MelissaH

Joy! All's well! I gave the oven a quick 90-minute self-clean cycle, during which I got some work done. I turned the oven off, went to do some more work, and came back half an hour later. The door locked light was still on, and—sure enough—the door was still locked. I jumped in the shower, and realized that I still had my glasses on. (Don't laugh too hard. I generally wear contact lenses. I just plain forgot, until I tried to get my face wet and then wondered why my eyelashes weren't getting blasted.) So after my shower, I needed to properly wash my glasses, which I prefer to do in the kitchen. And this time, the light was off and the door opened. It was all of 15 minutes later than the first time I'd tried. It's so tempting to take a hacksaw to the oven door latch. Moral of the story: make sure you pick a day with stable power to run a self-clean cycle. Once you hit the clean button, don't stop it for ANY reason. And stupid people who force companies to idiot-proof...or do I mean lawyer-proof? their equipment make me really angry!

Well, I discovered a big quirk yesterday. The oven door's still locked this morning. I called the number for service, and the first thing they recommended I do was kill the power by flipping the breaker and keeping it off for at least 30 seconds. When I came back upstairs, the "door lock" light was still on. So now I'm trying recommendation #2: running a short (1-2 hours) self-clean cycle, turning it off and letting it cool, and seeing if that does the trick. The person I spoke with said that sometimes the door will refuse to unlock if the self-clean cycle gets interrupted somehow. We've had problems with power failures this week, but I didn't think we'd had one yesterday. Nonetheless, in about an hour and a half, I'll be able to turn the oven back off, and a couple of hours after that it should be cooled down enough to open. IhopeIhopeIhope MelissaH

Today's big activity was the second self-cleaning cycle of the oven. This time I took the racks out, because they didn't seem particularly dirty. I also wanted to see whether the racks will slide smoothly if only the oven has been cleaned. It's been on the cool side here, but not too cold. This is good because I was able to open the windows and the sliding door. This time around, the kitchen heated up a bit, but I only smelled heat, not chemical-plasticky-yucky odors. So I guess whatever happened the first time was just stuff burning off, and we don't need to worry about it for the future. The self-clean cycle takes five hours, from the time you push the button and turn the knob to the time the fan clicks off and you can turn the oven off. The door's still locked, and I'm keeping an eye on it so I know how long it stays hot. MelissaH

Thanks, ludja, for coming up with the name that I couldn't remember. The only baking I've regularly done with rum is my mother's rum cake recipe, which consists of a doctored cake mix. There's never a problem with it turning out tough or heavy, but I suspect that's more a factor of the cake mix than the alcohol. Nonetheless, I'm intrigued by the possibilities of including alcohol in various baked goods, particularly WRT the identical recipes made with just water. MelissaH

Aha. I'd missed the part in your original post where you said they used vodka to replace "some" (not all) of the water. I agree with you that it's curious that they only use half vodka. And if CI really is as anal as they like to make themselves out to be, I'm amazed they didn't say more about the amount of alcohol to try. (Or did they? They don't seem to have the whole article available on line, and I don't have a hard copy in front of me yet.) I can't get Everclear here, but I think the general concept is definitely worth playing with. MelissaH

Along these lines, a German professor and I frequently discuss Austrian cuisine. (She tells me about it, and I go home and try it.) And she tells me that in an Austrian fried doughnut sort of thing (don't remember the proper name in German, but they're traditionally eaten during Carnival) you always include a bit of spirits in the dough. She says you do so because it keeps them from turning out greasy. As best as I can figure, what's happening is that the alcohol has a lower boiling point than water. This means that when you put the dough into hot oil, the alcohol starts to boil off more quickly than just water would. And as long as vaporized alcohol (or other liquid) is coming out, you won't get oil rushing in. I don't know how alcohol would restrict gluten development, from a chemical point of view. (After all, if you're adding vodka, most of that is bottled at 80 to 100 proof—in other words, only 40 to 50% alcohol. The rest is water. Which means that you really aren't adding much alcohol. To me, this calls for an experiment: identical batches of pie crust dough, one with water and the other with vodka. I think I'd be tempted to just make the doughs, roll them out, and bake them naked. I guess this means I should go to the PO and pick up the mail from our box, which should include my copy of this issue? MelissaH

We put a Bosch Evolution 500 in our kitchen. It's working well for us in the 15 months we've used it. MelissaH

Be careful about doing this, especially if the bottle is irreplaceable. The restrictions are not so much for the amount of liquid, but for the size of the container. I've seen empty bottles confiscated at security. Some airports seem more strict than others. As far as PB, yogurt, soy sauce, etc: I wouldn't think there would be a problem with the small containers of anything, as long as each container is smaller than 3 oz, and all of your containers fit into your one allotted quart-size ziplock bag. MelissaH

And the answer is: MelissaH

You can seal them on the "seal only" setting. Just don't try to suck the air out... ← Yup, that's what I had in mind. Thanks!

