Malawry

Rooftop, there's a place called Shady Glen in Manchester, CT that makes burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches with crisped griddled cheese hanging off the sides. I think you can even get an order of plain griddled cheese there. Plus they have good ice cream. Anyway, these are not hard to make if your griddle is well-seasoned, and sometimes when I worked with a griddle I would fry a piece of provolone as a snack. At home, though, I find the Silpat works best.

Sur La Table sells a lot of these sorts of things. JB Prince sells some cool molds, too. But in all honesty, I've always just used stuff around the house. Mostly ramekins and small bowls turned upside down for little cups. Or draping over a rolling pin to get the classic French tuile (roof tile, like a Pringle) shape. We made tiny tuiles to hold a small scoop of ice cream atop a dessert at one restaurant where I worked--those were shaped on upside-down mini ramekins that we used to send people ketchup or sauce on the side (you know the little black ones you see in most restaurants). I've never needed a cornet-shape, and that's the only one I'm sure you'd need a special mold for.

Cream cheese and olives on rye bread Pineapple juice Childhood favorites!

The trick with these, as with any sort of tuile, is shaping them at the precise moment they are shapable. I always bake on a Silpat. When they come out of the oven, poke every couple of seconds with a thin, small offset spatula. The moment you can slide the spatula underneath without ripping the cheese, lift it off and place it on whatever form you're using (upside-down ramekins, bowls, spice jars, cornet molds, whatever) and press with your fingers to encourage the proper shape. You'll have to grit your teeth 'cause they'll be HOT. If you wait too long and some of the cheese hardens too much to form (it will be brittle), return to the oven for a few seconds to resoften. I quickly got to the point where I could shape 6-8 tuiles hot out of the oven before they got too cold and brittle, but if you're new to this I recommend only baking 2 or 3 at a time. Have another Silpatted sheet pan ready to go in the oven when you take the first pan out, they'll be done by the time you've shaped all the tuiles off the first pan.

Tonight: For me, hanger steak with Maldon salt and haricots verts with butter and balsamic reduction For my spouse, fried panko-crusted chicken livers with spicy tomato sauce and a salad with bleu cheese dressing Tomorrow night: Spice-rubbed pork loin with apples, kraut and a Calvados-spiked pan sauce Mashed potatoes, maybe Sunday lunch: Cuban-style sandwich with the leftover pork, which is the whole point of tomorrow's dinner.

I wouldn't mind some full sheet pan sized Silpats for my rare candymaking enterprises. Actually, a couple new half-sheet Silpats would be good too--I could reserve them for pastry since I use the 2 I currently own for things like chicken all the time. A really big marble board would be cool. I have one but it's not that big and I like serving cheeses on it. How about a couple of really large oval platters too? I have tons of medium ones but no huge ones. I also want a bunch o' chafing dishes, but that's for my catering bidness and not for me personally. I'll be wanting a food grinder attachment for the Kitchen-Aid mixer in anticipation of baby arrival. There's no liquor on my wish list this year, for once, due to my condition. (I even have a nice bottle of bubbly lined up for when baby comes home.) Some new cookbooks are always welcome, though. I've wanted a copy of Larousse Gastronomique for many years. I'd also like Bouchon, the new one by Joan Nathan, the new On Food and Cooking, or any of a dozen other titles. Thanks.

I just swung by Hemp's Meats on my way back from a quick trip to Frederick for Costco supplies, and I am kicking myself for not having stopped in before now. Especially since I drive right past Jefferson a couple times each month. This is a real, old-fashioned butcher. You can buy sides of beef from this guy, and if you want he'll cut it into steaks and roasts for you. He grinds his own meats. He makes sausages--Italian, brats, sage, etc. The store is real old-fashioned, complete with a Coca-Cola menu board listing cuts and prices. I discovered today that there are cuts not necessarily on the menu boards that are available. Specifically, I inquired about hanger steak/onglet. The butcher said nobody asks for it (!) and of course since there's only one on every cow he doesn't add it to the menu. I asked if he had any and he responded, "I got about 50 cows in the back, how many you want?" I bought only 3 so there's still a few left for you if you want some--and he charged me a price that made me think I was getting away with highway robbery. He literally went into the meat locker (think Rocky; I expected to see Sly Stallone whacking a few sides of beef back there as his workout) and cut three steaks off three cows for me. Then he brought them out into the shop and trimmed them by hand before weighing them and selling them to me. I anticipate a fabulous dinner tonight. If you want any sort of cow or pig part not normally sold at the supermarket, it's worth giving Hemp's a call and seeing what they have. They also sell some seafood and other products as a convenience for their customers. They even have a wheel of rat cheese sitting on the counter that they'll whack a hunk of at your request. The guys behind the counter are super-friendly and knowledgeable. Click to visit Hemp's Meats, including directions from across the metro area.

