Darcie B

I also simmer brats or Polish sausage in beer, but additionally I have used beer (all kinds except stout) to cook down onions. I let it get all syrupy and use that to serve alongside the brats/sausages. Kinda like a beer/onion confit. I like the Gramercy Tavern Guinness Stout cake, and Guinness stew. How about Wisconsin Beer Cheese soup? Yummy.

I've also found that the more I bake the less I measure, especially for small items. I usually weigh the flour and sugar because it's actually easier than dipping, leveling, etc. Depending on what I'm making I will measure the leavening but usually just eyeball it. Same with vanilla, lemon zest, etc. And sometimes you just need to add a little extra flour or liquid to get your consistency right, but that kind of feel only comes with experience. I have friends to whom I give recipes and usually they say it didn't turn out the same. I would like to be a fly on the wall when they make the stuff because I KNOW they are changing things and just not telling me about it (or perhaps they don't realize just how much they are changing it).

Yeah, I was wondering about that as well. Although I suppose that all the rice krispie panels didn't have any eggs in them. There sure were a lot of cake "blocks" though. Maybe they meant 180kg of eggs? But that would be too many! Maybe they just lost count. Pretty cool. I better not let my husband see it or he'll expect me to make a full size motorcycle cake for his business LOL...

Actually, employees are very near the top of repayment when bankruptcy happens; right up there with taxing authorities. Wages & benefits are considered a priority non-dischargeable obligation. If there are any assets, the employees should get paid. But you are correct in that you can't get blood from a turnip - if there are no assets, no-one gets paid. TJ, sorry I can't help you in your job search. Good luck. If you hadn't already quit, I would have suggested trying to get fired or laid off so you could collect unemployment. Although sometimes the owners don't want to do that, it depends on how much they care about employees. Since they are bouncing checks left and right, sounds like they aren't overly concerned.

Maybe you won't, but there are many less aware people out there who will be confused. Take for example a friend of mine who was making a chocolate cake that had ganache filling and a poured chocolate glaze. She went to the cake decorating store and bought something labeled "chocolate" (whether it was called molding chocolate I don't know). At any rate, it was that crappy palm kernel oil stuff and of course it ruined her cake. This store probably mis-labeled it but at least they could be called on the carpet about it and made to change their ways. Clear, understandable labeling is the one of the easiest things a company can do. It doesn't cost them any more to make a good label than a bad one, which is why I don't support changing the standards. Why should everyone always have to read the fine print when it could just as easily state the obvious on the package? I do believe "caveat emptor" but why make it more difficult than it has to be?

While I agree with you that we should all have freedom to choose, other people's choices can end up costing us all money. I really don't care if someone wants to eat Big Macs every day and weigh 500 pounds. My concern is that the 500 pound fellow will cost us all with expensive health care as he ages (bypass surgery, etc.). If he has health insurance it raises the rates for all insureds and if he doesn't have insurance, Medicare/Medicaid will probably cover it and this too comes out of everyone's pockets. What I vainly hope for is personal responsibility for every person's choices. Making bad choices more expensive is one way to do it but may not be the best way. I fear greater and greater nanny state rules and regs instead of making people responsible for their choices. I don't think that printing nutritional information on a menu is going to significantly change eating habits, whether at Mickey D's, Per Se, or Applebee's. However, I disagree with many who think that most people have a handle on how many excess calories they eat. There are a lot of uneducated and/or not-overly-bright people who have no idea how they are getting fat. My husband worked with a woman who believed that since most people in her family were fat she was destined to be fat. She said this while eating bags of chips and copious amounts of Twinkies at her desk all day. She truly did not or could not associate her eating with her weight. Edit for clarity (I hope).

The copper works at all? I was under the impression that the pan needed to have a significant amount of ferrous metal to work. Interesting. ← I just have a regular electric cooktop, not an induction cooktop. I have a portable induction burner that works with my cast iron and steel wok but nothing else. My investment in copper cookware will keep me from ever switching to all-induction. Take a refrigerator magnet to your cookware to see if it will work on induction - if the magnet sticks it has enough ferrous metal to work. Most cookware won't.

I have also seen crumbled cheddar and monterey jack. Con-ven-i-ence, I guess, although taking that extra 10 seconds to crumble your cheese does seem to be a rather insignificant amount of time. It's always amazing to me what people will buy. I'm sure many people would be happy to just take a few pills a day instead of eating if it were an option.

Crockpots will work without the lid on (or with it askew) just fine. You would, however, have to stir pretty frequently as the sides and bottom would tend to burn. I don't see any advantage to a crockpot over using a low oven to make paste which I vaguely recall someone mention to me a couple years back. I think the oven would do a better job (more even heat, less stirring required, easier to evaporate excess moisture).

