LindaK

Béatrix's Red Kuri Soup, p, 78 I told myself that I'd wait until fall to make this soup, but yesterday was cold, damp, and dreary. And I had picked up a red kuri squash from the farmers market a couple of days before. So, reader, I had to. Delicious! This is one of my favorite soups and this recipe did not disappoint. It was perfect as is, though I will admit that, being accustomed to restaurant and bistro versions that must use cream to add richness, I added a liitle more milk and a couple of tablespoons of butter (no cream in the house) to the full recipe. But it's hardly necessary. I topped each serving with a bit of creme fraiche and some croutons, as is traditional, and served it with a salad of arugula and the last of my garden tomatoes, and of course some bread and wine. This soup has to be one of the easiest recipes I've made in a long time. Get this: you don't have to peel a kuri squash, despite it being a hard squash. Once you cut out the seeds, you cube it, simmer it, and puree it, skin and all. I would never have guessed. Thanks for the conseil, Dorie!

Count me among the breafast scofflaws. Black coffee always, and usually a bite of something sweet (generally a cookie, but leftover pie is nirvana). Big breakfasts are fine when they're brunch.

My experience is limited to Sevan's Bakery on Mt. Auburn Street. Their baked goods are excellent and they carry a wide variety of prepared food. I don't know if they have everything you're looking for but they always have lahmejun for lunch (I like the lamb version). I always walk away with lots more than I came for--muhammara, cheeses, pickles and jelly (sour cherry in my fridge at the moment), and cured meats such as sucuk (sp?) and pastirma. Please report back when you've had the chance try some of the stores in the area, it would be good to get your recommendations given that you know the cuisine so well.

This topic is making me smile. It has been too many years since my college days, but I remember very well what I liked in the way of cocktails during those years: high alcohol content, smooth, tasty, fun. Not so sweet that more than one would make me, um, ill. One of my favorite bars at the time specialized in "champagne" cocktails. Asti, proscecco, I don't know what sparkling wine they used, but they were delicious, fun, and seemed special and sophisticated--how often do college students drink "champagne"? I probably would have been wowed by a simple kir royale. Anyway, any guy who took me there on a date got extra credit.

My copy arrived today and I'm really pleased. The book has a good array of classics, classics with a twist, and innovative recipes that you won't generally find in French cookbooks. Great photos, too. I'd expected to steer clear of the classics for now--been there, done that, so I thought. But the recipe that has me most excited is that for the Red Kuri Soup. If I'm lucky enough to be in France during fall or winter, potimarron soup is one of my favorites and I order it whenever I see it on a menu. I make butternut squash soup, but it isn't at all the same. The red kuris have just started to appear at my local farmers market. I'm not quite ready to give up the last tomatoes and green beans of the season, but when I do, this classic will be the first thing I make. What is with the recipes with corn? Are French markets carrying fresh corn these days? Sacre bleu!

Oops. Having begun this topic I only now remembered that I never updated folks on the cupcakes. Thanks, pringle007, for bumping it up. The filled cupcake experiment was a lot of fun for me and a hit with kids and adults alike. The advice here made a big difference, so thanks to everyone. I would have taken a picture, but the process took longer than I'd expected and I rushed out of the house balancing a large tray of cupcakes with barely enough time to be part of the birthday surprise. First of all, I decided to try the recipe CanadianBakin' suggested above instead of my tried and true recipe--it sounded delicious and seemed less time consuming. Yes, I know better than to try a new recipe in these situations, but in this case the gamble paid off. An excellent recipe, very moist and chocolatey but not overly sweet thanks to the coffee. The advice here about filling the cupcakes from the top made so much sense, and sure enough it worked like a charm. Once the cupcakes were dipped in the warm ganache, the puncture in the top was invisible. To JeanneCake's point about smaller, standard sized cupcakes being harder to fill--I took one look at my cupcake pans with this point in mind, decided she was right, and instead used stand alone cupcake/mini cake liners, which are larger than standard size. The results were big, but no one complained. Finally, the filling. My inexperience here made me uncertain about the best option, but it all worked out well. I made crème patissière but I worried that it was too heavy, and I wasn't sure if the cupcakes would get much refrigeration time during what I knew would be a long dinner. My initial thought was to lighten it with whipped cream, but I worried that it might get watery sitting out of the fridge. So, I decide to try yet another recipe that I'd never made before but knew from reading all my French cookbooks to be a good stabilized custard filling--crème chiboust (crème patissière folded with Italian meringue). Shockingly easy, why did I never try it before? It lightened the filling and kept it in perfect form until the cupcakes were devoured 6 hours later. I don't know the respective holding powers of various creme filling options, but this one served me well. Any advice on this point would be useful.

