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I think the brining experiemnts was in the context of brining pork to make ham, so the brine would be the usual strength, and the meat would be ham size. I guess the dye was fluorscene (not edible). However I guess this would apply to any meat. Prof Hall's MRI results indicate Okay, but what does soaking ham sized chunks in a fluid of the "usual strength", (for making ham anyway), containing an inedible dye, have to do with most of us consider to be "brining"? It sounds like an awful lot of work to establish something I would have simply stipulated to, that is; "very different rates of penetration along or across the muscle fibres." I hope they weren't working under a government grant?

Meat and/or vegetables wrapped in dough are endemic to nearly all cultures, as you state, as a means of stretching the available protein foods, but they have several other advantages too. Scraps and parts that might not be enticing when served alone could be disguised, both in appearance and taste, by using this method of preparation. Things like internal organs and meat beginning to spoil could be utilized in this way. When prepared they became easily portable and required only one pot for cooking and serving of the entire meal. This would have been a very important consideration for nomadic peoples. Also, once boiled they would keep for several days longer than the raw ingredients alone, in the case of pelmeni and the Siberians, they could even be frozen for use at a much later date. Especially in historical cooking, Necessity is the Mother of Invention. SB

Pelmeni are Siberian in origin. They could be considered the original "frozen convenience food"? A citation from the best recipe I could find at: http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/food/food.html "When one says "pelmeni" he thinks of the traditional Siberian pelmeni with a meat filling and frozen before fhey are cooked. Frozen pelmeni are also traditional in the northern regions of Russia. Freezing gives them a peculiar sapid flavour. When the frosts set in, pelmeni are made in quantities running into the thousands. They are laid on floured boards, carried outside to freeze, then packed in large sacks and stored away until needed. " Like most traditional ethnic foods, there are myriad variations on the theme.

I'm eating less oil and drinking less gasoline.

From Macworld magazine, a recipe to celebrate Mac's 20th Anniversay created by Food Networks' Alton Brown: http://www.macworld.com/downloads/2004/07/...beat-recipe.pdf SB (looks interesting?)

I did, that's how I knew my cookies were 13 grams rather than 12. Just obought a nice digital scale for baking purposes Then get the perosn who wrote the recipe a scale!

Do your measuring by weights rather than by volume and you'll come closer to the expected yield.

For a 9" straight Rhubarb Pie, (wo/strawberries), I'd use 2Tbl Minute Tapioca. I would mix all the filling ingredients together before putting them into the shell and let it st for a little while to let the tapioca soften up.

I don't get it either. That one comped meal, probably led to most of your guests wanting to go back. While if it had just been a normal experience maybe only a few would. The big picture escapes people sometimes. Most often the manager on site is not the owner, and is rightfullly careful about giving away somebody else's money. I used to encourage the staff to error on the side of the customer in cases like this, and just leave a short explanatory note in the till if they weren't going to see me soon. I found that it made a real good impression if the manger would pick up a customers tab and pay with money out of his own pocket, which would, of course, be reimbursed. If a staffer appeared to be a little too generous, or we suspected that their friends or family were taking advantage of the liberal policy, I would warn them the first time, and the next time deduct it from their pay. Three stikes, of course, and you're out. (but it never went that far)

No fair! You left us all in suspense! [pouting emoticon] Okay, I'll bang the ending out a bit later on today. I let you know in advance that I didn't get pummeled. In fact, it turned into a moral victory of sorts. SB (arm twisted)(but can still type) A RANDOM ACT OF RESTAURANT STAFF KINDNESS cont. So there I was, leaning up against the front of the pizza joint, armed with a pair of pliers and reinforced by the physically unimposing Lightning twirling the pointed spoon that Lil the waitress had provided to us for use in the impending battle against two large drunken ruffians. The best I could hope for was that either the police would be stropping by for coffee, (the pizzeria owner's son was on the force), or that restaurant patrons who I knew would intervene before we were pummeled too badly. Right then our fortunes took a strange turn for the better. Our adversaries turned around and set out across the street towards the town's Pool Hall. They may as well have walked right into my living room. In fact, if you only took waking hours into account, I spent far more time at the Pool Hall than at home. My despair suddenly turned to boldness, I crossed the street with Lightning in tow. Zippy Zollar was behind the counter in the Pool Hall reading the paper. "I didn't see nobody", was his reply when we asked where the guys went, but just then I spotted them starting down the stairs to the basement. Although I hadn't recognized them as being locals, they apparently were familiar enough with the town to know about the late night poker games in the Pool Hall basement. This was really looking too good to be true. We went downstairs and walked around to the opposite side of the card table from where our now-turned-potential-victims were standing. My friend Polar Bear was acting as House Man, and the card players at the time, Geno, Kocko, HJ, Secundo, Johnson from Wisconsin, (whose name wasn't Johnson and wasn't from Wisconsin), and the Spagnolo Brothers were all familiar to me. I leaned over and whispered in Geno's ear for him to look at the two guys standing across the table, whisper to Kocko on his right to do the same thing, and then pass it around the table. Before the message reached the first Spagnolo Brother the thugs were hightailing it up the stairs. By the time Lightning and I got around the table and back upstairs they were nowhere in sight. Zippy motioned up the street with a nod of his head, and when we got outside a car was already pulling away from the curb and quickly driving away. We returned the spoon to Lil at the restaurant the next evening, and she got a good laugh from the story.

