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Louisa Chu mentioned this project on her blog Moveable Feast. It sounds like a must-see.

Thanks for the quick reply. I have to admit I was not watching all that closely, so my impression could well be off the mark. I hope you're right that the intent wasn't as mean-spirited as I thought it was.

I've only caught one episode (the first or second?) so far. I found it mostly amusing, but there was one thing that really bugged me. When they were setting up a little vignette about some stupid cookie-cake order that they mostly regretted agreeing too, there was lots of joking about how much they hated cranking out zillions of cookies for the event. Fine. Every business faces situations where they take on some dubious projects. They mostly handled it in good humor. The part that bothered me was when some people wandered in off the street asking if they could have a cake made on short notice. The would-be customers were turned away. OK, if this shop is highly booked, maybe it's a bit optimistic to think that they'll accept a last minute order. Again, fine. What followed, however, completely changed my perception of the operation. No sooner had the couple left than the ridicule began. The entire staff started ragging on the people that they had turned away. I think they even made nasty comments about how they smelled (I may be just projecting here). My impression went from "kind of cool operation" to "These people are World Class Assholes".

I'm no expert on the processing, but from what I understand about foie gras, it's really important to avoid bruising the liver before, during, and after slaughter. The super-high fat content makes it especially delicate. I think that most of today's commercial foie gras is shipped in vacuum-packed bags to keep it protected from contamination. When I've bought foie gras from mail-order sources, it comes vacuum packed and surrounded by bubble-wrap or "peanuts", along with the requisite cold-packs to maintain temperature. Fresh foie is highly perishable, but I doubt you'll have a problem finding folks who will buy it from you as soon as it's available. I have a chamber vacuum machine you can borrow if you want to seal it. Selling it locally, you can probably just bag it up and have people pick it up as soon as it's processed.

This season has been a roller-coaster here in NorthEast Ohio. Alternating periods of searing heat and drenching rains. This week the CSA share was very nice indeed. Corn, beets, fennel, and my favorite, edamame (fresh soy beans in the pod). My farmer was running a bit behind when I arrived this morning, so I took the edamame home "on the stem" and cleaned them up myself. A huge bunch of stems yielded a bit over two quarts of pods. I like the frozen edamame you can get year-round, but the fresh ones are so much better.

My main experience in the MSP area is with solo dining. 112 Eatery and Vincent were certainly high points, but they're quite different. 112 Eatery fits the "funky" bit - I felt quite at home there eating at the bar. Kind of reminded me of Lolita back home in Cleveland. It's noisy - parallel naked brick walls. So not the place for quiet conversation. It's not very big, so you'd need to reserve well in advance. Vincent is a more traditional French restaurant. Good food, attentive and unobtrusive service. (The service scores big time in my book). If you give enough notice I'm sure they can accomodate a large party. Definitely a "dress-up" place.

I have a formica-clad square of plywood that fits on top of the stove. I bring it out when I have a project that requires extra counter space. I like to use it for charcuterie projects because I can really scrub and sterilize it thoroughly. It's just cheap formica, and I don't care if it gets scuffed up when I scour it. The main disadvantage is that it can't be used when the burners are hot.

What kind of "education" did those polled receive about foie gras, you may ask? Looking at a breakdown of the poll, 48% of those polled had never eaten it, and 34% of those polled had never even heard of it. So what's the follow up question, the question that generated the "nearly 80 percent" statistic in the ordinance? There's an unbiased poll question for the ages. Especially when 82% of those polled had never eaten it, or never heard of it. ← "an expensive item served in some upscale restaurants" Yeah, this is a classic example of push-polling. "when did you stop beating your wife?" Shame on Zogby for even representing this as a legitimate poll. This is transparently biased from the git-go. The Chicago City Council has represented this as some sort of "animal welfare" concern. Bullshit. Docsconz is right that the real comparison should be to the producers of commercial poultry and eggs, rather than the human health issues such as exposure to second-hand smoke. But that's not what this is really about, now, is it? The politicians have spotted something that looks like a cheap-and-easy issue to posture around. I'd love to see them take on the likes of Perdue, Tyson, or ConAgra/Armour. Ain't gonna happen. The politicians single out a "marginal" group (in this case, foodies who enjoy foie gras), and score cheap points with a constituency that the polls tell them outnumbers the target group. If the citizens of Chicago start looking at this whole sad episode with a jaundiced eye, the pols are in deep shit. Sadly, I doubt that many people even care about it.