Think he'll make it as far North as Itasca State Park, where you can "Walk across the mighty Mississippi as it starts its winding journey 2,552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. " SB (been there - a couple hours drive from here, and done that - when I was about 10 years old ) ← Been there, done that too (with ex-husband--too bad the water wasn't deeper). I was hoping he would veer off and head up the Ohio...wishful thinking I suppose...

Thanks for the info. I already had the roaster and refurbished it so it will look good in my retro 50s kitchen I am planning (downstairs kitchen). Originally I planned to use it for a warming drawer and perhaps even for its intended purpose(!). So I am not out any money I didn't originally plan to spend. And I surely didn't have to powder coat the stand in order to use it; that's just my OCD coming out I could probably get an aquarium pump for the recirc part and as Andie pointed out, the coils go up and around the entire roaster so the heat is pretty evenly applied and convective currents keep it circulating. I'll know more when I measure the temps in different areas. So at $20 for the roaster, $45 for the controller and probe (I got the prices from a link on another sous vide thread and they seem accurate), and maybe $10 for an aquarium pump (bet I can get one free), I'm still doing good cash-wise. Plus I don't have to find a place to put the stockpot since this has its own stand. And it looks cool. I might get a recirc water bath heater if I can find a good enough deal; I haven't seen any for under $200. But I will likely still use the roaster as the vessel since I have it and it's convenient. Plus I feel it will retain the heat better than a thin stockpot. The stand probably won't come back for a few weeks so I have time to do some looking around. I have a friend who works in a lab sniffing around for surplus equipment too. Who knows, I might score a freebie!

Unfortunately, 150F/65C is not particularly useful for extended sous vide cooking, and for shorter cooking times (e.g., for fish) it's unclear that these roasters offer any advantages over simply heating a large stock pot of water to temperature on the stove. It's unclear to me that there is a reasonably unflawed solution for sous vide temperature control that exists between simply heating up a big stockpot of water to temperature and doing short-duration and waiting around for a decent recirculating water bath heater to come up on eBay for around 75 bucks (like this one). The problem with the other solutions is that the temperature regulation is too imprecise, or doesn't offer the desired range of temperatures, or is likely to have some spots hotter than others, or is likely to cycle up and down, etc. For most long duration sous vide cooking, these are all important considerations. For short duration sous vide cooking, a big stockpot and a thermometer will do just as well as anything short of a laboratory recirculating water bath heater. ← I plan to get an inexpensive PID controller ($35) and probe ($10) that will allow me a greater range of control on the temp in the roaster. I will wire it in in place of the standard temp controller. I can hide the controller in the stand and snake the probe up the back of the oven so it will look just like an ordinary roaster. Then I will have a stand alone sous vide operation with precise temp control. I think the roaster will be an ideal vessel for this operation and less expensive and cleaner than a used lab water bath that has been stuck in who knows what. I am new at this and if I am missing something important please point it out to me. It seems like it should work.

Thanks, Andie, for posting about these roasters. I scored one at an antique shop for $20 last year and thought it would be a good vessel for sous vide, although I expected to need a circulating immersion heater for it. I need to check the temp controls to see what the lowest setting is. I have the original stand (with clock!) and inserts for it, and just sent the stand off to be powder coated since it was somewhat rusted. So I'll have $170 in it altogether.

Well, I did a timing last night on the GE Profile 30" electric smoothtop. The 2500 watt burner boiled 4 quarts of 65 degree water in a Tramontina tri-ply stockpot in just under 13 minutes. I think that I saw somewhere that a Viking gas range would do something similar in under 9 minutes, so that's a big difference percentage-wise in performance, but in real world terms something you can live with. The 1800 watt burner heated up olive oil sufficiently to saute garlic in my Mauviel 3 qt. saute pan in about 3 minutes. I guess the real problem is that when you turn the heat down it doesn't go down as quickly as on gas. However, in gas stoves with really heavy grates, I expect there is some residual heat there too, but probably not as much. Hope you find a good solution - let us know what it is!

Anyone know which way he's headed? Is there any chance he will be up in the Kentucky/Ohio/West Virginia area for FOA?

