Moopheus

The other night I made a chocolate pudding that was not far from that when it was still warm in the pot, before it was refrigerated. Except of course it didn't melt. Which at the time I didn't see as a drawback. So I guess I should have served it right off the stovetop and told the wife it was "hot ice cream."

About $5-$7, I'd guess. If it's not ice, it's not ice cream. In my house, hot ice cream is known as chocolate soup.

Typos and grammatical errors in the menu. Fortunately I usually don't have my red pencils with me when I eat out.

I'd suggest going to a restaurant supply store on the Bowery and picking up some cheap Forschner or Dexter-Russell knives. They won't be quite as nice as expensive knives, but they're a pretty good value for the money, and likely better than whatever your mom has now.

I do at work. I make a cup when I get to my desk (one-cup coffeemaker) and sip it all morning. But I use good coffee and as Owen says that makes a big difference in its long-term drinkableness. Even after two or three hours it's still better than the food-service crap downstairs in the kitchen. In the afternoon sometimes I resort to the espresso maker in the office next door. It's an automatic Lavazza machine that makes an espresso from a cartridge at the push of a button. It's not great but it's free caffeine.

Did you charge extra for the sacred relic?

I have a recipe (which I have not tried) for a Stilton ice cream you might be able to adapt, both being blue cheeses : 625 ml milk, 1 clove, 250 g Stilton, 4tbsp white port, 500 g fromage blanc. Heat the milk, infuse clove, melt in cheese (sans rind), beat for 30 seconds and add port (presumably this will help keep things smooth--note there's no sugar). This same source notes that in Modena, vanilla ice cream is served with balsamic vinegar as a sauce. It shouldn't be that hard to flavor a vanilla base with the vinegar.

You'll need to bake a 10" bagel to serve it on.

Those the the short cones with the flat bottoms frequently used by vendors of soft-serve ice cream. They're called cake even though the taste is more like puffy packing peanuts. I figured vendors used them because they're cheap; I'm amazed that anyone actually likes them. Actually, my favorite way to have ice cream is in a large glass goblet on a saucer. With enough toppings to overflow (hence the need for the saucer).

Cup.

You are Ouverture de Cuisine! Published in 1604 by Lancelot de Casteau, you have many interesting and tasty recipes. You might want to check your cholesterol level, though.

I recently bought a Richlite board precisely because it was lightweight. It does resist cutting and staining pretty well, but it also does not stay put very well, as previously noted. My main board is a large Sani-Tuff (hard rubber) which weighs a ton and does stay put, but I don't like to haul it out just to slice up a piece of fruit. Since the Richlite is harder than the rubber board, I don't use it when I have a lot of chopping to do. No matter what they say, I'm sure it's dulling my knives faster.

JUNK FOOD, ed. by Charles Rubin, et al. Definitely a book that keeps on giving.

I don't think we're being provided with an expense account.

I had a similar problem making a chocolate ice cream from a recipe by Pierre Herme that involved actually boiling the cream & chocolate together (no eggs). I think if you have undissolved bits the only thing to do is to strain them out of the mix. Running ice cream base through a strainer is usually a good idea anyway.

That certainly sounds like a recipe for overextraction to me. If the grounds are coarser, you'll get weaker coffee, since the water will flow through faster. My guess would be that adding more coffee will not compensate for that sufficiently. Or you'd end up using more coffee to get the same taste you'd get from normally ground and brewed coffee, which would just be a waste.

Chef Pepin did something like 30 interviews today. As sad as it is for the rest of us, imagine having the media descending on you like vultures on top of it.

Liquid weights are no different from other weights. What Andiesenji's scale is doing, if I'm following the description correctly, is converting from weight to volume, which is how liquid measures are usually given. This can be done easily if the density of the liquid is known. My guess is the scale assumes the same density as water, as most liquids used by the home cook (millk, cream, etc.) are only a little different from it. Most home cooks probably would not notice an error on the order of 1-4% unless they are making very large batches. If you want to know the weight of your liquid, just weigh it like anything else.

Yeah, or else there wouldn't be so many big ugly houses being built, or big ugly cars on the road. It may also be useful to realize that discernment and taste are not exactly the same thing. One is being able to tell the difference between butter and margarine in your desserts, the other is about whether or not you want to eat a fruit tart. I think people should be educated about paying attention to what they eat, but I don't think people need to be educated about what they like. If your customers don't want to eat fruit tarts, so what? Make something else. Possibly, the more one learns to pay attention, the more things you might find you like, but that has to follow naturally, it can't be forced.

I didn't realize that gravity affected liquids differently.

There's a switch at the back that can change the default from metric to english measures, so you can have it come on either way. And it will auto-tare if you turn it on with a measuring cup (or whatever) on the plate.

This actually isn't much of an advantage for the home as it seems, unless you're expecting to serve a lot at once. Homemade ice cream doesn't keep well for long in a home freezer--the low temps and cycling make fresh ice cream turn icy. It's better to make only as much as you're going to eat in a small amount of time.

I also have the KD-600 and like it. I think I paid about fifty bucks for it with shipping (if you go to the My Weigh website there's links for various resellers). It's easy to use and seems to be pretty accurate. The design is totally utilitarian, but in a kitchen scale I think that's a plus. With 1-gram increments and a 6 kilo range, it seemed a better value than scales like the ones from Salton and Polder. I believe they also sell gram scales like the Escali, but of course the tradeoff is lower capacity for higher accuracy.

"unique frothy coffee layer"

I get around this problem with my Krups by keeping it in the freezer while it runs. This keeps it from thawing and the ice cream gets firm without crystals.