MelissaH

I'll take your Mr. Goodbars. MelissaH

My FIL was quite the jokester. At one point, he persuaded a local bakery to give him an eclair, frosted but unfilled. He proceeded to fill it with mayo. (Actually, since it was my in-laws' family doing this, it was probably Miracle Whip.) He then gave this particular eclair to a colleague. MelissaH

Sorry to say but no :-( ... basil as a curry leaf substitution is one of the worst substitutes I have heard of. It is like saying replace cumin with black pepper in a recipe - both are quite strong flavours, but nothing alike. Even dried curry leaves are worlds apart from their fresh variants. ← But does it really matter, as long as you like the results and as long as you're not trying for absolute authenticity? MelissaH

Yes, they're food-related. Spiedino (plural=spiedini) is an Italian diminutive word for a skewer. But I've never heard anyone call them spiedini, always spiedies (with various spelling variations). Think meat chunks (originally lamb, but other meats such as chicken or beef are permissible) that's marinated at least 24 hours but possibly much longer, skewered (NOTHING else on the skewer besides meat), grilled, and then removed from the skewer by grabbing with a chunk of Italian bread to make a sandwich. This may be as far as spiedies have ever traveled from Binghamton. MelissaH

Binghamton? Spiedies, perhaps? MelissaH

Think carefully about what you will use your sink for, before committing to the number of bowls. A good friend chose to put in a double sink with one large bowl and one small shallow bowl. For her, the small bowl was important because she likes to stopper the small bowl, run some cool water into it, and put the cut-off stems of flowers in to soak before they go into a vase. And this friend always, always, always has flowers in the house. My husband originally wanted a double-bowl sink with both bowls the same size, the exact same kind of sink he'd always had. This is because when he washes dishes, he puts hot soapy water in one bowl to wash, and then has a drainer in the other bowl so the washed but soapy dishes go into the drainer, where they get rinsed and left to dry. However, his argument had a fatal flaw, IMHO: when we redid the kitchen, we put a dishwasher in! Nearly all our dirty dishes go in the dishwasher; the ones that still need to be hand-washed require some form of special handling. In the end, we went for one giant bowl in our sink. And we're both delighted that we did so. We can put even our largest cutting boards and roasting pans (neither of which go in the dishwasher) FLAT in the sink for washing. When you go sink-hunting, bring whatever you think you'd want to put in the sink, and see how well it fits. Think carefully about what you will use the sink for (which may be different than how you use your current sink in your current kitchen). And if you choose to go for multiple bowls, be sure that the divider between the bowls is lower than the edge of the sink, so if one bowl fills, water goes into the other bowl rather than on the floor. MelissaH

I keep my ice cream maker bowls in the freezer in grocery bags. That's because I don't necessarily want to have to find a pair of gloves when I get the bowl out of the freezer right before I use it. It's easier to grab the bag by the handles, so I'm not touching the bowl itself, because my fingers don't get so cold. (And it's also easier to store stuff inside the bowl in the freezer, since I'm always looking for freezer space efficiency.) MelissaH

I'd try to find other volunteers who have been there, and get advice from them about what's available there, what you can bring, and what they wished they had. I'd also make a point about finding out what the local specialties are, and trying them while I was there. (Forgive me for going here, but isn't Namibia where Tony Bourdain ate warthog anus?) It's a large enough country that the foods/condiments available in one part may differ from the things available elsewhere. MelissaH

I'm not from Cornell, and it's not me.