I too am constrained by electric. Induction cooktops are great but you can't use all cookware with them. I have found that heavier cookware is better because the heat doesn't cycle as much with the cooktop turning on and off (I have 2.5mm copper/stainless lined). The manufacturers frown upon using copper or cast iron with the smooth tops but I snub my nose at them and do it anyway. Haven't had a problem in 4 years (although I am careful not to drag the cast iron across the surface.) I guess the thing to look for is watts on each element. Some of the lower end stoves have their large elements in the 1800 watt range. This is a case where bigger is better. You may want to check out Miele; I think they have some good electric options. I have a GE profile cooktop and while not great, it is acceptable. One 1200 watt, two 2000 watt, one dual 2500 watt. You can get one with a 3000 watt "power" burner, but the configuration didn't fit into my space so I didn't get that one. The 6 inch 1200 watt burner seems to be more powerful than the others for its size; a small saucepan set on it will boil several cups of water really quickly. I really should time the large burner on a stockpot of water. Maybe I'll try it tonight (and probably weep). I was constrained not only by having an electric cooktop but also by the size of the cutout in my Corian. The way it was cut I couldn't get any tools in the hole to make it bigger toward the rear so it really cut out (pun intended) many available options. It just so happens that the cooktop I replaced was one of the smallest dimensionally. Rats.

Oh fer cryin' out loud. Don't we have better things to worry about? The article states that from 1980 to 1999, there were 18 deaths and 70 serious injuries reported from these "killer" stoves, most involving the elderly or infants. Just WTH is an infant doing on an open oven door? 1 death per year and nearly 1 million stoves per year sold - do the math. This is so not worthy of legislation. We just can't legislate stupidity out of the world. It will always win.

I feel your pain. Our countertop contractor screwed up our counter royally (and I mean ROYALLY) and I made him take it out and fix it. He was all pissed off even though the flaws were more than obvious, so he took them out and then WENT ON VACATION. Took 9 weeks to get a friggin' Corian counter installed that was supposed to take 3 days. And it is still not perfect, but after the last iteration I told him to hit the bricks before I shot him. As DH says, the first three letters of the word "contractor" say it all...

Since I was allergic to milk between the ages of 2 and about 10, I craved it all the time. I would break out in very itchy hives on my feet and forearms if I had some, so cheating wasn't an option. Luckily I outgrew the allergy and now enjoy milk (usually 2%) to go with certain foods or as a late night snack by itself. I don't understand why it is "not good for humans." If you have no dairy allergies or lactose intolerance, and only drink in moderation (i.e. not too much fat/calories), where's the rub? I occasionally drink Silk, but prefer cow's milk and milk products.

My perspective is from someone who is not in the industry, but as a customer (I did work as a cook in a small restaurant but am by no means a chef). The customer doesn't care who is called what in the back, he only wants to eat a good meal and doesn't want to know about the hierarchy. So whatever works for a particular restaurant that satisfies the customer is paramount. Maybe it's a "team" environment, maybe its a more formal, traditional hierarchy, whatever works for the level of food, size of restaurant, etc. I liken this to the "cross-training" concept in many offices. We are doing that here to some extent but have found that it makes many jacks-of-all-trades that still can't effectively move from one position to another. We found that having someone able to fill in is nice, but you can't expect people to learn every aspect of another's job, even if the duties are similar. It just isn't realistic, and the work product suffers as a result. I think the same could be said about restaurants. Sure there is some blurring of the lines, but having specialists will probably result in a better end product. I think joint brainstorming would be beneficial, but still, let each person work on what he/she does best and you'll have more success. Maybe renaming pastry chefs and calling them "end-of-meal specialists" would be helpful?

Also, where in the oven are you positioning the pan? Near the bottom? I have not noticed this in my banana bread other than if I use a darker pan and have it nearer the bottom of the oven, the outside edges are darker due to more heat transfer. Also, are you using a deep, narrow pan? I'll bet if you make the same recipe in a shallow, wide pan (like a cake pan) you wouldn't notice this difference. My two cents.

My experience has been that leaf lard and butter combination produces the best crust for me. Very flaky, delicious, and not too much shrinkage. Leaf lard is a little hard to find but well worth the effort. I also use cake flour for part of the flour (about 1/3) to make it more tender and have less shrinkage (that has always been a problem for me).

Just make your favorite biscuit recipe, and freeze after cutting out the rounds. Bake from frozen as usual, with a little longer baking time. I do this since there are only two of us... It helps to vac seal the biscuits once they are frozen to prevent freezer burn, but careful wrapping would suffice if they aren't kept too long.

Isn't the Grapple just an apple with flavoring added? Is that what you mean by blended? Or are you thinking along the lines of pluot (plum/apricot)? My lists would be: 1950-2000 Fast food burgers Pizza Hot dogs Turkey dinner Soft drinks 2000-2050 "Value-added" food (omega-3s, etc) Fast food burgers Pizza Quizno's-type grilled sandwiches Soft drinks

I'm sure my answer to this will be different next month or maybe even next week, but as of now: Black Pepper Cardamom Cumin Smoked paprika Garlic