andiesenji

That is exactly what I have, the 6". I need the 8". The smaller one is fine for spices and small amounts of seasoning but much too small for sauces. ← I have several of the Mason Cash mortars from England. However last fall I broke my biggest, (12 inch) and am missing it greatly. (I pulled a dish towel off the counter, unaware that the mortar was sitting on one corner - my own fault for not paying attention.) For some reason the places that used to carry them in the U.S. no longer do and I haven't even been able to order one from England. My daughter tried to find one last year when she was living in Scotland and it was also no-go. I have a bunch of mortars of various sizes and different materials but I really loved that old MC one, especially for making aioli in large batches.

slkinsey, Is there a restaurant or grill or pizza place in your neighborhood that uses wood for their grill/oven, whatever. Take a little bag with you, ask if they will give you some wood ashes and explain what you are doing with them. I have found that a lot of restaurants are more than happy to assist people who need something that doesn't cost them money. I have an arrangement with a local coffee shop that saves their used coffee grounds for me. I take them an empty bucket every few days and exchange it for a full one. I use the coffee grounds in my compost for my garden. When my garden is producing goodies, I take them some of the veggies for their personal use. We both enjoy it and it is not a problem for them to dump the spent grounds in my bucket instead of their trash.

There is a fast-food place in Reseda that has Greek and other regional foods that cooks the chickpea flour into a thick porridge, pours it into a sheet pan then cuts rounds out of it and deep fries them. They turn out like a rather thick chip and they toss them with salt and spices - as I recall they have three "flavors" one with a rather hot chile powder-reddish brown. They have to be eaten soon after preparation otherwise they become absolutely rigid. They have a drive-through and there is a window next to the driveway where you can see them making the "chips" and also the vertical grills that hold the meats they slice off for the gyros, etc. I lived in Reseda when they first opened and at that time they cut the chickpea stuff into sticks, like French Fries but some where along the line they began making them into rounds because people like to use them like scoops for dipping sauces. They also sell a lot of falafel in various combinations and have a lot of vegetarian combos.

Go to your local yardage store. Buy the very lightweight unbleached muslin, get several yards as it is very inexpensive. Cut into large squares. Wash it twice to get out all of the sizing. Dry and fold, store in the large ziploc bags (Hefty has 2 1/2 gallon size that are perfect.) Before use, put the cloth in a colander and pour boiling water over it then let it cool. It will last for years. You can buy butter muslin from cheesesupply.com but it is $7.50 for two square yards. I have found that the lightweight unbleached muslin works just as well. P.S. This is the stuff jelly bags are made of.

Hi Andie, are you still there? Where is your Vallarta market? I could not find one around here. I will ask my nurses since they know all the Mexican markets. ← Here is the store locator for Vallarta;Vallarta supermarkets I don't know what you are near. Gigante is another Hispanic supermarket chain. There is one in Pico Rivera and one in Anaheim, besides the ones in the Valley. They don't have a web site with their store locations listed but you can look in your local white pages to see if they are listed in your area. The produce at Vallarta is exceptional, the prices are amazing, compared to regular markets. The price of lemons and limes is especially good.

I have a seltzer bottle (well, actually two) and make a strong lemonade with Splenda then mix half and half with the seltzer. Instant carbonated lemon soda. If you mix lemon and lime you can have that too. I have been buying the Toroni syrups that are now made suger-free with Splenda and simply pour some over cracked ice and fill the glass with seltzer. Practically no calories.

Yes indeed, this cannot be stressed enough. When my housekeeper first came to me I had to constantly remind her that some things NEVER went into the dishwasher and some things were never washed with detergent. If something needs more than usual cleaning, I make my own "soap" from soapwort for certain things as it grows like a weed in my garden and is great for cleaning antique linens and unglazed pottery. It rinses clean easily and if any is retained, it has so little residual taste and it is safe to use, in fact it is used medicinally in extremely small amounts. The southwest Indians use yucca root the same way, however it has a greater percentage of saponins than soapwort. (There should be a bumper crop of yucca this year, with all the rain it is springing up all over the place, I see it in places that I have never before seen it. I have a recipe for the edible flowers but unfortunately am not able to hike around in the desert as I once was.)

I have one of the Dawn scrubbers and it works great, especially in muffin pans, tight corners and etc. However for all of my earthenware/clay unglazed, salt-glazed and etc., I use the "tawashi" palm fiber scrubbers from Japan. The first suribachi I bought years ago (at Marukai, huge Japanese market in Gardena ) came with one free. I notice that this place is also offering one with a suribachi. I use them to scrub my molcajete and metate as well as my wooden spoons, spatulas, and etc. I have several and have them identified with different colored cable ties, leaving a loop so they can be hung to dry. One is dedicated to vegetable scrubbing, etc. I don't know why they work so well on porous surfaces but they do an excellent job. Since they are so cheap (1.75) I always order a dozen at a time. I also order a bunch in the fall as I include them in many of the gift baskets I make up for the holidays. I have a friend who is a tile maker, carves designs into the clay before painting and firing so they look almost like cloisonne, and she uses these to clean the cured tiles before painting. She also uses them to make a fine design on some of the tiles by pressing the wetted tawashi into the clay to make a fine, pore-like pattern. After curing, painting and firing, the "pores" are darker with the surrounding glaze much lighter in color. I have one of her tiles picturing an orange and this technique makes it look like the orange peel is real. O.T. Apart from food/vessel/utensil use, they are great for scrubbing the feet....

