andiesenji

A friend in Surrey gets hers from this place. She says they are satisfactory - which for her is a complement as she is one of the most understated persons I know and an accolade from her is at most, "fine" or "good." When she visited us in So. Calif., we took her to a few restaurants that we like very much and as I recall, the most she said about any was that the food was "nicely flavored and interesting."

I would want to have the following: soft cheese This one: hard cheese knife This one: spreading knife If possible, this one: two-handled knife And if you want to add this one later, it is great for the really hard cheeses: Parm/Romano knife

I don't think you can get a decent set of cheese knives for less than $50.00. At least the sets I have seen are not worth even that price. Check the selection at Cutlery and More and buy the individual knives you need. The Messermeister and the Swissmar are not expensive and do a pretty good job on all cheeses from very soft to medium hard. For cheeses such as cheddar, big wedges of fairly firm ones, and whole gouda, etc., you are going to need a blade that does not twist or slew, otherwise you can hurt yourself. The Swissmar two-handled cutter does a decent job safely. Don't waste your money on the Calphalon set, which looks like a good deal, the blades are chintzy, in my opinion. I have the Wusthof cheese knives, including the two-handled jobs but they are expensive and unless you are as into cheese as am I, not essential. I am sort of a fanatic, and a collector, (my excuse for my spending). I did not buy them as a set, got them as individual pieces, one at a time.

I have three kitchen faucets. One of these kitchen faucet Which has seen a lot of use at the regular sink for three years. I also have one of these at the veggie prep sink which replaced a clunkier one in the summer of '06. Blanco faucet with hose. I have in the past had several of the deck-mounted separate sprayers and every single one leaked and was always a mess, leaving wet patches in the cabinet under the sink and ruining supplies stored in the space.

This technique, using a larger, heavy metal container, is sometimes used to remove "unpleasant" odors from rooms in buildings, sometimes crime scenes.

I have a suggestion that might help with the smokey flavor. Brew some super-strength lapsang souchong tea and reduce it, tasting, until you get the level you think might be flavorful enough. Tea blends quite well with chocolate and it should give you the smoke flavor without the salt and the oily base that is in liquid smoke.

I use one of these meat pounder the handle is easier for me to hold. I also have used an antique wooden potato basher and occasionally still do when the SS one goes missing. Most are 2 1/2 to 3 inches in diameter at the business end, but occasionally you can find larger ones. The one I use is a bit more than 3 inches in diameter. You can also go to a lumber yard and buy a scrap of round wood banister stock, which is generally made from hardwood. A bit of sanding with medium, fine and superfine sandpaper and a bit of dressing with mineral oil (food grade) will give you an adequate tool.

I agree about the only true pesto. I have never seen any point in substituting any ingredient. Bagels - yep, they have to be plain or egg, possibly pumpernickle, and perhaps the plain ones can have some toasted onion pressed into the surface. (The venerable Brooklyn Bagel Bakery in downtown Los Angeles made these varieties, which were my introduction to bagels way back in 1959.) Aioli is what it is. And what it is, is garlic! Absent the garlic you have something-oli!! And for my own consumption, and for family and friends who have no religious dietary restrictions, I make my pie dough with lard. I have yet to find any fat substitute that produces a flakier or more tender crust. (And that includes butter, which I love in certain pastries, but not in my pie dough.)

Cabot has two specialty butters and they are only available at the creamery in Cabot, VT. One is "Old Fashioned Farmstead Butter", a whey cream butter that is a byproduct of the cheese making process. It is by far, my taste favorite. The other is "82", described as "European Style High Fat Unsalted Butter". I believe the 82 is for 82% butterfat. I have a friend who makes more or less monthly trips past the Creamery on the way to visit her grandchildren, and I'm kept in good supply. If you live near Concord, MA, I could ask her to pick up some extra on her next trip. Email or PM me if interested. Jim ← Unfortunately, butterwise, I live in California. I really didn't mind forking out thirty-some dollars for shipping the butter to Calif., I have paid more than that for the stuff from France, but they apparently are not interested in packaging the stuff for shipping out here.