Dave, I suspect Mr. Ruhlman would be delighted to have you test his hot dog recipes. I doubt that you're late to the party.

Michael, I'm sorry but that really is a pretty daft question... ← Well, there's certainly precedent for this. Paula Wolfert floated this little invitation in the Slow Mediterranean Kitchen thread inviting eG folks to help test recipes for the revised edition of The Cooking of Southwest France. I think she got a pretty good response, judging by the comments in the later thread after the book was published.

I'd like to volunteer to help test. Do the dogs need to be cold smoked? My smoker can't do low enough temp for that. I'm particularly interested in trying to get a really great "snap" to the casing.

I hope someone took a picture or two of the finished product. My camera battery died by that point, and I had forgotten my second battery in Cleveland. The dough is potato based. I was originally worried because the recipe didn't call for any sugar in the filling or in the dough; the only sugar was simply poured on at the end, after frying some bread crumbs in butter, adding the dumplings and toasting them just a touch, and then removing them from the frying pan. The bread crumbs, butter, and sugar all combined together to make the dessert work. Very comforting food. Earlier, the dough wasn't working out for me (I was unused to working with that type of dough and I didn't put in enough flour; I think by the end I had added about 3 or 4 times what the recipe called for), and had become quite frustrated, when someone's Eastern European mother showed up to the event and helped me make a couple dumplings. She told me that I was just worrying to much and they'd turn out ok. She was right, on both counts. By the end, I was turning out a few dumplings a minute. I'll have to make them again sometime. Sometimes all it takes is a lot encouragement. ------- Alex Parker ← Here's a snapshot of the wonderful consultation on dumpling technique. Palladion's Japanese-style dumpling dough may be closer to Eastern European (Polish?) dumplings than you might think. (Vicki's mom provides wisdom. Danielle's daughter doesn't miss a thing.) I didn't volunteer for any of the dishes, but I contributed to Nancy and Bob's beef with cherries and peppers. Bob gets the lion's share of credit for the inspiration: there were those gorgeous cherries at the market. We were in Michigan, after all! Bob, the consummate gardener, started scoping out the market for something that would complement the cherries. He's the ultimate pepper snob. The look on the faces of some of the market vendors was priceless. When Bob evaluated the peppers, most didn't measure up. I'll give some credit to Ronnie for backing up Nancy when both Bob and I thought the beef was "done". I guess I've been doing too much sous vide cooking, because Nancy was absolutely right that the braise needed more time. Fortunately Ronnie was there to back her up. My minor contributions were the caramelized cherries used for the garnish, and the veal stock, Maraschino, and demi-glace used for de-glazing the pan. Nancy and Bob will have to provide the proportions of the main ingredients.

Note the head on the drink. This was supposed to be "U.E.'s Spirit's Fizzy Non-Alky Drink", or something. Jasmine tea and citrus, with a touch of orange bitters and simple syrup to make it a bit less edgy. The syphon was less than full, so I should have let it sit a while before pouring. For some odd reason I decided to double-charge it. When I poured the first glass the stuff shot out of the syphon like a fire extinguisher. It went all over the place! Luckily it (mostly) missed the people on the other side of the table. This photo is obviously after we mopped up the mess.

Those of us who attended the eG Heartland gathering in Ann Arbor this past weekend got to taste some of Ron's pastrami. All I can say is that it is staggeringly good. There are pictures and reviews of Ronnie's charcuterie course in the 2006 Heartland gathering thread starting at post # 45. Check out the terrine (post # 58) - classic stuff! There's a pic of the whole spread at post # 66.

One more pic of the Charcuterie course. This is the spread as presented. Who made up the labels? Very nice! My one lone contribution was the Andouille. It's Berkshire pork from Heritage Foods (Heartland, ya know!), plus some wild boar shoulder from Dartagnan and some fat back from Niman Ranch (because the wild boar is so lean). I followed the recipe in the Ruhlman/Polcyn book (more Heartland! Yay! ), except that I didn't have any mace on hand in Indy where I was mixing the stuff, so I substituted a small grind of nutmeg and a bit of allspice. Triangulating a bit. I was actually reluctant to bring it at all, knowing that Ronnie's stuff would be so impressive. It actually turned out better than I thought. It could use a bit more zip, as has been noted in the Charcuterie thread. I think the second edition of the book should get an eGullet credit.

