Smithy
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Posts posted by Smithy
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Thank you, suzilightning! It sounds like just the ticket for tomorrow morning. Happens I have some fresh oranges from "home" that should work wonderfully.
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Would you please expand on the "cranberry orange tea bread"? It sounds interesting! A recipe would be even more welcome, if you aren't breaking trade secrets or copyrights!
We had company over for dinner. Jeffrey Steingarten's Gratin Dauphinoise (oh baby oh baby), a good green salad (wildly out of season and wildly welcome), New York strip steaks with a mushroom/wine sauce, good crusty bread from the oven. Wowza. There's something to be said for -20F at 8 p.m, but there's far more to be said about good company and friends willing to come over in this weather.
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ATTENTION to all of you near a Le Creuset Outlet store:
I received a "2005 Savings Calendar" in the mail from LC this week.It is indeed a cute little calendar w/ a diifferent picture of LC every month. It also contains details about all of the sales for each and every month of the year (attached coupon required.) For instance, January is 1) Celebrate the New Year in Style-20% off any one item of your choice AND 2) the Color of the Month Sale-15% off all black & blue cookware, blue stoneware, and blue accessories. July & December have 35% off coupons! They also included a "create your own set" savings coupon.
So, if you didn't get this calender, call your nearest outlet store & ask them to send you one.
Must these coupons be redeemed at said outlet stores? Or are they valid for mail order also? My outlet store possibilities are vanishingly small.
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Anyone else having problems getting products from American Culinary Corporation?
I ordered a Wagner polished skillet on April 14 and received a confirmatory e-mail.
It is now more than 2 weeks later, and nothing has arrived.
Repeated e-mail to their support address has garnered no response.
Very disappointing.
Does anyone know if American Culinary Corporation is still afloat? I ordered a Magnalite Professional Saute Pan and have not had any success with contacting anyone from this company nor have I gotten an email confirmation of my order. Does anyone know if Magnalite Professional cookware is available anywhere?
Welcome to eGullet, Foody!
I hope American Culinary IS still around. This thread is the first I've heard about them, and like balmagowry I'm thrilled to see Magnalite back in production...if they truly are. But...what a strange website they have! The photography is beautiful, product lines look promising, but the text reads like some strange translation into English from another tongue. You know the kind of lapses I mean? They might just be editing typos but they read more like little twists that native speakers don't usually take. For example:
"How many companies are still in business a 122 years later?" and
"These models are for multi-purpose baking and can also be used for baking large main courses or dessert such as lasagna or pudding also. "
Anyway, I'm tempted to order a good roasting pan, but not unless someone else reports success with his or her order.
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I freeze stock all the time before reducing if I need to interupt the process and I have the freezer space. Obviously, you don't have a space problem.
No freezer space problem right now, just a problem making sure that every kid has long johns, mittens, mitten liners, hats, hoods (they are zip on), etc., etc. for the wait at the bus stop. ANd, setting the alarm earlier, because they do need to get ready a bit earlier! It's got to be under 10 (f) below before they cancel recess here.
All the schools up here in Duluth, and points farther north, have already cancelled school for tomorrow. They say we'll be lucky if the high temperature clears -10F. I brought work home to justify not trying to start my car. I'm not sure yet what I'll cook tomorrow, but I expect to take full advantage of a weekend at home, since it isn't supposed to warm up for at least 3 days. Too bad my new LC dutch/french oven won't be here tomorrow. (Fifi, you really are terrible! How much stock in LC do you own?
) Still, I'll have a gratin pan to play with, and Jeffrey Steingarten's recipe/book for starters, and some great advice on Cajun cookery from another thread, and a small non-LC pot in which to try it. I call it frostbite combat. -
Decisions, decisions...
Over at EBay right now there are a number of 6.75 qt and 7.75 qt oval dutch ovens available. Happens I like the color of the 7.75 better, but at 17.5" length it sounds pretty darned big. The consensus of LC users on this thread seems to be that 6.75 qt is the most versatile, and it certainly would fit in my cupboard better...but I don't like the colors as well and it's braising season RIGHT NOW and Fifi has me hooked. (I need something in the midrange anyway.
) If 6.75 qts is optimal, then how badly will 7.75 qts be overkill? We're a family of 2 but we cook huge batches and freeze for later use. For the next few months we'll have acres of freezer space at no charge from the electric company.BTW, there's a 15-qt behemoth up for grabs for something like $13 at present. Those prices change with the bidding, of course, but there isn't much time to go and the price is still down. Maybe the bargain price accounts for some of the friends' purchases mentioned upthread.
