balmagowry

Do we detect a theme here? I think I'm the only person in the world that didn't own any of Julia's books Good heavens, then replace that with a ! How wonderful to be able to look forward to reading all those for the first time! Or even if you've read them or dipped into them before, owning them is a whole different gig. When they're yours you can gloat and savor whenever you feel like it. You'll usually feel like it. I don't have the newer ones of those, but I can't remember a time when I didn't have Mastering the Art and when it wasn't my primary bible for any question of technique or appropriateness. (I also have one of the "French Chef" collections, and that is sheer fun reading.) This is an occasion for rejoicing. Put on your party hat!

Funny - although I too thought mayonnaise was a proprietary mystery of the Hellmann's company when I was a child, I had the opposite experience with vinaigrette. I don't think I knew that you could buy salad dressings in a bottle - no, I must have known it from TV ads, I guess, but I couldn't understand the point: far as I was concerned, vinaigrette was something you made at home, in an old jam jar. Speaking of TV ads - remember Anna Maria Alberghetti and that whole Good Seasons thing? Never thought about it before, but what a scam! You pay your money for their special bottle and their packets of stuff... and then you have to put together the oil and vinegar yourself anyway... so you're paying them for the privilege of making your own dressing. Now there was a piece of marketing that really understood its target audience! Women back then didn't want to be told that they could just make their own fresh from scratch - too scary - but they did want to give themselves and others the impression that they did so. So they totally bought into the deal. Such a business! Is this a great country or what!

It occurs to me that if you're making this at home it might also lend itself to a slightly less formal - though still spectacular - presentation. I bet it would be pretty simple to adapt the recipe to make one big cake rather than individual ones. Sometimes for a small party one large handsome cake is just more impressive. I don't know exactly how you'd have to adjust the baking time - but wouldn't it work in a bundt-type ring-mold version? use the tuiles as petals so that the whole thing is like one big daisy. If you're clever about spacing/placing the ganache balls in relation to the pattern on the mold you can probably cut and serve it without giving away the "surprise" until someone actually puts fork to slice. OTOH, depending on the crowd and the occasion, it might be fun to have the ganache contiguous all round - the serving process wouldn't be as neat, but it would have a wonderfully generous look and feel. The only reason I can think of why it might not work would be the density of the cake; I assume the individual ones get some of their structural integrity from the crusty edge. I suppose without that the cake itself might be too fragile to work as a reservoir. Still... I'd sure be tempted to try it! Oh all you experienced real bakers out there, what do you think?

Same here, though as a rule if I'm at a white-tablecloth joint I'll be more inclined to trust the dressing; and/or the server's description of same. My problem with most dressings is that they are much too sweet for my palate; I don't sweeten my own at all, so even a subtle touch of sugar can be enough to ruin a salad for me. In which case... I'll have to send it back after all.

Started the evening with The Keifel Cocktail ... as discussed on the Ms. Victoria's foodblog thread (recipe in this post). Then, inspired by the newly-arrived Cesar cookbook (delightful spoils of victory from Round 19 of the Smackdown), Shrimp with Saffron Aioli. Sorry, I forgot to photograph the spinach....

Am I the only one who went straight from this post to eBay and immediately started monging these? I expected you'd all be there bidding them up, but in the event I was the sole bidder on the one I bought, for a very reasonable 6 bucks and change. It arrived today, just in time to squeeze the lemon for the saffron aioli I wanted to experiment with. No wonder you love it! Man, I thought I had some pretty good lemon juicing equipment, but this beats everything I've tried. Besides, it looks like all the other gadgets I remember from my childhood. Instant nostalgia. Thanks, Smithy!

