Smithy

We're always the guests, but now that we're traveling with the trailer I can bring something. Last year it was a potato gratin, green beans with bacon (our long-passed grandmother's version), fresh bread and an eggless chocolate mousse. The last was...interesting...because the chocolate had been stored in the same oversized container as my excess spices. The individual containers are all sealed, but the aroma when the box is opened makes it clear that the storage materials are permeable. I rather liked the sneak-attack whisper of dried chilis, but not everyone in the family shared my enthusiasm. :-D This year I'll be offering bread (using my own sourdough starter!), vegetables and the chocolate mousse using fresh chocolate. I hope the cousins will be up for prime rib or roast pork, but it's their call.

Well, I've gotten more than one deer without a license, but I don't recommend it: it's an expensive way to 'hunt' and the auto repair shops aren't always timely. :-D "Prickly pear tuna" = the paddles, or a dish you make from the paddles? I don't know hackberry. I'd love to see some foraging photos if you have time. Excellent! Can you tell more about the venues in general? I'm curious about whether these are being held in someone's back yard, a community center, a park, or...? The parking lot of the Scottsdale Mall seems like it might be a bit...noisy...but you need room.

It doesn't look as though you'll have time for foraging, or even the climate. I do hope you'll tell us about your supplies as you go along. Your itinerary looks tiring even for someone who isn't setting up a kitchen and feeding people every night. :-)

...if (and only if) this question won't overwhelm you...care to say what sort of baking you like to do? What sort of bakery do you plan to start? Breads, savory pastries, sweet pastries? On the other hand, if it's an overwhelming question, then just say something along the lines of 'lah lah lah can't hear you' ...or just ignore this invitation to say more on the topic...

I think this may be the recipe you mean: Jaymes' Caramel Popcorn recipe, on RecipeGullet.

I'm partial to the low-slow method of cooking ribs, whether it's pork or beef. Coat with the dry spice mix of your choice (for instance a bit of cumin, salt, paprika, sugar for browning, ancho chili to taste). Put in a heavy covered baking dish and set in the oven at, oh, 200 - 225F for, oh, 4 hours...until it's melting off the bone. I use the fork test and can't give specific times, but that's about right. My darling likes to take the cover off and paint the ribs with barbecue sauce and leave it that way when the ribs are getting close to tender, about the last half hour.

Welcome, Alli! This is a very supportive and informative community, with a lot of experienced bakers and cooks, both "in the business" and amateurs. Come on in and make yourself at home!

I've just learned that there are cotton/linen blend fabrics that might give you the best of all worlds for dinner napkins. I've also confirmed that there are a lot of factors that affect the way fabric shrinks, so my "avoid twill" comment may have been overly simplistic. You might be best off going to your local fabric store and asking after good fabric for dinner napkins, and getting expert advice, if you have such a place available. This site has some discussion about shrinkage and people who sound like they know what they're talking about.

It looks delicious: the sort of thing you'd be picking up with bits of flatbread to eat, or even loading into a pita pocket for a messy breakfast sandwich.

Probably, along with industrial-strength laundry cycles. As noted above, bleach can reduce the longevity of the cloth. You definitely don't want to use it on a cotton-poly blend/ Good question! From what I've read so far, herringbone weave is a variant on the twill weave. I suspect it would shorten symmetrically so that you had a rectangle instead of a square; if so, preshrinking the fabric would allow you to cut and keep squares. You're supposed to preshrink anyway, but I'm not convinced it would have helped the twill napkins (commercially made) I bought.

I use cloth napkins almost exclusively, partly for waste reduction reasons and partly because I love textiles. The best ones are long-staple cotton in a standard (nondirectional) weave: my twill-weave napkins invariably dry into a nonsquare rhombus unless carefully stretched when drying. The weight of the fabric also seems to matter for determining how much they'll wrinkle; to some degree, heavier is better but there's a limit I can't define. Cotton/poly blends may be more stain- and wrinkle-resistant, but with too much polyester the feel changes and I don't like them as well. Linen has a lovely feel, but unless you're very easy-going about wrinkles it requires ironing after every wash. I have solid and patterned, in a broad range of colors. Patterns help hide stains, as do dark solid colors. Some of my favorite napkins are handmade with a print on white background; I prefer not to use them when marinara or chocolate are involved. :-)

Was the injeera bread in this picture intended mainly as a 'plate'?

