Wholemeal Crank

Thank you for your very insightful comments. I will keep them with the original recipe. This sounds a lot easier than the ice water bath, and with the chill my kitchen is going to reach this weekend, it should keep pretty well chilled when removed from the fridge for whipping. Any thoughts on use of the mixer vs hand whipping, aside from the usual caution about how fast a good kitchenaid can take it from almost done to overwhipped?

The point of the discussion as I've understood it is that the metal plate, *when fully up to temperature, after a long preheat*, can transfer sufficient heat to a thin piece of dough directly in contact with it over 2 minutes to result in a nicely baked pizza. The time it takes to preheat the metal plate itself--being heated by the air in the oven, and thus verys low--is irrelevant to the rapid heat transfer from the hot plate to the pizza. And both the broiler and the bottom element are relevant because being able to keep them on together may permit the oven to get hotter than top element alone. What's so complicated about that? I have been feeling a little wary about ordering the book, because so much of my cooking is not in line with what I've come to understand about molecular gastronomy--I have no interest in trying to make a spherical gel of olive-ness, I'd rather just eat an olive--but stuff like this, the discussion of heat transfer and cooking properties of the oven, taking things a LONG step past 'stones store heat and thus the oven temp doesn't drop as much when you open the door to put the pizza in', is what may make it worth it for me.

I bought a ridiculously small quantity of that from Essence of Tea--something like 5 grams or less. Wonderful stuff, brewed in my usual rather dilute fashion. But to fill the pot 1/2 full by volume with the remainder of my sample, I'd need one this big! Today, so far, started with some Dragon Well, then on to Hankook Hwang Cha Korean 'oolong' tea, then on to some more of the Autumn TGY from Jing tea shop. Maybe some puerh tonight as I do some work at home.

Green on grains by Bert Greene taught me a lot about cooking different grains, and I always make my quinoa by his technique. It got pushed off the shelf because his recipes, though always delicious, tended to be very rich and heavy, and once I had a good handle on what I was doing with the different grains, I preferred to use them in lighter recipes. It remains an excellent introduction, however, if you want to know what to do with the quinoa or teff you've just brought home. I still keep the Versatile grain and the elegant bean on my shelf. It's outlasted a couple of others that wore out their welcomes.

Mom just checked in with the info on Dad's Sharp convection/microwave--it was the R-9H76, a discontinued model, but the key point is that it is a 1.5 cu ft model, interior 16 x 16 x 9, and that size was practical for a lot of baking that just doesn't work well in the slightly smaller one that I have. This appears to be the current version of the 1.5 cu ft model. Aside from the size issue, which limits how often I actually bake in mine, it has worked great for a decade, and my Dad's is now 15 years old and got heavy use with microwave and convection.

I was planning to try this with my Kitchenaid and the water bath around the bowl, so I should be able to whip it pretty completely. And at the moment, my heat is off, and the house is about 55 degrees at night, so it might be worth a try at 'room temp' overnight, at least as a small-scale experiment.

I just read about this recipe recently, and am very interested to try it, but the version I found here mentions that it can be made a few hours ahead, and I'd like to know if it can be held overnight, for serving at a work event the next day. Anyone ever tried that? Since there's nothing in it but water and chocolate (at least, not in the most basic version), it shouldn't spoil, but would it get crunchy and crumbly held overnight in the refrigerator?

I have a Sharp convection-microwave that does bake, but it is small enough that loaves of bread nearly always are burn on top because there just is not enough room between loaf and top element. My father had a larger version of the same thing, and his worked beautifully for breads & pies, but was still on the small size for things like cookies and crackers where large surface area and ability to bake two layers at once are key for getting through the stuff quickly enough. I just checked their site, and I can't be sure without checking at home which is which. I just know that the one is perfectly useful, and the other is not so much, and will report back when I can check their sizes.

Either the super-fresh panfried trout caught an hour before, & cooked & eaten while backpacking with the best possible backdrop of spectacular mountains at 12000 feet in the Sierras (note: try to take anglers along on your backpack trips, well worth the effort to cultivate some among your acquaintance); or a dinner at Cowboy Sammy's in Oregon, the first restaurant meal I'd ever had where I was relaxed enough to trust them and eat everything on every plate they served me, even things I'd normally eschew, and rewarded so richly for doing so.

