MelissaH

Mine's in the oven at the moment, in a 4.5-quart LC oval pot at 500 degrees since the video said to go hot hot hot. I just pulled the lid off, and it was nowhere in danger of hitting the top. (I do have a larger dutch oven in the house, but it's an unenameled cast iron pot from my husband's family, and I wanted to be sure that it wouldn't stick and force me to try and reseason the pot.) I started the dough at a little before 5 PM yesterday. I turned it out of its bowl when I got back from my swim at about 8:45 this morning. I dusted my towels with rice flour, because it doesn't seem to get as goopy as regular flour with a wet dough and I don't have any wheat bran on hand and the only cornmeal in the house at the moment is blue, and I didn't have any trouble with things sticking. My only apparent goof so far: I did the towel rising on the counter on the opposite side of the room from the range, and in the process of transferring the dough into the hot pot, I managed to dust the floor all the way across. (Note to self: next time put the towel on a sheet pan or pizza peel, idiot!) The dough went into the oven a touch before 11. When I pulled the lid off just now, the top was already starting to get brown. I'll be sure to leave it in long enough to get really good and dark, though...and I'll take the temperature of the bread's interior so I know it's good and done. Does anyone else wish the measurements had been given in mass? Despite seeing exactly how the measuring was done in the video? eta: Two modifications I'd look at for next time, if this is as promising as the article made it sound: swapping in some whole wheat flour, and replacing the smidge of yeast with some of my sourdough started. That's where I really miss not having masses. Guess I'll just have to weigh things next time myself. MelissaH

Can you supply addresses, possibly? Would this be good for a family driving by on the Thruway? How far off the highway are they? Do they have any unusual Mexican stuff or just the usual? Thanks for the info. ← Sodus is a ways off the Thruway, so that would not be at all practical if you're looking for a quick stop. (However, if you're coming across on 104, it's just a short detour.) Be aware that the Sodus restaurant is only open Thursday through Sunday, or something like that. The city of Canandaigua is about 7 miles (give or take, depending on which direction you're coming from) off the Thruway, so that's a bit more practical. The restaurant is at 5 Beeman Street (just off Main Street, and right by a public parking lot). There's a bit of an online menu here. MelissaH

When I'm in a good mood, I bake. When I'm in a rotten mood or when I'm frustrated, I bake more. When I'm really frustrated, I tend to make things that need more attention or hands-on work like an apple cake or even thumbprint cookies, rather than simpler things like a batch of brownies or muffins. And when I just want to beat something up, bread dough's good. The people my husband works with sometimes look forward to me being in a bad mood, because they're generally the benefactors of my moods. MelissaH

Just wondering: in your opinion, what's wrong with sour cream in a pound cake? Why are you looking for a substitution? MelissaH

There is hope for Mexican food in upstate NY. Over the weekend, I found myself at El Rincon Mexicano 2 in Canandaigua. The atmosphere was a little more upscale than at the original El Rincon in Sodus, but the food (although good, and worth going back to) was just a smidge lesser than what I'd eaten in Sodus. In particular, the salsa didn't have quite the flavor (although some of that could be due to the added difficulty in finding good tomatoes in November, compared to a month ago) and the chips were cold in Canandaigua, but warm in Sodus. The rice on Saturday was somehow a bit more boring (the peas and corn scattered perfectly sparsely throughout didn't contrast much in either texture or flavor), but a couple of spots had somehow been juiced with chile heat. The beans and chicken flautas were quite nice. However, as I said, I'd certainly not hesitate to return. If you happen to find yourself in Canandaigua, it's certainly worth also checking out the New York Wine and Culinary Center. It's located down by the lake, and although it's rather commercial, it's interesting to look at. Their Website isn't as complete as it could be, especially the class listing, but if you're there for a Saturday, it's worth doing one of the tasting sessions (either from a demonstration or based on a food or cheese and wine pairing). My husband went to a beer and food pairing session last month, with Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewing, that he enjoyed greatly. They have a hands-on kitchen, but we haven't done any of those classes. And they have a tasting room with selections arranged in flights that change regularly---complete with a nonfermented juice flight for the non-drinkers. MelissaH

