andiesenji

I have ordered from Adagio many times. I get their email newsletter about new and interesting things or special deals. They have always been fast and accurate and their little sample tins are really great for holding odd little things when you have used the tea. Their regular tins seal tightly and keep the tea perfectly. I use a lot of tea and have ordered from most of the tea vendors on the 'net during the past several years. I have had only one bad experience and that vendor is no longer in business.

Food is a universal language, talk about food can cross all barriers, sharing of food can make friends of enemies and can open doors that would be otherwise closed. One need not speak the language to enjoy the food of another country. A smile and gestures can convey delight. People are generous with their knowledge about food when you show interest. There have been times I have been moved to tears when I have tasted perfection in a dish. I have tried to do as well myself and continually fall short but the striving is the important thing.

this is an addendum to my prior post re: Cambro. The taller containers hold bottles nicely and are great for traveling because if a bottle should break the liquid is confined to the container and does not ruin the carpeting in your van (something which happened to me with a bottle of roated-garlic olive oil).

Cambro makes many sizes of containers and some have the same size covers, (6 qt and 8 qt use the same size lid) (12,18 & 22 quart have one size lid) but are of different depths. I use these because they nest well and I keep the up to 8 qt. lids in the Jumbo sized Hefty slide-lock bags hanging next to where I store the containers (upside down, of course). I keep the larger lids in one of the drawstring type kitchen bags, also hanging up. Most of mine are the round containers from 1 quart to 22 quarts. I have several of the largest ones in which I store flour, etc. They also make a line of CLEAR round and square containers - Alton Brown has used these on his show - I have a few but prefer the round Natural White ones except for a few things (such as pickles). They all are dishwasher safe and resist coloring from the foods that often discolor ordinary plastics. Out here I buy Cambro containers at Smart & Final but they are carried at other stores that cater to the food service industry. The "Natural White" ones are very reasonably priced. Cambro at Smart & Final The following is a post I made to the Bread-Bakers list in Feb '03. --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n009.15 --------------- From: Andie Paysinger <asenji@earthlink.net> Subject: Dough bucket/food grade storage containers Date: Sat, 08 Feb 2003 18:38:03 -0800 There was a request for a dough bucket. I have used the Cambro containers which are superior food grade containers for many years. They are available from Smart & Final at very good prices. Check them out at the web site. http://sdc2.sdccorp.com/smartstore/browse.asp?id=1 Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Food Containers. The round Cambro containers which are the most suitable for al your needs are on pages 2 and 3 (containers and lids sold separately). The sizes range from 1 quart # 106060 to 22 quarts # 106240. The price of the 1 qt. is $1.87. The price of the 22 quart is $9.78 The lid (fits the 12 qt., the 18 qt. and 22 qt.) is $0.72 The I have many of these in every size. I use them for storing flour, grains, nuts, dried fruit, kitchen utensils when I travel, bottles of liquids (If something breaks, it is confined to the bucket. In my freezer instead of many small packages of veggies, fruits, etc. I have the large containers, one with veggies, one with fruits, one with poultry, one with fish, one with pork, beef, etc., etc. They seal so well that there is very little frost formation in the packages and therefore less waste. I do vacuum seal meats and fish and home grown fruit and veg before putting them into the containers. When getting ready for a party I dump ice from my ice maker into one of the buckets and keep adding to it every time the icemaker fills. The lids really seal tightly. Last week I put a batch of dough in one, snapped on the lid and it rose more than I expected, the lid had bulged up considerably but had remained tightly sealed. The containers also can be put in the microwave directly from the freezer to defrost stored foods. Try that with some other containers and you will have a disaster.

Dry cured pork is treated with salt and sodium nitrate. The action of the nitrate on the meat is what causes the pink color. Brine cured pork is lighter in color, more of a tan or beige with just a hint of pink. Nitrates have this effect on other meats, sausages, turkey, etc., but it is most pronounced in pork products.

I think "Quark" is a very odd name for cheese. However in German it means "curd" so that makes sense.