I recall that David Rosengarten's It's All American Food has a recipe (which I haven't tried), but I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get the book at the moment. MelissaH

Just to clarify: We know the problem with the grill's regulator wasn't, in fact, a problem with the tank because we put a quick-disconnect adaptor on one of our "normal" tanks, plugged it into the grill, and still had a problem getting the grill to heat. When we put the new regulator on and tried the *same* tank, things worked fine. The old tank has an overfill protect device (OPD) and as such is legal here. It's still got another four years before it hits its 12th birthday and needs to be recertified. The only problem with the tank is the quick-disconnect, which is incompatible as it stands with any of our other propane-powered appliances. I'd just like to be able to somehow adapt the tank and use the propane. The tank did come with an adaptor that allows it to be filler with the standard nozzle. The adaptor pops on to the tank, and provides the tank with threads that the filler nozzle screws into. MelissaH

We got our Weber gas grill the spring of 1999. At the time, Weber was equipping their grills with quick-disconnect regulators, which could be attached to suitable tanks without tools. (This was the old-style quick-disconnect where you pushed the connector, not the new style of regulator that has a QCC1 connection, a plastic nut large enough to turn with your hand.) Fast forward to this spring. For some reason the grill wasn't working well. (Of course, this was just after we'd refilled the quick-connect tank. ) We were able to trace the problem to the regulator, which we replaced with the QCC1 variety. Once we did this, and used our other two "normal" propane tanks with the grill, it once again performed beautifully. But we now have an "orphan" quick-connect tank, nearly full. Fast forward again to two nights ago. I opened the tank's valve, turned the grill burner on, hit the igniter, watched the blue flame leap down the burner...and then sputter and go out. Empty tank. The *second* tank was also empty. This left us with propane in only the quick-connect tank. My husband swapped regulators again, but the old regulator is still not working properly and we couldn't get things hot enough. The burgers got cooked indoors on a beautiful night. My question: Is there anything we can do with this nearly-full quick-connect tank? We don't have any other quick-connect appliances, but we do have a filling adaptor. Failing that, is there any way to get the propane out of this tank safely, so we don't bring a bomb to our transfer station? Thanks, MelissaH edited to add valve proper names

Absolutely. Just spread them out on a cookie sheet and stick in the freezer, then package the individually frozen peppers into bags. If you try to just freeze a bagful of peppers, you get one giant frozen lump o'pepper that's nearly impossible to use. MelissaH

I made a batch of pear sorbet today. I used the pears I got last week at the farmer's market, as they were finally perfectly ripe. I can't remember what kind they were, but they were described as "similar to a Bartlett," green with a dark red blush, and quite crisp. Half a dozen pears weighed about 2.25 pounds. That's what I had so that's what I used. I started by peeling, coring, and cubing them. I put them in a saucepan with about half a cup of water and let them cook, covered, for about ten minutes till they were soft. I turned the heat off, and then realized that my husband had used the blender last night, and it hadn't made its way into the dishwasher. So instead of blending the cooked fruit, I got out the food mill, fitted it with the finest disk, put the mill over a 4-cup pyrex spouted measuring cup, and milled the cooked pears into pearsauce. (Had I realized from the beginning that our blender was dirty, I would have saved myself the peeling and coring. In fact, next time I won't bother, even if the blender's clean.) The recipe said that the result would be about 2 cups of puree. I had a little bit more than that. I stirred in a slightly heaping 1/3 cup of sugar (recipe said 2/3 cup) and the juice from half a lemon. And then instead of the extra water, I stirred in three good-sized ice cubes, both to add a little extra liquid and to cool the mixture. I covered the measuring cup with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for about an hour, at which point I got the freezer bowl out of the deep freeze and put the ice cream maker together. It took less than half an hour to spin and freeze. Served directly from the freezer bowl, no waiting. End result: silky, smooth, pear-y, and almost creamy. Definitely a keeper. MelissaH

