prasantrin

I had a recipe for yum neua, but now I can't find it. Look up Colonel Philpott's recipe (actually his wife's). He posted a slew of her recipes on Usenet way back when--they were so good some Thai grocery store website stole them (i.e. put them up on their website and refused to give attribution--I know this because I called them on it, and they were adamant that they didn't have to give attribution). How'd you do the round ice cube? What would happen if you insulated the ice cube maker in something more insulating--would you get clearer ice cubes or would it not make a difference? I need a pictorial!

Eggs definitely go bad! I speak from unfortunate experience! That steak looks soooo good! I'd use the leftovers to make yum neua. I've had a craving for it forever, but have yet to make it.

Thanks for the patisserie pictures! Sorry they didn't taste better. I must admit, my impression of Monaco (where I've never been) has always been much like my impression of Dubai (where I have been)--very pretty, but not much substance. It's nice to see how a "real" person lives there! Thanks for blogging, and I hope we get to see another blog from you after the move, wherever that may be!

I know what you can do! Visit a bunch of the local patisserie and take pictures! I assume they're usually French in style? Are there any locally made snack foods (potato chips, or traditional snacks from Monaco)? Or are most of them imported? I noticed what looked like DeCecco dried pasta in your cupboard. Is that a favourite brand of yours?

Another view of Cook It Raw (and a likely answer to hathor's question). And the invitees do seem to be only men. UE outed himself a year or so ago. Old news.

Thanks for the picture! They look just like the ones my friend's mom used to make. I really loved them, so I was always disappointed when I ordered them in restaurants. Restaurant sopaipillas were always so heavy compared to hers. re: empanadas--I have a great empanada dough recipe that I love. It uses lard. If you want it, I'd be happy to send it to you so you could try it out.

What did you do differently to avoid the tails? Do you think letting them develop a bit of a skin helped? I'm very willing to help you get rid of some of the tailed ones. I can eat a bunch in no time flat, so there will be no evidence left at all! And I think there was an error in the message. It's not supposed to be A 5 5 A 5 5 It's supposed to be |3 A |) A 5 5

I forgot about Torta de Mil Hojas. The cookie-like layers threw me off--the Torta de Mil Hojas I've had tends to have layers that are more cake-like than cookie-like, but I think it's often made that way because of convenience. If it is Torta de Mil Hojas, the layers are rolled out very thinly--like making vinarterta. It's time consuming, but not difficult, and it's worth the work, I think. I actually don't mind tours, especially the first time I visit a place. But food is such a priority for me (I often spend more time deciding where to eat than what sights to see), and I find the food to be had on tours to be (very often) mediocre at best, so I often end up disappointed. If I could afford to, I'd take tours designed for food lovers (and that combine both great food as well as great sight-seeing), but I find those tend to be quite a bit more expensive.

If you look up recipes for Sans Rival, you'd probably find something very similar to the cake you had. Sans Rival is a Filipino dessert comprised of thin layers of meringue interspersed with buttercream (and nuts--often cashews). Did you notice a difference in the food between what you were eating prior to the tour (when you were on your own) and during the tour? To me, the food you had while on your own seemed more appetizing, while a lot of meals I've seen since seems more like food geared towards tourists. (just an observation, not a judgment) IME, Chilean food isn't really all that interesting (I had a good friend in high school who was Chilean--they came to Canada as refugees in the '70s--and I used to eat at their place a lot), but there are a few things I do love--empanadas and sopaipillas. I've never had sopaipillas like the ones my friend's mother made, so I'm hoping you have some Chilean sopaipillas so I can see if they're like what I remember! (will you be going back to Chile, or are you departing from Argentina?).

Not that it's a contest, but I beat you both--I have 40 google maps. google maps is easy to use, and it's free! You can also make duplicates of the same map, then add more places to one (or delete some of the places). I found this useful when planning multi-day trips, where I would create one map with all the places I planned to visit, then create an individual map for each day. I just had to copy the complete map, then delete extraneous places, and also add transit directions to the daily maps (it was too cumbersome to add those to the complete map). Another advantage of google maps is that many people have already uploaded pictures of places. I usually delete people's google map pictures, but if i were going to an unfamiliar, difficult to find place, I would leave whatever picture there was so I could recognize it more easily when I saw it. I'm a very visual person, though, and I depend on landmarks more so than directions. One thing I don't like about google maps is that occasionally, the icons don't print out properly. Even if I have a different icon for each place, sometimes they'll all print out as the default icon (the blue balloon with the dot). That's a PITA.

former poster flyfish said Plymouth was being repositioned (by the owners) as a premium gin, hence the price hike. I asked an MLCC employee about a potential price hike, and he said MLCC had just done their seasonal price hike, so it would not likely be going up soon here. He had no idea about the LCBO hike or about the attempted repositioning. It will likely be going up everywhere in NA within the year, so get thee to Winnipeg if you're close! eta link to article confirming price link short blurb from said article Article also says the retail recommended price will increase up to 40% everywhere (except Spain where it first tested out the price increase).