Oh, yeah...there's a Williams-Sonoma LC dutch oven, plainly labeled, with a dark interior. Surprise!
Edited to add: looks like I was confusing a roaster with a dutch oven, so maybe the point is moot. I'm still interested in size responses!
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Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking for Christmas, oh joy, oh boy! Great reading, but sharing time with the library loaner of Jeffrey Steingarten's It Must Have Been Something I Ate, requested in November and turned up during the holidays. I'm double-dipping, so to speak, and far too distracted with the idea of cookery to do anything like real work since the holiday season. Meanwhile, I've inherited a few cookbooks from my mother, who's downsizing. I now have 2 copies of Joy of Cooking, some 40 years apart. The later version can't count in this thread, since it was in my first book count, but I've added Frank Stitt's Southern Kitchen, at least, and I bet a couple more, since I admitted to my pathology on this thread. Add 4 for me, for easy figuring.
Snowangel, I thought about the Gourmet cookbook but didn't go for it - mostly because of my backlog, I admit. What do you like about it, especially? Anything (other than the yellow titles) that you don't like?
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To this day I don't know what went wrong with the fish in question, but my husband tried making his standard fish recipe with a different fish than usual. It was something innocuous: cod, perhaps? The sauce is a butter-lemon-garlic-mustard thing more or less lifted from a favorite restaurant in Egypt, and we generally have it on something like salmon that will stand up to the sauce. Whatever the problem (fish getting old?) the fish went indescribably bitter, and the smell was horrible. Being thrifty souls, we ate it anyway and suffered no ill effects - but the leftovers languished in the refrigerator until I took them to work for lunch. The smell from the microwave oven wafted down both floors and along both halls. It was months before I lived that down. I wish I knew what went wrong so we could avoid a repetition of that fiasco, but all I really know is that if we ever get that smell again I'm breaking out the cheese for the night.
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I will admit that I re-gifted an Herb Bowl with Mezzaluna Chopper, which isn't that dumb, but entirely unnecessary.
Which: the herb bowl and mezzaluna, or re-gifting it?
I'm glad someone reported on the wire whisk tong thingies. They looked dubious to me, but this is the first report I've had on them. Over the holidays I saw many, many repetitions of an advert for a grabber spatula ("Grip n' Flip TM"?) that purported to save one from chasing sausages or eggs around the skillet because of the top prongs. For the life of me, I couldn't see how the prongs on top would help get the spatula under the objects in question. The TV demonstration didn't help make the case.
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Venison stew. Meat dredged in flour, paprika (smoked, hot and sweet), salt, pepper, thyme, probably something else too. Cooked up a bunch of bacon, used the fat to brown the meat, added onions, garlic, celery, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, red wine, turkey stock (no beef available), bay leaves and no doubt some other things I've forgotten. Simmered until the potatoes and meat were tender. Tempered the heat (there was a bit too much hot paprika) at table with sour cream or yogurt, depending on personal tastes.
It was and shall continue to be (as long as the leftovers last) an excellent cold-night meal. My DH is starting to believe that venison can be gooooood, instead of the barely-edible of his prejudices.
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Nobody here has mentioned Revere Ware, so I'll make a pitch here. I picked up my 16-quart Revere stock pot yea, these many years ago for around $50 at an outlet store. That was after Dad had given me a 12-quart stockpot as a gift (much to my mother's dismay - 'why spend so much money?') and I'd realized how elegant and useful it was. Both stockpots in question are stainless steel with aluminum disks. They're every bit as pretty as All-Clad, of which I have plenty, for considerably less money, and they're fine for soup and stock making. I have no idea about prices these days, and I can't compare them to Tramontona or Chef Mate. Nonetheless I am quite fond of them and will offer Revere as an option you should consider for this purpose.
Edited for speeling, or spelllling, or whatever. Happy New Year! *hic*
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I am the only one that thinks this is not right? The peice should be backed up first by the seller. They misrepresented the item. Lets say the item was dropped and broke through no fault of LC. If you are able to somehow return it to LC, this simply adds to their operating which are then passed on to the rest of us.If you have a Le Creuset outlet near you, give them a call - they are likely to just let you come in and swap the piece for one that isn't cracked.
