JeanneCake

You made my day! Thank you!

I have a LOT of cookbooks, probably in the upper hundreds in terms of count. I read through them like novels, I write in the ones I use most often. So for me, the book in my hands is part of the adventure (even if it is a culinary text or the compilation of essays from Laurie Colwin) and it's not the same for me scrolling through a blog on my phone or computer. The next generation feels differently I am sure. I had to go look up what an NFT is and I agree that NFTs don't add much to cookbooks. I've regretted loaning out all the cookbooks I never got back from the people who borrowed them (my original copies of Great Italian Desserts from Nick Malgieri, Jack Ubaldi's Meat Book, to name just two) so perhaps I might be coerced into buying a digital copy just so I could have the recipes again (I bought another copy of the Meat Book and I can't get another copy of Great Italian Desserts as it's out of print). The only books that have ever fallen apart on me are the ones I've used constantly - The Cake Bible, the Pie and Pastry Bible, Rose's Christmas Cookie Book, Maida Heatter's Book of Great American Desserts, Mastering the Art of French Pastry and Julia Child's Way to Cook. The books fell apart because they were *well used* so I bought second copies of them once I realized I was in danger of having to use elastic bands to hold them together!! I expect that when/if we ever downsize, I will donate my cookbooks to the library. I hope they will want them by then.

Such wonderful photography (as usual!). I have both books in my Amazon cart right now, since I needed a folding cart for work otherwise I would have gone to the local bookstore. Thank you

I don't have any experience with the machine. I did see a short video posted by Antonio Bachour two or so years ago about it; he may respond to an.email inquiry if you reached out. He travels a lot (based on his social media posts) so it may take a while to get a reply....

If you're in Jersey, then go get the pie version from Carlo's bakery and see if you like the filling and the topping; then buy one of their cakes and see if you like it. I've never had anything from Carlo's and my guess is that they (being a huge bakery/manufacturer) are likely using custom-formulated cake mixes to ensure product consistency but maybe they are making something similar to Mazur's. Then see if they make a version of this cake. The checkerboard cake is simply chocolate and vanilla cake poured into a pan (usually with an insert designed to keep the batter separate while you pour it into the pans). Maida Heatter has several cheesecakes in her various books, all of which are heavier/denser (her choc/vanilla bullseye cheesecake is dense, you can just make the whole thing vanilla if you want, Book of Great American Desserts). By contrast, Rose Levy Beranbaum's (the Cake Bible) cheesecake is light and more delicate.

What was the name of the bakery you got the California fruit cake from?

That's what I'm thinking. I subscribed to the magazines for years and I could probably try to find the (very dusty) boxes of magazines I kept ...... I don't object to subscriptions, - I don't mind paying for new content or updated content but this isn't it. I'd be paying for their upkeep (which I am sure isn't cheap) but keep what's been free, free, and charge for the new stuff......

I went looking for a recipe (google) just a moment ago, and learned that epicurious is now a subscription only service - $40/annually or $5/month. When did this happen?! I don't know that I want to spend $40 a year just to access recipes but I'm going to miss the winter root vegetables with dill recipe, and the brussels sprouts with chestnuts (I never use the chestnuts but this is a great recipe). At least I have the Havana Moon Chili recipe....

It would help if you defined what YOU think of as a delicious cupcake. I own a bakery. I have several options for topping cupcakes - ganache, American buttercream made with butter and confectioners sugar, milk, vanilla or Vegan American buttercream made with vegetable shortening, confectioners sugar, water, salt and vanilla; or Italian Meringue buttercream (our house buttercream). I have various recipes for cake - some call for butter, others use shortening, some use oil - but despite all of these choices, what I offer may not appeal to everyone. Just the other day, during a bridal consultation, the groom loved the Italian Meringue while the bride, who needed a dairy free option - thought the vegan buttercream was out of this world delicious (the groom spit it out LOL! He wasn't a fan of shortening!). So while I might tell you a recipe produces a delicious result, you might not care for it.

IMHO there are a lot of people who don't follow recipes carefully and then squawk about the results. Some recipes aren't tested enough (or by a wider skill set from novice to passionate amateur) or proofread carefully during the editing process and mistakes happen. As a method, 1234 works; does it produce a wonderful cake? That depends on how you define wonderful. If reviewers are saying what they made from the book doesn't match the shop product, that's one thing. If the recipes produced utter failures (and some recipes work, some don't) then did the reviewer try all the recipes or just a select few and give up after one or two? I remember buying Johnny Iuzzini's book and trying the coconut curd; the recipe worked but I didn't like the result. Maida Heatter tells a story about a lemon buttermilk cake that was an abject failure when made from her book; they deleted the recipe from subsequent reprints of the book; she rewrote the recipe and never did figure out what went wrong. Are you trying the recipes from these books? What is your experience with them?