When I was growing up we kept two jars of peanut butter on hand. Skippy for the kids and a spread called Hazel for my Dad. Hazel was unhomogenized and the oil would seperate out on the top every day. We only got to eat it if we ran out of Skippy so we thought it was exotic and special. It had quite a grainy texture and a fairly sharp flavor. I don't think it's produced any more. A few weeks ago I was going to try Cooks Illustrated's recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies. My market's "out-of-code" basket had three jars of a brand called Roadside Farms marked way down which I figured that would be good enough for my purpose, so I purchased one. It was the best tasting peanut butter I can recall. It had a very pronounced toasted peanut flavor and lots of chunks. It wasn't overly sweet like most commercial brands, but it might have been a little salty for some people's taste. I went back t the market and bought the last two jars. It worked great in the cookies too, and the recipe is reproduced below. Cooks Illustrated titled their article, "The Best Peanut Butter Cookie". Here's a slightly modified version based on my experience: 2 1/2 Cups AP Flour 1/2 tsp Baking Soda 1/2 tsp Baking Powder 1/2 tsp Salt 1/2 lb Butter (2 sticks) 1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar (packed) 1 Cup Sugar 1 Cup Crunchy Peanut Butter (more on this later *) 2 Eggs 2 tsp Vanilla 1 Cup Roasted Salted Peanuts (ground in food processor to resemble bread crumbs) Set an oven rack at low center and preheat oven to 350 Sift together Flour, Baking Soda, Baking Powder and Salt Beat Butter until creamy Add Sugars, beat until fluffy Beat in Peanut Butter Beat in Eggs (one at a time) and Vanilla Gently Stir in the Flour Mixture and Ground Peanuts Roll dough into balls about 2 Tbl, and place them about 2" apart on a parchment lined baking sheet (about 18 balls/sheet) Using the back of a fork dipped in cold water make a criss-cross pattern on each cookie, pressing to form a disc about 1" across and 1/2" thick Bake cookies until puffed and just starting to brown around the edges, (CI says 10-12 min but my oven took 14) Let cookies set on baking sheet 4 min before removing to rack to cool. (CI says it makes 3 dozen but I got 4?) They are indeed beautiful Peanut Butter Cookies. Crisp on the bottom and edges and chewy in the middle, without being too grainy. A real nice roasted peanut flavor too. * In their usual AR manner, CI even tested various peanut butters for use in this recipe and recommends Jif over Peter Pan, Reeses or Skippy. I'd previously tried using Skippy, but the cookies turned out a bit oily. I used an off brand called Roadside Farms, distributed by Carriage House Companies, and they were great! (Bonus Tip Included: To accurately measure peanut butter without making a mess, weight it! The label on my jar indicated that 2 Tbl = 32 grams, so 1 Cup = 16 Tbl = 256 grams)

No fair! You left us all in suspense! [pouting emoticon] Okay, I'll bang the ending out a bit later on today. I let you know in advance that I didn't get pummeled. In fact, it turned into a moral victory of sorts. SB (arm twisted)(but can still type)

I thought that the waitress giving him a shank (in the prison sense not the food sense) was the act of kindness. That was more or less the intended inference, in that it was far and beyond anything that might have been expected from either the waitress' job description or her personality. From Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: Main Entry: kind·ness Pronunciation: 'kIn(d)-n&s Function: noun 1 : a kind deed : FAVOR PS: The ending ot the story is colorful and interesting, although somewhat anti-climatic. It has nothing to do with food, and so rather than run the risk of being cited by the eG moniters again, I ended the story.

