Chufi

if you find yourself anywhere near one of the stores of Australian Homemade Icecream (and yes I know there´s nothing Australian about them, and that the icecream comes from a factory and not from a home, etc etc....) PLEASE get yourself a scoop of their speculaas icecream.. it´s seasonal, they only have it in November-December, and I would say that for a tourist, it´s one of the best things to eat in Amsterdam right now. oh and for locals too

dougal, I really like that idea of mixing the 2 types of lentils in one dish. I'll be doing that soon... I have a friend coming for dinner tomorrow who specifically requested something with lentils. But no soup. I've been googling around a bit and am thinking a warm lentil salad of Puy lentils, roast cubes of butternut squash, on some watercress, with walnuts. A vinaigrette with Dijon mustard and walnut oil. And, if the store has it, some pan fried cubes of halloumi. Toulouse sausages on the side.

My standby lentil recipes are soup (for the fall-apart type of lentil) and cooked, then mixed with caramelized onions and served with sausages (fresh pork sausages or spicy chorizo). I could use some new lentil ideas, anyone have any good ones to share?

btw, very interesting to learn that advocaat is apparently 'on the map' in cocktail circles. For most Dutch people, advocaat with whipped cream is what elderly ladies in nursing homes have as their Sunday treat. A concept far away from the advocaat cocktails described here

thanks everyone, this is all really helpful. lostmyshape, thanks for digging up that Verpoorten link, I hadn't found it in my google quests.

Just for future reference: on this thread: Chiles in the Desert you'll find the trip report about the trip eGullet helped me plan.

just a quick question about this eggnog.. I need to make it tonight for serving tomorrow. Will it be ok with the beaten eggwhites? I've never had 'real'eggnog so I'm not exactly sure what kind of texture I'm aiming for. I assume the beaten eggwhites add creaminess more than air (if you're supposed to 'stir thoroughly'). Won't the beaten whites make it watery if it sits overnight?

I'm researching an article about, among other things, the Dutch 'drink' advocaat which is a custard with alcohol (recipe and pictures here). There is a theory that Dutch sailors (in the 17th century?) encountered a drink made with avocado and some sort of alcohol in Latin America. They wanted to make this back home, but lacking avocados, they used eggs as a thickener (but the name stuck - hence, advocaat). I'm trying to figure out if there is still such a drink somewhere in Latin America (or anywhere else) - an alcoholic thick puree/beverage made with avocados. Does anyone know of such a thing?

djyee, thank you so much, I used this recipe yesterday with some of the quince puree I had frozen, and the result was a truly fabulous icecream. The texture was great, creamy but also very fruity and the flavor of the quince was pronounced and wonderful. So thanks , I found my forumula!

Kale has been popping up in the stores here.. and the Dinner thread just gave me 2 great ideas to use it: MiFi´s kale frittata and menuinprogress´white bean and kale soup. Shaya would you believe I have this book?? I never cooked anything from it though! Your beer stew looks fantastic!

From this book, I´ve made the Cipriani´s dark chocolate ice cream many times.. it´s my favorite chocloate ice cream because it´s very chocolaty but not heavy. I love Zucchini with vinegar and mint.. it was my summer go to side dish for years. I also adore the Baked risotto with aubergines but that will be a no for you since it requires an oven.. I used to use her books a lot and now I realize I haven´t looked at them much lately.. maybe it´s time to revisit them!

It was, and I agree with you about that smell. It´s wonderful. ah yes, posole! I was SO planning on bringing some back and then I forgot. I liked the darkest one (I think thats the anejo? please don´t make me look at my tequila notes... ) best for drinking straight. I did bring back a little can of Hatch roasted chiles, so now the challenge will be when to use them and what to use them for...

