Kevin72

I find capons to be moister than turkeys as well, but then they have quite a bit more fat on them too. Central Market sells them in the frozen section, as does Whole Foods, particularly as you near the Holidays, so it shouldn't be a problem getting your hands on one this time of year.

Gah! This weather is killing me! I've been cooking alot of traditional, rich roasty, braisy holiday meals for the family this past week and have had to kick on the AC! We went out for a walk on NYE to burn off some of our meal and came back sweaty!

I got my two in from i-gourmet. One went into a bollito misto for a dinner party and as predicted, it was the hit of the meal (though there was an awkward silence when I told everyone that one of its ingredients was pig skin). A number of people asked about where to get it and were impressed that I had to go online. It got pretty quiet at the table when there was only one piece left! The second cotechino will be tomorrow night's dinner, with lentils, for a belated New Year's celebration.

That's my source! I always wait until right after Christmas and then go stock up for the winter!

Yeah, I never understand the aversion some notables in the field have to recommending freezing the pasta. I spend an afternoon and make several batches and toss it in the freezer. No noticable decline in quality whatsoever. The two times I tried drying it resulted in mold forming on one batch and the other batch was so brittle that it disentegrated when I picked it up. Freezing is so much easier and low maintenance.

It's not a full fledged detox, but we use Lent as a way to get some distance from all the rich Holiday eating. No meat (except seafood) and no sugar. I can't quite make it to the no alcohol or caffeine restrictions. Lent starts early this year and we're already looking forward to it! That way we can still burn off all the leftover Holiday food in January and don't have to worry about Superbowl food.

Yeah, I haven't figured that problem out yet in grinding them to a powder. I carefully pick them from the bag, leaving the residue at the bottom, rather than dump the whole thing out into the spice mill, grit and all, but there's still that occasional hit of grit in the powder. I figure you can do a quick rinse or wipe with a damp towel, but then that gets them moist and harder to grind up.

The only comment I can make here is that I initially bought a thin, possibly ceramic stone at Sur La Table and it blew up in my oven on the test run. Exchanged it for a new one and again it happened. Then I bought an actual "stone" for about $15 more and it's worked fine ever since.

Yes, it's one of my favorites. All three Godfather movies have great food scenes in them, as does Goodfellas. In fact I credit my interest in Italian cooking to Godfather I and Big Night. Incidentally I saw a preview for Willy Wonka last night . . . it looks . . . interesting.

We did Christmas Part One at my wife's parents this weekend. Cooking of Spain--Penelope Casas: My culinary eye is turning to Spain now and this is my first endeavor. SuperSize Me DVD which lead to some spirited dinner table conversation after we watched it. La Terra Fortunata by Fred Plotkin--which I've already burned through and cooked a little "antipasti" sampler from last night. Christmas Part Two is at my parents in Houston for New Years. My mom, also a passionate cook, usually goes overboard getting me stuff so it should be interesting.

Be sure to rinse them well before use and strain their liquid: they are gritty little suckers. I second the recommendation upthread to grind them in a spice mill to a powder. Made porcini tagliatelle this fall and also used a little of the powder to make a porcini bechamel for a mushroom tart.

I quite literally feel your pain, remembering all-too-clearly the sharp inner shell jabbing up under my fingernails as I peeled them. I read recently that the secret is to keep them warm so they peel easier. But honestly I'll just stick to the vacuum-sealed already peeled kind in a jar, no matter how many "it's not quite the same" comments I read in cookbooks about them.

My wife had the same issue where she spent all Saturday and half of Sunday baking for a cookie exchange and went and half of them were the no-bake kind or the saw-off-of-a-log and bake kind. She came back and got on a good rant about it.

To me they're almost as much, if not more, about the texture and temperature as they are about the flavor. Yes, there's the briny, mineral-y taste, (perfect with horseradish in my mind, I may be giving up any oyster credentials by admitting it) but there's also the creamy texture as Radio described, and ice cold sensation hitting your mouth. It's so primal and hedonistic all at once.

Where else can you go online with a question about the recipe from a book and within a day, the author of that book shows up to answer them?

There's always the Feed Me Wine Me option at Green Room for eclectic and interesting.

I don't know where my head was when I wrote that anyways. I've actually done this myself, too: put the clams in a large pot with fresh water and let them sit for a couple hours. Like you said, any that didn't make it through were probably on their way out. Haven't done it for much more than a few hours, but it's never had any ill effect.

Ha! You haven't read too many of my other posts around here then!

Yeah, the first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread was "Definitely not Olive Garden.

Alberto, would you say Mario is being authentic to the spirit of Italian cooking in using local or arch-regional, New York ingredients in Babbo's cooking? Interesting comments on Lidia. I haven't read enough of her books to notice that difference with Southern Italian cooking. I have noticed Marcella's "Northern" sentiments creeping in when she writes about Southern Italian cooking, though.

The guy was French. Now I can't remember his name. It's weird that they'd still be showing episodes with him on. He used to actually post on the FTV boards (and people were largely civil to him that I could see, though they did make some snarky comments about the woman co-host). At any rate, he revealed that the execs wanted him to drop his accent as they thought it was too off-putting: this was reight around the time of the "Freedom Fries" hysteria. Anyways he couldn't and they dropped him and brought Tyler in. Yet another sign of FTV's cluelessness: we want a French chef, just so long as he's not, well, French!

I do. So it would seem their slow response to expansion for tourism is more due to circumstance than choice.

I can never get that straight. Would putting them in for a relatively short time (an hour or less) still kill them? And what about the older recipes that have you put them in fresh water with a bit of polenta or flour to purge them of grit?

I'll echo Chad's comments and say that once Fine Living gets a "base" you'll see them roll in the reality shows, assembly line shots, borderline-offensive product placement, etc. a la FTV. I catch Thirsty Traveller now and again and am also amused by his progressive inebriation as the episode wears on. The grappa episode was a highlight: slurring, trailing off, staggering, oh my! And I do like the cooking segments, brief as they are. Chiarello has NapaStyle on Fine Living, the cooking show on FTV, and for a while on our PBS outlet they were still showing his old show. On a Saturday afternoon you could catch him three times in four hours! The Rudy Maxa (sp?) travel show is also really good. Honestly, any of these other Scripps networks could ideally play host to some of the hardcore cooking shows FTV is jettisoning. Why they couldn't have worked out a deal for Tony to just move ACT over to Fine Living (or hell, take over Thirsty Traveller) is a little puzzling.

Were they live clams? CostCos here in Dallas only sell frozen seafood Anyways, I'd think you just had an extremely bad batch there. I've never run across a too-salty bunch of clams before (if sold live in the shell). You could put them in some fresh water for up to an hour to let them purge a little and dilute down potential salinity.