prasantrin

Any pictures? I'm wondering if it would be a good sub for the Jim Lahey no-knead. Do you think you could sub in some rye or whole wheat flour for the white?

I think you should keep your name. I like it, and I've always liked it. Just do the sign thing like you mentioned, and perhaps when you have a full sit-down place, you can also put it on every menu. The sign thing is great because people are standing in line for your burgers, anyway, so it gives them something to do. But I think you should keep it.

There is a recipe for Chocolate Espresso cookies on their website, but I don't know how similar it is to the "Better Than Store Bought" recipe.

Day 2--Singapore OK, this is sort of out of order. This is Day 2 in Singapore, but Day 9 of our trip. In between Singapore Day 1 and 2 we were in Cambodia, but it's easier for me to do each country in one swoop, so that's the way it's going to be! Taking an early morning flight, we arrived back in Singapore around 11am. By the time we got to our hotel, or rather, our correct hotel, it was around 2. Not having eaten since 6am, my mother's blood sugar was starting to crash, so as soon as we checked in and freshened up a bit, we walked to Clarke Quay to find a place to eat. There were many places to choose from, but we went to the very first one because my mother was really starting feel nauseated from hunger. Jumbo Seafood. I think I've heard of it before, but perhaps they have other branches, because I don't associate it with Clarke Quay. It's a Chinese restaurant specializing in seafood, from what we could tell. Unfortunately, it was 3pm by this time, and they were closing! They kicked us out, and we walked next door to Cafe Iguana. Cafe Iguana, it turns out, is a Mexican restaurant. I really didn't want to eat Mexican food in Singapore. I mean, Mexican food in Japan usually sucks, how good could it be in Singapore, especially in a touristy area like Clarke Quay? And it's sort of kitschy. We decided to stick with simple stuff, because it's pretty hard to screw up the simple stuff. My mother ordered queso fundido. When it arrived, it sort of looked like processed cheese food. It may have, in fact, been processed cheese food. But it was really good! It was cheesy enough, but not too cheesy or greasy, and it had a bit of a kick to it. And the tortilla chips were warm. We thought maybe they fried them onsite, but it's hard to say. We really liked this, so we asked what was in it. They said cheese, tomatoes, capsicum, chile. . . and I think that was it. But look at it! There's no way that can be just cheese unless it's processed cheese food--can it? Here's another look: I'd be willing to use processed cheese food (if i can find it in Japan) if someone could give me a recipe. I looked a bunch up, like those crock pot cheese dips made with cheez whiz, but none of them seemed like they'd turn out like our beloved queso fundido. And I tried doing a cheese sauce (just bechamel with lots of cheese) mixed with jalapenos and tomatoes, but it wasn't the same at all. Back to food, As I was looking at the menu, I noticed that brunch dishes were available till 4pm on Sat. and Sun. and they had chilaquiles! I love chilaquiles! I had to ask the waiter what day it was (hey, I was on holidays. I didn't need to know what day it was!) and confirmed that it was Sunday (he only laughed at me a little), I ordered my chilaquiles con pollo. No, that is not a side of poop. Refried beans with a crusty exterior, is what that is! The whole dish wasn't too bad, but it was oddly sweet and it couldn't hold a candle to the queso fundido! We paid, leaving a tip despite the 10% service charge because we asked if we could do take-away later on. Maybe they usually do take-away, I don't know, but the waiter had to go to the kitchen to ask, so we assumed it would be a special request and we wanted them to be nice to us when we returned (and we would definitely be returning). Then we headed to Orchard Road, where I stumbled across this fellow: Fresh ice cream sandwiches! The ice cream comes in blocks that he slices to just the right size, then he sandwiches it between cup-cone like cookies. I liked it, though it did have a slight medicinal flavour. I had decided my quest would be to find the perfect curry puff. I love curry puffs, but they're not easy to find in Japan. Our first stop was Old Chang Kee, where we picked up (from left to right) a curry puff, sardine puff, and pineapple pie (which they call a pineapple feel'in). Curry puff innards Sardine puff innards Pineapple pie innards The curry puff was tasty, but the shell was more like a pie crust. It crumbled rather than flaked, and I prefer the flaky kind. My mother liked her sardine puff, but I don't like tomato-sauce sardines, so I didn't care for it. I loved the pineapple pie! It was like a fried McD's apple pie, but better! Except it didn't have enough filling. I really wanted more of them, though! That seems to be it for Day 2. I think we just had the curry puffs for dinner, and maybe some yoghurt. That's all I remember. Whew! Another day posted for a two-week trip, almost a month after it ended! That didn't take long at all! I think I'm learning from Peter Green here.

