Laura B

You can certainly store your flour in the fridge or freezer, the only question for me would be whether the bowl was tightly sealed with the plastic wrap. If it was well-sealed and you cannot smell any fridge odors or anything, I would definitely use it. Just bring it up to room temp before making your pizza dough.

With only myself and my husband, dealing with all of the bread and other baked goods I make can be a problem. We try to balance out eating it ourselves, giving it to neighbors, sending it to work, and just throwing away leftovers. I don't have much room to freeze things, but I do have some criossants and challah in the freezer right now.

Elie, for the Craquelin, here is what I did. You just let the sugar cubes sit for about 15 minutes or so in a little vanilla and zest. You could use some rum instead of vanilla. Whatever you want really. Then, you take your dough and divide it just as you would if you were going to make brioche à tête, but make the smaller ball larger than you would for a "tête" . Take the main piece of dough and roll it out a little to flatten. Press the sugar cubes into it. Then form the dough into a ball, and try to fold the dough as you roll it so that the cubes are separated by each other with dough and not all clumped against each other. Then take the smaller piece of dough and roll it out into a thin circle, large enough to wrap the dough ball in. Wrap up the sugar-filled dough and seal the bottom edges together to prevent any sugar from leaking during baking. It makes a great breakfast! I am going to make some more this weekend. I will try to take some pictures of the process when I do it. I want to do some craquelin and plain brioche again this weekend. But I want to make the plain brioche into dinner rolls for a party. I don't really want to make little brioches à tête, but rather something more like pull-apart rolls. This is probably a remedial question, but should I just plop some dough balls in a casserole dish to make pull-apart rolls?

True enough, but one must start somewhere. We'll cover 26 new restaurants by the end of the year. Not too shabby!

Thanks for the info.

The point, for me, is to try new restaurants. Giving ourselves a "challenge" like this will help my husband and I break out of our rut of the same handful of places over and over. We just moved to NYC about 9 months ago and we want to discover some new places to add to our list of favorites! Faced with a decision on where to eat among the thousands of restaurants in the city, we frequently retreat to a place we know is a sure thing.

Yes, D will be the next letter to work on. We're eating at Veritas the weekend before Amuse, and that usually runs us about $225 after tip. Amuse shouldn't be too much $$, but then Babbo and Chanterelle are both on the high end of our range (and Chanterelle is going to go well over). So, I will need to find something for D and E that gives the checkbook a little break. What kind of food is Xing?

I love Xunta! I think that will probably be the place we use for X, too.

I really want some people to play along! Start anytime you want - no need for us to be on the same letter. Also no need to eat out every week. Make up your own rules within the larger framework of going from A to Z. And post your reviews here!

OK, so I took a look at our upcoming reservations, and it turns out that the first two Saturdays in June are Babbo and then Chanterelle. See a pattern? So, I cancelled my reservation at Union Square Cafe for Saturday May 28th and instead booked Amuse so that we can get started earlier. I can see that it is going to be very difficult to decide on a restaurant each week!

Thanks for the ideas! I should probably have noted that, as a general rule that will certainly be broken on occasion, we don't really want to go over $200 (inc. tip) if we're going to be trying to do this every weekend (prob should aim for no more that $150 mostly). We don't usually drink wine, maybe one glass for me, so that helps keep the tab down. We also don't feel compelled to spend a lot just for the sake of it - so don't leave out the cheaper places in your recs.

I am going to embark on a dining adventure by eating each Saturday (more or less) at a restaurant with a name beginning with the letter of the week. So, up first is A! I will probably venture over to Brooklyn when I get to P , but other than that I would like to keep this in Manhattan. Any suggestions for the letter A? Anyone want to play along? I cannot start until mid-June as I already have reservations for the next five Saturdays. But I am ready to start planning!

Glossyp, I used King Arthur All-Purpose flour. The craquelin was so delicious, but I think I may have cooked it a little too long. When we made it in class, the sugar cubes melted a little but left crunchy pockets of sugar that you could really bite into. In my home version, the sugar almost disappeared. There are oozy-sugary pockets but no chunks of sugar left. I think next time I will bake it a little less and see if I can get the sugar cubes to not completely melt. This one baked for about 50 minutes.

Add 230 for me!

Anna, buy some Valrhona cocoa! I have used it for several years now and will never go back to Hershey's or Ghirardelli, etc. I have never tried Penzey's though, so I cannot compare it to that.

I am excited to finally join this thread! Today I made the Middle Class Brioche with excellent results. The interior of this bread is deleriously soft and fluffy. I used half of the dough to make one large brioche à tête and the other half to make a craquelin. Craquelin is brioche dough with sugar cubes (mine were soaked in vanilla and orange zest) inside and then wrapped with a thin layer of plain brioche dough. It is to-die-for! I wish the picture could convey how amazingly soft this bread is. This is a shot of a slice of the craquelin. You can see the gooey pocket made by the sugar. I learned the technique for craquelin in an artisanal bread class at FCI that I took last month. I made brioche in that class as well as in a pastry class I took there, but the brioche I made in those classes was not as rich as this one. This one is so good. I just cannot imagine what the Rich Man's Brioche must taste like! I only let this rest in the refrigerator for the minimum four hours. One weekend I will plan ahead better and give it an overnight rest and see whether I can taste a difference.

