MelissaH

For lists such as this, a shared document such as an Apple Note (if you're all on Apple devices) or a Google Doc is awesome. My husband and I have a few of these, including one for the TJ's items that we like and don't like (so we know what to buy or what not to buy in the future), a shopping list that supplements the Wegmans app list of all the everyday stuff for the things we get at TJ's or the Asian supermarket, and even one with the menu planning for the week that includes any evening events that will affect whether dinner needs to be something quick, or if someone has a big lunch meeting and therefore isn't likely to be super-hungry come dinnertime. The advantage of a shared electronic list is that we can both access it from whatever device we have handy at any given time, wherever we are. It's handy for us because I'm the one who's regularly near a TJ's (and an Asian market) each week, whereas my husband is the primary consumer of many of the items we get there. So he can let me know what he needs, and @IowaDee could share a list with their daughter.

I missed that interview. But I think if I'd been given as many conflicting sets of instructions from as many bosses, I'd have been outta there in a heartbeat. And if he was pretty sure he wouldn't be working at a restaurant, why did he extern at one, rather than, say, a food media outlet? I'm not blaming him for the bad parts of the experience. But I question the decision that led to it.

I've read that one, as well as Ruhlman and the two follow-ups. What struck me most about Beaten, Seared and Sauced was his externship experience. I won't say anything more lest I give something away.

I was at a King Arthur Flour pie demo a few years back. And yes, they spray the pan with Pam.

Only the larger Wegmans stores in my area have fish displays like this. Most of the markets just have ordinary fish counters with the fish already cut. When I think I want fish that's more special than the ordinary, I'll make a point of going to one of the stores that has the whole fish. At the big store I visit most frequently, the fish guys are way better than I am at scaling and filleting. (And I don't have the mess to deal with at home. And the price per pound is generally way less than for buying just the fillets. And I'll get the frame of my fish in the bargain, so I can make fish stock.) A bonus of the fish display stores is that they have ice machines. When I get fish, I can ask for (and they'll give me) a bag of ice, so I can keep my fish in good shape till I get home. This is important because if I'm at a fish display store, I'm a good hour from home. We keep a small cooler in our car at all times, but it's nice to get the cooling power of the ice. (Other stores will give me a plastic bag and instruct me to get ice from the beverage machine in the cafe. Which works, but isn't as easy as them scooping me out some.)

Do I recognize those? If I do, I hope they were as wonderful as they were the first time around.

Well, traditionally, butter would have been made with cultured cream, so the buttermilk left after churning would have had microbes. But with pasteurized dairy products, including the cream used to make American butter anymore, you need to add your own microbes. For my uses, the buttermilk culture has worked fine, giving me a nice thick product with good flavor that lasts plenty long enough in my fridge. If you're happy with whatever culture you're using, wonderful!

@Anna N, you, too, could never, ever be replaced. It wasn't the same without you and @Chocolot. I hope we don't need to have another workshop minus both of you! What I learned: When I win the lottery, even just a little one, I would like to get an EZ Temper. I have a huge activation energy barrier for doing anything that requires tempered chocolate, and an EZ Temper is an efficient catalyst. A. There is no such thing as a definitive "buttercream" filling. B. Many commercial "buttercream" fillings seem to be completely devoid of butter. C. Many (all?) commercial "buttercream" fillings are toothachingly sweet D. It isn't all that difficult to make a filling that's way better than the commercial samples we found for our research. E. I really enjoy working with @Chocolate mom. The cross-pollination of ideas is amazing. Everyone knows something useful. Cut the list of what you think you want to work on in half, and you might be able to do everything on it. Dizzy Pig seasoning is good stuff, and I might need to hunt some of that up. There are more variations on sponge candy than I'd initially realized, and I wish the humidity would go down enough that I could play with some of them sooner rather than later. Salt can be an important component of making sweet stuff. I need to learn how to make Yorkshire puddings. Kerry and Rodney do an amazing job. It's really nice when @CRChemist is able to come play at the workshop, too.

When you say "real buttermilk", what are you referring to? In my parts, we get cultured buttermilk. That's what I use to combine with cream to make my crème fraîche, and it's always worked beautifully for me.