The shrimp and grits are yummy, as is the bluefish. The specials do change seasonally,I believe, and the regular menu isn't very long. Some months ago when I was last there, they served some excellent biscuits with country ham and homemade red pepper jelly. Try the boiled peanuts, really. My friends who prefer cocktails to beer or wine tell me that they offer some unusual and excellent choices.

It's not Seattle, but at least the Pacific NW--last Christmas one of my sisters gave me some black truffle salt from a shop in Portland, OR called The Meadows. It was sublime. They have an extensive list of salts available by mail order here.

I don't get tired of brocoli your way, Chris. But I'm also a fan of tossing steamed broccoli with some crumpled feta, slivered kalamata olives, sauted garlic w/ evoo, and red pepper flakes. Can you roast broccoli the way you can roast cauliflower?

My current fridge is a freezer on bottom, French door Jenn-Air. Love it. I switched to bottom freezer some years ago and prefer it. Because of the location of this fridge--in a 42" galley opposite the kitchen island--the single door model would have opened but would have been awkward to use. The French doors nicely solve that problem. For the same reason, a side-by-side would have worked in that location too, but I don't care for the narrow refrigerator space and the cubic feet of the side-by-sides I saw were all lower than the traditional or French door models. As for energy usage, the energy star ratings/estimates of my current 36" fridge are better than those of my previous 33" traditional door-style model. The seal on the doors is very tight, and on the rare occasion that I don't close it properly, I get a little beep. I was skeptical when I bought it, but no more.

Chris describes the difference very well. But we reach very different conclusions. It didn't taste to me as if there was "less sauce." To the contrary, it felt and tasted as if there was too much. To my mind, since they weren't going to absorb the dressing, it would have been better to drizzle just a little of the mayo over a serving of the roasted potatoes. Lesson learned: I'll stick with boiled potatoes, at least for a mayonnaise based dressing.

Dan, I know I used zucchini, yellow squash, and onions.. but there was another one, I can't remember. Your combination sounds good, I think the eggplant will balance the sweetness of the others. i didn't really take that into account when I made mine the first time. I'll make it again, the sauce is wonderful.

It sounds like a lot of fun--I found more info on the event web site. It's a bit of a commute from the States, so if anyone goes, I'd be interested in a report.

Ah, wok burners are another matter. I missed the switch to discussing wok burners, sorry!

Without weighing in on the gas/electric preference debate, I'm puzzled by your description of your cooktop as a having a 65k BTU burner. The heat output of electric and induction burners is measured in watts, not BTUs. I don't know what brand/model you have, but I just took a quick look at the specs of Thermador and Wolf's 36" electric smoothtop and induction cooktops. The specs for their most powerful burner: Wolf: 2,700 W smoothtop; 3,000 W (w/4,000 W boost) induction. Thermador: 2,500 W smoothtop; 3,300 W (w/ 4,600 W boost) induction It's hard to compare the performance of BTUs/watts on paper. The energy conversion charts I see online say 1 watt = 3.412 Btu. Putting efficiency issues aside for the moment, you'd need an electric element with more watts than any of these to equal the 22k BTUs of a gas burner. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding the product you're describing. Can you clarify? If you're complaining that your cooktop isn't putting out enough heat, I'm guessing that you don't have the equivalent of 65k BTUs--which sounds scary hot, to me.

I'll give the poblano mayo recipe another try soon, in the interest of fairness to Senõr Bayless, keeping in mind Kalypso's advice to use sufficient salt. But Chris, we need to discuss potato salad philosophy. How about over in the Potato Salad: what makes it good topic?

Over in the Cooking from "Fiesta at Rick's" by Rick Bayless topic, a recipe for Roasted New Potato Salad with Poblano Mayo has caused some commotion. Chris Hennes and I have agreed to disagree about whether the potatoes in potato salad should absorb the dressing or not. He says no, I say that's half the deliciousness. There's also some debate about the merits of using roasted vs. boiled potatoes for a potato salad. Does anyone else have an opinion on these pressing questions?

