balmagowry

Straight to table, I hope. Don't know how much longer I can wait! :drool:

Don't see why not, Dude. Just write them out in verse, with a few deftly-chosen adverbs and anecdotes scattered tastefully about, and yo! instant riches (not including subway fare). Um, no. I've seen the patent documents on that one, complete with blueprints. But maybe you could, like, substantially improve it by setting it to music. Then you could get rich just renting out the orchestra parts. You might want to make the piccolo a separate deal, though.

Ah - OK, I see what you mean. Yeah, in that sense it is sort of squishy, insofar as it's open to interpretation. But here's another way to think about it: the real problem is the division of labor between the protectors of different types of intellectual property, and the fact that recipes straddle that divide. I don't know much about patent law (if someone here does, please jump in and set me straight if I get this bit wrong!), but consider for the sake of argument that a recipe in its most basic form is analogous to a scientific formula. OK, so you invent a new and unprecedented cake; in theory the cake is eligible for patent protection, and that patent is secured by means of a document containing the scientific formula for the cake's manufacture, i.e. the list of ingredients and the instructions that enable someone to put them together and reproduce your invention. That's theory - in real life it's got to be either impossible or damn near impossible to patent a cake; nevertheless that is where the dividing line falls: in theory your creativity as a baker, then, is protected not by copyright but by the patent protection afforded to the object which you have baked. The reason it is feasible under certain circumstances, then, to copyright a recipe or a collection of recipes has little to do with your creativity as a chef and everything to do with your creativity as a writer. I hold copyrights on a bunch of historic recipes which I do not claim to have invented - my intellectual property consists of the way that I have grouped them to illustrate certain points, the things I have written about them as a collection, and the things I have written in the course of adapting them for my purposes, all original content which transcends the spelling out of a formula. Here's a somewhat heavy-handed illustration. My mother and I wrote a recipe for a gratinee of lobster which was served in a particular historical context; we didn't presume to invent the dish itself, though we did combine some ideas from different sources to suit the scenario. At the end of such a recipe, one might choose either to discard the legs or to use them for garnish; we chose the latter course. OK, so what does the recipe say? If it said "garnish with the legs" it wouldn't stand much chance of copyright protection, because that is the kind of neutral language that belongs in a patent document. What it does say, however, is "garnish amusingly with the legs." That one word makes an enormous difference; first, because it has no place in a patent document - it doesn't add anything to the functional definition of the object; second, because it is a highly characteristic expression of our personal writing style. If you ever run across that combination of five words anywhere else, either it will be one HELL of a coincidence, or you will know that someone has read and copied - NOT what we made, but what we wrote. And that's where the copyright violation comes in. Obviously a lot of cases are less clear-cut than that one, and that's where things can definitely get squishy - equally obviously, the clarity of your recipes won't benefit if you are constantly preoccupied with stating their every detail in as original and characteristic a manner as possible! But you own the truth (in the sense that you have a unique personal experience of the process of invention) and you own your style and nuances, and there are any number of ways to set a personal stamp on the document. As long as you haven't forgotten the recipes themselves! She may have published them first, but she doesn't own them. If you have ever explicitly signed away your right to use and publish them yourself, then your position becomes dicey; short of that, though, you're in the clear as long as you don't copy her personal style and expression. And it sure doesn't sound as though you're remotely likely to do that. [EDIT: clarity]

The restaurant owners in those cases were right, alas, but for the wrong reasons. You may have been working for them at the time, but that didn't make your actual recipes work-for-hire; it made them unprotectable, as they were anyway, so the restaurants had every right to use and to publish them - and over and above that to claim, accurately, that they were created at/for the restaurant in question. BUT there's a converse to that coin: unless you have a specific contractual obligation that precludes it, you have just as much right as they do to use and to publish any recipe that you created. (Furthermore, you have a much greater right than they do to claim it as your own invention.) Short of such a contractual understanding, the only case in which either of you would have grounds for taking action against the other would be if one of you had copied the other's wording - i.e., what the applicable law refers to as "substantial literary expression." Can you explain what you find squishy about it? It seems perfectly clear-cut to me. In fact, the page of copyright law you cited agrees perfectly with my understanding of the whole thing (as well it might, since that is how my publishers originally explained it to me, and you can bet that they were working from the same document). I'm afraid that what's really squishy is the ethics of your former employers, if they tried to make you believe that they had exclusive rights to any of your work. In fact, even if you had signed an agreement to that effect, I suspect it would be unenforceable.