I had another go at the rum-soaked vanilla cakes. This time I actually used the heavy cream called for in the recipe, rather than my milk kludge. End result: it looks prettier than before: humps and cracks on both cakes, rather than a flat top with bubbles. I haven't cut into either cake yet; that will happen tonight for dessert, after we teach a couple of students how to make a roast chicken dinner fit to impress a date. I also did the Peanuttiest Blondies. No 9-inch square pan in my house, and the only 7-by-11 pan is Pyrex and not so great for baked goods, so I used an 8-inch pan instead. The end result was fine nonetheless (but it did take the long end of the given time range to bake), and the most troublesome part was cleaning my plunger measuring cup after using it for the peanut butter. (I'd normally toss it in the dishwasher, but we were going away for a couple of days and the DW was already halfway through a cycle so I washed it by hand.) I chopped the peanuts more finely than I should have, because I'd prefer a chunkier cookie, but the taste was divine. They came along for the trip with us, and traveled well without crumbling. Is anyone else finding that their household butter consumption has skyrocketed in the last few weeks? MelissaH

Thanks for taking the time to do this. What is your process for preparing and perfecting a new recipe? Obviously, some of them originate with other people, both professional bakers and those of us not in the business. (As an aside, the notes in your new book do a particularly good job talking about the origins of, or at least the inspirations for, those recipes.) Once you get either a recipe or an inspiration, what happens from there? Do you ever just decide to make something specific and make it up as you go? How many iterations does it take to achieve what you're after? Do you ever find something that refuses to behave the way you want it to? And what do you do with the results of all your testing? (Are your neighbors thrilled to have you nearby?) MelissaH

I'll take these one at a time. We do lots of our shopping at the local Price Chopper. We pretty much ignore the other supermarket in our town because it's regularly more expensive. In season (mid-May through mid-October), we'll get produce at the farmer's market. I'll sometimes get birdseed and produce, especially apples, at the orchard store; I've noticed that their stuff generally brings more fruit flies in than supermarket produce so I'm less enamored of them than many in this area. Milk comes from the dairy store. Stuff that we want to get in bulk comes from BJ's, which is down by Wegman's. (Read on...) Of late we've been finding ourselves driving the 35 minutes to the northern part of Syracuse and the Wegman's there at least once every couple of weeks. Wegman's has more pleasant employees, does a much nicer job of displaying produce, and they generally have a better selection of everything. (Exception: they only carry HUSKED tomatillos, packed in little plastic boxes!) As of next summer, we'll probably be doing lots more of our shopping at Wegman's when one of our two bridges across the river goes down for rebuilding. Right now with no traffic, it's an 8 minute trip across town to the supermarket. We're figuring that will be tripled, at least. Once you're talking that kind of time, we might as well go to the more pleasant shopping experience. My husband's better about clipping coupons than I am. We'll take them along with us most of the time, and sometimes we'll even use them. We have all our keychain discount cards on the same keychain (grocery stores, pet stores, wine store, etc.) and that keychain lives in the car so it's always there when we need it. (Yes, we share a car.) We buy whatever we're going to need for the week. I'll sometimes make a run out mid-week, especially if I'm doing something else on that side of town (like bringing a load of trash and recycling to the transfer station). Usually more produce than meat. Unless something's on sale and we're feeding the freezer. I've never really noticed a reject bin. The orchard store will put produce that's on its last legs on special near the entrance, but the better the price, the more the fruit flies. Yes, we make a list. We generally get everything on the list, sometimes a few extras also. Without a list, we forget stuff that we need. We have a full-size fridge/freezer in the kitchen, a small chest freezer in the garage, and a wine fridge (which currently contains cheese and beer) in the family room. At the moment, our "walk-in" (the deck) is not in operation, since the outside temperature has not consistently been cold enough. Since redoing our kitchen we have much more food storage space in the kitchen, but we continue to use our hall closet as a pantry. We almost always grocery shop together. It wouldn't be as much fun otherwise! If I want to surprise my husband with something, I need to do the shopping for that alone. For that, I always make a list...and stick to it tightly. MelissaH

My second batch of sables, with hazelnuts, turned out beautifully. I made the "rolls" of dough square instead of round, to help distinguish them from the plain round cookies. They, too, were baked both sheets at once with convection on. And the applesauce spice bars are as good as everyone says they are. My husband declared them to be the best thing I've made this week, but then again he loves spicy raisiny things. In his opinion, the caramel glaze is mandatory. MelissaH

It's not completely outside the box, but...I use my potato ricer to squeeze moisture out of blanched spinach. Gets out way more water than my bare hands, and doesn't leave me with a drippy towel. A little more outside the box, I have a large drywall spatula that I use in place of a bench scraper when I want lots of width. Birthday gift from my hubby a couple of years ago. I want a lathe for my kitchen, to quickly and easily remove the skin from butternut squashes. My husband hasn't gone for it yet. MelissaH

