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Thanks, mudbug! Highly informative and well researched! The confusion between North-American "paw-paw" and the various international "Paw-Paw" interpretations crops up occasionally. I'm familiar with the custard apple (fruta do conde) in Brazil. The banana-like paw-paw strikes me as highly intriguing. I'm interested in planting some native American paw-paw trees here in Ohio. Kristin, when Aussies use the term "paw-paw", I think they're referring to something like green papaya (amchur).

ha! must be far less obnoxious than the ringlight I used to use. 400 watt-seconds could stun a moose at forty paces!. Regarding the discrete vs intrusive theme, I'd say that much depends on your relations with the wait-staff and surrounding diners. Try gathering everyone 'round for a group picture. Then snap a pic of the food. No-one will be the wiser.

Paula, Thanks for the recipe and discussion. It looks like there's just one copy of Nora George's book left on Amazon. I find the mention of mucilaginous texture slightly off-putting, but you've convinced me I've got to try this stuff. Oh, and next time your editors nix one of your recipe ideas, just send 'em our way! Now I need to dig out my copy of Cleveland Ethnic Eats to find a store that sells Egyptian food....

My mother told me about the yellow-dye thing. Apparently the dairy lobby convinced the government that allowing margarine to be sold with the dye pre-mixed would lead to fraud (margarine being passed off as butter). Of course the margarine looked ghastly, an "unintended" side effect. Too bad the dairy folks didn't put everyone off margarine for good.

Mongo, Did you rinse the dal really, really well? The reason I ask is that it is common for dal to be coated with mineral oil (or some such) and you have to take care to scrub it clean. Soak the dal in water and rub it between your hands. Rinse it multiple times. The oil is non-toxic, but it's hardly something you want to ingest. Not sure if that would lead to gas production.... p.s., dal may noyt be a "bean", but any legume is on-topic in my book.

I usually cook with unsalted butter for the aforementioned reasons (I control the saltiness, unsalted is likely to be fresher, no salt in the butter to mask any "off" flavors). Even when using butter as a spread I prefer unsalted sprinkled with a tiny bit of coarse-grained fleur-de-sel. Crunchy! In Jeffrey Steingarten's It Must Have Been Something I Ate there's a chapter on Alain Passard's conversion of Arpege (how do I do the missing accent thingy?) to a mostly vegetarian cuisine. Passard repeatedly talked about using salted butter in preparing his dishes. He didn't say "cook [vegetable X] in butter, he specifically said salted butter. I wonder why that seems so important to him. I should have asked Steingarten when he did his Q-and-A on egullet.

I discovered that the oven in my gas range switches itself off after twelve hours. (A "safety feature"). When I started the slow-roast process I did wonder if the oven would stay lit the whole time. It has an electronic ignition and thermostat rather than a pilot, so I wasn't too concerned about blowing up the house. I suspected that the electronic "brain" might have some sort of failsafe mechanism. Had I bothered to read the manual I'd have found the "safety feature" clearly stated. Fortunately I was at home when the oven shut down. I set the oven control to "off", waited a few seconds, then turned it back on. My oven is surprisingly accurate at maintaining the correct temperature. I pretty much ignored the roast for the rest of the cooking time. The rolled loin roast I used worked well except for drying out a bit on the outside. The inside was tender and succulent. I'll have to find a proper skin-on shoulder roast to try next time. As for using up the leftovers, I didn't do anything too creative - just rolled up some shredded pork along with cheese, lettuce, avocado in flour tortillas.

We've veered a bit off course here. I merely mentioned Spam and Velveeta as examples of foods that would be considered more "industrial" than "traditional". No disrespect intended to Hawaii or Korea! The food press love to play up the mad scientist aspect of Adria's persona. The plastic bags, pipettes, etc., all play to that image. My take on Adria is that he seriously does adopt the scientific method when pursuing his investigations of new flavor / texture combinations. The "wall of spices" in the taller is not an affectation - it's a set of tools for exploring the world of taste and smell. Full disclosure: like Pan, I've never dined at el Bulli. Unlike Pan, I have read the book (1998-2002).

