Nyleve Baar

I keep chickens and they obviously never got the memo about egg sizes. Their eggs range from the ridiculous to the silly. So I've gotten into the habit of figuring that a large egg is 1/4 cup and measuring out my eggs for baking. In a recipe that calls for 4 eggs, I might use 3 eggs or I might use 6, depending on the size. For a bundt cake I don't think it's particulary critical - use what you have. But if you're making something more sensitive, you can assume 1/4 cup per egg and go from there.

Just recently had a two-night stopover in Addis Ababa where we ate a lot of really interesting things made with chick peas and lentils, along with their ubiquitous injera flatbread. The food seemed to me to have really ancient roots - and Ethiopia shares more than a little history with the Jews. They trace their royalty to the union of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. I think hunting down some Ethiopian recipes - shiro, is one dish we ate (spicy chick peas) - would get you pretty close to what you're looking for. It's also incredibly delicious.

I'll be off to India next week. Any saffrony advice for shopping there? I've bought - online - Kashmiri saffron but wasn't overly fond of it. Smelled to me like perfume, not saffron. Maybe it just wasn't good stuff.

I didn't mean to smear all Lebanese wine - I'm sure there are many good ones. It's just that the one we did have was SO bad that I remember it even years later.

I had that one! Someone bought it to our house once and the name contained the word "terroir" which my son doctored up with a sharpie to read "terrorist" instead. It was horrible. But wait, there's more. My husband once ended up with a case of wine from a Finger Lakes winery (long story) which contained several bottles of their flagship wine: Black Russian Red. This was made from some kind of rare grape that we were told no one else was using to make wine. With good reason. It was impossible to choke down and, believe me, I'm no delicate flower.

You've probably already dealt with it but, for future spaghetti overload situations, you can easily mix it with tomato sauce and layer with cheese, meat, whatnot, sprinkle with shredded mozzarella and freeze in foil pans as a bake-able casserole. If you really don't want to have that much spaghetti casserole in your freezer, make this up in large foil roasting pans and take to a local soup kitchen. I know for a fact that the place where I volunteer would welcome such an offering with open arms. We make stuff like that occasionally and it goes over like gangbusters.

The cochinita in the La Gloria market is murderously good. There were a couple of other people selling cochinita on Sunday morning along the road from Salina Chica to La Gloria but the stuff at the market just looked so much better. There's also a little carnitas stand along that road - pretty much at Salina Chica, which is near where we stay - and that stuff is great also. It's not too far south of the crossroad that goes to Kash Keken Chuk (sp???).

Tell me about Zama. Gone past it but never in - a little intimidated by the fanciness of the place (we're pretty low end types). What is the cover charge to use the beach club and what's the restaurant like? Agree completely about Velasquez. Great seafood - and then they do that ridiculous "tequila" shots thing at the end of your meal. We discovered that the pink ones (for girls) and the blue ones (for boys) are pretty much the same. Very funny.

Hah! Will look for you. We'll be there for just a week toward the end of Feb. Just so you know, I've used your blog as a holy bible on Isla for a couple of years now. The cochinita pibil at the market in la Gloria is fantastic. I'm sure you've done the tic n chix (sorry can never get the spelling right) at the restaurant at Playa Lancheros (I know it has a different name now). Last year there were 6 of us and we ordered the fish for lunch. What they brought us was a perfectly grilled fish about the size of a coffee table. It was delicious (and dirt cheap). We took the leftovers back to the place where we were staying and my husband disgusted us by hauling it out to eat for the next three days. By day 3, we made him eat it away from where we were sitting because we couldn't stand the smell of it anymore.

Just got this short restaurant review in my email today (below). We'll be heading down there next month too - so we're interested in some new or updated information as well! Our Restaurant Review: Limón Restaurante Limón is the brainchild of Sergio Martinez and Charrissa Gillingham - formerly of Sergio's on Playa del Sol. It is situated on the ground floor of their pretty family home, near the Super Express in la Glorias. (If you are looking at the Super Express, turn to your left, and look for the terracotta-coloured house just up from the corner.) Out of a possible 1 to 5 Forks - we've have awarded Limón the following. Food: 4 Forks - My Seared Tuna was fabulous as were my Mussels. L. had delicious Beef Carpaccio and a Trilogy of Rosemary Kebabs with beef, chicken, and shrimp. His only difficulty was in removing the meat from the skewers - maybe a little spray 'pam' would fix that situation. Ambiance: 5 Forks - lovely inside, and in the garden Service: 5 Forks - with the exception of one forgotten beer - perfect! Wine: 3 Forks - one red and one white, good wines, but limited selection Value: 4 Forks - $800.00 pesos for the two of us including tip and wine

I've had a large chest freezer in an uninsulated detached garage (actually an old stable) for well over 30 years. The same freezer for over 30 years. Has not failed once and our winter temperatures regularly go down waaaaayyyyyyy below freezing in central Ontario. I get that the manufacturers don't advise you to keep their unit in such a dire environment, but I think they're just covering their you-know-whats. I use mine to keep the big overflow: decent bread, turkeys that have gone on sale, my friend's organically raised chickens, Montreal bagels, that kind of thing. The day-to-day food goes into the upright freezer that lives in the house.

