quiet1

I'm feeling rather pleased that my method for cooking mushrooms (which I do not recall ever learning, but I don't imagine I made it up?) is rather close to what seems recommended often. I do a dry-ish sear (just enough fat to coat the hot surface of the pan with a nice sheen, no puddles) until the mushrooms have gotten a bit carmelized at the edges, amount determined by what I feel like at the time - then I add liquid (usually just water) and make sure any traces of mushroomy goodness is up off the pan surface, then cook until the moisture is gone again. Add cream or what have you, or set aside to cool if I'm freezing them for quick use later. (Housemates like to have cooked mushrooms in their morning eggs and it's much faster if the mushrooms are pre-cooked. Or they toss them with pasta and some butter and grated cheese, etc.) I don't even like mushrooms so I'm glad I managed to come up with a decent cooking method anyway. We used to be able to get a box of variety mushrooms (some foraged) from a local farmer's market kind of thing, but they've stopped doing it. Even though I don't care for mushrooms myself that was quite interesting to see different types and find recipes to use.

What meats did you have with the raclette? My SO loves the stuff but he's only ever had it in Europe when with vegetarians and when he was vegetarian himself so he doesn't know what else is typical and last I googled I mostly found ideas from people who seem to have no idea about how it is traditionally consumed.

When we visited SF recently I found it quite annoying that I could ask for water but getting refills was like pulling teeth. We were walking around extensively in the summer, we needed hydration! It also annoys me when restaurants of a certain quality can't or won't do any special requests. I'm not talking about a tasting menu, but above chains where no one is actually cooking anything in the back, it's all pre-prepped. My mom has pretty strict sodium requirements and some places use a LOT of salt normally. It shouldn't be a huge challenge to get the waitstaff to find out what protein the kitchen could do without tons of salt. (There is usually some kind of simply grilled/baked item that could just have the seasoning held before cooking and the sauce brought on the side. Obviously stuff that is marinaded or braised or otherwise has a long cooking or prep time can't be un-seasoned.) Some places have been quite exceptionally good, too, though. You can usually tell it's going to be good when the waitperson goes off to talk to the kitchen without getting confused about the request twice first, and when they promptly come back with questions and suggestions from the chef. Occasionally the chef basically makes up a dish for her on the spot, and while that is above and beyond what we expect (they are busy and prepped to make certain things) it really makes my mom's meal as she gets something truly tasty and it feels more like a 'normal' restaurant experience for her. (Go out, have a nice environment, have a nice meal, enjoy the company you're with.)

Yeah, that was one of my concerns. I do buy pre-ground from places I trust, but none of the shops I usually buy such things from have ground bay leaves. It seems like you'd need to do a lot of batches in a spice grinder, though? Do you chop them up some first so they fit better into the grinder? What type of sifter do you use? I imagine I'd want something quite fine. If I do this I'm getting some nice bottles and making a big batch and sending some out as gifts, I know lots of people who miss it as a handy and quick go-to.

I need to keep an eye on this topic. The last few years we've gone out, but this year we're feeling brave enough to tackle a turkey or similar, so we're going to see if we can make it happen at home. That lets us stay with our newest addition (Vinny the puppy) also, who we are very thankful for. Does anyone do something other than turkey? Or in addition? I'm all for turkey because tradition, but other members of my household don't care for it terribly much. So I'm pondering perhaps a small turkey and something else also as a main course? We can't do shellfish because I'm allergic, though I suppose that might be somewhat traditional? Any other thoughts? I'd prefer something that will play well with the same sides as the turkey so we don't have too much in the way of clashing flavors going on.

My mother actually NEEDS one of those for her birthday (in December) as long as there isn't too much sodium. Where can I find the nutritional information (she's on a low sodium diet ) and any idea who might be able to ship one to me? It doesn't look like you're doing mail order from your website. But it would be a super gift for her as she likes fancy chocolates and she loves charcuterie but with the sodium restrictions most tasty preserved meats are really not in her diet. ETA: I'm picturing this for a party as part of a dessert 'cheese' plate which has items similar to what you'd find on a cheese/charcuterie plate but with a dessert spin, so not as heavy on the savory flavors. I think it'd be quite fun and a good conversation piece.