Geez. I've been using my iPod touch in the kitchen for the last year entirely in the nude (it, not me). It's gotten wet, spattered with hot oil and tomato sauce, covered with chocolate fingerprints, and more. Wipes clean just fine. An iPad is just an oversized iPod touch. It's sturdier than you think.

Kalypso, good point. I salted the potatoes and chilis before roasting but maybe not enough. Ordinarily when I boil potatoes, I salt the water heavily. I defintely use less when roasting. I did add salt to the final mayo but possibly it needed more. I'll remember that next time. I still wonder about the use of roasted potatoes in this recipe, maybe that's another reason to try it with the standard potatoes boiled in salted water.

Great review! On the scallops: oh my. My London friends are visting me in the states soon, I'll start discussing my return visit.

That's really interesting, Linda: I'd be very curious to know more. In particular what olive oil, and what vinegar? I think those are the two big variables, right? Otherwise, adding roasted poblano to a mayo doesn't seem that far off the beaten path. You're right on all counts, Chris. My complaints with the recipe start with those two ingredients. For one thing, as you noted, the recipe calls for all olive oil. One thing I've learned is that making mayo in a machine with all olive oil is likely a recipe for bitter mayo. The solution is to do as you did, start with canola or other veg oil then add the olive oil once it's already emulsified (maybe you can combine the two, never tried). Anyway, I know this but I went ahead anyway and followed the recipe. Result? Bitter mayo that I had to toss. My fault for not following my own instincts. Luckily, I'd roasted some extra poblanos so made the corrected version above. No bitterness but really lacking in flavor, too, imho. The recommended rice vinegar was no match for the poblano so the resulting mayo lacked any acidity, the result was flat and the flavors muddied. I thought about jazzing it up with some lime juice or a livelier vinegar, but no, I grimly continued testing the recipe. Maybe once combined with the potatoes... One thing I like about a good potato salad is the way the potatoes absorb the dressing, whether it be mayo or vinegar based. I liked the idea of using roasted potatoes for a little extra flavor, but had not thought through whether the light crust formed by roasting would interfere with absorbing the dressing. After I picked the leathery pieces of green onion off the potatoes, I tossed them with some of the dressing, with some new slivers of green onion, the reserved chilis, and cilantro. After a rest, I took a taste. No marriage of potato and dressing. More like roasted potatoes swimmimg in some blah green mayo. Let it sit longer, no difference. Pretty gross, actually. Down the disposal they went. I like the idea of a poblano mayo, but if I ever want it, I think I'll figure out my own recipe.

Dorie, thanks so much for the details. This is definitely not your run-of-the-mill rehash of bistro standards (which I love, but enough...) and it sounds like a good read, too. My copy is ordered, too.

Yucatecan Ceviche with Shrimp, Squid, and Habanero (Ceviche Yucateco de Camarones Calamares y Habaneros), p. 96 Holy cow, this is delicious. It might be my new favorite summer seafood salad. Light, flavorful, spicy, and easy. The habanero chili makes a nice change from the jalapenos and serannos elsewhere in the book. I don’t use habaneros often, mainly from fear. They have a distinctive taste, fruity and delicious but HOT. This recipe adds the pepper, halved and de-seeded, to the marinade for a short time then removes it entirely. Result: lots of flavor and just enough heat. It’s a great foil to the sweet-sour taste of orange and lime in the marinade. Unlike most other ceviches, both the squid and shrimp are fully cooked in this recipe. Jicama and cucumber give some crunch, chunks of orange keep it sweet. The combination works beautifully. BTW, Chris, I tried the poblano potato salad last week and it was one of the worst things ever to come out of my kitchen. The leathery green onions were the least of the problems. It was bad enough that I didn’t post about it, thinking that it must have been something I did wrong. I am trying to muster enthusiasm for giving it a second chance.

I've always followed the traditional way too. There's a discussion of this issue near the beginning of this topic, starting here, but here is the most direct response to this point: McGee's comments on pate a choux would seem to agree. Cooking the flour with the water and fat seems to be the key, and I don't see how your new hire's method cooks the flour.

You have hit one of my few candy weaknesses--Mounds bars. I would not have thought to use sweetened condensed milk and coconut for the filling. This is dangerous. If I make a batch of these cupcakes, I will eat all of them. Sweetened condensed milk is an interesting base for fillings. It probably doesn't need refrigeration, unlike anything with pastry and/or whipped cream.