ludja

Great looking menu, Vadouvan! I can't wait to see all of it, especialliy the pork belly dish and the desserts. I always make up a source list as well for more elaborate dinners. It's critical as I usually have quite a few different places to buy things as well. edited to add: Do you already have your wines chosen?

You may enjoy Linda Dannenberg's "Paris Boulangerie and Patisserie: Recipes from Thirteen Outstanding French Bakeries". There is a thread on some of things people on eGullet have baked from it here: click I'll still plug "Kaffehaus" though if you ever have a chance to look at it. Lot's of wonderful pastries like Napoleans, Cream Horns, Rigo Jancsi mousse slices, strudels and many other individual pastries that one may or may not be familiar with from Vienna and the Austrian Hungarian Empire. The recipes would certainly expand your repetoire for "fancy" desserts using different baking methods. The book has a good number of photos as well. "Baking with Julia" by Dorie Greenspan also has many good basic recipes for the recipes, doughs and techniques used in many classic European pastries. There is also an extensive thread on eGullet detailing peoples adventures in cooking from the book.

Bitter Lemon Cooler 1½ oz dry vermouth 1 oz gin 1/4 oz grenadine 1/4 oz fresh lemon juice bitter lemon soda Shake & strain into collins glass over crushed ice. Add bitter lemon soda and lemon twist.

I had a great salty snack using these at Betelnut, a pan Asian fusion restaurant in SF a few years ago. It was described as a wok stir fry of small dried anchovies, chilies, garlic and peanuts. I've always wanted to create this at home but haven't gotton around to it yet. Does anyone know from what country this comes from (if it's not a fusion invention) and if so, what it is called? A great salty snack to bring along for a hike is this version of Gorp: salted cashew nuts, raisins and plain M'nM's.

I do like that book a lot also; there are many good recipes in there. The classic red mole is spectacular. Maybe if you start another thread with your explorations others will join along also. It would be great to hear your comments on the different recipes. In any case, have fun! edited to add: the red chile enchiladas "street style" are also excellent. To the garnishes he suggests I also added chopped radishes.

Enjoying your report, suzisushi. Thank you for sharing it with us. I've been wanting to try Old Krakow; it sounds like I should check it out after it cools down a bit!

This sounds absolutely delicious, Katie. I like the martini idea above as well.

From the digest of today's SF Chronicle: click The article also has more details about how different Whole Foods branches source their food, especially in the Bay area. Some other initiatives proposed by Whole Foods are to provide $10 million per year in low interest loans for small local farmers and producers of humanely raised animals and to also help raise the standards for humane care of animals that eventually provide meat, dairy and eggs for their stores. According to the article they also plan on sponsoring Sunday farmer's markets at some locations in their parking lots.

If you do give a try, I'd be happy to hear your impressions as well. Sounds like it could be a good place to go with my parents when I visit home.

I *was* wondering if that is what was meant and so gave the subcategories in the Kaffehause cookbook. Just to be clear, as you can see from the headings, the book has pastry recipes but does not focus on them alone. Thanks for the recommendatin, alanamoana!

Great tacos are a wonderful thing and a revelation if you've not had a good one before. Here's the link to a thread discussing the article that davecap mentions: Tacos in CA As I mentioned in the thread, I just recently checked out the article's recommendation for the place in Pescadero which is ~ halfway between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, right on the coast. It is a quaint land unique ittle hamlet as well and well worthy of a stop. Duarte's Tavern is also there and is a great place to have their green chile or cream of artichoke soup, home made bread and pies. I often bring visitors there. edited to add: I realize you're coming from Texas which surely has a lot of great Mexican and TexMex food but it might still be fun to compare. A carnitas Cal-Mex burrito is also a thing of beauty; I think it might be different in style from what you might find in Texas. Some of standby Asian restaurants in SF and envirions: Koi Palace (Daly City, south of SF) for dim sum, Marnee Thai (SF; Sunset district--Thai Beef Salad, Khao Soi Curry, Corn Fritters, Hor Muk, Spicy Crab and Egg noodles, Green Curry...) and Brandy Ho's Hunan (SF; North Beach, excellent kung pao chicken, Ma Po Tofu, Dan Dan noodles, House cured ham and roasted garlic). I recently found a very good Szechuan restaurant in Mountain View which is one town south of Palo Alto: New China Delight (360 Castro St). So far I've had their spicy cold jellyfish salad, Ma Po Tofu and Kung Pao Shrimp... Another SF classic is Swan Oyster Depot; a small place with counter seating that has been around for more than 50 years. They have a nice array of oysters but the special dish that really impressed me as unique and very good (growing up with great seafood in New England) is their Crab Louis Salad. This is a classic CA dish for which it can be difficult to find good renditions. Tartine Bakery in the Mission district of SF is really a notch above most bakeries--excellent pastries, cakes, cookies, etc. Well worth a visit.

