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Everything posted by plk
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You could try some of the meat substitutes from Morningstar Farms: http://www.seeveggiesdifferently.com/
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Of course it applies. At a nail salon, you have a slot and a set amount of time you'll be there. No matter what, you'll be out of there within an agreed-upon amount of time. That is not the case at a bar. It may be half-empty when you get there, but if you're going to stay for some significant amount of time, it is likely the bar will fill up. The owner should wait until that point to tell you to put the laptop away?
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I don't think the nail salon parallel really works. At a nail salon, you're there for a set amount of time. They can afford to wait until you've received their service and are on your way out for them to tell you not to do something again. If you bring a laptop in to a bar, coffee shop, or restaurant, the time you'll be there is open-ended, and even likely to be longer than if you'd just gone in without your equipment. I've used a laptop at a coffee shop before, and I'm not hauling the laptop and papers or folders in somewhere and setting myself up to work if I'm just going to be there for an hour or less. So I think the response of the bar owner makes sense to stop a potential laptop-wielding table camper before the typing starts than to try to get him to stop 2 or 3 hours later.
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Does anyone know if there are still only three U.S. producers of foie gras: Sonoma Foie Gras, La Belle Poultry, and Hudson Valley Foie Gras? I'm writing a research proposal and want to be sure my information is up to date.
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I've heard of people short on time even drying out the turkey skin with a hair dryer, so you could certainly try it. I'd personally prioritize the moistness of the meat (in favor of brining) over the crispiness of the skin anyway, but I think it comes down to preference in the end. The skin will certainly dry out in the oven no matter what, or at least that's been my experience.
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I brine the fresh turkey we get every year. It sits in the brine for about 8 hours, then gets washed off, patted dry, and air-dried in the fridge for 24 hours. So if you wanted to do something like that, your timing would be great if you picked up the turkey on Tuesday.
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Excellent -- good to know it could go straight from the freezer to the water bath. I'm letting this one defrost anyway so that it can be seasoned better and portioned further. Thanks!
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A question on starting temperature -- should all meats be defrosted before being vacuum packed and cooked in the water bath? I have some pork belly that is partitioned into 1-lb pieces and would like to try this with one of them. However, the pork belly is frozen solid. Can it be seasoned, sealed up, and go directly into the water, or should it be defrosted first?
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I'm curious, though, is variable tipping the best way of discouraging bad and encouraging good service? If all customers tipped that way, it probably would be, but I've been under the impression that in general, quality of service does not necessarily positively correlate with increased tips. Maybe there are so many poor or uneven tippers that visit the Disney parks that they're better off insuring a decent tip rate for all servers and encouraging or teaching good service by other means.
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One of my friends who went to the San Francisco Green Festival came home with a brochure from this new business: http://hungry-vegan.com/ She prepares vegan meals and ships a week's worth of meals to her customers. Looking at the menu, the food clearly is striving for flavor and deliciousness over health or asceticism. It's an interesting business idea, and kind of illustrates the point that there are people looking for "gourmet" vegan food and there are people willing to produce it. And no, I haven't tried it, so I have no idea how well the food actually ships and keeps.
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It's a similar idea with the high heat, but the instructions I have (from Cook's Illustrated 2001) have you hack out the turkey's back and then pound it flat so that you have a better chance of it all cooking evenly and quickly. And it's gotten me the best results so far, but then I haven't tried a lot of other roasting methods. I'm just so happy with the results in contrast to what I've done before and what the in-laws do with their turkey that I have no desire to try something else. Link to the Cook's Illustrated recipe: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/printrecip...ds=567&bdc=6804
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Nehi soda is still being made! http://www.sodafinder.com/ and http://www.eintown.net/nehi.cfm Even Tab is still being made. Heh, Tab. Memories.
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I'm especially partial to the Orange 'n Cream from Stewart's. They have other flavors, including root beer, but I love the orange cream stuff. Even the diet orange cream is great. Then for the really old school soda experience, there's Jarritos, available in a million flavors. Jones Soda is kind of a retro/hip brand, and always does something seasonal. Shasta pop also has kind of a nostalgic appeal for me personally, since it is a brand local to where I grew up. But I doubt it has widespread appeal or distribution.
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We brine our turkey, then take the back out so that it can lay flat. It gets air dried in the refrigerator for a day, and then roasted at 450F. I think it only takes about an hour and a half that way in the oven. I've had much more success using this method than when I roast the turkey whole, even using different temps during cooking time and using foil to protect the breast. Plus, I can use the back a whole day early for making gravy and stock.
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I think it would be neat to have a selection of old or unusual or locally-made bottled sodas -- my local gourmet grocery for example has a ton of weird brands and stuff I didn't even know was still made. Maybe reselling would be an even easier way to start and let you try out a few flavors and see what people like. Then doing your own root beer (or in the summer, a killer root beer float) or something like that would be easier to add on later.
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Those burgers look great, Magus! About sodas, if it were me, I'd probably use a keg or some other large dispensing thing and serve the sodas fresh rather than deal with bottling. I've made beer, and bottling is kind of a pain, in my opinion, and also an additional expense considering you'd have to source bottles, etc.
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Hmm, do you have an outside grill or barbeque? My in-laws do a pretty good turkey in their Green Egg. The skin gets crispy, nice smoky flavor, and juicy meat.
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My grandmother always used to make her turkey in one of those giant roasters! She'd pack the stuffing around and inside the bird and it all kind of stewed together and made the stuffing nice and wet. I don't remember there being any actual browning, but we didn't care. It was good! I haven't had a turkey done that way in years, though, so I can't offer any sort of comparison between the roaster and a conventional method, but hey, I liked it.
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I'd go for the Pyrex. It works great, you can see through the plate to check out the browning, it's cheap, and easy to find.
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I think RLB's Cake Bible has a "practice buttercream" recipe. I haven't used it, but she says it's stable enough to keep using and then putting back into the bag for reuse.
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I use Earth Balance margarine when I want the flavor of butter, but can't actually use butter. It's made with olive oil and some other oils, but tastes buttery and doesn't have the negatives of normal margarine. I don't prefer it to real butter, but it works well for a substitute.
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That looks like a great menu! To me, turkey gravy is basically a thickened brown sauce. The turkey makes it taste slightly gamier than if you'd used chicken, but less beefy than if it were made with veal bones. It will also thicken as it sits on the table, so you don't want it to start out overly thick. The main things to avoid are lumps and the appearance of greasiness, but it's not too hard to avoid that. I can PM you a recipe I use if you want. One thing to consider is if you do brine the turkey (which I think makes it easier for it to end up flavorful and juicy), that takes 12 hours, and then it ideally should be air-dried, uncovered, in the fridge for 8-24 hours to give the skin time to dry back out and tighten up. This makes the skin crispy when you roast it. But, that all takes up valuable fridge space, so it may not be worth it.
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Something that might help you pare down the menu is to start grouping your items in terms of starch/protein/veg. Just looking at your menu that way, you can see that it's really heavy on the starches, and people just aren't going to be able to eat cornbread and popovers and dinner rolls and three kinds of potatoes and stuffing. So, cutting it down to one kind of bread, one or two kinds of potatoes (if you want to do sweet potatoes and mashed), and stuffing seems reasonable to me. Same with the vegetables -- you may not really need creamed spinach and endive and red cabbage and brussels sprouts. Two or three of those would likely be enough. That's the approach I'd take, anyway. Good luck, keep planning, and you'll do great!
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Oh, and I'd take out the cheese course at the end (there is no cheese course for Thanksgiving!) and use it for an easy appetizer instead.