Moopheus

And of course, pastry and dessert cookbooks are all fair game.

Almost forgot: I also wanted to mention The Vermont Country Deli as a nice place to hang out with coffee and cake.

I was in Noho a couple of weeks ago and just stood in shock and stared at the empty space where Bart's used to be for a few minutes. Oh, woe! So we had to drive over to Amherst for our ice cream and the girl at the counter told us the owner of the shop in Northampton just "didn't want to run an ice cream shop any more." Down the street a Cold Stone Creamery was being built. At least there's still Herrell's. Also, Bill's Chocolate Shop has ice cream, but I haven't tried it. Recommend a stop in at the Coffee Gallery (on King St., next to the Friendly's) for all your upscale specialty food needs. A good diner-type breakfast can be had a Jake's, also on King St. The restaurant at Hotel Northampton, the Wiggins Tavern, is pretty good. I remember having a really excellent chicken pot pie there once (years ago they used to have great winter specials where you could get a night at the hotel and dinner for two at the restaurant for $50--but not any more).

Deborah Madison's Greens is very good, too. (Actually, I like all three Greens books). But in fact a lot of good veg recipes are found in non-vegetarian books: James Paterson's books, especially Splendid Soups and Vegetables, are excellent resources, and the CIA's Book of Soups is another I use a lot (I like making soup, what can I say). Any good Indian cookbook is likely to be very veg-friendly. I've had mixed results with Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, but it's a good source of ideas.

Or reading the Post?

We finally found an excuse to get over to try Tranny's, I mean Franny's. There was, sadly, no eggplant fritto. Instead, there was zucchini fritto, which was excellent. Lightly battered and the zucchini was perfectly cooked through, soft and tasty but not mushy. We had the basil pesto & ricotta and the four cheese pizzas, which were just as Sam described. The pesto in particular was excellent, strong fresh basil & cheese flavors. The pizzas aren't overloaded with toppings, but there's still plenty. At the end we felt full but not overstuffed. There were two desserts on the menu, zabaglione with roasted figs, and the chocolate sorbet, both of which were great. In fact, as good as the pizzas were, they were in danger of being overshadowed by the appetizer and dessert. It was very hot and humid outside, and when we were seated (we didn't have to wait, though it was fairly busy) the waitress brought us a bottle of water right away. Then proceeded to pour us more water whenever our glasses were half full. I started making sure my glass was always full so she wouldn't keep doing that. The room is a bit noisy, though at least there were no screaming kids. Good hot jazz on the stereo over the bar (always a plus for me), which we were seated in front of. On the whole, we felt completely satisfied. We'll have to go back when it's not so hot.

I switched from using Plugra to Organic Valley after the price of Plugra, at least where I was buying it, practically doubled. I actually like the taste of Organic Valley better. Unlike Plugra (and a lot of other butters) it doesn't have any added flavorings.

I had another thought. You might be able to do something with egg white. A couple of egg whites might hold enough air to keep a low-sugar sorbet from getting too hard, and let the machine run a little longer than normal.

I've got a basil sorbet recipe, but it uses sugar syrup. In fact, I might try making it as I have a huge quantity of basil growing on the fire escape. Sugar-free ice creams use gelatin and glycerin to produce the texture of ice cream made with sugar, but I couldn't say if that's really what you want to do here.

I happened to go by there today and decided to try the frozen custard. I had the chocolate. It was underwhelming. It was smooth and creamy all right, except for the ice crystals, obviously made with good ingredients. but the chocolate flavor was very light. I guess you could say it was subtle if you wanted to be nice about it.

I've been thinking about getting a new thermometer; the 'instant read' thermometer I have now is hardly that. How is the Thermopen with hot liquids?

If it looks like the newlyweds are starting a kitchen from nothing, I like to give a good general-purpose cookbook like How to Cook Everything or the CIA's Cooking at Home.

Same here. The half-bottle is usually enough for whatever I need it for, and whatever's in there seems to be good enough for cooking.

In at least some European countries now there are strict limits on the number of chickens in a coop, and it's much smaller than many battery coops in the US, which helps limit the spread of disease (and other problems). For the individual, that doesn't sound like much of a risk, and it isn't, but from the Fed's point of view, with 300 billion eggs sold every year, that's a lot of potential illness. As with other kinds of food poisoning, the severity can vary a lot, but salmonella is potentially fatal. On the other hand, I haven't stopped tasting my raw cookie dough.

No, it doesn't, unfortunately, and that is one drawback. The perception among publishers is that the vast majority of home cooks don't use a scale, so providing that information isn't worth the effort.

I got a copy of Dessert University yesterday; it was actually done a little ahead of schedule. I haven't had a chance to actually bake anything from it yet, but it looks very good. What I've read in it so far is clear and interesting. Similar to Sherry Yard's Secrets of Baking, the idea is basically to give the reader a good grounding in making the basic components of pastries--meringues, dough, mousses, ganache, and so on, and then using them to create more elaborate desserts. There's a big section on fruit-based desserts, and Mesnier's take on traditional American-style cookies, brownies, cobblers, and so on is interesting to see. So the initial laying-on-of-hands suggests that this is definitely a keeper.

Do hot dogs and burgers count as salad now? Man, the Atkins thing has really gone too far!

I think this is the thread you're looking for. Nice photos of a sugaring operation and some discussion of the changes in the grading system. "Commercial grade" can't be sold retail. As far as I'm concerned, it's all good. Does anyone notice differences between places of origin and producers? Can you tell the difference between, say, New York an Vermont syrup? I'm not sure I could. I'm glad I'm not the only one who will drink it straight from the bottle.

Katagiri.

I'm guessing Costco et al aren't getting San Marzana DOP cans. Even in specialty stores those can be hard to find. Non-DOP tomatoes from Italy should be much easier to get.

No bottles. I like to make my own, in small quantities, so I can have a different one each time I make a salad. Lately I've been making some of the miso-based dressing recipes from The Book of Miso.

It seems to have somewhat larger capacity than the Krups or Cuisinart, but otherwise not sure what the advantage is. I have the Krups, and one of the things I like about it is that I can actually run it inside my freezer, so the canister does not thaw while churning. The motor and beater are obviously less heavy-duty than the KA, but for a quart or so of ice cream, that doesn't really matter that much.

"The walls are melting!"

Great! Products that pester you as you walk by! I want that! Maybe they'll get the boxes to do a little song and dance. If the system can capture your email address, how long before the store and/or manufacturers are sending you spam?

That's always been the key to mass-market success in America. Not. I've never been to an OG, but it sounds like they're so off the mark that even if your requirements were less stringent, expecting only something vaguely 3rd-generation Italian American, you are probably still going to be disappointed. And yet so many aren't, it appears.