balmagowry

Cool - thank you! Yes, I did some googling too, and while I didn't find anything as precisely to the point as those two discoveries of yours (have yet to read the grittiness link but I'm sure it will prove relevant), I did accumulate some ideas that made sense. First of all, I'm glad to have confirmation of the ratio of fat content to whey production - that's consistent, as it were, with several vaguer statements to the effect that full milk produces a "richer" yogurt (duh). Saw a lot of emphasis on cleanliness - or even sterility - of the containers; while I can see where taking this to fanatical levels might be too much of a good thing, still it wouldn't hurt me to be a little more careful about making sure they're really clean.... Also, everyone seems to make a big deal of rapid cooling after the milk has been heated. Fair enough - I can do that. Learned some more about the possible effects of over-setting - most of the sources I looked at said 4-6 hours should be enough. Curiously, the one point on which there was strong disagreement is the one about boiling the milk - I've seen everything from "do NOT allow it to come to a boil" through "bring to the boil and take it off immediately" to "bring to a boil and continue boiling 2 minutes." Hmph. Well, experience has convinced me of the good effects of the second approach, so I'm not going to mess with that. And I'm satisfied about the whey. So I shall read your reports closely, and shall also look to cleanliness and cooling by way of improving my general practices. And... we'll see.

I see. Sort of like a cookalong? "Here are tonight's ingredients...report back on what you concoct." There was a cookalong thread here somewhere already. Unfortunately it wasn't titled "This is the Cookalong thread" so I can't find it. Um - no, nothing that structured or iron-chef-like. Basically, I go to my market without any (well, without many) preconceived notions, see something I like, think, "Hey, I could build a meal around that," and then do so. Meanwhile, you do much the same. Later on, while Someone Else is doing the dishes, we each post to the blog thread, reporting on what we got and what we did with it and how we felt about it and all the other things people generally say in food blogs anyway. And ask questions like why didn't this work or what would you have done with this or I want to make something with this tomorrow and I need suggestions, etc. etc. blah blah blah. And react to other people's entries with advice solicited or otherwise and exclamations of delight or horror. IOW, pretty much an ordinary food-blog except that it's based on the aleatory and that it's - optionally - done communally. Not really very different from the way this thread has run already, except with a tiny bit more structure. For someone just learning, an opportunity to go at it hands-on and simultaneously soak up a series of ideas in real-time from a bunch of people; for someone who cooks by rote more than by instinct, a chance to learn something about relaxing and running with it; for a space-shot like me, an incentive to produce meals on a more or less regular basis instead of if/when I remember to get around to it! And as always and for everyone, yet another excuse for brainstorming about food. Yep. Spidey's theme song is on there. Better yet, it has theme to "Super Chicken" on it, too. Whoo-hoo! Life is good. Oh oh oh must have it. Title, please, please, please!

Dang, and you were my last best hope, especially after that masterly stroke with pulling the URL out of a hat!

This sounds like the eGullet Backyard Iron Chef idea that Chris is trying to get off the ground. It would be very entertaining! And/or the International Synchronized Costco Cookoff that someone else was organizing. Only I'm thinking this would be a little more laid-back, more in keeping with what can be accomplished as part of people's normal daily life - that being after all the original intent of this thread. With the other two I imagine half the fun is in being over-the-top and original; here the object of the game (to the extent it has one) would be to get in some practice at throwing together regular meals, maybe honing skills and comfort levels a bit, with regular reality-checks from fellow-sufferers. Kind of like a writers' group meeting periodically to read and discuss the stuff they've been working on. Or... Well, OK, maybe not like that. Yes, and the love of his life, Sweet Polly Purebread (?). You must have been reading the Exploding Dinner Rolls thread. PLEASE! It's Polly Purebred. Cool! Does it have Spiderman too? (Oh damn, now that's going to be running through my head all evening. )

