MelissaH

How is this market on Fridays, generally speaking? (I am not a disinterested party. 😁 )

Flour is one of my favorites. Everything I've made from it works, AS LONG AS I use a scale to measure.

When we did our kitchen reno, we could not afford quartz for the immense number of linear feet of countertop we'd be installing. We put butcher block in a few select locations, and did the rest with cheap laminate. The laminate held up fine for several years while we saved our pennies. About 4 years ago, we replaced the laminate with the quartz we wanted, and have been quite happy with it since.

I've made BraveTart's fudgsicles. This reminds me that I need to make more of them.

I'm not going to give specifics. But instead, I'll suggest that the registry include both big-ticket items and the little things. I'm aware that a wedding is supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime affair. But I've gotten frustrated when a friend or relative made out their registry list and included mostly the dream-type items, none of which would fit into my budget, or in one case, into the budget of myself and my sister put together. (It looked like there had been a few less expensive items, which were snapped up quickly by others.)

Add me with an asterisk. You keep picking graduation weekend, which is also the weekend before the fermentation science class trip (if enough students sign up next year to have the class go). This means my husband will have to be at a commencement ceremony on Saturday morning, and we'll both be trying to pack for the trip. Fortunately for me, if you'll be in Buffalo this year, you'll be in day trip range, so I'm not ruled out completely. So there are a couple of possibilities. One is that I literally come over alone, stay through dinner on Saturday night, and then head home either immediately after dinner or first thing Sunday morning. The other is that the two of us head to Buffalo after the Saturday commencement and schmoozing, which means we'd get into town mid- to late-afternoon, join you-all for dinner and socializing, and then head home (either immediately after dinner or first thing Sunday morning). And a totally off-the-wall suggestion: if anyone will be driving across NY to get to Buffalo and has an extra seat in the car, I'd be happy to meet you in the Syracuse area. Then I'd get full workshop time, and my husband would be able to drive our car over to participate in dinner and bring me home. I'll know by the end of this year whether enough students have signed up for the fermentation class to enable it to run. From everything I've heard, it sounds like the planned destination for the 2020 class is Amsterdam. (Is there a bean-to-bar place there that would be open to a tour of a bunch of university students studying fermentation? Chocolate is fermented, so it's fair game.) Amsterdam is usually a pretty good draw, but in the event that signups are too low, I'd be able to stay through more of Sunday.

That sounds like the next drinks in the series should be the Yes Definitely, the Reply Hazy Try Again, and the Don't Count On It.

If you want fishless fish, that's apparently also available: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/business/fake-fish-impossible-foods.html

Miracle Whip has no redeeming value. Hellman(n)'s does, whether homemade or store-bought. Ketchup (Heinz or bust, as any now- or one-time Pittsburgher will tell you!) is only for frites if mayo isn't available, and for burgers if a decent tomato slice is nowhere to be seen. I'll add a tomato slice to a grilled cheese sandwich, never ketchup!

I've often wondered why airlines try to feed us things like pasta and hot sandwiches that really don't hold up well to either cold storage or reheating. This sounds like a marvelous idea.

@Anna N, have you ever considered a headlamp? I have two: the older runs on AA batteries, and the newer (acquired when I was helping friends who are my parents' age with a home renovation project and I didn't know I was going to need more light) of which has a rechargeable battery that charges through a micro USB port like a non-Apple phone. Both of mine have a strap that goes over the top of the head in addition to the around-the-head strap, but that's really a luxury and certainly not usually required. The LEDs are quite bright, and my batteries last a really long time. I like headlamps better than flashlights because you don't need to hold them, and because they always shine the light where you're looking. Betcha Canadian Tire could supply you with something that will help. I have both of the two cookbooks you mention. For me, cookbooks are far more than just sources of recipes, and I enjoy reading Dorie's headnotes and directions. The Milk Street, however, I felt as conflicted about as the rest of you. I borrowed it from our local library, and was (for once) impressed by the range of recipes and the blessed lack of superlatives compared to old-style ATK writing. I also liked that for the most part, these recipes don't use ingredients that I have to make a special trip to acquire, and that most of them aren't Projects that use significant amounts of my time and energy to prep. Nonetheless, if I hadn't found it cheap, I wouldn't have gotten my own copy. People on my side of Lake Ontario are quite unhappy this year, thanks to the higher water and storms that have contributed to significant erosion. They blame the binational commission that's in charge of regulating the water levels in the lake, saying that they'd kept too much water in the lake so they could use it for power generation in the spring. Many locals keep loudly wishing they'd open the floodgates and let more water go downstream. (Never mind that if they'd done that earlier, they'd have likely flooded out parts of Montreal and other points down the St. Lawrence.) But all the water out by you, and in the rest of the Great Lakes, will eventually make its way down to us and out.

