Pam R

Keeps for a few days. Some people freeze it, but it changes the texture. If you have more than you can eat, freeze some and see how it thaws.

I don't use any of the recipes that came with MC, so I deleted all of them. Once you delete all the superfluous folders, all you're left with is your own recipes (I have several of my own folders set up "apps" "salads" "desserts" ect.) -- making it easy to find recipes and search.

People buy cookbooks for various reasons. Some just like to read them, some to impress their friends, others use them for inspiration and a good chunk of them really do use them to cook. A lot. Of those that use them to cook, some like weight measurements, others use volume. While most of us posting here prefer weights, I'm pretty sure it's inaccurate to say that everybody does. When I sent in the manuscript for my first cookbook, I got a note back from the editor asking that I convert all the weight measurements to volume. The publisher told me most home cooks don't have scales. We went back and forth on this a bit. In the end, all of the recipes are in volume, but I was able to get them to put a little chart in at the beginning with a few weight to volume equivalents. I'm now finishing up my second book, going a different route and trying self-publishing. This has been one of the toughest things to figure out. I prefer weights, but I am positive that a lot of the readers who bought the first book were happy with the volume measurements and I'm sure they're expecting the same with this book. So I'm trying to figure out the best way to include both while still making it easy to read (and including metric and Imperial measurements -- it makes for a lot of numbers for each ingredient). Since I am the publisher here, I can put in what I want. I think to say that the publishing industry should stop using volume measurements is impractical. And I don't think that every cookbook-user would agree. There are also different types of cookbooks, of course, with different target markets. And perhaps there is no single answer for the cookbook industry as a whole.

I have found that if I`m making sweet flavoured nuts (with plenty of sugar) using the egg white keeps them softer than when I just use sugar. The plain sugar melts and becomes a hard caramel. Using the whites makes them easier to bite and fork (I make sugar and spiced pecans that get added to a salad).

I'm pretty sure that's not the case and that the expiration date for all eggs is set by regulation as X number of days from the laying date. There are additional date codes on the cartons we could use to confirm this, but I haven't bothered yet. Maybe I will. I'd bet it's because of the higher turnover, as somebody mentioned above. I use large eggs for everything. I think of them as the 'standard' size. I've been working on a cookbook for the last 6 months and have used at least 100 dozen large eggs, and they've varied in size a bit. I recently pointed out to somebody that it seemed to me that the large eggs aren't as large as they used to be. Having said that, I don't think 1/4 ounce larger or smaller matters much, in a recipe. If you want to be exact, measure, but I don't think it's necessary.

deensiebat, I'm so glad you tried and liked them. They look perfect -- I love that dough recipe. In the end I went to family for both dinners. When I was a kid we always had big lunches -- my grandparents lived across the street from the synagogue and everybody would gather there after morning services. Now, we only do dinners. So while I didn't cook anything (at home -- lots of cooking going on at work), I was still lucky enough to have chicken soup, brisket, turkey, chicken, brisket, cabbage rolls, knishes, kasha, chicken soup, honey cake and much more. Though today isn't officially Rosh Hashana (and is actually a fast day), I just mixed up a yeast dough and will fill it with apples, cinnamon and honey, then roll and bake it tonight as a Rosh Hashana treat. I like to think of the whole week between RH and Yom Kippur as a holiday.

It's peeling for me too. Eggs or garlic. During the holidays, when it's really crazy at work, I always ask that they leave the garlic peeling to me. Peeling 2 lbs. of garlic relaxes me -- everybody thinks I'm crazy, but I'm always happy to do it.

If you can find chips that are kosher for Passover, they won't have soy in them (soy is not kosher for Passover). The brand I use is Oneg, but I'm sure there are many others.

As my thoughts start to turn to Rosh Hashana, it's obvious that Yom Kippur isn't far off. Anybody know what they're cooking for break-the-fast this year?

I just realized that Rosh Hashana is less than 2 weeks away. What are you planning? Does anybody do big lunches or just dinners? If so, anything different being served for lunch?

What exactly are you going to flavour like meat? I know you said you have a few ideas -- what are they? Tofu? Could it be that they just use some of the mock-chicken as the . . .mock-chicken? Bread it and fry?

Er. Huge soggy mess doesn't sound good. On a whole liver, it's easy to see anything that shouldn't be there. We go through a lot of chicken livers (for chopped liver) and they rarely have any gallbladder left on them, but every once in a while they do. If you don't remove it, it can ruin the whole dish.

