Smithy

My Cuisinart ICE-50 works pretty well, and my mother's Krups works brilliantly. Both have the canisters you have to freeze first. I really think Cook's Illustrated has the right of it in this case: your freezer must be very, very cold (very close to 0* F) to get that canister cold enough. I'm not sure my freezer is quite cold enough. They also recommend, as Megan does, chilling the batter well before putting it into the ice cream maker. I still prefer the results I get with my ice-and-salt ice cream maker, but I haven't given up yet on the Cuisinart. My major problem is getting the recipe adjusted to the smaller size machine, with getting the stuff frozen being a secondary problem. For those who haven't been able to read the article yet, I'll augment what Megan said: the article only reviews home ice cream makers with built-in compressors. The article notes that all the makers are heavy, noisy and expensive. I wonder about the refrigerant used and how well those compressors will work over the years.

I just found out from a few of my colleagues that this is not such an unusual occurence. It seems that in some instances, the bride and groom eat somewhere prior to getting married. Usually, they are given a basket of leftovers or fed a few minutes after the wedding. ← If Israeli weddings are anything like Egyptian weddings, it might be because they won't eat until after midnight, by which time they'll have been on their feet for hours. What would be the likely wedding and party schedule of the people in your photo? Thanks for the linguistics discussion! I'd been wondering the same things about your use of Inshallah. Once again I'm surprised at how much cultural mixing there seems to be in Israel. You may need to repeat that, with examples, a few more times for it really to sink in.

What is seabream like? Firm? Flaky? Strong flavored? Mild? Upthread you showed an eggplant salad that looked to me like baba ganough. Is that what it was? If so, is there any twist that Israelis give it? I've noticed (for instance) that the Lebanese version includes pomegranate seeds, whereas the Egyptian version doesn't. I've had a wonderful eggplant salad from a Hebrew deli in Minneapolis that goes by the name of chatzilim. It's very very garlicky, and I don't think it has tahina. I've never found it anywhere else. Is that an Israeli dish? Do you know how to make it? Your photos are beautiful, and I'm really enjoying your desktop tour of the country. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this, Mme. Spielberg.

What is "Big Flavors of the Hot Sun" about, Kerry? I'll ask this question online in case others want to know too.

With regard to the tahina: is it from roasted sesame seeds, or not? What makes it so special? Help us fill in the feel of the shuk with a sound track. Do all those people stand quietly waiting their turn? Is there a lot of haggling over prices? How loud does it get? A typical conversation, or play script, would be fine.

I'm going to guess that the restaurant specializes in Kurdish food. Chufi's been making me drool with that discussion!

I definitely want to see goose shwerma! Anything else you care to show us will be welcome as well! Are the orange groves in town disappearing because of population growth and development of housing? I remember that when I went away to college in Southern California, I could easily walk to orange groves my first year when I felt homesick. By the time I graduated the only groves left were far enough away to require a bicycle ride. Thank you for blogging this week, Michelle!

What does a panini press do for you that the grill pan and weight on the stove can't? I'm always up for more gear, but the kitchen is getting a bit crowded....

Could it be a lemon (or other citrus) juicer, instead? Take a look at these for comparison:

I've never thought of freezing the filling in the pie pan so it already had the right shape and dimensions. What a great idea!

I've left the skin on nectarines and canned them. Sometimes the skin comes loose from the nectarine, but usually it stays attached. Peaches are more problematic because of the fuzz; the skin texture isn't as pleasant after canning. It won't hurt anything, though. When you talk about canning the peaches without boiling them, do you mean putting cold peaches into cold jars with cold syrup and not boiling afterward? I don't think that will keep, especially not with a nice sugary (read: nutrients) syrup. Your choices are to get the peaches and syrup to the boil, then put them into sterilized jars and seal while everything's still hot, or to put the cold peaches into the jars and pour the syrup over them, seal and then boil the whole thing. I think the first method is called hot packing and the second method is cold packing, but I may have those backward. I can't see a reason in the world not to can peach halves, except possibly that you'll waste space. The beauty of slicing peaches into smaller chunks (I usually cut them into 8ths or smaller) is that you get more fruit into the jar.

