K8memphis

I am going to try that star anise thing for truffles. Thanks for the idea. I'm doing some green tea ones too. And yes the lemon disappears in the cream cheeses stuff and it becomes something else that's really delicious. But the orange just tastes orangey and that's not bad but it's orange cream cheese. Anway. Each to their own...and ours is better. I have a t-shirt that says, "One Tough Cookie".

Oh, you're not gonna make it? It's pretty easy. You could use anything from a sugar topped fluffy biscuit to a spongey cake circle. Nice ladle of sweetened strawberries with maybe a tad of grand marnier or some nice liqueur and top with some whipped cream. Do strawberry shortcake for her for Valentine's, Dude! It's more of a homey home-made thing. I would be very suspect of New York City strawberry shortcake. Got any soul food places up there??

Better than awesome! Very refreshing, but man, King Cake Time already?? I love this recipe and of course it's all the stage for the star of the show, "Place the baby trinket somewhere with the filling. " Is that literally the photo of your cake? It's very well done.

I wholeheartedly concur. Vietnamese cinnamon is THE spiciest! And, it's not a sweet cinnamon, so it could be used in savory recipes (I'm hardpressed to think of one right now). ← We use it on salmon sometimes.

What's UWS?

I've heard tell that there will be a marriage feast in the yonder. I want to make or at least help make the cake. I mean it wouldn't be Heaven without wedding cake would it. (Work with me here, people, no calories! ) Plus I find the idea of manna fascinating. Precursor of angel food perhaps? It was white anyway. Short shelf life apparently. I can just see the Mom's haggling with the kids as to whose turn it is to go gather. Maybe it was your turn until you got it right and none was left over. You gotta know that some rat's ass sibling would hide one piece so it would be leftover, become a nasal liablility and therefore they would be off the hook and your turn would continue indefinitly. My brother would have done it to me. I promise. Well, of course they do. The church exist on the premise that we consume Christ at every Mass. Catholic Theology is based on a meal. ← Yeah that whole consuming Christ thing is spooky. But I tell yah, it could not be cooler that Jesus made wedding refreshments. I'm all about that one! I also dearly love the part where He cooked fish on the beach for His guys who had toiled all night and caught nothing. Think He picked some up from the fish market on His way to the beach? Oh for an invite to that cookout!

Wow, very pretty and violets are my favorite.

It looks luscious.

Bwoo wah hahahaha Tag you're it!!!

Life is definitely too short to work for an asshole. But the irony is assholes make dynamite small business owners. What is up with that. The industry abounds with them. There's cool people too...probably...just kidding... both of them. No but seriously, burn out sucks, man. My t-shirt's in the wash. Unfortunately, being smoked is permanent. It flavors all that follows. It's a short path to the next jumping off place. I really hate that that happened to yah. But still yet you did good to get yourself out. Let me repeat, you did good. And probably the guy rode you because you were so much better than he was. Just a good guess on my part. I think you should put it behind you, though it ever lingers in the nostrils and find your spot out there in food-dom. Use it to your advantage as a barometer. I mean I worked for a woman who's husband sexually harassed me in front of her. Twice. Now who you gonna call? Ghostbusters! Just as effective. Like she's gonna document that. Glory to God the stories I could tell, the places I could go. But here's the deal don't let the assholes win. It's that simple. Go for it. Your world obviously is the kitchen huh. I vote for personal chef because you are more of a people person. Learn from books until you get up the nerve to get up close & personal with the next nutjob.

Oh My God ~We have entire chains of restaurants from coast to coast operating solely on the sale of catfish and okra. Ok so maybe more like some places dotted around the city serve it and a ramshackle spot or two down by the Ole Man River banks. But no one in Elvis-town is less interested in catfish and okra~~wtf~~that's just not nice. I'm crushed. So where's the collard greens? So I wonder what they would define as soul food anyway.

Lights are flashing and bells are ringing in the customer service area of my brain. Win them first, give them all the potatoes they can hold or stuff in their pockets, let them float out the door on fluffy piles of wonderfully prepared potatoes. Make them swoon for how great your simple fare is cooked and presented. A rose tomato on the salad will go a looong way. Assuming they're ok with tomatos. But have a recognizable tomato in there too. You will be their hero. Then you will have thier never dying adoration to be able to introduce strange substances like rice. After a few successful meals where you've lulled them into complacency with your stuff then add a little sample cup of something different and ask for input (be real careful with that though--aged politics ain't pretty). Otherwise they will be on the offensive trying to teach you how to cook for them. Umm, I would recommend some pot roast--you probably said that--it's so obvious. But umm, be sure whatever you make can be easily masticated, easily chewed. Lowest common denominator food can be earth shatteringly delicious. I'd also suggest that you offer both margarine, like a Healthy Choice kinda stuff and butter. Be gentle. These meals are so important to them. This kind of position is not stand on your ideals time. It's let's make nice with the wrinkled ones and gently see how many sushi lovers we can convert. eta: So are you de-boning the bone in chicken??