A transfer of a cat sliding down a chocolate is a brilliant idea. Now where would I get a picture? ← Unfortunately, we've since moved from that house, so we have neither window nor frogs anymore. I think you'd need two people: one outside the window with the cat-tempter, and the other inside with the camera set up. I'm afraid I won't be of much help. Wouldn't this be even cuter in 3D? The frog's underside up on one end, and the sprawled-cat-from-above down below? MelissaH

A spoonful can be however big your spoon is. And I'm simply defining a spoon as a bowl with a handle. By this definition, a one-cup measure could be a spoon...as long as you're willing to get Nutella on your chin, nose, and eyelashes licking it out! MelissaH

Along the same lines: has anyone found anywhere that Rick Rodgers says how much a cup of flour weighs, as measured by him? In the notes in the back of the book, he bemoans the fact that Americans measure by volume, not mass. This little piece of information would help immensely. (I've sent an e-mail via his Web site, and will report back if I get a reply.) MelissaH

My feelings exactly! My mother-in-law inherited an old dining room table, and a secretary to match. The finish on both had deteriorated to the point where they needed to be stripped and redone, if they were to be usable. She chose to use a polyurethane finish, and that table and secretary now see everyday use without fear of destruction. It drives me bonkers when I see one of the experts on Antiques Road Show bemoan someone's refinishing job on an antique. To me, an antique is worth far more if it is actually used. (And if it's really worth that much, I'd rather donate it to a museum and get a tax deduction for it, rather than worry about getting it insured!) MelissaH

Does anyone know whether these bags can be sealed with a FoodSaver? I'm thinking in terms of hedging bets against leakage. MelissaH

Is it normal for you to have work meetings on what Americans consider the weekend? I've only heard of one such regularly occurring meeting, and that (surprise!) was also in the academic world, and had been happening every Saturday for the last 40 years or so. MelissaH

Y'know, I like seeing the underside of the frog. It's almost as if the frog's inside the chocolate, and you're seeing him cling to the top as if it were a window. (The partner to this view would be the cat sliding down from the outside of the chocolate... ) MelissaH

But they're not the same! They never will be! Any more than a pecan pie without nuts will be the same as a butter tart (which I also love, after many business trips to Ontario). Also, something I didn't note before. In Owen's picture of the half-moon, you can see his hand behind the wax paper holding the cookie. A half-moon is a substantial piece of baked good. In my experience, a black and white is a much daintier pastry. Half-moon = 5" diameter -- black and white about 3". Not that I'm a size queen or anything. There are things that clearly share a common ancestor, but have evolved into separate entities. And two of those are the Black and White and Half-moon Cookie. ← I've never heard of a dainty black and white, traditional-style. Black and whites are generally quite large, as big across as my hand. The last batch a friend brought up from NYC was so-called mini black and whites, and those were the 3-inch variety. But no, that's not standard. MelissaH

I used Paula Reds this time because it's still early season apples. Later in the season I'll use Northern Spies, with a couple of Ida Reds thrown in because those are Casey's favorites and ones we have on hand. The Paula Reds seemed just a little sweeter and softer than I'd aim for, but in mid-September one can't be picky. MelissaH

What markemorse said. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this week! MelissaH

