Katherine

You spear them on a fondue fork, and roast them over a gas flame, just like any other marshmallow, only more colorful.

Baked Alaska isn't flambéed, it's baked. Decline of flambéeing technique is a related issue, though, I s'pose.

Never heard of a jelly on the belly doughnut. Is that a NYC thing? No fudgsicles? Sounds like a marketing decision in response to the fact that people like you and me haven't bought them since we were kids. The others reside in our cookbook libraries. I think a made Baked Alaska a couple of years ago, and it was well received. All these dishes are now considered to be old fashioned. I think it has something to do with the fact that we all have a clear idea of what they should be, which leaves less room for creativity on the part of the pastry chef. At the same time, they are 'unitary' in nature, and don't lend themselves to the current trend of 'deconstructivist desserts' - a scoop of this, a dribble of that, a cube of the other thing, a sliver of another, and a mound of that one, tied together in an artful theme.

I don't do espresso, but I roast my own, and grind them in a hand grinder mounted on my kitchen wall. Never again stale beans!

Steve P.- I wouldn't dream of guessing why you are so jaded. "Had you chosen the word "elitest" instead of pompous they would surely be ringing loudly." Wealth is not synonymous with elitism in my dialect, which is why I did not use that term. You put the words into my mouth, then you criticize me for using them. "...where someone who is without means ..." I find it interesting that you are making that judgment about me, without having any idea who I am, or what my background is. Does it make you feel better to think that I have no means, and you can dismiss me summarily? Isn't that elitist? We both know that Maddhur Jaffrey is alive and well. It just seemed bizarre to me that you think that French chefs 100 years ago are wrong not to have been influenced by your interpretation of the writings of someone who hadn't been born yet. "And I think the French would be much happier if 100 years ago they made a concerted effort to learn English. " No comment.

This thread clearly illustrates the current pompous bent of egullet. As near as I can get from this thread, Steve P. is trying to make the point that French food is irrelevant because it has failed to mirror all the changes in a certain narrow style of dining now popular with wealthy patrons. We can also say that French food was irrelevant 100 years ago, because what was served to discerning and demanding diners back then is not what is now stylish. And it was wrong then, because they chose not to learn English and read Maddhur Jaffrey. Gee, Steve, it's a good thing you weren't living back then. You would have been miserable, with nothing good enough for you to eat in the entire world. Too bad that in 20 years, all the things you like now will be completely irrelevant.

I find a campari and soda very refreshing with 3-4 parts of soda to 1 part of Campari. Add vodka if you want a drink that seems alcoholic. A sweet martini-3 parts gin with 1 part sweet vermouth, 1/4 teaspoon Campari, and a cherry-is the perfect drink. Sophisticated, but not self-consciously so.

If you roll it out some, and it won't stretch because it's too tough, it needs to rest and rise until doubled.

Fat Guy- Certainly in the area where you live, and in other large metropolitan areas, there are many restaurants which epitomize Great Dining: "Food as art for art's sake." They are frequented by patrons who desperatly seek to find the most fashionable dining room, the trendiest food, the most difficult to find ingredients and the most famous chef of the day. But you don't speak for the entire Western world here, or for the entire US. There are still plenty of home cooks here in the US. Home cooking is cooking at home for the people you live with and love. Imitation restaurant food served for a dinner party is never home cooking. If my daughter comes home from college and requests a home-cooked meal, I know exactly what she wants. She knows what she wants. If I serve a menu taken from a Star Chef cookbook instead of giving her baked chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes, fluffy biscuits, homemade stuffing, she'll be upset she didn't get her home cooking. This is food you can't get in restaurants in the US. You have to get invited to people's houses to eat it. Restaurants try to imitate it, but poorly. (New diner cuisine, anyone?) They end up having to do things like saturating the potatoes with heavy cream and butter, so people who aren't used to home cooking can still feel like they're eating in a restaurant. Which means that it really isn't home cooking if you get it in a restaurant, just a pale imitation. Just like in India.

I saw one of these at Sam's Club a while back, and I regretted not buying it until I saw it rated very poorly. It cooked extraordiarily slow, and unevenly. Too bad, such a good idea.

Humans are omnivores, regardless of how they may choose to change their diet, and for whatever reason. We do not have the option of making ourselves over into herbivores, even if we were to wish it sincerely and desperately. Pre-agricultural humans have always eaten meat (evidence goes back millions of years here), to the extent to which it has been available. Vegetarianism is a modern (ie, historical era) cultural invention. Pre-agricultural people sustained themselves on meat (consuming the entire animal), foraged leaves and roots, nuts, seeds, and fruit, if it was in season. The things they did not have available are new developments of the agricultural era: grains and beans in any significant quantity; and products of the industrial era: vegetable oils, and refined carbohydrates like white flour and sugar. Our biology has not changed in the past 5,000 years. If you examine the data that many dietary assumptions are based on, you would be surprised how limited the scope of the research really is. Some of the best data supporting common assumtions is "test-tube" in nature, and hasn't been successfully duplicated in human subjects. The prime study connecting protein intake with osteoporosis measured a limited number of subjects over a two-week period. Subsequent research indicates that the factors measured take a dip in the two week time period, and in fact it is necessary long term to obtain sufficient protein in order to prevent osteoporosis. The Japanese government is trying to get people eating the traditional diet to get more protein to prevent osteoporosis, and is recommending eating more pork. Studies linking cancer with diet usually forget to mention that for all the types of cancer that seem to be prevented by the low-fat diet, there are more excess cases of breast cancer. People on a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet have an overall higher death rate from all causes combined, including violence (murder and suicide both)! Maybe there's truth to the old joke: do you live longer, or does it just seem longer?

