Moopheus

Does ice cream before lunch count as dessert? I was passing by the Laboratorio de Gelato and it was hot out and so therefore I needed some. I had a cup with vanilla rum, caramel, and basil gelato. They open at 10 am, so they must have known I was coming. Then I went home and had lunch.

Another thread reminded me that I should mention here that the ice cream at the The Chocolate Room in Brooklyn is very good. Only a few flavors, but made fresh on premises with top-quality ingredients.

Even their plain chocolate layer cake is very good. And with a scoop of their excellent coffee ice cream it's even better. They even make a decent espresso.

100 years ago, the #1 killer disease was tuberculosis. Heart disease and the like became the #1 killer in part because public health improved to the point where people weren't dying so much of tb, pneumonia, childbirth, farm accidents, and instead were living long enough to have heart attacks, cancer, and so on. I wonder what effect the state would have on public eating habits if they just said, well, eat what you like, but we're not going to pay for the results.

Oh yes, indeedy--in fact, the infamous holiday cake episode has been cited as one of the signs of the coming Apocalypse.

Omy, I had to look. Terrifying doesn't begin to cover it. I was amused to see that the woman who started it lives in Rachel, Nevada. I think the sign on the road into town will have to be changed from "population, humans, 98, aliens, 0". Clearly it's at least, Aliens, 1.

It's better here than it used to be; when I first moved here from Boston I despaired of ever having good ice cream again. My New York friends couldn't understand what I was complaining about until I got a few of them to go to Christina's in Cambridge. Then they got it. There used to be a pretty good ice cream shop on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn called Peter's, but they closed a few years ago.

The rezoning that allowed all the new "luxury" condos along 4th ave will certainly bring changes; eventually even the area along the gowanus will change once they figure out how to clean up the industrial sites. On the other hand, I'm always happy to see a new coffeeshop.

JB Prince (36 E. 31st St, Manhattan) carries a selection of professional pastry books, though I think you would find more at a an online source like chipsbooks.com.

In this case, of course, that means the Hershey Trust and the Milton Hershey School, still the majority owner of Hershey. And it's anybody's guess what they want, other than keeping the school well funded. On the other hand, I can't think of a similar instance when a small company's character was successfully preserved by the larger company, at least in the food business.

How fussy are you all about ingredients? When I make ice cream, I have to have regular pasteurized cream with no stabilizers or thickeners, which is hard to find around here; I usually have to make a special trip to whole foods for it. The wife thinks I'm crazy but I think it gives the ice cream a pure creaminess that is spoiled by additives. And of course, when there's good ripe fruit to be had at the farmer's market, there will soon be sorbet in the freezer.

Her second book, Something From the Oven, is also good. Food Politics, by Marion Nestle, for an interesting look at the relationship between the government and the food industry. Culinary Artistry is probably the most circulated book at the library where I work. Making of a Pastry Chef by MacClauchlan is the same for the dessert-oriented.

I haven't tried this yet, but I just made the honey-blueberry cake from Emily Luchetti's Four Star Desserts, and after I baked it, it seemed to me that it would be good baked as muffins.

Just remembered, another good roaster in your area is Jessica's Biscuit. They're not quite at Terroir's level (but few are), but I've gotten some very good beans from them--the Brazilian Vargem Grande and the PNG are nice.

If you're in the Boston area, I recommend getting your beans from Terroir Coffee. You can go there and pick up or have them shipped to you. French press will give you a richer flavor than regular drip, and is not too difficult to get a good result.

That's Big Bootay! Big Bootay!

Or even chocolate-flavored truffles . . . no, wait, we have that already.

Website or store? ← Neither. This an individual who bakes out of her apartment. The pies are so good she went into business. Her name is Elyse and, if I am not mistaken, is a fellow egulleter. ← I got to have one of her pies once, and I would agree that they are indeed among the best pecan pies I've tasted.

Both of these places are better than what you'll find on Mulberry Street these days. Jacques Torres' cafe Almondine on Water St. in Brooklyn is worth the trip.

It's not an invention, but the waves of immigration in the US over the last century or so has clearly meant that the descendents of those immigrants are being exposed to a much wider variety of food than their ancestors likely were.

The hand-crank ice cream freezer was invented in 1841. Refrigerators were invented in the 1870s, though commercially-available models for the home did not appear until around WWI. Refrigerated transport of perishable foods has obviously allowed big changes in the way food is grown and sold. Does the interstate highway system count also? There are probably a lot of inventions and developments (like also the bar code and stainless steel) that are not really food-related but have affected the way food is distributed and prepared.

I think you do need an agent. Aside from getting you at least 20% more than you could get on your own ← Which just covers the 15% they take from you. But seriously, most major publishers won't even look at your proposal without an agent. And they will in all likelyhood get you a better deal, not just in money up front but in contract details. Agents are evil, but they do serve a function. I would suggest that Chow Guy should consult an agent before taking any kind of flat-fee, work-for-hire type deal.

Junior's cheesecake isn't heavily crusted--it's made on a thin layer of cake.

I used to read Veg Times a long time ago, and it's true--the recipes are mainly super-low-fat versions of traditional dishes, done in not interesting ways. (Low-fat fettuccini Alfredo, anyone?) However, they would print the traditional recipe alongside their conversion, and sometimes that was useful. I don't think there's any books that I've had for any length of time that I haven't tried at all, though there are more than a few that I only use a couple of recipes out of. I keep thinking, of course, that I should try to get more out of them, but never get around to it.

Mechanical bindings (ring binders, comb binding, etc.) are more expensive than normal book binding, and are harder to handle from a shipping/packing point of view. There are lay-flat bindings (sometimes used for software manuals), but they don't work well with hardcover books and not every printer has the equipment for it. Publishers basically spend money on things they think will make people buy the book in the bookstore, and design the book to make people want to buy them. They don't want to spend money on things they think aren't going to help sales. If that makes the books less useful, they aren't going to change until it affects sales.