Darcie B

If you are interested in a recipe, I am posting the following. I thinke the recipe came from a Martha Stewart magazine, but it's been awhile and I'm not exactly sure. I've rewritten the instructions for brevity and to avoid any copyright issues. Ice Cream Sandwich Dough 2 3/4 cups flour 1/2 cup cocoa 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 1 1/2 cups sugar 2 eggs 1 tablespoon milk Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Cream butter, vanilla, and sugar. Add eggs and milk, and mix until combined. Add flour mixture, mixing on low speed until incorporated. Divide dough in half and shape each into a flat disk. Wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. Roll dough on floured work surface to 1/8 inch thick. Cut into rectangles or other shapes. Place on parchment-lined cookie sheet and chill 30 minutes. Heat oven to 350. Remove from refrigerator and prick holes in cookies. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet, then transfer to wire rack and cool completely. Fill with ice cream and freeze in airtight container.

We have both a Checkers and 2 Rally's right here in the Charleston, West Virginia, area. They must have spread from Ohio... Now I have to resist the urge to go there for lunch.

I love basil ice cream and have been converting everyone I know to its deliciousness. Here's the recipe I use: 2 cups whole milk 3/4 cup granulated sugar 1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves 4 large egg yolks 1 cup heavy cream Puree 1 cup milk with basil leaves in blender. Add basil mixture to remaining 1 cup milk and scald. Beat sugar with yolks until mixture turns pale yellow and thickens so that it falls in ribbons. Temper yolk mixture and add to milk in saucepan. Heat to 180 deegrees. Stir in cream. Strain mixture through fine mesh strainer (optional). Cool to 40 degrees and process in ice cream maker. You can just steep leaves if you like but I like the color and flavor when I blend them with the milk. I forget whether I embellished the recipe with a couple of teaspoons of vanilla. I probably did just because I love vanilla. Edited for bad grammar.

I haven't had time to post before, but all I can say is WOW! I wish there was a CC around here that had a pastry chef 1/2 as good as you. Even 1/3 as good would be great! I don't belong to any CC's, but have been to receptions, etc. and I'm pretty sure none of them even have a PC, especially after eating some of their schlock passed off as dessert. You're photos are inspiring. I am hosting a bridal shower in a few weeks and will attempt some minis due to this inspiration (if they don't work out I will be cursing you under my breath....just kidding...but I will be cursing). If I thought anyone in this area would ever hire a PC I would go get a pedigree and apply...most people around here think that whipped cream frosting on the cheapest cake mix you can buy is heaven on a plate, so I just bake for my friends. I have to show my husband this blog because he thinks I'm weird for wanting sweet things for breakfast, and for wanting dessert with every meal. Thank you for sharing. I may even attempt the joconde; that dessert on the shortbread just kicks ass!

That sounds like keuchle/schlitz keuchle (sp?). My ancestors are all German on both sides of the family (from Baden Baden, Wiesbaden, and general NW I guess), although my great grandparents came to the U.S. via the Ukraine so some of the food influences of that region can be found in the food I grew up with in North Dakota. Please forgive the spelling of the following terms, they come from my grandmother who is not the greatest speller, and the German I took in H.S. did not include a lot of food terms. I like kraut strudel, kase knephla (cheese buttons/dumplings), fleisch keuchla (lightly seasoned ground beef in dough, deep-fried), knephla soup (potato+dumpling (boy those Germans love their starch) in a very rich cream of chicken broth), fried dumplings (I forget the German name). I also like the vegetable soup that had lots of beets (must be the Ukraine influence?) The first time I had borscht I was struck by the similarity. An interesting recipe is blachenda (totally phonetic spelling there). It is a savory pumpkin filling in a flaky pastry pocket. Oh, and how can I forget cucumber salad? Take cukes, slice, put in a cream+vinegar sauce w/onions. Touregsand--I think, though I may be mistaken, that the difference between strudel dough and phyllo is that strudel is a yeast dough. I remember my mom and grandmother stretching the dough until you could see through it, and saying not to nice words if it tore... Edit to add: how could I forget about dessert? Kuchen (raised dough, topped by something similar to creme anglaise and dried fruit, usually prunes), honey cookies (very low fat but delicous), spritz cookies, rhubarb pie.