Pappardelle with wild Bohr ragu

A book with a good overview of Italian pastries is Nick Malgieri's "Great Italian Desserts".

Well, for Austrian cakes and pastries, I think one of the best books in English is Rick Rodger's "Kaffehaus". I"m slowly cooking my way through it and everything has come out great so far. It also has a pretty comprehensive overview of the range of Austrian dessert types with chapters such as: Simple Cakes, Fancy Cakes, Strudels, Sweet Yeast Breads, "Slices" and other individual desserts, Cookies and Doughnuts, Pancakes and Sweet Omelets, Sweet Dumplings and Noodles, and Hot and Cold Puddings. A second book which has good detail and many interesting Austrian dessert recipes (about half the book) is Gretel Beer's "Classic Austrian Cooking".

That sounds incredible; thanks for the tip. A few weeks ago I made a local find for great tacos... Los Altos Taqueria 2150 Old Middlefield Way #E Mountain View, CA 94043 (650) 965-7236 The cross street is Rengstorff Ave. This area has local fame as the "burrito triangle" as there are a bunch of good Mexican taquerias here, but these are some of the best tacos I've tasted over the course of exploring dozens of (almost all good to very good) taquerias in the area over 10 years or so. After our first visit, we went back twice more over the next week and a half. As far as tacos go, so far I've only sampled carnitas, al pastor and fish. I wanted to try new things but had to reorder these for now. All were excellent and the al pastor and fish tacos were the best I've had. ((The carnitas were excellent as well; it was just that I had never had al pastor that approached anything like this. Excellent tortillas. Everything was fresh, flavorful, generous and prepared with care to order. I sampled a carnitas super burrito as well which was excellent. It is a small casual place with 5 or 6 counter seats and 8-10 small tables. The service is also noticeably above average for a place like this, quick, clean, friendly and professional. Each time we went there was also a steady stream of customers from all walks of life ordering stuff to go. Obviously, this place is only a discovery for me as far as many locals are concerned but I'd thought I'd share it anyway. small note: The grilled fish tacos were listed as a special, I'm not sure how often they're available athough they had them each of the times we went. Well--it just cracks me up that this place was so close to by to me for so long and I didn't know about it. Finding this place and the place in Pescardero in the last month has been marvelous!

For posterity, here is the entire list of places from the article by Cindy Price cited in post #1: EL PARIáN 1528 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles; (213) 386-7361. TACOS BAJA ENSENADA 5385 Whittier Boulevard, Los Angeles; (323) 887-1980. LA SUPER RICA TAQUERIA 622 North Milpas Street, Santa Barbara; (805) 963-4940. LILLY’S TAQUERIA 310 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara; (805) 966-9180. CHAPALA RESTAURANT 2816 Main Street, Morro Bay; (805) 772-4492. RUDDELL’S SMOKEHOUSE 101 D Street, Cayucos; (805) 995-5028. TAQUERIA VALLARTA 1101 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz; (831) 471-2655. TAQUERIA Y MERCADO DE AMIGOS 1999 Pescadero Creek Road, Pescadero; (650) 879-0232. LA TAQUERIA 2889 Mission Street, San Francisco; (415) 285-7117. TAQUERIA SAN JOSé 2830 Mission Street, San Francisco; (415) 282-0203. EL TONAYENSE TACO TRUCK Harrison Street & 22nd Street, San Francisco. LA PALMA MEXICATESSEN 2884 24th Street, San Francisco; (415) 647-1500. Serendipity struck yesterday! We decided to escape the 100 degree heat on the SF Peninsula and headed over the mountains to the coast. After a cool stroll on the coastal bike path in northern Santa Cruz we headed up to Pescadero and tried the tacos at TAQUERIA Y MERCADO DE AMIGOS after hearing about them in this article. We sampled the carnitas and al pastor tacos and they were excellent! Great tortillas. perfectly cooked, tasty meat, fresh condiments. We'll definately be back. The storefront is very lowkey--it is right across the street from Duartes Tavern where I have been going for years and I never knew that there was a taqueria in the gas statiion/market across the street. There are about 10 tables to sit and eat in the taqueria.

