kitchenmage

i was going to run in here and say "denatured protein!" but you beat me to it, jackal... (and with bonus cooking tip) then again, i have been saying denatured protein a lot lately; which is really weird...

i am feeling a bit nervous about posting pitures here, there is so much actual talent, while i am but a neophyte photographer with a sweet camera... i bought a Nikon D70 a few weeks ago and have been taking lots of pictures of all sorts of weird and wonderful things... i have learned three things: a newfound respect for photographers who learned with film, that's nowhere near as easy (or cheap) as digital; if you take enough pictures something will turn out okay; a really good tool can make the person who wields it look better...oh, and a fourth, i am way over my head with this camera... but in a good way... so here's a few shots, some of bagel making, others of herbs in my garden... i've been doing more process/ingredient photos than finished food... there are a few more photos at my blog-- including the long version of the bagels--from flour to lox... the aforementioned bagels and again, later...tasty too... crust... ...and crumb getting up close and downright personal and a couple from the garden... so, thrash away... my "technique" so far consists mostly of using the Auto or Macro settings and messing around with various focus points and angles then hacking it with a handful of tools... (remember what i said about my newfund respect for trying this with limited film? no way would i have turned out a single shot i'd dare post here with film...not for many, many months) color me clueless and learning as quickly as possible... did i mention i'm having a blast?

at my request, my elementary school birthday parties included things like taffy pulls... my favorite "holidays" were things like "first strawberries of the year: strawberry shortcake for dinner" and "first cherries: we'd buy a case and eat til we couldn't eat another" and my favorite part of Disneyland was the barrel of 10 cent dill pickles as big as my seven year old fist... and i picked my bedroom because i could lie in bed and pick apricots out my window--good lord, was i ever spoiled by that!

I can answer these two: when picking your bay leaves, pull them gently downward and a new leaf will grow from that spot--i removed maybe half my bay tree's leaves a month ago (we moved last fall and it's getting reestablished) and it's now covered with tiny little budding leaves... also, i have found that the older leaves are more flavorful than the tiny new ones, so i pick based on size and health of the leaves... i reduce my leftover wine (to about 25% of original volume) and then freeze--i have yogurt cups full of several kinds of very concentrated wine ready to scrape a bit out of when i need it for sauce... i've only kept it in the freezer for 2-3 months, but that's plenty of time to go through it...

Ooooooh, we have to talk! My herb garden is brand new and pitiful and I covet your rare thymes, lavender, and lemon mint. Time for a trip across the river with baked goodies with which to bribe you. Bay is worth the small footprint; If I could only have one fresh herb, it'd be bay. It's totally unlike the dry dusty stuff in jars and amazingly versatile. I infuse all sorts of stuff with bay; butter and milk for mashed potatoes is a big favorite, oil that gets used in bread is good too, and bay-infused creme brulee is sublimely delicate. You can grow it in a pot or the ground and plant a groundcover you like at its feet. Got creeping thyme? I have sweet woodruff around mine (which just went in the ground a couple of weeks ago). There's a picture of it here FYI, this tree is about six years old, thrived at my old house in north Snohomish county and, although a bit bare at the moment, seems to be doing fine in the cooler, wetter Columbia River fog valley.

Andy, was it perhaps these or something like them...?

Oh. My. Frelling. Gawd. I'm stunned. Actually, I have to say, "No fair!" See, I saw a recent post on the Carillo (sp?) thread with your bright face behind a box of yummy laminated things and you looked like you were having fun with the pastry. Then I started reading this post and it was even cooler. See, I recently moved to evenTinierTown in the SW corner of WA from the Seattle area. I'm still trying t set up my own informal network of local farmers and such, so your account of your garden and farmers was sweet. (nice view, btw) And I remembered the nice face, and thinking I might consider myself a decent (home) baker, and thus seeing a couple of interesting commonalities, it caught my attention. And I thought, "Heck, I need more local, online foodie friends. I think I'll drop her a PM and say hi." Then I looked at the cake. Did I mention the stunned part? And I decided I couldn't PM you because I'd just come across like a fawning fangrrl.