Day 21 - Silver City -> Phoenix we left early fot the long drive to Phoenix. Somewhere along the way, but I´m ashamed to admit I dont remember where, we stopped for breakfast We arrived in Phoenix, found a motel, rested for a bit, found a computer to check in for our flights, and then went in search of the final culinary experience of the trip: Pizzeria Bianco. I had read about this placehere on eGullet and all the rave reports had made me curious. I knew we would probably have to wait a long time, but since we really did not have anything better to do on our final night in the US, we decided to go for it. Finding the place was tricky, and in the car we had our first Real Fight of the trip... your typical car discussion that went something like this Dennis: ok, so now you have to tell me if I should keep going, or turn left, or turn right. Me: how should I know, I don+t live here, I´ve never been here before, and this map sucks. variations on this theme, for about 20 minutes. You get the idea. Anyway, with the help of some friendly Phoenicians (who did warn us: you´re going to Bianco? Ooooh, it´s friday night, it´s going to be a madhouse up there) we finalyy arrived at PB at 5:15. and were informed there would be a two and a half hour wait. Luckily there´s a nice bar next door, owned by the PB people, where you can have a beer or 2 or 3 while you wait, and the girls behind the bar (who are all gorgeous and dressed like they just walked out of a Sex In The City casting) have a list of people waiting for the restaurant, so you don+t have to worry that they´ll give your spot to someone else. Waiting almost 3 hours for PIZZA seems outrageous, but if you think of it as just ´a nice time spent in a bar´it´s not so crazy... I´ve spent many hours at bars without a pizza waiting for me! We talked to some of the people who were also waiting, they had all been there before and said the wait was totally worth it. One couple said they´d been coming to PB since it opened and that nothing had changed.. not the menu, not the pizza, not the care and attention to detail.. the only thing that had changed was the time they had to spend waiting for their pizza! This was all very encouraging. After about 2 hours our names were called and we were seated at the bar of the restaurant, with a nice view of the oven: WE had the pizza with fennel sausage and wood roasted onions and the pizza with pistachios and onions, to which we added some prosciutto. was it good pizza? it was great pizza. Was it the best pizza I ever had? No - I have had better pizza in Italy. Was it worth the wait? Definitely, but mostly because the wait was so enjoyable and did not really feel like a wait. If we had had to stand in line for 2 hours - I would not have thought it worth it. The crust is unlike any pizza crust I ever tasted. It´s really flavorful, but the texture is unusual - it´s light and airy but also quite chewy. The sausage-onion pizza was my favorite. I thought the pistacho topping on mine was a bit too salty. All in all, we had a great time and I´m really glad we went and ended our trip with a really good dinner! When we left, the place was buzzing and the wait was 3 and a half hours... So that´s it. I´ll browse the thread now for questions I missed. For now, cheers to all of you who read along, cheers to all eGulleters who helped plan my trip. I hopwe you enjoyed it and that maybe some day someone reading my report will get some info that´s valuable to them. Cheers!

Day 20 - continued In the evening, we went for a final Silver City dinner to Isaac´s. I wasn´t really hungry so I ordered this yes that was plastic cheese. Dennis ordered a bit more sensibly and Rob just had guacamole... ...and then we had to say goodbye to Silver City and all its wonderful people. On every trip there´s a town or city that you feel you want to come back to some day. 2 years ago, it was Port Townsend, and this time it was Silver City. So who knows!!

Erin, just a quick word to tell you how much I am enjoying this thread, and also to tell you I made your tofu and tomato a couple of times since I first read about it on your blog.. it's fantastic! This thread is giving me a whole new appreciation for Marcella. And I already loved her, a lot.

I'm looking for the basic formula for fruit ice cream when you already have fruit puree. I often freeze fruit puree so I have the sweetened puree as the starting point. Most recipes for fruit ice cream give you the amount of raw fruit in the ingredients list, and don't tell you how much puree this yields. Basically I'm looking for 2 formula's.. how much cream (or a mixture of cream/joghurt/buttermilk) and sugar for how much sweetened fruit puree, and how much custard for how much sweetened fruit puree? The last time I just threw some strawberry puree into some cream and the balance was definitely wrong.. too much fruit and not enough sugar. If I have the basic formula making icecream with my stash of frozen fruit would be so much easier. Thanks!