Started the day with some Yunnan silver needles from Norbu, a break from several days in a row of sencha, and then moved on to his Black Ruby tea from Taiwan, a really nice black tea that holds well in the thermos (first time I think I've tried it that way). Then on to a rather unsatisfying session with a 'commercial' grade Dan Cong that tastes nice enough immediately after infusion, but does not hold well for even a few minutes in my cup while drinking gongfu cha. It's a bit of a prima donna, this one, and that's annoying especially because I bought it with more relaxed brewing in mind vs the 'single bush' fancier versions.

I spent a lot of time in the past 2 years in biology labs with centrifuges, vacuum centrifuges, lots of water bath incubators (aka sous vide setups), rotor-stator homegenizers, and when hungry waiting for a good lunch or dinner break, I'd often fantasize about using them for cooking. Too bad they were being used for lots of not-food-safe stuff! Now that my lab days are behind me, I spend even less time in the kitchen, and depend on meals that tolerate cooking ahead, freezing or refrigerating, and reheating in a microwave for eating away from home. I know that some (or many or most?) gels are quite sensitive to things like freeze-thaw cycles, and have eaten more than my share of excellently flavored but sad-textured vegetable soups for lunch at work. Is there much discussion of preserving the best flavors and textures for this sort of every-day cook-ahead eating in Modernist Cuisine?

Got lucky, and found something very similar on sale at Macy's, and can now confidently confirm that the solid, heavy fork of this set, despite relatively short tines, is quite useful for stirring grated butter into biscuit dough, and quickly beating the eggs and water together before adding them to the dry ingredients. Heh!

Yesterday and today, some more of the young sheng puerhs from the present OTTI, pushing the limits of the Manmai; also started the day with Yuuki-Cha Honyama sencha both days; and trying to get through a bunch of paperwork with the help of some Den's Houjicha tonight. Green, puerh, and....well....what shall we call Houjicha?

I've been doing individual brewings of these teas, thinking I knew the answer in advance--that the Man Mai would be easy, the Man Sai a little trickier, and the Bang Wai would be for the more advanced brewer. The solo infusions of the Bang Wai were as I expected--tricky, when I pushed it with higher leaf-to-water ratios it was aggressive and required very careful handling--flash infusions and quick slurping drinking--to avoid strong bitterness. But last night's infusions with the Man Mai, the least bitter and 'easy' one, infused at strong concentrations in a little yixing pot, needed to be poured as fast as the pot would empty to avoid bitterness also. It was quite delicious, as long as I was quick enough, and by the time I got to a few more infusions this afternoon, it was quite mellow, and tolerant of longer times. So....I think all of them are delicious and easy for me to enjoy when I brew them dilutely and with very quick rinses, so I get the sweet and spicy and resinous herby notes without notable astringency or bitterness. But even the mellowest of them is not perfectly simple. I think I would not recommend any of them as a first tea to send home with someone new to puerh, someone who did not have a gaiwan and experience using it, or a pot with a built-in strainer and a quick pour. I think they would be very frustrating for someone used to bagged teas or mellow forgiving oolongs. But if they could be introduced to the tea by sharing a brewing, shown how lovely they could be with the flash infusions to release their goodness: if it were shown that the same tea could be brilliant (flash infusions) or bitingly bitter (long infusions), and understood clearly what it took to make them great, then I could recommend them without hesitation even to a puerh newbie. I still would probably recommend the Bang Wai for the more experienced drinker of sheng. And now that I've worked with these three teas twice (sampled for two different tastings), I just wish I'd added a beeng of the Man Mai to my first order from Essence of Tea late last year.

Three major trouble points in mine.....the cat who has no respect for my rules about where she does or does not belong; the guinea pig, but really he and his messes stay on the floor, where they're regularly cleaned up; and the cabinet used for live food cultures for my aquarium fish--with the grindal worms, walter worms, vinegar eels, and sometimes confused flour beetles....

Enjoying the long, lingering sweet ending to some Haiwan Purple Bud sheng puerh from Norbu today. Just two little pieces of beeng have so far done a nice job with 2 liters of tea--twice filled my thermos. It is a smoky-earthy-sweet, rather assertive young sheng, and I needed this after a few days of mostly green and greener oolong teas. I keep forgetting to bring my TT&D puerhs to work with me so haven't had a chance to get back to those, but this helped satisfy that deep craving for puerh, so perfect on a rainy gray day. Mmmm, nice tea.

