kiliki

There's a new specialty shop near the corner of 65th and Greenwood (by Rudy's) called Agora. It looks like mostly Greek olive oils, olives, etc, but there are also good vinegars, pastas, etc.

I just pulled the Salted Prailine Langues de Chat cookies from this month's (December 2007) Gourmet from the oven, and they are outstanding. Highly recommended. Their unique shape and texture (prailine and salt topped) made a nice addition to my usual Christmas cookie assortment.

Union is having a 7 course NYE dinner that sounds lovely. Lobster salad, quail, seared scallops...I forget what else, but that will be our NYE dinner.

I didn't think the episode was that great. More and more he does these staged scenarios that to me just aren't that funny. His normal, natural self, and his normal reactions to new situations, are much funnier and more interesting than anything the producers can conjure up. But it seems like in the episodes that deal with less exotic places--the Tuscany one, and this, for example--they feel like they need to invent storylines. I enjoyed the cooking segment, and would have liked to see more of that.

So that's what it's going to come to for us, hmm? *sigh*

That takes the cake. Fantastic. Our stories of food thievery are too numerous to share and now we've got an even bigger problem--our 11 y.o. doberman/terrier mix can get into our freezer (it's on the bottom). He figured this out a few years ago and someone here suggested we get one of those cheap window alarms. It worked like a charm...until recently, when we came home to find an open freezer door, and dying alarm, and a sea of wrappers and chewed up tupperware containers. He gnawed off the childproof lock we put subsequently on it and after literally eating the entire contents of our freezer (mostly--he merely pulled the frozen spinach to the white shag rug and let it melt there), we are stumped. Right now we have it blocked by a spare tire which is too heavy for him to move but is constantly in our way, to say the least. And what's to keep him from figuring out he can open the pantry and garbage? Crating may be in his future (and before someone suggests it's boredom, this is a dog that gets a run most days, a long walk all others).

I also enjoyed the show more than I thought I would. As soon as Tre went for Betty's white chocolate stuff, I knew he'd lose.

I too have been meaning to make that Gourmet recipe since it came out! Junehl, thanks for the review.

I agree completely. Licorous is my favorite cocktail place these days, and it's a bit of a walk from downtown but walking up Pike or Pine is kind of interesting. They have $2 food pairings-just a couple bites to go with your drink. A lot of people are recommending Sambar and it's great (usually--I've had my share of surly service), but tiny and always packed, so if you take a cab all the way there you might not even get a seat. Ugh. Even in the height of summer Whole Foods stocks mostly California produce. Also there's much more to the Market than produce stands. What about a bowl of happy hour mussels at Maximilien Bistro (in the Market)? I haven't had them in a while so maybe someone else can comment but we have great mussels here (I like them much better than any I've had in New England), they're a great value and there's a nice view over the bay.

Either lightly grilled (summer) or broiled (winter) with a little garlic butter, then maybe a dash of hot sauce or oyster bbq sauce*, if I have it, when they're done. You can put them on a hot grill or in the oven whole for a few minutes, until they start popping open, to help with the shucking, if you like. We've been doing this almost every sunday since we get the oysters at the sunday farmer's market here. *I pick up a jar of oyster bbq sauce-kind of like cocktail sauce, but not exactly-when I'm at the Marshall Store on Tomales Bay, in Marin County, Ca (the epicenter of oyster growing in CA) and it might sound like heresy to some but damn that oyster bbq sauce is good.

They also knead it 10-15 times before the last rise. FYI, they use table salt, not sea salt. They also lower the temp from 500 to 425 when the dough goes in the preheated pan, then they take the lid off for the last 20-30 minutes.

They tinkered with the salt and everything else (sorry, I didn't mean to say that they just added lager and vinegar to the original recipe-there are other modifications). Yeah, I've added more salt than was called for in the original recipe (that was absolutely necessary!), and I've made a few loaves with other changes as well (I'd made Steingarten's recipe most recently). Those recipes were still not as good as the bread from my favorite local artisan bakeries.

The latest Cook's Illustrated has taken on the recipe. Their main complaint was the same as mine-beautiful loaf, zero flavor. They added 1/4 cup of lager and a little vinegar, and sure enough, the flavor is much better-slightly yeasty and tangy now. But, I doubt I'll make it again. The loaf still isn't as good as bread I can buy just a few blocks away. If I lived in the middle of nowhere, or in the kind of place that only has big chain supermarkets with bad bread, I'd probably make it part of my repertoire.