DuckDuck, you still hiding???!!!

Well, mine, of course.

I haven't made this and I'm not sure about your experience level. So I mean you may already know that pineapple is weird, it doesn't act like apples or lemons. It has moisture issues, can remain watery when there's no real good reason for it except it's pineapple y'know. So all that to say excellent idea to test your stuff in advance. Use some saigon cinnamon and banana in there, maybe an accent flavor. mmmmmm

Anna, with the box completley closed like that, I'd sure go with your signature delicious toffee she already loves. That's a warm & fuzzy no brainer win/win. Ring the nostalgia bell. There's not an equal visual bang to balance the labor involved in doing heart shaped toffee. Umm, put a coupla heart shaped chocolates in there on top. Do you FedEx??? Edited to say: Because by the time they open the box, they're gonna be eating 'em or closing the box back up for later enjoyment. If these were going on a tray or in see through packaging, knock yourself out. But I'd hate for you to knock yourself out and not get/have the beauty out there able to be appreciated for all it's worth. Just some toffee in the chair thoughts.

I guess I should get out more, I have two. We took my husband's boss & his wife to Cielo here in Memphis. Lobster beignets oh my gosh oh my gosh lobster beignets from heaven! We had this roasted romaine salad and a variety of fish & sauces and sage derby stuffed filet, great chocolate pate for dessert. Charming place in the Victorian Village. Great service. Dave, the chef, is awesome. Then I'm trumping almost everyone. Except this might have been '05? But anyway, sorry, doesn't get any better than this. Go for TFL, whatever you want wherever you wanna go. We had a tasting menu done for us who heretofore had been tastingmenu-less by our own Chef-boy, formerly known as Chef-wanna-be, currently cooking breakfast at The Inn. It was beyond really awesome. I mean here we are going into Chez Phillipe, yeah sure it lost a star or something, but it's a sentimental favorite, chichi landmark for Memphis, the ducks, The Peabody, the sweet Southern ambiance running amuck, and chef-boy told us to bring our own wine. BYOB to the chichiest place in town, O Come All Ye Hickfuls. So we smuggle in a red & a white in MY PURSE under the multi covered table. I knew enough at least to ditch the brown bag. So we carefully mention to our fabulous server that we brought our own special 'contribution' to the meal (I mean they kick you out of the movies for bringing your own candy). Our server said with a wave and a flourish, "Well, let's get the white on ice and open the red so it can breath and let's begin with some Champagne, shall we??!!" And why not. So we had fourteen courses specially made for us to a fair thee well, took us four hours. Our items were cooked to our personal specifications as only a son could do. He did about nine of the fourteen courses himself. He was garde manger at the time. We started with a classic steak tartar and his own carmelized onion business eaten with fried yucca stuffa and cream frache with bladeebla. Followed by tarot root sorbet for moi and durian sorbet for my husband. We had fois gras, truffles, caviar, oh this stunning beautiful green watercress soup of bladeebla. We had these deep fried crispy meltaliscious beggar's purses filled with marscapone and fresh corn on the cob, asparagas speared salmon, wasabi encrusted tuna something or other, lamb, beef, I mean we totally had more than two people could hope to consume, heavenly lobster bisque with caviar, burnt caramel filled chocolates, linzer cookies. Oh yeah oh yeah, the crowning glory was this ah, you take butternut squash and make long strips of it like adding machine tape and he had it rolled and stuffed with shrimp & crab to absolutely die for. Butternut squash cannelloni with crab & shrimp in cognac that literally, lusciously melted in your mouth. I coulda just parked it right there & gone home. That was nothing short of a perfect dish on a perfect evening for some perfectly proud parents. The check, that we had to ask for, was for one $1.50 cup of coffee. Which ironically was one of the few liquids we never actually drank that night. We might stash our own bootleg under the table but we spread the love far & wide when we tipped though. Stellar evening, history was being made and the food was good too.

A little different facet on food 'sequencing' I've tried to re-configure the sequencing to no avail. Somebody shooot me I like to eat my protein first. My experience has been that even when requested otherwise, the food is served when they want to serve it not when I request it to be brought. I hate to sit through my husband merrily chomping down a salad while I have all of a napkin corner to chew on in the meantime. I will smile and say clearly, when you bring his salad, please bring my dinner. Or conversely, please serve my dinner at the same time he gets his salad. Believe me, worlds collide at such requests. Eyes bulge, confusion spreads across the servers newly moistened furrowed brow. That would mean that we both have to wait for food while they grill my fish. I can handle him getting one course like bread while I watch but not the dang salad too. Or when one person has more time for the meal than the other. Happens at lunch all the time. So I arrive first and get the table. I say bring my xyz now please. Do not wait for my companion. Often doesn't happen, sometimes maybe. So you say, "Send it back." if they bring his salad early. If he doesn't finish his salad, you know we'll never get our main course. And also one can't be too careful with your food. I've had a lot of time on my hands spent lonely and hungry while he's incomunicado stuffing salad while I imagine wait staff, dishwashers and cooks lined up to drool in my plate if I complain.

