*Deborah*

Moosh, never mind, my darling! your bread was beautiful!!! just stunning!!!

Moosh is adding beautiful pics, I will addmy lame ones: The salad with the fried goat cheese/brie...mine was a bit lopsided, some came out much more photogenic: The gnocchi; mine are at the top of the pic, pretty photogenic UNTIL THEY WERE COOKED (never mind, just look at them being cute): Et puis la baguette:

Sorry, yes Sarah, we go back and forth. Chef begins by telling us and showing us how he does something, then we do it, and he walks through all the stations to see if we are doing it correctly and to answer questions (e.g., he kneaded my gnocchi and told me I could use more flour in there). Meanwhile, we have students from the real vocational cooking class who help us out and prep stuff and answer questions, too.

I've only had pots of tea here in conjunction with the whole "high tea" schemozzle, but I would say that for a pot with 2 solid cups of good tea, I would pay something like $4 or $5 or up to maybe $8 depending on the venue. It depends if this is tea after a meal, or tea in the mid-morning or afternoon; if it's a lingering afternoon pot of tea that you're ordering a $4-$7 pastry or other sweet with, then the higher end of the range. But for a 1-cup pot after dinner, $5 would be the outside I think. Hmm, not sure if that's helpful

OH and how could I forget the mini-donuts so hot they nearly seared my tongue, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, at Trout Lake for the Lantern Festival!! MMMMmmm, delish!

I don't know how ours compares except to say that it was very cute before it was cooked, and certainly light...so light it all washed away in the sauce The sauce started with garlic and small diced (brunoise) red pepper, sautéed in butter and olive oil; added chicken stock and white wine; S&P; boiled to reduce; added the cooked gnocchi and some fresh basil. This was served with a lovely seared halibut and some green beans.

I love doughnuts! I used to eat quite a few Dunkin' Donuts in Montreal back when. Timmy's have gotten worse, IMO, since they centralized production...and if you're lucky enough to get 'em fresh, it's OK, but if not, bleah. Lee's are quite nice. I had a Krispy Kreme once and nearly went into diabetic shock...scary! If I had to choose one breakfast pastry overall, I'd have a hard hard choice between a good, fresh croissant aux amandes like I used to get in Montréal; a cheese Danish like I used to get in Philadelphia; and a really good, gooey bear claw with almonds on top. A real bear claw, like they have at The Bay's bakery, IIRC, not these insipid things from Timmy's. What are those things? they're sort of fritters, they sure ain't no bear claws. Oh, an honourable mention to the savoury choice for *any* meal of the day: a hot, fresh St-Viateur sesame bagel spread with salmon mousse from the fish market on Ave du Parc.

I'm not sure how much of the mush is the possible lack of flour, and how much is due to the fact that it was certainly overcooked (mea culpa a little bit but not entirely!). I don't need a board: mine came out very nice right off my fork. Sorry, my pics are still on the camera, at home...but next time, those nice deep grooves will be holding a lot of sauce!

Holy Baguettes! I was a bit nervous, but I just ate half of my baguette (well, almost half!) dipped in hot chocolate for breakfast, and it was GOOOD! which kind of made up for the sad mush my cute gnocchi turned into... I will have pics later.

On the topic of duck legs, but uncooked: does anyone recommend one butcher over another? I have a recipe for duck legs I'd like to try out and would prefer not to get the whole bird.

I would use Grand Marnier in the cake, and then add some GM to the whipped cream if possible; otherwise, you could provide an orange coulis (I've never seen one but assume it can be done?) or an orange-flavoured sauce anglaise for plating. If candied oranges were not available, it could be plated with very thin orange slices.

Whatever Puddifoot may have on the restaurant side, they don't seem to have any on the retail side. (They did have some small spoons in white porcelain but they seemed perhaps too delicate, and not shaped like the examples of marrow spoons that I have seen...to me they looked as though they might snap if you dug in...more suited to mustard than marrow.) They took my name and will get back to me during the week when the wholesale side is available. I will keep you updated!

Having no experience with this...do you have any suggestions? I would like to make a coffee flavored one. What type of crunch would you put on the bottom? I'm thinking of whipped cream decorated with chocolate covered coffee beans around the edge and mayan chocolate drizzled across the top. RLB torte seemed so simplistic I was afraid to try it! Oh yeah, can I just add some Kahlua to it for flavoring or will the liquid mess it up? I'm thinking 1/4 to 1/2 a cup ← One TBSP per lb. of chocolate can go right in the Oblivion torte, mix it into the chocolate/butter while it's cooling. I have used Chambord Royale (raspberry) and Kahlua with good results.

Reading this blog, I keep looking over my shoulder to make sure my two cats don't see the fantastic treats yours gets, or I'll never hear the end of it! Lovely blog!

Or take your $200 to Hy's Encore and have a Caesar made tableside, a decent steak, and the best reason to break your diet that doesn't involve chocolate: the best cheese toast ever concocted. (I have nothing in particular against Morton's, although I've only eaten at the one in Philadelphia.)

Yes - you're correct about the continents, but honestly, other than roast penguin I can't think of a single thing that grows or lives in Antarctica other than the penguins. Or you could consider the ice in the pre-dinner cocktails the Antarctic contribution. So that leaves six. You could think of a famous dish from three or four continents and do the wine from the remaining ones. And since Vegemite sandwiches probably wouldn't impress anyone, I'd suggest sticking with wine from Down Under instead. ← How about gourmet sno-cones? That could be really fun! Mizducky... let us know what you end up choosing! Please! ← North America: Dungeness Crab amuse Australia: Prawns in a lime and ginger glaze Asia: Indonesian cucumber salad Europe: Risotto Antarctica: granité Africa: a Tagine South America: Tres Leches cake or something with Dulce de Leche

I've had a few PMs recommending (as did peppyre) Puddifoot. I will go exploring there tomorrow, and I'll let you know! Thanks for your help, everyone!

Sorry, Jason, despite a large Ukrainian genetic component, it's all largely just "stuff in dough" to me.

This might be too many courses/dishes, but how about one course or dish from each continent? "Around the World in 8 Dishes" or what have you (wait, how many continents are there again? ) You can have a nice variety of different things that way.

Kolachy:pierogy as char siu bao:potsticker More or less.

Ooooh, thank you, Mooshala!

I haven't called anyone, I hoped the collective brain of my eG Borg could summon the knowledge for me

I could have very intimate dinner parties!!!

Ah, yes, but $200/spoon is a bit steep for me!

Yeah...the $600 spoon is a bit out of my range And plastic sounds fairly abominable. I suppose I should be happy to have a reason to stroll through antique stores, but I was hoping there were some nice, new, non-tarnishing ones that someone would have seen on their rounds. I have been avoiding cookware shops as being extremely detrimental to my Visa balance.