Pickled eggs are very good. You used to see them in neighborhood bars, in large glass jars. The markets where I live carry them in jars in the deli section, usually right next to the "fresh" horseradish. All I can recall is that there is a man's name in the brand name. I have several recipes on my computer at home. I am at the office today so won't have access to the recipes until this evening. I use the recipe in Joy of Pickling as it is easier than my old one. I came across one on the 'net a couple of years ago, tried it, liked it but lost it. It had a distinct mustard flavor which was very, very good, (I love mustard) a sweet/sour flavor that was just right. At that time I was using Netscape instead of IE and the search engine was different. I purged all my Netscape bookmarks and lost the web site URL. Darn!

Julia was not the "first" TV chef, however she was the first syndicated one that had a national audience. The first TV chef was in Los Angeles beginning in 1948 - Chef Milani, one of the founders of the Hollywood Canteen USO, was seen daily on KTLA until 1954. There was a female chef on KTTV (L.A.), whose name escapes me at the moment (Mama - - mostly German cooking, as I recall) in the early 1950s. She even produced a cookbook which I have somewhere in my collection.

I will add my second to this! I have (I think) all of Paula's cookbooks, and in fact, doubles on a couple that have been used so much they are spotted and dog-eared. Some of the pages are stuck together from having stuff spilled on them and not cleaned adequately prior to being put away. (As a side note, if you do spill something on a book, sprinkle it with corn starch and let it sit for a while. The corn starch will actually pull the moisture out of the paper. - I learned this years ago when taking a course on preserving works on paper at the Huntington library - to see if it is dry, simply dump the corn starch off onto a paper plate or paper towel, if the page is still damp sprinkle on an even layer. I have even put them on the shelf this way, just to make sure the pages wouldn't adhere to each other.)

For baking things like pies, pastry and etc., I think that Nick Malgieri's "How to Bake" is an excellent way to begin. I have recommended this book to many novice bakers who find it has a wide range of recipes from very easy to fairly complex, all well explained and they all taste good. For bread baking I recommend Peter Reinhart's "Crust and Crumb" or "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" There is a thread on this forum about baking with "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" here which might be helpful to you.

I just ordered a couple of the filter pods from holland from knivesandtools.com. I never drink decaf so have no idea how it will taste. One of the gals in the office ordered some of the decaf Milano from podhead.com and is pleased with it but this is a person who will drink anything remotely associated with coffee as long as it is decaf. She stops on the way to work to pick up what looks like a liter of coffee at the AM/PM where she gets her gas. That is gone by 10 which is when she starts in on the Senseo stuff she ordered and has at least three of the double cups by lunch. I can understand why she needs decaf, if it were caffinated she would be bouncing around on the ceiling............

If there is a Vallarta Supermercado near you, go to the meat department and in the case where you see packaged bacon, smoked ham hocks and etc., you will find packages of fresh lard. It is far superior to the stuff in the boxes (or larger buckets) and is reasonably priced (89 cents a pound on the package I just bought). You can render your own but it can be tricky to get it so it is not granular. You have to chill it rapidly while stirring with a whisk to get the very fine texture which is desirable for use in baking. I place a large stainless bowl in an ice bath and have someone helping me gradually pour the melted lard into the bowl while I whisk it. I wear protective gloves and an apron because it will pop a bit as moisture condenses on the interior of the bowl. You have to ask for leaf lard for rendering your own. It is superior to the regular fat.

I have three or four of the clay pots from this vendor and have never had a problem with cracking. I season them prior to initial use and again if I haven't used them for 4 or 5 months because I live in a desert area and it is very, very dry. (Except right now when it is pouring outside and we have a record rainfall year. However we also are having a bumper crop of wildflowers, the best in living memory so all thing even out.) Anyway, I have used one of the pots on the barbecue with no problems but usually use them on the gas cooktop and have never had one crack. I broke the handle on one when I shoved it ard against the tile backsplash but it did not destroy the integrity of the pot. I just use a rasp and coarse sandpaper to smooth it. I think you probably need to re-season the pot after it has been stored for a long time.

Why not start some from seed. The stuff self-seeds readily all over my garden and my gardeners are continually digging it out of the beds where I don't want it.Seeds of Change is a good place from which to order the seeds. It sprouts and grows rapidly but you can start it in a pot on a window sill then transplant it into the garden when it is warm enough.

