MelissaH

Some of them have a raspberry butter ganache spiked with a touch of black pepper essential oil, and the rest have a flowing caramel. What you can't see from the picture is that the caramels have milk chocolate capping them, and the raspberries are capped with dark chocolate, so I can tell them apart. You also can't see that I obviously need to work on my capping technique: six of the nine were leaky. So that's one thing I'll be practicing. I'd also like to figure out how to add a black pepper flavor to a butter ganache without using essential oil. It wouldn't be a problem to infuse cream with black peppercorns, which then get strained out. But this particular recipe (one of Greweling's, minus the pepper) doesn't use any cream, just butter. MelissaH

I had a great couple of days with everyone, finally getting a chance to put names to faces. Probably the most important thing that I learned is just how much I have to learn! (And I so wish I could have stayed for today's session.) Here's a photo of what came home with me. I used every airbrush in the room! So, when's the next conference? MelissaH

Any idea why she might have used self-rising flour with the yeast in there? MelissaH

What about gougeres, with lots and lots of cheese in them? I realize they can be more crisp than fluffy, but all that puff must count for something. MelissaH

*bump* My husband and I will be in Lille the Saturday before Easter. (We're going to watch the end of the Paris-Roubaix bike race on Sunday!) My main concern is that we're going to find things closed for the holiday. Will we have trouble finding something to eat? We're cheap travelers, and in most cases we just look for a market/supermarket/deli/bakery where we can buy food. Thanks, MelissaH

I don't have the book in front of me, but I remember a recipe in Alton Brown's first book that I made once and thought, "These are like homemade Wheat Thins!" MelissaH

I'll just add to the chorus of those who now feel a need to visit Estonia. We'll be sure to bring our woollies. MelissaH

We have a 36-inch GE Monogram range. Ours is dual-fuel (gas burners, electric oven) but I understand they do an all-gas version as well. We love it. MelissaH

Have you ever tried this soup with blood orange juice? I'm thinking strictly from a color viewpoint. MelissaH

We watched the first episode, which didn't do much for me. Ted came across as snarky and insincere to us, although some of that could have been attributed to his stiffness and apparent discomfort in the host role. My biggest complaint is that they always seem to throw one ingredient in that doesn't go with the others. I realize that Project Runway is a different beast completely, but many of the comments from those judges revolve around the need for the designer to edit themselves. In Chopped, the chefs are required to use all the basket ingredients---they are not permitted to edit. I realize that forces the contestants to be wildly creative, but is there ever a chance that the dish would be better (whatever that means in this context) if they were given the option of using (n-1) of the n ingredients given? Especially if their justification for omission wasn't edited out? That said, my husband and I had great fun discussing what we would have done, both with and without a single-ingredient omission, especially given the thirty-minute timeframe. Has anyone used a pressure cooker yet? MelissaH

Gordon, Are these recommendations still accurate, as far as you know? My husband and I are planning to head towards Rochester tomorrow, and wanted to eat something for lunch that we don't see around here unless we make it ourselves. Of particular interest: Indian food. If that isn't a good bet, I'd settle for banh mi or pho. MelissaH ← Chinese and Indian suggestions are still fine. Although, call ahead for hours. Thai/Vietnamese? Pho Duong and Dac Hoa are the only players currently. Buon Apetito ← Well, as it turned out, the weather prohibited us from going anywhere on Friday. Saturday was better, so we got up and headed east, did what we had to, snagged something to munch on at Wegman's, and then hightailed it back home before the weather got nasty again. On the bright side, we will probably be making a cauliflower curry ourselves, to try and get our Indian fix. MelissaH

Gordon, Are these recommendations still accurate, as far as you know? My husband and I are planning to head towards Rochester tomorrow, and wanted to eat something for lunch that we don't see around here unless we make it ourselves. Of particular interest: Indian food. If that isn't a good bet, I'd settle for banh mi or pho. MelissaH

As long as you're talking Syracuse restaurant supply, I prefer Central Restaurant Supply (642 N Salina St) to Smith's because they seem to have more of what I'm typically looking for. I did get my current supply of baking parchment from a place in Rochester whose name eludes me. They weren't set up for the general public, but they were happy to sell me a giant box of sheet-pan sized pieces of parchment, which will probably keep me baking for the rest of my life. This was a couple of years ago, but I do remember they were somewhere in the SW part of the Rochester area, not too far from RIT in kind of an industrial area. They were open on Saturday morning. Not too helpful, I know. MelissaH ← Is Central the one in the big red brick building and has the coffee shop and the big knife display? That may be who I actually mean. I think you're referring to Tadco in the Genesee Regional Market on Jefferson rd. ← Smith's is the one you can see from I-81 and 690 with the big sign on top of the building. We haven't been there in a while, so I'm not sure about the coffee shop or knife display. Central is slightly off the beaten path, in kind of a run-down area of older shops. The one in Rochester, whatever its name, was most definitely not in the Genesee Regional Market. It was further west than that, but not far from Jefferson Rd.