. Very well, then. Behold in all its simple glory... The Keifel Cocktail ... a work in progress, but already rather tasty, if I do say so. (Ironically, when the time came to try this I was a bit more constrained myself than I had expected: a minor spot of car trouble has made me wheel-less for the weekend, so I'm on my mettle to feed myself as best I can from what's at hand. Ain't doing too badly, either, but that's a story for another thread.) Proceeding from the premise that you had tequila but lacked the makings of a Margarita, I took the liberty of hoping that you might normally have a little orange juice around the house. I've kind of lost the OJ habit myself, so - I confess! - I made up a small amount from the emergency can of concentrate in the freezer, and it worked very well. My first thought was to call for a small lump of sugar, but I didn't happen to have any around myself and didn't figure you would - so I used about 1/2 tsp ordinary white sugar. I'd be willing to bet, however, that your special grey sugar would be a brilliant substitute. I don't have any of the fancy mixologist tools or the experience to know for sure which ones would be appropriate to this particular mixture - we can ask our local experts about this later. The formula, then: equal parts tequila and orange juice - I used 1 shot of each 2 dashes Angostura Bitters 1/2 tsp sugar (adjust to taste) plenty of ice Stir (or shake in shaker maybe?) until thoroughly blended and well chilled. Garnish with lemon, if available. (NB I like a nice little chunk of lemon, and I like to squeeze/twist it to get a touch of both juice and oil - but again, the lemon garnish was a flight of fancy on my part - YMMV.) To your very good health! Respectfully submitted....

Thanks for the explanation! Yeah, the reason I'm not sure whether or not I have one of those cream jobbies is that if I do it was a gift I've never used - meself, I do all my cream-whipping by whisk or by mixer. But if I have it... that makes it, um, expendable. And if I don't... OK, here's my next idle curiosity (and it really IS idle - I'm curious about playing with this stuff but it isn't high on my must-do list, if you know what I mean). I haven't used the siphon in years, and I think I have two, which makes it sort of expendable. As you say, it's good for putting bubbles into things - assuming you charge it with CO2. But is there anything about the mechanism which limits it to that? The nitrogen canisters are the same form factor, and I assume the mechanism has roughly the same effect; that is, charging it forces the gas into the substance, also generating pressure inside the vessel. Depressing the valve on the vessel releases some of that pressure, and the pressurized substance with it. No? Granted that the formation of the nozzle might spray it in a somewhat uncontrolled pattern, still wouldn't one be sort of approximating the same process? Enough to play with? OTOH, I suppose I should also be asking how dangerous this game would be, huh. The siphon is an ISI model, pretty solid. I'm a little less solid, but would exercise due precautions if I could figure out what they were....

Hey, you two! Your necessity became the mother of my invention. After the other night I continued to ponder what you might have been able to make for a celebratory Cinco de Mayo drink given the materials at hand. (I had to guess a little as to the likely contents of your fridge, but, um, most of the ingredients are optional anyway....) And now, the sun being over the yardarm as far as my crazy body clock is concerned (hey, it's only 10:15 PM), I am drinking your healths in the newly-created... Keifel Cocktail! It is simple, light, elegant, subtly fruity, and deadly. If you permit, and if I am still standing after consuming it, later this evening I will post a picture and the recipe.

How sad! I wonder what enzyme it is, and whether this might be one of those innumerable problems that can be resolved by yogurt with a high active-culture content. The more I hear and read about it, the more thoroughly convinced I am that yogurt is a miracle food for the ages. And I'm sure by now you've seen enough of eG's yogurt-making activity and lore to know how easy and inexpensive it is to make at home (well, less so now, since the increase in milk prices, but all the more important then that it's so much cheaper to make than to buy!). I'm not consistent enough in my habits to be a good test subject for its full benefits, but even I can say that several annoying medical problems that used to crop up frequently in my life have simply vanished since I started eating yogurt regularly. One friend of mine not only swears by it but recently told me something that dovetails curiously with what you say about coffee. She has for many years suffered from an exotic GI parasite picked up on a trip to Turkey, and it's been a saga - years to hammer out a diagnosis, years to research treatments, the upshot being that there is some kind of pill that kills the thing but you can't get it legally in this country and even elsewhere it's pretty dodgy blah blah blah you get the idea - and then one day she told me that she thinks the thing is actually going away or gone, because of yogurt. The critical factor? That she had started eating her yogurt first thing in the morning, i.e. some time before drinking her first cup of coffee. According to her it has made an absolutely astonishing difference in the way she feels. Having seen what this critter of hers does to her when it's active, I can only say that if yogurt is really able to kill or even only suppress it, then it's a miracle cure indeed! It has certainly had a good effect on me - and I too am now eating it first thing in the morning, well before that first cup of coffee. As usual I've rambled on far longer, and much farther off-course, than I intended. But in my unscientific way I really do think this bears looking into - not just yogurt, but all those other related "good guys" that inhabit analogous cultured products. Who knows, one of these days you might find yourself eating bananas again after all.

