MelissaH

Nothing specific and helpful to add, but I'll throw my $0.02 in here to say that in my small towns, most of the "hot chocolate" doesn't seem to have actual chocolate, but rather cocoa powder or chocolate-flavored syrup. They all use whatever kind of milk you request, and use the espresso maker's steamer wand to heat it. (I don't think anyone sinks as low as to just open a packet of powdered stuff and add hot water.) The result is nothing special, and usually overly sweet for my taste, to the point where I need to add a splash of coffee to make it tolerable. If your clientele is sophisticated enough to stay and drink a small cup of something really special, you might consider offering a couple of variations: one that's a little sweeter and good for drinking as-is, and another that's designed to have sweetened whipped cream or a homemade marshmallow added. Rooting for you from upstate NY, MelissaH

Call me a maybe, as I have some scheduling and transportation issues to work out still. MelissaH

I absolutely read the ingredients and the directions. I'm looking to see if the ingredients are things that I can actually get, here in the sticks where I live. And if there are too many ingredients that I can't get or in some cases have never heard of, the book is consigned to the "kitchen porn" pile: you can look but you can't touch. And as far as the directions go, I'm looking to see whether the instructions make sense, for a home cook in a home kitchen. In the case of desserts, I'm looking for things that are doomed to fail, either because the directions aren't specific enough or because the ratios of ingredients just look off for what you're being instructed to do or make. What can I say, other than I'm a geek. MelissaH

Don't discount the Lowe's kitchen designers. When we were in our planning process, we talked to as many people as we could, and the guy at Lowe's had some good ideas that we incorporated. Do you live near an IKEA? I'd also say that if the budget's limited, think about the things that are easier to redo after the fact, and the things that really can't be redone. If you find that you need to economize, do so on the things that can be fixed afterwards. For us, countertops came under the former category but cabinets were most definitely the latter. MelissaH

Any updates on Potsdam or Massena eating? MelissaH

What are people using as their vacuum source with their rotovaps? I've used both aspirators and water pumps in lab, and don't see either as ideal in a kitchen setting. (Not to mention the other little issue of needing to somehow cool the condenser.) MelissaH

When I'm baking something like brownies or bar cookies, I like to use a metal pan, lined with parchment. My glass pans all have rounded corners and edges, so anything not from the middle gets "shorted." My metal pans have vertical sides and square corners. MelissaH

I hope some will play with it. The possibilities are interesting. The resulting liquors might taste especially fresh and three-dimensional. And all kinds of interesting things might be done with the stuff left behind, sinci it won't be deadened by boiling. But, technically, it is boiling. You're just reducing the atmospheric pressure inside the vessel so you don't have to heat it as much to get to the point where the vapor pressure is equal to the atmospheric pressure. Anything volatile will still come off; presumably, it'll be captured in the solvent reservoir unless it's so volatile that it gets sucked right down the drain or into your vacuum pump. MelissaH

violetfox, Yes, we installed our Marmoleum Click ourselves. It was pretty easy, once we figured out that you really need a "tap block" and mallet to get the pieces to snap together. My husband made one out of some hard maple, routing it out to match the tongue-and-groove of the flooring. Once he did that, he didn't even need my help! MelissaH

If you're a snob, I'm a snob. MelissaH

I think that should I ever win the lottery, I'd hire a database guru and a bunch of typists. I'd have the typists enter my cookbook collection into the database that the guru builds for me. Then I'd have a collection that was searchable for ingredient(s). I wouldn't even necessarily want the entire set of directions in there; I'd just want to be able to look for recipes that use the combination of ingredients I'm after and then tell me which cookbook, on what page. I don't necessarily follow recipes, but I like to use them for inspiration. MelissaH