Not exciting, but I bought three bottles of Plymouth gin. It's still priced at $26.05 in Manitoba, so I thought I should take advantage of the lower price (same sized Plymouth jumped to $45 in Ontario).

The latter two on your list show up online at Surdyk's, one of MSPs best-stocked liquor stores. It would not at all surprise me if the others were available in the store. Or were they out of stock?

A few days ago the refurbished was $329 on the website--5 year warranty (instead of 7) with new blender containers. There was a code around for free shipping, too.

Of course you can! I happen to know that you can make caramel though - was looking through an old thread yesterday, As I was typing what I wrote, I was actually thinking (and I'm not kidding), "What would I bring? The only thing I could bring is caramels!" My poor homely caramels. Or rather, my poor rustic caramels.

I'm not going to put my name down because I always put my name down and I never get to go. But I just want to let you know that I'm already jealous, and if I can go next year, I will! (but if I don't have anything to bring to the share thing, can I still share in everyone else's goods? )

You didn't go to Christopher Elbow because you were busy preparing for the Saturday dinner, but Marmish and I went! And my mother, but she stayed in the car. I really liked the chocolates I bought there (only 4 or 8, can't remember now). His salted caramel is one of my all-time favourites. eta--not chocolate or a patisserie, but I really liked Foo's Fabulous Frozen Custard. I went twice. Or maybe three times.

@runwestierun--thanks for the tip. For the coconut ice cream, I was hoping to use one of the Thai recipes I have that don't use eggs or dairy--that would help with the food poisoning thing, wouldn't it? But those recipes just don't seem to come out the way I remember Thai coconut ice cream to be. For lychee, I think I'd prefer to have it as a sorbet. It would make a great summertime dessert special, I think! @pastrygirl--coconut flakes on the mango pudding are exactly what I was thinking! She usually has toasted grated coconut for other dishes, but I think flakes would be better. I usually do raspberries, but it's not very Thai. I might still do raspberries, though. Or maybe strawberries. I like the red of the berries on the orange of the pudding. I was thinking of doing the mango pudding in ramekins, so it would be easier to serve and would help with controlling portion sizes, but I'm not sure they'll have the space to store them. My friend and I will have to talk about the small details a little more before this really happens. I do really enjoy helping her out. Her restaurant is very successful, but she's always looking for ways to improve things and to differentiate her place from the plethora of Thai restaurants in town (most of those are really Laotian, so her place really is different just based on that. On the other hand, most farang don't know or care about the differences). I probably should have started a new thread--sorry to Quesmoy for hijacking this one!

I'm Asian--I am inherently self-deprecating. Thanks for the comments! Right now I only have three desserts in mind--lemon souffle cheesecake, mango pudding, and that Mexican flan/cake thing. I've made all of them before with great success (my cheesecake and mango pudding are especially popular), but I know none of them are particularly pretty when served as-is; they're all very plain. I'm counting on my friend('s staff) to pretty them up a bit when they serve them, perhaps by adding some fresh fruit or a few sprigs of something. I'm a little wary of the cheesecake because it's very messy to cut/serve, so I might omit that. My friend's restaurant is an "ethnic" place (Thai), so I'm sticking to things that are Asian-influenced (to me, the Mexican flan/cake thing is Filipino) and that can be flavoured with Asian-inspired flavours. I can add some coconut milk to the mango pudding, infuse the cheesecake with lemongrass or use yuzu juice instead of lemon, etc. etc. She has a few desserts on her regular menu (which are really just snacks in Thailand, but farangs eat them as dessert), but my plan is to have dessert specials--available until it's gone ( or gone bad). Like the mango pudding--I'll make it on a Wednesday or a Thursday, and it will be available for the weekend, but when the last serving is gone, we won't make more (until a month or so later). The dessert specials will be mentioned on a facebook page as well as in-house, so if people follow the restaurant, they'll know what's available (and when it's gone). And they won't happen weekly, but rather once a month or whenever I have time. She's planning to do a similar thing on the savoury side, too. Back to labour--minimum wage sounds good. I was thinking it might be too much since I'm very much an amateur, but she does pay her staff quite a lot, so minimum wage really isn't much for her. She already feeds me for free, or when I insist on paying, I pay a much reduced price, so while the gift certificate is a great idea, it might not work in this case. I could ask for unlimited Thai tea, though. She knows how much I love it! I would like to do a coconut ice cream, but I've had a difficult time finding a reliable recipe. Maybe I could find a lychee ice cream recipe. I like lychee a lot!