@Kerry BealYou broke your ankle?! Are you ok?

I shouldn't be surprized that Florence is closing, it still makes me sad though. I love Jack Ubaldi's "cookbook" - mostly for the stories

I've done a few in-person grocery shopping trips; fully masked and right when the store opens at 7 am. I'm out by 7:30. Different things have been out of stock, sometimes I wonder if it's just because of the time I'm there (they haven't stocked the meat cases, or the produce yet). A major grocery chain here (market basket) has a habit of no gaps on the shelves. So you take one or two items off the shelf and the shelf is empty behind the single line of seltzer bottles at the edge of the shelf. There was Near East Rice Pilaf boxes on the shelf with taco shells. In the section for granola bars, it was a wall of Nature Valley granola bars (single file!!) because there were no other brands available. I'm noticing the pasta section doesn't have the usual selection of brands but the shelves are well stocked. plain cream cheese seems ok; but the flavored ones are in short supply. We like this spicy pork noodle soup that uses ramen noodles and I noticed this week there is only the 12-pack boxes of shrimp flavor. which reminds me that I need more gochujang and black vinegar

I found both the Toffee Crunch and the Birthday ones - the birthday ones have little sparkles on the outside and a layer of speckled white and plain chocolate fillings inside. If I hadn't seen the outside I wouldn't have known these were any different from the usual Oreos. The toffee ones, well... they're ok. To me, these didn't taste like a Skor or Heath bar and no way would these be confused with a homemade toffee. But dunk them in some tea or coffee and I'd eat them. Still though, my all time favs are the Dark Chocolate ones. Nothing will ever be as bad as the tiramisu ones.

The Greek man who ran the pizza shop next door had one of these, it was on the menu as "gyro" and it was lamb. Then he sold the place to an immigrant from Kuwait, who called it shawarma. There was a place 15 or so miles north of here, named The Shawarma Shop and that's what they called it. They also had several options for meat: beef, lamb, pork. Me personally, I called it delicious. The Greek man made fantastic gyros. The Kuwaiti owner made the most incredible "chicken shawarma" sandwich/sub and I was sorry when he went out of business.

I can't wait to get mine! and Mr Whipple was my first thought I guess I'm aging myself!

Great. Another foolish term. Foodie always made me roll my eyes, but food influencer? Seriously? I'm with rotus. Knock it off already LOL and, who actually decides who is, and who is not, an influencer? is there a committee?

We routinely use a whisk for ganache - we let the cream come to a rolling boil and pour it over the callets (we also add butter for our purposes) rock the bowl a little to ensure the cream gets down to the bottom; and wait a few minutes then use a whisk.

We've had requests for GF biscuits before, and I've had decent results with the Bob's Red Mill Biscuit and Baking mix, if you can find that in your area. Or buy online. Good luck! I hope it helps!

This brought to mind a funny memory - one of my room mates was a friend from high school; we shared an apartment for a year or two. For her birthday, I bought her an espresso maker (we were young and not very flush so it was not an expensive machine!) After admiring it and setting it on a place of pride on a kitchen counter, we never actually used it much. She did have names for some of our things (cars, mostly. My baby blue VW beetle was christened "Mildred" by her for some unknown reason, neither of us had never known a Mildred and we never watched Mildred Pierce either). So one day she starts assigning names for various kitchen things, and stops at the espresso maker. I realize she doesn't much use this appliance that she had been pining for and without thinking - or hesitating! - I suggested she should call it "Dusty" 🤣

and you got an glassware with a full tank of gas - my parents got a full 8 place settings of water glasses, high ball, old fashioned (I had no clue what that meant at the time), there were three or four different types of glasses 😆 They must have been pretty sturdy to have survived three kids

I had the same thought; I saw the title and immediately thought of Toliver.....

I'm getting RLB's newest Cookie book (bible?) whenever it gets published....it was supposed to be fall of 2021 but like so many other things, it got pushed to this year. The anticipated date for release is October 2022. I'm happy to let you all enable me it's been a while since I added to my collection....

😥 He will be missed. Like all of you, I enjoyed his posts, his wit, his humor.

Here is a link that I hope works. You'd never believe that in a previous life as a technical trainer I taught people how to program and set up their telecommunications networks to do video conferencing. And then fiber optics technology. Because I can't link anything successfully Electric spin brush to clean grout and other stuff! (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)