I made pizza today and used the Neo-Neapolitan dough recipe from Peter Reinhart's American Pie. This was my first time using this recipe, and I am so impressed! It had great flavor, was crisp on the bottom, yet had some chewiness and got some good bubble action on the edges. For the sauce, I used some canned crushed tomatoes and added very generous amounts of fresh basil and oregano along with salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, and olive oil. With the large concentration of fresh herbs, this makes an intensely flavorful sauce. I topped it with pepperoni, caramelized red onions, sauteed mushrooms, shredded mozarella, and freshly grated parmesan. I must say that this was the best pizza I have ever made (having made pizza at home maybe five or six times in the past). The crust and the sauce were really stellar! This is my first attempt to post pictures here, so I hope it works. Here is the dough ready to be topped. I like to use parchment paper under the dough because it is so easy. This dough was a dream to work with - I got it into this perfect shape by hand (stretched over two fists while working in a circular motion). Here is a shot of the sauce. When I said a lot of fresh herbs, I really meant a LOT! The finished pizza. I forgot to take a picture before it went in the oven. Crust shot. It was nicely browned and was very crisp. I baked it on a pizza stone on the bottom of my gas oven. The oven had been on for about an hour at 350 degrees while I baked brioche. So when the bread came out, I turned it to the broiler setting until it was preheated, and then put the oven on the max (550) and baked the pizza. Usually I would have preheated at 550 for at least 30-45 minutes, but since the oven had been on so long at a lower temp with the stone already in there, I skipped that part. I used King Arthur Bread Flour. The all-purpose flour you can seeon the counter in some of those pictures was used for the brioche.

My husband and I ate here last night. The space was a little too large (and loud), even though it is beautiful. We had a table with a kitchen view, and Bobby Flay was right there the whole time - he was standing right up front plating the raw bar dishes and would frequently come out into the dining room to speak to people. He came to speak to the people next to us (they asked the waiter to send him over). They gushed and oohed and aahed and seemed to know everything about him. Kind of embarrassing. But he was gracious and eventually excused himself to get back to the kitchen. We had three appetizers: Artisinal Ham Tasting, Crawfish and Dungeoness Crab Griddle Cake, and Gulf Shrimp and Grits. The ham tasting was quite good, although I guess it was not quite what I expected. I was thinking it would be different hams. It was the same ham presented three ways. The menu doesn't describe it, and neither did our waiter who just put it down and walked away. The ham was very thinly sliced. The first preparation invloved a poached pear (delicious), the second had a small spicy biscuit (meh), and the third had some kind of cheese (pretty yummy). The crawfish and crab cake was OUTSTANDING. Husband said the shrimp and grits was great, but he didn't let me taste it. I had the lamb porterhouse chops and hubbie had the duck. We both liked our entrees. I was not overly impressed with the lamb itself, but the duck was excellent. The accompaniments were all outstanding. I had some kind of sweet potato with my lamb that was great (and I thought I didn't like sweet potato). We also ordered two side dishes (what were we thinking!?) - the fries and the creamed kale. Both great but they were overkill. They are probably intended for those ordering steaks, but, what can I say, we are gluttons and had to have them. Speaking of gluttony, we ordered three desserts. The Lemon Meringue Creme Brulee, Creamsicle Parifait, and Deep Dish Chocolate Pie. All three were very good. The service was lacking. Our waiter was an idiot, and we were highly unimpressed with him. Hopefully, our service experience is not indicative of the overall level of service there.

I really love FreshDirect. I have ordered from FD once or twice a week for the past 7 months, and I have never been disappointed with anything that has been delivered. I have found the meats, fruits, and vegetables to be very high quality. On the infrequent occasion that my bread is squished or some eggs are cracked or something has been left out of the order, they have always issued a credit with no questions asked. Also, a couple of times my order has been late, and when I emailed them to let them know, they have credited me for the delivery fee. They don't carry every brand that I like, but they carry the vast majority of things I usually buy. The main things they don't have are certain cleaning products and toilet paper, which I pick up at Jubilee as needed. I send them a request almost every week to carry King Arthur flour, but they still don't have it. So, everyone reading this who uses FD, please send a product request for King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour!!

I can vouch for the coconut cake at Peninsula Grill. I went there for my birthday last year, and that cake was outstanding! We just ordered one piece and it was so big we had to take most of it to go. It made a very nice breakfast the next day! Thanks for sharing the link to the recipe.

Shake Shack has a website now (I don't think they had one last year). According to www.shakeshacknyc.com the opening date is April 1st!! Am I the only one who is excited about this? DH and I have commented several times this winter that we can't wait to have a Shack burger again!

I am SO ready for the Shake Shack to reopen! I just called Eleven Madison to inquire, and I was told that there is no date announced yet. She just said "spring."

I vote for les frites at Les Halles! Makes me want to go there tonight. :)

We stopped by the Shake Shack on Saturday afternoon to get some custard, and the machines were STILL broken. The sign just said no custard, shakes, or concretes "until further notice."

We went back to the Shake Shack today and their custard machine was broken! No custards, concretes, or shakes. :( They said the machine had started smoking. This was just before noon, so maybe they have made repairs by now.