Well...in the absence of answers, I tried it anyway. I goofed when I mixed up the batch of dough yesterday afternoon: I put in the flour, noticed that the dough looked really dry and crumbly (more so than I expected), and then realized that the egg yolks, all nice and at room temperature, were still on the counter staring at me. So I just tossed 'em into the mixer bowl anyway, figuring that the worst that would happen is that the cookies would get tougher than they should be. I formed the dough into rolls and let them sit and chill overnight. This morning, I sliced the rolls into individual cookies and baked them. I didn't bother with the egg yolk and sugar on the outside of the rolls, figuring that if they turned out to be terrible, why waste the sugar? Anyway, I lined a couple of half sheet pans with parchment, put the dough pieces on the pans, and baked them in my oven with the convection turned on. I kept the temperature at 350, as instructed, and set the timer for 20 minutes. (That was based on the batch of tollhouse cookies I did a while ago, to prove to myself that it was in fact possible to bake on multiple racks in this oven, something I've never been able to do before with any success. The tollhouse cookies turned out fine, but I think I took them out before they were completely ready.) I did rotate the pans halfway through. My results? No problems, as far as I can tell. I might have been able to leave the cookies in a touch longer (again), because the dough slices that were a little bit thicker didn't come off the parchment as cleanly as the thinner cookies. The only little bit of weirdness was that some of the cookies browned more on one side than the other; I think next time I'll try waiting a little longer to rotate the pans and see if that makes a difference. As for when the next time will be, I currently have two more rolls of dough in the fridge, ready to bake either later today or tomorrow morning. This time, I remembered to add the egg yolks at the proper time. For this batch, I substituted about 2 ounces of hazelnut flour for about 2.4 ounces of flour (since one cup of flour weighs 4.8 ounces, and according to the label on my hazelnut flour a serving of 1/4 cup is 30 g or just a hair more than an ounce, and the Playing Around section of the sable recipe suggests swapping half a cup of flour for half a cup of finely ground nuts). I have some chopped hazelnuts for the outside also. I'll bake this batch all-at-once again, and see how it goes. In the meantime, I also have everything I need for applesauce bars and their glaze. I'm going to be busy for a couple of days! MelissaH

Megan, How did you find navigating in these areas without a car? Or, did you ever wish you'd had a car? After reading about Arne's walking tour, and thinking back (or ahead) to our various cycling adventures, I'm always interested to hear about local transportation options. Do you think you would have had any trouble venturing outside the cities without a car? Were the taxis an adequate source of transporation around Champagne? (I liked your tram picture!) Also, did you ever have problems obtaining cash? We'd heard several years ago that ATMs were sometimes tricky to find. On your trip, you've managed to nail three places that we'd like to take the bike to...and the fourth (Paris) that we've visited several times already. MelissaH

Speaking of baking cookies: I have egg yolks to use up, and I'm planning a batch of sables. I'm wondering if I can bake more than one sheet at a time in my convection oven. Any advice from those of you who have those beasts? I'm still learning, as I've only had mine about three months. MelissaH

The range is a 36-inch GE Monogram dual-fuel. We opted for six burners, since we wanted the flexibility of being able to put either a griddle or a grill pan on two of the burners when we wanted to do so...or to just leave them available as burners. MelissaH

We've thought of using a pull-out, but not for the oven rack. Our intent was to use one to house a stepstool, since we now have cabinets too tall for us to reach easily. We obviously don't store things we need every day up there, but it would be nice to have a stepstool stored out of the way but easily accessible. The problem with using a pull-out for the oven is that the IKEA cabinets stand on legs, which then get hidden by a toekick board. The range is 36 inches wide, and the oven racks are about that wide as well. We don't have a gap between legs large enough to fit an oven rack, and the cabinets aren't deep enough for the rack to go in the long way. I like your thought, though, Andie. Do you have a ready source for a pull-out drawer? MelissaH edited because I don't know my toekicks from my pullouts