I'm none too sure I could do this in good conscience, either. The latest: seller is saying it must have been shipping damage and is supposed to be starting an insurance claim. (The box was damaged, so maybe she's right, although I have some doubts.) LC Customer Service says that since I'm not the original owner they won't replace the piece for free, but they'll give me 75% off the SRP for a new piece. I'm waiting to hear what that would come out to. Not by any means as little as I spent on the piece on EBay, but still could be a good deal.
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No LC outlet nearby, more's the pity. I've written LC - thanks for the info, and it never hurts to ask. I'll probably have to send this back to the seller. It's a shame, though; if the piece were usable, this would have been a great price.
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After reading all the Le Creuset threads and listening all too intently to Fifi (et alia) about the wonders of this stuff, I bid on and won a large oval LC gratin on EBay. It was described as having minor nicks and chips in the enamel, something I could certainly live with. It arrived last night, and actually has a hairline crack running from the rim down toward the base, right through the cast iron. It's possible the seller didn't look carefully enough at this "nicks", but there's no doubt in my mind that this is a metal fracture.
It seems as though LC fans on this forum have touted the LC lifetime warranty as even covering abuse. Of course I can't know how or when this crack was formed, but my question is: can I contact LC and invoke the warranty, or should I just send it back to the auctioner? A little nicking I didn't mind, especially for the price I paid, but this fracture looks like it compromises the dish.
Advice, anyone? The sooner I get sound advice the better, since I'll have to act quickly on this one way or the other.
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Father's mother from Oklahoma/Tennessee; mother's mother from Florida. Our clan is in California, thanks to the migration of my father's parents before they settled, so we're western with a pronounced southern influence. Pumpkin pie, mincemeat for my Tennessee grandfather, and also pecan, apple and chocolate pies. I never could understand why someone would take up valuable stomach room with pumpkin pie, but apparently that's just me.
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Well, actually, no matter how charming a pet they might be, the kitchen is probably not the appropriate place to keep a salamander. They normally inhabit damp areas near fresh water. They really don't have a lot of personality, either.
Oops... THAT salamader.
Does anyone know why the heck they call them that?
Maybe because the salamander was once reputed to live in fire? It was considered a magical beast in medieval times.
I'm just guessing; today is the first I've heard of a salamander being a kitchen implement! To me, it's a portable, very hot heater with blower that you put at an airplane intake to preheat the engine during subzero weather. I was surprised to read of one small enough for kitchen purposes. Nonetheless the connection seems solid: the fire creature.
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Well, if it is legal it must be ok. And I would cook it rather than waste it. (I come from a hunter culture of "if you shoot it you eat it".) Next question... Do they taste good?
On the nuisance factor... I fail to see that some cranes could be a real threat to those hundreds of square miles of grain. Sheesh.
I come from the same "don't shoot it unless you plan to eat it" ethic (and would therefore cook and eat it, if offered)...and yet, my grandfather, who passed that ethic to my father, who in turn passed it to me, used to shoot hawks on sight. Hawks were a threat to the farm fowl, and were in direct competition with humans for the food the humans were trying to cultivate. My father, in his turn, used to encourage my cousins to shoot the blackbirds who were ruining our grape crop. So I guess it's a matter of perspective as to what's being ruined. Given a good enough population, "just a few" can really wreak havoc on a crop.
All that said, I too was surprised that sandhill cranes were legal game.
So what do they taste like? (Folks who want to say 'Somewhere between a bald eagle and a whooping crane' need not respond
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I don't have a getaway weekend like yours, but my place turns into Winter Camping Central at least once each winter. Friends from The Cities come up, use my house as a staging area and base camp for winter skiing, then head on up into the Boundary Waters for the real winter camping. I've gone on many of the winter camping trips but the last few years haven't been up for it, so I've joined them for river skiing day trips but bowed out of the camping. They stop by on their way back through, pick up stuff, soak one last time in the hot tub, drink a few more beers (or drinks more suited to drivers), then hit the road.
The gathering at my place is inevitably a combination of great tried-and-true food as well as experiments. They cook some, I cook some, we eat well. My first taste of chicken roast with 40 cloves of garlic was on one of these weekends. (Since heavy-test rum and pineapple wine and exotic mixed drinks were also on the menu, the evening got a bit fuzzy later.) Quince paste on crackers with manchego? Yep. Liv's Mother's Kentucky Cake, off the Splendid Table web site? Yep. Great wine, great beer, and always new foods mixed in for testing. Did I mention that the conversation is wonderful? And there's music and singing and laughter, and catching up on the year's news. AND...these friends are exemplary guests: they clean up after themselves. I can leave them in the house and come home to washed dishes and little sign that they were there.