Way-coolness alert! Looks like I'm going to have to turn on the TV and actually watch for a while, because I've just learned that the voice-over for the new Golden Oreos spot is done by none other than my dear friend (and sometime partner in crime, when we can wangle joint lecture appearances) Patrick Tull! O'Brian connection, for those who care: he is the man who has done all of the novels, unabridged, for Recorded Books. Um... food relevance... um, well, the Oreos... and Tull hisself is not only a very fine actor but also a damn good cook with a lot of restaurant experience... but, well... oh the hell with it, I'm just really pleased aboout it and I wanted to brag on my friend, so there.

OK, this time I can't disagree with a single word you say. Not one. Always one to stand up for the underdog, though, I will only maintain that the literature would be very much the poorer without those writers I worship. That they "could be writing about poetry or music in the same way" does not in my view suggest anything against them as food writers - though in fact I do think their writing demonstrates their relationship to food is a lot more intimate and specific than that. A thought which follows on from that and from what you say about which writers "more people today... are reading." I suppose you're right about that too, and I'm well aware that my defense of classics is lamentably uncommercial for someone in this business. And yeah, it's largely a personal trait: I also read Austen and Richardson and Trollope far more readily than I do any of today's crop of "in" and "hot" novelists. Fair cop, if that's an indictment. But... there's always a "but," isn't there.... But I think someone has to make an effort to counterbalance such trends, even in a small way, and to keep the classics alive. Look around eG - among its 11,000-plus members are many who love these older works and collect them and learn from them; and I am not the only writer who does so with an eye to informing modern usage and thinking. As I have said far too many times, no doubt, everything old really is nouvelle again. There's a place in the world for food writing that bridges the gap between the scholarly and the practical, especially if it does so in an entertaining and accessible way; that's my beat (or perhaps my off-beat!). M.F.K. Fisher obviously felt as I do, or she wouldn't have mounted such a tremendous effort to bring Brillat-Savarin back out of comparative obscurity. Ask Julia Child about Careme and Brillat. Ask Jacques Pepin. Those people care - and they ain't chopped liver. Hey, I'm in the minority, and I'm talking about the minority - in both cases the eccentric minority, at that - and I know it, so what else is new, and it's fine with me. But as long as I'm around, that minority will continue to exist, and no doubt it will be a pain in the mainstream ass or at least a thorn in the mainstream side, but you can be sure that that won't stop it from yelling and jumping up and down and waving its little flag - even if it's only a minority of one!

Do we detect a theme here?

Nothing wrong with it either, especially around here, especially when it's so relevant. Some of us, ahem, naming no names but if I did I'd probably be referring to myself, do it all the time. Eventually one overcomes one's shame altogether.

