andiesenji

I make several flavor extracts and I get the best result with Everclear. It is 95% grain alcohol (190 proof) and extracts more flavor from the vanilla, coffee, etc. It has no residual flavor. I get it from a local liquor store that orders it for me but it is available online in most states. It is illegal in several states, they are listed at the bottom of this page: http://www.beerliquors.com/liquors/grain.htm As for rums, click on rum, then on "More Rum" where you will find three long pages of rum, some extremely expensive. Just skimming on page 2, I saw one for $345.48. must be realllllly good.

I've also seen that with my sourdough loaves on occasion. In my case, it seems to happen when the starter/dough is greatly favoring the yeast rather than the lactobacilli. When it has occured, all of the proofing went quickly (in sourdough terms) and the resulting bread was less acidic tasting (not favored in my household that grew up eating San Francisco sourdough). Under-proofing? Over-proofing? ??? I am also interested in Mr. MacGuire's thoughts on this, since I'd like to know the mechanics behind this outcome. The wild (but fun) world of bread baking! I should have made it clear that this only happens with sourdoughs and with one particular starter that has behaved itself nicely until this recent activity. I mistyped when I put in 'yeast'. I have one of Ed Wood's cultures, the "Bahrain, which is quite sour. http://www.sourdo.com/ I have two others but they are kept totally separate, to prevent cross-contamination. I wait a minimum of two weeks between batches and before opening one of the containers I run the kitchen exhaust system on high for an hour. This seems to work quite well. I have tested the effects by setting out culture material to "catch" wild yeasts and have no activity in it. After baking off the loaves I set the system to run on high again for two hours. The product from the different batches are significantly different. This one is very sour, even more than San Francisco. The French is very mild and the Red Sea culture (the one I have had the longest, is medium sour. I just ordered two more to see if I like one better than those I have been using. Perhaps this is just a very active culture and is blowing its top........

No, are you giving it a recommendation? I have a huge number of cookbooks but keep going back to the old standards for terrines, timbales, etc. I have been using recipes from Pellaprat's book (the '66 English translation) for many years. It is time I bought something new along this line...

Your post touched a couple of nerves with me. This is OT I know. I have friends who have children with problems and one friend is fighting a monumental battle with a school board in No.Calif. to keep her son and his aide in regular classes. He communicates via computer, he can type but has difficulty with verbal communication. He has difficulty getting about because he is uncoordinated, thus the need of an aide. The school board has spent far more in legal rangling than it would have cost to cover his expenses. The other thing is this: I have worked for my boss for 36 years, I saw his children grow up. His middle child, a daughter is deaf from infancy. However she had the advantage of parents who would not settle for less than the best and after a brief time at a "special" school she was "mainstreamed" and excelled. She is a graduate of UCLA Medical School, is a practicing dermatologist and is an extraordinary individual. She is featured in Living Legends III Dr. Lisa Woolf http://www.buttepublications.com/biographies.asp?SessID=13 I think the more people that know what someone with a "disabilty" can achieve, the better the future will be for the young people coming along.

The hook, the galvanized tub or the meat?? I don't do this much now, arthritis has slowed me down. However I still have all the tools. My housekeeper's nephew wanted to "borrow" my band saw and was a bit miffed when I turned him down. I finally said that I used it only to cut up meat and bones and his eyes got the size of saucers and he slipped out the back door and I haven't seen him since. I think he may be wondering just WHAT I have in my freezer...... I also have an electric chain saw that I keep for the same use. I wonder if that is why my house has never been burgled, although there was a rash of break-ins in my neighborhood a few months ago.

It is trying to "bolt" that is, flower and set seed. If you cut the stems near the crown (base) of the plant you can usually keep it in line. However you can probably get more mileage out of the plant if you dig it out and divide it. Sometimes it just gets to the end of the cycle and won't come back. I start several new plants each spring and again in the fall which overwinter in the greenhouse. In the spring they go out into large pots in the garden, often paired with other compatible plants. If you let it go to seed in the fall, new plants will grow back in the spring. The curly parsley is more robust and hardy and I have one that lives outside all the time. It dies back in the winter and reappears in the early spring.