I haven't turned to FoodTV for a long time. Too much hucksterism and too much "fun" (that isn't) in the shows, not to mention the inflated egos parading around and not doing much. I do miss the days of John Ash, Curtis Aikens and Mary Ann Esposito, and even David Rosengarten was easier to watch than the inane claptrap showing now. And I loved Two Hot Tamales!

I love braised celery and have been making it since I was a child as it was a family favorite. It is very simple to make. I actually have a few recipes I alternate. The one from the Cuisinart cookbook that was developed by James Beard for them is one. Last year I tried this one and it is very like the one I loved as a child. I sometimes add some toasted pecans over the top of the dish when ready to serve. Braised celery goes good with other vegetables too. I combined two dishes once, when I didn't have enough of either to make a decent dish. baby carrots glazed with balsamic syrup were alternated in a serving dish with braised celery and it was a lovely combination of flavors.

Another thing that is excellent for the low temp braise is braciola (Italian) or rouladen (German), both made with meat that is rather tough but has lots of flavor, pounded to an even thinness and rolled around a stuffing that can be made with various ingredients from bread/crackers to rice and vegetables, sausage, nuts and etc. There are many recipes that can be adapted to your own tastes. The sauces can also vary widely from a thick and meaty gravy to a tomato type and spicy sauces. The best way is to make small rolls that will each be an individual serving rather than one large roll.

If you use a ginger "grater" or even better, a Japanese suribachi, to grate the ginger into a juicy paste, you will have no strings at all. I have found that this is the best way to prepare fresh ginger for use in sauces, drinks, marinades and desserts such as ices. With the suribachi I grate the ginger against the sides of the bowl and if any coarser bits remain I work them over with the surikogi (pestle) until it is a smooth paste. The suribachi is also my favorite utensil for making chile paste, sambals, etc.

I have a question regarding cinnamon. (and other spices) Is it (or other spices) always ground and added directly to a dish. Back in the '70s when I hosted a young lady from Morocco who was here attending an artist's workshop for several weeks, she often broke up a selection of spices and infused them in broth or juice (and I believe once in tea) and added the liquid to a dish. I thought at the time it was because she didn't consider ground spices fresh enough and that was prior to the time that electric spice grinders were available. She grated some of the spices but simply crushed some in a mortar. It has been thirty years and my memory might be a little foggy, but I have been using this in a couple of recipes over the years, just not very often. I also remember when she made couscous from scratch. We drove all over town looking for an Italian market that had "real" semolina flour so she could make it in the traditional manner. It was fascinating but seemed like an awful lot of work so I never tried making it myself.

My favorite bagels in southern California are found at Brooklyn Bagel Bakery. I first met the two guys who started it in 1960 and have been making the trek down to L.A. a few times a year even since. They are the best, in my opinion and I have tried the bagels in a lot of places. They have added the ones with non-traditional additives to the line to remain competitive but when I first knew them they had plain, egg and pumpernickle.... Bialys came with salt and onion or salt and seeds and that was it. They are good for one day only, meant to be consumed within hours, if not minutes of finishing. They are made the way bagles are supposed to be made. I had a tour of the bakery back in the early '60s, which was the first time I had seen bagles prepared. It was a revelation. I had gone to baking school but we never touched on bagels. I have a friend (non eG) who lives in Palo Alto and when I have visited her, she gets bagels at Izzy's on California Avenue, two blocks from her home. They are also excellent. They are the traditional size (no wider than my palm) and also do not keep beyond a few hours. As I recall, they are strictly kosher. I do not like the huge, soft bagels that do not have the substance of the real bagel. Cutting into one with loose crumb and a porus texture is not my idea of perfection. Close, fine crumb with no bubbles is my ideal.

Years ago I used to go to a small middle eastern restaurant on Ventura Blvd in Studio City. They listed several dishes from North Africa, including this one which was supposed to be an Algerian dish. They served stuffed cucumbers, rings of peeled cucumber about 2 inches long, filled with a mildly spicy mixture of couscous and lentils and served with a yogurt sauce. The mixture may have contained a little ground meat but it has been so many years I really don't recal exactly. The cucumber rings had been cooked just a little. I remember trying to recreate the dish and having no luck at all. Does this sound like a dish that might be from the region?

Something like this is helpful. I have a couple of these and also one of the ones that slides in from the side, like you see in hospitals (much more expensive). Since the top tilts and has a ledge to keep books from sliding off, it is ideal for reading large books. I have a lot of very large books, collectibles and very old and rare books that require special handling. These tables are just the ticket and since the price has dropped, they are reasonably priced.

I reheat cooked meats of all kinds in the microwave. I use a shallow Corning baking dish with glass lid. I prop the lid up just a bit with a bamboo skewer.