thecuriousone

Hi All- I use white lilly flour for cakes and get reliable results. It's hard to find in other parts of the country and I'm sure that I scared the TSA screeners to death when I packed 5 lbs of it in a cooler I took with me when I had plans to bake at a relatives home. I checked the cooler as baggage on my flight, but it was hand searched in both directions. Are there other brands of soft winter wheat flour sold in retail outlets? Are there any suggestions of brands to look for if I cant find while lilly? Are there any tricks that the professionals use that you might be able to pass along in order to ensure a tender cake when you dont know anything about the flour you have to work with? Thanks for any and all comments!

I really enjoyed the film and plan to see it again, Howver, I did have two questions. 1. Remy sniffed continually, but chefs taste. Was that just a contrivance because he was not supposed to be seen? 2. In cooking the ratotouille, it looked like a piece of parchment was put over the top of the pan. Was that correct and why parchment and not the cover of the pan? Thanks

HI All- I have a roquefort salad dressing recipe that calls for thickening the initial vinagrette with a substance called Clear Gel. I've heard of it, but never seen it. I made this recipe substituting Sure Gel pectin with mixed results. Does anyone have any expereince with clear gel? Is there something readily availabe I could substitute for it? Thanks for any help.

Hi all- Help!!! I have a recipe for a roquefort dressing where the initial vinagrette is cooked with clear gel for 5 minutes. Clear gel is hard to find and I dont have time to order it online. Is there a substitute I can use? I have used Certo sure gel pectin in the past with uneven results. Is there a ratio of this type of thickener to liquid that I should remember? I will be in phoenix, AZ when I need this so if anyone knows a source there, please let me know. Thanks so much.

Yes, but I'm hoping not to start tot learn as the company rings the doorbell!

HI All- Are there any rules for multiplying and dividing recipes? I have recipes for punch and a old style red roquefort dressing that I would like to multiply. Does the whole recipe just get multiplied by the number of portions? or are there different rules for ingredients like spices? Thanks for any help you can offer.

HI All- I would like some input on sweetening cold drinks. I am hosting a lunch and am considering either brown sugar in lumps or a simple syrup on the table to sweeten the iced drinks (primarily iced tea or tea based punches). My question are the following: 1. Can I make the pretty lumps of sugar I see when dining out at home? 2. Should I simply set a small carafe of simple syrup on the table? 3. For those that are diabetic can I make a simple syrup using splenda for table use? Thank you for any info you can offer.

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions. The resources that you provided have given me a lot to think about. I have another question. How are the pros mixing paper and china? Because I am not hostng this at my home, I decided not to try to schepp my fine china across the country. Other options I've considered are buying inexpensive standards (plain white ceramic dinner plates for example) and accenting with color for appetizer plates or salad plates. Any suggestions on how you have seen paper and china mixed would be appreciated. Thanks.

HI All- I am hosting a luncheon for my mom who HATES cloth napkins. she consideres them unsanitary and there is nothing I can do to change her mind. I am hosting a sit down lunch for her and her girlfriends and want to put together a really nice table. Can anyone suggest an exquisite paper napkin I could order? thanks for any suggestions, I could use the help. H. Lee