Public pressure might help change the culture. If I knew a restaurant was being run with the violence and/or bullying described in the article, I probably wouldn't eat there. However, I wonder whether and how I'd know about it. Maybe my favorites ARE run like that without my knowledge.

Try it, and let us know what you think!

Those look lovely! I am continually on the lookout for a good crab cake recipe. I'm in crab country at present and may be able to score the crab meat to try the recipe soon. Thanks for that link!Edit: thanks also to Kim Shook for the additional endorsement of this recipe.

Funny, I'd never heard of Malva Pudding until 2 weeks ago, when I was out your way and had the chance to try it. It was very good, sweet and unctuous and rich: 4 of us shared 2 puddings and were well satisfied. We were all surprised later when the recipes we looked at included apricot jam; none of us had noticed an apricot taste. (I'd have described it as a toffee flavor instead.) Do you think the apricot flavor is normally subtle, or were we tasting a nontraditional version? (I don't suppose your order was for Codfathers' restaurant? :-))

Wolfert indicated (in this post: http://forums.egullet.org/topic/63502-moroccan-tagine-cooking/?p=884844) that a 12" rifi should be big enough to accommodate a 3-pound chicken. She also noted that the souss tagine, even though it's smaller in footprint, has about the same capacity as a 12" rifi because it's deeper. I think I have the extra-large rifi, but I'm not sure. If I remember correctly I measured its total capacity at about 3 quarts; I used the simple expedient of a measuring cup and liquid almost to the brim of the inner bowl. That tagine is far away at present so I can't confirm the volume.

If they smell deep and lemony, instead of obnoxiously off, they're probably safe - despite the disgusting color :-). I doubt pathogens can grow in that brine. I'd try a bit for taste, and if they tasted all right then I'd go ahead and use them. Note, however, that I'm cooking for healthy people with strong constitutions. If you're in doubt about the health or safety consequences you may have better peace of mind if you just discard them.

Nice! Thanks for posting on the size and your first results. Chicken, olives and preserved lemons are one of my favorite flavor combinations as well.

It should. I've heard of stuff growing atop the brine, but as long as the lemons are submerged they shouldn't go moldy. I have, however, had them get powerfully strong - smelling like furniture polish - to the point that I didn't want to use them. That was when I made very large batches that I couldn't use quickly enough. I think they were over a year old by the time I gave up on them.

Yes, welcome!

Welcome to eGullet, Montri Cole. :-) I don't live in a food truck area, but when I'm visiting I like to try them out. I like the sound of locally grown organic ingredients with Asian influences, IF it looks appealing and (as Kim Shook notes) promotes good food instead of hottest, tallest, most outrageous in some way. Whether your idea would fly might depend on the area you're in: for instance, I can imagine finding more takers on your idea in one of the West Coast states than in, say, the heart of the South. Where are you considering operation?

Hello, Margaret, and welcome! It may help if we know the ingredients and their proportions that you're using. Have you experimented with the order you put them in? My machine manual recommends putting in the liquids first, the solids atop that, and the yeast on top of everything else. Are you using bread machine yeast or some other kind?

When my extended family (grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends) gathered for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter dinner, we crowded my grandparents' house. It was exactly as my grandmother wanted it. When We Were Very Young, we children were exiled to the Children's table - meaning a card table or two set up separately from the main table. It wasn't meant as a pejorative, but it was recognized that we would have different conversational interests than our elders, and there wasn't room for everyone at the table. As we grew older, room was somehow found for us at the table anyway. I don't remember squabbles or differences in food, in particular. I remember some of my cousins racing to finish so they could go outside and play hide-and-seek, or football, declaring that they weren't hungry. 15 minutes after they'd gone outside, they'd be back demanding more food. I do remember thinking that pumpkin pie and mincemeat pie and sweet potatoes were appalling. I haven't changed my mind. I also remember my nearest cousin insisting that I had to do what he said because he was 2 weeks older than I. That didn't go down better than the detestable desserts, and he usually didn't get his way. Is this the sort of thing you mean, rotuts? Maybe some of your stories will spark others. I think you're looking for something much younger than what I've just related?

As I understand it the health risks from broken-down PTFE are due to the gases released at 400+F, not the materials left behind. Unless this is an irreversible process that continues outgassing at any temperature once started at high heat (I have not heard this suggested) I wouldn't expect continued degradation. At this point I would be concerned about off-flavors if the odor can't be eliminated, and whether the surface is still nonstick. Both are easily tested. Let us know how the cleaning goes.