I have a can of Spam I bought in Kumi, Korea sitting atop my computer monitor. I think of it as a sort of "Kitchen god" to ward off evil (email) spirits.

Agar-agar was once limited to highly processed mass-market food? I don't think so. Agar-agar is traditional in Malay home cooking for Hari Raya (Muslim holy day). Comparing Kanten (agar) to an industrial stabilizer is a real disconnect from any number of traditional cuisines. If Adria were using Guar gum or some synthetic dextrose compound, that might seem a bit "industrial", but using a seaweed extract that's been used in Asia for centuries is hardly suspect. Now if Adria starts cooking with Velveeta or Spam I'll have second thoughts...

Has anyone had much luck with the Steingarten approach? I confess to going through a mashed-potato-obsessed phase (* brandishes digital thermometer *) for a while there. Never quite nailed it. Miguel, isn't it necessary to whisper sweet nothings to the puree to distract it as it warms? ...sussurro... ...sussurro....

It's extremely difficult to win a case of libel in the US courts, but I've heard that libel law in the UK is less demanding of the plaintiff. I vaguely recall some accounts of people chosing to sue international news organizations in the UK rather than here for that reason. How does one prove the intent of the reviewer? Unless s/he was foolish enough to post a message to the effect of "I hate these people. I'm going to slag them off regardless of the quality of their food", isn't the review simply the opinion of the reviewer? Regardless of how over-the-top the language may be.... Oh, and Busboy, even us yanks can spot naked aggression if it's sufficiently unsubtle.

There are some "soft blues" that are really great. I can get a cheese called "Saga" at my local grocery store. It's pretty good, but no where near as good as the Italian and french soft-blues that I've had. I can't remember the names of either of the European cheeses. I think that the Italian cheese was a sheep's milk cheese and the French one was from cow's milk. Both were small, pungent, creamy, "smelly" cheeses. Just like those other soft, runny cheeses - only shot through with blue mold. Yummy!

Great link, alacarte! I scoped out the Northwest and Continental areas, since those are airlines I fly on frequently. Did you see the pdf file they linked to? OMG! The salt must be to the right of the pepper! At least they finally stopped using plastic knives in first class. Looked kind of silly next to the metal forks.

There seems to be some difference of opinion about the level-of-entry for burr grinders. I have a Braun Type 4045 that I paid about $60 for a decade ago. The current KMM-30 model appears very similar and sells for about $50. I was getting very inconsistent results from my grinder. Even on the finest setting there were big chunky pieces mixed in with the finer grind. Coarser settings were absolutely useless. I decided to try to salvage my grinder before giving up and buying a new one. I'm glad I did. After disassembly and a thorough cleaning the grinder works better than ever. At a medium-fine setting it produces a great grind for my French press. The finest setting results in a very fine and even powder that looks appropriate for espresso. Can't test that since I don't own an espresso machine. Now instead of buying another grinder I can spend my money on a roaster.

I have a small plastic Kyocera slicer (sort of a poor person's mandolin - no adjustable or interchangeable blade, no stand) that works pretty well for making thin slices. It has a guard which I try to use as much as possible, especially after slicing off part of my thumb. All healed up now! The problem with the guard is that it's really awkward to use, particularly when you're down to the last bit whatever you're slicing. Of course that's when the guard is most needed....

Bitter Orange Ice Cream The link thingy is actually pretty easy to generate on egullet (much easier than sites that make you type it all by hand). Clicking the button labelled "http://" prompts you for the address. Maybe they should label the button "link". Just copy the location of the page you want to link and paste it in the window. I found the ice cream recipe when searching for the slow-roasted pork recipe in this thread - it was part of the same Holiday Menu story. I wish I had some Seville oranges for something like this: Yum!

Maggie, is this the recipe you followed? It sounds great, and I like the idea of not having to fuss over the roast for most of the duration. I wonder if it would work with a rolled-and-tied pork butt (I picked one up tonight). I'd skip the high heat at the beginning and end since presumably that's for the benifit of the skin side of the roast.

