Smithy

Welcome, Peggy! We look forward to having you around. Southern cuisine with Asian influences sounds very appealing. 'Come on in and set a spell,' as my grandparents used to say. If you have any questions about where to find things or how to post, don't hesitate to PM a host.

Anna N, I haven't tried freezing the dough but I think I did halve the recipe with good results. kayb, I think if I were the recipient I'd be very pleased to get smoked salmon spread and chicken liver pate, shelf-stable or not. Those sound like great Christmas baskets! It wasn't too much trouble to paraphrase that recipe, and reminds me that it's been a while since I made the crackers: got off into bread-baking, and kinda forgot about making my own crackers. Please report back on your results and any adjustments.

Here are my adjustments to the recipe, based on what has worked best in our trailer oven. I'll add notes about what was adjusted at the end.Armenian-Style Crackers with Sesame from Alice's Kitchen: My Grandmother Dalal & Mother Alice's Traditional Lebanese Cooking by Linda Dalal Sawaya Makes about 6 dozen crackers cut into 1" x 4" strips. 1 cup + 1 Tbsp lukewarm water 1 Tbsp yeast 1 tsp salt 5 Tbsp olive oil 3-1/4 cups flour - I used half whole wheat and half all-purpose 1/2 cup sesame seeds Use a medium-sized mixing bowl. Dissolve yeast in water, proof for 5 minutes. Add olive oil. Mix in the salt, flour and sesame seeds, and blend well until it's smooth. (She says to do the mixing with your hands; I can't remember whether I start with a stiff spatula; I do finish by kneading on the counter.) Divide the dough into 8 evenly-sized balls; roll them in flour and put them on a tray in a warm place, covered, to rise until they've doubled in size. Preheat the oven to 350F. One at a time with each ball, do the following (keep the rest covered - this part is a bit like working with pita dough): - Roll each ball of dough out as thinly as possible with a rolling pin. - Transfer it to baking parchment on a baking sheet. - Cut it with a knife or pizza wheel into the size cracker you want. - Perforate the crackers with a fork. (Perforations are crucial to keep the crackers from puffing up too much in the oven.) - Use a squirt bottle with water to spritz the dough, then place the baking sheet on bottom oven rack for 10 minutes until slightly browned on bottom. - Squirt the dough again with water and move to top rack for 10 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. It works out to more like 8 minutes top and bottom in my small oven. You have to watch the coloring. While the first ball's worth of crackers is in the oven, you can go to work rolling out the next batch. Cool the crackers on a rack. If you're going to store them in an airtight container, make sure they're completely cool before storing. My proportions above are for a cracker that's half whole wheat and half all-purpose (white) flour. Hers uses 2 parts white flour to 1 part whole wheat; consequently her recipe uses slightly less water and oil - about a tablespoon less in each case. She notes that seasonings are easily adjustable, and this makes a great springboard for other cracker styles. I can't say enough nice things about this book. It started out as a family cookbook, complete with photos and snippets of her immigrant family's history, but the recipes work and the artwork and stories are charming. My admiration increased after I went to the trouble of putting together a family history book of my own one Christmas. I think she's working on a 4th edition now; mine is the 3rd.

What about Armenian-style crackers with sesame seeds? Think Ak-Mak. I've had excellent success with the recipe from Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking. It's dead easy: flour (white and whole wheat), water, salt, yeast, olive oil, and sesame seeds. The seasonings can be adjusted. I haven't been able to find the recipe posted on the web, but if it sounds appealing PM me. I think they hold well; we usually eat them too quickly to be sure.

What is the reddish item at the bottom of the last photo?

I liked the comment that older recipes recognize contingencies (ingredient maybe not available) and that they put cooks closer to the food sources (the season, the weather, the appearance of an appropriate bird). I am personally fond, however, of the structure that lets me check that everything's in place (with or without substitutes) before I begin. It helps me stay organized, and I need all the help I can get. :-)

I'm more inclined to think that calling it 'mayo' when it's missing a defining ingredient of the emulsion in question is misleading. 'Mayo' is common slang for 'mayonnaise', and using the classic definition of that cold sauce it isn't possible to have vegan mayonnaise. Maybe they need to come up with a new term ('vegemayo'?) for what they're marketing. I can grant that 'vegan imitation mayonnaise' might be too truthful (and cumbersome) to be appealing.