I have that Wolfgang Puck blender for light jobs. It works just fine. I measured the shaft on the Dynamic I have and it is 16 inches long - that does not include the handle. It is much heavier and I really need two hands to operate it. The cord is a heavy duty cord and is ten feet long. (I have an electrical socket over the cooktop, at one end of the exhaust hood, and some hooks to keep the cord from drooping into the stockpot.

My favorite is the Kerrygold butter that I buy at Trader Joe's as they sell it much cheaper than other markets. (The last time I looked at Vons/Pavillions it was 3.59 and it was a dollar less at TJ's.) I don't care that you get twice as much of the other brands for close to the same price, I like the flavor of the Kerrygold. I have tried others and except for the imported cultured butters from France, I do not like them as well. I have tried the Vermont and did not like it as well. If I can't get the Kerrygold, I can use Tillamook without too much stress. The only other butter that I found superior, was made by Cabot and I bought it after Fat Guy posted about a special deal a few years ago. They had a deal for two types of butter and one was an "Old-fashioned European style" something-or-other, and it was excellent, nearly as good as the French cultured butter. After than one time, I was unable to order it shipped to California.

I do have a commercial stick blender - made by Dynamic and it will work to the bottom of a 16 or 20 quart stockpot. I recently saw one on ebay that sold for $135.00, which is a fifth of the regular price. It has the advantage that if one bangs up the business end, the shaft and blades can be switched out for new. One can also get a whisk and possibly other things to stick on it. When I bought it, at a restaurant supply, they had a brochure showing it with a couple of other attachments. It also comes with a longer cord than the ones for home use. I had a Bamix years ago but after dropping it a couple of times, it died.

I do have a "when-all-else-fails" procedure for removing truly awful odors from something you simply must keep (usually I simply trash them). I have a lovely small antique earthenware jar that "someone" (I never did learn who) used to store some fish sauce while I was otherwise occupied during a party. It was shoved behind some other things on the counter and I did not discover it for a couple of days. I was livid, because I never used the jar because it was a precious item inherited from my grandmother. The odor was absolutely awful and nothing affected it. Finally I consulted with a person who dealt with removing bad odors from structures and learned this technique, which is tricky, but effective. One needs a metal trash container with a lid - doesn't have to fit tightly, but enough to contain the fumes. Do this in a well-ventilated place, not indoors. Put the item or items you want to de-stink in the bottom of the container and arrange some sort of rack above it. Into a small metal can (I use the size that holds tomato sauce) place 1/3 cup of Epson salts. Add just enough denatured alcohol so you can get a wicking effect with a piece of cotton string or cloth. Put the can on the rack, light the wick and cover the container. Do not remove the lid for two hours. This works!

I agree that you did not use enough spice. Compare the amount of spices that go into gingerbread, as an example, in which one wants the spice flavor to dominate. In apple-spice cakes, they are balanced between the fruit and the spices as they are in pumpkin cake or bread, etc. Use recipes similar to these as a take-off point for your experiments.

Seeing that scale reminds me of another requirement for a kitchen scale: a sealed front panel that can be wiped off easily. And preferably a removable, dishwasher-safe tray. My kitchen environment is a bit more hostile than a jewelry production facility, I would guess... ← Not necessarily. My studio has dust from polishing compounds, grinding from gemstones and glass, as well as volatile oils and liquids dripped onto abrasive plates. (I wear a breathing apparatus as one does not want to inhale things such as cerium oxide, etc.) Any instruments have to be able to be used in these conditions. Actually, you can stick the entire scale inside a plastic zip-loc bag and zero it with the weight of the bag.

Currently on ebay, there is a scale that might be accurate enough in smaller amounts (to 2000 g.) at a Buy-it-Now price of $52.99, which sounds very reasonable - and with a 10 year warranty. Jewelry scale on ebay

I'm of the "make-it-and-use-it-immediately" group. I've made wide egg noodles and hung them to dry on my pasta rack, but the formula is different from that of lasagna and the dried noodles are tougher and stand up to handling better. I do keep the freshly rolled lasagna sheets between two "huck" towels, slightly dampened and on a tray to keep them flexible.