You know, I can't disagree with a word you say in this post except the conclusion you draw from it and present as a premise. Yes, it is certainly true that the vast majority of great food writers today and in the recent past are cooks, ranging from the competent to the stellar. Yes, the majority of food writing (outside of restaurant reviews) does include recipes. But aren't you falling into the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy? This goes to the very essence of my distrust of statistical relationships (you know, lies, damned lies, and...). If the majority of food writers are cooks it does not necessarily - logically - follow that being a cook is a requirement for being a food writer. For most kinds of food writing, perhaps. And maybe this is just yet another illustration of my premise that I'm living in the wrong century: perhaps it is more the case now than it was when my beloved and above-mentioned Dumas, Grimod, Cussy, and Brillat-Savarin were writing on the subject. IAC, I continue to believe that for some types of food writing - the historical, the philosophical, the whimsical, the artistic - a practical knowledge of cookery is not an actual necessity. It can certainly enrich and enhance - it often does so for me. But even for me there are situations where it need not, and does not, come into play at all. Think of Voltaire!!!! No cook, but what a deft judge of food and its fads! More currently, think of Barbara Wheaton, C. Anne Wilson. I know Barbara does cook - but in much of her written work on food that fact simply isn't relevant. I don't know whether Wilson is a cook or not, and I don't care: her work is valuable on its own whether she is or not. Think of Dorothy Hartley - her work is very charming and informative though not always accurate; her recipes, however, simply do not work. Same, by and large, with John Thorne. These are both people who write entertainingly and seriously about food and whose contribution to the literature on the subject I greatly value; but whose practical knowledge is to be taken with a great deal of salt. (Pity there are no disclaimers on their work; but the issue of people who mistakenly believe themselves to be accomplished cooks is a whole 'nother can of worms.) That said, I think it can be agreed that in order to do even non-recipe-based food writing it is necessary at least to have a deep understanding of, and love for, food and everything that goes into making it the marvel that it can be. To be sympathetic, in the oldest sense of that word, with the loving acts of food preparation. Otherwise it becomes a question of where you draw the line. Yeah, I'm a pretty good cook and gardener, but with one esoteric exception I know nothing of animal husbandry and butchery - I am only competent to work with the end products. I have some theoretical understanding of certain of the issues involved, and that's about it. Am I qualified, then, to write about methods of cooking meat? Yes, I think so. If I had never actually cooked a piece of meat but had always adored good meat and had read thousands of recipes and sampled thousands of dishes and worked closely with expert cooks and discussed their work with them at length - at the end of such a process might I have something worthwhile to say about meat? Yes, I think so. One of my current obsessions is the working relationship between Talleyrand and Careme. I've already run on about Careme, but one thing I've neglected to mention is that I think Talleyrand's thoughts on food and dining have a special value of their own, even though he never put hand to casserole. And at the opposite end of the sophistication spectrum, I'd give my eyeteeth to get Cambaceres's thoughts on the subject from the horse's mouth. A three-way debate among those men would be a spectacle indeed. As usual I have run on a lot longer than I meant to - sorry; think I'll take Blaise Pascal for my patron saint - and long after my real point has been made. Which is that it has certainly been demonstrated that the majority of great food writers are cooks; but that that does not constitute proof that all or even most of them have to be.

Funny you should say that. I too was fascinated by several of those things; am certainly planning to play with the powders (and I have not only a great $1 garage-sale dehydrator but also my blessed oven pilot light!) and... yes... I confess... I want to at least try that silly jellied martini thing... once, anyway. But the foam thing - I was wondering if something like that might not be feasible too. Somewhere around here I have a modern version of the old-fashioned soda syphon - takes those little CO2 cartridges, of which I probably have a few lying around as well. The effect would presumably be somewhat different, but it could be an interesting thing to try, no? In fact, I think I may also have one of those cream-whipping jobbies, the kind that uses little oxygen cylinders. So at least it's within the reach of home technology to aerate a substance; that is, oxygenate or carbonate it. Any guesses as to what the result would be like? and what sort of substances would be good candidates for experimentation? I'm not about to rush out and do it this instant, but it's an intriguing back-burner temptation....

All material on eGullet is copyrighted. Not only that; but there is practically no such thing as "not copyrighting what you're writing." Everything you write is copyrighted by default, unless you have explicitly waived copyright (in, for instance, a work made for hire). Not only do you not have to register your copyright - you don't even have to scribble a copyright notice anywhere on the work. You still own the rights to it. The only difference between registered and unregistered copyrights is the degree of legal leverage the former give you with the copyright office: if you've registered with them then their records of the circumstance will be available to you as evidence if you ever need to prove the copyright. (And I think - though my memory on this is fuzzy - there may be some other kind of legal support available through them. I should go back and read this stuff again....) Even then, violation is tricky to prove - but in theory your rights are as clear as the practical application of the law is murky.

Lemme guess. One of the guys on the double-date eventually became a writer for Star Trek....

Cinnamon sugar.