Anybody have recipes for these homemade liqueurs? Especially the Irish cream, I know that will be popular. I'm considering making some for the grownups this year...how long do they take and how long do they keep?

Yeah, I'll be more impressed with "worth the trip" when it covers someplace that hasn't been flogged to death online. Color me picky... I liked today's coffeecake taste-test feature. The coffee pairings were especially a nice touch. (I have always been fond of taste-test stories and wouldn't mind seeing more of them. Yet I'm annoyed by wine panels that change weekly. Hmmmm.) I have to say I'm a little sick of the Dinner in (under 60) Minutes feature. I guess I'm tired of the focus on coverage of quick 'n easy food and rarely find those recipes inspiring or even interesting. But I'm a curmudgeon like that sometimes.

I saw a new ice cream confection in my local Sheetz convenience store a few months ago, and I decided to take the plunge and try one myself today. Introducing...F'real Milkshakes. F'real! They come in chocolate, strawberry or vanilla. Open the freezer, remove your flavor choice cup, and pry off the foil lid. Stick it in the metal cup on the blender unit. Select your thickness preference (extra thick, regular thickness, or less thick). I chose chocolate flavor and regular thickness, figuring I had no perspective on the relative thickness of each option. The metal cup raises your plastic cup into the blender unit, and a blender churns the contents to your selected thickness. The metal cup automatically lowers when the drink is blended and you can stick on a lid and a straw, and then you're good to go. I think it cost about $2 (I was buying some other stuff while I was there, so I'm not entirely sure). It wasn't bad but wasn't all that great either. Ingredients include: The gums and whatnot are definitely detectable in the finished product, and the cocoa is of cheap quality as I expected it would be. It's still about as good as a fast-food milkshake from a place that doesn't hand-make them though. Not bad if you're dying for a shake and there's no Baskin-Robbins or independent ice creamery around.

If you work in a hotel type setting you have a stronger chance of getting benefits (paid leave, health insurance)--especially if the hotel is unionized. But you still probably won't approach $20/hr for a long time, if ever. This is true whether you work savory or pastry. A lot of people get something going on the side--doing some catering, selling some cakes, etc--to help make up some additional income.

Does it include alcohol? Or just the nonalcoholic beverages? It seems a lot less high to me if you're getting liquor or at least beer&wine for that amount.

$3000cdn for 30 people? That's a lot more than I'd expect. I'd lean towards Caterer #2 at this point. Just be sure to iron out service issues early, if possible.

We have four individual-serving New England glazed bean pots that my mother-in-law gave my husband many many years ago. They are not good for making a batch of beans because they are so small, but I do sometimes use them for onion soup or for making shirred eggs on top of vegetable mixtures. They really are cute though--they sort of get the cupcake thing going, you know: this is my serving and mine alone. Any other suggested uses for these little pots?

Suddenly, I got hungry today. So I made a big dinner: Skirt steak, my childhood favorite. Seared in a pan while lapped with butter, then sliced thin and topped with Maldon salt. Asparagus with butter and balsamic reduction. A baked potato with butter and sour cream. For dessert: a brownie leftover from last night's party. There was lots of butter in that too.

Where in Leesburg is Thoroughbreds, Faboo? I'm out that way fairly often. Also, are you a vegetarian? If so, I'm interested in any commentary you can offer on vegetarian selection in places you dine. I eat fairly small amounts of meat myself these days.

I usually make a "five-onion dip": a 16oz carton of sour cream, a little carton of creme fraiche, and fine brunoise of red onion, sweet vidalia onion, leek, scallion, and chive. Salt the hell out of it and let it sit for a couple hours, check the seasoning and probably salt it again. Very popular, I like to serve it in a hollowed-out red cabbage. I'm serving it at a party tonight actually. You do realize that vegans don't eat sour cream, right? Hummus is one classic vegan-friendly dip. Or simply really good EVOO with coarse salt and pepper would also be yummy.

