Abra

I love the bean idea. I have some Good Mother Stallards cooked up right now, but as soon as they're gone I'll do some black beans with pineapple vinegar. So, to be Cuban, a little sofrito too? Adding some to adobo is a brilliant stroke, too! As is using some on grilled pineapple, a summer favorite of mine. Mmm, I can see a whole menu developing around this ingredient.

How about a chutney with red onion and crystallized ginger? Or a spicy persimmon barbecue sauce?

Thanks, Jennifer - it's been fun hanging out with you this week!

I want to tell you about a use for beans that I hadn't previously imagined. Having accidentally somewhat overcooked my RG marrow beans, I tasted them and found them to be a soft, neutral, slightly sweet base for just about anything. I put some under a bowl of Thai curry, and another bowlful under some meatloaf, and they were exemplary in both cases. In other words, soft smooth marrow beans sub in for either rice or mashed potatoes just about seamlessly, which was really good news to me.

Here's a good one, if you can get cornmeal. Even polenta would work here. 1 cup flour 1 cup cornmeal 2 Tablespoons sugar (or less to taste) 1 Tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 egg, lightly beaten 1 cup milk 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil herbs of your choice (optional) Combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt, and any herbs in a mixing bowl. Whisk together the egg, milk, and oil and mix into the dry ingredients just until combined. Drop by spoonfuls over the vegetables.

That spiked meringue is really cute. What do you use to pull it out like that, and is the meringue extra-stiff to begin with?

I only use a tapered French pin, and like you, find it the easiest to use. It's like an extension of my hands, as opposed to a mechanical assistant. And I am SO glad to see that patch on your crust - makes me feel a whole lot better about myself! Oh, you put up those photos while I was posting. If I could only eat one kind of pie for the rest of my life, it would have to be cherry. I haven't had any in as long as I can remember. Yours looks delectable.

Thanks, HBK! I'm going to add the ginger and citrus rind to my jar now. I have no idea how much stuff is in there so far - that jar is at least 2 gallons, I think, but it's only half full.

The berries I added were a packaged mix from Trader Joe's. I think it was strawberries, blueberries, and cherries, which of course are not berries. As to the fruit measurement, maybe someone can give the volume measurement of ground soaked fruit in their recipe?

Right, you can't tell the difference. My husband is a cancer patient and has a tracheostomy as a result. Someone with a trach has to cough to clear it out, and does that often when eating, and it sounds pretty awful. He's been living with it for 5 years now, and I guess we're kind of used to it. I'm sure that a lot of people have been offended in restaurants, but thankfully no one has ever suggested that cancer patients aren't allowed in any restaurant we've been in. Cut people a little slack, folks. Very few people really want to be offensive. And as for those that do, I'm as likely as the next person to turn to the offender and ask them to take it outside, or subject them to a steady barrage of withering looks.

Wow Shaya, I think you've convinced me about the Rusticella d'Abruzzo. I've seen it at the market, looking gorgeous and deadly expensive, and never really considered that it might be worth it. This could be the month I break through that barrier!

Oh good, I'm looking forward to the recipe too. Will you be able to express the fruit in soaked weight? I have no idea what it all weighed before immersion. And since I love rosewater, that's definitely going in mine. Emma, when you get your browning, please tell us whether it's just caramel syrup that we could be making ourselves, or some secret elixir. I'm really stoked about this too. Next weekend I'm making cassoulet with duck confit that I put up last November, so having the fruit on the opposite cycle makes life seem more balanced.

Wow, I went a bit overboard with the fruit! After I dumped pineapple, apples, peaches, apricots, pears, cherries, raisins, prunes, and some dried berries plus a handful of good citron into my jar, one bottle of port and one of rum didn't begin to cover it all. This provided an excellent opportunity to dump all the odds and ends from my liquour cabinet into the jar. It's amazing how many little bits of port, brandy, and even some Triple Sec the fruit jar was able to handle. But only hours later the fruit is already popping up as it absorbs the booze. Do you think I need to keep it totally submerged, or should I just stir it from time to time?

I'm really looking forward to seeing how you put it all back together! And I have the book from your bakery, so I'm also looking forward to any special insights about the recipes.

I have my fruits, rum, and port, and am ready to go. Except: I can't see the picture and can't tell from the descriptions so far - do I grind the fruit before or after soaking? I also have some brandied (fresh) plums left from a batch I picked and soaked last summer. Do you think they'd be good in the mix? Or does it have to be 100% dried fruits?