I second the pound cake recommendation. Especially if you use one that gets soaked in a syrup, like Dorie Greenspan's rum-soaked cake from Baking: from My Home to Yours. You can make it at home, and it'll keep just fine for as long as you need it to. If you aren't so into the rum, I've had great success using whisky instead, particularly one with vanilla-y overtones. I suspect orange juice would also do the trick, if you'd prefer not to use alcohol. You could serve it with fruit, either fresh cut-up fruit or a dried fruit compote that you've made ahead of time. Or, if you'll have oven access, make cookie dough at home, pack it into a cooler, bring your baking sheets and parchment, and use the interval between dinner and dessert to bake them off. I prefer the cookies after the dough's sat in the fridge for a couple of days, so I always try to make the dough ahead of time, use a disher to scoop out balls of dough, and let them sit in the fridge until I need them. If you're not so into scooping balls of dough, shape the dough into a log, and cut it into slabs and then quarter the slabs, just like the tubes of cookie dough you can buy. Biscotti also keep reasonably well, as long as you don't shake them so they bash against the sides of the container and break into dust. And biscotti go well with many after-dinner beverages of all temperatures. MelissaH

How do nuts made with egg whites compare to nuts made with a recipe like JAZ's seasoned nuts? Has anyone tried a head-to-head comparison? MelissaH

We have three different versions of mac and cheese in our house: My Way, His Way, and the Blue Box Way. My Way starts with a bechamel sauce, seasoned with a pinch of chile and a bit of dry mustard, to which I add half monterey jack and half sharp cheddar. The sauce gets mixed with cooked small elbows, poured into a pyrex dish, and baked until the top is crusty and the whole thing is bubbly. I've been known to mix in a can of diced tomatoes. His Way uses large elbows, which get tossed with chunks of sharp colby (which can be hard to find; you can use sharp cheddar if you must) in a baking dish. Evaporated milk is poured over the top, and more chunks of cheese get added to the top. It too gets baked. Since I'm usually the one making the mac and cheese during the week, I do it My Way. On the weekends, he's more likely to make it, and of course he does it His Way. It's been eons since either of us has done it the Blue Box Way. MelissaH

I'd just like to point out here that Buffalo's usually a distant second or third to Syracuse in the Golden Snowball contest. And Steve, just keep telling yourself that until the lake freezes, it helps to keep the temperatures up. MelissaH

Thanks so much for taking this on, Steve. I'm really looking forward to it, and hope that I can be there for the whole weekend this time! MelissaH

We have a Marmoleum Click floor in our kitchen. We love it. MelissaH

If it worked, graduate school would have been much faster and easier for me! MelissaH

Waffles. Made with overnight-risen-in-the-fridge yeast batter, so morning is easy. MelissaH

If I can work out the transportation, I'm in. I had a lot of fun last year, and because I'm still new to this, pretty much anything you do would be great for me. But the chemist side of me has always been fascinated by glassblowing---so I'd love to see some sugar blowing, maybe have an opportunity to give it a shot myself. MelissaH

It's not just you. MelissaH

I've always stored mine rolled inside paper towel tubes as well. I make sure I roll them such that they're curled in the direction that when I put them inside a sheet pan, any residual curl would be down and not up. That way, any weight on the silpat will help keep them flat. Interestingly, I've noticed that I tend to use parchment for baked goods, and the silpat for more savory tasks like roasting vegetables, where I could conceivably be left with a whale of a mess to clean in the pan. I think in part this is because I hate cleaning the things so much, whenever possible I look for an alternative! The only thing worse than cleaning a silpat is trying to clean black vulcanized gunk out of a sheet pan. (Not to mention, it's really easy to slide a sheet of parchment with cookies off the sheet pan, so the pan can get re-used quickly. Not the case with a silpat.) MelissaH

The other thing I'll sometimes do when I'm not planning to eat the squash just as a vegetable is drain the cooked squash puree in a sieve, to get rid of some of the liquid. MelissaH

Unless you live where I do, in which case the only "bakeries" (and many of the restaurants) all buy their bread mostly-baked and just brown it off themselves. We used to have a terrific baker, but he found an opportunity he couldn't pass up and moved away. The "fresh-baked" bread from the supermarket here isn't bad, in a pinch. MelissaH

Are commercial, industrial products always necessarily inferior? MelissaH