I have been setting the steam function in my oven for the first 10 minutes after loading the oven. Recently the crust on either side of the diagonal slashes has been curling up and out like a leaf instead of simply splitting. If I do a center cut it also curls back and the center of the loaf rises through the split into a ridge. It isn't unattractive and the crumb is open which is the way I like it, but I am mystified as to the change in the way these loaves are behaving. I am using the same high protein flour, the same yeast, same formula, etc. I have been baking bread in this oven for several years and it bothers me that I can't figure out what has changed.

My order did not arrive today and FedEx says they are unable to track it at the moment. I live in southern California.

Supposedly the "classic" compliment to Sambuca is chewing on coffee beans then flaming the liquor, expelling the coffee beans and tossing the liquor into the mouth. Since I don't drink alcohol I couldn't say, however, considering the basic flavor, I would think a burnt sugar type of crunchy bits with coffee flavor might do. Have you ever made expresso-flavored hard toffee? That can be broken up into small bits and stirred into ice cream as well as cream. I make a whipped cream cake - just a plain angel-food cake cut into several thin layers, with whipped cream with this and toasted almonds folded into the whipped cream which is slathered on between the layers and all over the outside of the cake, then into the freezer for about an hour and a half to make it easy to cut. Just a thought...........

This is happening to me also. I ordered one of these: http://www.fromages.com/board.php?id=329 And it should have been delivered Wednesday. Still no sign of it. FedEx just said it was being held up, but no details where.

A lot of people take a look in there and say the same thing. It hasn't happened in sixteen years, but there is always a first time. My hand might slip or something. They are up there hung on 6 inch hooks that are screwed into the ceiling joists, which, in this house, because of the clay tile roof, are 6" x 8". I can hang my 200 plus pounds from one of those hooks. At the end where I was standing to take the photo I have a big swivel hook where I hang large carcasses when I am breaking them into parts. I have a huge but shallow galvanized tub that goes on the floor under it. I have had steer parts that took two men to lift hanging on it.

Most of the cast iron collection among other things hanging from my pantry ceiling. I tried to get a picture of a perfectly seasoned skillet and one of another that needs work but unfortunately I am a bit shaky today and the pics are too fuzzy. This photo was taken a few weeks ago.

With legs? Or maybe I mean feet. Well, andiesenji might be referring to a footed spider, since that's the origin of the term, I believe. But once electric ranges became all the rage among my grandma and her peers, they adopted the word for anything of frying-pan shape. Just what the folks back then (1940s in Kentucky) called any cast iron skillet. I have a bunch, many "liberated" when I made a trip back home in the mid 80s. Drove a van back, rented a trailer and came back to California with over a ton of cast iron, crocks of all sizes and a lot of other junk. No one ever throws anything away on the farm. They still have my grandpa's 1937 Buick LaSall Saloon.... in perfect working order. The kitchen was "modernized" even when I was a child, with two big gas ranges (bottled gas which had been used for lighting for many years) 2 gas refrigerators, Servel, before electricity was in. They still use the old Monarch range to heat the kitchen annex in the winter, otherwise I would have made off with that also. The stoves now are Garland and they use some cast iron but I am good at begging and they let me take what I wanted. I just counted 11 cast iron skillets from 6 inch to 20 inch plus a long "skillet" that covers two burners and a deep chicken fryer.

