Smithy

That is frustrating. My best friend's father owns a condo in Frisco, and from him I've seen the other side of it: he says renters wreck the kitchen gear so it isn't worth putting good stuff in there. OTOH he doesn't advertise the kitchen as "gourmet"... We just know to figure that the knives will be dull. Back in the days before knives were banned from carry-on luggage, I used to pack one. I do remember one summer we discovered a perfectly good, new-condition stainless steel pot in the trash from a neighboring condo! We took it back in triumph and did what little cleanup was necessary, and we've cooked a lotta pasta in that pot over the years. It's probably a bit too much to hope that someone in your condo area will discard a heavy pot this week, though. Do go check at Safeway for a better selection of cuts. Snowangel's idea of ribs is a good one.

I think there's a pottery place in Frisco, there on the main street with all the little shops and restaurants. I'm not sure about that, though. I know there is a UPS shipping center in Breckenridge, so if you find the right pot you can send it (along with some of that excess luggage) home at the end of your visit. Have you checked the Safeway in Frisco for pork shoulder or butt?

Barb, Barb, Barb. You're looking at this the wrong way. Don't ask yourself whether you can substitute a lightweight pan. Ask yourself, instead, what size heavy pot you've always been hankering for. You're on vacation. You need a new pot. The Outlets at Silverthorne, complete with Le Creuset outlet, are only about 10 miles away.

I'm sorry I didn't see how this thread had grown before I cooked those hocks; on the other hand, now I'll have reason to go buy more! Thanks for those pointers, especially to Pontormo, who took the trouble to email me and let me know to check back in. I ended up doing a low slow braise in turkey stock and Belgian wheat beer, after having sweated onions, carrots, celery, and garlic until they were all fairly soft. Anasazi beans (pre-soaked) went into the braise along with a ton of cumin and touches of sage, rosemary and white pepper. The beans came out a bit dry - I don't know beans about cooking beans, and probably had too many for the dish - but with the addition of concentrated tomato paste (me) or white wine Worcestorshire sauce (husband) we had the flavor and texture adjusted to our respective tastes. The flavor was excellent, and the hocks did just what everyone said they'd do: fell apart into tender, unctuous glory. I'll do that again, right after I've tried some of the other suggestions. I love finding good ways to cook cheap meat.

I feel your pain, GG. I've never been much of a cranberry fan until I discovered the cranberry relish recipe with ground-up orange (the whole thing), walnuts and a touch of sugar. Yum! Now that I've gotten some proper oranges, I can't find the cranberries. I hate to think of trying to save some of these oranges from home until next November, just so I can make the relish again.

Y'all are making me very happy I thawed those hocks so I can cook them this weekend. Thanks for the encouragement and great suggestions!

*bump* Robin, I realize we're just coming off the holidays, but I'm wondering. Did you try that lead checking kit? If so, how did you use it (i.e. in the lid?) and what were the results?

I think the basic answer to your question is that it depends on your water chemistry and your long-terms plans for that china. At our ranch, with its artificially softened water, my mother could point out the difference between the silver-rimmed china that had never seen a dishwasher and the silver-rimmed china that had. We're talking about a lot of years of dishwasher use, however, and it wasn't a huge loss of color. My husband claimed not to be able to tell the difference. I've put my grandmother's ginger bowls in the dishwasher here, also with artificially softened water, regularly since I inherited them, and ALL the gold trim is gone. OTOH they still look lovely, and the only way you'd know the difference would be to look at the lids, which haven't been in the dishwasher. In the end, I think you have to balance the beauty with the utility. Will you use the china less if you can't put it in the dishwasher? Are you saving it for the next generation? If the answers are "yes" and "no" respectively, then make the most of your china, use the dishwasher and don't worry about the long term effects. Otherwise, you may have to do some experimenting. This, from a childless woman who washes all her china by hand!

Except that runner beans grow on vines and bush beans grow on bushes... Well, an Arabic term for "peanuts" is "fool sudani", which works out to Sudanese beans. A "Peanut" is, evidently, I think. Now did you see why I sat back awaiting answers with you breathing heavily and looking to the EGullet Gods for enlightenment? Great, fun topic. Edit to add: OMG - I overlooked "Snowpeas" - which are definitely cooked fresh in the pod and are beans, though they are called peas. ← I too am sitting back to attain real enlightenment here. Last year my big insight involved legumes: they're a huge plant family, they're everywhere, the flowers are distinctive, and it may be simplest just to call them "legumes" rather than worrying about whether they're peas or beans or peanuts. Of course, the first time someone tried to put alfalfa or clover into my bean soup I might change my tune.