Chufi, that looks wonderful. It's interesting that no extra spices were used or needed. Like you, I'd have been tempted to add things to the mixes - makin extra work for myself. I wonder, why does that work so well without the extra spices? Is it because the basic ingredients were of the best quality so their flavors were good enough to stand alone?

Gaah. Now you've got me wondering whether it would be worth trying to grow something up here other than raspberries (which do beautifully, all on their own). *Must* *be* *realistic* about my time! Have fun, Dean!

Welcome to eGullet, chef renu! I think you'll find a lot of folks around here who use culinary herbs. I grow basil, sage, parsley, coriander, mint...and then don't have enough time to use them during the summer when they're fresh! I'm especially fond of making a sauce with herbs, garlic, salt, possibly some lemon and oil, and drizzling that over potatoes or putting it under the skin of chicken before I roast it. That's pretty pedestrian stuff. What kind of herbs do you grow, and how do you use them in your food?

ObMeToo: I second what My Confusing Horoscope had to say. The university extension service should be able to help you pick a variety that will grow in your area and with your soil conditions. They also should be able to give you some general guidelines on care and feeding of your trees. It also wouldn't hurt to find out what variety of peaches your neighbors have. (Heck, you might even get to sample some, and find out that your neighbors are glad to share, thereby sparing you the trouble.) You could do what my father did when he was learning the citrus business: he watched his successful neighbor. When Maynard irrigated, Dad irrigated. When Maynard pruned, Dad pruned. Eventually they became good friends, and "Uncle Maynard" was always there to help Dad - or vice-versa. For what it's worth, Dad always cautioned me that fruit trees are very labor-intensive. There's the pruning, the checking for diseases, the irrigating (perhaps not an issue for you) and the fending off of, er, Varmints Not of Your Family. Those peaches will grow whether you're ready for them or not, and depending on where you have them planted you may have to deal with the windfalls. I think I'd still go for it, given the proper climate, but then I usually overcommit my time. Oh, yeah. Start finding out now about the reliable nurseries that sell good healthy stock. You don't want to be doing this from seed; you want to plant a sapling of the right size and age, and you want it to be healthy.

First of all, welcome to eGullet! Now, as to where this could be posted, there isn't really a thread for more complicated recipe requests. Usually, someone just starts a new thread about a particular dish unless there's already a thread started on a similar dish or ingredient. I don't think anyone's asked about cooking wood pigeon before, though. It surely doesn't sound like a stupid question. The other choice would be to post your question in the United Kingdom and Ireland subforum, especially if you remember the name of the restaurant. Sorry I can't help with a recipe idea. I hope someone else comes through so I can read about it.

Durian, I did much the same thing to one of my All-Clad sauce pans: boiled it dry with bits of diced shallot burnt to a crisp inside. I had marks from the shallot, discoloration from the alchohol that had boiled off, and general yellowing of the pan's interior, presumably from the heat. I scrubbed, scoured, and tried bleach. I can't remember whether I tried Sam's oven cleaner trick, but I know I tried simmering water and detergent, and scrubbing at the softened junk. Eventually I got most of the marks off. The interior isn't as shiny as it was before, but it looks okay - heck, usually there's something in it, anyway. Like Anna N, I favor Bon Ami or Barkeeper's Friend. The pan is definitely still okay to use, but as Sam notes, it may not be quite as quick to release as before. That hasn't mattered with my saucepan as much as it may with your skillet.

The kitchen's beautiful! I love love love the woodwork on those cabinets, and the gorgeous horizontal glass fronts on the high cabinets. Congratulations! ETA: Oooh, and that floor is beautiful, and I have a serious case of vent hood envy, and the lighting looks terrific, and...well, you should be very, very pleased.

I love this. Thanks. ← So do I, but this, er, takes the cake for me: What a terrific tribute! Uhm, I don't suppose you'd be willing to post that recipe on RecipeGullet? With the caveat that nobody gets to complain unless they follow the directions exactly? Or maybe even, nobody gets to complain, period.

