russ parsons

hey kent, couple things: cooking Spanish chorizo isn't exactly sacrilege, but it sure isn't necessary (ahem ... there are semi-cured chorizos that do need to be cooked, but most of them don't). thanks for the report on the iberico products, though, i've got to check them out. as for the cacciatore ... Columbus makes two types, one with truffles.

uhm, i think light cream IS half-and-half.

just saw this. i'd run into the same thing: sweet potatoes lack the starch that regular potatoes do, so they won't thicken the cream. the best result i had was from baking the potatoes separately, peeling and slicing them, then moistening them with cream and sprinkling them with gruyere and baking again briefly.

yeah, huntley dent really hit a home run with "feast of santa fe". that came out when i was still writing there. made me very, very jealous. there's also an interesting old book by erna ferguson, think it's called "mexican cooking", but it's new mexican. edit to add: if you want "santa fe cuisine" as opposed to authentic, the coyote cafe book is good, but i like kathy kagle's book from cafe pasqual even better.

i think there was a long thread on this a year or so ago. i've always got 2 going: a red wine to vinegar and then a vinegar that's finishing (my tries at white wine vinegar have not been as successful--they seem to get oxidized much more). no special equipment necessary, i use ice tea jugs from the grocery store.

great report kit! nothing like actually trying things out. i'd love to find some kind of technical breakdown on cooking of apples--on what makes them hold their shape and what results in what kind of texture. i do have one piece of food-geek apple trivia: the difference between juicy and mealy apples isn't moisture content--it's how the cells are "glued" together. juicy apples are tightly bonded so when you bite into them, the cells break. mealy apples are loosely bonded so that they break at the cell line, not leaking any juice. geeky enough for you?

i just call them mine. hey, i don't carve in the kitchen for nothing!

I would love to go to Ralph's in S. Philly. But, my dining companion wants more upscale and is a vegetarian. I have a reservation at Pasion. Fork would be a good option, too! ← god, everything they say about us is true.

if i was visiting, i'd want something i couldn't get anywhere else, not just the fanciest restaurant in town. i remember the last time i visited philadelphia my absolute favorite meal was scrapple breakfast.

you're joking, but that does seem to be the essence of several countries' national policy.

so you see it as a choice between "total collapse" and "everything's ok, proceed as usual"? seems kind of reductionist. i don't know of any responsible fisheries management people who would argue that we aren't facing serious problems that need to be addressed.

c'mon kit, that's not fair. you KNOW a great cook can make almost anything taste good. even a red delicious. now, if you were to do TWO tartes, one with pink ladies or maybe even Gravensteins ... now that would prove something.

hmmm, are you saying that if there isn't agreement on a statement, the statement is false? sounds a little like the anti-evolution crowd to me. for the most part, contrary to what seems to be the accepted opinion, much of science is not so much a set of facts that everyone agrees on, but a method for conducting an informed discussion ... sometimes argument. informed disagreement is encouraged. once you get past the fundamental level, i suspect there are few things you'll ever see all scientists agree on. therefore, i don't think scientific disagreement is a valid argument for falsity.

there's a decent place at the end of the avila beach pier called the old port inn (or olde porte inne ... i'm not sure). good seafood (much of which you can see being unloaded on the pier) and good local wine list. if you go a little further north, you're at morro bay and there are some good seafood places there, too. still a little further north and off the 101, there's a nice little beach town called cayucos. good restaurant called Hoppe's. keep an eye out for abalone at these places ... there's a very good local aquaculture project. it's still very pricey.

what we call red delicious and golden delicious are actually several related breeds of varying quality. sometimes you can even find old-timey red delicious (look for an apple that is tiger-striped rather than solidly colored). as far as i know russeting on golden delicious is reflective of growing conditions rather than variety (i think it has to do with too much sun). but harvest maturity is really, really important. Though apples will continue to ripen after harvest and will change color, they won't accumulate any more sugar. trust the farmer.

hmmm, in my experience, red delicious are not acceptable for cooking--they almost always have something like a musty, stale cardboard flavor. that could be poor conditioning/storage, but it has happened often enough to make me wary. golden delicious, on the other hand, are very good apples when they're grown, harvested, conditioned and stored correctly, both for eating out of hand and for cooking.

i think it's important to recognize the difference between aquaculturing oysters, mussels and clams--which are, after all, pretty much stationary for most of their adult lives--and fish, which require space for movement in order to develop muscle tone. This isn't to say that it can't be done, but that it will be much more expensive than the "aquarium"-style aquaculture that is most commonly practiced for those species today.

i bought my lc dutch oven at tuesday morning, too. and i did notice that in southern california anyway, it looks like they're having a range of lc on sale this week (go the website thomas listed and check under current fliers for your area).

this is going to sound weird, but i went to costco for the very first time last week. i needed new tires so i went ahead and joined. i did see the lc oval dutch oven, and the osterizer "pro" (all metal gears) for about $25 and a cuisinart burr grinder for about $30. then the usual wines and meats and stuff.

just a little more ag-geekery: red delicious apples were at one time a very respectable fruit. but they weren't real red. breeders concentrated on increasing the color, not realizing that the pigment that gives that dark red color also has a distinctly bitter flavor. by the time they did realize it, the apple growers were selling so many red delicious apples that they didn't pay any attention. it was only when new varieties were introduced--fuji, gala, pink lady, etc.--and the red delicious market started to collapse that they decided they needed to make a change. i saw one paper from an ag economist who estimated that washington state apple growers had lost money for something like 10 straight years.

along the same lines, i'd do a spicy apple cake ... something where you're not depending on the quality of the fruit.

let me put in a good word for lee valley: the guy really knows his knives and he's very careful about what he sells. laguiole is a bit of a mess (think sabatier), but he carries both and i'm sure he's got stuff that's good for the value.

i've got a great set of antique knives i found--they've got metal handles that are shaped like running bulls. but i've been flirting with the idea of these: really cool knives.

this is something that sometimes happens with truly "new" potatoes that have been freshly dug and sold without curing. to me, it adds a pleasant bitterness that makes for an interesting spud. incidentally, solanine is not caused by/does not cause the green color in potatoes--that's chlorophyll as a result of exposure to sunlight. the two frequently happen at the same time, though. but solanine is also exaggerated by anything that threatens the potato--from excessively wet fields to insect infestations (it's a natural pesticide).

friday we tested brined vs. pre-salted side-by-side. without giving away the story, the results were interesting, mainly in that it wasn't a clear-cut winner for either side. depends on what you like. as a long-time briner, i agree that the drippings are too salty, but that you can stuff the bird as long as you're careful with the seasoning. on the other hand, i have to say that i rarely stuff anymore ... i'm a lot more comfortable baking it on the side so the turkey doesn't get overcooked.