Related question so I'm tacking it on to this thread. . . A friend owns a restaurant and I'm encouraging her to add a few desserts to her menu as limited specials. I would likely be making said desserts, but I am not a professional baker, just an amateur and not really even that (they won't be pretty desserts, just simple ones). I will be making the desserts in her restaurant kitchen using her ingredients, so my personal costs will be minimal (I might have to buy some pans and stuff, but I'd be keeping them, so I would not ask her to pay for them). She is insisting on paying me if we do this. She usually overpays, but I want to be fair. Remember, I'm an amateur so there is always risk that some of the goods might flop (I'm generally sticking to things I've made before, but there is always a chance of failure). That would mean a waste of her money, since I'm using her ingredients and her electricity. I don't really want to charge per hour since, as I said, some hours might be spent making flops. So I was thinking of charging per item. Like I might charge her $7.50 for me to make a simple cake (10 servings?). $5 for mango pudding (maybe 10-15 servings?) $7.50 for cheesecake (8 servings) Does that sound reasonable (even though I just made those numbers up)? Or should I consider charging a fee per serving sold? There's no guarantee that people will buy any of the desserts, and I don't want her to get stuck with spoiled food. So I could ask for something like 50 cents per serving of whatever dessert she sells. I could also ask for a percentage of dessert sales, but that sounds like much too much effort. This is kind of just a fun thing for me to do; it's not a way to make extra money or show off my non-existent skills. I've been enjoying thinking of ways to help her promote her restaurant and make it different from her competition. I mostly just want to help her, but since she's going to insist on paying me, I don't want to rip her off.

Jaymes, you are definitely my sistah from another mistah. My thoughts almost to a T. I think in order to interpret her review, one must understand her sense of humour and her writing, in general. Most of the people who are writing about her Olive Garden review, know little about her. As her son wrote, if she writes mostly of decor, she probably doesn't like the food. And if you read her other reviews, they're very straight-forward. No superfluous descriptions or praise, just a clear description of the place and the food. As her editor writes about the review, In a small city like Grand Forks, I imagine the reviewer must be very careful about what is written, as an overly negative review could easily destroy a business in a place like that. When I read her reviews, I get the impression that she's being very careful about what she writes. People are all too eager to write Marilyn Hagerty off as "charming" (read: "unsophisticated" "country bumpkin" etc.), but there's so much more to her than is assumed. Some fact about her: But if you think of her as "charming", it's much easier to write her off, I suppose. And to those who think otherwise, she is not a blogger. Judging by her comments, she has little use for blogging or bloggers. (incidentally, I've used her restaurant columns in the past when looking for restaurants in the GF area. I consider her reviews to be a source of information more so than reviews.)

Another foodblog from Lebanon! Be still my heart! One day I shall eat there. Y'all make it so tempting! What is zouhourat tea (seen on one of the menus)? And when ordering "mint" tea in Lebanon, is it always that ubiquitous green tea with lots of mint found all over the Middle East?

I have always considered the gatherings to be about camaraderie first, food second. My best and longest lasting memories of the gatherings I've attended have been of interactions I've had with PEOPLE. And because of that, I think children should be allowed at as many of the events as practicable. The Philadelphia board is one of the few regional boards that still has a strong contingent of long-time posters. I feel like I've gotten to know many of them through their posts, and I, personally, would love to meet not only them, but their families. Of the three (four?) gatherings I've been to, only one had young children (younger than 10) at the Saturday gathering. I barely remember them (except the vomiting incident, but as I understand it, adults have also vomited at eG gatherings), so they couldn't have been very disruptive at all. And the only other events I remember having young children present were the KC Crum Farm brunch and the Zingerman's bacon brunch in AA (was Tammy's son younger than 10 then?). (Lucas was at almost all the events except the last AA gathering, but I think he was older than 10 when I first met him) But ultimately, it should be up to the organizers to decide whether to allow children. And perhaps the space of the Saturday dinner (or any of the events, for that matter), should be the primary focus when making that decision. I loved the KC space, but it didn't seem very child-friendly--open kitchen which was (to me) a bit small for the number of people who required it, so prep was spread out everywhere. If PHL is set up similarly and young children are present during most of the prep, this could present safety issues. The Ann Arbor location, however, was in a residential area so kids (and adults) could go out to play when they started to get bored.

Thanks so much for doing this little travelblog. It almost makes up for you not doing a food blog when you were actually living there. Lebanon is one of the countries I most want to visit, and you made me want to visit it more! (I can't remember if you mentioned it, but were your breakfasts brought in by you, or did you order them through the hotel?)

The Better Cheddar Dip that's most famous in NO (from what I've read) is made by Langenstein's. I don't know if Whole Foods sells their own version of they sell Langenstein's dip. According to Langenstein's, the dip contains "A creamy blend of cheddar cheese, cream cheese, garlic, nuts, herbs and spices." Another recipe you can play around with is http://countryroadsmagazine.com/Appetizers/better-than-better-cheddar . No garlic in this one.