prasantrin

Chez Panisse just lost its Michelin star. Any thoughts on the current Chez Panisse? Was the demotion deserved or not?

As Grant Achatz's memoirs are being published, I am reminded that even during the worst of the radiation and chemotherapy, when he was unable to taste a thing, he could still create unique dishes with harmonious flavours that evoked memories or emotions in those who ate them. Although there are many chefs out there with as much, and even more, experience in the kitchen, I wonder how many of them could churn out fabulous dishes with just the memory of how things taste?

Did you actually read the article? They can't afford to hire any more staff. Really, they can't even afford to be in business, or at least that's what the article implies. And if I had a substance abuse problem and/or a nervous breakdown and had to drop out of life in order to get better, then I would hope the people I had to drop during that time would accept me back once I got better. But if they couldn't, so be it.

I have not been to Schwa, nor do I have any affiliation with the restaurant, but I think if people read this article about the chef, they make think twice about writing it off. The closure had nothing to do with customer abuse (but more to do with another kind of abuse), and the unreturned phone calls likely have more to do with being overwhelmed and understaffed (and likely ADD) than just plain rudeness. Just my opinion, but I'd be inclined to give Chef Carlson a lot more leeway.

They use a lot of oil to fry eggs in Thailand, but I don't know that I'd consider it deep fried. My dad used a small pan (maybe 5" diameter?) and had about 1/4" or so of oil in it. He used to fry bread like that, too, but I think he picked up that habit when he was in boarding school in Wales.

There's a great round-up of many of the recipes from the book at http://phemomenon.blogspot.com/ No fewer than 25 recipes from the book were made for a special occasion--Dorie's birthday! Happy Birthday, Dorie!!

I've been fortunate enough to have bfs who are pretty adventurous eaters, but I once dated someone who wouldn't eat anything that had "flesh"--no beef, pork, or poultry. But would eat fish which is still flesh, but is for some reason, "different". And although nothing cooked with chicken or beef stock would be consumed, eggs would. That didn't make any sense to me because to me, consuming eggs would be far closer to consuming flesh than stock would be.

I always denigrate my cooking a little before I serve something,and especially if I receive a compliment. "It's sort of ugly, but I swear it doesn't taste as bad as it looks," or "Really? You like it? I was afraid it would be too sweet," etc. etc. I think it's in part because I'm Asian, and Asians are not trained to just accept compliments gratefully, but also because I'm hyper-critical about my own work (after I made a critical remark about something I had done, a friend once said, "Oh, Rona. No one is harder on you than you are. . . except your mother." ). I wonder if, to the people giving the compliments, it's annoying?? I know if I pay someone's food a compliment, and they brush it off, I don't mind because I'm the same way. But for other people who don't do that, do you get annoyed when people brush aside your compliments?

They've had a website with menus for a while, just not with its very own URL.

Sorry, because you said you didn't use them because they were not available in Japan, and not because they didn't add flavour, I thought you were looking for them.

How are glace cherries different from these? They're available all over Japan in grocery stores (higher-end ones) and at places like Tokyu Hands.

Huitaloche? I'd like to see that in a dessert and have it seem like it belongs.

olives in green olive macarons!

Elissa from the blog 17 and Baking just did a post on smoked grapes. She used alder wood and rosemary sprigs, then made a rosemary smoked grape focaccia. Looked delicious.

I'd live in Tokyo or Dubai. Dubai isn't necessarily the best place for food, but it's in the perfect location for travelling to Europe or Asia where you can get plenty of excellent food. And Tokyo has great food in general, so I'd be OK living there. If I had to live in North America, I'd probably choose Chicago since you can find plenty of great food in the city, plus you have easy access to both coasts and direct flights to international destinations if you want to travel for food.

I have always found cooking and baking (especially baking) to be a great stress reliever. Since returning to Canada from Japan, I find my mother's tiny kitchen to be more stressful than stress relieving, so I have not baked in months, so my stress has nowhere to go. Anyone else ever have that problem?

Japanese don't use the word "quince". I can't remember off-hand, just look up the info in the thread I linked to above. It's all there, then you can look up stuff on rakuten and elsewhere.

I remember my mother and I talked to your wife about her dislikes, so it's funny to read your post. Hope your daughter is doing well, and that she comes home to eat with you soon!

Final update--after I dumped in the last 2 cups of goat's milk/half-and-half, it was so watery that I decided to take drastic action. I ended up spending an hour or so taking a few ladles of the mixture at a time, and cooking it down on the stove. I didn't stir constantly, but checked on it every 5 minutes or so and stirred down the foam/bubbles. I'm sure the temperature was too high because it bubbled and foamed up a lot, but I didn't really care because I didn't want to spend all night working with it. After maybe an hour or so of reducing the mixture (I would do a batch, and then when I thought it was thick enough, I poured it out into a container and started another batch), I was done! Since I was sure I had taken it to too high a temperature, I was a little worried that it would be too hard, but it's not. The final product is not as thick as it should be, but it's thick enough to thinly spread on bread. It's also quite grainy, but I'm OK with that because it tastes really good! @ChrisZ--thanks for the info on the cheesecake! I'll experiment with small tart-sized quantities before going all out to make a big cheesecake, just in case.

Interesting. I did a search on Rakuten　and found quince juice, liqueur, jam, wine, seedlings, etc. Even canned quince from Iwate. All of the above were not karin, but quince, or so the pages said. Maybe you could take a look at the page to which I linked, and use the information there as a basis for a more thorough search.

I was watching the World Pastry Team Championships on TLC yesterday, and someone mentioned that one team brought in condoms one year. Apparently they're very easy to use for making shapes with chocolate. What kind of shapes, I do not know, but there you go.

You might also find some on Rakuten if you search using the Japanese name. I found other hard-to-find fruits (like meyer lemons) through rakuten.

If you're trying to find them in Japan, you might be better off posting in the Japan cooking forum. There was already a discussion on trying to find quince in Japan in this topic. The short answer is--it's very difficult to find them in Japan, but if you're lucky, you'll find someone with a quince tree and get some from them.

OK. I added the remaining milk, and now it's all watery again! The instructions say My mixture was pretty thick, or at least the top half was. It was a little watery underneath the thick foamy stuff, but I was OK with that. I warmed the remaining 2 cups of milk (I made a double recipe) for a few minutes in the microwave. It was sort of scalded (it had that milk film on top), so maybe it was too hot? Because now my cajeta is really watery. And pale. Nothing like the pictures above. I think I'm just going to give up and use it as a base for cajeta chocolate milk. Or just cajeta milk. It will be delicious, I'm sure!

I think a first post like this requires a recipe! I especially like that "queso" comes before "pork".