And I, with and in no particular respect, must most sincerely interject a technical quibble: that doesn't really qualify as battering, does it? I always thought battering required a batter; though I'll admit it's hardly consistent of me then not to insist that breading requires bread. It should, actually, but the fact remains that I sometimes let it slide and refer to this process as breading, whereas I guess I really oughta grow up and call it flouring. Flour pour!

It sounds sort of screwy, but here's how it works: the content of the recipe, i.e. the information contained in the list of ingredients and the instructions, is not copyrightable intellectual property; but the expression of that information, i.e. the language in which it's written, is. Gets tricky in the case of the ingredients list, because if two versions of a recipe are written to the same style requirement (say, both adhering to that contained in Recipes Into Type, which is what I happen to follow), you won't get all that much variation in the expression of the ingredients - the two versions could quite likely be identical without overstraining credulity. But if the language in the instructions is identical it starts to be too much of a coincidence. The headnote, note, and variations are where a writer really has scope for individual style and ideas, and where it would be easiest to demonstrate an actual copyright violation.

...and beyond. I don't know what the local commercial statistics say, but anecdotally at any rate the crabbing has been a good deal better, these past 2-3 years, in the Great South Bay than in the Chesapeake.

FWIW, they ain't running yet on the South Shore - soft or hard.

Like dogs and computers....

Nah - they ain't fileting nothin' now. But IAC they'd never have bothered with shad. What's the point?

Would Diana care to hold a master class in gutting and scaling? I'd pay money for that. Huh. Come on over, and I'll teach ya - take maybe ten minutes. I let other people do the fishing (I have my hands full with shellfish), but I can clean, scale, gut and filet like nobody's business. The nice thing about fish is, there's only so many moving parts - not a whole lot of anatomy to worry about, and most of what you don't want is all conveniently clumped together. Convenience food, really. Almost. EDIT to add: Here's a piece of our family language: anything (fish or otherwise) that is guaranteed perfect, done, just so, is called "thousand-dollar-fish." This is because my mother and her brother used to bet each other $1,000 on just about any point on which they challenged each other or disagreed, and when my uncle handed my mother a fresh-caught bluefish and she did the job on it, on returning the filets she'd promise to pay him $1,000 for every bone he found (and bluefish is a bit more complicated than, say, flounder - lots of little floating peripheral bones). I don't know whether they ever held each other to the $1,000 sum - generally I figure they didn't have $1,000 - but I do know she never paid him a penny in bluefish-bone forfeits.

Um... you infused it with real Thais, did you?

You mean... you don't remember?

You make batches smaller than 3 yolks? Sheesh, 3 yolks is barely enough for 2 people, if you take into account the amount I steal to eat straight with a spoon. Actually, though, my mother's db (which I hate, because unlike mine it ain't transparent, but that's beside the point) would be small enough for a single-yolker - smaller than that, you're on your own.

Don't know about pH paper, but I saw rennet yesterday at my local health food store. Dang, I was hoping to join in on this plan, but judging from the forecasts I've been hearing I suspect I'm going to have to be in the garden, desperately trying to catch up. Weren't for that I'd be volunteering to bring the rennet; but I can't imagine you'll have any trouble finding it in town. You're near Fairway, aren't you? bet you they would have it.

Thanks. Don't know how soon I'm likely to make them, so don't wait on my account. I'm not at all crepe-challenged, but it suddenly occurs to me to wonder whether these are really crepes or whether they're actually blintzes. I would think blintzes would make more sense, especially given the way they're supposed to meld with the filling. Does your sister (&/or did your grandmother) cook both sides? Oy, another thing to research.... BTW, it occurs to me that one possible solution to the Nutella problem might be to mix it in equal proportions with the cheese filling. Different flavor, of course, but it seems to me that straight Nutella might taste a bit cloying anyway, and might combine well with the other. Just a thought, something to play with. I think fig sounds wonderful. In my mind Palacsinta are always apricot, but for some reason I suddenly find myself imagining them with gooseberry. Yum.

But that is hardly the same thing as blood around the bone! EDIT to add: BTW I had no trouble with the link.