What I brought: A freezer container of freshly made pear sorbet. When I picked up my copy of The Perfect Scoop, one of the people who works there said that it was cruel to order such a book and then not bring any ice cream in. So I did. They were delighted. What I found: In the new edition, the first change I noticed was a new introduction. The second change I noticed was that the hand-drawn illustrations of various dishes were gone, replaced with photographs. The overall appearance of the new hardcover book is also much glossier than my old paperback edition. The index is a little bit more comprehensive: the old index was strictly recipes, but the new one also includes proper names of people mentioned in the various stories. There's apparently a reference to Alice in Wonderland somewhere in the text, because there's an index entry. I didn't look to see what it was. Some of the sidebar notes and headnotes to recipes have been modified slightly, either to reflect new suppliers of some ingredients (one headnote in the charcuterie section specifically mentions Paul Bertolli's sausages) or because times have changed slightly and they no longer need to specifically define terms or ingredients for today's audience. But when I compared recipes head-to-head, I found that the order had been changed slightly, presumably to make things fit on pages better, BUT the recipes themselves were still the same. "White cabbage" and "sweet butter" have become "green cabbage" and "unsalted butter" in the new edition. In a few cases, the order of ingredients was rearranged slightly; the one that sticks in my mind is that the shrimp jumped to the top of an ingredient list because direction #1 is now "peel and devein shrimp" but in the old edition, IIRC the shrimp were listed somewhere in the middle, as "shrimp, peeled and deveined" but without the explicit instruction to peel and devein them. I did notice two changes to the text. One was in the chart of apple varieties. Apparently Fameuse apples are no longer available, as they're gone, replaced with Gala. (Isn't it convenient how the two variety names are close enough alphabetically that it's an easy swap without having to do anything else to the table? ) And the other text change is that the list of Silver Palate prepared items in the back has been replaced by a metric conversion chart. My verdict: if you already have the old edition of the book, don't bother with the new one. If you're looking for the book, you'd be just as well finding a used copy that's cheaper than the new edition. They're essentially identical, unless you absolutely need to have photographs with less information than the old hand-drawn illustrations. MelissaH

Here's a question: why not pair the dish with beer? Especially if you have something in mind that you believe to be perfect? Oh, and welcome to eG, dabstar! MelissaH

I've wondered the same thing. My local independent bookstore actually has a copy in stock at the moment. Maybe I'll bring some goodies in for the staff, and settle in my favorite chair with my old copy and the new copy, and do a head-to-head comparison. MelissaH

Being the other person who failed completely at making rock candy, I'd like an update please. I'd also like to know if it picked up a lot of smokey flavour. ← I'd also like to know if the flavor's noticeably smoky. When I was in grad school, one of the ways we'd purify a solid product was to recrystallize it. We'd usually try to grow our crystals somewhat slowly so we'd get only the pure product. If we rushed things and just let the crystals crash out of a supersaturated solution, we'd risk getting contaminants trapped along with the good stuff. Any smoky components would be "contaminants" to the sugar, and I'm curious if you're getting enough of them in your rock candy to taste a difference. MelissaH, one-time chem-geek

I love/hate it when a foodblog makes me homesick. I've never been to Spain. But my husband and I were married in Ouray, and my parents live there. (I think I know which store your mug came from, K.) Here's a challenge that most people get wrong the first time: pronounce Ouray! MelissaH

This is SO NOT FAIR to those of us who used to live near the area but had to move away! MelissaH

We always just put the ears directly on the grill, no soaking beforehand. They get a great roasty flavor as the husks start to char. And the silk comes right off, very easily! MelissaH

Amen to that! MelissaH

Ours is currently on hiatus for the summer, when we can easily get most of the fresh herbs we want from our next-door neighbor's garden. (With her permission, of course! ) The only things she doesn't grow that we use in large amounts are cilantro and parsley, but those are both easily available elsewhere. She grows basil, but once it gets to be in season, that's in wide supply at the farmer's market. We're currently trying to decide what we want to start this fall, once the garden's supply is gone. Last year, we were able to get fresh sage well into November! We probably could have gotten more out of our Aerogarden, but ran out of the nutrient tablets. Next time, I would order another batch along with the seeds, so we can get through spring. MelissaH

Amen to that! Another Utica specialty worth trying is Chicken Riggies. Despite the cutesy name, it can be quite good: rigatoni with chicken, peppers, and a sauce that's mostly cream with a touch of tomato. MelissaH

But if you're planning on putting it in the dishwasher, make sure it will fit in yours! MelissaH