I did one more thing in the kitchen tonight: baked an apple cake. I nearly always make an apple cake to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, because it's the right time of year for apples (a little early this year), and I like it better than the traditional apples with honey, or honey cake. This became one of the recipes in Dorie Greenspan's book but it started out as mine. Or rather, as my great-grandmother's. It came to me through my mother's sister. As always, I started by getting my ingredients together. I didn't get the eggs (2 of them) out of the fridge for the photo because I realized that the kitchen was warm enough tonight to make the butter a little softer than ideal. I wanted to keep the eggs cold, to try and chill the butter so it would stiffen up a touch. First step: make the dough. Two sticks of butter, two eggs, and a cup of sugar go into the mixer bowl. When it's nicely creamed, add a tablespoon of baking powder (yes, you read that right, a whole tablespoon) and about half a teaspoon of salt. Then add the juice of one lemon; this will make the dough slosh around the mixer bowl, and you'll need to scrape the sides to get everything combined. Finally, add the flour. The exact amount of flour depends on how juicy your lemon was. Because this is an old touchy-feely recipe, I don't measure too exactly either. I know that it always takes at least 3 1/4 cups of flour, and I always use King Arthur AP flour for this. I generally get the first three cups in, scoop up the fourth cup, and little by little add as much of it as it needs. You're aiming for a dough that will eventually be rollable but you don't want to add so much flour that the dough gets dry. In this case, I used about half of the fourth cup of flour. It will look something like this when you're done: (actually, I probably could have used a little more flour in this batch. Guess my lemon was extra-juicy. The oversoft butter didn't help either.) Divide the dough into two parts. Getting it exactly even isn't tremendously important, because you have more dough than you need. Flatten each dough portion, wrap each in plastic wrap, and let them chill in the refrigerator for a while. I typically leave them in while I make the filling, but my kitchen was apparently on the warm side because the dough really needed to be colder to be properly rollable. But fortunately, for this recipe it's not a big issue. Before you begin the filling, turn the oven on to 350 degrees F. For the filling, start by peeling, coring, and slicing about 8 apples into a large bowl. You want lots of filling in your apple cake, so it's better to prepare more apples if yours are small. I'm using some of the Paula Reds that I got from Fruit Valley Orchards earlier in the week. Because these are a somewhat softer apple to begin with, I kept my slices a little on the thick side. Taste a sample or three to see how your apples taste before you add anything. Squeeze the second lemon, and add the juice to the apple slices. If your apples are sweet, add it all, but if your apples are tart you may want to be more sparing. Toss the slices in the juice to separate them from one another, and to coat each slice with lemon juice. Add cinnamon and sugar to taste—again, this depends on your apples. If your apples were sweet to begin with, you won't need as much sugar. These apples were pretty sweet, so I only needed a couple of spoonfuls of sugar. I added a generous sprinkle of cinnamon because I like cinnamon. Toss it all together with your hands, and taste again. Once the filling is mixed, it's time to roll the dough. My dough was still really soft, because my butter started out really soft and the dough didn't have enough fridge time to firm up. Nonetheless, I floured my counter and tried rolling it anyway. I was able to get it rolled, fold it into quarters, and use my scraper to convey it into my pan (a pyrex deep-dish pie pan), but I couldn't unfold the dough without it sticking together and tearing. Oh well, never mind. This dough is quite forgiving, so if you don't like to roll dough or if you run into trouble, all you need to do is press the dough together, and push it where it needs to be. You can even get away with no rolling whatsoever: just pull off chunks of dough and pat them into the pan. There will be extra dough left over, so set it aside. Then, the filling needs to go into the lined pan. I don't usually just dump the filling in from the bowl, because all the juice from the bottom of the bowl will make my crust soggy. Instead, I use my hands to move the apple pieces from the bowl into the pan, leaving the liquid behind. Next up: another rolling session. I don't know why I bothered, because if the first half didn't go in nicely, the second certainly wouldn't. And it didn't. I rolled it out, folded it in quarters, and again failed miserably in unfolding the dough on top of the filling. So I got to patch it together. This is actually what most of the family does with this dough. To my knowledge, I'm the only one since my great-grandmother to actually successfully roll this dough and neatly get it into the pan. I usually have better luck, but I usually also have a much colder kitchen. So I'm just another family member tonight. Once the top crust goes on the cake, you need to cut some vents. The dough will tend to close up on itself in the oven, so twist the knife to make the slits wider. And then, into the oven it goes! The trick is to get the filling cooked without underbaking the dough. The absolute worst thing you can do is underbake the bottom crust. That's why I use a glass pan: I can pick it up and look at the underside to know if it's done. I always have leftover dough that didn't fit into the pan. I gather it up into a disk, wrap it in plastic, and put it back in the fridge. Tomorrow, I'll roll it out, cut it with a star-shaped cookie cutter because that's what my great-grandmother always used, sprinkle the cookies with cinnamon and sugar, and bake them off. My grandmother's older sister would take the leftover dough and form it into a roll to slice, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, and bake. Expect the apple cake to take at least 45 minutes to bake, and often closer to an hour or more. Eventually, it will be done (meaning the dough on the bottom is starting to brown). It then needs to cool before you can cut it and enjoy it. I'll leave mine to cool overnight. It's not a beautiful dessert by any stretch of the imagination. This one in particular is aesthetically challenged, since I screwed up the dough-rolling. But this is the only recipe I have from my great-grandmother, whom I never met, and because of that I don't want to fancify it or pretty it up. I hope she'd approve. MelissaH

