Kevin72

I started going Beer of the Month and Wine of the Month gifts to my father and brother a couple Christmases ago. I keep worrying that they're tired of it or it's too predictable but now when Christmas and/or birthdays roll around they start dropping hints.

To piggyback onto this topic, I asked this in the Absurdly Simple Cooking questions thread but didn't get a response: Why is that you can both braise a leg of lamb or roast it? Which method is better? With roasts or grilling I understand that the meat ideal for it has only the marbling kind of fat to melt and keep the meat tender. Meats for braising need to have alot of connective tissue. Seems to me that leg of lamb has that in abundance, yet it is more often that you see it roasted or grilled? I did do a roasted leg of lamb last spring and that fact occured to me with all the fat and connective tissue evident when I had it laying opened up for stuffing. I cooked it medium rare (actually more towards rare) and while the meat was delicious there was, I thought, alot of "waste" in the form of chewy bits and fat that otherwise would have broken down nicely with a few hours in a covered pot simmering away with white wine. But I liked that medium rare meat! Any tips/thoughts on how to get around this?

Sorry, I guess "soft" wasn't the word I was looking for. They came out I-don't-think-I'm-supposed-to-be-eating-this hard. Could never chew through them.

There was a thread on this here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=47486&hl=

I'm curious about this too. In fact I did try to roast the seeds one year, as directed (in fact I wound up going over an hour) and they never came out soft. There's the inner seed which seems softer but the hull (outer seed?) never gets palatable. Are they supposed to be peeled or something? Everything I've read makes it sound absurdly simple.

I've taken to that habit, peeling peppers. I'm not a big fan of peppers as it is but peeling them makes them sweeter, just as she says. I don't fret every single piece of the peel though.

PBS usually rotates its schedules. I live in Dallas and my parents are in Houston. One week I was down and happened to catch their "cooking show block" and it was repeats of what I had seen two weeks before. So hold out for hope!

Wow. I'll be on Amazon if anyone needs me.

Isn't that what she said about her last book? I read about it on Amazon initially and was lead to think that it was some new essays but alot of recycled recipes. But now I'm not so sure. I'm curious to see thoughts posted as well.

I found the irony a little thick that FTV aired a special about her in the midst of their new drive away from cooking shows and more towards food entertainment. She's such a charismatic presence it would be hard not to think she would be met with some degree of success and/or a following. Still I can see her cooking show getting swept aside by the powers that be at FTV in favor of this new direction and then burdening her with another "travelling the US" type show. Her stance on things like butter and cream would also I think catch some flak.

Well, at least we'll be able to still get nougat for this year's Christmas . . .

My personal take: Good teachers in the cooking sense go beyond just showing you the recipes. They teach you an underlying philosophy or approach. They give reasons why they did something they way they did. They define ingredients, why they go together, what makes the dish work. They give history if necessary. From a speaking skills standpoint they seem knowledgeable about the subject and aren't glued to cue cards or scripts. My top pantheon of FTV chefs: Mario, Sara, Ming, Alton, Rosengarten. All approached their shows exactly in that fashion I talked about above. PBS has some top-caliber teachers, too. In fact as a general rule they do much better on the teaching element of cooking shows than FTV did. My resonse to the what makes a bad teacher is pretty much found in your questions. Perfect example: Emeril. A Taste of Emeril is pretty good, esp. when he's doing Louisiana cooking: he's in his element and understands intrinsically that style of cooking. Emeril Live however just grates my nerves, precisely because it is focused more on the entertainment angle. I'm not fond of either of the new "diet" cooking shows on FTV (Calorie Commando and Low Carb and Lovin' It), and that show called I think Lighten Up is one of the single worst cooking shows I've ever seen. But Cooking Thin I thought worked much better because they did go much more beyond the dishes and talked about lifestyle changes, techniques, etc.

They were interviewing the manager and he said they would, and I think it lead me to believe in the same location, unfortunately. I'd like to see it in a less . . . shady area. Maybe near Rudolf's and Mozzarella Co.

Saw on the news this morning that Jimmy's Food Store has burned down. Jimmy's was a family-owned Italian Deli/Convenience store on Fitzhugh and Bryan streets near downtown Dallas. Lots of imported goods, and a remarkable wine selection, broken down by regions in Italy. What a loss: my wife and I would shop there at Christmas for their nougats, in fact we were just talking about when we would go this year.

Alot of the new crop of FTV cooks aren't quite up to par, teaching-wise: Calorie Commando and Semi-Homemade stand out. In the "too obscure" vein there was a cooking show covering Scandinavian (sp?) styles on PBS earlier this year. I was initially intrigued but just couldn't get into it.

Here in Dallas they do a pretty respectable cooking show block on Saturday afternoons. His show was the last up I believe. Good stuff. I like how he belted out 2 dishes in 5 minutes.

That was in fact one of my "streaks" a few years back. Sear something off in a frying pan, then finish it in a hot oven. Remove from oven with gloves, place on burner. Remove gloves, then grab handle. A week later, just as my burns were clearing up, I did the same thing again! Now whenever I do this method I just tie a spare rag on the handle as soon as it comes out.

Maybe it's too early in the season . . . ? Seems like later in the winter you get those gargantuan kinds that are fairly starchy. You could mix with another type of pumpkin, they seem a little less sweet than the butternut squash.

I did them Sicilian style about a month back: stuffed with breadcrumbs, pecorino, chopped anchovies (optional, but why not?) pine nuts, capers, currants, mint, oregano, chilies. Also, stealing from Mario, I spritzed them with a little red wine vinegar and water before they went into the oven: made a very nice, super-concentrated pan drippings to spoon back over as they were served.

That's funny: I just happened to hit on a bad run of luck myself. Mine happened a couple weeks ago: lots of nicks, dropped nearly everything I picked up, spilled warm stock all over my just-mopped kitchen floor, made pasta sheets that got too dry while I was cleaning said mess and then crumbled when I picked them up, etc. So I'm on a two-week cooking break while the wife takes over. That's kind of a subtopic I'm interested in: does anybody go through a "streak" where they get lots of cuts/burns, break things, burn food, etc. in a short frame of time? Seems like I'll have a run of bad luck and then I'm done for the year after that.

With apologies to Fat Guy, one of my faves is rosemary. Meat roasting/braising Garlic in olive oil Bread proofing Gingerbread: both the raw dough and baking One of the primary reasons this is my favorite times of the year is because so many of these smells come to the fore. Least faves are the usual suspects, particularlyany member of the cabbage family cooking. Sauerkraut, too. Edited to add: Oh yeah, seeing jsolomon's post: add coffee to my favorites as well. Add to least favorites: Papaya Coconut

Yes. He has I believe a develoment deal with Fox that has so far yielded several rapidly-cancelled trashy prime-time soap type shows. He was also behind one of the many sitcoms that went through the rotating door of the 7:30 pm (CT) slot on NBC Thursdays. Not a promising track record.

PLEASE tell me this is a seasonal closing and not a permanent closing. I was torn between Monopoli and Gallipoli; descriptions of Monopoli had it come across as a smaller, sleepy little fishing town which appealed to me. Make the case for Gallipoli instead and I'll consider it . . . Edited to add: Oh, and very much looking forward to your thoughts on your trip.

Or F/X, which is amazingly permissive with language and sex. I'd much rather see it attempted there, with Nip/Tuck or the Shield's creative team taking a stab at it.

Cut them into smaller sections or wedges, wrap them in pancetta or bacon, and grill them. The smell while they cook will drive you insane.