I've spent a lot of time in bars and restaurants, both serving and being served. Since "random acts of kindness" are words I strive to live by, your question forced me to think long and hard before coming up with this reply. The most unusual example of a restaurant staff member's extra consideration was something that happened to me many years ago. My friend Lightning was a guitar player in a local rock band. One night, after he finished playing a dance job, we had arranged to meet some girls at a local pizzeria that was a popular destination after the town's bars closed. He and I arrived somewhat late after helping to pack up the band equipment. The restaurant's seating consisted of a row of booths along the wall opposite the entryway, several small tables in a row down the center of the dining room, and two larger round tables near the door, alongside the kitchen area, that usually wern't occupied except when the place was really busy, as it was that night. The girls we knew were eating a pizza at the round table nearest to the door. Lightning decided to order something to eat and I was just going to have coffee. At the other round table sat a couple of older, fairly large rough looking characters who had obviously spent quite a few hours in the bars up the street. They were acting up, making the usual wise-guy remarks about long hair, clothing, suspected sexual orientation etc. One of the girls had to work the next morning and asked me if she could get a ride home. She didn't live far away and since I wasn't eating it was no problem. While driving her home I mentioned how obnoxious the two guys at the other table had been. She told me that before I arrived they had been behaving even worse. After hearing her relate a few stories I became incensed. I dropped her off and sped back to the restaurant. I searched under the car seat for anything I could use as a weapon, but all I could come up with was pair of pliers, which I stuck in my pocket. Back inside the other girls had finished eating and were getting ready to leave a bit earlier than they might have otherwise, no doubt in part to the unpleasant atmosphere. The fact that this now deprived Lightning and I of any chance at some pleasurable female companionship later on didn't put me in any better mood. While Lightning ate I had a cup of coffee and tried to relax. The two clowns next to us were still trying to keep up what they considered to be a line of witty banter. They even made rude commments to Lil, the grandmotherly waitress. She was used to putting up with drunks on the night shift, and while she maintained her cheerful disposition I could tell she was noticably irritated by this particular pair. While she refilled my coffee cup I alluded to their antics and she gave me a knowing nod. Just then one of their jackets fell off the back of the chair where it had been hanging and landed near my feet. I picked it off the floor with the toe of my boot and kicked it off to the side, making sure to leave a dirty footprint. Now the drunks quit talking and just concentrated on glaring at us. Moments later Lil came back with our bill, and while glancing furtivly around she took a long sharply pointed metal spoon out of her apron and slipped it to me. I took out the money to cover our bill, and just as the two thugs at the next table got up to leave I handed the spoon under the table to Lightning and motioned with my head for him to follow me. We elbowed our way between them as they went out the door, and once outside we leaned up against the front of the building. Our adversaries stod at the curb facing us. I'm an average sized guy, and I was young and in pretty good shape, but they were noticably larger than me, and from outward appearance not unfamiliar with the physical resolution of conflicts. Unfortunately, Lightning was what you might politely describe as scrawny. In a fight he would doubtless prove to be a hinderance more than anything else, but under the circumstances he was all the help I could expect. While I made what I hoped were menacing sounds clicking the pliers from under the car seat, he twirled the long pointed spoon that Lil the waitress had so kindly supplied us with. {The owner of this pizzaria wasn't famous for being easy on his staff, and would have been loath to intercede on their behalf in a dispute with a paying customer in any case. Years later, when I worked in the bar and restaurant business myself, one thing I would not stand for was a customer harassing the waitstaff. In instances where it was a close call I would error on the side of the employee. Many times, after ejecting a customer out for abusive behavior, I paid for a ticket out of my own pocket, remembering to include a nice tip.)

From Part 3. "Lack of the olfactory sense is another circumstance that connects issues of texture and eating. The less one can smell and taste food the more important the feel of food in their mouth may become." I have a friend who was born without a sense of smell. He can remember when he was a child being confused when people talked about smelling things, but it wasn't until he was around twelve years old that his mother took him to a doctor who figured out the problem. Since he'd never had any sense of smell he didn't considered it a disability. In fact, when he was in the janitorial business it was actually an advantage at times. He could perform unpleasent cleaning jobs without having to deal with the nausea associated with bad odors. He was a pretty good eater, and being a single parent he had even become a fairly passable cook. He relied a lot on feedback to make up for his own dificiencies in the area of flavor distictions. Italian food was one of his specialties and favorites, and he had even worked in the kitchen of a local Italian restaurant. I don't recall anything else unusual about his eating habits, other than that he had a remarkable affinity for chocolate milk.

