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

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

Mine came in the mail just now. And wouldn't you know, the rest of this week I have way too many other things to do to browse! MelissaH

I'll trade you: next time we come visit, I'll bring you corn nuts, and you tell me where to find those yummy crunchy-coated peanuts that seem to be all over Europe and nowhere on this side of the ocean. MelissaH

There's a recipe for grape sorbet in David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. I made a batch of it, which I served alongside a batch of his peanut butter ice cream. (Except that these recipes tend to run a bit sweet for my tastes, and I reduced the sugar a bit too much in the grape sorbet so it was on the tart side, but kept the PB ice cream oversweet...yet they worked together beautifully!) The recipe calls for concord grapes, but I bet it would work nicely with other grape varieties. Just watch the sugar. And it looks as though a version of the recipe is available on line here. I also seem to recall a grape focaccia recipe in Carol Field's book called, simply, Focaccia. And that one, on Amazon, permits you to search inside so you can preview the recipe. Good luck! MelissaH

Experiment #1: Yesterday I had every intention of separating the egg, keeping the yolk intact, and gently poaching it in water. I am very good at separating eggs, and I won't even bat an eye at an angel-food cake recipe that calls for on the order of 14 egg whites. Yesterday, my skills failed me and I punctured the yolk. The white didn't get contaminated (not that it matters in this particular recipe, but it bugs me nonetheless!) but I didn't think it would be possible to poach the broken yolk without running into major grief. So I covered the custard cup containing the broken yolk with plastic wrap, and stuck it in the microwave. Turned it on for a minute, but rescued it after only about 20 seconds. The yolk was cooked, to the point where it was too tough to go through my sieve. So I buzzed it in a mini food processor to chop it up, and then put that into the dough. The cookies got baked this morning. The verdict: The dough itself was a bit crumbly and difficult to form into coherent logs. This morning as I sliced the dough, it still had a noticeable tendency to crumble, and I saw definite yellow specks of yolk. I wonder if it would be easier to deal with, pressed into a pan and turned out, like shortbread. I don't know if the texture is exactly what I'm after, but nobody I've fed these to has complained about the taste. I think the cookies are maybe a touch too sweet for my taste, but I'm concerned about reducing the amount of sugar. Maybe they'd be better if the dusting sugar was blended with a little citrus zest? Maybe I'll be able to separate an egg without breaking the yolk today. MelissaH

I have yoghurt! Would you suggest mixing it milk or water, or just use yoghurt straight up? ← I'd probably try it straight up, since that's what I seem to remember Indian-style marinades doing. You may need to actually wipe it off the chicken pieces afterward, rather than just letting it "drain" off. If I were going to thin it, I think I'd probably use milk. Is this an excuse to try not just one batch, but two? MelissaH

Is yogurt available where you are? That might also give you the combination of tanginess and dairy. MelissaH

I just got the November/December issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine in the mail. While most of the issue is devoted to Thanksgiving-type recipes and holds little interest for me, there was a recipe for French butter cookies (sablés) that caught my eye. But as I read the article and the recipe, I was bothered by something. They go through great lengths to describe how, for the dough, they settled on using the yolk of a single hard-boiled egg, pushed through a sieve. But then at the end, after the cookies are ready, they get brushed with egg white and sprinkled with sugar. So you're dumping a HB egg white...and a raw egg yolk. So you need to use two eggs but only use the equivalent of one. This seems wasteful to me! While there are plenty of ways to use raw egg yolks, I can't think of anything that would call for an HB egg white. But then I started thinking: would it be possible to separate the egg, keeping the yolk intact, and cook it separately? That way, you'd only need the one egg that gets used in the recipe. Has anyone ever tried boiling or simmering just an egg yolk? Could you possibly get away with it by bringing a pot of water up to a simmer, gently adding the (unbroken) yolk, and keeping an eye on it since the timing's sure to be different? Or would it be better to blow the white (but not the yolk) out of the eggshell and then cook the shell with the yolk still inside? Or is this an impossible task, and I'd be better off coming up with something to do with cooked egg whites? MelissaH