Any dried fruits are great in bread pudding. I like minced dried apricots and dried mango. If they are too dry and hard, a few minutes in a steamer will soften them without them getting soggy. Here is my original recipe for a very fancy "bread" pudding, in case you ever want to do something quite different. Marzipan filled brioche bread pudding. an original recipe by Andie Read all directions first. This recipe takes 2 days to do it correctly Easy Brioche Rolls Must start day before serving this dessert. 1/2 cup milk 1/2 cup butter or margarine 1/3 cup sugar 1 tsp. salt 1 pkg. dry yeast 1/4 cup lukewarm water 1 egg, separated 3 whole eggs, beaten 3 1/4 cup flour Scald milk and while hot add butter (margarine), sugar, and salt. COOL TO LUKEWARM. Soften yeast in the water. Add to LUKEWARM milk mixture. Add egg yolk and beaten eggs and stir. Add flour and beat with wooden spoon for 2 minutes. Cover and let rise in a warm place (80-85 degrees) until more than double in bulk, about 2 hours or less. Stir down and beat (stir) thoroughly. Cover tightly with foil and refrigerate overnight. Remove from fridge and allow to come to room temp. Take plain brioche dough and form into small buns (golf ball size works nicely), cover and let them rest for 10 minutes. Filling You can use store bought marzipan or make your own. Make a rope of marzipan about the size of a tootsie roll and cut into pieces about the same width. (You don't have to shape them.) Put one of the marzipan pieces on each bun, draw the dough up around it and pinch and twist to seal. Place in a buttered pan with seam side down. Cover and allow to rise about 30 minutes or until nearly doubled in size. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush tops of rolls with melted butter. Place pan in center of oven. Bake till nicely browned. Remove from oven and place on a wire grid. When cool cover loosely with a cloth and let them set out several hours. We want them to be just a little stale. The next step which takes this into an entire new category Egg custard 4 eggs + 2 egg yolks, beaten till creamy 1 1/2 cups milk 1/2 cup cream 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg 1/4 cup sweet sherry (optional) Mix all these ingredients and beat until completely blended Preheat oven to 325 degrees Place the marzipan filled buns in a buttered baking dish sides touching. Pour the custard in and around the buns but do not cover the tops of the buns. Let this stand for a few minutes then add more of the custard mix as the rolls will have soaked up some. Place the pan in a bain marie and bake until the custard is set. (Time varies with the size of the baking dish and the amount of custard) For a 9 x 11 pan it should be done in about 25 minutes. Test with a thin knife blade BETWEEN THE ROLLS at about 20 minutes, then at 25 minutes. Test every 2 minutes after that until blade comes out clean.

Go figure -- I couldn't see it before but can now! I'm like Balmagowry -- buy 'em all! I can't get enough Historical Cuisine books and continually fight the urge in buying more and more. While I am concentrating on researching and writing about Victorian cuisine, I can't say I really have a preference. I started out doing culinary historical recreation for the Renaissance Faire. Then some Freemasons hired me to create a feast honoring the supposed meeting between Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin (a la The Crusades). Then a group wanted to do ancient Greek and Roman feasts. It has been downhill from there! I trust you have visited Acanthus Books? Acanthus Books

I would like to prepare a meal for two people, Jane Austin and Dr. Johnson. Can't you just imagine the conversation? Splendid. I would prepare a diverse meal from multiple ethnic cuisines with each one a separate course. I have to think about the individual dishes.

Here is a little secret thing that has been passed along to me by my daughter, an ebay fanatic! I am also an ebay enthusiast and am a collector of various things. I have passed it on to others, now it is your turn. I have used it with fantastic results. They allow you three FREE transactions so you can see how well they work. They bid for you in the last 5 seconds of an auction. You have to set the price you are willing to pay and be firm about it. They will notify you if you are outbid but I have that checked off because I am only going to pay so much and no more. Auction Sniper Enjoy!

I have a pair of Merrills that I wear in the winter, alternating with a pair of Blundstone "Tug" shoes that are also extremely comfortable. Tug shoes Occasionally I go through an episode of ankle swelling and I have a pair of Caterpillar high tops, style Mystifi, (I think) that are very comfortable and keep my ankles from ballooning. They are made to look sort of like wrestling boots and the soles are not as thick as the others so they are not good for extended standing, but for a change-off from my regular shoes, they are great. Mystify by Caterpillar (I can't stand to wear the stockings, I invariably end up tearing them off after an hour or so because they make my legs itch.) And for those looking for extra wide shoes the Skidbusters come in extra wide and sizes up to 14. One of the guys in my diabetes support group is a Samoan (very large) who wears a 13 xtra wide in the oxford style. His doctor approved of these. skidbuster shoes