Damn right! Me too. But you guys make it sound so much more complicated than it needs to be. Why all the pre-melting of butter? And what's with all this using-a-bowl-like-a-double-boiler business? Why not just use a double boiler? That's how my mother taught me to do it, and how we both always did it (until I discovered the blender method, which occasionally tempts me...). I use a pyrex db for this and for creme anglaise and have never had a problem with either (except once at high altitude and once in extreme low-pressure system... but those were easily resolved and are stories for another day). If memory serves the proportion is about 3 yolks to 1/4 lb (1 stick) butter - I cut the stick in 3 pieces; put the yolks in top of db over gently slightly-more-than-simmering water, stir 'em together till smooth; put in first chunk of butter and impale it on tip of fork, then just stir and stir with the butter until it's melted away; same with other two chunks; when the last of the butter has melted, voila, there's your emulsion - just add lemon juice and adjust seasoning, stir a little more, it's done.

Just goes to prove: you can't ever trust 2-timers.

Oh me of little faith. Best damn yogurt I've ever had. Smooth, creamy, rich. Problem: can't stop eating it. Problem: have to fight off the cat during every bowl. Actually, it's surprisingly mild, considering the great tartness of the starter. Next time I may let it set a bit longer. But oh dear oh dear, how yummy it is. Thank you! At last a voice of reason and knowledge on this subject. Thank you, quit I will. But I wonder where that idea comes from and why so many people seem to believe it. What you say makes a lot more sense. OK, instant it is, if I ever try it - bought some last week, so may as well. There again, though, I wonder why all the recipes say it has to be non-. A puzzling world, it is.

Fi - where do you live? Climate can affect meringues. I live near the ocean, and I don't even try them during the summer - too humid. [typo]

Oooh I have to try this - I love palacinka. Can you explain what is meant by this?

How odd - I wonder what happened. Maybe it would have been better to keep the whey and mix it in with the rest? Well, my latest batch got delayed until today because, among other things (duh!) when I last posted about this I managed to forget that it was holiday (duh!) and by the time I went out to get ingredients everything was closed (duh!). Went today to get Brown Cow, and behold they didn't have any plain in stock. Grrr. Bought some Erivan instead, remembering that several people swear by it as a starter. Also located non-instant dry milk and decided I didn't feel like spending that much money on it given that I'm perfectly happy with the texture of the yogurt I've been turning out (except at the bottom of the container, but that's a different story...). So anyway, I whupped up a batch using 1/2 gal whole milk and the Erivan, and... 5 hours later it's still liquid. Feh. Does it take longer with acidophilus-only? Maybe it's with acidophilus-only (Erivan's claim to fame - makes quite a tart yogurt) that you have to be careful about whisking too much for fear of killing the cultures? Well, we shall see. If it doesn't do something interesting pretty soon I shall - well, I'll leave it overnight just for the hell of it, but I have a feeling that tomorrow's gonna be back-to-Dannon day. Shall try a batch with Brown Cow as soon as my local place gets some more in. Do you use the cream top (yum) and all? Or eat that part (yum) and use the rest? Oh, that reminds me. When I was at the health food store I also noticed a box of the dried kind of yogurt culture (good to know I can get it), and studied it, out of curiosity. Instructions on the package for making yogurt, etc., and then it said, for Creme Bulgare do the same thing but with heavy cream. How ignorant am I that I had never heard of such a thing before? How incredibly good does that sound? Did I buy a pint of cream to experiment with? You bet I did! But am waiting until I have some viable yogurt going again before I start to mess with that. EDIT to add: Never mind... it is setting, after all. I had poured some off in a small container, and that isn't setting, but the big ones are almost done. Go figure.

. . . is another man's poisson. I knew I could count on you for the Golden Oldie!

Hey, thanks - but remember, we don't have proof yet for 776BC - only About.com, which in my view is not quite authority enough. But I'll keep an eye peeled.... BTW re savory vs. sweet - looks like they started out as both, pretty much simultaneously. Which makes sense, considering how common it used to be to mix savory and sweet - sugar and/or honey with meat, etc. According to Dalby, it was a question of the type of cheese used; a salty cheese would make a savory cheesecake - a less salty cheese would be used for a sweet one. It works for me. (Oh man, those Jacques-Imo's foods look good, including that cheesecake - wonder how cheesecake-like it is in other respects, like texture. Love the "red-eye" effect on the creme brulee....)