Has anything good ever been made of canned salmon? Oh yes - certainly. Salmon Kotletkii (as discussed in my foodblog) - in fact, I don't think I've ever made them with fresh. Delicious. I also make a good salmon loaf, and my mother's very last dinner was a spiced-up salmon patty sort of thing - as always, she had seen the recipe somewhere and thought it looked interesting; she wasn't up to cooking by then but she gave me the recipe and I made it and it was damn good. Sure, given my druthers I'd rather use fresh, but when you live 20 miles away from the nearest anything it's good to know you can make a very acceptable, more than acceptable, meal out of that canned salmon in the pantry. EDIT to add: a recurring theme here and elsewhere on eG - an awful lot of these things are what you make of them. Some stuff is good and some isn't, and an awful lot of that is in who cooks it and when and how. Like the not-always-apocryphal stories you hear where a great pianist sits down at a dreadful old clunker of an upright and makes it sound like a Bechstein grand. Most puzzling is when a good cook produces something bad and doesn't recognize the fact; nevertheless, I bet I could make a form of Salmon Wiggle that you would enjoy. Alternatively, if it turned out a real abomination I would neither eat it myself nor make anyone else do so; I'd order pizza even if I had to make a 45-minute round trip to get it.

Giggle. Check out the edit line on my original post! Oh, NOW she tells me. Hmph. Damn, I liked it better the way you had it before. Wassamatta you, aren't you the one who wanted snappy dialogue and cheap thrills?

Yes! and yes again! And for that matter, sometimes a lot of knowledge can be a dangerous thing too. Several people have mentioned that a dance/art/sports critic need not be a practitioner of his topic; in my view not only need he not, he can actually be handicapped by too intimate a knowledge of the subject. After all, look at it from a business and marketing standpoint as well as an artistic one: at whom is all this stuff really directed? The consumer, that's who. The customer. The audience. The public. That's a pretty broad range, and it can comprise any number of levels of sophistication. But ultimately the vast majority of these people are going to be a lot less interested in the technical and esoteric than they are in whether or not the meal or the spectacle is pleasing to them. I don't think I could ever be a music/theatre/opera/dance critic, precisely because I know too much - much too much. My view of those things is tainted not only by the obvious, i.e. intimate practical knowledge of music, singing, dance, etc. but also by my experience as a director, stage manager, lighting designer, stagehand. Rare is the production of any kind that doesn't give me dozens of reasons to wince or gasp in the course of an act - reasons which are simply non-events to any audience member but me. Sometimes that gives me a rarefied appreciation that is denied to most people (oh damn, how snotty does all this sound?), but more often it can all-but-ruin an otherwise pleasurable experience. Why spoil it for the other 3,000 people in the house? If I had to I suppose I could distance myself from the technical knowledge that would get in the way of telling audiences what they really want to know; but where's the satisfaction in doing that? I don't know exactly why this doesn't fully translate for me into writing about food. Shouldn't it follow that I'm equally incompetent-because-overqualified? Maybe in a way it does: certainly I would never trust myself as a restaurant reviewer. OTOH, certain specialized areas are fair game. I would never write theatre reviews for a regular audience; but I could write them for a designers' trade publication - an audience which could make good use of my arcane knowledge instead of being bored or embittered by it. I probably wouldn't be a good cookbook reviewer; but I consider myself competent to review Ian Kelly's book on Careme because the issue there is one of accuracy and comprehension - so again the special stuff I know becomes an asset and not a hindrance. But it must be hard for some people, some people here on eG for example, to set aside their own sophistication as cooks and to speak to the you-should-pardon-the-expression masses in terms they can understand and benefit from. Isn't it?