Time for the three-month assessment. Overall impression: we absolutely love the kitchen. We've had four different cooking-related tasks happening at once, with no space conflicts. The huge sink, in combination with the dishwasher, makes cleanup much easier than I expected. I'd go almost so far as to say I don't really mind doing dishes...almost. Speaking of the dishwasher, it took us a little while to figure out the best way for us to fit our stuff into it. But it cleans the dishes well, and is so quiet that we can't hear it run from our bedroom. An iPod in the kitchen is a very good addition. I like to make customized playlists as the occasion arises: all Mexican music for the Mexican dinner we did for my husband's research group; a playlist with everything potentially offensive edited out (such as the Avenue Q soundtrack and a couple of Uncle Bonsai and DaVinci's Notebook tracks revolving around body parts) for general occasions with guests; all the holidayish music in one place because we're on for the departmental party in December. Removing the baseboard heater hasn't caused any trouble. The kitchen stays plenty warm, between the fridge, the range, the people, and the heaters in the rest of the house. The butcher block countertop sections do what they're supposed to: give us a landing place for hot stuff from the range and a place to roll out various doughs. Wood's probably not as good as marble for the latter, but the price was right for us at this time. The butcher block is also great for making pasta: the extension gives me a place to clamp the machine, and the wood seems to be a reasonable place to hold the strips of dough I'm not currently rolling. Now, all I need is to figure out where I could put a drying rack, and what sort of drying rack will work best. The Marmoleum floor's holding up quite nicely. Care is easy. The dining room table that my parents didn't need and gave to us has been terrific. We know we could serve 12 at a sit-down dinner, although we've only done 11 so far. My mom claims that it's possible (but tight) to feed 14. I think I'll stop at 12, or we'd need to get more chairs. Our new chairs from IKEA with the red coverings are holding up well, and comfy to sit on. The cats like them very much also, so we keep a lint brush handy. The red still looks really good to us. We've figured out where we put everything, mostly. Every so often we lose something, or can't remember where we put it away. We've also swapped the contents of two drawers a couple of times, when it was clear that we'd chosen a less logical alternative. (When you continually look for napkins in the third drawer down even though you know darned well they're in the second drawer, you should probably just move them to the third drawer so they're there when you look.) My husband hasn't complained about the stand mixer or the food processor being kept out, probably because they're tucked behind the fridge, out of sight from most of the kitchen. I really love having everything I need for baking in one place. Not that baking was ever a chore for me, but now it's more fun than ever. The range: best choice we could have made. I love the burner grates, although it's still a little tricky for me to remember sometimes that handles of pots can get very hot if they're over another burner. (Elbow-length leather welding gloves are a good thing to put in a drawer next to the range, for this and other reasons.) We get lots of heat from the cooktop when we want it, but it simmers beautifully. We're glad we sprang for 6 burners (despite the questions from various other family members about whether we really needed 36 inches, and couldn't we get along with a normal range) because more than once, we've had all six going. The last time that happened was the day the research group came over. Two burners were for the griddle, which I used to cook corn tortillas (from rehydrated masa) and then to cook pepper and onion strips. Three more burners were for three different moles. And the last was for the beans. (Good thing we had a rice cooker!) The oven in the range is big enough to hold everything I've tried to put in it. The only thing I can't do is put a half-sheet pan in longways, and still close the door. But that's never been an issue, since with three racks and convection, I can bake three sheets of cookies (a whole batch of chocolate-chip cookie dough) at the same time! I have yet to find a glaring "hot spot" anywhere, and things are taking about as long as recipes say they will. It roasts chickens and other hunks of beast nicely as well. I like being able to fit potatoes on the rack next to the roaster. We haven't run a self-clean cycle yet, but probably will before the end of the year. Something that surprised me: for a big oven, it heats up pretty quickly. All I can say about the hood is WOW! Turn it on full-blast, and you can cook just about anything on the rangetop and not get odors or smoke or chile fumes outside the kitchen. It's really nice to have a drawer for the cat food. It's under the microwave, in a cabinet without a door. Originally we'd just put the cat food underneath, in the bottom of the cabinet. But we'd lucked out at IKEA in the as-is section and found a drawer for $5. We just had to buy a front for it, and now it's easy to get at everything. The front also gives just enough of an obstacle that neither cat has torn through the paper bag to get at the dry food. We get more comments about the lighting in the kitchen than anything else: first, about the general amount of light and how it's in useful places, and second, about the UFOs over the sink. People love those! We still have a couple of minor paint touchups to do. They'll be finished before the start of December, so everything's done in time for the holiday party. As far as things we'd do differently: we've fixed one already, and will be able to fix the other at a later date. The one we've fixed comes under the category of "minor calamity" because it started when I discovered water on the floor of the baking area. We pulled off the toekicks to find that the water originated from the sink area, specifically from the joint between the garbage disposal and the trap. The reason for the water: the tail of the disposal pipe was short, and didn't extend into the trap by much. Either the disposal got bumped, or the trap got bumped, or the disposal shifted a touch over the course of normal operations, and the pipe slipped out, spilling water. Then, once the water got out to the toekick area, there's a plastic covering along the bottom raw edge of the toekick and that just sucked the water all the way along by capillary action. We got a coupler to permanently solve the problem of why the pipes opened up, left the toekicks off so things would air out and dry completely, and haven't gotten around to reinstalling them yet. The thing we haven't fixed yet will get fixed when we redo the countertops with the "permanent" stone in several years. The problem: our wonderful huge oven has three racks. But some of what we cook in the oven is tall enough that one or more of the racks needs to come out of the oven. We're usually smart enough to figure out that we'll need to pull a rack out before we set it to preheat, at least. (If we don't, then we use the butcher block.) But the oven is big, so the racks are big. Our unfixed issue is that we hadn't anticipated needing a place to store oven racks other than inside the oven. For now, we just either leave them on the butcher block next to the range, or lean them against the dining room or living room wall (around the corner). Our proposed fix: when we replace the countertops, it will be easy to move a set of base cabinets down by 3 inches or so, to give a small gap between the range and the side of the cabinet. (We'll bring the countertop right up to the edge of the range again.) We'll be able to slide any unused oven racks into the gap for temporary storage. We could even line the floor and walls of the gap with sheet metal, in case we wanted to be able to store a hot oven rack there. We'll just lose a small amount of the overhang, but I'll still have plenty of space to clamp the pasta machine. Would we do it again? In a heartbeat. We still haven't added up all the receipts yet, but we believe we're pretty close to our budget. Everyone who's seen the kitchen thinks it's very "us," but that's not why we did it, of course. We're happy with it, and in the end that's all that matters. MelissaH

