lexy

A homemade pickle would be nice - especially if you can get ahold of some nice young spring vegetables. Or an olive/herb/marinated vegetable mix. What about soup, maybe served in a cup if people are going to be mingling?

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say - even eaten on their own, pistachios aren't terribly strongly flavoured. Maybe you could break the idea down into a pistachio component and a saffron component served together (say, saffron cake and pistachio ice cream), so that the pistachio can stand on its own a little more.

Thanks for the recipe - Abra beat me to it, but I was going to ask as well!

I baked some almond-lemon butter cookies yesterday as a gift. I think I ought to have let the dough chill longer - they rather lost their shape in baking.

Was that clotted cream? - there's few things nicer than tea, scones, jam, and clotted cream *drools a little* I love that!

I've definitely seen some in Toronto, in a store in Kensington Market, I seem to remember. If you have a big-ish Loblaws (or similar) near you, there's some chance they might carry it, but you might have to hunt since for it since I find that Loblaws sometimes puts things in unexpected aisles (I'd start with the baking aisle and then the preserves aisle). Otherwise, you might try a health food store, or a gourmet food shop (probably pricey though). If you're really keen, preserved ginger is actually quite easy to make. I'm sure I saw a recipe posted on eGullet some time ago, but in essence: • make a simple syrup (1:1 sugar and water) • slice ginger root into thin (around 1/4 cm) disks • steam or boil the disks until just tender • drain, and cook in the syrup until they're soft and they've lost their harshness Then you can either pour the syrup along with the disks into a jar and refrigerate, or you can drain the disks and roll them in granulated sugar to make the more candy-like version.

You can buy two kinds of preserved ginger. One is more candy-like, has a coat of sugar crystals, and looks like this. The other is similar but rather than being 'dry', the chunks of candied ginger float in the simple syrup used to preserve them. So for the recipe, buy the kind that comes in syrup and save some of the syrup.

I want to hear you. Will it be on "Sounds Like Canada"? ← More details please! I'm actually in Canada at the moment, and I'd love to catch this.

I haven't made anything out of Chocolate Desserts, but I did have a look through one of his french cookbooks (sorry, can't remember which), and made a pie crust from it (very nice - quite easily the best I've ever made). Anyway, the same thing struck me - the desserts are often multi-layered and elaborate, but a lot of the complexity is in assembly. The components are often quite manageable for the home baker, and many can be made in advance. Somehow I found the recipes more admirable because of this - Herme struck me as an organised, efficient, and logical baker.

Sultana cake for Sunday dinner: This thread's giving me a craving for rhubarb … rhubarb crumble especially, yum!

Regular digestive biscuits would make a fantastic substitute, or those digestive-like Hovis crackers. You want something that's a little buttery (not dry like crackers) - maybe even stale cake crumbs in a pinch. It's a base very similar to the base for american-style cheesecake.

Very true. Around here a lot of the bars (especially college bars) are manned by students. Most of them are friendly and fairly keen on their jobs, but there's no way you're going to find any interesting mixed drinks in most local places - people just don't know how to make them. In some cases it's perhaps not an unwillingness to make a drink as lack of knowledge. A friend of mine took a bartending course, and she said they had to memorize something like 80 or 90 drinks - something someone who just walks into the job is unlikely to pick up.

Yay, you're blogging again! I quote liked last year's, and I'm sure this one will be just as good. One thing I really enjoyed in your first blog was reading about the way food comes into religion (Judaism in your case) - always fascinating for an ignorant agnostic like myself.

This topic reminds me of something I'd been wondering about. I remember reading that salmonella (from eggs) was to do with the contamination of the outside of the shell, not with the contents. So if one were careful about washing eggs before using them, would that more or less cancel out any risk of salmonella poisoning? (Not that I plan to start washing all my eggs - I cheerfully lick beaters, eat bits of cookies dough, and enjoy un-cooked mousses)

I made a batch of my favourite oatmeal cookies yesterday, with chocolate chips thrown in for good measure, but when I came to take some photos of them today, this was the only one left!

I'm very unimpressed with Air Canada's transatlantic meals - especially their vegetarian options (cold, stale roll with margarine and cold 'roasted' peppers is a meal?) I like to pack a lot of little things, but I generally only eat in airports, not in the plane (I have a tendency to get motion sickness ). On the flight itself, water only, and maybe a few melba toasts. Favourites for waiting lounge snacking (dependent on my stomach of course): olives, nuts, crunchy raw veggies, cherry tomatoes, a nice cheese, apple, dried fruits, a nice roll, and copius amounts of tea. Another complaint about Air Canada: just about the only food of their's I liked were the packets of salted nuts (can't really mess those up), but they've replaced them with horrid soy (or sesame?) snacks. ugh.

*stomach churns a little* I can see the salt might help, but personally I can't take anything too strongly-flavoured the morning after - even watery Ribena would be a struggle I think.

Motion heartily seconded! They are totally devoid of nutritional value, and I swear I've felt my heart spasm in shock a bit while eating them, but they are ridiculously tasty.

I sometimes put saffron in my raisin bread. For one normal-sized loaf, a pinch of saffron (1/8-1/4 tsp) does the job. Remember that you need to let the saffron steep in a bit of hot liquid first, and then add the liquid and the saffron to the dough.

How does one eat this? Do you remove the egg before eating the pastry, or do you cut right in and then pick out bits of eggshell?

Are you looking for things that pair well with ice cream, or just general snacks and sweets? Scones, muffins, and individual-sized cakes are generally popular, and often have a good shelf life. Flapjack isn't very haute, but I think it's pretty tasty, and again is an item with staying power.

That sounds like it was probably Banoffee (banana + toffee)

my first thought was, 'Yes! Canada beats Japan to the punch for bizarre foods for once!' what did you think of them? I don't really like Canadian ketchup chips - I find them weirdly sweet

The 'glass of water per unit of alcohol' is key: I may still get drunk, but I've yet to get a hangover if I follow this guideline. Of course the downside is that you spend the whole night running to the toilet because of all the liquid you're drinking It helps to put a big glass of water on your nightstand if you're planning to go out and get lashed. I also find a run in the morning to be very helpful. Yes, the first ten minutes you just want to die, but if I'm shipshape enough to run (ie not too queasy), I feel more or less back to normal once I've finished a run. And finally: avoid boxed red wine and cheap sherry at all costs.

I decided to do a little baking in order to celebrate Oxford's victory in the boat race today (not that I really need an excuse to bake …) I pulled out my mum's recipe for gingerbread cake, but I probably should have checked the cupboards before I started, instead of just assuming I had what I needed … this became the gingerbread-cake-of-many-substitutions. First I didn't have enough golden syrup (even though I opened a new jar for this cake, it still wasn't enough!), so I made up the difference with some molasses. Then I realised I was nearly out of all-purpose flour, so I subbed in cake flour. Then I found out I only had about half the powdered ginger required, so I threw in some fresh grated ginger as well. Phew! Oh well, all's well that ends well.