It's funny that they argue that the FDA is behind the times and should expand their definition of 'Mayonnaise'. Miracle Whip calls itself a spread. I suppose "Just Mayo Non-Mayonnaise Spread" would fail the company's marketing test.

The Senegal book caught my eye in another review, and with this additional recommendation I may have to go for it. My best friend's oldest son is starting his 3rd year there (Peace Corp), and I've been hearing enough about the place to be interested in knowing more about the food. I also like the writeup for Essential Turkish Cuisine: "Mastering the Art of French Cooking meets Jerusalem - in Turkey." :-D

Here's a nice Food52 article about Renee Erickson's Sauteed Dates, with several ideas for serving them (with yogurt, drizzled with olive oil, and so on). They point out that sauteing the dates helps bring out the more savory notes. Along the same lines - possibly inspired by that blog post - I stuffed some with walnuts, then caramelized them. Can't remember whether I broiled or sauteed them to get the browning, but they disappeared quickly at our party. The slightly bitter caramel notes really showed them off and played nicely with the walnuts. I have also added finely chopped dates to the onion/garlic/aromatics for meat sauces, but can't honestly say that it became a regular addition.

Shelby, congratulations - and thanks for the laughs! That bread loaf reminds me of the hypercranial "advanced" aliens from any number of old sci-fi flicks. :-)

I should have read more carefully last night before posting. gfron1's post clearly says that the sliding scale escalates for more copies sold. That's great! I still wonder why it would be a triple-tier escalator for electronic books. Does anyone know?

It's interesting that they have a triple-tier arrangement for the hard cover and electronic, but not for paperback. Why would the digital copy have multiple scales for 'first 1000 copies' then another for '2000 copies' and yet another for any more than that? It isn't as though they have to keep resetting the printing presses. In both the hardback and electronic copies there are scales like 'x net for 1000 copies and y net for 2000 copies' (percentages not specified here). Suppose the hard numbers are 10% of net profit for 1000 books sold and 5% net profit for 2000 books sold. Does that mean you get 10% on the first 1000 books sold and only 5% on the remainder? Or does it mean that once you pass the 1000-book mark your overall take goes down to 5% for the lot, so you'd only get 5% on a sale of 1900 copies? The question goes the other way as well, of course; if the sliding scale goes up with number of copies sold that sounds promising for you. My question remains as to whether the take is based on blocks of 1000 (or whatever) or the total sold. My other question also stands as to why the sliding scale applies to electronic copies.

Er, I opened the package. Here is a sample of the contents: Bad idea. What a way to go.

40-mile bicycle ride today, with a picnic at the ~2/3 point. Yesterday was rainy and gave me a chance to play with bread baking; today we had tuna salad sandwiches as a result. I'm really quite chuffed about the bread, although there's still plenty room for improvement. My only regret today is that I washed and bagged...and then forgot to pack...the lettuce.

I had a rainy day in which to mess around with two different bread formulas: the white bread sandwich loaf from Peter Reinhart's Craftsy class and my attempts at developing a sourdough olive oil and rosemary loaf. Amongst the other variables, I'm trying to get size and shaping right. Reinhart says that 3 oz. is the right size for, say, a hamburger bun. I keep thinking it should be easy to cut and shape uniformly. So far, it isn't uniform for me. Two different formulas were divided into loaves and rolls. The rolls varied from 3 to 6 oz in mass, and the loaves were about a pound each (the white bread loaf collapsed and isn't in the photo). The oven doesn't get as hot as I'd like, and the crusts aren't as brown or crisp as I'd like, but I'm basically happy with the results. The other human in the household is ecstatic: we've finally established that he prefers a soft crust, and my attempts at a crisp crust are easily overdone for his tastes. The darker brown gloss is due to an egg wash, but all crusts were soft. I still need to work on timing, shaping and temperature, but I'm really very pleased! Our picnic lunch today was quite satisfactory...except that I forgot the lettuce. :-(

Thanks for that information. Next question: what is kelp like as a food? I think of it as this wavy buoyant tangly sea vegetable that terrified me as a child. (Now I can appreciate its value in the ecosystem, as long as I don't try to swim near it.) Does it taste and feel like any land vegetable we could identify in North America? Salty? Firm and crunchy, like celery? Slimy, like okra? Rubbery? Your photo suggests, say, onion necks.