Hey! I resemble that remark! OK, I don't have a web site devoted to the world of spices, but I have to confess to having many of the spices in his list in my pantry. Are you sure that's all of them Years ago when I shared a house with several roommates I had to purchase a separate 'fridge to store the asafoetida(hing), blachan/terasi, smelly cheese, etc. Domestic tranquility has it's price. Noone seemed to understand that the reeking fermented shrimp paste is absolutely necessary for the peanut sauce. They all loved the sate though. As for the two types of cumin, they're both worth having. The larger, more common cumin has that fennel-ish perfume and a certain "bite" needed for the perfect chile-con-carne and pork mojo. The dark cumin is subtler and has a richer, nuttier quality. You can find it in south asian groceries.

Exactly my point! This is a fun thread for those of us who are addicted to collecting cook books (Thanks Maggie!), but it barely touches on the true value of those books. I own many books that I'd have no hesitation disposing of. The difficult part would be singling out the ones that I would absolutely not part with. There's a thread here that goes a bit more in depth about which (out of print) books various Egulleteers feel are truely worth reading. This thread started out as a simple tally of how many books we own, but I've noticed that there are plenty of posts that itemize the recent acquisistions. Maybe we should have a separate discussion of which books each of us finds genuinely useful.

Woodburner, I've got nearly 400 cookbooks, and i'm seriously outclassed by others who've posted in this thread. I started collecting cook books back in the 70's (way before the internet offered the instant reference library / recipe repository). If I could cherry-pick my colection to the true essentials it would be much smaller than it is. I've made my share of impulse buys in the local bookstore, not to mention the temptations of the remainders table. I'd have a tough time narrowing my collection down to a "desert-island 31", but if you've chosen wisely you could have as useful a collection as those of us who have way too many cook books.

Irwin, Have you had a chance to look through the Tsuji book yet? I bought this book back when it was first published in English and I regard it as one of my "reference" books on one of the world's great cuisines. There are always a few volumes that are regarded as authoritavive, and this is one of them. Of course the intro by M.F.K. Fisher sets a nice tone.

Beans, I didn't mean to inpugne the bartending skills of Katies colleagues! In my experience a marguerita tends to get saltier towards the bottom of the glass, but maybe I'm a sloppy drinker! Do people usually add cinnamon to graham cracker crusts? Do modern commercial graham crackers contain cinnamon or other spices? I don't have any in the house to check the ingredients list. I think that Dr. Sylvester Graham's original recipe called for only whole-wheat flour, molassis and water (that's right, no salt, no spice, no nothin'! ) but the commercial versions have strayed from his Puritanial vision. Of course I doubt he'd approve of his creation being used as inspiration for a martini....

I forgot to count the oversize books that I keep on a separate bookshelf from my other cook books: Jean-Louis Cooking with the Seasons by Fred J. Maroon ( A gorgeous coffee-table book with photographs by Maroon of dishes by Jean-Louis Palladin ). The recipes in the back qualify it as a cook book. Two copies of El Bulli 1998 - 2002, one in Spanish and one in English. Also I found some great books on the discount table at my local bookstore, among them: the bread bible by Rose levy Beranbaum Bold American Food by Bobby Flay Cooking at Home by Julia Child and Jaques Pepin That last one was a real find. Buried amongst a stack of remaindered copies for $10 each was one that was autographed by Jaques and Julia! Maggie, I finally opened one of the cartons of my mother's books, so you can add 31 to the running total.

Katie, the "key lime pie martini" is a great idea, but maybe you should go for a graham cracker crust effect rather than using actual cracker crumbs. I fear that the crumbs would seem pulpy or soggy when mixed with the drink. Maybe you could add a touch of aromatic spices (cinnamon? allspice?) with some coarse turbinado sugar for the glass rim. The coarse sugar would provide some "crunch" but would dissolve if it fell into the drink rather than floating around.