chromedome

No, I couldn't. I just told him I'd take it.

I had a prep cook in Edmonton who was a first-gen Canadian of Dutch parentage. He once described dinner at his grandparents' house to me as "everything mashed up together, with gravy on it." Now I know what to call that.

Paderno stuff is generally well-made, from what I've seen. I own a few pieces. The company's based in Atlantic Canada, so I see a lot of it up here. I'm not sure how familiar it is Stateside, but the workmanship and materials are good.

That's the desired end state for any "war story," and most pros have a few. There was the night I took the end off a pinkie finger with a mandoline (I was in fact using the grip, but the veg in question tipped over and I rammed my finger onto the blade)...got it bandaged up by the landlord's niece, an RN, and finished service with the aid of a larger-than-usual number of gloves. There was the weekend when I shucked 200 lbs of cooked lobster, and got an invisible scratch on my thumb that turned into a nasty infection and blew my thumb up to the size of a nice plum. Couldn't get in to the doctor (I was in a remote fishing town) until after dinner service needed to start, so I lanced and bandaged it myself and served dinner. I tried to work through lunch service the day I passed a kidney stone, too, but that didn't work out so well. Apparently it alarms the customers when you turn white and collapse to the floor, clutching your abdomen. Who knew? The two I was proudest of, though, didn't involve personal injury but last-minute panic. One was a lost catering order for 40 people, discovered exactly 23 minutes before the delivery was supposed to leave. Pulled that one together out of what we had on hand (luck was involved...I needed beef gravy to fill the order, and we happened to have a huge batch of beef stew as one of the lunch specials). The other was many (Canadian) Thanksgivings ago, at the same job, when we got a sheepish last-minute call from a local call centre, asking if we could do a full-on turkey meal with all the trimmings for 800 people...the very next day. They'd planned on just paying for everyone to eat at their building's cafeteria, you see, but didn't reckon on the cafeteria (like every business in the building except them) being closed because of the holiday. I checked my walk-ins, told 'em to take the order, and delivered it on time the next day. That was a proud moment, and management gave a nice little bonus to everyone involved in pulling it together. Apologies for derailing the thread, but it's at least somewhat related.

So happy for you. It's a good feeling when the bread starts behaving. My old horizontal-loaf machine crapped out on me recently, and last night I found a Zojirushi of similar dimensions on Kijiji (that's the Canadian version of eBay Classifieds...much, MUCH bigger here than Craigslist) for $40. Money's tight at the moment, so I'm hesitating, but it's terribly tempting.

At one point when I was in culinary school, we were working in the Pastry lab. It was sugar work, that day. We reheated discs of prepared sugar on a cut-down Silpat, in the microwave. After zapping it the prescribed number of times and seconds, you'd reach in, take the back of the Silpat, and use it to tip the reheated sugar out onto your own working Silpat. Yeah, I absentmindedly did it with my hand. The crust of the sugar cracked open and spewed sugar lava onto my fingers, and sent me at high speed to the opposite side of the room where the sinks and cold water could be found. Fortunately, the lab contained no elderly persons or small children to be trampled along the way. ...and, just for the record, I *have* never done that again.

I was quite shocked when I moved to Alberta and all the eggs had pale, wishy-washy yolks. Eventually I learned that they weren't any less (or more) fresh than supermarket eggs anywhere else, the pale colour was just from feeding on barley. I found farm markets to buy from after the first few months, so it was a non-issue, but it was disconcerting initially.

If you don't need it immediately, put a slice of bread in with it, and re-seal the jar or bag. That's what I do with mine, and it works beautifully. By the next day, your sugar (unless you have a very large container) should be soft and moist again. If it isn't, remove the now-dry piece of bread and replace it with another. In my experience two successive pieces of bread will remoisten up to 4kg of sugar (about 4 1/2 lbs). A piece of apple is another suggestion I've seen in the past, but I find it makes the sugar taste like apple. Not that this is inherently a bad thing, but I prefer to choose which flavors I introduce.

It's ironic...I've been looking for a decent price on a blade roast for months, and haven't found anything close to that; but was able to pick up prime rib for an even lower price. Not that I have anything against prime rib, of course, but dammit, I wanna braise some beef! It just goes against the grain to pay anywhere from $8-$14/lb for blade roast, I can't make myself do it. It would be a terrible offence against my East Coast Frugality Gene™.

Always cold for anything flaky.

Yay, you! It's a good feeling.

My late wife and I got one of those flour dusters in a grab-bag of kitchen stuff at the thrift store (I no longer remember which item in the bag was the one we actually wanted). Neither of us could identify it for the longest time, but we Googled it periodically until we found the correct answer. That was when I was away from eGullet...I can't imagine why I didn't think to pop in here with a photo and ask you!

It's the official state cake of Maryland, though this specific version isn't the canonical one. I tripped across it a year or two ago while researching an article. I won't link to my own, here (modesty forbids, and I don't want to feel that I'm spamming) but you can get the background from this WaPo piece: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042200701.html?sid=ST2008042202125 Personally it reminds me of Dobos Torte, though I'm unaware of any direct connection between them.