We have a bin of stuff that travels with us to other people's kitchens (or in a "vacation kitchen" when we're car camping or headed to stay at a Residence Inn-type place somewhere). We keep a list of the things we regularly use but need to remember and put in the bin before we leave. So our travel kit comprises a good knife in a sheath, a cutting board, a microplane and a can opener, small containers of kosher salt, peppercorns, fish sauce, and canola or grapeseed oil, a clean dishrag, a small bottle of dish soap, and ziplock bags and gladware. For camping, we have a coleman stove, an ancient set of backpacking cookware, lexan spoons, and a couple of sets of the Orikaso foldable plastic dishes. All bets are off when we fly, as we're allergic to checking luggage unless it's absolutely and completely unavoidable. In those cases, we deal with what we have, although we have been known to use the unglazed edge of a ceramic dish to sharpen knives. MelissaH

Mine says Lock and Unlock too. I know its old, but do you know how old? ← I don't remember exactly which birthday I got it. I'm pretty sure it happened before I graduated from college but after I moved out of the dorms, which would mean either 1992 or 1993. It's blue because that's the color that was on sale. MelissaH

I recently added a 7 qt Viking stand mixer to my repertoire. I have an old KitchenAid (old enough to actually have words saying "Lock" and "Unlock" on the lever on the side). The bowl (4.5 qt) is not big enough to handle a batch of pita bread dough all at once, and it strains to mix my challah. And it every so often drips a little oil into the bowl. The Viking is so far holding up its end of the bargain. I love the wheels, but even with the wheels it doesn't creep on the countertop the way the KA did. I'm getting used to the fact that the head locks up. It came with the blender attachment, which makes the whole assembly so tall as to be nearly useless, since I'm not eight feet tall. And it's pretty and red, to boot. That said, I still use the KA for smaller jobs, where a 7 qt bowl is overkill, or when I need a second bowl. I'm spoiled. MelissaH edited to fix the size of the mixer

I use the Cook's Illustrated technique (mix everything including the eggs together, omitting any baking soda called for, and leave the batter in the fridge overnight) with Marion Cunningham's ingredients (available in many cookbooks including Fannie Farmer and Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cake Bible, as well as a bunch of on-line sources including this one. It makes really crisp waffles. But then again, we tend to eat them as they come off the waffle iron. We each finish our half a waffle (or less, if we have company) before the next one's cooked, so they don't sit around and flab up. When we're full, any extras get bagged and frozen. They toast up just as crisp as the day they were first made. MelissaH

I do bacon in the oven any time I need more than six slices. (I can fit six slices on my microwave bacon cooker.) I use a rack over a half sheet pan, lay the bacon on, and start in a cold oven that I turn up to 400 degrees F. I've tried it both with the convection fan on and without, but haven't reached any conclusions on which way is better. I'll have to try the parchment down below. Anything to make cleanup better is a plus in my book. MelissaH

Success! We were out yesterday, and of course I had to look at Price Chopper. No luck. But I hadn't gotten my $130+ million lottery ticket, and the line at Price Chopper was way too long. So we headed over to P&C, and there they were on the shelf with the rest of their cookies, 2 packs for $5 if you have their card. I got two, as well as the aforementioned lottery ticket. We opened the cookies after dinner yesterday, and they were about what I'd remembered, although I don't ever remember seeing a package like what's being sold now. The wafer part itself is nice and crisp but not overly sweet, although my husband thought they weren't quite as chocolaty as the equivalent part of an Oreo. The filling was nice and dry, not at all goopy, This particular batch of cookies yesterday night was at about the right temperature that they were easy to open up, leaving the filling all on one side and giving you a plain wafer to savor. I'm less about the filling, and more about the wafer. I'd definitely get more of these. I wonder how well they'd hold up in the freezer, if they really are a limited-time-only deal. And the lottery ticket? Apparently there was one winning ticket sold. It wasn't ours. MelissaH