Sorry I wasn't more precise about the cut. These look like they're from near the knee. The feet aren't attached. Each piece is perhaps 6" diameter at the thickest, and they're cut into 4 or 5" lengths. Without having them here to look again, I'd say each piece weighs around a pound. Thanks for the questions and suggestions, and keep 'em coming!

I bought some great-looking ham hocks at a butcher shop and brought them home in triumph. "Look!" I exclaimed to DH, "we can make some great beans with these! Or that wonderful sauerkraut dish we like so well!" He isn't convinced. They aren't smoked. They still have the skin and quite a good layer of fat. A perusal of my cookbook collection is making me wonder whether I was way off-base in getting these. Smoked hocks and ham bones get good press. Unsmoked hocks? Nada. Before I just up and start experimenting with cabbage and pork hocks, I'll ask the assembled masses. Any ideas about what to do with these? Any warnings about what not to do?

Hi, Robin! That's a nice-looking tagine. Congratulations: what a great gift! As far as I know, the only time you have to worry about lead is with the glaze, not with the clay itself. There are lead-checking kits you can buy that involve leaving a test solution soaking in the pot for some set period of time, then pouring off some of the liquid into another test solution and looking for a color change. Even though I've used that very test kit, I can't remember quite what's in it. (I do know where to look, so if you need a reference let me know.) I would restrict its use to the interior of the lid and not the cooking pot itself, since the clay may be porous enough to take up some of the test solution. Personally, I don't think I'd worry about lead with this tagine. I still haven't gotten around to a simmer mat, but I do cook on electric coils. If you find the tagine too wobbly, look around for a wok ring. My rounded-bottom clay pots fit nicely on that over the coils. As to the rough interior finish: judging by your pictures, I'm thinking it's about the normal level of roughness - which is to say that you'll never mistake it for fine china or porcelain but you don't have to worry about erosion. If the clay is well-fired, it won't rub off with time. A very rough surface might lose smalll bits like grains of sand into your food, but you'll know about that in a hurry. My guess is that you won't notice a change in the finish, unless the tagine builds up an interior coating. (Mine hasn't.) Enjoy!

In case I don't get back to this blog before you sign off, I'll thank you now. This has been a wonderful blog. I know there's more to come, and I look forward to reading it. You've inspired me to get out some of those Turkish cookbooks I bought (that is, they're written in English but they're about Turkish food) and cook more from them. Although I've enjoyed the things I've made from those books, I've tended to go back to those same recipes instead of trying others. There's a whole country worth of food I've barely touched, and simply looking at your gorgeous photos makes me want to learn more about it. Thank you!

I can certainly see the resemblance between this lokum and the Applets and Cotlets with which I grew up. Aside from the names, do you know whether there are significant differences? Someone upthread suggested there are. I love the way you can see the fingerprints in that kofte. No careful rolling into a perfect ball or sausage shape here - it looks like it's just "squeeze and cook" in the most efficient way possible. Thanks for giving information about the sauce. I wouldn't have thought of pomegranate molasses in that mix, but I'll have to try it. This is a perfect example of a fine meal that's light on meat, probably fairly low-calorie, and not likely to dirty up a bunch of dishes. I'll bet it's tasty. Are the kofta pre-cooked, or do they cook in the liquid? Are there any tricks to getting the timing right so the meat and potatoes are ready at the same time? Yes, please!

After I read that bit about having more floor space than counter space, I took a new look at my kitchen. But of course! We DO have more floor space than counter space! What a revelation! Then I realized that, in our particular household, any time one sits on the floor (with or without food) there will IMMEDIATELY be one of 5 cats, or a dog, in one's face, or investigating what's there on the chopping board. So much for the Eastern or Middle-Eastern approach to increasing work space.

Your blog is off to a nice start. I note that in one photo the tea was in narrow glasses, and in another the tea was in cups with handles. Is one more prevalent than the other? The Egyptian practice of putting hot tea in glasses threw me for a loop until I figured out how to hold the glass without burning myself. What's that lux incir, next to the walnut sausage? Is it a fruit?