Sigh. I need to revisit some of this tereritory in light of more recent results. Let's see; I logged my first, semi-disastrous batch, and my second, magnificent batch. I'm now eating the third batch, which has also been excellent, though a little different, and I want to compare notes on the differences. Both batches were cooked and mixed and incubated as nearly identically as possible, as regards method, time and temperature. Both used fresh Dannon yogurt as starter, same proportions. Both incubated in oven with pilot light. First batch was made with 1/2 gallon whole milk and was incubated in large pyrex bowl loosely covered with cloth, then decanted into quart containers for storage and use. Second batch was made with 1% milk and was incubated in the quart containers themselves, with their lids on tight. Those are the only differences I can think of. In both cases I brought the milk to a boil, then cooled it to about 110* (did the "finger test" too), whisked in the starter, set it to incubate. Both batches were smooth and had excellent flavor (I got an idiotic degree of pleasure from the way the second batch looked in its containers - all smooth and professional...). The first batch formed virtually no whey. The second didn't form any either until I started using it - after I'd taken out a serving, the next time I opened it there was a small puddle of whey. Pretty much exactly what you see with commercial no-fat yogurt - I don't remember whether commercial full-fat does the same. Also, the first batch stayed smooth and creamy throughout. With the second batch, I found that as I got to the bottom of the first quart the mouth-feel changed and became almost a little bit grainy. Top of second quart has been smooth so far; I haven't cheated yet and delved to the bottom because I don't know whether it would skew the result; but of course before I reach the bottom of this quart I want to have a plan of action for the next batch! I had intended to start using my own yogurt as starter, but I think now that I'm not there yet, not until I answer these two questions. I'm not actually unhappy with the whey - it's no more than I'm used to in commercial yogurt (and no more than my dog can happily manage with his morning kibble), but I would really like to understand what's going on there. I know we learned up-thread that bringing the milk to the boil is what suppresses whey production; but my gut feeling is that the difference between 1% and full-fat can't be a coincidence. As for the slightly grainy quality of the bottom of the second batch, I am wondering whether it has anything to do with incubating in the containers, and/or with sealing them during the process, since whatever it is presumably settled to the bottom before the yogurt "set." Thoughts? Sorry to keep beating a dead horse, but if anyone can breathe a little more life into it it's you guys! Any insights will be appreciated.

You know, I was thinking about this improvisational culinary lifestyle several of us have talked about here, the combination of personal staples and inspiration-of-the-moment, if one can so express it - and it struck me that this would be a cool basis for doing a food-blog. Maybe even a group food-blog, where several people commit to several days of this approach and compare notes as they go. Don't know if it would lend itself to a lot of rules and structure, though I can think of a few that might be interesting (limits on budget or prep/cooking time, number of stores - or store runs - allowed, minimum nutritional criteria, that sort of thing). But I bet it could be fun, and it'd probably be good practice even for those who already do it comfortably (but not regularly enough). And where was I thinking this? Why, at the market, of course, where inspiration struck twice - once in the form of a big chunk of fresh horseradish; once with a display of veal which led to an Underdog Grab: saw veal cutlets on sale and thought, nah, still too expensive for that quality of meat; then thought, but where there are cutlets there will be stew veal; then saw that not only was there stew veal but there was also (dirt cheap) so-called "bone-in veal stew," which to my eye seems to be sliced knuckle and neck debris. You can guess which I bought! In fact, it looked nice and fresh and very meaty, so I bought all they had and will probably end up freezing some. What I'm going to do with all this I don't quite know yet - hmmm, guess dinner's going to be late as usual - but I'm having vaguely braised-ish thoughts, or maybe something more like a highly informal mock-blanquette. With a few noodles, perhaps. Somewhere in the mix there will probably be dry vermouth. Wonder if I have any viable mushrooms? Oh - there's a little sour cream that needs to be used up. And to go with - I have an old endive or two, been kicking around too long for salad use, but will braise beautifully. Don't know where or whether the horseradish thread fits in all this, but it was too good an opportunity and price to pass up; undoubtedly, in the course of the next couple of days, I will find a couple of dozen things to do with it and will end up wishing I'd bought more. Anyway, there FWIW is another illustration of the thought process.... P.S. Speaking of Underdog - does anyone remember the cartoon by that name?

