oraklet

truffles are delightful in small quantities, awful when dominating. like fennel. well, like a lot of things, actually. tripe is probably the worst of all things. probably, 'cause i haven't tried insects. buttermilk is really really bad, too. french and italian apples are shit. danish and swedish apples are wonderful. all strawberries suck, nowadays. caviar and oysters are aquired tastes. lov'em now.

we sure like having wine or beer, but - on workdays, we're often tired and we'll have to think of getting the small ones to bed, and the big ones to make their school lunch and remaining home work, etc. etc. etc. so mostly, it's tap water.

If you had used veal it would be saltimbocca - consider it a variation.... pound both meats flat and put one on top of the other, and it's something bolognese (according to e. david, i think). actually one of the few occasions where i find myself sometimes using turkey breast in stead of veal. edit: saltimboche are rolls. i'm not sure if the authentic sort has parmesan in it?

no granite counter top for me. drop a plate or a glass or...on it, and that love is instantly cured. hey, one can't even throw one's knife aside when in a hurry. wood is good, 'long as it's properly seasoned and treated. and i'd love to have a double sink. helas, no room for that.

i would go by taste and smell. if it looks strange in places, try cutting off the strange parts, perhaps. anyway, i'm pretty sure you won't be sick from a cheese that smells ok. (except for listeria/campylobactor etc). the change in colour may be due to a too cold storing? i wish i had a special refridgerator for cheese, white wine, beer, butter, fruit, vegetables...)

isn't espresso supposed to be made from 100% arabica, anyway? both lavazza and illy is pure arabica, as far as i know. different qualities, roasts and blends, of course. by the way, there was a dane who was world champion barista a few years ago. works at my favourite cafe in copenhagen. i'm very grateful for that!

i've never been able to make an espresso - crema, taste and all - on a stove-top model. my present braun model - a cheap one - will on the other hand produce quite decent espresso when newly cleaned and when you don't use too much water , and the coffee is correctly pressed. better than at most restaurants in copenhagen, but a few cafés serve absolutely splendid espresso made from illy beans. i use lavazza (did i hear gasping?)...illy tends to become too sharp on my machine. edit: not braun. krups. silly me.

hehe, here we go again: balic, what plotz missed was the feeling and sound of eating red pepper. the taste was there, but not the texture, so it was not immediately recognizable. with a chili dish, everybody knows there may be red pepper in it. makes it a bit easier. if you so wish we can say that's part of presentation, though i doubt that was what was meant by "presentation" in the first place. "preparation", perhaps? still, i think you'll agree that you have been forced to point to rather extreme examples to prove that even super gourmets may be fallible - and neither plotz nor i ever said they weren't. we just said that a professional is trained to shut out most exterior stimuli and concentrate on the taste(/texture). unlike ordinary diners, whose enjoyment of a meal will be more of a homogeneous mixture of environment, presentation, expectations and taste. we further said that this shows that presentation does not change the taste but it sure changes most people's focus . it would have be an interesting experiment to serve the lollipops to a number of great chefs like gray kunz or alice waters, asking them what it contained. personally i don't think they would have been "fooled". do you?

do you really mean that the taste of pepper in the lollipop has changed because we don't immediately recognize it? would mona lisa be a different painting if it wasn't lighted? i can't believe this is happening. it's a good thing that in a moment i'll be leaving for the sweedish wilderness, with no computers or internet, 'cause this makes me slightly dizzy. have a nice easter! edited for mona lisa example

no, adam, 'cause this is the scientific way of seeing it: and that is trying to be overly precise on matters that are not important to the central issue of a craft: doing your job well, whichever way you do it, whether you're aware of all the steps you take or it's become second nature to you.

but any gourmet will to some extend do that. you are served the first course. you look at it. "looks kinda dull." you take a bite. "oh! this is strange...interesting...delicious, in fact. why?", and immediately you start analyzing it. the chef does the same thing, only he works the other way round. it's not a science. it's a craft.

please: this is not about supertasters. neither is it about extreme conditions nor ingeneous ways of cheating us into thinking we taste something we don't. its about normal, or relatively normal conditions in the art of cooking and eating well . and regarding these conditions, i think plotz and i have said what is sensible and true. those disagreeing have wasted a lot of energy fighting ghosts. re-reading what we've said, i don't even think that we've been unclear, except perhaps where we've been lured into semi-scientific sophistry. dixit.

just one thing: most tests are performed with "average" people, not trained craftsmen. trained to focus on the important issues and to ignore "noise". not infallible, but pretty reliable in comparison to the average. edit: i once saw two musicians rehearsing in the same room. two different pieces of music, though. each of them perfectly contained in his own world. the noble art of shotting out noise!

not my grandfather, though oh, and by the way: this started out as a discussion of the importance of presentation to taste. a discussion, remember, on egullet, not in your local newspaper. we're not common folks (though some of us are quite poor). we are foodies of different degrees. we taste. we analyze. we judge. we say: "well, maybe a little less lime zest and a little more lime juice". do you really, really think that kind of judgement is influenced by presentation? edit: adam, i do know quite a few who certainly would be fooled...