As long as you're talking Syracuse restaurant supply, I prefer Central Restaurant Supply (642 N Salina St) to Smith's because they seem to have more of what I'm typically looking for. I did get my current supply of baking parchment from a place in Rochester whose name eludes me. They weren't set up for the general public, but they were happy to sell me a giant box of sheet-pan sized pieces of parchment, which will probably keep me baking for the rest of my life. This was a couple of years ago, but I do remember they were somewhere in the SW part of the Rochester area, not too far from RIT in kind of an industrial area. They were open on Saturday morning. Not too helpful, I know. MelissaH

Oh well. It was a thought.

It's definitely stuffed cabbage weather again. We're under a lake effect snow warning, and it's coming down steadily. And I'm lucky enough to be home today with a stoked woodstove, some knitting in my hands, and two purring cats on my lap. (Yes, at the same time as the knitting!) What do you-all serve with your stuffed cabbage rolls? Or are they a complete meal all by themselves? Would freshly homemade applesauce be wrong? MelissaH

Abra, is there any chance it gets cold enough where you are that you might have a functioning "walk-in", either in an unheated garage or shed, or even just secured in an animal-proof box outside? MelissaH

Jacques Torres has a recipe in his book Dessert Circus for a caramelized almond that he then coats with chocolate. I haven't tried it with almonds or walnuts, but it works wonderfully for peanuts, and I've never bothered with the chocolate because they're quite addictive as is. I have a cat purring on my lap and therefore can't (won't?) go downstairs to check my copy of the book, but the recipe seems to be available on line here. MelissaH

I like to use brown-shelled eggs for hard-boiling, but because it's easier to see where the shell is. No idea about whether they're easier to peel or not, but it's certainly easier to make sure the shell is completely gone. MelissaH

Thanks for posting the link, Ce'nedra. Alas, small lambs are not easy to come by in these parts, so I won't be trying this recipe verbatim. But I could certainly see adapting it to work with what I do find here. MelissaH

My husband and I will be spending the weekend in Castleton (which actually means Rutland, since we didn't find lodging in Castleton). Any suggestions on where we should consider eating inexpensively on Saturday afternoon/night and Sunday morning, other than gathering supplies at the local supermarket and picnicking in the hotel room? This thread had a few suggestions (Panda Pavilion, Little Harry's, Tokyo House) but they all date back to February 2005. Thanks, MelissaH

I'd slice it first, so I could take out a few slices at a time as I needed them. I've been able to successfully toast slices of bread from frozen, and they taste pretty good to me. You can take them as far as you want: anything from thawed and warmed a bit to completely-crunchy-toasty. MelissaH

And I've gotta add that as far as holiday timing goes, Canada has it much better than the U.S. Here, especially for those of us in the academic world, we have pretty much NO time off from the beginning of September till the end of November. (Some schools give a "fall break" which may or may not be connected to the timing of the Jewish High Holidays, but that's far from universal.) Thanksgiving is a four-day weekend, after which classes start up for two or maybe three weeks, depending on just how late in November the fourth Thursday is, and then finals are upon us. I'd much rather have a holiday break in earlyish October, which would be closer to halfway through the semester! To get this back closer to the topic of food: Thanksgiving is the only holiday I can think of that has such a tight focus on food by nearly the entire population. Turkey everywhere! MelissaH

If the odor's coming from fish, chances are it's an amine---a base. Many amines are volatile and stinky, never a good combination in one's refrigerator. One thing that might help (but I haven't tried it myself) is to react the amines with some acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice, to neutralize the base. (That's one reason why fish is often served with lemon: the citric acid in the lemon combines with the amines from fish to make a salt which is much less volatile and therefore much less odiferous.) So I'd probably try spritzing or wiping down the inside of the fridge with white vinegar or lemon juice. Even just leaving an open container of vinegar might do the trick to neutralize the amines. The risk: you may have a fridge that smells like vinegar, instead of fish. I wouldn't think baking soda would do much in this case, as that's another base. You'd be better off with charcoal. Most of the things we'd use in lab to dissolve amines would probably do really bad things to the plastics inside a refrigerator. MelissaH

Although if the local bagel place is any indication, they don't care whether you use the same gloves to handle food and money, as long as you wear 'em. (No, I won't get bagels from them anymore.) MelissaH