Jordan almond folklore Who knew? But umm, why not do as she would like best and go with toffee. It's ok to make it easy on yourself though and use a heart motif ribbon to tie up the bundle with. If this link will work it shows the mini star wire ribbon stuff. If you look for it, I'm sure you can find some with hearts especially with Valentine's coming. Then wind the ends of the wire in a corkscrew design Somehow, making heart shaped toffee sounds too hard. I really think you get the bang with the toffee in the starring role as itself, then make it lovely love in bloom with the wrapping. Or how about piping or placing heart shaped chocolates on top of the toffee? Oh I got it, still labor intensive, but maybe do a flat chocolate heart base, let them all set up, then slather on some melted choco for glue then dip that in your toffee that's been expertly crumbled up or do a mosaic if you really want to make yourself nuts. Let it set up and there you go. Or use a cookie base, melted choco and toffee. But the beauty of this is it can be done close to the wedding but not during big crunch time. How big is the box? hard candy heart mold Edited to say: But that's just for the picture it's not the best price--these will be available probably right now with Valentine's in the distance in craft stores like Hobby Lobby, Michael's even Wally World for two bucks or so or even a nice local cake store. They are white flimsy seeming plastic that will magically withstand hot sugar temperatures et al. If you go that route, buy several. For some reason I'm thinking this is a large wedding.

Gotcha. Yeah, I think McEntyre's said it best, "PETITFORS, CAKE SQUARES, BABY CAKES, MINI CAKES...CALL THEM WHAT YOU LIKE, BUT McENTYRE'S BAKERY HAS ATLANTA'S FAVORITE!!!" I think it's done across the map is it not? You think it's more Southern?

This is the first I've heard of this. Maybe it's regional. But I've got family in Texas and I'm in Tennessee. I know that scored cake has been around the map for ever. Where you precut a sheet cake, ice it while keeping it all in place as one big cake, decorate or not and at time of service slide a spatula underneath to wiggle the slice out of it's place and then onto plates. And actually, no I don't think so. You would cut your pieces, then ice then place on paper liners. But still yet the sides would rapidly get dry and that would be too time consuming done that way. That's why cupcakes are so cool. The paper keeps the uniced sides from drying out. Did you mean the scoring thing? Or petit fours where the cake is cut, liquid icing is poured over covering the sides, allowed to set up, and then placed on muffin papers or doilies? I think you mean the scoring thing. You've seen this in bakeries?

Put it this way, Dave, I've never watched a single episode of Sex n the City and yet I associate it with the cupcakes & cupcake stores. All of that worked together to tip the scale. Because it's not just one episode either. It's all the hub bub surrounding the actors and the character's they played love of the cupcakes. I've seen tv interviews about the tv show and the cupcakes. It's a big deal. The muffins, or more correctly muffin tops of Seinfeld fame don't count here. Seinfeld may have more viewers and a longer run but it doesn't have the word Sex in the title of the show. Lots of people say the cupcakes suck anyway. It's gotta be hysteria. Like Krispy Kream doughnuts. They suck. They are anorexic raised doughnuts. But they have this pied piper euphoric blind following. Same same.

Oh, yes, and I meant to mention that your mother of pearl inlaid table is stunning.

Cupcakes were making an Easygoing Revival but I'd agree with Steve that Sex n The City helped provide the boost that put them in the Big Tent Revival. I'm just now reading The Tipping Point. But my good cake-buddy, Brenda, wrote a great cupcake booklet too. Here's some of her stuff. Those are all cupcakes under there all gently herded together so you can just like break one off and eat it up. Mbuh bye tupperware (mom brought me a slew of cupcakes in first grade but I was #3 and ole Mom was wearing out--first & last time I was birthday royalty--a few muffin wrappers some sugar, flour, eggs, and tupperware it was so easy to be queen in those days.) So I've actually seen a cupcake cake a la Brenda in my local Kroger grocery store--took a looong time though. If they put those on a hot tv show they'd be coast to coast in nothing flat. Interesting that they can taste like poo and it not hurt their popularity.

Well those silicone things are nice but some of them definitely impart their flavor to your hard work. Especially when you're using any kind of heat or warmth and you're wanting to produce subtle flavors. I've never used these particular ones and I have enough molds to last a lifetime. Just a thought for you. I don't care for the way silicone bakes muffins up either. But for mini pastry shells they're great.