hathor

Awesome bread Mitch. I love the ridges! I wasn't sure about doing a retard for the second rise, but I guess it works just fine. (On a stupid note, I read on Joe Pastry's blog about Jacques Pepin's daughter who was describing her retarding method on the radio, and someone called into the radio show to say that her use of the word was insensitive to the feelings of challenged people! I hope that caller never listens to a radio show about dog breeding.....)

A friend from Campania tells me that this story is very under-reported in Italy; she says she's seen nothing in La repubblica, for example, which she reads daily. The British Guardian newspaper also talked recently of fears that the rubbish disposal crisis in the region may also see more toxins leached into the food chain... worrying times. ← That's horrible. On a few levels, one being that the mafia is somewhat responsible for the spread of the disease. You'd think they would have a more long term business view of the matter, after all they've been around for a long time....

So, what are the healthier alternatives? You painted a negative picture, now help me understand how to make the situation better. I've been in close touch with a grass fed Angus producer who wants to bring his product to market, so you're preaching to the choir, but I want to hear what you have to say.

....mmmmm.....that sounds delicious.... I can almost smell it from here.... I've a Campania question: are there other recipes in Campania that call for bechamel? It just seems so E-R to me, or at least more northern in flavor. I miss Franci...she should be a mom by now, so I'm guessing she's just a little bit busy!

Don't throw those stems away! I use them as a base for poaching fish or shrimp. Recipe here.

Jeff, get in touch with Divinia.. She IS the food lover's guide to Florence! (and a generous eG member).

A repairman once tried to sue my grandmother for slipping on the ice on her entryway. Her response was, "I'm an old lady and I saw the ice and I was careful. He should have been more careful." End of story. No one and no establishment can possibly prepare and cater to every single food allergy and food avoidance issue, it's not possible. The allergy sufferer must be proactive. I can't eat chocolate, I watch what I put in my mouth. If the coeliac affected person can't control themselves around a biscotti, is that the fault of the restaurant? Not in my opinion. They are in s a restaurant, not a health clinic. We are living in an era where personal responsibility is not our personal responsibility anymore. Sorry for the strongly voice opinion, but this is something that just punches my buttons. And the people who claim 'allergy', when they really just don't like something are the worst of the lot.

For anyone with a well developed sense of the ironic, there is always the Hotel Paradiso. Very clean, very near the airport and they will drive you to and from any restaurant in the area. Great toothbrushes and wonderful Hotel Paradiso notepads to remind you of when Alitalia canceled your flight and you had to spend the night.

Ciao Steven (and Kevin!) Typically you only find the hard durum wheat in the south and on the islands. Shorter boil time would affect texture. Maybe it's a special ER chicken that lays those eggs!

I have to ask: do you know why they would choose that name for a restaurant?

Pedalforte, that lasagne sounds amazing. It must be in the air, I've been craving a traditional lasagne bolognese.....but then I found a whole oxtail at the butcher , so the lasagne has to wait. I love the idea of cherries in the arancini (Sicilian), and the one bite part. Yummy.

I had no idea Las Vegas was a food destination. Clearly, I live in a rock and should get out more often. Who knew? My only memory of Las Vegas was a very booze filled dinner at Ceasar's Palace where the waitresses put your head between their breasts and gave you a temple rub. Normally they only do the men's head, but I insisted on fair treatment. I don't know Docsconz, the restaurant can provide the setting, but I don't think they can provide the context. This is something that I've been giving a lot of thought to...the whole 5 senses approach to dining. But not in a stuffy, temple of food way. This thread is marvelous for for thought, as well as informative.

Beautiful FM! What a great idea to wrap the cotechino in lean beef, I bet it would also work well with a pork fillet. Buon'anno!

An old boss of mine used to pick her teeth at the table, slowly, after extracting her tooth morsel, she'd examine it closely and then smear it on the table, or plate, or whatever was handy.