Owen- African american food is so intricately linked to survival of African american culture that to change one is often considered an insult to the other. The people you know probably never used cookbooks becasue the recipes were passed down orally and for a people who were ripped from their own history, cooking was THE expression of culture. A perfect example can be found in Saveur Magazine (issue #9) which offers an article on the food of Mama Lou's. If you get a chance to read the article, notice the focus on food as tradition. One of the cooks states at one point, that people would be upset if she did something different (i.e. experimented with the food) because they are expecting tradition. I use her recipe for coconut cake to this day, but this article is a powerful testament to how food in the african american community represents so much more than just food. The implication of this is important. I work in the public health field and there is much discussion now on how to target healthier food choices without insulting the culture that is associated with the poor food choices. Check out the American Public Health Association web site and search for african american eating habits. Some very scholarly articles have been presented on this topic because its a real issue. I can remember attending a culinary historians meeting in Chicago. They were planning an african american restaurant crawl. At the time there were some African american chefs doing some really creative things, however The society only wanted to deal with the perceived "traditional african american food". It was unfortunate because there was a lot of support that was never realized. I am reading secret ingredients right now and I am very curious to read what is said about the contribution of african american cookbooks. I collect them and read them as historical non-fiction. I know one other woman who collects them in souther Illinois, but no others. Can you elaborate on this a bit? I just checked my county library system and they don't have access to this book or any other work by the author so I'm flying somewhat blind in this discussion. But my closest friend for the past 25 years happens to be African-American as is my significant other (a coincidence but it has given me an exposure to African-American family life that the typical Caucasian male rarely gets). If I think about his late mom, his sister, his aunts and cousins, my former and current girlfriends and their families etc. all of whom I've gotten to know pretty well... none of them owns or uses cookbooks - at least not a single one that I know of. Am I working from such a statistically insignificant sampling that no conclusion can be drawn from those facts or are cookbooks written by African-American authors purchased mostly by white folks? And do you think such cookbooks were or are written with a conscious or sub-conscious recognition of who the likely reader is and would that possibility affect the sub-text of the writing? ←

HI, The new ad may be as ill thought out as the original ad in the eyes of many of the current Brewerytown residents. Yes, the kitchen is important, but the implication to me of the ad that you describe is that the that the couple is ready to sever their attachment to traditional african american cooking (and all the cultural importance that is intimately tied to it). This poor condo developer might find therselves in equally hot water for the new ad. Cooking and table graces have been used by many people as an informal but quick, demonstrable attempt to redirect social perception. Cooking and social graces are uniquely suited to this redirection because of the following: 1. You can learn it in a rational way (vs. having something done passed down from generations and you dont understand why). 2.It is a demonstrable social knowledge in a casual setting. One may not be able to open one's checkbook or drive their car onto the table, but if they can demonstrate knowledge of social and dining grace, they may be able to redirect the all-important "first impression" which may be based on stereotypes that are equally unrealistic. I would submit that it is not the, "cooking" that is the focus here, it is the redirection of old sterotypes that may be the real underlying issue. And in a gentryfing neighborhood, discarding "the old ways" might be a greter threat to the original resident than you realize. The curiousone Wading through this thread anew, I realized that this observation is reinforced somewhat by a bus-shelter ad I saw early last year (I had to correct myself from saying "earlier this year") that is one of the most inadvertently hilarious ads I've ever run across. The ad promotes a new housing development in Brewerytown, a somewhat rundown neighborhood about half a mile north of the Philadelphia Museum of Art that is experiencing significant stirrings of gentrification, this new development being one of them. The ad shows a beaming black couple (significant because the developer's first ads for this project in a mostly black neighborhood had pictures of youngish white folks and the legend "It's your turn now," which many black Brewerytown residents took as a sign that they were to be driven out of the neighborhood) standing in the spiffy new kitchen of their (presumably equally spiffy) new home, with text quoting them as saying: "We've started watching cooking shows!" I nearly doubled over with laughter when I first saw this. It struck me as a perfect encapsulation of the transformation of cooking into a status symbol: In order to cook, one must have a sufficiently fashionable kitchen, or else it's pointless. Even now, the thought of this ad brings a smile to my face. ←

Hi all- I have taken the image gullet tutorial and here are the pics (I hope). Thanks for any help you can offer. Just to add a few notes: Mold 6 is heavy, and is stamped west germany. H. Lee http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11766103..._4521_80097.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771..._4521_21464.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771..._4521_52097.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771...4521_171559.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771..._4521_60978.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771...4521_134707.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771..._4521_22273.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771...4521_116331.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771...4521_157163.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11765771..._4521_12836.jpg http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/11766103..._4521_90079.jpg

Bud- Could you tell me more? Do you keep the ratios the same? 1 to 3 or 4? What types of vinegar do you use? Is there a recipe that you can forward to should I just go into the kitchen and start playing? H. Lee

HI All- I really like hot cross buns,the yeasty rolls that are studded with candied fruit that the bakery makes between Ash wednesday and Easter only. If there another type of bread that is basically the same thing but baked through the rest of the year? Is pannettonne the same thing? I would appreciate any recipes or suggestions you could offer. Thanks. H. Lee

