oraklet

wingding, jason and steve, ok, i see what you mean. my point, really, is just that i'd like to be able to make the haagen daz sort of ice cream. you know, one of my few culinary triumphs was making vanilla ice cream with mixed fruit sorbet for 25 guests half of whom asked for the recipe... but this ice cream (which is pretty nice every time i make it) was "stabilized" by whipping the cream (instead of making a creme anglaise), and i feel that it still doesn't have the optimal "melting". so please, what to do? and perhaps my machine (a small philips) demands a different approach from my usual just-put-it-in-the-freezer-and-stir-every-quarter-of-an-hour method?

"though it isnt listed on their ingredient list. " in denmark it would be illegal (and it doesn't tell of any). not in usa? and anyway, aren't the additives you mention used to make the cheap ice creams fluffy and horrible in many ways

all right then, to get close to the haegen datz, should i make a "thin" creme anglaise? (so that it melts on the tongue in a more-or-less similar way) by the way, i don't think they use any additives?

"The most important thing to keep in mind when using an ice cream maker is to thoroughly chill your ice cream batter before freezing. If you put it in while it is warm or at room temperature, you may get bits of congealed butter churned out of your cream." why? and how to duplicate the haegen datz experience?

anna n bread baking is a challenge - and more so if you, like i had to, start off from virtually scratch. but luckily there are several good books to be found, one of which is danish, written by camilla plum. perhaps you are able to read some danish, or your husband may help you. on "the bread thread", led by robert schoenfeld, there are lots of great suggestions, too. sorry i can't figure out how to do the link thing, so you will have to search for it. there are two variants of grebbestads ansjovis: one with filleted, and one with whole achovies which are crunchy, and for the adventurous...

anna n, i'm sorry not to answer sooner. smørrebrød is a thing of beauty, which can be spoiled by the wrong kind of bread. if you want it to stay fresh at the table and be great tasting, perhaps you should make it yourself, sourdough or biga based. my mother's recipe for rye bread is as follows: first, you make, or get hold of, a biga/sourdough. she made hers this way 20 yrs ago: 150g rye flour 3-5 g of yeast (danish style block of beer yeast). perhaps even less? 1/2 teasp. salt enough youghurt or buttermilk to make it rather "wet" let rest at kitchen temp. (if not very hot summer) until it forms bubbles and starts smelling of...sourdough. approx. 24 hours. then add 1,5 liters water 3 tblspoons coarse salt 500 g wheat flour 500 g "broken" rye kernels (?) 1,500 g rye flour let rest in forms (?) for c 15 hours in kitchen temp., covered with damp cloth. bake at c 190 C for c 2 hours wrap in damp cloth for 24 hours (!) lots of c's, so you'll have to experiment a bit... sorry about the celsius part, don't know what it would be in fahrenheit. as for the white bread, if you make it slowly it will stay fresh much longer and have a lot more taste - you can even let it develop the slightly sour taste which was sometimes used in the smørrebrød of my childhood. making your own bread will, with some experimentation, be worth the effort. butter, of course, should be lurpak - salted. and krydderfedt can be pigs fat, too. on the "lunch" thread i rambled about danish smørrebrød. to think that i was able to forget about the vet's midnight snack! my only excuse is that it belongs in the finer end of the range, whereas i was trying to describe the delicious savagry of smørrebrød at its brutallest (which is what i love best...). which reminds me that a real dirty stinking old cheese should be served on good rye bread. and an additional advice which may sound heretical to most danes: if you serve several different kind of herring, try substituting the kryddersild with grebbestads ansjovis. swedish, but incredibly good and powerfull stuff.

"Should I put this on the naan and eat it that way, or would that just make everyone aware that I'm an ignorant tourist? Should I mix this and that other thing, or not?" (human bean) right. plus: not knowing a cuisine well, you go very slowly at start, having to feel your way. and these days, my cooking is mostly in the style of slater's fast food. my occasional more or less improvised curries are not bad, though, and i'm looking forward to have the time to try to recreate some of the meals i've had at indian restaurants. perhaps in a year or so, when alvilda is closer to three years!

kikujiro, i don't know about other cuisines, but in some old fashioned (!) danish recipies in the same genre, the apple part works just fine. goes well with chicken. should be sour, though. not french goldies.

glenn, i wish you hadn't posted that picture...

201, just a suggestion that i'd like to have the time to follow myself: keep some sort of track/diary/notebook of what you do. like, what did/didn't work, ideas of why this was the case, suggestions for yourself etc. don't feel obliged to reveal it to egullet, as this will demand much more work. would be great, though the reason i don't? 4 kids...home work...bedtime...school lunch...clearing kitchen...

jason, "ok. Can anybody tell me what the hell the difference is between the previous 10 inch chef knife and THIS one?" looks like a carving knife? snowangel, the curvature of the blade on the wusth. 10" "mother" look rather flat near the bolster. can't be good for rocking?

stella, as for killing disabled or surplus (twin!) infants: i simply can't remember my sources except that they are several, and except for one: an argentine anthropologist who told me that, among those doing field research in mixed hunter/gatherer/very primitive agrarian (basically wandering) tribes in the amazonas, it has for long been a known fact. and the only explanation for their living "in balance with nature"...he also told me that there has been some reluctance to reveal this, as it might lessen the sympathy for the "noble savages". apart from this, genocide - attacking and killing whole neighbour tribes - has played a role in keeping down the entire population, if canetti is to be trusted (i think he is). fast growing populations paired with a primitive agriculture will result in a more stable society and, most important, a division into landowners, warriors and slaves/peasants. you can guess how the peasants and slaves fare. and archaeology suggests that the average height diminished with agriculture - increasing to the hunter level only as late as the 20th century. some studies tell us that hunters/gatherers only have to "work" 4 hours a day to live well. but then of course, they don't have doctors, hospitals etc. part of this is surely in the grey zone of speculation. but at least it makes sense...