My son taught me that one a few weeks ago and it's hilarious fun. I sometimes use my cocktail shaker to peel the garlic - it's like a magic trick! Just throw them in there and shake for a while. Remove the lid and pour out peeled garlic cloves. Oh come on - you can't resist!

In Palermo, I found the Ballaro market better than the Vucciria - with more stalls and more street food to sample. When we were there - admittedly 2 years ago - there was a stall set up more or less in the middle of the Ballaro that sold those chick pea fritters as well as some murderously good baked or fried (can't remember now) sardine sandwiches. You should also definitely eat one of those ice cream sandwiches made with brioche rolls (ridiculous). We enjoyed dinner at Sant'Andrea (I'm messing up the spelling, I'm sure, but I'm too lazy to dig up my notes) which is located pretty much in the Vucciria market area. Great vibe at night if you sit outside with the 6-year-olds racing their motorscooters up and down the street around you.

Strawberry freezer jam sets up perfectly - it's the only kind of strawberry jam I make now. But I never liked how peach freezer jam turned out. Instead, I'll use the cooked jam recipe on the Certo box. Seems to me that peaches need a little bit of cooking to make them right. Otherwise they leak out too much juice while not softening quite well enough. The cooked jam is only cooked for, like, a minute - so it's still a quick process.

Yeah - thought of you. Again. The others I gave away, but this one I am keeping.

Last week at the dump - er, I mean, the reuse centre - a beautiful, clean, working 14-cup (DLC-7) Cuisinart with work bowl, shredding blade and steel knife blade. Problem is that the bowl is a bit cracked, which I assume is why someone left it there. I will replace the bowl and cover at a cost of approx. $75 (or less if I can find one on ebay) and it's a terrific back-up processor for when my ancient DLC-8 dies. This is the third - and best - Cuisinart I've picked up from there. What's going on with these people?

Why wouldn't you leave the skin in the stock pot? It has flavour and probably other things also. If you're going to be chilling and removing the fat from the stock anyway, it's no more trouble to have a little more to take off. Alternative - rendering the fat and creating crisp, addictive, murderously delicious chicken cracklings. My personal kryptonite. I rarely do this, despite the usefulness of chicken fat, because I can't stop myself from eating them and, really, it's too much.

No question. My Elmira Sweetheart wood cookstove. It stands in place of my previous cookstove - an ancient Findlay Oval - which I had to remove when the insurance inspector came to call. I was bereft until we found this one - which could be installed legally. The Oval has a new home in a neighbour's garage where he tells me he uses it to heat the space and made Thanksgiving dinner on it, so it's all good.

I made this dough this weekend for, er, Christmas Day pizzafest. Used Italian "pizza flour" (Threw out the bags so can't remember the exact brand or name). What I liked about the dough is that it is, indeed, a long-rise dough which looks like nothing is happening while refrigerated and then springs to life at room temperature. The dough, however, didn't measure out just right (I used volume, not weight) and I had to add about 1/3 cup additional flour to make it handle-able when removing from the processor. Flattening out was a breeze - used a combination of fingers and rolling pin - and it baked up beautifully. (No photos, sorry.) The only quibble was that it really wasn't a thin enough crust for me - but it's possible that I didn't flatten the dough enough before baking. I also used parchment to facilitate moving the pizzas from peel to stone - a bit of a compromise for me but I was making 6 pizzas and was in no mood to deal with possible disaster. At any rate, the recipe will go into my keeper file - I liked it.

SodaStream has been available in Canada for at least 3 years - I bought mine that long ago. But it's true that distribution has become more widespread, making it possible for me now to get CO2 refill cartridges nearby, which is great. I groused, for a while, at the sudden increase in price of the CO2 cartridges - they jumped by probably 25% about a year ago. So now I'm trying to encourage a geeky friend of mine to buy a system and rig it up to work with bulk canisters. There's a place - I can find the link if anyone is really interested - that sells valve adapters so that you can refill the small canisters yourself. The original SodaStream units have proprietary valves that make it impossible otherwise. But I love this thing. I go through 1 to 2 quarts of fizzy water a day and I'm delighted to be able to make my own using my own delicious well water. And no empties to recycle or bottles to lug home from the store. I feel so smug when I put it out on the table instead of a bottle of Perrier or San Pellegrino.

Just from personal experience, I find that quinoa is better cooked in 1-1/2 times the volume of liquid than double. At double, it goes a bit mushier than I like it. 1 cup quinoa, 1-1/2 cups water or stock - cook covered for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes before doing whatever you want to do with it.

One went to my son, the other to his girlfriend. Sorry! I just couldn't LEAVE them there, could I?

Darienne I found 2 - TWO! - very old Cuisinart processors (the original Robot Coupe model) at the "Cavan K-Mart" (if you know what I mean) less than a month ago. Two separate times! You just never know...

Bumper crop of porcinis the last few weeks. I have my fingers crossed for a bit of rain tonight to extend the bounty. I've dried pounds and pounds of them already - have to go half and half with the friend whose property provides these riches - but I've also been able to make some drop dead delicious risotto and pasta with them. I got so excited about all this that last night I ordered an Opinel mushroom-hunting knife on ebay. (Practically a guarantee that the season is over...).

No way. Yes way. Want the recipe?