jphilg

Thank you so much!

Been a long, long time since I posted.... I need a half sheet cake for a birthday party, two layers of chocolate cake filled with buttercream and fresh raspberries. I know that pro would bake the cake in a 3" deep pan and torte it to get two layers. But I only have 1" deep half sheets. Can I bake two layers in the 1" pans, and then stack them? Or am I asking for a huge bubble-over mess on my oven floor? Also, does anyone know how many cups of cake batter for a half sheet? Thanks. Off to look for the thread on the definitive chocolate cake! --Jen

Not much...maybe $1.50/lb? Something like that. But you need to call ahead; they don't keep them on a regular basis, so you need to let them know a day or two ahead of time that you'll be coming by.

If you call ahead to the Lebanese Butcher in Falls Church (Annandale and Lee Highway), they'll save veal bones for you. I've had great luck with this route.

I just had my first two months ago.....first tri, our house was under DEEP renovation, so we had no kitchen. The only take out I could handle was a baked potato from Wendy's, plain. All my husband had to do was SUGGEST Boston Market, or Thai, for dinner and I went running for the loo. I never had any food cravings, but I had serious drink cravings. I drank gallons and gallons of unsweetened iced tea, and constantly thought about Sauvignon Blanc and this specialty cocktail made at a local restaurant called a Cardinal. I think it is brandy and Grand Marnier...anyhow, I indulged in the former, in my last tri, but not the latter. Now that the baby is here, I have a crazy sweet tooth that I never had before. I've been baking up a storm.

Taking Mom for a picnic in the National Arboretum, with cheese, fruit, wine, and a crab-avocado pressed sandwich thingy. Brunch in a restaurant on Mother's Day just leaves me disappointed and cranky.

I do check out other peoples' carts, but I spend more time worrying about people checking out my cart. And JUDGING. I buy all my produce at the farmer's market in the summer, and the asian market in the winter, so every other week or so, I end up in line at the Safeway with a cart full of butter, sugar, beer, meat, and maybe a bag of chips. I always feel like telling the checkers, and my line-mates, that I do in fact eat vegetables....really. Not sure why I think anyone cares. Perhaps another item for the therapy list.

I, too, have heard of unforetold dangers associated with leaving cream cheese at room temperature, but I don't buy it. Many moons ago I packed food for Outward Bound classes as a summer job, and we always put in bricks of cream cheese to be toted in backpacks through the summer heat for at least a week. No reports of cheese-related illness, and there was a lot of thought that went into food safety in that organization. Since than, I have disregarded all of the cream cheese doomsayers.

I notice the menu has the following caveat attached to certain dishes: "*This item contains raw ingredients. In addition, items on this menu are cooked to order. Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood or eggs may increase your risk of food-bourne illnesses, especially if you have certain medial condition [sic]." Is this a new trend, or have I just failed to notice the government-warning style text on other menus? edited for grammar ← It is almost universal. If you start looking for it, you'll find it everywhere....from Chilis to the tasting room at Eve. Started popping up in the last 5 years or so.

My participation in the EG chicken frying experiment was actually the second time I have done a controlled experiment on fried chicken (as well as the second time I have *made* fried chicken). The first was about a year ago, to compare the use of eggs in the dredge with the more traditional straight buttermilk. Results: eggs create a thicker crust, which is yummy, but prohibit the skin-crust merge that is possible with just a buttermilk soak followed by flour. But that was last time....this time I tried two different methods for holding pre-fried chicken to allow for the nasty chicken frying smell to dissapate. I soaked 2 cut-up 3.5 pounders in 3 cups buttermilk with 1T kosher salt and a bunch of cajun seasoning (where did my hot sauces go? Someone's been rifling my pantry). The soak was planned for about 20 hours, but ended up going 44 hours because my pregnant self was unable to rally and cook fried chicken for a "southern cooking potluck" on Saturday night. I was concerned about over-brining, ending up with mushy or over-salted chicken, but texture did not seem to suffer. And I purposefully omitted the salt from the flour when dredging to avoid over-salting. Fried in trans-free Crisco in my electric frying pan. I have a gorgeous cast-iron skillet, but my electric fying pan is a double-wide, and I got a bit of a late start, so I went for batch-volume over tradition, with great results. My chicken was gorgeous, copper-penny brown, tender inside. Crisp, crisp, crisp. I drained on a rack over a pan, which worked well for me (as opposed to a paper towel or brown bag drain). Scarfing a wing over the sink, I patted myself on the back for superlative Yankee fried chicken skills ( similar self-pats take place after frying up a batch of my famous Shiksa (is this an offensive term? I apologize if so...mixed opinions)latkes in late November every year....the only other thing I really fry. But I've been thinking about doughnuts lately. Darn pregnancy hormones). But guests weren't arriving for another hour, I needed a shower, and my Yankee friends aren't as open to room temp fried chicken as true Southern purists might be. So I split my chicken into two groups, one went into the oven on low, on the draining rack, and the other went into brown paper bags, folded over at the top. In retrospect, I should have known that the brown paper bags would be kryptonite for my crispy crust (it's how I steam roasted red peppers in bulk) but I saw it on a FoodTV show. The truth: neither method was particularly good. The oven-warmed chicken definitely suffered some moisture loss. The crust stayed crisp, but crisp crust alone does not a good chicken fry make. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't worth the mess/calorie hit. And the bagged chicken, although very moist, had a slight wilt to the crust. Rats. Because it was SO good over the sink, right out of the pan. None of these flaws kept 6 people from eating every last morsel of those 2 sacrificial birds. Moral of the story: train your friends to appreciate room temperature chicken, or just go ahead and fry away while they are there. Because fried chicken is a once-a-year treat for many of us, olfactory comfort may need to be sacrificed for optimal chicken.

Linda, they are soapstone from Green Mountain Soapstone, "original". We are very happy with them, as well. Jen

Just popping in to say that I love your progress pictures! I also used cabinetry direct for my all-internet kitchen, and I am just thrilled with them. We "finished" about a month ago, but the punch list still lingers... Here are mine, sans the nontraditional crown moulding Ken was able to acquire for me: Rats...I seem to only be able to post a link. But both kitchen and bath cabinetry is CabDirect Back to your regularly scheduled kitchen thread....I've been lurking a long time, and just wanted to chime in with another good CabDirect experience for anyone else who might be on the fence.

For deals, I find that I can't beat Schneiders, especially if I know what I am looking for. I've not really probed the wine guys' knowledge, though. For pairing help, and new leads, Doug at Arrowwine has *never* steered us wrong. Love Doug; love the cheese counter, too. I really want to love the Curious Grape, but I just don't. I think I have a different palate than the buyers there, because I very rarely come home with something new that I like. I've learned to stick with wines I already know when shopping there.

Yup....Shopper's Food Warehouse, either Potomac Yards or Seven Corners. It is on sale at least once a month for 69 cents a pound. Really. I imagine you know this, but pork butt and pork shoulder are the same cut. Around here, I tend to find it called shoulder more than butt.