I sometimes like to chide eGullet for being ostentatious or snobbish, occationally to the point of having my posts pulled, but I forgive them all their tresspasses for having provided a forum for this discussion. Beautiful! THANX SB

Here is a cite for a place that sells special kitchen tools for people with disabilities: http://www.dynamic-living.com/gadgets.htm Some of them, like the Stovetop Pan Holder designed for people with one arm, would be handy for those of use with two.

I'm afraid that "wild flavor" is too often the result of meat that hasn't been handled properly. Especially with larger animals like deer it's almost physicaly impossible for an individual to bleed, gut, cool and age a carcass properly. Also, wild game quite naturally tastes different depending on it's age and the locale it came from. Although I personally don't hunt, and don't really care all that much for wild game, my Brother has hunted all over the US and in many foreign countries including Bhutan and Mongolia, so I've been able to sample some pretty exotic fare. Venison from an old swamp buck tastes and smells just how you would expect old boots you wore in a swamp to taste and smell. On the other hand, meat from a young doe shot in Mississippi, where it fed on garden crops, if properly bled and butchered is like a lean tangy beef. If any of you should ever be blessed with a dead deer, here is my personal recipe for venison sausage: mise en place 1 Deer 1 Pig Seasonings Skin Deer Grind Pig, Season to Taste Make moccasins from Deer hide Make sausage from ground pork Dispose of Deer carcass

I wondered about that was myself. I emailed my Sister, and here is her explanation: "actually it is just pheasant strips wrapped around a half of snail & sauteed in herb butter...cutting the snails in half with scissors is "interesting" I also have a good escargot recipe (adapted from some tapas we had in Chicago last year) that even people who don't like snails like... you put the snails in the cuisinart to mince not puree, drain it, then mix butter, herbs, parm cheese (about equal amounts of snail & other mix) put on croute, top with aioli, broil" Not being a big fan of escargot, I think I'll try a more traditional preparation with the frozen pheasant breast she left me.

Thank for reminding me. Since I'm not much of a hunter or great fan of cooking wild game myself I hadn't thought of this. As an example, my Sister and SO in North Dakota host a Wild Game Feed every year. This year's event had an Iron Chef theme, using wild game as the "secret" ingredient. Here is the menu: MENU - Simpson Annual Wild Game Feed 2004 Black Hills Trout Spread with Crackers Antelope Salami Antipasto Simpsons Minnesota Wild Rice with Onion and Celery Sharptail Grouse Grouse and Spinach Ravioli with Glace Sauce and Pine Nuts Crockpot Grouse with Herbs and Mushroom Gravy With Truffle Oil for both Chinese Ring-Necked Pheasant Pheasant Escargot with French Bread Herbed Pheasant and Green Chili Cream Cheese Rollups With Homemade Raspberry Jam Canada Goose Goose, Pork and Sage Sausage and Sauerkraut, Apples and Onions Goose Taquitos with Guacamole Duck Shredded Braised Duck with Caramelized Figs and Onions Or Pistachio Orange Gremolata Bacon Wrapped Duck Breast with Chinese Dipping Sauce Dessert Raspberry Alize Cake I was invited to sit on the tasting panel but was unfortunately unable to attend. I did, however, get some leftover Duck with Carmelized Figs and Onions, which was excellent.

RE: "Everyone says bartenders are the ones in the know. I say, if you want to know what's really going on, ask the accountant." An accountant, of course, can't discuss a client's affairs. There are, however, two businesses that are directly proportional to the amount of sales, and no trick bookkeeping can hide them either. The most reliable sources of information about how a bar or restaurant is doing are the linen service and garbage pick-up. This is one reason why these two businesses were traditionally controlled by mob people. It's a pretty accurate way to detect skimming in establishments where they had an "unsecured" financial interest. IRS-CID employs similar procedures.

My late Grandfather knew a lot of old vaudeville tunes, which he could belt out in a quite passable baritone voice. I remember one song about "The Biggest Liar to Ever Sail On the Ocean" which contained a verse about pirates coming aboard. It contained a line, probably quite risque for its day, about the pirate captain being hit "in the pants" with "an ossified big baloney".

Employee X shows us how an incompetent restaurant runs, from its accountant's perspective. Tony Bourdain wrote the intro and called the series a samizdat Kitchen Confidential. I can't wait for part 2. * * * Be sure to check The Daily Gullet home page daily for new articles (most every weekday), hot topics, site announcements, and more. How did you do this. If I go to General Food Topics I don't even see this thread, and I can't see any way to "quote" and post off of the article? SB (not high tech)

amen We often forget that many of these people are within a generation or two of just having come to this Counrty, and/or grew during the Depression and WWII. To them, having enough to eat qualifys as luxury.

Pick Me! Three for three!