What a shame! There are many threads on this board about the difficulty of finding really good, really ripe peaches. I find it difficult these days, even when I go to a fruit stand. The stand owners I've talked to have said that they just can't pick the fruit really ripe because it sits too long, gets mauled by potential customers, etc. The mauling is the reason they don't allow "pick your own" any more, too. As for the ripening - if they're starting to shrivel, then they're as good as they'll get and it's time for you to cut your losses and figure that you'll be doing a lot of things involving peach puree with flavor boosters, or peach chunks with other flavors. These really sound like canning peaches to me, with the tough peel and the clingstone. Wash the peaches thoroughly, scrub hard to get the fuzz off, and cut the flesh off in chunks. You can turn that flesh into puree for peach ice cream. You can also can or freeze the chunks for later processing into sauces or purees or pie fillings. It does sound like you'll need flavor boosters of one sort or another. If you can stand the effort of splitting the peaches in half and digging out the pits, you might try grilling a few, drizzled with a balsamic vinegar, possibly sweetened slightly with sugar or brown sugar. That tastes really sensational and seems to be overkill with truly wonderful peaches, so it might be a good salvage in this situation. Sorry I don't have any advice for how to soften these guys up. You've described everything I'd try; my next step might be roasting or stewing, just to see whether it helped. Otherwise I'd be hauling out the canning equipment and cutting away.

I, too, wish I'd thought to warn you about Grandma's. I'm not sure what you could have done to avoid it, though. I think Duluth splits pretty neatly on that weekend into the people who participate (as runners, volunteers or entertainers) or the people who do anything to avoid the critical area. There are parts of Duluth that aren't overrun (like the Cub Foods area), but it would have been well-nigh impossible to get to Canal Park and the Smokehaus. I'm sorry to hear you thought the pie was just okay at the Rustic Inn. I'd bought a raspberry rhubarb pie from them the night before to share at a work party, and we loved it. Thanks for the report! Glad you had fun!

FWIW, I don't think you have to worry too much about the Teflon ™ or its variants. I know it's getting a big smear campaign lately, but if you listen to the fine print (so to speak), they're saying 2 very distinct things: (1) don't overheat it, because if you go too far you may release poisonous fumes as breakdown products, and (2) at lower temperatures you may lose chips from a damaged surface, but any flakes that come off will pass right through you, because it's chemically inert at the non-fuming temperatures. What you're doing isn't going anywhere near the overheat range. The flakes aren't a problem. I have that on my mind lately, because one of my favorite cooking-show hosts is clearly an excellent cook and host but a bit (no, a LOT) weak on science. I just heard her err, yet again, on the side of egregious overcaution this last weekend. I think DuPont (or is it Dow?) is getting a bad rap, and I hate to see a good product scuttled on the basis of pseudoscience scare tactics. All that aside, I want to thank you for a terrific blog. I've been away most of the weekend, and back to work this week, and only able to peek in now and again. Every time I peeked, I found interesting thoughts, theories, discussions about food and philosophy, and ingredients I didn't know! Couldn't help you a bit with the suggestions, but I've enjoyed reading along. Thank you, Ma'am Ducky, and well done.

What I was trying to say is that (for example) the Lebanese Arabic pronunciation may well be different than the Egyptian Arabic pronunciation. There doesn't seem to be one "correct" way of pronouncing much of anything in Arabic, given the differences in dialects. However, I think I learned the word from a Turk, so my pronunciation may be way off regardless. I think you should post the question over on the Middle Eastern forum and see what the native speakers have to say.

I've always heard the accent on the 3rd syllable, but then I've always heard it as "mujaDERah". Those little short vowels change a lot from one language to the next. If you take the question to the Middle Eastern forum you're bound to get a lot of opinions and assertions, not only about how to pronounce it but how to make it (there's already a thread on that) and who started it and what the authentic version is..... Don't say I didn't warn you.

Mizducky, your final dinner product tonight looked terrific! I'm swooning over the salad as much as the goat. The goat dish looked nice; the salad was drop-dead gorgous. I've never had goat meat, and I'm curious about it. Personally, I think it's difficult to describe meaty tastes, but that never stops me from asking about them. So I'll ask you: what's goat meat like? ...and you'd better not say, "it tastes like chicken!"