I guess we got lucky. MelissaH

I made a pair of rum-soaked vanilla cakes yesterday. (I didn't have any cream on hand, so I subbed in milk with some extra melted butter.) Mine didn't turn out as gorgeous as Patrick's (in fact, they bordered on downright ugly, with a kind of bubbly top and no hump or crack at all) but the taste was divine. I'll have to try this again the next time I have cream in the house, so I'll know whether the ugliness was caused by my substitution. MelissaH

I did as Marlene suggested, and held it in a barely warm oven. It worked fine, and both of us definitely enjoyed the results. I think this one's going to be a "keeper" for us. Thanks! MelissaH

I guess I could do that. The oven's electric, and I'm not generally as apprehensive about leaving electric appliances on while I'm not around. The cooktop's gas, and therefore out of the question. MelissaH

I have a batch of Marlene's short ribs about ready to go. I browned the ribs in the oven Tuesday evening, sauteed the onions, carrots, etc. on the stove and then added the liquids and boiled that for a bit. When the ribs were done (and a frightening amount of fat had rendered out!), I put them in my crockpot, added the liquid etc. and turned the crockpot on low. Then yesterday I pulled the ribs out of the crockpot (the string made that part easier than I would have thought), strained and degreased the remaining liquid, and refrigerated the two parts separately. My plan for dinner tonight is to finish the sauce with mustard and thickener and reheat the ribs through. The kicker: I'll be eating early, because I have band practice tonight. My husband, on the other hand, has meetings all afternoon, and he won't even be home until after I've left. What's going to be the best way to manage a two-shift schedule for keeping the short ribs tasty and the sauce thick? My initial thought was to finish the sauce on the stove, add the ribs and heat through, and then put sauce and ribs back into the crockpot for the duration. Will the beurre manie thickening hold up through what could potentially be three hours in a crockpot? Is there a better option? I'm not comfortable leaving stuff on the stove if nobody's around to keep an eye on it. MelissaH

In this case, the easiest thing to do was ask the author how much a cup of flour weighs: 4.8 oz is about 135 g.

Another potential problem with pot fillers: what happens if they start leaking? If your sink faucet leaks, the water runs into the sink. If your pot filler leaks, the water runs into your range. We installed a small prep sink (basically a bar sink) on the same side of the kitchen as the cook top. Our pass-through galley kitchen gets a lot of traffic, so we wanted to avoid collisions between children, dogs, and big pots of boiling water. Even though the prep sink is small, we have found it to be incredibly useful. Good luck with your renovation. ← Agreed on the pot filler issue. We didn't put one in when we did our reno because we've both worked in enough labs to know that if there's a faucet, there should always be a drain underneath to avoid a flood. Keep us all posted on how your kitchen goes! MelissaH

For us, the rice cooker is the easiest way by far to make rice. (An appliance timer works wonders: set everything up in the morning, plug the rice cooker into the timer, and set the timer to turn on about half an hour or so before you'll get home.) However, I can see a pressure cooker as being particularly useful for preparing the stuff to go on or with the rice. Are there any high-altitude pressure cookers on this thread? Any comments about that? (I'm pretty close to sea level, but my parents are at about 8600 feet.) MelissaH

Good question, Kim! I haven't been able to figure out anything definitively, but from looking on the Fagor Web site, I think (if I'm comparing correctly) that the Duo has two pressure settings (high and low) and the Splendid has only one. The Duo is the one Cook's Illustrated likes. Can anyone out there elucidate? MelissaH