Before I closed my business I was a member of the Personal Chefs Network for 6 years. Without saying anything about the other two organizations, let me say that PCN has a LOT of members who used to belong to one of the other groups. Yes, it helps a lot to be a member of an association, even if it's just for the first year. Personal cheffing isn't like any other sort of cooking, and so much work has been done already that as Ruth says, unless you're a wheel-inventing type, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by joining.

Yeah, grow some in a pot. It's basically a weed - I love to use it in Asian food where the flavors blend in perfectly.

I made the saucisson sec from the book and reported on it here.

Next time we're down there, ExtraMSG, I hope we can go to Pok Pok with you. It sounds like you know just what to order. Thanks for the Pix pix. It's been on my list forever too, and it looks beautiful. I love the look of that one that's like a bundle of tied cinnamon sticks, except I think it must be chocolate curls. It's very enticing, as are lots of the others. I wanna go there with Lorna, who is the best person I've ever known to taste pastry with. You can order 10 things, eat a couple of bites of each, and never have to worry about anything going to waste since Lorna can polish off all the rest. I'm 90% there with you guys on execution. The exception being that with an unfamiliar cuisine I'll give the execution a pass the first time around, like the one time I've had Lao food. I didn't care a rat's ass about the execution then, just wanted to navigate successfully through the menu. Another time, though, and I'd be a lot pickier. And I definitely won't order that chicken next time we're at Andina!

I'm interested in that maple cava dish. Is the salt added to maple syrup ? It reads like something that would be great on a little cheese plate with a tangy blue like Valdeon. And that pea soup is a cute idea, one I haven't thought of and will now want to riff on. I see why you'd focus on technique, since it's all part of a process of calibrating your own cooking, as opposed to a more touristical sort of gastronomy.

Ok, I have a thought. Me, I'd rather eat a good quinoa-breaded yucca root than another, however stellar, crostini with buffala mozz or piece of halibut. I think I'm more looking for "interesting" than "exquisite" in food. So that's probably a big part of the YMMV equation - expectation. When I eat out I want to eat something I haven't made, or don't or can't make at home, not necessarily a perfect rendition of something familiar. It's a different style of restaurant-going. I think I'll start being clearer on my reviews, to account for this difference and not mislead anyone.

Sorry you didn't love Andina! We've never been there for lunch, and we've only ever had one of the dishes you had, so I guess it's a case of YMMV. Ken's looks fabulous, as does Apizza Scholls. Those are both on our list for next time, as was Pok Pok, although I'm not as sure after your lunch there.

Since the question has come up about how to tell peeled from unpeeled favas, and since I didn't even know what I myself had in my cupboard, here's a look. This is after 20 hours of soaking. The white beans are after I peeled them, all the others are the unpeeled version. It's not a big deal to peel them, maybe a 15 minute effort, but if I can find them peeled I'll do that next time. I made FoodMan's recipes, including his pita and taratour sauce recipes. I did the pitas on a hot stone and they puffed into perfect balloons - the first time I've gotten pitas to make pockets reliably. However, the picture I took of them in the oven mostly shows how dirty the glass is, so I'll spare you that. Here's the finished felafel. I was a bit short on parsley, so mine aren't as green as other people's. The texture was fine and light, and they held together perfectly without the addition of any water. The added flavor from the favas is very interesting, sort of grassy, a bit reminiscent of cantaloupe. I really liked it a lot. I added quite a bit of Aleppo pepper to the sauce, which is why it's pinkish. Thanks for the lovely recipes, Elie!

It's so fun to see this all coming together, and the soapstone is indeed beautiful. My take on the light is that in the daylight shot I think it looks great. In the night shot where it's lit up I do think it clashes a bit, but it seems like the sort of thing one would get used to pretty easily, especially when you stop focusing on it critically, as you inevitably do at the beginning. Plus, if I'm remembering correctly, when lit it should look very comfortable with the floor color, so that's a thing in itself. But I am SO not a designer!

Well, you can make blood sausage as I did here, but it's a big commitment. Plus, you have to be nuts. I had a Vietnamese spicy beef soup with beef blood a couple of days ago - the blood was congealed into cubes, and I'm not sure how they accomplish that. It's good, though - tastes like liver. Pork blood is a lot more neutral-tasting.