Moopheus

Generally speaking, it's true that anything you create at work belongs to your employer, to the extent that they could be said to own it. But the basic formula of the recipe can't owned that way. They could try to claim it's proprietary information (trade secret), but if they're publishing the recipes in cookbooks, that negates that argument. As Balmagowry points out, getting a patent on an ordinary kitchen recipe would be difficult; it wouldn't be seen as sufficiently novel. If you invented a really new cake-making process, that might be patentable. Another point to remember is that copyright wouldn't prevent anyone from using the recipe in a kitchen. Also, copyright or not, it's still bad form not to give credit where credit is due in cookbooks.

I don't think trademark law will get you very far in protecting a recipe (maybe a unique name for a recipe). Copyright doesn't generally apply to recipes (ingredient lists and simple directions), so the only way to legally own a recipe would be either as a trade secret (which means you actually have to keep it secret, like the Coke formula), or as a patent (sometimes done for processed food formulas). Practically speaking, in most situations, I'd think that as Mr. Bourdain said, chefs are pretty much free to use whatever is in their heads whenever they want.

I recently got a waffle iron and have tried yeasted waffles once, and they came out pretty good (just after that, the kitchen had to be packed up and moved, and has only just been set up again). I was thinking of trying again this weekend. I also read the Cook's article, and don't recall that my batter went flat before the morning. But then, it was close to midnight by the time I got the batter together, so it sat out for maybe nine hours before getting cooked.

I haven't a problem with sweet flavors, and like coffee ice cream and candies, but when I drink coffee if it has milk or cream in it it just tastes watered down to me. If I find myself reaching for the sugar, that means the coffee is bad. Good coffee doesn't need to be covered up. But it's true that when I was a kid I drank it with cream and sugar; I think the change came mainly, as Phaelon said, with discovering better coffee.

I just got the new Jessica's Biscuit catalog (mail order cookbooks) in the mail, and discovered that they've gone into the coffee business. I haven't tried it yet, but from the description in the catalog it sounds like they're getting good coffee and selling it at a reasonable price. They're also selling green coffee by the pound, which may interest the home roasters out there.

Salt would provide a similar anti-freeze effect, for basically the same reason, so it might work, but might also might mean putting in an unpleasant amount of salt. It would be like seawater sorbet. That's just a guess; I've never tried it. You might have to do some experimetns to see what happens.

Aside from making ice cream sweet, sugar also acts as an antifreeze agent, part of what makes the texture of ice cream what it is. You could use less sweet sugars, like dextrose or fructose, or perhaps add a touch of alchohol. Without anything, you'll get a very hard sorbet that you won't like very much.

Has anybody made marshmallows using agar instead of gelatin? I was thinking of trying this, and wondering what sort of substitution to make.

One of the wife's coworkers was in there and actually saw someone try to buy just the shell, which they refused to do, holding up the line for several minutes. The manager claimed it was 'corporate policy'. We got to try them the other day. There was a line out the door, but it moved fairly quickly, so not a long wait. Agree that they were messy--they tasted good but might have liked a little more pastry, a little less cream filling.

Given the role of rice in Japanese cuisine, I'm kind of surprised that the Japanese language does not already have a word indicating a similar kind of expertise in rice. Why is there a need to borrow a word like sommolier?

I think for syrup making unsweetened cocoa is better; why pay $4 or 5 a pound for sugar? Lately I have taken to making syrup with Valrhona cocoa powder, which makes a darn good egg cream. If I could get my hands on some Guittard cocoa, perhaps I would try that and have a little taste-off.

What on earth is a French Toast bagel? I hope this means French Toast made with a bagel (maybe even an egg bagel, actually my Favorite bagel, so there!) and not something flavored to taste like french toast, which would in fact be truly unholy.

Also, nonmasters will have to bow before the Black Aprons and refer to them as "sensei".

They have the best egg salad sandwhiches I've had in New York. And always fun for Sunday brunch.

I haven't been to most of the places listed, and indeed, most of the ones I have you can eat in for less that $20. For example, 2nd St. Cafe has a regular 3-course prix fixe for $15.95. I've been meaning to go to Rose Water, which is two blocks from me, so this may be my excuse.

Apparently Brooklyn is going to have its own Restaurant Week featuring restaurants in various Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Milton Hershey's original formulation for his milk chocolate involved sweetened condensed milk, and is basically unique, hence the flavor/texture difference. It is really different from everything else, even other milk chocolates, almost a category in itself.

I like El Rey too. I tried some Cluizel but it did not move me. If you want to try some definitely non-flabby milk chocolate, try Slitti Lattenero, which is very rich. I think it is my new favorite. But it is very expensive, so I can't have it too often. I'm pretty much a chocolate vacuum. I will gladly eat mass-market chocolate (downed a bag of Sno-Caps the other night) along with the good stuff. I can taste the difference, but I find it impossible to actually dislike any chocolate. I do draw the line at the yucky stuff sold in holiday packaging.

I just got one of those. It totally rocks. I bought mine from this guy to get the extra stone. Definitely worth all the pennies.

According to the Norpac web site, Normandy Bl(a)nd is "A vibrant, deliciously satisfying blend of broccoli, cauliflower, sliced carrots, sliced zucchini and sliced yellow squash. It is a blend extraordinaire!" See, it's extraordinaire, like in French! I think this is going to be my new favorite phrase, at least for a week. See, I think we're working under a misconception here. As a diner, you think, there's vegetables on the plate, it must be part of the meal, it's food, I should eat it. But no, it's not food, it's plate coverage. It's just there so that the plate doesn't show through.

I've never had it, but Guinness Ice Cream has been a regular item on the menu at Toscanini's in Cambridge (MA) for many years. I think they also started doing it for St. Patrick's and kept it on. So somebody must like it. Friends of mine who like Guinness tell me it's good.

Does Mr. Softee count as a meal?

When I worked in the Flatiron building I used to get falafel sandwiches fairly often from one of the carts that could usually be found around 21 or 22nd st. It was pretty good falafel. In fact, I'm pretty well convinced that the best way to have falafel here is from a street cart. A few times on Canal I've had bags of spring rolls from the street carts there. 3 for a buck, and usually hot and fresh right out of the fryer.

Generally it's used in commercial baking applications where it'll be sweetened with corn syrup and the like. A lot of it gets used in fake maple flavored syrup, the kind that say '2 percent real maple syrup' or some such in the ingredients list. Really low-grade stuff is apparently used for curing tobacco and meats.

I do this all the time. It doesn't require anything more than not worrying about details that don't affect the taste of the dessert. Anything that doesn't directly improve the taste of the dessert is pretty unimportant when you get right down to it.