It might be a little on the cloying side, if you're using sweetened coffee syrup. I'd be tempted to try a big mug of hot milk with a shot of very strong espresso and a sizeable glob of DdL stirred in. But that does start to sound a little Starbucksy. Perilously so! I don't know, you may have a point about the syrup. Fortunately, it isn't as sweet as you might expect - at least the Coffee Time I'm using isn't - otherwise I don't think I could drink it in my coffee, which ordinarily I would never sweeten at all. I suppose if I'd thought seriously about it (and "I avoid serious thought like the plague"), what I had in mind was probably substituting a small amount of CT for a small amount of the DdL, rather than adding it to the glob of DdL - thus perhaps slightly lessening the aggregate sweetness of the result! But now, curse it all, I'm actually going to have to do it, because the question has been raised and will not be easily lowered again without some hard data to appease it.

Er, Mongo - sorry, but you're going to have to keep translating as you go. Please? So far the translations have been priceless. Shades of a project written by a couple of my college friends: "Eight Items or Less; a Supermarket Opera."

Hey, I went to school in Milton, MA!

Yup - and hey, we have military bases in Germany. Cultivate the right crowd and it might solve your problem. Well, this Long Islander is hooked - admittedly it's Coffee Time, which as discussed above both is and isn't Autocrat - but anyway, I'm hooked. Carolyn, have you looked for CT in your area and made a comparison? A couple of small decadences. I drink my morning coffee with milk, and I heat the milk separately; I don't sweeten. At least, I never did. Now I put a slug of coffee syrup in the milk before I heat it. Doesn't sweeten much, but adds... well, you'd have to try it, is all I can say. The other I haven't even tried yet, but I've been enjoying the fantasy. Thinking about the thread devoted to Hot Milk with Dulce de Leche, I mentally add "and Coffee Syrup" to the title. I could be wrong about this, but I have a feeling it's a ménage à trois made in heaven.

Y'know, this reminds me of something I've been meaning to post on the Useless/Useful Gifts thread. Mention of the Ove Glove reminded me that I had coveted it when it first came out; following the link reminded me that I hadn't indulged because I thought it over-priced. But on poking around further I found that you can get - on eBay and from various other discount-y places - knit Kevlar gloves, which are really the same thing, for a fraction of the price, and that's per pair. (Yes, there's another component to the OG, some other Dupont thing which starts with N or M and whose name I disremember and won't bother to look up right now, and it too is available a lot cheaper; but as I understand it it's the Kevlar that really matters.) Makes sense - they're used in all sorts of commercial and military applications - welding, firefighting, flying, etc. I was toying with the idea of trying a pair; only hesitating because of the mixed reviews people gave the Ove, but at the price, what the hell. Anyway, I'm wondering if this wouldn't solve your problem too. If it keeps heat out, it should be equally good at keeping it in. Not to mention that being knit it must breathe at least a little, so it might be easier on your hands in hot weather. 'Course, you'd be giving up the fetishy look for something a little more... dorky... but it might just be worth it.

Almost certainly Preiselbeeren; they are a classic accompaniment to Reh (farmed venison). Mmmmmmm... Reh mit Preiselbeeren... it's been too long. On the horseradish front - who knew? I just found out we have a local Horseradish Festival! Infuriatingly, I didn't know about this until I read in today's paper that it had taken place yesterday :grrr: - but I'll be on the loookout for it next year. Have not grown horseradish myself, but my neighbor has a plant which has survived the demise of her other gardening projects. Hmmmm, maybe she'd like to arrange for it to go to a good home. I should ask her. At any rate, I should pull some for immediate use - all the recipes above are making me drool. Mabelline, I know I'll feel like an idiot the moment you answer this: what's SOS? Oh, wait - Shit on a Shingle? Duh. Never mind. Sounds wonderful!

Nope, nobody can. That's the point - one also missed by Mayhaw Man in his remarks about pie crust up-thread. See, these nemeses have nothing to do with skill or knowledge or lack of either; they're Bad Juju, is what they are. Your ability to make the cookies under a different name and assumption is a case in point; so is my second-chance-perfect pie crust. I'm no fatalist, as a rule, but some things are meant to be and others ain't, is what I figure. (But I still like to tell myself that if I made pie every day I'd make a perfect crust every tiime....)

Ah, shucks.... Thanks, Beans!

I've also done it with broken spaghetti/angel hair. In fact, I've combined same with rice. Voilà - home-made Rice-a-Roni! with only thrice the effort, and it only tastes about ten times better. But the principle is the same. (Also goes to confirm that even the timing matches that of risotto.)