The size limit rule is obnoxious-it really depends on the size of the space. I have a favorite, very tiny, cocktail bar that I don't even like to go to with more than 1 other person. I have another favorite that's fairly roomy and has no trouble accomodating six people at one table. And I do frequently go there with a group of 5 others, since we we often go out to a nice dinner with 2 other couples, and we like to have good drinks after. Why should we be relegated to the crappy bars and badly made drinks, just because we are 6? Should good restaurants impose this limit too?

What kind of pie plate are you using? When I was younger I had soggy crust problems, and people suggested all sorts of egg washes and crust formulatinos to help me. None of this stuff worked, and it wasn't until I stopped using a ceramic pie plate that I stopped having issues. If you use a pyrex, see through plate, you can just pick it up and look underneath to see if the bottom is brown enough. If it's not but your edges are brown, just cover those with foil and let it keep baking. If that's what's happening I wonder if you have a problem with your oven heating really unevenly.

You can add the Alsatian Apple Tart to the master list of what's been made. I did like it, but it didn't get the raves (I made it for thanksgiving) that some of the other desserts in the book have gotten from family.

Is this about wanting it to just look clean or to actually be really clean? If it's the former, there are lots of types of flooring that don't show dirt or stains (at least they're good at hiding them until it gets really bad). Marmoleum, slate and slate-like tile...check out your nearest tile/floor store, there's quite a few options.

I just finished Kathleeen Quinn's The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry, about a woman who gets laid off from Microsoft, cashes in her savings and enrolls at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. It was enjoyable and interesting to read about the day to day life of studying there. And since we're going to Dordogne next spring, I read Michael Sanders' From Here You Can't See Paris. This is from 2002 but I just heard of it on the Slow Travel website, and it was a great look at the struggles of a restaurant in a small, almost deserted French village (Les Arques) in that part of France. I'm now in the middle of Molly O'Neil's (ed) anthology, American Food Writing. I love the essays from the 19th and early 20th centuries, mostly because I wasn't that familiar with eating habits of time. On a less successful note, I recently abandoned Noel Riley Fitch's bio of Julia Child, Appetite for Life. That was probably the most poorly written book I've ever read. It was only that Julia's life was so interesting that I even stuck it out as long as did (until the Paris years-I read My Life in France already). Where was the editor before that book was published? Yikes.

I've only been to Presse once, and it was packed and certainly lively but not TOO noisy, at least in back where we sat. We didn't have to talk over the noise. (And damn that mushroom-pear soup was good, as was their special baguette).

I haven't experienced excessive noise at Le P either, even when it's full. (Funny, I haven't at Zig Zag either). Maybe it just takes one especially loud group to get everyone rolling?

I like India Bistro in Ballard quite a bit. It's nicer than your average Indian place in Seattle, and just seems to have brighter/fresher flavors than other places I've tried here. I could eat buckets of the green sauce you get with the free papadums they give you to start.

I've had such good experiences here (always on Fri or Sat) but last Sunday it seemed just like LMF's experience from earlier this year. Food and service were just okay, and entrees seemed overpriced for what they were. And, there were a bunch of hyper little kids--kids that couldn't stay in their chairs, kids that were loud, and one squawker who let out a piercing shriek every 90 seconds for two hours. If that had been my first time there, I likely wouldn't bother going back.

Ditto what Joe Blowe said. It's doesn't have more flavor, except that it has the proper amount of salt (the original Bittman recipe was undersalted IMO), but it makes a nicer looking, better rising loaf. Before you spend the money try making Steingarten's loaf (it rises more)--my first loaves, from Bittman's recipe, were pretty flat, and I used the right size Le Creuset.

I'm going to try that starter too--this bread is so easy, but for me, it just doesn't have any flavor. I haven't read through this whole thread to see if this has been discussed, but Jeffrey Steingarten's modifications of this recipe make a better loaf. His recipe appeared in Vogue but I'll be it's out there, online.

You might check out the America's Test Kitchen mixer ratings--some models they tested flat out died when they kneaded bread dough for more than a few minutes. ATK mixers