I think you did exactly right. Use what works for you - sometimes the so-called experts get it wrong also. It just takes experience. I remember growing up that our cook would "burn-out" the cast iron pans perhaps every year or so and by that I mean she shoveled hot coals (mixed wood and coal) from the cookstove into the spyder, pot or baking pan, set it in the fireplace and use the bellows to get the burning material really going. When it had burned out and the pan cooled she would wipe it off, inside and out, then throw in some pork belly and render it down, pour off most of the fat and leave it on the hottest part of the stove until it was smoking. I still have some of those pots and spyders or skillets and while I don't go to those lengths, I often stick one that needs a good burn-out into my barbecue when I am getting ready to roast something. I put it in upside down and if there is room I leave it while whatever I am roasting is cooking. The temps get easily up to 500. Once someone used one of my skillets to cook something that burned on and stuck like cement. I used my blowtorch to burn it out then re-seasoned it. I think the stuff was one of those thick sweet/sour sauces because it certainly smelled like charred sugar when I took the blowtorch to it. I really hate for anyone to use my things, this is part of the reason.

I clip the stems near the base, taking about 1/3 of the clump at a time. I have several pots with the flat leaf and a couple of the curly. I rotate the "harvest" and after new leaves appear on the cut part I will cut the second third, and so on. If I am going to be taking a bunch of different herbs I take a basket with a wet towel in the bottom (on a sheet of plastic wrap) and as I cut the herbs I tuck the cut ends of the stems under the towel. This allows air to circulate around the leaves but keeps the open end of the stem moist. I find they stay fresher longer this way. In the kitchen I just plunk them into jelly jars with water, just like a boquet. You should use a sharp scissors to cut them. I have a pair that is only used for the herbs.

My favorite is a mushroom "burger" made with a whole grilled portobello top layered between carmelized onions on an onion/cheese Kaiser-type roll.

I live in a rural area near Lancaster, California. This is known as the "high" desert because of the altitude (above 2000, whereas Palm Springs is at sea Level). This means we have hot summers, but not as hot as the low desert and much colder winters, getting at times into single digits, however it is a brief winter. This is an ancient sea bed, where I am the sand is 600 ft deep and the borax comes from minerals that settled out of the ancient sea. Not far away is Boron where borax is mined in a huge open pit. This area is on top of the Mojave aquifer, many miles north the Mojave river disappears from the surface but continues underground and we have great water, very sweet, but it requires a deep well, ours is 1500 ft deep, but worth it. In fact the water is so tasty that people who try it say we should sell it, however that involves too much red tape for me. Anyway, during the rainy season in the winter, after a heavy rainfall and the surface dries, you would see what appears to be frost, that is borax (and some other alkaline materials) that are brought to the surface by the rain. Once it dries, it blows away with the first wind. (We have a lot of wind - usually out of the west - which means that all the Joshua trees - odd looking things, lean toward the east. It is an interesting area, as long as one can irrigate, especially with a drip system, almost anything will grow. I have been augmenting my garden for 16 years and it looks rather like a jungle. This is a photo of part of my kitchen garden (nicknamed Le Potager). I have a larger garden beyond the greenhouse but I have difficulty walking in the soft earth so my gardener takes care of it. Strawberries picked yesterday morningl Apricots already good sized, they have a month to go. This is an heirloom variety, huge and very sweet.

I went into mourning when he was no longer on the Food TV network. His American Game Cooking is wonderful for someone like me who cooks a lot of wild game. From The Earth To The Table not only has a huge number of wonderful recipes, it has tons of good general advice that anyone can use. This new book has so much information for the novice cook that takes so much of the mystery out of preparing some recipes at which most newbies would balk if they looked at a similar recipe in another type of cookbook. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is just starting to venture into cooking. There is plenty for old hands to learn also.

But you can also make some wonderful things that are low calorie and taste the way YOU want them to taste. I make a fantastic tomato gelato which is a wonderful palate cleanser after a bunch of rich "starters" ... Now you have a lot of choices that are really inexpensive. I did have a couple of the kind that had a container that had to go into the freezer, however I finally bit the bullet and bought one that has coolant in it and all you have to do is turn in on to chill, then pour the mixture into the freezing chamber and turn it on. In 20 minutes it is done. I have been using Splenda and have had some excellent results. I have to dig out the ice cream cookbooks I used and try something different.