"Extreme scientific experiments? Where, the last example I saw presented by a scientist (well, the Prof. anyway) was a straight forward comparison of the abitlity of 'experts' to taste wine." (balic) the wine-experts-being-fooled has the ring of...er...incredibility, don't you feel? i mean, who were those "experts"? how was it controlled? personally i know a few who would almost certainly not be fooled under the described circumstances. my "extreme scientific experiments" was a hint at the research indiagirl (and i believe, others) brought up. interesting but, excuse me, irrelevant. damn, the smelling and tasting ability of most top chefs and their connaisseur counterparts aren't exactly impaired, no? this is about having spent years at gaining knowledge of what are the elements of a trade. just like any graphic artists knows more about perspective than most laymen do, so is any line cook superior to most laymen in knowledge of, say, sauteeing. and when it comes to the top chefs and their audience of globetrotting gourmets - well, you may draw your own conclusions. or do you subscribe to the "emperor's new clothes" theori?

garwsh! it must be danish, i guess...everybody i know makes it for "frikadeller" (meatballs of a kind). spinach, butter, reduced cream, nutmeg. yep, that's as danish as can be. if it's not german, of course. or french i'm actually going to make it tonight!

let's see: we've got a trade, fine cooking. fine craftsmen, some of them perhaps even artists, are employed in the trade. the products, fine food and most times fine service and surroundings, are sold to discriminating connaisseurs, gourmets. that's what we're talking about, right? so what's the fuss about? isn't it obvious to everybody that, inside this context, craftsman and connaisseur are to a large degree in possesion of the same ability to perform an objective analysis of the subject matter? why drag in silly or irrelevant examples of paintings seen in inferior lighting or extreme scientific experiments? is it the word "objective"? does that bother you? okay, it's not objective in the sense that it's infallible. it's objective in the sense that the object in question is isolated and analyzed to a degree that is professional, that is, an analysis which can be used to judge the quality of any products of the trade. this is actually the most important part of any craftsman's training. but perhaps this is very difficult to understand if you're not yourself a craftsman. anyway, it's the naked truth. take the words of a craftsman for that.

brit, that's not fair. though on other threads plotz may have been...a bit overzealous, i think his efforts here - like mine - have been directed towards sorting out the problems in bundling taste, visual impressions, ambience etc. - and pointing out that, to the expert of a trade, it's second nature to analyze these things as single parts. and every trained craftsman knows this to be true.

why shouldn't it? give up, guys. plotters is right.

so, i served the fondant potatoes for 21 guests last saturday, and they were very, very nice (though not absolutely perfect - some of them had split). baked for 2 h. at 120C, lid on, and 1/2 hour at 230C, lid off, convection. made with chicken and duck stock plus lots of butter. mmmm. served with sliced slow-pan-fried duck breast and finely sliced sauteed cabbage with orange peel zest and -juice. (next time i'll add koriander) thanx, everybody!

solution seems to be to find out which sizes you need: for stock, for a little leftover dinner, for a lot of leftover dinner, for school lunches etc. - i've ended up with 4 different sizes being enough, and those can, ideally, be stacked. problem is that we've got all those vintage round tupperwares, too, and don't have the heart to throw them out... those dedicated for flour, beans etc. are in constant use, so no problem there.

"no space-wasting round containers" indeed! "you might even get to pet the little critters as you take them out to the trash bin." yeah, i'll pet'em with a pot, i will.

then perhaps i've been overly suspicious towards it...while scandinavian modern design as a whole is of high standards, this is not the case with kitchen tools and gadgets (a canadian friend once said: "if the knife is all steel, doesn't cut and falls off the plate, take a close look at it: you can be sure it says "scando design" somewhere"). too much emphasis on looks. still, i think i'd prefer a magnetic rack if it's safe for the edges.

egg-based sauces/creme anglaise? chokolate? i could use one.