carp

OK. Hold on a minute. Smoking crack and watching The View are bad habits, but using a pouring shield just makes good sense to me. Especially if I am making buttercream while smoking crack and watching The View. Occasionally I can get distracted by some witty comment made by Barbara Walters and absent the pouring shield I could get boling hot sugar all over my dome. As I wrote earlier, I almost always pour the sugar right in the sweet spot, between the beater and the bowl. But the shield keeps the sugar from flying at me when I am distracted or shaking too much from laughter when Barbara says something characteristically hilarious. You can examine my shield... it hasn't a drop of soft-cracked sugar on it after most buttercream maneuvers. My use of the shield is analogous to my use of seat belts.

Hey, but it beats removing the whisk attachment and whisking in the sugar by hand. Not that I would ever do such a thing. It's not that I'm scared, OK. It's just that I have the effin pouring shield because it came with the mixer and have nothing else to do with it. Now back off and leave my pouring shield out of this! Now look what you did! I am crying... Are you happy?

I go to 250 degrees. Anyway... If you are using the kitchen aid 6qt, you should buy the pouring shield. It is rarely useful to me for anything else except pouring boiling hot sugar into the bowl without hitting the beaters. But it's pretty cheap and definitely worth buying even if only for this purpose. I try to avoid hitting the shield and go for the small area between the edge of the shield and the bowl. But it does have a spout and you can simply pour it onto the edge of the spout and the sugar will drip down onto the bowl without hitting the beaters.

Why was salmon not eaten raw in Japan until recently? Reasons of health? Taste?

Any delicious aroma can, over time, degrade into a bad odor or even a stench.

I am revealing this with much shame in my heart and I am trusting that none of you will ever tell anyone about this. Last Tuesday night I was making chicken stock at home after a long day. I set the burner much higher than I normally would have because I wanted to get the thing simmering as soon as possible. I was in a hurry because I was tired. At around 5:40am I woke up on the couch with a room covered in smoke. I immediately took off my glasses because in my sleepy smoke-laden stupor my first thought was that there must be something wrong with my glasses. Then I remembered the chicken stock. The chicken lay cremated in my stock pot. The fat that had been rendered from the chicken combined with the gelatinous proteins to create a rather thick layer of charred substance that surrounded the disgraced carcass. I am still trying to get the odor of smoke out of the kitchen and adjoining living room, the smoke may have caused permanent damage to my sense of smell and self respect, the stock pot recovered after a long intensive session of scrubbing that I fear may cause carpal tunnel syndrome. However, the real victim is, of course, the chicken.

Wow! Finally I found someone else just like me!! I totally agree... except I only eat boneless skinless chicken tenders and they HAVE TO BE served with ranch (Wish-Bone, only, please). I do disagree with you on one thing, I don't eat any of the vegetables you mentioned. The only vegetables I eat are corn (canned and creamed only, please) and potatoes (french fries or tater tots only, please).

Hey, that's not your only problem...

No wonder he doesn’t want to be there… If I had to crank out that kind of slop I might also spend my time dodging the kitchen. I know he wanted to make the sort of food he grew up with in Queens, but that menu is tired… very, very tired. It is in huge contrast with the menu at Union Pacific http://www.unionpacificrestaurant.com/ ...although I hear he isn’t spending much time there either…

The proposed bill, which just made it through committee, would ban the sale and production in CA and would take effect in 2011. There is only one company currently producing foie gras in CA and the lawmakers are giving them until 2011 to "adapt." What's the status of legislation in NY? I heard they are also planning to stamp out foie gras... I am completely upset. Does anyone know how to shove vittles down one of these Daffy's gullets? I need to learn how to fatten these suckers up myself...

Thank you!

Dungeness crab, Fantasia nectarines, and Old Henry peaches.

I saw that episode of Into the Fire. I was surprised by how they make the pastrami. They seemed to cure it for a relatively short period of time and then steam it with no smoking. Am I remembering that right?

A friend of mine from the Phillipines told me about this. He said it's called balot. It didn't sound like something I would be eager to try, but I will pretty much eat anything that is well prepared. I wouldn't eat anything they eat on Fear Factor. Although if you took... let's say a pig rectum (I saw some people on Fear Factor eating this), and prepared it really well... I might eat it.

I'm a huge fan of Central Coast wines. I have never tried Dover, but I will look for it. Are you off of 46? I used to buy sherry from York Mountain, but they stopped producing it. Do you know if there are any other wineries in San Luis Obispo county that now make sherry?

Someone here mentioned damage to the palate from smoking. Uh, I don't smoke, but lately I have been sensing that my nose is losing its, uh, as the french say, I don't know what. Of course I don't know if it is affecting my judgement, but I'm scared! What the hell is wrong with me? Please, help!

You're not going to believe this, but I think it was a lock-back Swiss army knife! What? Really? Wow! That's quite impressive. If I were on the show I think I would use something crazy, too... like a machete and I would use it for garnishing. Then I would pretend it was no big deal... like I use this thing all the time. The other knife, the one on the same shot as the folding knife, I now think it's a global...

I think you're right. Although I have never seen a Laguiole folding knife that size. The way he holds the knife I can't see Napoleon's bee, which usually appears on the base of their blades. They might be some Italian brand I'm not familiar with. It looks like he used other similar knives, too. In the same shot with the pancetta there is another knife in the top left corner that has a similar style. Maybe he feels they are more battle-appropriate.

I was out last night so I saw it this morning on tape. I watched it over and over again and I am having trouble coming to any other conclusion... The guy spit into the pot. ...............................Edited to add: It is at about 5:40 into the show by my VCR's counter.

Did anyone else record or TIVO this match? Right after they show Batali slicing the pancetta, with a very cool looking bowie-type knife I might add, I could have sworn that one of Morimoto's sous chefs spit into a pot he was pulling off the stove. The sound also seemed to support this observation. I AM NOT KIDDING! I really thought I saw the guy spitting. Am I completely off-base here? Did anyone else see this?

Cook's Illustrated did a taste test with real vanilla extract vs. imitation. Their tasters found that the imitation actually tasted more like vanilla than real vanilla extract. The magazine concluded that this is because imitation vanilla, which is extracted from rotting wood pulp, has a much larger concentration of vanillin. Vanillin, as you might guess, is the main flavor compound in vanilla. Anyway, in the US vanilla extract is required to contain at least a certain(rather large)percentage of alcohol for safety (damned government!) making it impossible for real vanilla to have as much vanillin as the imitation. At least that's what Cook's said... I heard the editor of Cook's, Chris Kimball, discuss this and he said that although it won over the tasters he still can't bring himself to use the imitation.

I definitely liked the kitchen and the layout of the new set and I am glad that it was nothing like the USA version starring William Shatner. But I was dissapointed with the panel's decision. It may have something to do with my dislike/fervent hatred of Bobby Flay or because I really like Sakai. I just didn't think that after 83 wins and only 7 losses Flay would become Sakai's 8th.

Don't forget lower house members...

Thanks! I was wondering what passes for "management issues" these days.

The "bark" off of a smoked(barbecued) pork shoulder.