Ooh, lucky you! Which version? (We got a Weber gas grill as a wedding gift. Nearly 20 years later, it's still going strong!)

This hits on something that it took me a while to realize. When my pot with insert is filled to the prudent limit, it looks as though the insert is barely half filled, which leads you to think that there can't possibly be enough water to cook pasta in the pot. But the insert's bottom is NOT on the bottom of the cooking pot—there's a gap of a few inches between pot and insert, and all that is also filled with water! (The top of the insert is also a few inches above the top of the pot.) So, there's more water in the pot than you think, and you can't put in as much water as you think or it will overflow.

How does it work for that purpose? I've always used my potato ricer for that. We've run through two versions of painted squeezer. The yellow one was for lemons, and the smaller green one for limes. We quit using both of them when the paint started disappearing, to who knows where, and got a single lemon-size stainless one instead. Limes fit in a lemon squeezer, but vice versa is not true.

They sound like graduate students!

Same for me. Any thoughts on frozen duck legs vs. fresh? I suspect frozen is the only thing I might be able to find around here.

It sounds similar to something that was served to us at a restaurant/inn along the Mosel. It was delicious. A small crock arrived with bread, and we came darned close to eating spoonfuls straight on, after the allotment of bread was gone.

What's stuffed in the pig's hind end? Is it something for flavor, or just material packed in around the pole to keep things stable?

LOL. You don't know how many times I've spent a panicky last afternoon hunting for a post office in an unfamiliar city!

Ah, but when you're testing your oven, you want to do a full batch, at least. Unless, of course, you only ever put things in one tiny corner of your oven.

...assuming such a market exists anywhere near your home. Those of us away from the ocean, in less affluent areas, can be SOL.

I'd be happy to bring my copy of Greweling as well. I'm planning to bring my copies of BraveTart (Stella Parks) and Sweet Miniatures (Flo Braker) as both these books have things I'm interested in playing with. We'll be driving up on Friday afternoon. Is this going to be the best place for those of us not taking master classes to discuss dinner options for Friday before show and tell?

Advice I once heard from a source I can no longer remember: test your oven with a can of whomp biscuits, baked on a sheet pan. They've been engineered for consistency, so by looking at how they bake, you'll get an idea of whether the thermostat is calibrated well and if you need to be aware of hot spots. They're cheap enough that you can buy several cans to see how the rack positions vary. And at the end, you have biscuits (of a sort).

I'm pretty sure that the coupons they give you are tailored to your shopping, because I compared coupons once with another customer, and we got coupons for different items. I've said it before, but it's well worth registering your card with the smartphone app, because the list tracking makes shopping SO much easier.

I second the po'boy at Mother's. When I've been to New Orleans, it's always been for a conference at the convention center, and Mother's is close enough to walk there during lunch. Given our minuscule travel budgets, the price tag is also right. And don't forget a muffaletta to eat on the plane ride home. Those sandwiches are awesome plane food. (Or if you want to eat one while you're still in residence, we've enjoyed Napoleon House's rendition.

I haven't tried many of their prepared food items. I don't think I'm their target demographic for those, because I like to cook. And since it's an hour's drive from the nearest store to my house, we don't do their rotisserie chickens or other stuff bought hot and intended for consumption quickly after purchase. But we enjoy their house-brand cereals, organic salsa (medium is about the right spice level for us), PB (both smooth for my husband and crunchy for me), canned soups, ice cream and ice cream sandwiches, frozen veg, canned tomatoes, and paper items. Of the items @MetsFan5 specifically asked about, the only one I can speak to is the cheese, which is awesome. For whatever reason, we thought the boxed mac n cheez was better when it was still in a blue box and made with artificial coloring. And my husband has declared that their house brand tonic water isn't as good as Polar brand.

I don't know about pasta, but it certainly affects beans! When we were on sabbatical in Belgium, we tried to cook lentils for dinner one night. After we got very hungry waiting for the lentils to get done, we did a little research (always interesting, when the resources you need are published in a language you don't really speak beyond the pleasantries of hello, goodbye, please, thank you, where is the toilet?) and discovered that our city had super-hard water. Shortly thereafter, we went to the supermarket and read the label of every brand of bottled water, to find one that was softer, and hauled a couple of liters of it back to our flat.