Looking back through the old threads, I saw that someone also use a food mill for making them. IThis could be another option, if you have one with variable holes, you could try using the plate with the largest holes. I woud just put the plate in the bottom of the food mill and then push the dough through with a wooden spoon though--rather than using the top of the food mill to force the dough through. Thanks for the links, swisskaese.

I haven't experimented with different temperatures of the dough--it's always been at RT. As with pasta, it's good to have a big pot of salted water going at a good boil so that the boil returns quickly after adding the spaetzle. I haven't used either so you might try which one seems to work better or maybe someone else will chime in. If your grater is a flat sheet type (rather than a box) that might be a little easier than the colander. The traditional old fashioned way is another option--that I haven't ever tried. Have the dough on a flat wooden cutting board or some other surface and cuts thin shreds of batter off with a knife directly into the water. I have a type of spaetzle maker which is basically a metal bowl with a handle and ~ 1/4 inch holes on the bottom. Then, you just press the dough through the bottom with a big wooden spoon. Sometimes the dough thickens up a bit over the course of cooking the different batches; if so, you can add a little more water to thin it out a bit. It is also a good idea to make a few test spaetzle with the dough and taste them. If they seem too heavy, add a little more water to the dough. We do have a pretty long spatzle thread here somewhere, I'll try to see if I can find it and provide a link as well.

Boil them in small batches so that there will be ~ a layer of spatzle in the pan. It usually takes a few minutes. After they float to the surface, let them cook for 30 sec-1 min more and then remove them with a skimmer and spread them out to cool on a cookie sheet. When they are all done, toss with a little melted butter or olive oil and store covered in the fridge in a bowl/container. They'll keep fine this way for one to two days even and then can either be rewarmed briefly in boiling water, pan fried or baked with cheese in a type of gratin.

Thanks for sharing this information, merrybaker and tino27. My mom and visiting grandmother used to have fits with inconsistent results in making strudel dough with various flours untili we started using King Arthur's Unbleached AP flour. Since then, never a problem. I knew that the gluten content was important but it is interesting to know that KA may deliver a higher level of consistency in the gluten content of their flours. (So far, this is the only dish for which I'll make sure to specifically use KA's flour, but then I don't bake a lot of bread. I'll remember this information if and when I do start more bread baking and practicing recipes. It sounds like a helpful piece of information if it does help in limiting variables.)

Hey--others envy your bountiful supply of beautiful blueberries, currants, etc. It's worth waiting a few more weeks for corn! Chocolate bread and butter pudding...yum. Thanks for a beautiful blog, Ann_T!

Barbara McClintock Cornbread (click) Watson and Crick Twists Archimedes Root Beer Float Linus Pauling Crystallized Ginger or Rock Candy (click) Mendel's Pea Soup Francis Bacon's Gunpowder Tea Pot de Creme … Schroedinger’s Cat Fricasee edited to add: I just noticed that Kent already had Schroedinger's cat covered, and in a much more genteel manner for us cat lovers.

Me too, boohoo... I also gave sources to order NM green chile on the previous thread and also the best way to approximate the mixture roasting your own chile mix at home if you don't order chiles from NM. link to previous thread: click On this link is a pretty basic recipe for green chile sauce (like that probably on the french fries): click You can also use this sauce on the cheeseburger, but typically burgers are just topped with roasted green chile. The green chile sauce is also commonly used in enchiladas.

Congratulations, Carolynn. Sounds like an interesting project. If part of hte contract is to be a completely "silent" ghostwriter, how does one handle using this work/experience on your resume in order to garner future projects or opportunities?

Another thing that might be interesting would be to bake a good vanilla cheesecake suggested and then to cover the cooled cake with creme chiboust. Sprinkle with sugar and put under the broiler for 1 min. I've never made a creme chiboust but I've been intrigued by a rasberry tart recipe that is made this way (almond creme cooked in tart shell, layer with raspberries and then add the creme chiboust layer which is then briefly bruleed. The recipe is from Alain Jacq (La Reserve de Beaulieu) in "French Tarts" by Linda Dannenbeg. She describes creme chiboust as a mixture of pastry creme and cooked meringue. The photo of the tart looks just like a creme brulee... If you want a flavor constrast one might be able to make a lemon-flavored pastry cream or one could put a layer of raspberries inbetween the cheesecake and chiboust as is done in the tart recipe.