In many sad, unfortunate ways, West BG Virginia is quite different than a NYC suburb. It is also different in pleasant ways (house payment, 2600 sf, 1/3 acre, nice middle class neighborhood, $600 on a 15 year note--includes insurance and property taxes). Anyhoo, I talked to some folks in the city gov't to determine the procedure on permits...I found out that any "inside" work does not need a permit (???). You are free to screw up the inside of your home as you see fit, I guess. Actually, when I got the permit I do recall one of the women stating that I didn't need one (I thought she didn't know what she was talking about, so I insisted.) I guess I wasted 15 whole dollars. I forgot to ask about the deck, which did require a permit. Another call for another day. EDIT to add: Ooh, I have stove envy! You're right, Varmint, the blue on the walls really brings out the blue flecks in the granite.

Inspectors be damned--cook, my man! I'm impressed that you actually get inspected. When we redid our kitchen we got a building permit and told them we were doing the work ourselves. I thought that would raise a red flag and we would have inspectors raining down upon us. We never, not once, had anyone come to inspect the work. We went back later that summer to get a permit for a deck and no one asked about the kitchen. No one ever asked about the deck, either, and the city building inspector came by later on an unrelated matter but didn't mention anything about either project. It's been 1 1/2 years, so I guess we're OK.., Oh, and might I say WOW, what a difference. The kitchen looks fabulous. I'm sure you can't wait to get in there and cook! Woo-hoo!

I started a grease fire (sausage grease) caused by heating the wrong burner. It took quite awhile for it to flame up (I'd say 8-10 minutes), so I think heating oil up to nearly smoking isn't a huge problem. My husband and I have overheated oil a few times and in one case sugar syrup (quite a bit of smoke from both oil and syrup) but never had any flames. We have a fire extinguisher just in case, though. I think the biggest problem would be if someone had oil used several times and then heated to smoking, since the flash point would be quite a bit lower.

From what I have read (and vaguely remember from my grandmother's farm) is that a superfresh just-killed chicken won't be any good. You need to let the meat rest (I think about 24 hours is right), for all the normal dead-thing stuff (maybe it's rigor mortis, maybe some other enzymatic action) to work its magic to transform the meat into its tastiest. I remember reading on another cooking board (gasp!) that someone made chicken within a couple of hours of killing it and it was tasteless and the texture was off, too. I'm trying to find that thread that had a great response by someone quite knowledgeable about offing one's own meats.

Last post, I swear. I agree, there are synthetic pesticides/herbicides are have low toxicity to humans. But the natural ones you mentioned above, Pyrethrum, sulpher, copper, neem, sabadilla, rotenone, oil!, Bt bacteria spray, all have extremely low toxicity to humans in the amounts usually applied. You are also correct that I was alluding to low toxicity in humans. I do not have any data to support a claim that as a group natural pesticides are more target specific, but I was not trying to make that claim. My bad if it sounded like I was. I was not trying to veer off topic with my first post, I was stating my point that I find it quite difficult to separate the amount of pesticide residue in produce from the larger pesticide application issues. Edit to add: One last thing, I think we can all find data to support any claims. It is worthwhile to see who financed/supported the research that makes the claims. Hardly any research is unbiased, usually it starts with the results desired and works it way to them.

How long I am willing to wait depends on the quality of the food. I am annoyed if I have to wait in a smoky bar or if it is excessively loud. I'm also annoyed to wait a long time if I have a reservation. I'm willing to wait up to 45 minutes for really good food, 20 (maybe 30) minutes for decent food. I'm not willing to wait in line 2 minutes for Taco Bell. Especially not when there is never a line at the Greek place next to them in the food court... Usually first-come first serve is pretty fair, although sometimes larger parties have to wait, which is OK with me, even if I'm in a large party. Shoulda called ahead! We actually don't eat out much (not many choices here), but once I have committed to a place I usually endure the wait, b/c there is probably a wait everywhere else, too.

Yes, I am aware of that, and I am sure that some organic farmers routinely use/abuse these "natural" pesticides. However, I also know that most people who farm/garden organically follow an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) model that limits the use to the minimal amount possible. You reduce the amount of any pesticide/chemical/intervention by practices such as crop rotation, plant selection for resistance to disease, effective plant combinations and so on. No organic farmer I know is thinking just about substituting a "natural" pesticide for a synthetic one. Most people who believe in organic farming (for right or wrong) are idealists, even zealots. Also, many natural pesticides are target specific. Not all, but many are. Also, many of them are much less toxic than their synthetic counterparts. That's part of the myth I'm talking about. If you take the same amount of land and use IPM, soil enrichment/replenishment, crop rotation, companion planting, enhance the biodiversity to produce more beneficial insects, etc., and use other practices, you can produce as much or more food per acre. Read the Square Foot Gardener to see how. Of course, that book is on a small scale and on a larger scale the bigger difference is not in the amount of land but in the amount of human labor that will be required to do this. It will take more people, but then again, we don't seem to have a people shortage on this planet... I certainly don't think such a change will ever happen without some sort of catastrophic catalyst. Humans have for centuries looked to science to solve all sorts of problems, and it may be that science will find a way to overcome the problems that pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers bring. I'm no Luddite, nor am I a granola-munching, leg hair growing crusader with no clue about how the world works (OK I do eat granola. Make it with sorghum...a little cardamom or ginger...yum). I do try to convince people who express an interest in their food sources that there are options that are IMO better, and that they can do something to help the situation using their wallet if by no other means. I don't forsee an all-organic world, but if we can reduce the amounts of many toxins to more manageable levels, the Earth has a tremendous capacity to heal and cleanse itself. I think we should strive to find an equilibrium.