Thank you (both of you) for blogging. It's been a fun read, and I'm as agog at the photography as everyone else. I'm especially pleased that you finished with another photo of that way-cool demitasse.

Your photos really are gorgeous, and I'll bet your cooking is as tasty as it looks. Thanks for the tip on flaming wine. I've never tried that - like someone upthread, I wouldn't have expected it to work. I love flaming things in the kitchen, and it's amazing what a difference it makes to a sauce. Your restaurant photos almost make me wish I lived near a big city. Almost.

I think, given that it's too hard to pry off, heating the pan first and then taking a razor blade (that IS better than a spatula, now that beccaboo mentions it) is a good thing to try. Freezing it, per choux's suggestion, can't hurt - I somehow doubt that it will help, but I could be wrong, and it can't make things worse. Either way has to be better than pure scrubbing...that would take a loooong time. I've been wracking my brains for some solvent that would remove the plastic without killing you, so far to no avail. Maybe some organic chemist will tune in with something, if we keep this up top long enough.

If you can get the plastic off the pan, it will be safe to use the pan. What have you tried so far? Are you saying that the entire bottom is coated with this plastic? If not, can you get a spatula under it and pry it up? If it's too broadly coated over the bottom then you may have to re-melt the plastic and scrape it up, then burn (or scour at the hottest temps you can stand) off the last residue. You'd want to do that in a very well-ventilated area, however. In the "don't feel too bad" department: I once melted a good portion of a spatula into a batch of caramel. It was NOT a silicone spatula. I didn't realize caramel would get hot enough to melt the plastic spatula until these peculiar white streaks began appearing in the caramel. "That's odd," I thought, "they talk about bubbling in the instructions, but they don't talk about the caramel going an opaque white." Then I noticed that the spatula was getting shorter. The good news, in my case, is that not much of the spatula was on the pan itself. The bad news was that I had to get all that caramel/plastic mess out of the pan before it set up. Let us know what you've tried so far.

Navel oranges, mandarin oranges and minneola tangelos are all comin' due soon, too.

Dig that crazy espresso cup! Close encounters of the negative kind? What's the story there? I like it! I agree, on all counts. As a transplanted Californian (who understands about getting sick of shoveling snow) I find myself pining for really truly fresh citrus. Enjoy your tomato luxury, decadent though it is. I see upthread I'm not the only one wondering about your avatar...

I can't offer any comparative advice, and I think Sam is about to weigh in with more educated info, but I'll go anyway. I have some of the All-Clad stainless line, and I'm very happy I went that way. As I recall the manufacturer recommends against putting the LTD in the dishwasher because it may mar the finish. That was a deal-breaker for me. Although I usually wash my large skillets by hand anyway, I don't want to commit to the basic everyday cookware requiring that level of care. My stainless stuff has all seen the dishwasher at one time or another, and not just to hide until I'm ready to wash it by hand. A few more comments about my particular AC pieces: My 3-qt skillet (or is it 4 qts? It's a little over 11" diameter) has done yeoman's work, and I'm glad I got it. The 13" skillet - I think that's a 6-quart skillet - gets some use for larger dinners, but with only 2 of us it's usually overkill. I also bought an All-Clad braiser. It's pretty, and I use it, but I wouldn't get it again now that I know what I know about braising. It just doesn't have the mass to be a good braiser. It looks great hanging on our walls, makes a good serving piece, and has its uses in the kitchen - but braising isn't one of them.

I get a kick out of acrobatic dogs. We've never had one, and I shudder to think of our 60-pound husky turning acrobat. (The crockery would never stand the abuse.) Thanks for including the family and household photos! When Chris gets back, do please remember that the blog protocol requires the following shots: a) open fridge; b) pets; c) bookshelves; d) kitchen; and e) Your Hands at Work. You've fulfilled the first four requirements admirably (I'm still perusing your bookshelves! and I love the looks of your house!) but I don't think we've seen your oh-so-loving hands in action. Caro's might suffice instead, if your hands are camera shy. Edited because, while a gratuitous exclamation point is acceptable, an unneeded comma is not. Uppity punctuation marks must be put in their place.