I think Daniel has hit upon the dichotomy I wanted to raise about the definition of a food writer. (BTW, Welcome, Daniel! I shall desire your more acquaintance, sir. I am indebted to you for your "Forgiving the Borgias," which made for marvelous back-story underpinnings when I was researching and writing "Dinner with the Borgias.") I would disagreee with one point, though: I think that under certain circumstances it is quite all right to publish an untested recipe, as long as it is accompanied by full disclosure. "This recipe quoted by permission from [xx]; the author apologizes for not having tested it personally because [yy]." That's clumsy, but one can hope that the circumstances themselves will dictate something more graceful or amusing. Now of course I am blanking on what I might consider a good illustration, but I can certainly see where full disclosure might also apply in the case of a food writer who is not a cook. "The author apologizes for not having tested this in person because of her well-known propensity for screwing up in the kitchen; hence her gratitude and admiration to [xx], who developed this recipe and who clearly does not share that propensity!" Or something along those lines. So no, for purposes of writing about restaurants - or those of my personal hobby horse, i.e. writing about food in history and literature - I do not think it is necessary to be a cook oneself; I do think, however, that an understanding and a practical knowledge of cookery can greatly enrich one's perspective as a food writer. For those who have mentioned MFKF as a "literary" food writer - which indeed she was - need I remind you that some of her most lyrical and literate writing recounts her own cooking experiences? OTOH, as mentioned up-thread, there are certainly some very fine food writers who do not cook, and I can't in conscience suggest that a knowledge of cookery would make them better food writers. As I said, there are food writers whose writing is enriched by their knowledge of cooking; but some food writing derives all the richness it can possibly use from other sources. Saki immediately springs to mind; no, he was not a food writer, as such, but in those stories which revolve around cooks and meals ("The Byzantine Omelette," "The Chaplet," etc.) he writes about food with a poetry, passion and humor that leave nothing to be desired. What a marvelous - if often devastating - restaurant critic he could have been! And if memory serves, Dumas was not himself a cook; neither was Grimod; neither, to all intents and purposes, was Brillat-Savarin (though he apparently had some natural kitchen skills and understanding). And the Marquis de Curry sure wasn't. Conclusive, no? A more complicated corollary to this question: if one is a food writer who cooks, or a cook who writes about food, does it matter how good a cook one is, or what kind of cook? And how much of the answer to that depends in turn on the exact type of writing one does? I am an instinctive mother's-knee-trained cook rather than a close follower of recipes; I know enough classic technique to get by and to improvise; I also know enough to know when I need to look something up, and I am lucky in having enough natural skill to be able to accomplish what I need to after so doing. By and large I think this has been a great help to me in studying/deciphering/translating/adapting the recipes of bygone eras, in which much of cookery shared those characteristics, and many critical details were so obviously common knowledge that no one bothered to write them down. (Favorite example: an 18th-c recipe for Frumenty which called quite specifically for a pint of cream, a blade of mace, a couple of other precisely measured ingredients that I disremember at the moment... and then said, "Then put in your wheat." The hilarity which followed in the Testing Kitchen is a story for another time.. but you see what I mean.) But it isn't always that simple. Up until now some 98% of my writing about food has fallen into the format comprising a longish historic exploration (or in book form a less-ish long-ish headnote) culminating in a recipe which I have reconstructed, tested and written myself. (Major exception: the do-not-try-this-at-home poison recipes appended to the Borgia piece!) But I'm venturing now into areas where my skills may not be able to follow: the fact that I am not confident of being able to reproduce his more architectural works is certainly not going to stop me from translating, adapting, and writing about Careme. Should it? I don't think so. The trickier question is: how, and how much, will those skills and that practical knowledge which I do possess be able to inform and forward the work? Will they be relevant at all? I don't know. The only answer I can muster to that is, "I hope so." They should, shouldn't they? If only in the back-story way that Russ talks about up-thread; even if unspoken and unused I like to think they lend a tacit sympathy to the work which is then somehow sensed by the reader. If one feels truly en rapport with one's subject... yes I do believe that comes across. One rarely sees the genuine article, though, and one of my worries is that in feeling that rapport I may be fooling myself as so many do (don't even get me started about Ian Kelly! or about the people who think themselves competent to complete the fragmentary work of Sayers, Austen, Bronte, Alcott... sorry, I'll stop now...), and just not know it. The only answer I can muster to that is, "I hope not." I sure as hell hope not.

Why, thankee. (And I too adore both deviled eggs - well, the devil part, that is; I can't stand the whites - and quiche.) But don't knock Cream of Frigidaire. I was just thinking I'm about due for a batch, and it suddenly hit me that I've never before made chilled C of F. Bet it'll be wonderful! and appropriate, and entirely different in nature from the cold-weather comfort food that is hot C of F. Boy leaving today for a couple of days; depending on condition of fridge I will either experiment while he's away or make it for him when he gets back. Thanks for the inspiration!

Works well with brandy, too, though I've never tried months of maceration (don't know if I'd have the self-control). In fact, I believe this, on the "First Drunk" thread, was one of my very first eG posts....