The camping experience is just as flavorful. Freeze-dried food is for wooses, according to this crowd, unless it's dressed up somehow. So there we are, parked in carefully carved snow benches, with outback ovens cooking pizza, or single-cup expresso pots going. One year some of the guys towed in 5 gallons of cooking oil, the necessary pot, burner and propane tank, and a trussed turkey, and we had deep-fried turkey in the snow. Man, was that good.
Edited to add: have a great time, Susan! And Happy Thanksgiving, everyone else!
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Does anyone please know how to clean a pheasant or know of a good book/website that will instruct us?
It's been a long, long time since I helped Dad with this, but as I recall he pulled the entire skin off (as with a grouse) instead of plucking feathers (as with a chicken). Is that what you're asking? Or are you asking for more detail, like how to gut it? I'll go check my game cookbooks to see if I have any more detail than that.
Nancy
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Hi All- As someone who recently remodeled her kitchen, I have plenty of new, cool, digital everything appliances.
I have not however, been able to produce the golden brown sizzling broiled items that I so desire to make. Is this a technique issue or do I need to find additonal space for a salamander in my kitchen?
My attempts at "broiled to gold brown perfection" or "flash under a broiler until the gratin is golden brown and bubbling" usually end up with more of a pock marked acne look. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks in advance for your comments.
What kind of oven/broiler are you using now? Granted it's digital, but what else can you tell us about it? How far below the broiler element are you putting the pan? What kind of pan are you using? What else, if anything other than the oven, has changed between then and now?
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As noted in another thread, some garbage bags have a deodorant inside them that may make things taste funny - at least, wrapped loaves of bread stored inside them taste pretty strange after a couple of days. I don't think I'd use one of those garbage bags for brining, at least not without a lot of washing. But the regular garbage bags have to be pretty clean. You aren't putting the finished product in them (at least, not until it's REALLY finished
) so they should be fine at the brining, pre-cooking stage.I should add that I may not be a reliable source, just an opinionated one...
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I'm leery of saltwater in an aluminum pot. I think you might get a bit of a reaction that affected the flavor, although I confess to not knowing whether your brine will be concentrated enough for that. Lessee...if you put the large plastic bag inside the pot, and pour the brine in, and then add the turkey, you should be able to turn the turkey around once in a while to make sure that no one place is in contact with the plastic the whole time, right? I'd try anchoring the outsides of the plastic to the pot with a bungee, or electrician's tape, or something like that, so the plastic stays folded back over the lip of the pot. I would also look around for something I could put in the bottom of the bag to keep the turkey slightly up off the bottom. A steamer insert or round roaster rack comes to mind, but you could probably improvise with a small pot lid, an array of shot glasses, or even a bunch of clean marbles (count carefully, before and after
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I too want to see photos and hear how it all comes out!
I can't add a thing of value, EXCEPT to say you should consider using something other than a garbage bag for the brining step. Can you find a large enough kettle, for instance? What about using a large ice chest or cooler? Garbage bags often have odor-countering chemicals inside them. I know this because my crewmates and I used garbage bags to store loaves of bread on a sailing trip, and after 2 days the bread was darned near inedible from the strange chemical flavor. Bleah....!
Trust me, you don't want to flavor your pig that way! -
Thanks for that extra information, Sam. It helps me decide just how far to let Fifi hypnotize me into extra purchases. I tend toward the one-pot camp rather than browning in one, then braising in another camp, largely because I generally wash those large pots by hand.
Still.. Fifi, you baaaad woman, I have a small casserole on the way from Ebay, and with just a bit of luck I'll have a gratin or two won within a day also. You are very hard on the bank account, gal. Just to make up it: that large black Chamba pot was still at TJMaxx tonight. How badly do you want it?
Le Creuset
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
Now, how can I turn down such an invitation?! Thanks! The store folks promised to send a calendar out Monday. I know nothing of the Asian markets nor where to find Penzey's, and would welcome your company. Maybe while we're at it you can teach me about galangel and larb...
I'll contact you offline next time I'm headed down your way. I'll make sure to clean the car out first, to make room for all our purchases.