IMO, the issue is not just the amount of pesticide residue on the foods we eat, but the much larger amounts that are spread on the soils, affecting the quality of the soil itself, and possible runoff issues. Most pesticides are not target-specific; they will kill any bug. This includes many microorganisms in the soil that help plants with nutrient and water uptake, with soil compaction (think earthworms, which are very sensitive to pollution), and other things necessary for plants to grow and thrive. Even though the carrots that I eat may only have trace amounts of man-made petrochemical residues on them that won't adversely affect my health, I am concerned with the long-term effects on soil quality and on nutritional values (concerning fertilizers, not pesticides). One example I can point to is the use of a particular fertilizer: anhydrous ammonia. Gives lots of nitrogen to plants so it must be good, right? Well, the chemicals other than the nitrogen tend to kill off many soil microorganisms, the soil ends up being compacted and the plants have a harder time getting the nutrients they need. So, ever-larger applications of anhydrous ammonia are needed each season to produce the same results. On some farms I have seen (in North Dakota) the soil looks like photos of the hardpan in Oklahoma during the Depression (severe drought conditions). You can hardly get a shovel into it! I don't think you can have a discussion about the levels of pesticide residue on plants without considering the larger environmental factors. What good is it to worry about trace amounts of chemicals in your food if you are breathing copious amounts of hydrofluorocarbons from factory/tailpipe emissions? (As an aside, I find it quite ironic that so many "soccer mom" types are buying organic veggies for their kids and picking those veggies up in their Chevrolet Subdivision or Ford Excessive). That being said, I would rather be part of the solution, not the problem, so I buy as much organic as I can afford (and a lot of it tastes better, IMO). Think globally, act locally? In addition, I think that it is a myth perpetrated by the Monsantos and ADMS that we just couldn't produce enough food w/o synthetic pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers. If we changed our large-scale monocropping method of agriculture, I think it is quite possible to produce enough to feed everyone with, if not total absence of such chemicals, at least vastly reduced quantities of them. Of course, this would also necessitate a huge shift in the consumer habits of the American public which is unlikely to happen. And don't get me started on how much food we waste in this country... Edited to add/clarify a couple of points

This reminds me of the Monty Python sketch where an American woman is eating at a restaurant with a British man. There is something wrong with his meal and she wants to let the waiter know, but he is mortified by the thought of complaining. As to the consistency issue...if I order a menu item at a restaurant and order it again on another occasion, I expect it to be very similar. If it tasted quite different I would be surprised. I guess I don't view the role of the chef in the same way as FaustianBargain does (and yes, I do have restaurant kitchen experience). When someone orders a menu item, I feel it is the role of the chef to deliver that item in a quality manner, as consistently as possible. Why have a menu if every dish is going to come out differently?

Do you have a basement or crawlspace where you put the jacks? I fear we may have to do the same (we have a basement). I assume (hope) these things aren't that expensive.

I am so lucky. My husband bought me a huge set of Mauviel 2.5mm copper a couple of years ago. While heavy, I love it all and use every piece. But if I had to trim my list to 7 pieces, many of them are non-Mauviel: 1. 8 qt. Tramontina tri-ply stockpot. Use to make most soups. Can also be used to make small runs of stock. 2. 10" Calphalon nonstick skillet. Have to have one nonstick pan for eggs. 3. 11 inch wide, 3 inch deep cast iron pan (grandmother's Wagner). Falls somewhere between a skillet and a Dutch oven. 4. 7 qt. Le Creuset round oven. Perfect for braises and stews. 5. 2.7 qt. Mauviel saucepan. I could live with just those. But if I get to have two more, I choose: 6. 1.7 qt. Mauviel saucepan. 7. 12 qt. stockpot for making stock and water bath canning. I went back and forth between my 14" carbon steel wok and the 12 qt. stockpot for the last item. I can get by with the cast iron for stir fry, though, so the large capacity of the stockpot won out.