Trichinosis has NOT been totally eliminated. In our office we have seen 5 cases during the past four years of 3 patients with brain lesions from trichina, one also had a bovine tapeworm larva in the brain. All three had had back or neck injuries on the job and were seen for med/legal evaluations for the defendant insurance companies. All had also had surgeries to the neck or back or both. All had developed weakness, trembling, difficulty ambulating, numbness and tingling in one of more extremities. This was thought to be due to pressure on the nerves pre-op but was not relieved by surgery and continued to worsen. The problem was that these people had all been under the care of a chiropractor, farmed out for surgery and all the postop care was back to the chiropractor who did not recognize that this was not a nerve root problem. My boss, an orthopedic surgeon, did the exam and he felt that the symptoms were central nervous system or brain and recommended immediate referral to a neurosurgeon for evaluation. Scans of the brains showed the lesions and treatment arrested the problem but the damage already done cannot be reversed. Only one of these cases was accountable to home-butchered meats, resident of Bakersfield. The other two were from commercial sources, one patient lived in Whittier, the other in Valencia, California. The other two cases had trichina cysts in certain muscles with resultant weakness localized to that muscle only, plus a palpable lump. I only recall the one man who happened to live in Lacaster, my home city, and he was a teacher at one of the high schools. I believe the other man was a farm worker from the San Joaquin Valley. I personally will not eat pork that is less well done than medium. I know that in England they prefer pork pink but I don't think they have as high an incidence of trichina there. In one of the journals it was estimated that many such brain lesions go undetected or the symptoms are attributed to other causes, senile dementia, Alzheimers, Parkinson's, etc., because the patients are not completely worked up because of inadequate testing in some HMOs. Brain scans are expensive and many HMOs simply will not approve them and most people do not know how to force the issue or even that it is necessary.

Two things I have, which make life much easier is a new sink faucet I got just last year. It has a very high arch and the on/off control valve at the end. and the second is a pot-filler faucet over the cooktop that I had installed with the remodel. I have a big sink, but there are two sections, one is large and square and 10 inches deep. The other is smaller (where the garbage disposal is located), and not as deep. It is a cultured stone sink, very tough.

I do not like the bottom mount freezers at all. Now with my injured back it would be impossible for me to get anything out of one. I have two refer drawers, one on one side of the kitchen at the vegetable prep area and the other at one end by the baking station. And I also have a Maytag Wide by Side which has the wider part of the refrigerator at the top and that level of the freezer is narrow and contains the ice maker. Then I have a 10 cf small refrigerator just for cheese and some produce. They just don't make most side-by-sides as big as they used to. In 1972 I bought a 32cf Kelvinator side-by which worked like a horse for many years. The refrigerator alone was as big as most are now, total. It was huge but it worked. It is still working, I gave it to a women's shelter here in town and they have told me that it may use more electricity than the newer ones but the compressor doesn't run as much as the other one they have. Freezers are smaller now also. I have an upright 30 cf freezer that has an interior "quick freeze" compartment at the bottom. I bought it perhaps 10 or 12 years ago and I don't think they make them this size any longer.

Have you ever considered just getting one of the flat covers for the Cuisinart? like this It is perfect for making doughs or for when you need to add a liquid or oil to something that is processing. (I made pesto yesterday using a cover like this on the 14 cup model) the center opening has a little cap over it that just lifts off. You can order covers with a large feed tube for some machines. The 20 cup machine I have will accomodate a large potato or large onion. There is also a way to make it work with the pusher sleeve out of the feed tube but you have to figure that out for yourself. I don't want to be responsibe for any lost fingers(or whatever). I will tell you that it involves an extra large paper clip.

"Dew-wayne Post, if you don' stop flapping your gums and get into that kitchen to make sure that roux don' burn, there is gon' be a precious lot of loud singin' and slow marchin' round chere." Miss Mattie DePuis, The Creole Cafe, North Hollywood, CA. Sadly both Miss Mattie and the cafe went the way of the Dodo many years ago but when Columbia Studios still had the production site on the border of North Hollywood and Burbank, and long before Universal was an entertainment site, there were a great many folks who worked in the studios who enjoyed Miss Mattie's New Orleans food, her stories and her running battle with her (much younger) husband Dewayne who dearly loved to schmooze with the patrons instead of hanging over a hot stove. With the regulars, the phrase "loud singin' and slow marchin'," came to be known as a subtle threat. I heard it used by people who had never been within a thousand miles of NOLA.

