Smithy

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.

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.

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.

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*

← 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 )

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!

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

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?

Are garbage bags, food safe? I've read conflicting reports that the clear one's are ok to use. But I have never seen from any source reliable, that either one is safe or unsafe to use. woodburner ← 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...

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 ).

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?

So, I ran out of the "Pride of Szedeg" standard paprika during my last paprika cooking experiment, and I've been looking for it ever since. No joy. No squarish red cans to be had, anywhere in Duluth. This leaves me wondering: did it fall off the face of the planet (or at least, this corner of the planet) due to the Hungarian paprika toxin scare? Or did I get it somewhere far away from here, and forget the source? Is everyone experiencing the same dearth of good Hungarian paprika, or am I just in a bad market? Any other brand recommendations?

Keep in mind that enameled cast iron for the stovetop is really only useful for low/slow cooking. It's not very good for browning, and it's actively bad for any applications that require temperature control. I would never want an enameled cast iron skillet, nor would I want an enameled cast iron saucepan for actually making sauces (although I do have a tall, conical Le Creuset saucepan that I use for holding sauces at temperature and other low/slow kinds of tasks). ← Sam, in your opinion does "not very good for browning" apply even to browning before adding braising liquid and then doing the low/slow thing? Why or why not?

I assume you mean you'll lock the kids in the closet until they're grown? Although come to think of it, the satsumas will be grown more quickly than the kids! Go look at the "Too Many Clementines!" thread in the Cooking forum for discussion about a clementine cake recipe by Nigella Lawson. The post that starts the cake discussion has a link that doesn't seem to be working any more, but there's a lot of discussion after that about what they did with her recipe.

That would be the stuff! I note, by the way, that you and I have both been misspelling "Chamba". Shame on us. Here's a link to my post, following up on your link in the Pot Addict thread, describing the test kits and the method. I agree that metals in the exterior glaze wouldn't be a concern. I thought I'd read that there was a serious food leaching concern on the interior surfaces, but I haven't found anything suggesting so. Must be my bad memory. You'd have known about it, given when you worked at the FDA.

That description fits what I'm thinking of. The photos in the Asian thread are exactly what I'm talking about. (I never knew you could grill them!) So, getting back to the artillery question: hanging is too good for those fruit-wasting kids!

It sounds like your husband is from the US Midwest! Or is it the same in the middle provinces? Garrison Keillor makes big money on pointing out that people from these parts never aspire to the heights...after all, who do you think you are, trying to be better than those around you?

Huh. I don't know what to think, after looking at Mayhaw's link, and hearing from the rest of you. My father grew oranges in central California, and had a wonderful "kitchen orchard" of other fruit trees that weren't for production. One tree, which is still going strong and gets raided by us kids every Christmas, is a satsuma mandarin orange. The nursery made a mistake when Dad picked up his order, lo these many decades ago, and about half the crop was of that type instead of navel oranges. The nursery corrected the mistake, but Dad kept that one tree. I'm so glad he did. The satsuma mandarin oranges (OK, we called them tangerines when I was growing up, but Dad recently started setting me straight) from that tree are wonderful. Luscious. But they don't look like the picture in Mayhaw's link. They're rougher and oranger (the link photo is too red and too smooth, and looks more like a tangelo to me). In fact, they look a lot like those pathetic clementines being marketed up here about now, although they don't taste a bit the same. (Aside: it pains me deeply to see and smell what passes for citrus in grocery stores. Too much is lost in the translation. I still don't know how a clementine is supposed to taste, because those horrid grocery store things are far too tired to give a clue.) They do have a very loose skin; my friends often call it "zipper fruit" because you can frequently get the skin off in one or two sections, and they just pull loose with a zzzipp as you pull. However, the exterior of the peel is definitely orange (or green), not white. It sounds like photos of the real thing are in order. Unfortunately I won't be back out here for nigh onto a month, nor will they be ripe until then. What about y'all down there?

Yowza. I've learned so far, from wandering through the local TJMaxx, that Le Creuset also makes stoneware - lovely baking dishes, with a price that made me laugh with relief until I realized that it wasn't the enamelled cast iron in question. None of that happened to be around. I DID find a large black Chambra pot, with lid, with minor scuff marks. I thought of Fifi, the hypnotist, but didn't buy it. (Maybe if it's still there next weekend...) Then the investigation led to EBay, and that leads to my question. I seem to recall that LC imports were banned along about 197x because of FDA concerns about metals leaching from the glaze. I think cadmium in the reds and lead from the whites were the issues. The stuff wasn't imported here for some years, until LC reformulated the glaze. Does anyone here remember any more details? I'd hate to win a vintage LC on EBay only to poison myself and my guests with the lovely gratin. Edited to add: I found the article I was thinking of, here. Since the scare was apparently over the colored glazes, and LC has white, maybe LC wasn't the problem after all. I'm still curious about what other folks may know about the issue.