Chris Amirault

OK, so that goes to the keep-it-cool theory: a full cup whisked in, then another and another, is going to keep the stock/roux mixture from being extremely hot. I assume you add your stock after adding the vegetables, too, Linda -- another way that the roux is cooled a bit.

Linda, describe the dog barf phenomenon. How much stock do you add to the roux at a time? I mean, if the roux is 350F or so, adding much less than a cup of stock is going to heat that stock up pronto, right?

Pam, your recipe is excellent! I modified it a bit with my eight-year-old daughter assisting. I was going for a Sephardic Syrian take on dinner: we had roast lamb with baharat (seven spice) and lemon, so I added some minced garlic and ginger as well as za'atar (a mixture with a thyme-like herb and sesame seeds) to the latke foundation above. They were fantastic with the lamb and some sumac-dusted broccoli rabe with raisins. It was a bit too frantic (and I'm a bit too sick) to take photos, I'm afraid.

All right, I'm going with very low temperatures as a solution. Takes a lot of anecdotal information into account, I think. Perhaps we should pass the hat and hire McGee on as a consultant....

Pam, thanks! I'm going to use your recipe tonight to make some latkes to go with a roast leg of lamb. Do I have permission to fiddle with them a bit? Report and pix to follow.

Fantastic, Ah Leung, as always. Can you talk about the texture you're seeking with the kabocha? Does it get soft quickly but not take on a lot of water?

Well, after all that, I cranked the oven to 450F, trimmed and cut them into quarters, tossed them with EVOO and salt, and roasted them briefly. Gym socks? Imagine you have a seriously pleasurable foot fetish and an athlete and on whom you have a massive crush gives you his or her Gold Toes. It's that kind of gym sock experience. Yow.

Kevin72 is, of course, the creator of the Year of Italian Cooking thread.

Ditto. Bring 'em leftovers.

Two questions: So, based on that, one can reduce separation with an emulsifier such as lecithin. Is gumbo file (sassafras) an emulsifier? Are there others that we should be thinking about in this discussion? Also, Shalmanese's comment and Adam's below -- -- would suggest that frequent stirring at lower temperatures is preferable to letting your gumbo/curry/chili sit to boil at higher temperatures. Is this why the homespun advice about cooler stocks seems relevant? If you whisk in cooler stocks into these bases (roux, bhunoed whatever), then you're lowering the temperature both by the addition and the whisking.

So, Russ, based on that, what would you recommend? Thanks, everyone else, too!

Not only would my partner's grandmother put most of us to shame while hiking around her native far northern California; she's found her way into her grandson-in-law's heart this late fall. Yes, I just received via next-day air a nicely sized box of freshly foraged matsutake mushrooms. I have never eaten or prepared these particular kind of mushrooms before, and doing a search here I found hits throughout many fantastic restaurant threads, most notably Alinea. I also discovered a lot of hits in the Japan threads. Finally, I learned that this little cache probably would cost me a pretty penny, so I'd rather not try any dumb-ass experiments that ruin the precious littles. However, there are few recipes to be found around here (or, at least, I didn't find many of them). So I turn to you for ideas. Do you have any Japanese matsutake rice dishes to suggest? What about dry-fried as a stuffing for free-form ravioli? How about simple stuff: roasted to serve with chicken or steak, say, or tossed into a polenta or risotto?

Back in the gumbo cook-off, we've been wondering why oil separates out of a roux to the surface of the gumbo. (Click here for the most recent part of that discussion.) A few people have noted that this occurs with curries, chili, and other dishes. I'm stumped. Any ideas?

Beats me -- I'm just reportin', man. Their char siu is actually pretty good, I must say. I also had some decent fresh noodles at Chinatown Express -- though their soup dumplings sucked, sucked, sucked. And don't cry for me, Mark: when I wasn't trying to fit warm non-food-court food into my schedule, I was able to get to Zaytinya and a group of us is going to Dukem tonight.

Damn, Jamie, this is fantastic. I'm glad that I didn't have to follow you -- I've got no model friends and my ass doesn't look so good smeared with brown stuff. Like johnnyd I really like the review of reviewing. As someone who dabbled a bit in reviewing back in the day, it's fascinating to see how thoughtfully codified your system is. How often do you see large differences in the scores for the three areas? For example, do you find places that hit the upper teens for food but are below ten for service and décor/ambience/cleanliness?

I must say also that I developed a real jones for the stuff. It's hard even to think of it as coffee. But several small (2 oz, I think) cups of that with fantastic dates, followed by a few glasses of blackmarket Johnny Walker Black, and you've got yourself a very nice start to a long evening.

Sorry -- I should have written above that Saudi coffee beans are extremely lightly roasted; they don't turn dark at all so they're still green. The beans are then ground along with cardamom, combined with water, and cooked over high heat for a good while. It is not a dark roast at all -- it doesn't taste like what most people think is "coffee." Rather, it is a whitish, yellowish, greenish sour and fruity drink that tastes highly of the cardamom. It is not sweetened but meant to be eaten with dates. Click here for a post I wrote about it.

Whoa -- are you talking about Turkish or Arabic coffee? The latter is not roasted.

I'm too pooped to find it, but isn't there a fairly new book from a very animal-friendly butcher guy? Yep, that description ought to really help.

There's also a grape nut ice cream that you can find around New England (and probably elsewhere) that contains a hefty dose of nutmeg.

What's that thermometer say, Susan?

You're all right, of course. Parents matter, economics matter, advertising matters. No need to dismiss the power of marketing to give power to families. And, as Daniel says, all that stockholder money is getting invested in things that corporations have done mighty research to support....

Oh, I know I missed out -- so I'm a goin' back sometime tomorrow. Report to follow.

In keeping with my mom's low tech method growing up (she dug a pit in the exposed dirt in our basement wall and stored the potatoes there), how about two loosely rolled-up paper bags? Works for us.

Wanted to give my two cents on Full Kee, where I've grabbed two quick meals. The shrimp dumplings and oyster casserole are justifiably praised around here, though I think that the sauce is a bit more gloppy than it needs to be. The pea pod leaves with garlic are great, too. Too bad they have such a mediocre boullion stock for their soup. Also, the server told me today that they would have their BYOB license by end of next week.