Today's teas were on the lighter side of things, with a wonderful brewing of some of the autumn TGY from Jingteashop: I overdid it, though, and some leaves hydrated their way out of the brewing vessel as they unfolded--at least, they towered a half inch or so above the rim! It was a fantastic infusion, and I tried to work with the overfilled container by dribbling bits of water over all of the leaves in turn. Then some Silver dragon white tea from Wing Hop Fung, and ending with a tea bag of a remarkable 'oolong' from Hankook--one of a couple of packets I received when I first went to their shop. This was a special award-winning Hwang cha that ended up in tea bags (eeep!), very similar to but not exactly the same harvest/processing as the canister of Hwang Cha I purchased at the same time. I think it's a bit sweeter, although also bittersweet because it looked like the store had closed at the time I was in the neighborhood last weekend. Anyone else enjoy some tea today, yesterday, or will enjoy some tomorrow?

Glad to hear you're finding enjoyment in your Dragon Well. Today I'm drinking a very pricey Dragon Well that underwent some unintentional aging. It's first infusions are not as delicately reminiscent of fresh green peas as a better-treated version, but it's still quite a pleasant tea, and quite adaptable to different brewing parameters. I actually gave this one away a couple of years ago because I was so frustrated with my inability to brew it enjoyably. Since my green tea breakthroughs with sencha, and application of the cooler temps/shorter infusions to other green teas, I've only had to give up/give away a few poor quality teas. And I was glad to have the chance to work with this one again when it came back into my care. I've been told both that 'any really fine tea can stand up to boiling water' and 'you're really missing something in your Dragon Well if you brew it hotter than a fine gyokuro, 140-150 degrees'. I think I like this (and most others) best around 160 degrees to start, and work my way up to 180 by the end of 6-8 infusions.

Today, started with some Shizuoka sencha from Norbu, but then moved on to a new tea, San Nen Bancha - 3 Year Aged Bancha - Medium Roast by Norbu Tea. It's comforting--a friendly cozy tea. It is warm, toasty, mellow, a little sweet. The dry stems and leaves smell very darkly toasted, much like a genmaicha, but the brew, while clearly toasty, has none of the bitter scorched notes that have put me off of that tea. I love it. Not sure how to fit that one into the usual tea categories--it's a japanese tea, but not a green tea. It's aged, but nothing like a puerh. Hmmmm....

Larger pots are technically easier to make, and easier to find from most sources. I was at my chinatown teashop yesterday and didn't find a single one of the really nice little 50-60mL pots with the nice several hole straining spouts. I bought my little collection of those by ones and twos whenever they had them out on display, amidst a hundred or more pots of perhaps 100-200mL volume. I'm sure they're possible to find by wholesale, at least the inexpensive little ones I have, but again, harder to find than the larger pots.

Not much courage or time here at the moment, although that looks like a fun challenge to work on when I do have more time. Meanwhile, it's been a greener tea day--started with spring 2010 Diamond TGY from Norbu, sweet and floral, a thermos full, then onto a nice Shizuoka sencha, also from Norbu. Last couple of days lots of variety--some nice silver needle from Jing Tea Shop, a good session with a dark roast taiwanese TGY from Norbu, so white, green, green oolong, and dark oolong, and a couple of puerhs the days before. A bit of almost everything. Perhaps tomorrow should start with a bit of Black Ruby or Yunnan Gold to complete drinking through the cycle.....

Yixings are a huge topic, on all the tea forums and tea blogs I've seen: strong opinions about clay qualities, mass produced vs hand made, new vs old/used/seasoned, and whether a new, inexpensive pot can possibly have anything like the same effect on tea as a well-seasoned aged pot from some particularly valuable clay source. But all the sources I've read are discussing them for personal use, retail purchases only. And without knowing if you're looking for top quality individual pots or more basic, mass produced inexpensive pots, hard to know how to direct you. On another forum, people have been complaining about funalliance.com, seems to be defunct. No idea if these places would be interested in wholesaling, but I've heard pleased comments about the basic pots and service from these retailers, who seem to offer some basic pots in good sizes, rather than individual boutique highly priced pots: yunnansourcing.com & dragonteahouse's ebay store. Most of the rest of the sources I've been pointed to seem to specialize in more expensive individually sold pots.

Won't tell you about the lovely DC I'm drinking now, then. But if the coffee as well as the tea are lousy, I'd have to call that a very UNprofessional confrerence!

Ti Guan Yin is such a lovely tea, light roast/new style, or dark roast/traditional style, from Anxi or from Taiwan. I just love it every which way. Today, drinking some of one of my first puerh beeng purchases, and finishing a pouch of yunnan Mao Feng from Norbu. On to something more oolongish shortly--not sure if it's time for TGY or Dan Cong.

Zhang Shu Lake oolong today, and finishing the evening with Bang Wai sheng puerh from the TT&D. Two mellow golden teas with very different characteristics.