Did you buy raw or cooked livers? If you're prepping raw chicken livers, you have to make sure there isn't any gallbladder left attached to them. Gallbladder will give a bitter or off taste to the liver.

Not the Costco jars, but we used to buy the gallon-jars of garlic for work and they do not last indefinitely. After a few weeks the garlic becomes somewhat slimy. And it smells off. For a couple of years we'd buy the garlic if we had a busy couple of weeks in the catering and knew we could use it up. But if we thought we wouldn't be able to finish it within a couple of weeks, forget it. Eventually, we decided to stop using it completely because we prefer fresh-peeled. Having said that, I wonder if the garlic in the small packages is better. I bet the packaging could keep it better. I did see some small bags of peeled garlic at a local grocery store. There was no brand, unless "Organic Garlic" is the brand, and it said it was from China, as is most of the garlic we get here. I'll pick up a bag next time I'm there and see how they are.

We've been getting great sweet cherries this summer. Most of ours come from BC and I've been buying them weekly for the last couple of months. Only one bag was less-than-great.

He seemed kind of sad about the whole thing. I haven't seen many episodes -- do they ever impress the expert? Or is it usually a lot of misses? I'm beginning to wonder if they just can't cook. But, I think the show is very entertaining.

Is there a microwave? (Our local synagogue day-school has a couple of microwaves available to heat up lunches.) Hummus is always an option.

Nope, not on FN. In Winnipeg we get it on W and Viva, both are national networks, I think (I'm guessing here, because they aren't local).

It's on W and Viva here. I saw it for the first time yesterday and I like it. Fun watching them try the recipes, showing their screw-ups and all. Getting an expert in to taste test is a great idea, but I don't know that their opinion is taken into consideration when they decide if the books get a pass or a buy. Fun show.

What a great opportunity. I have many questions, but I'll start with just a few. Peanut and coconut chutney - will we be getting details on this? What was the eggplant dish that those-who-don't-like-eggplant enjoyed? Do you think the flavours and technique will make their way into your everyday cooking?

For years I thought I hated runny egg yolks. They (I thought) disgusted me and I wanted nothing to do with them. Them I realized it's the whites that are the problem. If the egg whites aren't cooked, blech. But a perfectly poached egg with cooked whites and runny yolks, yes please. On the other hand, I don't like hard cooked egg yolks. And scrambled should be dry. I'm very picky when it comes to eggs.

Avi, can you tell us more about the spicy fish balls?

Member Morfudd Richards has just had a new book published. "On July 2nd, her book, "Lola's Ice Cream and Sundaes" was published by Ebury Press, and is comprised of over 100 recipes for ice creams, sorbets and sherbets, including flavours such as Roast red pepper and goats cheese ice cream, Pea and wasabi sorbet, Spiced Valpolicella and chocolate sorbet, Welsh rarebit ice cream with French toast and Avocado and orange sorbet, as well as classic flavours and a chapter called 'Speedy Ices' which includes "Peanut butter ice cream with salted peanut brittle', Redcurrant ice cream' and 'Fresh mint ice cream with chocolate brownies'. The chapter titled 'Sundaes' includes the well known 'Peach Melba', 'Coupe Cardinal' and 'Coupe Concorde', but Morfudd has also created new sundaes based around themes, such as 'Coupe Aromatique' (Lemon Verbena and rose petal ice cream with Scented geranium ice cream and candied rose petals explores the flavours of Turkish delight); 'Bombe florentine' (explores the flavours in a Florentine biscuit); 'Dolci Tricolore' (buffalo milk and basil ice cream, tomato granita, olive oil ice cream and balsamic snaps is based around the salad Insalata Tricolore), and there is a sundae called 'The Five Flavours of Japan', which explores the concept of the 'five taste sensations' - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. There is a Q and A chapter in the back which discusses pasteurization, freezing point depression, invert sugar, emulsifiers and the difference between and ice cream and gelato, amongst others. Morfudd would like to thank the egullet members who very helpfully answered any queries she had about ice cream and sorbet making during her research." Congratulations, Morfudd!

Toad in a hole -- that's what it was called on the menu of a restaurant chain here when I was a kid and that's what my parents called it (mom from here, dad from Poland/Saskatchewan).

Yes, French would be more useful in Canada. It is, after all, an official language and you can find French communities in many places outside of Quebec.