Sobey's here had them for $4.66 as a four-day doorcrasher sale (cap on). I bought one the first day, then on the fourth day thought "I should really go back and get another." So I went back and found three that were marked down by 50%, because they'd been packaged on the first day of the sale. They weren't large, but I got nearly 8 lbs in total at $2.33/lb which I reckon is a good price for prime rib any day of the week.

A rolling docker is decidedly on my shortlist. Once I've found a home for the several drawers of other little gizmos still sitting out in the open, 4 1/2 months after moving into my current home. I find it super-useful for puff pastry especially, on those occasions I want it crisp and flat (ie, millefeuille) rather than big and poofy.

I'm with you on that. If it isn't thoroughly leopard-spotted, it isn't ready to eat yet. It's so disappointing to be in the mood for a banana and find 'em all lime-green at the supermarket. On the plus side, they're often marked down just when they get to the way I like them.

Okay, gotcha. A sturdy but still enjoyable dough for handheld pies, or a utilitarian and relatively sog-proof bottom crust for fruit pies (with an alternative crust on top, if desired, where flakiness would show/be appreciated).

More Thanksgiving leftovers for me. I'd stuffed a buttercup squash with wild rice, raisins, cranberries and caramelized onions as one of my side dishes, and warmed up a bowl of that for lunch today with a dab of butter. No photo, because after being scooped, packaged, refrigerated and scooped again, it wasn't especially photogenic.

The obligatory turkey counts as a "new" tradition for me. My parents loathe turkey, and my sister and I were indifferent at best, so we never had it at holidays when I was growing up. We usually opted for a roast (beef or venison) or a ham, instead. When my kids lived at home I did the same, or would mix it up occasionally with a big roaster chicken or something like that. I'd buy a turkey while they were cheap over the holidays, but usually broke it down uncooked for multiple future meals, instead of roasting it. I still maintain that the traditional big ol' roasted turkey is about the least interesting thing to do with the poor bird. I didn't start doing turkey at home until my (American) second wife came along. She was a big fan of the traditional meal with all the traditional sides (except Brussels sprouts...she was a super-taster, and couldn't abide anything bitter). I'd never eaten green-bean casserole until she made it for me, either. I'm sure some families in Canada make it, but it's not as much of a "thing" here. I've lived in six provinces, and don't think I've ever seen it on anyone else's holiday spread. My current GF (second wife passed away unexpectedly a few years ago) is also a fan of the turkey, so that's what we did this weekend.

Yeah, I saw a "Maxine" on FB yesterday with the Maxine character in a store aisle grumbling "Nothing says Halloween like Christmas decorations."

Can you describe the texture of the resulting dough when it's baked? I presume it would be biscuit-like (ie, cookie-ish) rather than flaky?

LOL Depends what I've got at the time. I've used my hands, a fork, two knives, a big-ass floor-standing Hobart, my 80s-vintage Cuisinart, and both wire- and blade-type pastry cutters. I've used commercial and premium home-made lard, Canadian and European-style butter and even leftover chicken fat; all-purpose flour (rather high in gluten here in Canada), stoneground whole-wheat pastry flour, commercial pastry flour, regular whole-wheat flour, spelt flour and some kind of gluten-free mix I was given by a friend who decided she wasn't celiac after all (facepalm). On one occasion, on a bet, I made pie crust with room-temperature margarine and bread flour. It came out fine, though the flavor was not of the best. Most of the time now I use butter, and my Cuis. I add about 2/3 of the butter and pulse until it's mealy, then add the remaining 1/3 and pulse until it's just a bit chopped. I find that's about right for a utilitarian, general-purpose dough that's easy to handle but still bakes up nicely flaky. I add the water and mix by hand, because (like most others) I find the Cuis overworks a the dough in a heartbeat once you've added water. Overall, I think Wendy DeBord nailed it upthread. Pick a tool and technique you're comfortable with, and do that until you know how the dough is supposed to feel. Once you've gotten that far, you can get to the same destination with any other tool and technique.

That was a pet peeve of mine (sorry) when I was a farmer's market vendor in the resort town of St. Andrew's, not far from the border with Maine. The whole town basically is run by and for dog people, and if the market excluded dogs there'd be no market. I couldn't tell you how many orders I had to remake because someone's mutt had a niibble at it, or -- even worse, to me -- a little yapdog in someone's arms sneezed or drooled on it. The other market where I'd been a vendor had a strict no-dogs-past-this-point policy. Predictably, there were always a few who felt that this didn't apply to them or their obviously-exempt pooch. One day, as I was heading inside for wash-up water, I heard this exchange between the market manager and an indignant customer: IC: But she's not a dog! This is my daughter! MM: I'm sorry, ma'am, but unless you have a note from your obstetrician...

LOL My under-caffeinated brain interpreted "Loonsong" as Asian, at first. Took a few minutes to parse it out.

Lunch today=thanksgiving leftovers. We had our big meal yesterday, for reasons of collective availability.