If it makes you feel any better, the World Peace Cookies are notorious for not slicing neatly. Sometimes they do, but more often they'll crumble a bit, or the slices will fall apart, or the roll will self-destruct as you're in the process of slicing. And it isn't just me that says so; Dorie herself admits it! Just use a scale when you make the dough, to minimize any variation in the amount of dry ingredients, and go with it. If any cookies fall apart, push them back together and bake them. If the roll falls apart, push it back together and carry on!

I'm impressed. For those of us who are not quite dedicated enough to keeping a starter (or three) up and going, I wish there were a bakery near me that had starters available for the public to purchase. Buy a little bit the day before, feed it to get more (enough to make the dough), and then make it into your bread. If you have some left over, you can try to keep it going; if not, oh well, you can buy a little more the next time you need some. I do fine with making bread from purchased yeast, but the frequency at which I bake is not enough for me to bother with my own starter. I've proven that multiple times now.

I'm missing you all this weekend.

Jacques Pepin's been doing something similar for years. His recipe is at https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/jacques-pepins-potatoes-fondantes-274197 (among other places). I typically just use salted water for the parcooking. They're delicious.

Reporting back: We went to Keen's and were seated upstairs in the rather small Lillie Langtry room. The salads were delicious. Our friend enjoyed her shrimp. We enjoyed our perfectly-cooked medium-rare porterhouse for two, glazed carrots, and creamed spinach. We had leftovers of everything, but our friend did not. The leftovers came back home with us, and became our dinner the night we got home. A great time was had by all. I'd go back again. Except that there are so many other places we haven't been to yet, and still want to try, which means we almost never make a repeat visit anywhere in NYC! Thanks for all the help, all of yinz.

Yinz are making me really jealous that I'll be getting ready to take a group of students to Scotland over the weekend, instead of hanging out with you and the chocolate.

I think I've said it before, but instead of water chestnuts, I use jicama these days. It has the same crunchy, lightly sweet quality, and because they're bigger, I find them much easier to peel and otherwise work with.

Is that mango sauce the same amba that's used on sabich sandwiches? If it is, the frozen eggplant cutlets would make prep a snap.

If you do come to Manlius, please remember that you're only an hour's drive from us! (And the biggest Wegmans in Syracuse is on the way there.)

You and I can commiserate, Steve.

I've had a request for a homemade version of the chocolate-covered raspberry jelly rings that appear each year at Passover time. We all know that when they get old, they get hard and yucky, but when they're fresh they're soft and I admit to having a fondness for them also. There's also an orange version, but the raspberry is the one we all remember. Does anyone know where I can find a recipe? The ones sold in stores are kosher parve, which means that they don't contain gelatin. A quick internet search tells me that the ingredient list includes pectin. Is it possible that they're just a version of pate de fruit, shaped in rings and then dipped in chocolate? Thanks, Melissa

We once rented a short-stay apartment in A'dam where the bathroom had no separation of anything. The TP was on basically a vertical stick with a base, which held 3 or 4 rolls. You had to make sure you carried it out of the bathroom before you showered, so you didn't soak it all into uselessness.

My plans to get to TJ's last week were derailed by a nasty little winter storm that dropped snow, and then rain, and then the temperature dropped enough to freeze it all, and then it snowed some more. So after my morning hockey game when the snow was just starting, instead of heading to TJ's, I fed the car, did a very quick app-guided Wegmans run, and got home before the roads got too awful. (The next day, I got to clear the driveway of a few inches of snow over top of an inch-thick layer of ice, and a knee-deep clot of snowplow poop at its end, none of which was amenable to snowblowing in the least. I had 4+ hours of not-fun.) But yesterday, I did finally get there, and was able to get some of both the freeze-dried grapes and the ruby chocolate wafers. I was also persuaded to get a package of dried persimmons, which two people were looking for (and an employee restocking the section also raved about, as did the cashier who checked me out). Those of you who have tried the ruby wafers: would they be a good addition to King Arthur's vanilla-orange cranberry cookies (last time I did half dried cranberries, half pecans) or would they compete with the cranberries?

With that combination of ingredients, I'd want cilantro. But I like cilantro, a lot.