Took my fruit-picking apron off the hook in the laundry room. (A heavy sail-cloth apron that has a very long skirt that can be folded up to the waist and has snaps along the sides and loops at the bottom corners to hold it in place.) Apparently I missed either an apricot or a plum down in one corner, my fault for not unsnapping it, that had turned into a gooey mess and the fruit flies had found it. (I kept wondering why I kept seeing them in the laundry room). Yuck indeed. I took it outside and hosed it off, scrubbed it with a brush and let it hang outside then put it in the wash with some towels. It still has a dark spot but at least is clean. I have had a few yucky things happen when I had someone helping me bring things in from my van and they did not put something where it belonged and I didn't notice it. (A box of frozen filo dough set on a shelf in the pantry between two boxes of pasta). Not a pretty sight.

Yes! Maybe, anyhow. The "Bun Tray Racks" are what gave me the idea, but I've only ever seen them used in a walk-in. Also I saw somewhere where a guy had done all the drawers in his kitchen with a similar gizmo designed to hold hotel pans. But those True refrigerators DO claim to have an "optional interior kit" with "tray slide sets" which sound like that might be the ticket -- I'm going to be buying a fridge sometime late this year or early next, and I will check into that!

The best maple syrup I have tried is from this place in New Hampshire. They have a "Cooking" maple syrup which has wonderful deep flavor and the price at $34.00 for a gallon is pretty good. I also buy their granulated maple sugar which is better than the products I have bought from other sources. One of my friends lived near this place and she sent me some of the cooking syrup a few years back and I was hooked.

There have been exhaustive studies on this. Battery-maintained chickens are far more prone to salmonella infection than free range chickens. The incidence is far lower in England and Europe than it is here. Salmonella in amounts to cause illness is only found in one out of 50,000 eggs and of those, many do not make it to market or are sold to companies that prepare cooked egg products. Therefore the actual number that will show up in the egg case at a market might be one in 200,000 or less. However remote the chance, I buy pasturized eggs when I am going to be using the eggs raw. They are more expensive but I am then sure that I will not be harming myself or the people who will be eating my food.

Do you mean like this? Scroll down to see "Bun Tray racks" in this? Or this?

The smooth gooey texture is difficult to get without dairy. Some recipes call for gelatine or "fish glue" - The more the product is beaten, the more air that is whipped into it, the smoother it will be. Beating whipped egg whites into the mixture also give a smoother texture. What source are you using for recipes? This site has a few: Italian recipes This is an explanation of the differences: Italian frozen desserts I have made both the Lemon Ice in lemon cups and the peach granita at this site They are both excellent. The peach granita uses gelatin. Italian ices

If you want to do some searching for "alternative" refrigerators, check this site. They have a large listing of links to various manufacturers, installer, specialty products, such as Klondike, which I mentioned above. unusual refrigeration concepts I have to add that I did have a Sub-Z for several years 1988 to 1996 and it was a tree-full of lemons. I had at least 4 service calls a year, replaced the compressor in the freezer twice and in the refrigerator once. It was noisy and the freezer was very bad about drying things out. It just seemed to suck the moisture out of everything. Ice cream in those round cartons, unopened, unless sealed in a plastic vacuum bag, would shrink by 1/2 inch from the sides of the carton, after being stored only a month. I was not at all happy with its performance, particularly considering what I paid for it. I have a friend who lives in Big Sur that has one of the double Klondike refrigerators plus a separate freezer and uses half of one fridge as a wine cooler. When they had a bad power outtage two or three years ago, she told me it stayed cold for a very long time, much longer than most would have done. She was finally able to rent a big generator at the end of the second day of the outtage and did not lose anything in either of the refrigerators or in the freezer. This was the main reason I seriously considered getting one. That and the fact that they are hand built. And still cost less than the Sub-Z.

I dry and smoke my own chipotles. Also have dried and smoked poblano/anchos, habaneros and rocotos.

I have a couple of uses for my asparagus steamer. I also use it to steam cardoons, those big stems just do not fit well in anything else. I cut the base off of celery and store it in water (which I change daily) in the fridge in the steamer. Takes up less room this way than any other method of storage. However the thing for which I use it most is to cool stocks rapidly. I fill it with water to within an inch of the top, put it in the freezer while the stock is cooking, then when it is done I turn off the heat and lower the asparagus steamer with its solid block of ice into the pot. I have hooks above my cooktop and have a rope with a loop on each end which holds the steamer above the level of the stock. I also wrap the pot with two of the large hot/cold packs which are made to fit on the back, (mine have only been used in the kitchen), which also have been in the freezer. I wrap towels around them and pin them together with giant safety pins. (I talked one of the counter guys at In N Out Burger into selling me a couple.) This combination of inner and outer cold application cools the stock down rapidly, thus lessening the chance of nasty critters invading the stock when it is in the susceptible temperature range, 40 to 140 degrees.