Llantha

Once the corn has been stripped off the cob, however, there is still more good food: CORN COB JELLY 12 corn cobs 4 c. water 4 c. sugar l box pectin Bring water with cobs, to a boil, boil for about 10 minutes. Strain 3 cups of the liquid a cheesecloth. Bring liquid and pectin into a large saucepan and bring to rolling boil. Add the sugar and return to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 3 minutes., then skim. Pour into scalded jars and seal.

Germs build your imune system. You want clean, go to a chem lab. :p

I'm only a home foody and when I decide to make a fine dinner I sweat about it for a day or two in advance, running through my moves in my head as I drift off to sleep. It's fun to jab at the Iron Chefs but I imagine that their time in the stadium is a lot like defending a murder defendant- ony they have to do it in an hour. /shudder

Unsalted butter is key. A stick of the salted kind has about 1 1/2 tsp of salt which is a huge honkin' amount for a half cup of anything. As for the margerine comment after the war, the Margerine my momma said she used was prety much crisco into which a yellow pellet was stirred. I'l bet there was still not lots of salt. And nowadys it has been scientifcally proven that Margerine isn't food. (If you can keep it in the trunk of your car for 3 months and still eat it, well.......)

Having watched IC for ages, and seeing them retool it for the US market what I'm confident of is that they pick competing chefs who can win. As for who chose Mario and the other southwest kinda guy, the producers did- who aren't in this to make food- they are in it to make money. Mario has a good following (which I can understand) and so does the other guy (which I cant, great honking boor that he is) so they have a ready market draw. Lots of FoodTV types may not have a clue about Morimoto if they haven't watched IC. So that's how they chose the american chefs- as for the challengers- they need to be better cooks or else the formula of IC (as parodied with unfortunate accuracy by Alton Brown in "Cast IRon Chef") won't work- they have to be able to creak the Iron Chefs or the audience won't get into it. My money is on the advertisers!

I love the way the house smells the day after I cook something - well, except for when the smell is predominalty oil- but it reminds me of the fun I had cooking the day before and gets me in a mood to try to cook something good today. Yeah- turmeric can be have a bit of an acrid smell but so does the soil in red Arizona after a rain. Inhale, embrace, enjoy. And as for the suggestion that onion smell isn't heavenly- well, that's Just Wrong.

I love all the burned bits that aren't innards and the Persians are sensible enough to make the crusty rice- so we have that with some regularity. But my favorite shameful one-of-my-favorite-things is the inside of the second piece of pizza. You have to wait for it to be cool enough for the cheese and topping to come off in one piece, but it needs to be hot enough that the dough is soft. Peel off the top and set it aside. Then peel the soft upper part of the bread from the crust. In the interest of wasting not, wanting not, pop the top back on the bottom of the crust and eat it or palm it off on some pre-verbal child. Then eat the dough sans crust. It has all the flavor of the topping but you really get to enjoy the bread flavor as well. Adkins be damned!

West of London in Richmond: The Litchfield Brasserie. It's in the center of town near some art supply stores. Standard English Indian restaurant menu fare, but painfuly fresh and delicately prepared. West side of Columbus, OH at Fishinger Road just east of the outerbelt (Ther's a Shell gas station at the corner.) It's called India Palace, I believe. It's in a strip mall. A buffet during the day although menu is available. Full standard US Indian restaurant menu. Again, fresh and beautifully prepared. More breads than a lot of places. In either event, when I see lots of Indians (or Asians, as the case may be) dining at a restaurant, it tends to make me trust my own tastes.

Ditto, Nick. These are great. Thanks a lot for all the work you have put into them.