I've done all poultry and some beef/pork innards, head cheese (don't even want to know all the parts in that), blood sausage, raw spiced hamburger left to ferment a few days, as well as a few bugs. Nothing live that I can recall, though. The wackiest thing I can recall eating, though, is rocks, i.e. pebbles, gravel. A bully in the 2nd grade made me eat them or she (she was very big, I tell ya!) was going to beat me up. I probably ate a few teaspoons or even tablespoonsful of rocks. Not very taste but fortunately I don't recall any ill effect later. Revenge? She grew up to be fat, pimply, ugly, mean, clumsy and unhappy (well I don't know for sure about unhappy but the rest is true). I grew up to be valedictorian of my class and co-captain of the girls' basketball team. Nyah nyah.

Darcie, you'll probably be unsurprised that there's an eGullet thread about that topic. ← You're right, I'm not surprised. Having worked in several restaurants in the upper Midwest where there were NO insect problems, I was totally taken aback to find a roach in my steamed rice at a Chinese place here in WV. I understand that 40 degrees below zero keeps the bug population down in Minnesota, but even in the South I won't tolerate roaches in the dining area or in my food. While I am no fan of chemicals, I think properly applied in restaurants they are a necessary evil. Of course, better cleaning of the place would help. My husband did commercial HVAC work for years and there are many, many restaurants where we won't eat. Here's a story for you. A local biscuit place had my husband come in to fix their A/C. He pulled the filters out above the stove and several dead mice fell out. Then, while he was getting off a ladder he put his dirty work boot up to his ankle into a bucket of sausage gravy that a cook put right under him. The cook just shrugged, ladled a small portion of gravy into the garbage and stirred the remainder. I guess we should be happy he ladled some out! My husband said the cleanest kitchens he saw were at McDonalds.

I know there are probably roaches in many restaurants, but the minute I see one I'm outta there.

I like most brands of frozen ravioli that I've tried. I also like the Barilla dried tortellini. For any of these, I make a quick sauce with some olive oil, garlic and Muir Glen crushed tomatoes with basil. Or I take some pesto I made last summer out of the freezer and warm it up. I also like IQF veggies and fruit. Easy to make a smoothie, just take some soy milk, frozen fruit and OJ and you don't even need to add ice! I have a soft spot for Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup.

Well, if you take issue with stereotyping, then you really can't say that the Iowa cookbook is less interesting and diverse than the Louisiana cookbook. I grew up in the North (North Dakota), and live in the upper South (formerly Missouri and now West Virginia). Every region has its own food culture, although I believe, sadly, that we are losing those identities to Generican restaurants and the fact that many Gen X'ers didn't learn those regional dishes from their parents and grandparents. My hometown Lutheran cookbook has unique German and Scandinavian dishes that may not be as spicy as dishes in the Louisiana cookbook, but does thak make them less interesting? Even that staid ol' Lutheran cookbook has Asian and Tex-Mex recipes in it. Less diverse? OK, vent over, back on topic. I don't think much, if any, of the obesity epidemic has to do with Southern fried food (which I agree is not the mainstay of most Southern diets). I think the lack of exercise that comes with urbanization and XBox, combined with highly processed foods full of high glycemic index high fructose corn syrup and trans-fats, are the major culprits. We exercise less and eat worse. I think the South may have been on the leading edge of the obesity epidemic, but that has more to do with socio-economic status than regional food differences.

Check the package...margarine is WAY more salty than butter. I use unsalted butter, Red Hot or Louisiana hot sauce, (1:2 ratio butter:hot sauce), some cayenne pepper, some chili powder (optional), cider vinegar to taste, a small squirt of yellow mustard, and some pressed garlic. My friends rave. I heat the sauce gently, deep fry wings and then brush on sauce. The sauce has never been oily. Maybe too many ingredients for a "traditional" sauce, but delicious nonetheless.

So they claim, but I don't believe it. ← Zima is a malted beverage, but I wouldn't call it beer. No hops, for one thing and I'm unsure of the "brewing" process used. The Zima orange gives me a headache and tastes pretty bad. Haven't tried the plain and don't believe I will.

Varmint- I can only imagine the many bruises on my hips and thighs if I had to work in that a-maze-ing kitchen. I will never again complain about my kitchen, I swear. Can't wait to see pics in progress and the final product.