HI All- I like to collect vintage aluminum molds when I'm at flea markets and such. Were aluminim molds only meant to go in the freezer? How do you determine what can go in the oven? I'm assuming that the ones with a lock of some type are only for ice cream or frozen desserts, if that correct? Thanks for any help. IF there is a book you are aware of that can help me identify them, please let me know. H. Lee

Hi All- I cut the recipe out of Gourmet magazine for the baklava and wondered it splenda could be used for the syrup. The syrup has no responsibilities outside of sweetening the dish and since I know that I would have to sleep in front of the fridge to keep my diabetic husband out of it, I'm just trying to use this option if it is available to me. Thanks for any observations that you can offer

Has anyone ever used the wine that will be served for dinner in place of a mild vinegar? Possibly the remnants of a bottle that should not go to waste? I would appreciate any comments on whether or not you have seen it done. Thanks H. Lee

The time life foods of the world series is one of my most treasured possessions. Wherever I am, they will be. Madeline Kamman, when french women cook, and Creole Feast, edited my Toni Morrison

I think I'm going to cut it into cubes marinate those and make some types of braise to go over noodles. I've waited a long time a piece of game and would like to introduce some fruit, but will browse (vs. graze) some recipes and let you know which I choose. Thanks again for all the support!

HI Budrichard- i'm beginning to have my doubts. I showed him a copy of the field dressing instructions that I found on this site and his response was, "Wow, thats interesting, I just start cutting.........." OK........... Secondly, how is a browse different from a graze?

HI All- I need some help. I asked a hunter for a piece of wild venison. He actually brought me a piece of frozen shoulder. I am thrilled but not quite sure what to do next. He says that he boils it in vinegar water for 30 minutes and then fries it. In his words, "Powerful good stuff". I had something else in mind, more like a ragu with cherries and wild mushrooms over pasta. Do I need to par-cook this piece of meat in any fashion? As I think about it, I've never tasted game that has not been farm raised, so I really curious. Does wild meat have to be handled that much differently from farm raised? Any observations or suggestions or recipes would be appreciated.

Hi Kathy- Thanks for getting back to me. I ended up running to Barnes and Noble yesterday morning to verify what I thought I missed. Turns out that I had the complete recipe and was just mis-inerpreting it. To say it was a hit is an understatement. I am particularly pleased becaused one of the reasosns i wanted to prepare it is that my Dad is very ill and we are trying to get calories into him any way we can. For someone who swears his taste buds are shot, he keeps asking for, "just a spoonful". We are estatic. This brings me to my last question. Is there a way to freeze custard? I always understood that you could not freeze a coooked custard. I'd like to leave my mom with a supply of the custard for after the holidays. Can I prepare the custard base and freeze it as as liquid? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thomas Keller rocks! While I love Thomas Kellers recipe and have not tasted one that matches it, my mom feels that if its coming from him, it must be too hard to do.

Hi All- I'm at my moms and need some help. I copied what I thought was the complete flan recipe from thomas kellers bouchon cookbook. Well, it seems that I got pages 263 and 265 and 264 was not copied. Can some one help me out? The stores are closed, the libraries are closed and all I remember that the custard needs to sit overnight before baking. Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

Hi All- I cooked a skate wing last weekend. It was cooked in the oven and finished with a warm vinagrette of brown butter, sherry vinegar and pinch of smoked spanish paprika. It was great, but I was unclear how to serve it. I seasoned it with the skin on and peeled the skin off before I presented it. I would have liked to have deboned it before I served it but didnt know how. Any suggestions would be appreciated. It tasted great, but I can't snatch the bones off my guests plates like I did my husbands.

Tejon- I'm with you on the planning part. Although I dont go to the depth that you don on a weekly basis, I too usually have a clear sense of what I will use and what it takes to use it again. I ermember reading that you can have success with leftovers when you repackage them in a completely different format than they were originallyl served. For example, turning leftover beef stew from one night into a ragu over pasta with a salad a few nights later. Its worked for me. p.s. of all the signature tag lines I've read on this site, yours is the closest to my own feeling. Cooking is indeed an expression of love.