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

My husband and I are considering the acquisition of a pressure cooker. We think we'll use it for making stocks and soups, as well as expediting dinner prep on nights we do stews or braised dishes. And probably other things too, when I figure out what-all it can do. (Probably not beans, though: I've always been happy with doing those overnight in a crockpot.) Very often we're just cooking for ourselves, but when we make stock we do largeish batches, which we reduce and freeze. We also sometimes host a pre-hockey game dinner with a bunch of friends who also have season tickets; it's not atypical for us to have 8 at our table and less than 1.5 hours to cook and eat before walking back up to campus through the snow and wind. (Screams stew or chili or soup, doesn't it? ) I've read this thread from last year. I've also looked at the Cook's Illustrated article from January 2005, which tested 8-quart models and ranked the Fagor Duo as their top pick. That brand also got kudos here, and is consequently quite high on my list. Those of you who have pressure cookers (now a year older), how do you like yours? Is there anything I should think about that hasn't yet been mentioned? If we get one, I'm definitely thinking stainless steel rather than aluminum. Would you get an 8-quart model, or do you wish (or are you glad you have) a 10-quart-er? Are there any must-have accessories? (I should note here that we have a 22 quart pressure canner, so it's unlikely I'll be doing any canning in the smaller one.) Thanks, Melissa

My husband and I have not done a walking tour, but we've done a few cycling tours (on our own rather than with a tour company, carrying all our gear on the bike). And we've always fallen right into the swing of things, and somehow even been mistaken for locals once or twice. I think any non-car mode of transportation is a good one to forge a connection. Anywhere. MelissaH

I'll second Owen's recommendation of El Rincon. My husband and I ate at the original in Sodus a couple of weeks ago, and it was excellent. From Oswego, it was about 45 minutes down route 104. (YMMV. ) MelissaH

And I just had a second go with the Dimply Plum Cake. We're getting deeper into fall, and the Italian prune plums won't be around for much longer, although the ones I got at our orchard store were once again very sweet and even a little overripe. Last time I made it, I'd thought the cake was too sweet and the plums too tart in comparison. So this time, I cut the brown sugar in the cake batter to half a cup, and used the last quarter cup to sprinkle on top of the cake, aiming (and mostly hitting) the plums and not the cake batter. The cake itself (made with 7.2 ounces of flour as weighed on my scale ) was much better, because it was less sweet. And because this time I took it out before it overcooked, it didn't feel dry, like I needed to guzzle milk or tea or something alongside. But alas, the plums were still mouth-puckeringly tart in comparison to the cake. Worse, the sugar directly on top of the plums drew out more moisture, so I had to wait much longer than the prescribed 15 minutes before unmolding the cake from the pan. After half an hour, I worried that the cake would get soggy, but there was still liquid on top that hadn't soaked back in. I wound up placing a rack on top of the pan, and inverting it over the sink. I'll keep the sugar reduced next time, because I think it tastes better that way and because it hasn't hurt the texture of the cake. But I need to try something different for the plums. Maybe I'll try making an orange juice and confectioners' sugar glaze, and applying it to the top of the cake through a ziplock bag's snipped off corner after it comes out of the oven? That way I can amp up the orange flavor, because it's getting somewhat overshadowed by the other flavors...and also make use of the denuded orange that donated its zest to the cake. Next time I may also need to try a different fruit, since the local plums are pretty much over and done till next year. MelissaH

I made another Honey's Apple Cake, except that this time it was a Pear Cake. I used Bartletts, almost but not quite ripe, this time. And it worked beautifully well. I kept the cinnamon in, and was quite happy with the result. The little Seckel pears were more delicious, with almost a spicy flavor. But the Bartletts were soooooo much easier! They were much bigger, so the peeling and seeding part was less onerous. And because the Bartletts were firmer than the Seckels, they were easier to handle overall. I did like the way the Bartletts held their shape, probably because they really needed about another day or two to ripen. Next time I'll try with riper big pears of some kind, I think, and see how much of a difference that makes in the overall cake, or whether the filling turns to mush very quickly (in which case maybe turning on the convection to my oven might help?). Part of me says to just use the Seckels despite the size issues, because they disappear in short order but we can get Boscs and Bartletts and other big pears for more of the year. Oh, did I mention that it's great for breakfast? MelissaH edited to be more specific.

