oraklet

oh fat guy, beware of the big bad wilf. he will eat you if you enter his cave! it is still as it was in c. p. snow's days: there are many things that divide humanities from natural(?) science, the most important being that the humanities deal with issues that can't help being political, one way or the other. therefore, the humanist can't help being influenced by his political standpoints; a priori, so to say. (whereas science is political only when it comes to the funding and application.) and interdisciplinarity in the humanities often seems dictated by a political agenda. i don't know if this is the case with interdisciplinary food related studies, as i've never read any... i hope i've inserted enough qualifying adverbs.

garlic presses are allright for a lot of garlic uses, though of course not all. the kind i've allways liked was with the little plastic thing mentioned, only problem was that it would disappear or the teeth would break off. so now i've bought an ikea press with built-in teeth, and it works like a charm. it has the advantage, besides, of being made of steel instead of aluminium. actually, a lot of ikea kitchen utensils are fine, just don't buy their knives and cutting boards.

capnpeff, depending on how it was stored, i would certainly think there's hope for your chas mont. and my humble advice, without knowing about -93, is to open it at the earliest half an hour before drinking. you can then taste it, and if it's bad, find an other bottle!

i've had lots of different bread knives, and tried even more, all of them equally poor at cutting rye bread or italian style bread. the only exception was a dreizack stamped-out picnic knife, but it was too short, only 5.5". i finally asked the guys who sold me my three stainless sabs, and they recommended a stamped-out victorinox (forschner), saying: "you could buy knives a lot more expensive than this, but it's the professional's choice." and they were right! i love my forged knives, but this is the best for bread. and it was "only" about 28$. by the way, it seems that victorinox is the pro's choice for just about any kind of knife. and i think most pros will find us knife fetichists a bit ridiculous - like amateur painters who will only use hand made italian paper, and colours and brushes from w&n!

buttermilk is the worst of them all. then comes yoghurt and all the other cultivated milk produce - most of which i can and will use in cooked dishes. the reasons for disliking food may, of course, be different. the obvious one is association with a more-or-less traumatic experience. but the hidden reason may be that your immune system reacts, not by making you vomit, but by making you dislike certain things. and i believe that immune systems are highly individual, and can even change over the years. complicated stuff. i love red peppers, and my wife likes it once it is cooked, but she's somehow allergic to it (as her father and her grandmother). makes her sick. my sister loves shrimp as well as mayo, but the combination will make her vomit. i don't know where that takes us. is there a scientist out there among you?

regent rules.

"espresso enlightenment" - so true. even stove top italian machines will produce a taste much more subtle and refined, with a balance of the bitter and sour never to be attained with the french press. and espresso made from a high end machine is infinitely more complex in the aromas. besides, you get more taste AND a little less caffeine. if you wish to persist with the press, most of the above mentioned advice will do. but five min. seems a bit long to wait, even with a coarse grind. may i suggest three min.? and john's process is very complicated. is there a reason for this? the advice on pushing the plunger is good, though. by the way, i think the illy boss (a chemist) says 89 C water. don't know what that would be in F.

untill this day, i've felt quite sure that decanting was for the poor stuff - or for a bottle that shouldn't have left the cellar yet. in both cases to smoothen out the tannin. how can one help losing a good deal of the finer aromas in a good wine if it is decanted. and one whole day? i dare not think what might have happened to that cheval blanc '70, best i ever had. at one time we opened one beerenauslese too much. recorked it and tried it again next day. the disappointment!

i don't have much experience with very fine wine. i do feel, though, that a lot of expert advice (hugh johnson, parker...) is a bit out of tune with my taste. it seems that they will drink a fine wine younger than i would. can it be that not only do they react to that which actually is there to taste, but also to the ultimate potential of the wine? bottles opened on that kind of advice have often proven to be a bit "raw", or unfinished. this may, perhaps, be the case with your white wines, too. generally i wouldn't want a wine that needs decanting, (unless it is vintage port or a very, very, very old red wine), as the need to decant, i think, is really a sign of weakness in the wine.

my kitchen is my castle.

it seems that a lot of egulleteers live in new york, and it seems too, that there you can get just about anything you want, if you're ready to pay for it. wrong? i mean, you can probably get seafood and cheese from normandy beef from pay basque vegetables, bread and grapes, peaches etc. from northern italy potatoes, apples and strawberries from scandinavia the best wine and beer imaginable. and so on ad nauseam... judging from other posts, you've got a host of good restos at all price levels. so why go anywhere else - for food, that is? i live in copenhagen, and i sure long for ripe tomatoes, fresh lettuce, decent beef,... and even a thing like full-taste strawberries has become quite rare as the production becomes more and more industrialized. what a shame, as southern scandinavia is the ideal place to grow them. of course, i can get foie gras and caviar, but most of the basic raw materials are of a poor standard, at least for those who can't spend four hours every day searching out the good stuff. so, i wouldn't choose denmark for the food!