I'm with you 100% Duck833. When a poorly trained Italian chef bursts into the kitchen and wants to make foam with an old food processor.....

You could, but it would be a substitution of an ingredient with similar properties rather than an equivalent. A mixture of dextrose, maltose, maltotriose, and some maltodextrins would be a better substitute, if searching for a true equivalent. In practice, though, a dissolving dextrose in water will probably work, since the reason the recipe is calling for glucose syrup is just to have some quantity of a lower sweetness sugar. "Corn Syrup" in America and "Glucose Syrup" abroad are true synonyms, with the caveat that some syrups (of each name) can have different dextrose equivalents. Dextrose equivalent is a measure of how completely the starch (often corn starch) has been hydrolyzed. If a recipe were to call for a 100DE syrup, then dextrose monohydrate in solution would be the same. But most recipes want a partially hydrolyzed 42DE syrup. Here's a link that offers some explanation: http://www.arasco.com/en/products/glucose_starch/faqs.asp There are many other links that talk about corn syrup properties, but with these you have to translate back and forth between different word choices. ← That's the best explanation I've read to date. Thank you.

I hang my head. I did volunteer work at the Wintermarket that day, I worked the information table, and when I went into the spiel about why we needed a market, I used the Philly market as a shining example of what NYC is missing. No 'dis intended. It was more in the line of ....pure green eyed jealousy.

Amen to that. Stories I could tell.....

Docsconz, that is a dream list of restaurants. You are a lucky man...and...you best of all, you recognize your good fortune. It's telling that so many of your restaurants were either Spanish or South American... in 25 words or less: how come?

Although chemists define glucose and dextrose as the same, recipes that call for glucose are referring to glucose syrup, aka corn syrup to Americans. Corn syrup is high in dextrose, but also has a lot of larger sugars. So dextrose would be a better substitute than sucrose (table sugar) but the recipe will need modification. ← I am NOT a baker or pastry maker, I've been experimenting with dextrose/glucose for other types of savory dishes. But, my question is: couldn't you just add water to the dextrose powder and have a syrup?

Glucose is also known as dextrose if that helps at all. Good luck!

Think of a sort of sexy, exotic tease...a flavor just barely there but enough to entice. Oh, give it a whirl and let me know what you think.

I thought the Piemontese were very into boiling their beef. Isn't there a specific breed that is better boiled? Or is it just a specific cut that is better?

I just went back to the original post when this thread started, and to me, this is the crux of this conversation: "You don't get the flavors of long-risen dough that has been developing overnight, but in all other respects you get really good bread." Lebowits, I agree with you, it's about choice and where and when you are willing to make compromises. No one is a 100% purists, and if they are, chances are they are boring as hell. Here's yesterday's batch of rolls, and a summary of the time it took. hands on wait time in minutes in hours Poolish 3 18 Mix * knead 20 1 st rise 4 Degas 1.5 2 nd rise 24 rest time after refrigeration 1 shape/couche 10 rest 1 bake 0.33 Total hands on time: 34.5 minutes Granted, I can't make biscuits or rolls in an hour, and that's a choice that I'm making, but the overall time investment in making a developed flavour bread is just not that much. Once you work with bread and start to understand rise times....you know when you can just throw it in the fridge, or somewhere cool to retard it. That way you own the bread baking schedule and not vice versa. For me, that's the trickiest part, manipulating the rise time so that it's convenient for me.

One of the things my boyfriend kept suggesting was to do an over-the-top camping trip, hiking for hours to the middle of nowhere and then pulling out da bomb of a feast; Champagne, caviar, the makings and implements for fresh blini... ← One of our most memorable feasts was a river trip. Everyone else pulled out a sandwich for lunch. We found a log, brought out the china and table cloth and laid out a feast that was fit for a king. Some dude tried to barter with us. He offered us a banana. I've also been known to swim out to our dock with champagne glasses in my mouth. Not as easy as you might think. Nice blog by the way! I wondered what you had been up to. I often remember your wonderful wine blog here on eG.