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Can you recommend any specific brands? I know SFA about beer. ← Spaten Franziskaner makes a pretty good hefeweizen in my opinion, and you can get that in Chicago I would bet. Pyramid Brewery is located in Seattle, so that might be able to be shipped? or possibly available in your area at a beer store. Magic Hat has one of my favorite hefeweizen's even though I guess its an "american" version.

Tell me more. ← I dont know, something about amaretto macaroons, an espresso chocolate dessert and a full bodied sangiovese just makes me a happy happy person.

oh speaking of beer, if its allowable, smoked bock/porter blends well with a bittersweet chocolate and I love hefeweizen with white chocolate, especially if you add a little citrus to it.

well with amaretto I think of sangiovese, but then again I could be biased.

I think the lacking question(s) so far is, what are you doing with the chocolate? What kind of chocolate(s) are you using? Are there other flavors involved and or textures; what are they? considering I dont have answers to these questions, what about muscat, riesling, semillon and cabernet franc vareities?

you really have to bake them fresh. Once the product is baked, the starch and proteins are going to continue breaking down regardless of freezing, it will just slow it down a bit. And you are going to lose th moisture once you bring the muffins back up to room temp.

I love savoury uses of chocolate. I guess we can expect a lot of southwester spices and chillis with Flay.

you are going to have to give a recipe and the procedures you took. Theres a pretty good chance you just cooked it too long, or hot. crystallization sounds pretty key though.

CIA does weekend classes and Continuing Education classes. The CE classes are about a week long while the weekend classes are pretty basic and go for a few hours on saturdays once or twice every three weeks.

I agree with both of these qoutes. Chains greatest strength is there ability to Research and Develop. The times are changing in the want and need for local products. Even though its very simple to get fresh berries from chile in the winter, people are starting to come to grips with the fact that its not such a great idea to eat summer products in the winter. I really dont think the chains are going anywhere, but I have a feeling that in the future the chains will adapt possibly by creating seasonal menus and creating more personalized themes/styles, meaning maybe instead of 20 Applebees, they may break them up into 4 different types of restaurants with different names but similar concept. This is my guess, and I would kind of like to see this from the chains. The best thing for me would be a better market for individual or private restaurants.

How about chopped pecans or walnuts to mimic the mushrooms instead of pear duxelle. And I must say, I do like ginger with apricot, or riesling wine.

Sorry, that sounds like "urban legend." As an alum of the CIA, I remember all sorts of silly stories told as fact. Do you think a restaurant would really have that many covers on hand? ← Yes. I dont see why not. Of course the word has evolved over time and the meaning has gone through some alterations, but stories or "urban legends", in some peoples minds, I believe are the reason why they are still used today.

the challenge wasn't about volunteers. Half of the challenge was finding someone to challenge next .

Actually, where that term came from was from a restaurant in New York I believe (I dont know the name) where throughout the night they would collect the covers from each plate sent out into the dining room. At the end of the night the chef would be able to walk over to the rack with all the sold "covers" and count what they did for the night.

Impaling the thyroid gland! Sounds fatal! Seriously, did these studies see if there is a higher incidence of birth defects and breast cancer in China? The post that started this thread is talking about feeding soy-based infant formula. Infants should be fed mother's milk (if at all possible), not soy. I don't see where that has anything to do with adults having problems from eating tofu and soybean sprouts. ← First of all, the whole myth about soy being asias treasure is a bogus lie. The wealthy in ancient and still current do not upholds diets built around soy. It was the poor people whole harvested this product in the need to stay alive. Soy is to the asian people as potatos are to the irish, or hardtack to sailors (rough comparison). Secondly the point is to state that this is happening within young individuals, not elderly. And because it is the youth, that means if soy is introduced at a young age, thats obviously not a good idea. I also brought it up because people need to be aware. And if people have concerns with soy, other concerns help justify current concerns. Why does this need explaining? Not to sound mean, but I am asking because I dont think I understand what you want me to say, sorry I can be slow.

Doa little research and you will find that there are whole organizations dedicated and WILLING to say soy is at fault.

I really wish people would pay more attention to the negative sides of soy. It is not a miracle product for vegans. Several universities have produced studies on its impact with the health of women (young), increasing birth defect possibilities and breast cancer significantly if consumed regularly in the diet. It also has a hand in impaling the thyroid gland. I have also heard recently about its estrogenical effects in men. I am a lttle surprised someone accused it for being the reason more men are becomming homosexual. I believe that is more of an acceptance and cultural thing in this day in age. Though I wont rule out that the soy is contributing. A lot of my friends who happen to be homosexual are very soy active, its somewhat annoying to. What will it take to get everyone to understand that moderation and vareity is the only proper diet.

Oh man, I am not a fan of legumes. Good luck with this one Duckduck.

I am not big on country music, but I wouldnt be suprised to see a watermelon patch queen or an achey breaky heart.

It appears we will have a very interesting theme for this years competition. I am glad they didn't decide to go with this for the world championship though, that would be a little odd. After reading over the the list of competitors, I see some interesting new features. First of all, there is a all female team which should be kind of neat. Also it appears Susan Notter has joined for Team Danks, I am looking forward to see what she puts together. Also Frederick Monti and Stephane Treand have joined up with Laurent Branlard to form his team. I think that will be a force to be reckoned with. But I do think Team Ruskell and Team Coston are going to be the most dominate in the group. There also appears to be several underdogs in this competition and the majority of the competitors are instructors at various colleges and institutes. I think this one will be entertaining, I might have to skip some school just to check it out in person.

Scott, I thought I read too much.

by the way, chef greweling (instructor of chocolates and confections) is amazing. I have not seen the inside of the book yet, but I am sure it is worth the purchase. And for some reason he doesn't seem to be credited for the book on amazon, atleast not that I saw.

the problem with sucralose is, there doesn't seem to be an urge to test studies negatively. I think that is what scares me. I have read plenty of problems with fructose, but please share, I love reading more.

your right, but chlorocarbons do not sound so good either. I am still on the fence with sucralose. If you dont mind the more expensive xylitol, I think that is the best choice for sugar substitute out there. That is if money is negligible.

could use agave