jaybee, an advice: pour the water onto the coffee. let rest for 2 min. gently shake the press. leave for 1min, and watch in amazement as the coffee settles on the bottom. press down. et voila, no problems! (only make sure the coffee is not too fine-ground) but espresso/cappuccino is a lot better!

thanks, ruby, and vice versa (and now i will have to find out what copenhagen has to offer in the same vein. nice place, but really on the outskirts of europe)

i'm really so boring: never been outside europe

i don't often eat out, and then mostly when in france. there they seem to concentrate on the food, more than on making you feel at home (which you aren't, anyway) by use of all kinds of effects: dim light, too little space, music (hate it) etc. actually one of the three best meals i've had was in a village at the coast of normandy. the host did seem a bit surprised that anyone had noticed his place, and showed us into a room that was brightly lit up by one powerful lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. all thirteen of us sat around one long table, the only one in the room. no music, of course. it took them one hour to prepare our meal(s), mostly seafood, but then it was very good (though of course not artistic), and it was served in a quiet and straightforward manner. it was nice to be able to see one's food as well as see and hear one's companions. that is often not the case in danish restaurants, and neither is it with my in-laws... but of course, being thirteen around the table brought trouble later in the night when we tried to share the bill. oh, there was this place in lyon. thought i had entered a whorehouse - but food was fine, really.

lovely thread! mine dates some 20 years back. steaks. hot saucepan (clled "look"). in a hurry. steaks finished. grab saucepan by handle to tranfer steaks to plates. mid way between stove and dinnertable: pain. had grabbed too close to pan. had to finish movement so as not to drop steaks. for years after i had mirror image of "look" branded in hand, slave-wise. kinda "kool". christian

oh... i may not have expressed myself clearly. is pastry flour and pasta flour the same thing in english? well, what i mean is that i would add 1/6 of the kind of flour used by most of us for pasta: durum semolina. i believe that it is actually richer in protein, but perhaps i'm wrong there. anyway, it adds texture to the dough, especially if you don't work it several times. if you don't, by the way, use a very high grade flour for pasta, it will be sticky when cooked. christian

hi matthew what do you actually mean when you say that you don't want your pizza to be "bready"? most italians would state that a pizza is really a sort of bread... but perhaps you just don't want it to be like a french/baguette-like bread, and then you might try this procedure: use 5/6 parts 0-0 flour and 1/6 of pasta flour. salt. very little yeast (or admittedly even better: sourdough, but it can be rather much of a trouble keeping it alive during vacations). enough water to make the dough sticky. let rest in a cool place for at least 8 hours (THE REAL TASTE OF WHEAT DEVELOPS ONLY THEN!). when doubbled (at least), turn gently upon floured working table. pour flour on top of it (sticky, remember?). work, from the centre out, into a thin disc, leaving a 1" border (? sorry obout my lack of english...) untouched. fill sparingly, and don't forget to sprinkle with olive oil. bake in HOT oven (and a pizza stone works very fine, really). all this makes for a dough that virtually "explodes", with lots of big thready holes inside it. just like the best italian breads. i'm not a real gourmet cook, but at least my pizzas are praised by everyone around, and i think they are the best to be had in denmark! but: as mentioned on another thread, no two ovens are alike, so you will almost certainly not succeed the first time. it took me some 5 years to learn! good luck christian

Oh, I forgot to mention that bread should be baked at temperatures somewhere between pie and pizza - the smaller the bread, the higher the temperature. Also, that you can add some rye flour or not-refined wheat flour for a more rustical taste, which will be the way most italian bread tasted 100 years ago. And hot-air ovens are good for making that crusty bite! Anyway, no two ovens are alike, so you will have to make some experiments, before you really succeed.

Pizza stones are a nice way to get around the drawbacks of modern ovens. The very old ones don't seem to need one. I've been baking bread and pizzas for years at my parents-in-law's cabin in Sweden in a very old oven that heats the whole place at the same time - and the result is excellent, almost every time. Now, apart from the stone, key factors in making a pizza are: Make your own dough, with very little yeast, from 5/6 pizza flour and 1/6 pasta flour plus water and salt. Make sure it is rather sticky, let it grow slowly (at least 8 hours) in a bowl in a cool place. It should be covered with a damp cloth and a lid. When it has increased to double size, pour a thin layer of pasta flour on your working table, turn the dough carefully (in one piece) onto the flour, cover it with more flour and work it into the desired shape, starting from the center. The oven should be HOT! Apart from this, of course it should not be covered with too much filling. If you prefer to make small breads, cut the dough into smaller pieces. If you're not careful, some of the air will be squeezed out, and you will then have to let them rest for a few hours. Covered again, of course. This is as close to the classical method of bread-baking as you can get in our modern world. There is one drawback, though: Once you have mastered it, you will HATE most other kinds of bread, just like my family do, and you will have to bake and bake and bake and....