Whoa - does it roll them out for you? My cuisinart doesn't, and rolling's where I run into trouble. If it's mixed right, rolling's the easiest part. There's a big pie crust tip. Oh, it's easy enough. But until the second batch.... Wait a minute, I like this. What you're saying is, it's the cuisinart, not me, that forgets how until it's had a practice run. I can live with that.

Welcome to eG! I just wanted to chime in with my sympathy re the mental clutter; I bet more of us share that problem than you might expect! As for putting together great dinners night after night, I think I have it less together now that I'm working from home than I did when I commuted full-time. I suppose it's really true that the busier you are, the more you find time for and get done. In my case it's also that having a flexible schedule is in some ways a dubious blessing - all too easy to get focused on something and just sort of... forget to look at the clock until... "hey, honey, I think it's kind of too late to get started on dinner, do you mind if we get take-out?" When it does all come together wonderfully, though, usually at least one of these conditions obtains. 1) I have planned a specific menu for a specific occasion and done it far enough ahead to have done most of the shopping and organizing for it before panic time 2) on more day-to-day occasions, I have carefully refrained from planning until I got to the market 3) I've thought ahead enough to assess what's in the freezer and what I'm in the mood to do with it Of course, these can be mixed and matched. For instance, #1 and #3 are always subject to sudden change inspired by #2. A good market rarely fails to produce some kind of inspiration - in fact, one of my local Stop & Shops, of all things, has such a consistently great reduced-price-produce shelf that I call it "the Inspiration Rack." Doesn't sound like haute cuisine, I know - but hey, one day I walked in there and they might as well have hung a neon sign above the thing saying "Here's everything you need for weeks of ratatouille." Instant change of menu. At the other end of the produce spectrum, one menu I thought I had cast in stone suddenly got derailed by the first young asparagus of the season. Usually, though, I find my inspiration in the meat department. Walk in there with mind a complete blank, stroll along the case and spot a couple of lamb shanks. Poof! Right away, I know, in fact I can picture the whole plate. Grab some fresh stuff for salad, and everything else will come from staples or from the garden: white beans; maybe a tomato or two (I always have some in the freezer); rosemary; garlic; wine.... (I also have a great weakness for low-brow cuts of meat - dunno if that's empathy with the underdog or if I just have plebeian tastes... but I get a kick out of taking something unpopular, "despis-ed and reject-ed," like breast of lamb, and making something adorable out of it. Trimmed, braised with vinegar and lots of rosemary, served over rice. Something about that scenario just talks to me. Sow's ear - silk purse - squeeze a good dinner out of just about anything.) Fifi is completely right, though: get to the point where you're comfortable with some basics that work well for you, certain habits you can always fall back on, a few dishes you can do without having to think about it; to some extent this will dictate what staples you stock. For instance, I am never without the components of a risotto or pseudo-pilaf - texture goes well with a lot of things, flavor can be adjusted to complement the inspiration of the evening. (OK, so on those impromptu occasions I may have to use canned chicken broth instead of my own stock. So? That's what College Inn is for, and it can mean the difference between a proper meal and a scrounge.) Yeah, it's great to have lots of cookbooks and lots of ideas and to keep trying new things; but don't expect yourself to do that for every dish, every meal. Develop a standard everyday repertoire, adjust and evolve gradually. I always have a couple of favorite no-brainer preparations for any cut of meat I run across; every now and then one of them will get displaced by the latest epiphany; and so on. Hmmmm - I just noticed that while I've been rambling on and on here (lamb, rice, lamb, rice...) Lorea has said much what I intended to and a lot more succinctly. Almost canceled this post altogether, but then reflected that as much as anything it reflects a mental process, and that may be what's important. Different people handle that different ways; if you really suffer from mental clutter there may be something here that will resonate with you. So, FWIW....

What? Hie thee right away unto ABE - that'e where I got my copy a couple of weeks ago. In pristine condition, $2.00. Shipping cost more than the book! I just looked now and they're listing some 20 copies, starting at $4.50. EDIT for clarity

Sorry. Doesn't ring a bell. Is she from Texas, Georgia, The University of Georgia or Johnson & Wales? Well, I knew it was a long shot. U of G, recently retired; but now I think of it, though she is also a German scholar she would actually have been in the History dept. - post-grad at that. Never mind.