Cass Lake, Minnesota: a town of about 770 people and, at this time of the year, many additional campers and fisherfolk. For a town of its size, it has an impressive grocery store. I went in to pick up packages of this season's wild rice. Product demonstrator cast the line: "Hello, have you had your Oreos today?" "No," I said, struggling to remember when I last had eaten an Oreo. Has it been in this decade? This century? Not that I'm opposed to them, mind, except for the calories. She set the hook: "They have a dozen new flavors. Want to try some?" She had samples of half a dozen new cookie flavors: all with the traditional chocolate or vanilla wafers, but the cream/creme filling was different. There were vanilla wafers with lemon. Chocolate wafers with a raspberry/strawberry combo. Chocolate with peanut butter. Chocolate with mint. I tried all that she had. Untested but visible were variations for folks who want to change the wafer/filling ratio: on the one hand they had triple sandwich cookies with three wafers and two layers of filling; on the other hand they had single wafers with a layer of cream/creme, the whole lot coated with chocolate. Think Mystic Mint Meets Oreos. She reeled me in: "See if you can guess the fillings." In almost all cases I could get them - they really did taste as advertised - but one confounded me. "It looks like confetti in the filling," I said. I liked it, both because and in spite of its too-rich back-of-the-throat sweetness. I couldn't place it. "Most of us love these until we're about 30 years old," she hinted, "and then we want nothing more to do with them." Aha! My purchase. The cookies have that rich sweet flavor of a fully-loaded birthday cake with frosting. I'm not sure I dare open the package.

As someone who's read the essays and recipes in a draft, I very much want to see them get out for more people to enjoy. I think this book deserves to be published.

That's an interesting way to cut lamb. Is it half a vertical cross-section, including a couple of ribs? How are the kelp knots used in a dish: garnish or major element?

I do. Our household ate white bread (never Wonder Bread, because it was too expensive; we had Rainbo Bread instead) but when my grandparents came to visit from Fresno we pulled out all the stops: Roman Meal bread, and half-and-half for Papa's coffee.I think Toliver and I must have gone to school in the same time and region; his lunchroom experience sounds very much like mine.

My rotisserie experience is limited to the rotating thing over our gas grill. We don't try to regulate temperature; it's high heat (for chicken) all the way until done. Based on that limited experience, I'd try first to go with high heat; if the internal temperature didn't come up enough I'd finish with a lower temperature. Your kitchen looks wonderful. I'd be very pleased to come help you experiment. It might take many tests.

I've always been a Hellman's/Best Foods fan (except for making my own), but will have to spring for some Duke's to see what the fuss is about - or pick some up when we get south this fall. I'd never thought about adding MSG to my own. Sounds like a nice addition.

Who cares about marbling? They look delicious! (I'll be glad to take your rejects.)

I had the pleasure last Monday of visiting an offshoot of the St. Paul Farmers' Market, this particular offshoot being in the town of Savage. What a fine time we had! The majority of vendors are from the Hmong immigrants, and if I lived in the area I'd be doing more serious exploration of Southeast Asian cookery to take advantage of the produce. "Sweet red onions" was one of the more familiar but still interesting items. "How sweet?" I'd ask. "Are these like Vidalia or Walla Walla onions?" They didn't know. They're just sweet red onions. Of course I had to buy some. Here's my haul: The sweet red onions are very pretty when cut. They don't have the usual bite that I associate with red onion, but they aren't insipid. I had a tough time deciding whether to take those cute little eggplants in the direction of curry or stir fry. Given the bottle of sesame-ginger salad dressing cluttering our refrigerator from a party last week, I went the stir fry direction. The dressing was too sweet on its own (for my tastes) but not a bad basis for a stir-fry sauce, with extra ginger and some soy sauce. Eggplant, ginger, carrots, onions and a few other odds and ends made for a tasty, but less-than-photogenic dish. The culture clash came with this rice, picked up at yet another market at our current stop: This is wonderfully fresh and flavorful: nutty and fluffy, and an excellent complement for the dish even if the cuisines are an ocean and continent apart.