How would you make sake with the koji? Or pickles? At this point I'm just curious, so I'm only looking for the general techniques. Pickles sounds more workable for me, but does the homemade sake you make come out similar to a purchased sake, or is it a very different product? How much do you end up with? Is the process similar to beermaking?

I can't answer question 2 for you, but my take on question 1 is that usually, the things that we crave are the things that our body needs. If you start craving meat, it might be a dietary deficiency that's catching up with you. I read about a vegetarian triathlete who craved a steak one day. He ate it, and had a steak every day for a year after that, until the desire lessened. Now he is not so strict about meatlessness, and eats meat occasionally.

Put another way: To a person who likes their coffee with cream, skim milk will foul a cup of coffee without significantly whitening it.

One reason why these companies serve coffee at such a high temperature is that a lot of Americans put large amounts of lowfat or skim milk in it, and still expect the coffee to be hot afterwards. One woman I knew put about 1/3 cold milk in her cup, and thought the coffee should be held at about boiling, so it would be piping hot for her. I suggested she preheat her milk, and she acted like I was speaking a foreign language. People like that complain to management that the coffee's not hot enough, and the temp gets turned up. Who needs flavor in the coffee, anyway? When you put skim milk in it, it looks and tastes like dishwater no matter what it started as.

I am not a lawyer either, but it seems to me it would be difficult to get past the point that these companies are providing a product that people demand. The CSPI notion that all food producers and restaurants should suddenly stop providing foods that people enjoy and are willing to pay for and start selling only foods that few want or will buy is just bizarre. Totally aside from the fact that the science behind all these commonly accepted dietary notions does not show a really good correlation between radically modifying your diet in these ways and significantly extending your lifespan. If you are a person who has special dietary needs, then you should definitely pay heed to your doctor. For people not at risk to drastically change their diet in order to, say, reduce the national average cholesterol reading, would result in people at the low end falling into the danger zone. This makes as much sense as saying that all Americans should give up drinking, because some people have a problem with it.

I've seen this happen. A woman I know who was married to a man with a greek mother complained that all the family recipes she was given didn't work. I got her a few recipes from my cookbook collection, and she found some from other sources, and she had no problem with them, they all worked fine for her. I think what's happening here is that someone requests a recipe, the person who has the recipe isn't willing to give it out (or at least, not to the requester) and rather than refusing, alters the recipe so it won't work. She knows that the requester will have no way of knowing for certain whether the recipe was defective, or it was her technique. If asked, the writer of the recipe can say that the recipe is ok, making the requester look like an idiot. Also, the requester will have no way of politely inquiring why they were given a defective recipe. Finally, the requester will stop asking to be given those precious recipes. I think the dynamic of faulty chef recipes is different, as discussed above.

If money and space were no object, and I did a lot of toasting, I'd definitely get a conveyor toaster. http://www.bigtray.com/productdetails.asp!sku.APWATEXPRESS,catid.13220.html These babies are fun to use!

Freshly roasted beans do gas off for a day or two after the roasting. So, if you were roasting, you shouldn't store freshly roasted coffee in a tightly closed glass container. But, I think the valves are there for vacuuming excess air volume out of the package in the vacuum-sealing process.

I roast twice a week. After a week, the coffee's dead, and I wouldn't consider drinking it.

A pyrex measuring cup is not very romantic, but reasonably safe here.

There are several important points to consider here: 1. As Mark Stevens says, the alcohol needs to be at least 80 proof. 2. The alcohol should be gently warmed before using it (try setting it in a bowl of hot water). It's the fumes that will catch fire, not the liquid, and 80 proof alcohol needs to be heated to produce fumes. 3. The serving dish should be placed safely on the table before starting the operation. Everybody lean back! 4. Pour the warmed alcohol over the dish, and light it. After it burns for a minute or so, stir it to put out the flames, and serve. NEVER CARRY SOMETHING WHICH IS ON FIRE! A restaurant that required a server to carry a flaming dish from the kitchen could have unlimited liability if the server catches on fire. The whole purpose of the DR flambé is to impress the diners, and there's no reason to put anyone at risk here.

Can you really use that much koji in two weeks, or are you going to try and freeze it? "...saké, miso, shoyu, pickles, or whatever you wish." I'm a person who has had minimal exposure to the uses of koji. (OK, none) What might be the other things I'd wish to use koji for if I was in the know?

You keep referring to her martini habit as "vodka-swilling." Is it vodka or gin martinis she's into? (Not that I think either is appropriate for a fine dining experience.)

Try Magic Hat #9 when you're in the mood for a fruit beer. Not sweet, just a delicate apricot aroma.