Whoa - does it roll them out for you? My cuisinart doesn't, and rolling's where I run into trouble.

Pie crust too, but with a twist. I can make quite a good one, but never on the first try. I suppose this wouldn't happen if I made pies more often, but somehow... I always insist on making pumpkin pie, just so, at Thanksgiving, sometimes another at Christmas, and rarely make a pie at any other time; this gives me anywhere from 10 to 11 months to forget how. So on the night before Thanksgiving I routinely have a pastry crisis. In fact, I schedule it: "Sorry, I have to go home now and have my pastry crisis." Sure as hell, home I go and put together a promising batch, only to wreck it, gradually and irretrievably, at the rolling-out stage. 'Long about 10 PM or so I give up, throw away the whole mess, and start fresh. Midnight or so - again sure as hell - out comes the pie from the oven, complete with perfect crust. (And I even remember to make little stars and teeny stars out of the scraps and to bake them less than I do the pie; place 'em on it just before serving - very pretty. Bake the rest of the scraps just for ME; sometimes I think I'd rather eat plain pie crust than the most elegant pastry ever made.) And I don't wanna know from power of positive thinking, neither! Tried that. Never made a damn bit of difference. Psyche myself up, psyche myself down, doesn't matter a bit 'cos you can take always take this to the bank: Crust #2 never fails; Crust #1 never fails to fail.

Ha - found a few labels, though precious little other info. Celliers de Meknes does have a web site, but it appears to be down at the moment - not too promising. Anyway, I was conflating two different wines, and there were three altogether which caught my fancy. The mysterious Cuvee du President - at least, it seems mysterious to me now because it doesn't seem to have anything in common (not even nationality) with the one turned up by Google just now. Then the Celliers de Meknes Cuvee speciale - blast, torn label, no further details. The third was also from Celliers de Meknes, but it wasn't really a rose - Guerrouane gris Trois Domaines. There is in fact a Gerrouane rose, much heavier and sweeter - it's the gris that was so "crisp," and no wonder! (I also stumbled across this note from last September which suggests they've been having a problem with "maderisation" - can only hope it's been, or being, overcome.)

Merely that the French don't cap names the same way we do, and I have known some of them to take umbrage at seeing anyone do it differently, even in other languages. "C'pas français, ça!" That attitude, if not necessarily that style, is pretty much uniquely French, and I was just wondering if anyone had run afoul of it in this context. Spose for anyone who takes that view it would just get lost in the general assumption that anglophones probably don't know anything about wine anyway. Still - the old-school thinking dies hard, I've noticed. Ah, yes - but try telling that to a Frenchman!

Wow - I didn't know about it, and I feel as you do about "this stuff." Thank you for posting it! Hmmmmm.... It sure looks like maize. Though perhaps to the modern eye it would be more convincing if it were accompanied by the characteristic husk and silk. Then again, that's probably just the modern sensibility talking; in a formal setting like that it probably does make more sense to have it all clean and perfect. How utterly enthralling.

Second the motion on every possible count (including being a proofreader with a damned good eye ). One other tricky stylistic point - all the trickier perhaps for being open to interpretation in the matter of varietal names. The correct style in French is not to capitalize any of the words in a title except the first; if that is an article then one also capitalizes the first noun as well as, of course, proper nouns. The question that arises, then, is whether or not to treat varietal names as proper nouns. Actually, my instinct says yes, partly because of lowercase just looking wrong, but also because of the Frenchman's deep veneration for the grape. Still, there has got to be some potential for stylistic anomalies here somewhere. Dang, I'm trying to think of good examples, and of course they've all suddenly fled from my pea brain except for some feeble literary ones. Dang. Well, OK, then, here are a couple of feeble literary ones (maybe someone with a less wobbly brain can suggest some appropriate ones for wines): what in English would be capitalized as The Black Tulip and The Red and the Black, in the original French are La Tulipe noire and Le Rouge et le noir. (Hmmmm, what is it with this preoccupation with black? Am I "in mourning for my life"? Nah, just free-associating.) Lame and inappropriate examples - not to mention that the whole thing is probably moot for someone writing in English. Still, even that might depend on the audience.... Thoughts?