There was a reference earlier in this post to Alton Brown's Pizza but the link is broken. The show was recast last week and the working link is here. The recipe posted is just half of the story- the missing bits are here. It makes sense if you read it with the recipe. This pizza worked out real well for me but these are the details from the show and from my experience making his recipe. Substitute finely ground semolina flour for about a third of the four. The recipe will make one pizza per person- one cup of flour per person. It doubles easily in a KitchenAid hog mixer. These pizzas take a day to make because the dough works with the yeast in the fridge for 18 to 24 hours. They take 6 or 7 minutes to cook and one pizza will feed one. This is a recipe for 2 small pizzas. You can make the dough for them every weekend and have a pizza each week! If you are using regular yeast, add it and the sugar to the water and let it proof for 5 minutes or so. Then add the salt, flour, and oil and mix it. If you don't have a dough mixer/bread machine the hand kneading will take 30 minutes at least. You can knead 10 minutes and rest for 5 to make it easier, but you still need to work the dough for 30-40 actual kneading minutes. Bread Machine Flour (I use King Arthur) is the hardest easily available flour in the States. If you are doing it by hand, consider just using standard Bread Flour. Tear off a thumb-sized piece of dough and flatten it into a disc. Stretch the dough until it's thin. Hold it up to the light with your thumb and forefingers of both hands and wiggle your middle finger behind it and look to see whether the "baker's windowpane" has formed. You will easily be able to see the shadow of your finger through the dough if it had been needed enough. If the dough tears before it forms such a thin membrane, knead it for an additional 5 to 10 minutes. (Double that if you are going it by hand. Don't worry about taking frequent breaks so long as you leave the dough lightly covered. Resting will help form gluten nearly as much as kneading will.) Pull the dough into a smooth ball gathering it at the bottom. Roll the pizza dough, gathered portion at the bottom, into a smooth ball on the countertop. Cup your hands around it and move your hands in a circle swooping the dough in the space confined by your hands. Place it into a stainless steel or glass bowl. Add a couple of teaspoons of olive oil to the bowl and toss the dough around to coat both the dough and the bowl lightly with oil. Let it rise in the fridge. Place the pizza stone or tile onto the bottom of a cold oven and turn the oven to its highest temperature, about 500 degrees F (my 50 year old Caloric goes to 600 ). If the oven has coils on the oven floor, place the tile onto the lowest rack of the oven. Split the pizza dough into as many equal parts as you used cups of flour by using a knife or a dough scraper. Flatten into a disk onto the countertop and then fold the dough into a ball. AB says "Toss the dough in the air if you dare." This is fun- use the backs of your hands (and turn any sharp rings toward your palms so they don't tear the dough). Just keep your eye on the dough when you toss it. The point is to give it a spin so that physics centrifugal force thing will stretch it for you. If you get it stretched where you want it and it contracts on you, let it rest 5 to 10 minutes and reform it. You can work both/all the rounds in order in this way and they will all get the rest they want. Shake the pizza on the peel to be sure that it will slide onto the pizza stone or tile. (Dress and bake the pizza immediately for a crisp crust or rest the dough for 30 minutes if you want a chewy texture.) If you want a thicker crust, shoot for about a 10" pizza. If you want the thin crust, shoot for 12". I heartily recommend that you try it that way at least once though- stretch it to 12" AND let it rest a half hour. You probably could do a larger pizza with double dough, but until you get the hang of it I advise working out your style on the smaller ones. (<== Speaks from experience.) Instant Yeast As a final note, my pizza stone lives in my gas oven. It increases the heat mass and will help stabilize the baking temperature for anthing I bake. Hope this was useful and thanks to Alton Brown for finally making a pizza dough recipe even I can make (I am an uber-sucky baker.)

Noodle

I'm just a dumb girl, but I was always a tomboy and my dad sort of insisted that I (1) have a Barlow knife (like Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn- I forget which) and (2) I learn to use it safely and (3) that I learn to sharpen it. My favorite knife is a carbon steel parer (5") that is built like a mini- chef's knife. It holds an edge well if I use a steel on it regulalry. I store my knives on a magnetic rack (ya, ya ~ get over it) over my sink and cutting board. The knife, which came from my cousin, is prolly 20 or 30 years old. It is darkened from its contact with acids, but it is not rusted or pitted. After I use it I wash it off, dry it on my hand towel and put it back (gently, spine first) on the magnet. The only thing I oil every 6 months or so is the wooden handle (Mazola is our friend.) It is just not a pain to tend. It does not need "sharpened", just honed. If I take about 30 swipes of the steel at it is is sharp enough to slice through the skankiest tomato with no mess. ( Do you get the impression that I am not good about honing it each time I use it? ) I detest the stainless steel stuff because I can't sharpen it. I'm too ADD for the 2 hours it takes (me) to get a good edge on stainless. I vote for carbon all the way. However, if you want to sharpen a knife at home, I heartily urge you to use Lansky Sharpener. (Note- this is en example of the product- I don't know anything about this site- shop around.) It maintains a solid, yet, adjustable angle between the knife and the stone and its progressive stones let you put any edge on the knife that you choose. It is an incredibly simple machine and it does fantastic work. I got my kit in 1980 or so and they have just gotten better since then. With this bad boy, I took a crappy old knife and put an edge on it I could shave my arm with. I don't care how impared your muscle skills are- if you can use a knife, you can use this sharpener. /end testimonial But why bother when there is carbon steel in the world? Oh, and don't buy the new stuff- hit an estate sale in an ethnic neighborhood- where people still cooked in the 50's. They have good carbon steel knives. $1.00 each.