinese and Filipino, and I have spent much of my adult life in Japan. I'm not, as far as I know, ethnically Korean so perhaps I should leave them out of this, but I would say my background gives me some knowledge of the cultures of the ethnicities I mentioned. I might have included some other areas of the world, but I'm less involved with those areas (though from the time I spent in Morocco, I would say they don't give much thought to the idea of "animal cruelty", either). I don't think it is a negative cultural comparison, it's simply a cultural comparison. Fact is, different cultures view treatment of animals differently (though different people within different cultures may also have differing views). I am not making judgment on whether Japanese are crueler to animals than Americans, for example. I was taking issue with the comment that Japanese people are "above" the cruelty debate or that they are better informed that Americans (for example) about the production of foie gras or similar foods. Because they're not. Ask a Japanese person how foie gras is made, and few will be able to tell you. But explain to a Japanese person about the process, and ask if he/she thinks it's cruel, and I think fewer Japanese would give an affirmative reply, particularly older Japanese people. Just to make it clear, I have never given my opinion on foie gras in this particular thread so please don't lump me with PETA freaks or people whose judgments about animal welfare are based on Disney movies (not that you or anyone else has, but I can see how some might make that judgment). Again, I'm not arguing for or against the production or consumption of foie gras, but I'm arguing against the idea that Japanese people don't argue about such topics because they are "better informed" about or "above" these things. I assert that it's because they just don't care about those particular issues, and that the reason for their lack of care is most likely culturally-based. Entirely unconnected. And I don't work or volunteer with ARK (nor did I say I did), but I spend time with their animals when they do public information campaigns. I hear a lot from the volunteers about the animals and their histories. Such stories can be heard everywhere in the world, but what makes Japanese strays, abused animals, etc. somewhat worse is that very few people care. In Canada and US, stories about animal cruelty often make the news, but in Japan they never do. And it's not because it doesn't exist here, because it most definitely does. Animal protection is just not an issue in Japan at all (SPCA? Humane Society? They don't exist here.), and there are very very few places where one can bring a stray or abused animal for help. I've said pretty much all I need to say online. If you really feel the need to continue this, please do so via pm.