Well, like I've said before, I'm not really a drinker. I put about two fingers' worth in the bottom of my conical glass, and that was plenty for me. It tasted like wine. Sorry. I'll ask my husband for a better description. MelissaH

The recital this afternoon was fine. This pianist always puts on a good show, but this was not the best concert I've heard him do. (Some of it might be the piano: two summers ago, there was a bit of an energy crunch here, and the call went out for energy conservation. The university complied by killing the AC in all nonessential spaces, with disastrous results: the Steinway concert grand was sealed up in a non-AC room, and wound up getting virtually destroyed by the humidity. Last year they borrowed a Yamaha, which would have been fine for a pop music concert but just sounded all wrong for a classical piano recital. This year they had a Baldwin, which sounded somewhat better. I still miss the Steinway, as other people apparently also do.) The highlight this afternoon for me was the piano sonata by Samuel Barber, which I hadn't heard before. After the concert: dinner! Neither of us was particularly hungry. We went grocery shopping this early-afternoon, and when we got back I had a bowl of cereal and Casey had a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. (I've never liked canned tomato soup.) I met our next-door neighbor at the recital, and invited her to come back for some ice cream. She, too, loved the PB&J combination. I still have some left! But that was just a stopgap measure. I needed to make some real dinner. And I decided to try something brand-new, to use up some of my carrots. The recipe came from this book which I acquired courtesy of Anna N. The author was born in Belgium, but married a Chilean and lives in Chile now. We also have her Belgian cookbook, and the recipes we've made from that have meshed with what we've eaten in Belgium. I was looking through this book earlier this week (yes, I read cookbooks as if they were novels) and found a recipe for a carrot omelet. Since we had all the ingredients on hand, I decided to give it a go. This was the first recipe I've cooked from this book. The ingredients: I forgot to include my flour container in the photo, but you'll need two tablespoons of flour also. I started by separating three eggs. I broke a yolk. Oops. The other prep work: peeling and grating the carrots. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of grated carrots, from 2 to 3 carrots. I used 3 carrots and didn't measure anything more. And I minced the clove of garlic. I don't know what variety of garlic this is, but it's grown locally. The preparation of this omelet was different than any other omelet I'd done before. It started by beating the egg whites and a pinch of salt to soft peaks. Yes, I did this with my whisk, by hand. It wasn't so bad. Then, the yolks get folded in alternately with two tablespoons of flour. The whites deflate somewhat as you do this. You season the eggs with salt and pepper, and then use a fork to mix in the garlic and carrots. This omelet gets cooked in a small nonstick frying pan. I heated mine over medium-low heat (the cookbook said medium, but I know how my stove heats!) with a touch of oil. The batter goes into the hot pan, and cooks for 3 or 4 minutes. I poured in the batter, and shook the pan to help distribute it. I used my heat-resistant spatula to make sure the edges stayed free, which was a particular problem around the rivets holding the handle in place. Once the edges were free, I could just shake the pan occasionally to make sure the whole thing was loose and unstuck. Then came my trouble spot. The recipe said to invert over a plate. If I'm going to try that again, I want a Spanish tortilla plate with a knob on the bottom. If I ever visit Spain, I want to get one and bring it home, because I can't find one here. Next time, I think I'd treat this like a frittata and put the pan under the broiler to cook the top side instead of trying to flip the omelet. It takes just a couple of minutes to brown the bottom side. And that's it! The recipe said to serve with a salsa, for which it gave a recipe. I was lazy and just used some salsa from the bottle open in the fridge. I wouldn't have thought to make a whole omelet of carrots, but it tasted pretty good. I liked the sweetness the carrots brought to the party, and the garlic's bite kept it from being one-dimensional. The salsa was an unusual addition to me, as I generally prefer combining chips with salsa rather than veggies, but the sweetness worked nicely to offset the spiciness. I'd make this again. MelissaH

Oh, this is a sad sight! I actually thought about swinging by on my way home Wednesday (well, not really on the way, but not too far out of my way either) to get some ribs for dinner, but then I realized that with the concert, I wouldn't have time to eat them. Let's hope they rematerialize soon. And in the meantime, you're on for a smackdown! MelissaH

That's interesting. My husband likes bananas, but doesn't eat them often because they give him heartburn. Conventional brands of yogurt do also, but the organic brands with sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup don't. We were wondering whether maybe bananas are high in fructose. Maybe I'll see if he has a problem with organic bananas. MelissaH