Did you try Now Your Cooking? It is rather tedious to enter all the ingredients, and sometimes if you don't enter an ingredient exactly as it is in the nutrition database, you have to do it manually (also tedious), but I think it works well for my needs. I'm not sure if it would work for your needs, but for example, Bacon Cheddar Muffins have 1976 calories, total fat content of 86.6 grams, and total sodium content of 3061mg per recipe, then I can also get the measurements per unit/serving if I want. It also shows the percentages of each measurement by mass, calories, and daily value if you need those, too. You could avoid the tedium by hiring someone on the cheap (like the teenaged child of a staff member) to input the recipes. I'd even do it. I like entering recipes in my database (even though I always forget to use them).

You'd think a "high-flying advertising executive" would be able to spell "desert" (sic) correctly. But perhaps he's an idea guy. It did look like a horrible meal, though. Much like the stuff I ate on Emirates.

Me, too. I am making soup of veggies I probably would have tossed yesterday, but this does seem like a different world, now. ← I'm trying to figure out what to do with the by-product "juice" from crock pot "caramelized" onions. I think I'll just throw it in some onion soup to add a little more onion flavour to it (if it's still good--it may have spoiled by now, and that will make me a waster!).

You can also find them online (Michael's website or a number of sites which offer coupons). I found this one which expires on the 31st. It doesn't say if it's a US-only coupon or if it can be used in Canada, too, but I'm thinking if they didn't specify, it should be OK to use. No harm in trying, anyway. If they don't have the one you want, look for a cake supply shop. In Winnipeg, there's at least one cake supply shop that rents out Wilton pans, so if they have that kind of thing in Winnipeg, they must have similar options in Vancouver. ETA: If you register for Michael's website and to receive their newsletters or ad via e-mail, they'll send you a 40% off coupon right away.

I haven't really cut back on anything in terms of purchases, but I am cutting back on waste. I waste an enormous amount of food every year (as many people probably do), but this year I'm trying to use up everything I buy (and that goes for all the stuff in my pantry, too). It's helping because I'm not buying as much as I used to, but I still eat out too much. That has to be limited, too. I don't have any loss of income, nor any additional expenses (although I hear my health insurance will go up quite a bit starting in April), but I will be leaving my very cushy relatively well-paid job in March 2010, so it's really time to start saving up my pennies.

I wonder if it would have happened were Robert Steinberg still living. Although the company had been sold, I read somewhere that he was still involved in it. He was quite passionate about the company, so I don't know that he would have let leave CA that easily.

Transylvania! Langos from a street cart would be my favourite memory from there. The restaurant food. . . not so much. I'm terribly jealous of both Verjuice and Chufi. They get to travel with each other! That's just as good as the Chufi/Abra/Lucy combination! More food, please. I think everyone wants to go to Estonia now (though I really wanted to go after Pille did her food blog), but isn't Pille moving to the US soon? If so, people had better go fast! Where else would we get our insider foodie-info from?

You lived in Pampanga? I knew you lived in the Phil, but I had assumed in Manila. Were you (or one of your parents or your husband) in the armed forces? And you never know about your advice being out of date! I've been reading up, and there are at least some long-time bakeries/bakers still around! Got any ensaimada favourites from those days? I'm planning to do an ensaimada tasting! And perhaps a tocino one, too. If there's anything/anywhere you want me to check out while I'm there, I'd be happy to try. And I'll take pictures--it might be fun for you to reminisce! I just heard from my mother that one of her old beaus will be probably taking us sight-seeing in Pampanga (they dated when they lived in Baguio, but his family is originally from Pampanga), so we'll have a car and driver to take us wherever we want to go! We might rent a chauffered car in Baguio, so that option may be there, too!

I haven't seen that book (it seems to be out-of-print now, too!), but it sounds like a good one. Is it intended to be more than just a cookbook? Like how South Beach is a diet book with some recipes, for example? Or is it primarily recipes with some extra information? About cutting down on portions, I think it's actually quite easy, but I was thinking more along the lines of "Instead of taking three serving spoonfuls of mashed potatoes, just take two and a half," not, "Choose protein servings the size of a deck of cards." I think for most people, it's most helpful to make very small changes to start--like reducing your serving by half a spoonful, or not taking that third piece of pizza when you really only have room for two. That way you don't feel too deprived, and you can segue more easily into eating those seemingly super-small portions later. I also think that for people who are used to eating large meals, it will be very easy to get a "diet cookbook", but still eat large portions, thereby not really cutting calories. That's why to me, it's best to start with very small changes to what you're already doing. And while you're making those very small steps, you can start reading books to get ideas for further changes, then institute those changes slowly, as well. That's the kind of thing that would work for me, but I'm an ISTJ, and therefore like to analyze every little thing I do. It may not work as well for others.