I used to visit a Fat Burger in Orange Co. whenever I visited my friends who live in Yorba Linda. Then, hooray!! a Fat Burger opened here in Lancaster. For the first month it was open one had to wait in line for a long, long time. Now we have a Panera Bakery and Cafe, (next door in Palmdale) one of only five in California. OT I think some companies like to try things out in this area because we had the first Wal-Mart in California, the first Dillard's dept. store and a few other "firsts" including other fast food places. The last A & W Rootbeer drive-in with car-hops was here, independently owned. The food was great and the Friday "cruise" night meant that one couldn't get within two blocks of the place. You could see some fantastic cars - some from as far away as the beach cities.

It is possible, however note that the leaves are not curling nor yellowing. There was a big push to get the F1 hybrid out in the market last year and again this spring. Lowe's, Home Depot and Wal-Mart had them here. The plain grays, locally known as "Mexican Squash" has a small leaf. When attacked by PM the leaves immediately yellow and curl. This plant looks like it is heavily infested but doesn't appear to be suffering. My gardener brought in a basked full of squash this morning, including a bunch of the F1. Most of my garden is watered by drip method, however one end still has standing sprinklers and the leaves of most of the plants there have white on them, however it is borax from the soil. One advantage is that many species of insects simply can't live in soil with this much borax. You are correct, the hybrid will not reproduce - however it has great blossoms for stuffing and frying.

I thought I posted this but do not see it. Smokin' Jack's Kansas City Bar-B-Q and ACME Autoworks N. Victory Blvd in Burbank, Calif. The best Kansas City Barbeque take out only this side of Kansas City.

Regarding the "Mystery Squash" It is a hybrid, called Hurakan F1 Zucchini gray type Harris Moran holds the patent http://www.harrismoran.com/products/squash/hurakan.htm

I vote for So.Calif./Baja also. L. A. and environs (love that word) has some of the most diverse food anywhere in the U.S. Not to mention the many attractions. I could spend a month just visiting restaurants I would like to try for breakfast, lunch and dinner - and I live in the area. On the way to San Diego there are several small towns that have attractive places with great food. San Diego has some great restaurants and great attractions. If you want to splurge on a great place to stay with absolutely grand food, consider the Del Coranado - The "Del" was the place that the movie "Some Like It Hot" was filmed. I have stayed there many times and have never been disappointed. Heading north from L.A. along the seacoast you come to Malibu and some great restaurants, great scenery. Santa Barbara, besides being the new home of Julia, has just about every type of food you could want, very few duds. If you could go in July you could visit in time for the French Festival and/or Greek Festival which are both fantastic events. And for the horse lovers, the Santa Barbara National Horse Show. September sees the Oktoberfest and even better, the Santa Barbara Jazz festival.

On re-reading the article I noticed the mention of the duck fat vaporizing and the problems attendant. I place my roasting pan on a sheet pan and place one of the racks near the top of the oven and from that suspend a "tent" of aluminum foil with the ends resting on the sheet pan near the edges. To fasten the center of the tent to the upper rack and to the edges of the sheet pan I use bindery clips, which I get by the dozen because they come in various sizes and have become an invaluable help in the kitchen. The open "tent" directs the fat back down to the sheet pan where it can be collected. I do not let the foil come near the duck because it would adhere, tear the skin when removed and ruin the presentation. This works fine in my convection oven (Blodgett) that has a powerful fan. The tent is open at the back and the front so does not interfere with the heat circulation. If you have an oven door that does not seal well, you can get a high temperature silicone sealant (good to 700 degrees) and run a bead around the opening. Unless you have an oven exhaust that vents into the kitchen, this should solve problems with smoke/fat escaping from the oven. I often prepare Sara Moulton's "Blasted Chicken" and use this same method. Try it once, see if it works for you.