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

One of the things I love about Flo Braker's baking books (say that three times fast!) is that they're scale-friendly. It's just so much easier to deal with than measuring cups. MelissaH

Thanks for posting your recipe, Kerry. I have some cheese that's appropriately old and stinky, and look forward to trying it out. The problem I always seem to have with biscuits, no matter whose recipe I try, is that they look great going into the oven, but while they bake they spill butter (or whatever other fat I used). When the pan comes out, the biscuits are generally cooked all the way through, not burned, but the bottoms are more or less fried because they've been sitting in a layer of melted butter. What am I doing wrong? Is my butter not cold enough to start with, and I can solve my whole problem simply by making sure the butter's colder? MelissaH

I was disappointed by the Newman's cookies, which tasted soggy and overly sweet to me, but thought Famous Amos wasn't bad. Since the WSJ article came out, I've looked for Hydrox in supermarkets in seven different states. Nobody who works in the stores where I've looked seems to have read the article, because all I seem to get is a "Huh?" kind of look, and at the better stores someone offers to help me find them. It'll be interesting to see when the first package actually shows up for someone to buy. MelissaH

Kerry, What is your cheese biscuit recipe? MelissaH

I have an old edition of Sweet Miniatures. Does anyone know what the differences are between it and the newer edition? Must. Make. Hedgehogs. Someday! MelissaH

We'll sometimes show students how to make a "date night dinner." They come over, and we all go to the supermarket, they buy the ingredients, we come home, and we cook a nice dinner. Our typical menu: chicken roasted with a lemon inside and garlic, vegetables (don't forget that carrots and celery can be used to kludge a roasting rack!), and little potatoes in the bottom of the roasting pan, a bag of salad (remember, these are students who are often pressed for time) plus a little something to add to the greens (grape tomatoes, or grapes, or an apple to slice and add, some nuts to candy, or something else that's in season and looks good), a loaf of bread, and something for dessert. If birds are on sale, we'll often buy a few extras for ourselves and use them to give a butchering lesson while dinner's in the oven. When the chicken is roasted we'll let it rest, make a quick pan sauce, give the bread a bit of oven time, light the candles on the table, and turn on some music. By then it's time to carve the bird and eat. We've heard that this has worked quite nicely for several people trying to convince someone to go out with them. We just haven't yet figured out what to teach as a follow-up. Chicken soup, maybe? MelissaH

We have a new addition to our kitchen. Behold: And for a closer look, albeit with colors that aren't quite as true-to-life as those above: This is a hand-woven rag rug, made by Walt and Ronda Rose of Louisiana Loom Works (http://www.customragrugs.com/). We discovered their shop on Chartres Street when we made our second visit to New Orleans, way back in March of 2003. Truth be told, it wasn't the rugs that first drew my attention—it was the cat in the window. I was in town for a conference, and was deep in withdrawal from my own two cats. And lo and behold, Miz Williams was there, lounging in the middle of a rug, showing off her gray fur, white paws, and blue eyes. So I came inside, asked permission, and gave her some love. And lo and behold, there was a second cat there also: Miz Williams' daughter Feffa. We talked cats for a while, and then I asked Ronda the magic question: "Where do you like to eat?" She steered us to places that are still high up on our list: Napoleon House, Clover Grill, and a great little now-departed breakfast spot on Exchange Alley called Lulu's that we still miss. (Every time we go back, we add more restaurants to the list.) On that very first visit, we found a rug that we purchased for a wedding gift for two of our very good friends. Every trip back, we'd go and look, but the time was never right for us: either we knew we'd be moving soon, or we'd just moved and were a little tight for cash. Fast forward to March 2008, our first trip back since Katrina. The shop is still there. Ronda says they were the first in the French Quarter to reopen after the storm, waiting only as long as it took for power to be restored. Miz Williams and Feffa still rule the store, but they've added a couple more refugee cats since. Peace mostly prevails. We decided that this was finally going to be the year we'd get a rug for ourselves, so we started looking at materials. First choice: fabric. We knew we wanted something to go with the Lion of Flanders theme for the kitchen, and this plain yellow fabric was available. We looked at some prints, but the plain yellow was our favorite of everything they had enough of. (The fabric is mostly odds and ends from factories, so they rarely get the same things in twice.) In a way, I would have liked a print because the prints morph into something completely different when they get woven, but I'm quite happy with the yellow. Once we had the fabric chosen, we needed to choose thread colors, as well as which thread color would be used to finish the ends. Yellow, black, and red were no-brainers. But there were two colors of red to choose from, and we wondered about including a little green because the main color of our floor has a significant green tint. We brought home a snippet of the fabric, as well as a bit of each of the thread colors we were considering. Using both natural light and the lights we installed in the kitchen, we considered our options. In the end, we selected the perfect shade of red, as well as a nice green. We also measured the exact dimensions we wanted the rug to be. And while we were doing that, we decided we wanted a smaller mat to match, for the dining room table, to help tie the space together. We phoned in our thread choices, as well as the measurements we wanted. And then we waited. In the middle of July, we got our rugs! And we're thrilled that we did it. The mat looks great on the dining room table. And the floor rug is so much nicer than the old bathroom rugs we'd been using. It feels good underfoot, a piece of non-skid material holds it in place nicely, and it's machine-washable when the need arises. I'm just sorry it took us so long to finally get around to ordering a rug of our own. MelissaH

They really should go to the one in the Strip District. While it may not be the most geographically proximate, I suspect that it will have much more character. Besides, I would think that the Strip District is a wonderful place to wander around before the game. (But a Pittsburgh native would have to confirm whether the shops are open at that time.) ← I'm not a Pittsburgh native, but I lived there for 16+ years. The Strip District location is open 24/7. Definitely the one to visit. MelissaH

Don't forget to compare the plumbing and electrical costs of two dishwashers vs. one commercial dishwasher. They can add up! MelissaH

I always pit first. Then I spread the pitted cherries on a cookie sheet, freeze in a single layer, and THEN bag. Much easier than dealing with an icy lump. I'd think the cherries would mush, rather than cleanly pit, if you froze them before pitting. MelissaH

I just returned from a vacation with my husband's family. One of my first stops when I go there is always their local library, armed with my MIL's card so I can actually take things out. This time, I borrowed a cookbook called Grandma's Wartime Kitchen. Along with scads of recipes that would actually work for today's eaters, this book includes a few "Wartime Special" recipes. And one of the included Wartime Special recipes is for something called Whipped Evap, and the note says it was used in place of unavailable whipped cream. Ingredients for this topping are: 1 tsp. unflavored gelatin 1 Tbsp. cold water 1 cup evaporated milk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 2 Tbsp. confectioners sugar The directions are as you might imagine: bloom the gelatin in the water, heat 1/4 of the evaporated milk and use that to dissolve the bloomed gelatin, and then stir the hot gelatin/milk into the rest of the milk along with the vanilla. That sits in the fridge until it's well-chilled, and then it gets beaten with the sugar. The recipe says it can be covered and stored in the fridge, which kind of makes sense as the gelatin probably stabilizes it nicely. MelissaH

My husband and I will be flying into the Milwaukee airport on Thanksgiving Day, renting a car, and driving to DePere. We'll be in DePere through the holiday weekend, drive back to Milwaukee on Sunday to spend the night in a hotel near the airport, and fly home early Monday morning. Where should we eat? Is there anything in DePere, or will we need to drive into Green Bay? I'm particularly concerned about making sure we can find food on Thanksgiving Day. Will grocery stores in the area be open, or are we doomed to McDonald's? Thanks, Melissa