This isn't particularly unique I don't think, but when they made it the Bay Leaf Seasoning by Penzey's was a major go-to in our house. It got thrown on basically any meat or meaty vegetable (portabello mushrooms mostly) that got grilled or baked without some kind of Master Plan. (Meaning I didn't use it if I intended the meat for part of a Mexican meal, for example, since the flavor profile is wrong. But for simple meat-plus-starch-plus-vegetable meals, all the time.) I keep meaning to make some myself but then I get caught up in wondering if I should buy whole bay leaves and grind them (how?) or buy ground and then I get distracted and do something else.

Eggs have a safety aspect which is meaningful for some folks. That's basically why I bought a SV circulator, so I could cook stuff safely for my mom, who is immune compromised. (Eggs, meats mostly.)

How does it clean? Could you put pots on it if you wanted to mostly just keep them warm or at a very low simmer?

I've used induction, I'd be happy with it if it was the option, like in an apartment, but general feeling in the household (based on using both) is a preference for gas right now. I'm not sure why my partner prefers gas - he may be more into the 'alternative cooking option' thing than I am, for example. (With induction if your power goes out, you're stuck. With gas you just need to use a match or something to light it.) 6 in a 36" is fairly normal as an option. I do plan on taking my big pot with me to try it out and see how much space I actually have - my old Smeg was 36" with 5 with the big one in the middle, and I don't recall having space problems. (It had a round center one, though, not the oblong fish pan thing. I'm deeply skeptical of the oblong shaped burner since I can't see how it'd fit well on any pans I actually own and use. Maybe a roasting pan but that'll fit just as well across two smaller ones if you're just trying to deglaze. I think some companies stick an oblong burner in so they can say it's 5 and appeal to people who don't actually NEED much more than 2-3 burners anyway.) Grill definitely wouldn't get enough use here. I'm willing to consider a griddle since we do a lot of burgers and eggs and pancakes and other griddle-friendly foods, but I do wonder about ease of cleaning. I also wonder if a griddle could be used as a 'burner' to keep pots warm? Not so much for cooking necessarily but if I just want to hold something while I do other stuff?

'When we got our Miele fridge we had like four BIG guys from the store there to move everything. It was very helpful. Back on topic - my mom is making noises about buying me a 36" range for Christmas as we can fit it and our GE 30" 4 burner is making me nuts. From poking at display models at home shows, we aren't thrilled with the feel of Viking or Wolf (the controls feel kind of wobbly and 'cheap' for the cost and prestige of the range.) But there are still a lot of brands out there - I really want 5-6 burners and no weird shaped fish burner because I wouldn't use it. I can go gas or electric for the oven - our current range is all gas and eventually I got used to the gas oven. I think I still moderately prefer electric, but I'll deal if it means an overall better range. Any brands come to mind as things I MUST check out or that people have had really horrible experiences with? (I've read the thread in the past, but with the way things progress maybe there's something new? Or someone no longer makes the products they sell, they just rebadge?) (We considered induction but honestly gas is just more fun to cook with. Also I've only seen 5 burner induction.) I want multiple burners because due to my health I'm more likely to cook a lot at once when I'm feeling up to it than to cook with 1-2 pans every day, so with 4 burners I frequently find myself cramped for space and juggling things around. Also, we like to try to make larger batches of things to keep some in the freezer, and basically only one of the burners on the current stove really works for the larger pan, and it completely blocks access to the simmer burner, plus crowds the other front burner, so it's hard to cook anything else if you have a big pot on the stove. (I'd like two ovens also, but can't figure out how to fit that in. Kitchen just isn't big enough for a 48" range and there's no good place for an extra wall oven. Bummer.) I had a Smeg range in England and it worked quite well for me, but that was some time ago so I don't know if that brand is still any good - plus they don't seem to have a local distributor which makes me worry about service calls if there is a problem.

I'm very curious now, especially about Chef'd. I've wanted to try cooking more fish for a while, but I'm super intimidated by it - from going out to buy good fish to picking a recipe, it just scares me for some reason. (I'll do all kinds of other stuff in the kitchen no problem, just fish makes my brain seize up. ) So a meal kit seems like a possible way to ease into it? They send the fish and all the Stuff and all we have to do is the prep work. Anyone think the fish is good enough to be worth trying that? (I'm allergic to shellfish and don't care for salmon, so that's one reason why Chef'd looks interesting - they have a huge variety of fish dishes to choose from, where the subscription folks seem to do shrimp or salmon a lot.)