I mentioned early in this thread that I like the term and see nothing wrong with using it to describe myself. However, given the opinions expressed here by a few, I certainly will not use it to refer to anyone else. I certainly would not want to insult a person by using a term they find offensive. I don't mind "gourmet" but it has been attached to so many things as an adjective or even an adverb, often for reasons that are skewed or unclear, that it has rather lost its original meaning, at least in my mind. (For instance, what is meant by "Gourmet-Style"???) To get right down to it, I simply do not understand the brouhaha that has arisen over the use of the term in popular culture. If it makes it easy for other people to understand how one feels about food, cooking, appreciating food, kitchens, food writers, particularly if those people are non-English-speaking, then why not allow its use. Anything that furthers understanding by being a universally understood term, should be appreciated, not decried. While attending the Sci-Fi Convention in Anaheim last summer, I met several people from other countries and when describing my hobbies and interests, I described myself as a "Foodie." There was not a single person in the group who had difficulty understanding exactly what I meant. (And asked for recommendations for places to dine and shop.)

Gee, I have made do in the kitchen with a couple of Salter Aquatronics for several years. I do have a jewelry scale in my studio but it was a bit pricey. jewelry scale When one is weighing gold and other precious metals, one needs true accuracy (and a hotline to get the current prices). This one is extremely accurate and can convert to several different modes which is extremely important when weighing a wax model and determining what it will convert to in gold, silver or platinum. It weighs up to 7 kg and is accurate to 1/100 gm. The only time I have ever used it for a kitchen item was when I needed to weigh some saffron purchased in "bulk" and divvied up with a couple of friends.

In my mom's bakery and in the bakery school I attended back in the 50s, we oiled the "bench" every day, then scraped it with a bench knife, wiped it with dry cloths and dusted it with flour before transferring dough from the dough trough. Note the baker's scale. We scaled everything by hand and after a while one got to the point that a chunk of dough could be cut that was exactly the weight required. There were certain tasks, such as forming boules, or rolls (we rolled all the hard rolls by hand) when a spot on the bench was brushed free of flour and oiled so as to get some traction for forming the rounds. We used food-grade mineral oil that was in a gallon jug and had a pump on top. On this same subject, for those who might want to make their own pastry board, I came across this site with detailed instructions that some might find helpful. Make your own pastry board!

I feel your pain. Especially with the quiche. I finally resorted to making one of the "miracle" quiche recipes. the one I use is very like This One, sent out this past week by King Arthur Flour.

During the 8 months a friend was living in Japan, somewhere in the far north, where there was a lot of snow, he kept flour and other grains, in their original bags, inside one of the super heavy plastic "bags" which can be used for storing clothes, etc., which have, in addition to the zip-type of closure, a one-way valve that allows one to press out as much of the air as possible in the bag. I know he purchased it in Japan after he arrived there, because he was worried about moisture getting into his cereal grains and etc. He stored the bag with its contents inside a square plastic "trash" container he bought in a local market, it had a top that fit snugly but was not airtight. He said many of the families in his building used them to store everything from clothes to kids toys because they could be stacked. They were only available in all colors, mostly pastels. The important thing was getting something airtight.

Get the real stuff and you will have fewer problems in the long run. The baker's linen works better than canvas between uses, roll it up and stick it in the freezer. Any dough will pop off when you unroll it and brush it with a stiff brush before the next use.

Beautiful crumb. I can almost taste it.

I can attest to the fact that spray-on oven cleaner will remove much, if not all, of the non-stick coating. I have two rather scruffy appearing racks, now delegated to use only on the outdoor barbecue, which suffered this fate. I use the Dawn Power Dissolver also, with excellent results, with the aid of an old-fashioned "natural bristle" scrub brush - the kind with a handle. The longer bristles work much better on grids than regular brushes. It will clean in all the corners and where the wires overlap. This kind of brush. For dry scrubbing burnt-on stuff, I have a regular flat scrub brush - like this one. - nailed to a heavy slab of wood out by the barbecue. I have found it is easier to hold onto the racks and scrub them back and forth across the bristles and I can see what I am doing. This idea popped into my head when I was cleaning my garden boots on one of the (very expensive) boot scrubbers I had ordered from a garden supply. - Now I make my own. The grill-cleaning brush is replaced at the beginning of each outdoor cooking season, or when it gets worn down. It is easily cleaned by spraying with the hose and gets an occasional blast with the power washer when the patio is cleaned.