Oh my. Oh my. Oh my. I can't wait to read the rest. And Klary, your refrain reminds me of what I say in the supermarkets of Amsterdam: "Why can't we get this at home?" (I usually say this standing in front of the cheese selection...or in the chocolate aisle.) MelissaH

Well, at least for now, I think we're all off the hook about toothpaste. A small tube should fit into a quart-size ziplock bag without a problem...along with a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer, a smidge of lotion, and all the other comforts of home. And at least for now, those water bottles purchased on the concourse don't need to be hidden in the carry-on bag either! MelissaH

yep. I want to bake bread. I have an 8 hour work day. Within that work day I'd like to produce bread. It can't bee too terribly time consuming or difficult as I must do it in conjunction with my schedule, but a little challenge never killed anyone. I work in a teat kitchen so we have well calibrated ovens etc. ps nice boules ← Don't overlook the possibilities of overnight work. You could set up a starter last thing of the day just before you go home, let it do its thing overnight, and then come in a smidge early the next morning to finish the dough, let it rise till lunch, then shape and proof, and bake last thing in the day. Or you could time things so that you do your last rise overnight, low temperature, and then bake in the morning. Breadmaking does take time, but very little of the time is active on your part, and you can even juggle the times somewhat by watching your temperatures and the amount of yeast you use. MelissaH

I made a Dimply Plum Cake last night, using some of the Italian prune plums from Thursday night's farmer's market. I didn't take a picture because it looked remarkably like the one in the book. I left it in the pan for the 15 minutes described in the book, and the cake unmolded perfectly and without a single drip of plummy juice. Taste-wise: pretty good last night, although the texture had dryness issues because I probably baked it about two minutes longer than it really needed. The combination of plum, orange, and cardamom is a winner. This morning the texture was better, although still a tad dry right around the edges because of my goof. Whipped cream probably would have fixed everything, but I didn't have any on hand. My bigger issue is that the plums, although very ripe and dripping with juice, were not quite sweet enough to play well with the very sweet cake. I think that next time (and I have enough plums left to try again) I'll probably take some of the brown sugar out of the cake batter, spread it on a plate, and dip the cut sides of the plums in before applying to the top of the cake. I'm hoping the added sweetness there will take some of the jolt out. I'm also starting to think about baking individual cakes in a muffin tin, to give it the potential to get a little fancier but without too much more work. MelissaH

As snowangel requested of me in a PM, the sourdough waffle recipe is now a part of RecipeGullet. You can find it here. MelissaH

Sourdough Waffles Serves 4 as Main Dish. My favorite waffle recipe is originally from King Arthur, and it's written for a fairly goopy starter (not a firm starter). I refresh mine with equal masses of water and flour, a little more than 4 oz. each per refreshment. This is one of my favorite things to do with the part of the starter that gets removed in the refreshing. I generally don't measure too carefully when I make these, which is atypical of me! Sometime, I'll try the method Cook's Illustrated recommends in an article from March 2004 or thereabouts: heating the buttermilk, mixing all the ingredients (including the eggs but completely omitting the baking soda from the batter) together from the start, and refrigerating the batter overnight to rise. I'm concerned that if I left this particular version in my fridge, my starter would be too sluggish to do much. But if you try it before I get to it, let me know how it works for you! 2 c flour (can use half WW; about 9 oz) 2 T sugar, more or less 2 c buttermilk (I generally don't have buttermilk on hand, so I about half-fill my 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup with plain yogurt and then fill the cup with regular milk, making sure I stir a bit to avoid an 1 c sourdough starter (usually works out to about 8 or 9 oz, but I use whatever I remove from my starter jar just before adding water and flour to refresh) 2 eggs 1/4 c oil or melted butter (melted butter tastes better, but always seizes when I try to mix it in) 1 tsp salt (I use kosher) 1 tsp baking soda Mix flour and sugar in whatever bowl you'll use for the batter. I like an 8-cup bowl with a spout and a handle, because it makes it easy to get the batter into the waffle iron. Mix together milk and starter. Break up the starter as well as you can. Stir into flour. Cover (I use a shower cap swiped from a hotel) and leave out overnight. In the morning, blend in eggs, oil, salt, and baking soda. My Black and Decker waffle iron (makes square waffles, which can easily be divided into four quarters) needs about 3/4 cup of batter per waffle. Any leftovers freeze well, and can be toasted straight from the freezer for future breakfasts. Keywords: Vegetarian, Waffle Iron, Easy, Breakfast, Brunch ( RG1806 )