"about his agrarianism critique--farming actually less efficient than hunting?" haven't read his critique, but it isn't a new idea. some biologists and antropologists seem to think that mankind was forced into agriculture because of a population explosion due to religion's(?) forbidding the killing of surplus children. there seems to be some evidence supporting this theory as well as the idea that generally, hunters are better fed than primitive farmers. farming, though, has the advantage of more stability than hunting.

the way of making luxurious, almost fluffy, mashed ptatoes is, according to anne willan: don't overcook. drain and heat a little to be rid of water content surplus(?). mill - not processor (yes, makes it gooey). milk and butter whisked in over low heat (so that starch swells). add salt and pepper. she says 3 dl milk and c. 60 g of butter pr kg potatoes, and i can attest that it's gorgeous. might be even better with cream!

but peterpumpkino, recipes, techniques, reccomendations etc., all the egullet stuf is expertise and/or opinions. i believe you wouldn't contribute (as you do on a much higher level than i do, admittedly) if you didn't find it worthwhile, and this would only be the case if you feel yourself among peers, and this again is judged in terms of liking/expertise. so logically you must appreciate the expertise/opinions on egullet. i mean, a conversation going "i like this" "aw, bullshit, i like that" isn't very meaningful. i'm not saying this to divert the thread. and i'll withdraw now, having only had la bistecca once. it was lovely, by the way. but that's just my opinion.

excuse me for being perhaps impertinent, peterpumpkino, but given "I do not really care what other people like including you Mr. Plotnicki." why then do you come to egullet?

good honey on good white bread is delicious. but even better it is to get it directly from the bee hive, wax and all, chewing it and then spitting out the wax. nice as sweetener with pork or chicken, too, if used with caution...

anne willan's book. it's tells about it all, in a very instructive way. good deal of basic, classic recipes, too. i spent the first two weeks after buying it reading, reading, reading, because though it is not just theory, reading it all makes you sense what are the groundstones. gives you an idea of where you stand, and what you have to learn. it's cheap in denmark, must be DIRT cheap in usa as it's a reader's digest thing (it is, really).

steve, thanx for explanation of "overextraction". of course, you are absolutely right about the objectivity/subjectivity thing. now, i'm pretty average, and i think the average wine drinking person can tell - and enjoy - the difference in quality of wines. the reason the average person won't buy the very good wine is that they are forced to, or chose to, prioritize. we do - at least some of us - know what we're missing. the very best wines ARE generally worth the price (ok - some of them may be over priced due to demand/availability). i'm not sure, though, that the "nice" are - at least i think they often aren't. i can find a nice beaujolais at 10$, but bordeaux or penedes at the same price is often horrid. and you know, before coming to this board, i didn't even know the names of a lot of the apparently great wines discussed here. i halted my self education in wine about 15 years ago, so maybe that's the explanation: some of them may be "newer" wines?

mogsob, what does "overextracted" mean in this context?

i've seen one guy start off in wine to impress; then finding that he had to be able to throw in the right names and phrases, and suddenly being interested for real. by now he's a connaisseur AND enjoys his expensive wines.

i don't know how others feel, but to me it seems that wines naturally fall in four groups: passable: this is just wine as fermented grape juice. say, a southern french wine. 4-7$ nice: some pleasure besides the thing being fermented etc. could be a plain brouilly. 7-20$ good: makes you glad you spent the money on it. leoville-barton? i don't often have this kind of wine...20-120$ wonderful: the doors of perception open up. have tried it, say, five times. never paid for it myself! cheval blanc, ... 120-...$ "the doors of perception open up". really do, you know.

coop, "Victorinox chef and paring knives. The steel was so hard it was workout to get an edge on them. Not too good." i must say, i never had any problems sharpening my few victorinoxes. maybe different lines? chopjwu12, you can shave with your knife, AND keep an edge when chopping? sounds like fierce knives, surely. dimitri, i think most electric sharpeners are way too brutal. eating at your knives with sparks flying.

i, too, would like to see such a chart (though i realize it can't be very precise). how long, for instance, to cook a chicken at 70C?

for what it's worth: global may be good steel - and the curvature of the edge is very nice - but they're lightweight, and slippery. honestly i think a forschner/victorinox with wooden handle is a better buy for a light knife if you get one of the bigger ones, with room for your knuckles. also, i think they are less likely to give you blisters. as for sharpening bolstered knives: i have just finished resharpening my sister's henckel (had been "professionally" sharpened, urgh) and started the proces by filing off the lowest part of the bolster in an angle of 45 degrees so that the whole edge was free to be worked at. this is the way my sabatiers are made, and it reduces the risk of hollowing the edge. it does, of course, look a bit weird on a heavy-bolstered knife! the new henckels seem to be made of rather soft steel. have to be honed quite often. and henckels are not so well balanced (handle too heavy) as sabs, wusthofs or macs. and a question: what is best, water stones or oil stones?