I need to find myself some happy baked goods recipients. Everyone in my house is too health conscious.

I'm curious. I can see two ovens working for some of the things we do. Though I'm not thrilled with the burner arrangement, I never feel like I'd use that odd shaped center one. I'd rather have a slightly wider unit and 6 burners.

I'm inclined to suspect that if a post that does have some truth to it makes you that cranky, you might have trouble in the kind of high stress environment most restaurants are. Especially if you are in the position of enforcing changes people don't care for, you're going to get some attitude, and you need to be able to deal with that gracefully and professionally, not get cranky back. (I don't mean be a doormat, but it's inappropriate for someone in a management role to be squabbling with the dishwasher and exchanging insults. Throw on your rhino hide coveralls and don't be baited.) Also, it sounds like you don't have much sense of what the restaurant is that you are supposed to be helping? Beans need to be counted, but you also need to know what it is about the beans that people are coming back for. If a pricy ingredient is what everyone loves about a salad, then you'd better be really careful about swapping it out for something else. (You can, but the customers need to feel the salad is BETTER for the swap, or better value. It's a perception game, not just numbers in a spreadsheet.) Likewise if large portion sizes are what people like - if you need to change that you need to package the change so people feel like they are getting something good from it, not so they come in and get half as much as they were expecting. So in addition to the dollars and cents, you need to spend some time thinking about who the regular customers are, what they like, what they expect, and then use that to inform your changes.

The one I have is usually pretty well behaved actually - just the little bowl gets dirty and mine is ceramic so I just stick it in the dishwasher with the rest of the dishes from dinner. We found another little bowl that sort of fits also, so we can swap if it gets especially bad. I prefer that style to the ones where you just lie the spoon down mostly because we don't have a lot of counter space as it is, so this makes the spoon have a smaller footprint.

'Looks like a spoon holder I have, but mine has a little dish that sits in the base to prevent the spoon dripping on the countertop?

I wonder if it's about the age of their food shoppers and delivery people, too? If they're counting on using young people to do the shopping then presumably picking up alcohol and cigarettes could be an issue? I know I've lived places where underage cashiers had to hold everything up if someone came through with alcohol in their cart because they weren't even allowed to ring it up. They had to put the light on and call someone else over to run it through.

No lemon leaves handy around these parts, but I can do a lemon. I will try that when I get home.

Has anyone had trouble with their instant pot inner pot seeming to take on a flavor? I attempted chicken stock a while back with the remains of a rotisserie chicken, and something about the flavor in the chicken just Did Not Work in a stock. And now the whole inner pot seems to have a faint aroma of that even though it's been cleaned well. I'm nervous about using it in case it makes something else smelly. (I don't detect a smell on the sealing ring but I'm ordering a new one of those too just in case.) Maybe if I mix some baking soda and water and heat it up in the pot?

... I kind of want one just so it can loom ominously on the countertop.

The Peugeot brand grinders do a fabulous range of 'grit' including a very fine powder, if a grinder will suit the salt in question.

'For some reason I've always just assumed cranberry sauce would freeze poorly.

I would LOVE a recipe for this.

I try to make orders fairly easy for the kitchen, but with certain medical conditions you don't have much choice unless you don't go out at all - right now I have to get sauce on the side often because I can't tell if the sauce is going to upset my stomach - my mom often gets sauce on the side because she has to watch her sodium and usually the sauce is where a lot of the salt is when you are talking about an otherwise plain grilled piece of protein. (Although pet peeve is places that marinate their protein but don't say so on the menu. For one, that throws off my mom's order because she usually tries to pick something where the most the kitchen has to do is leave off the sauce, and if she gets a surprise marinade then she can't eat it, and for two, it drives me nuts when I am expecting a nice unadulterated piece of steak or chicken as a foil to the tasty-sounding sauce and instead the steak or chicken has some odd flavor from being marinaded. I mean, sometimes it's good, but it's still not what I was expecting.) Worst thing I've done probably is we went out to a place that does daily pasta and asked for the daily pasta special to be made vegetarian, which they said they could do. The whole table (about 6 of us) got that, though, so the kitchen could do a 'batch' rather than trying to fuss with one portion. (They do the pasta with a table side service and we go there quite often, so we knew approximately how many people a pan of pasta serves and ordered accordingly.)