I didn't get a picture of the finished product, but here's one of Sam and Joyce tending the grill.

From the charcuterie course. Ronnie's terrine, un-molded and ready to slice. Ronnie slices the terrine, NancyH and Bob looking on (they're not really worried, it just looks that way in the photo). A thing of beauty. Mr Ruhlman would be proud!

The foie was dead-on perfect. Better than I've had in some serious restaurants. Here's a slightly blurry photo of the plated peach-and-foie salad. (hopefully someone has a better pic) Edit to add: The combination of the peaches, foie, greens, and dressing was truly first-rate. This was an absolutely awesome salad.

Grilling peaches on the patio. Note the two-to-one ratio of photographers to cooks! Ye shall know him by his Fish Pants. MMMMmmmmmmm.... Grilled peaches. Kitchen Chick and torakris watch on while FG tends the grill.

As expected, my photos are totally outclassed by Palladion's. I will post a few that don't duplicate one's we've already seen. The rest will be in albums in ImageGullet. Here's the beginning of the wine tasting. This was a great way to start the afternoon. We were just back from shopping at the farmers' market, and many of us were preoccupied with cooking matters. The wine tasting really set the right tone, and it was informative to boot. I can see why Tammy is such a fan of the wine service at Zingerman's. p.s. to Susan - I'll try to fill in names in my posts, and will put some additional notes in the captions on ImageGullet. If I screw up any names, someone PM me so I can correct it!

Coffee Cupping Part 2 Hot water is poured on the grinds. We compared two "mystery" coffees. One was the Brazilian Daterra that Zingerman's uses for their espresso roast. The other was from a Cup of Excellence auction lot that Zingerman's was lucky enough to get in on. (COE coffee's are top-rated coffees from a very prestigious competition). Coffee grinds steeping. Spoon at the ready. Slurping is encouraged! We also evaluated the same two coffees brewed in a conventional manner. The flavor and aroma is somewhat diminished when the coffee is filtered. It is , however, somewhat less chewy. Many thanks to Eric for setting up this event!

I'm gradually uploading pictures. I'll start with today's. Tammy's husband Eric hosted the final event of the weekend - a coffee cupping at Zingerman's Coffee Company. "Cupping" is coffee geek speak for evaluating a coffee. We started with demonstration of the roasting process. This is some serious drum roaster: We take a look at some green (unroasted) beans. The roasted beans are dumped for cooling. Samples are pulled every few minutes during the roast. This batch was a Papua New Guinea (PNG) that Zingerman's uses for a cold-extracted iced coffee. We tasted some from a previous batch. Very nice!

All the Charcuterie was ronnie's work except for the Andouille I brought. Ronnie's terrine was absolutely gorgeous, and his pastrami was amazing. Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned the bread that tino27 brought. It really made the cheese and charcuterie courses extra-special.

Tammy, Have you coordinated with the cooks about equipment? I remember that the common house kitchen was pretty nicely equipped, but people may want to double check that everything they need is there (or bring-able). I didn't volunteer to cook, but I'm very willing to help out if anyone needs a hand. I did volunteer to bring my soda syphon and some CO2 cartridges. I'll also bring the ISI creamer and some N2O (no snorting!) and some miscellaneous cocktail mixing stuff. If anyone wants to do cocktails we can figure it out on scene, since it wasn't really part of the official plan. I can bring my Vita-mix blender (Heartland made!) which makes great slushy drinks and such. It's noisy though - we'd probably want to place it away from the main social area. If it's going to get too crowded around the stove I can bring a stand-alone induction burner and a Le Creuset pot that works with it (you need flat-bottom ferrous pots for induction). That would move one item away from the main stove. Last year you mentioned that there were people in your community with severe allergies (I think it was shellfish and peanuts?) so we couldn't cook or serve those items in community pots or dishes. If that's still the case, people need to know to bring cookware/serviceware for anything with the "banned substances".

Oops! Glad you caught my mistake. Not sure where "Patrick" came from. At least they both end in "ck"...