Gastro, I didn't go through a program like you're describing, but I wanted to mention that it's true with any sort of education that you get out what you put in. The school will work as hard for you as you make it. Most of the students in my own class in culinary school actually did care about the subject matter and worked at it. I've followed up with about 70% of my class (everybody you talk to knows what a few other people are up to) and 2.5 years post-graduation most are still doing something in a culinary field. That being said, not all of those people are working in restaurants--but most of those who aren't never really wanted to in the first place. They're working as culinary educators, they're directing hospital food services, they're supporting local food-oriented charities. Some, like me, cobble together their income through a mix of food-related work (in my case, writing, teaching and catering). I think that if I was a restaurant-oriented person, I'd have a very different opinion of the importance of culinary school than I do given the way my career has evolved. I rely heavily on my alma mater, L'academie de Cuisine. I've found jobs through them, I call them for advice, I regard my experience there as the most valuable tool on my resume. Their importance will understandably lessen to me as my career continues to grow, especially if I end up leaving the DC area (L'academie is pretty focused on the DC metro area). They gave me what I needed to get moving from a writer-editor white-collar job to the career I dreamed about. Specifically regarding ICE, where do you want to settle? I know you currently live in DC. Do you want to move to NY or just go there for school? If you don't plan to move there permanently, spend some time investigating what ICE does for its alumni. Some schools like CIA and J&W have amazing national networks to match their national reputations and can help connect graduates with professionals across the nation. These connections are super-important--you can use those fellow alums to trail places, which naturally leads to learning more about the industry and often job offers. I don't know if ICE has alumni services and networks as well-developed and recognized as all that--maybe they do. Make sure you talk to whoever the alumni contacts are and grill them on these issues. I would have gotten a lot less out of L'academie professionally if I hadn't developed a rapport with the alum coordinator there. Many people think they'll change careers and do something food-oriented but then realize they're not cut out for the work once school gets going. It's not that unusual. The smarter ones will drop out before they lose all their tuition payments--a couple did from my class. There's a big disconnect between the image of the culinary industry from the outside world and the reality of what happens in the trenches. But you already know all that, being from a restaurant family. Oh, one other thing: have you looked at NYU's programs? I know they offer some sort of interesting business-related food studies program--I think it's a master's degree which might work well for somebody like you with a background in business. What are the other programs you are considering?

DC is not filled with kitchenware stores like NY is--we don't have tons of Broadway Panhandler independent type places. Home Rule is not really a kitchenware store per se, but they do sell a lot of decor and some cute kitchen gadgets--plus. There are some other stores like that in town: Wake Up Little Susie in the Cleveland Park neighborhood, Now and Then in Takoma Park, MD, etc. La Cuisine hangs on as our one major kitchenware player, down in Old Town Alexandria. I usually either buy things at Sur La Table (where they are kind enough to offer an industry discount) or order online from places like JB Prince. Also, a number of the department stores and markets have some decent selections; Wegman's-Dulles store and the Dean and DeLuca in Georgetown both sell some tools and tabletop supplies. But these companies are just as accessible to a New Yorker as they are to a Washingtonian.

I made these the other day. They really are delicious hot out of the oven--I normally don't much care for plain choux buns but these were so fabulous that I had to force my own mitts off of them. I had to bake them for a LOT longer than recommended though. They were too wet and not yet hollowed out after 30min and I thought they were a lot better with 30-40 minutes at the lower temp. (I was not using convection.)

I dunno. I think staffing is even more important than the food. If the staff sucks then people won't have a good time even if the food is fabulously perfect. And that's coming from somebody with virtually no FOH experience. Was it the same staff member both times who dumped drinks? What did they say when you had words with them?

Menu #2 from caterer #1 sounds better to me, not knowing the price parameters. Things like "chicken fingers" make me think "prefab," and I gravitate towards vegetable hors d'oeuvres partly for this reason. The turkey entree sounds pretty good too. None of these menus are especially "wow" to me. But I don't know what you're looking for here. Who are you entertaining and for what purpose? Catering has an unfortunate tendency to work towards the lowest common denominator in terms of tastes and sophistication. But if the food is good, most people won't care--folks don't go to weddings and holiday parties to be challenged from a culinary standpoint. (That's partly why I like to focus on the starters in my own catering business--I can get people to try something interesting and strongly-flavored with their cocktail in a bite-sized portion more than I can off a buffet or dinner plate.)

I said that if Daniel used that hanger steak in a chili, I'd cry. Here I am: *cry* But it's for two reasons: 1. I'd much rather eat a hanger steak seared or grilled the old-fashioned way, yet 2. The finished chili looks so damn good that it's making me hungry and I just ate lunch. Has anybody ever made the Ohio sausage chili from the latest Joy of Cooking? It's an interesting recipe, like a thick sausage stew.

My husband always liked bulgur wheat in his chilis as well, Milagai. I'm glad you brought it up. It adds a nice chewy/hearty flavor, especially to vegetarian chilis.

If you put that beautiful hanger steak into chili, Daniel, I'll cry. In my house, we mostly eat a low-carb low-fat chili made with ground turkey, onion, garlic, lots of tomatoes, and a smorgasbord of spices. It's ordinary but very satisfying and quick and easy to put together. (My husband does the low-carb thing, and we both try not to eat a ton of beef.) We eat it which cheddar cheese and sour cream on top. I used to make a vegetarian chili often in my vegetarian days--lots of pintos and kidneys (I used to soak and cook massive quantities and freeze in Ziplocs), sometimes some "Boca crumbles" for a meaty texture, rice, tomatoes, onion, garlic and the aforementioed spice array. Back then we ate it with blue corn tortilla chips. Ooh, it was good.