Day 20 - Silver City The next day we really got into the Silver City way of life We went shopping, we had coffee, Dennis had a haircut, we had more coffee and tea, strolled around, and managed to spend the entire morning basically doing nothing.. and arrived back at the Curious Kumquat in time for lunch. Rob's corn and green chile chowder, which is really good.

Day 19 - continued for dinner that night we went to the neighbouring hamlet of Pinos Altos. We had passed the restaurant in the afternoon when we came back from our hike, so I was able to take a picture by daylight. This place has been in business since 9I think) the 1860's, and it supposedly has the bulletholes in the walls to prove it, although unfortunately it was so dark inside that I could not see them! we had quesadilla's and potato skins and a very good but humungous burger that nobody finished but me... and I should not have. I also spent some time with the local barfly.. he asked me to stay but Dennis would not let me. I forgot to mention that on this night we also met one of gfron's customers, a lovely lady who is originally from The Netherlands.. she's in her eighties and it was great fun to meet her and she enjoyed speaking Dutch with us and reminiscing a bit about Holland..

if I ever come back to Silver City, you´ll have to convince him that that is a special event.

it´s gfron1´s amazing brownie. I think it´s a good thing I don´t live in SC after all... I would have to have one of those at least twice a week I´m afraid

Day 19 - Silver City Next day Tyler took us hiking near Cherry Creek. It´s really beautiful up there, peaceful and green with a little creek that crosses the trail every now and then. Before we took off we stopped by the Curious Kumquat to get lunch. Some of Rob´s fantastic bread, some Maytag cheese and this.. aren´t you all jealous??

Day 18 - continued crab tostadas my combo platter (with a great chile relleno) gfron1´s fish taco´s we were pretty full after that but not too full to go THE gelato place in town: Alotta Gelato

Day 18 - Continued We fell in love with Silver City. It´s really hard not to love it. It´s beautiful It´s extremely relaxed It´s surrounded by gorgeous countryside It has an amazing grocery storewhere they sell everything from Dutch licorice to weird Indonesian peppers to Indian chapati´s to Italian Arborio rice to Israeli couscous Oh and gfron1 lives there, with his spouse, and these 2 are some of the most generous-spirited, lovely-to-be-around people I´ve ever met. Despite their hectic schedules they made lots of time for us, to eat with us, go hiking with us and talk to us. We had an amazing couple of days in Silver City thanks to them. The first night we were there we wanted to go eat at the brewpub, but true to Silver City standards there was a written notice on the door that said "I´m taking a break, will be back in a couple of days" so we went to Jalisco´s instead.

Day 18 - Santa Fe -> Silver City The next day we said goodbye to Santa Fe, a little sad to leave the town and especially Verjuice, who I had called just to make sure I had not made a complete fool of myself on margarita night . I just hope I'll meet her again some day and present myself in a more composed and dignified manner Anyway, the road was calling. Like many times when we were driving in the SW there's really one one road.. the map is not really necessary.. but I like to study it as we go and see the progress we make! We stopped for lunch in Truth or Consequences, at the Happy Belly Deli, a delightful little place with a nice courtyard. Soup and sandwich, my idea of a perfect lunch: Grilled cheese and green chili sandwich. I was eating as much green chiles as I possibly could.. knowing it would probably the last time I'd ever taste them.

Day 17 - continued After this afternoon, I wasn't really in the mood for dinner! But ofcourse Dennis had to eat so I decided to take him back to la Boca, so we both could have some small dishes. By now I was in the mood for a little pick me up and a nice manzanilla did the trick I had a salad with beetroot and goatscheese and some house cured salmon with a fennel salad: Dennis had a salad with roasted pears and cabrales and a 'canelones'of crab abd scallops with a creamy sage-cheese sauce . Overall, I would highly recommend la Boca if you're in santa Fe and want to eat something not New Mexican. It's an elegant little place, good service, nice vibe and great food.