In Edmonton. I'm confused. If he's the "chef-in-residence", doesn't that mean he has to live in Edmonton? Or will he be moving there?

Are you willing to take a little trip into Kobe? The best okonomiyaki I've had outside someone's home has been in Kobe. It's a nice place to walk around, and there are some great pastry shops (French-style, some with Japanese influences), too. It's only about 30 minutes from Umeda in Osaka (Hankyu train, express), or one hour or so from Kyoto. For shojin-ryori I'd suggested going to Koya-san. It's such a lovely place, and it really gives the impression of "old Japan". In Kyoto there are a lot of places to try different wagashi. The Gion area is a great place to walk around and just stop by any place that has Japanese sweets. There's also a beautiful high-end tea shop that has Japanese sweets. It's owned by the Tawara-ya Ryokan people. I can look up the information if you're interested. I also love warabi-mochi, and there's a place sort of near Yasaka Shrine (I think), that has the best warabi-mochi. It's so fresh and soft. If you're interested, I could get that info, too.

Some of my newly purchased (but not necessarily newly harvested) potatoes have weird black lines running through them. For example, the outside of potato might have a little black spot, then when I cut it open, from that spot there's a squiggly line all throughout the potato. Is that just blight? Or is it just a weird thing associated with these particular kinds of potatoes (two types--Hokkai-kogane and toyoshiro), but they're still edible? I'm hoping it's the latter, because I really like these potatoes and I don't want to lose any! ETA to add not-so-good cell phone picture

Are any of the Moosewood cookbooks for omnivores? I'm overweight but not enough so to give up delicious meat. ← That's not really a problem. Just use the Moosewood cookbooks for side dishes, and you can use other sources for meat. As I suggested earlier (but it seems my suggestion was missed), the Weight Watchers cookbooks by the Culinary Institute of America would probably be good options for you. Link if you don't want to take the time to find it on your own.

Is that website correct? I got a family website--I think they're Mexican, not Italian (it's all in Spanish, and I can only understand so much). Yes, congrats to Daniel and Miss A! I do hope you'll post more info--about food, in particular to appease the food "gods". I'm sure your wedding spread will be fabulous!

Note the lack of a surname on that knife. Maybe it was really a Jacques Chirac knife. That would explain the quality. . . I refuse to belive my beloved Jacques Pepin would put his name on anything worthless! My favourite bread knife was a scalloped one, the name of which I can't remember, but it's still somewhere in my parents' house. Something like Zanger-icel. But the one we used in baking class was awfully nice, too. Wenger?

That would be more productive than random guessing ... ← Random guessing can be fun, too. It's like the good-old days, when we could guess who was doing the weekly food blog. The person who guessed correctly always got to feel a bit smug for a few days. I guess Gouda. Lots of Gouda cheeses have orange rinds. And they're not so bloomy white.

Do you have a cat? ← My cat won't touch those, for some reason. I think those dried fish things can be used to make a sort of fish stock. Or they're supposed to be simmered with soy/mirin/etc.

When I was young, we'd sometimes have tuna fried rice, or corned beef (the kind from a can) fried rice. They're actually quite good, but both need onions (whereas, for example, for me onions are optional in chicken and salted fish fried rice.

If you do get an electrical impedence scale, make sure you read the directions carefully. There are certain conditions which would cause a reading to be wildly inaccurate (weighing yourself after exercising, drinking a lot of water, or a heavy meal, for example), so reading the directions is very important. I say skip the cookbook, start exercising more, and start your "diet" by reducing your portions by a little, but you don't necessarily have to make huge changes immediately. Institute changes gradually rather than all at once, and they'll be more likely to stick. If you really really want a "diet" cookbook, I'd go with one of the WW cookbooks. The newer ones, especially, tend to be more food-lover friendly. Doesn't the CIA have a WW cookbook out?

Won't that make them all soggy? I'm worred about the juice squishing out. I'll add that to my experimenting list.

There was no label, but surely someone who works there would know what it was. There are labelling laws, etc. after all, aren't there? They would have to provide information (nutritional content, for example) if requested.