Don't forget aromas--for good or ill. If he is not bothered by the aroma of food, use it as a way to entice him to eat. There's nothing like a good hit of vanilla (or chocolate or cinnamon or garlic or ...?) wafting up to make eating sound good again. A good friend of mine was mostly not eating post-surgery until I placed a baked potato dripping with garlic butter in front of him. He still talks about it a decade later. Also, dense calories are good. Think of everything he hasn't eaten because it's fattening and get/make it...lots of it.

I think it may be the contents of the cart. I've usually got at least one or two things that the checker can't identify so that must mean something...although I have no idea what exactly. Or perhaps it's that we tend to offer advice readily when people are hovering unsurely over the vegetables while desperately consulting a tattered list. (or is that just me? ) Or the questions I am always asking about things like country of origin and such. Or maybe it's just that we're the ones who seem to be enjoying themselves.

Grub, It isn't exactly the recipe from the book but I made some breadsticks using a minor variation on this recipe and blogged about it. It's certainly close enough to Brother Peter's recipe to give you a feel for what you are after while you wait for your copy of the book to arrive.

I've been known to want it all, and order a bit of it, but my favorite "ordering too much" story comes from an unexpected place: a small, family-owned, Thai place tucked into a strip mall between the dry cleaner and Radio Shack. We had just finished moving and five of us went over to grab a late dinner. Everyone ordered one item, then we ordered a few things to share as starters, then we added a couple of things because we knew we weren't going to want to cook in the next few days. By the time we were at about 9-10 items, the waitress was saying, "No! No more! Too much food!" and backing away from the table. (Maybe we looked so hungry she thought we might have her as an appetizer, I dunno) I imagine she went back to the kitchen to talk about those crazy Americans who wanted everything on the menu. In our defense, we were starving, and we knew we were taking a bunch home. And we did. We ate leftovers for most of a week. Next time we went to that place--and it became one of our local favorites--we were careful to order a more normal amount of food. I doubt it helped our reputation much, but we tried. To this day, that now-defunct Thai place remains the only establishment that has ever cut me off.

Seattle folks, is Bagel Oasis (Roosevelt) still around? still any good? they even used to make a decent bialy... but it's been a while... i've become a total snob and pretty much only eat my own bagels... i can put toppings on both sides (heck, i can coat them entirely in stuff), make the as chewy as i want, and best of all banish the "unholy fruit bagels" from my presence entirely... as for the problem that started this thread, i'd like to quote (and parse) one sentence that may help explain what's going on here: Rachel said, "For the record, I do not only take muffin tops!" If one parses this carefully, you will see that there is a larger confession hidden there; Rachel does not <i>only</i> take muffin tops--the implication being that she takes other things as well... are there perhaps other food-related conflicts lurking here? (like other yummy "tops" have been taken...) maybe decorative flowers have been swiped off a cake? or a bunnie's ears were missing before the kids got to them...? hmmm, what is like a bagel, yet not? Donuts! Okay Rachel, confess, do you take the frosted tops of donuts?

Fortunately for me, but not my publishers, my usual co-author and I are <i>picky,</i> when it comes to final production. This doesn't mean our books didn't have errors--they do, and some of them are puzzling and laughable--but we fight them every inch of the way. Jason will like/hate this: an editor once did a last-minute global search and replace to renumber ~25 graphics in a chapter <i>after</i> we were told it had gone to press--changed every occurence of "21" to "19"...including those in TCP/IP port numbers and such... we didn't see it til we had the first box of books in hand... Day/date books are their own special kind of hell. Besides, you are just in time for the oh-so-important holiday buying season. Oddly enough, many tech pulishers think that a book that isn't tied to a product should also hit the holiday buying cycle with a late fall release...which i really amusing when you consider how few people are going to buy someone a book on some esoteric computer theory as a gift... maybe a few weirdos (like me) but really, could that be much of a market? (especially when it's up against all the interesting/pretty/hyped things out there) I will have to go pre-order my copy and do my little bit to drive up your Amazon sales ranking. btw,when you hit #1, print a copy immediately...it's so ephemeral... (i have a page with a 597 rank on it...lasted but one brief hour, but oh, what a heady hour... )

Congratulations, Steven! Finishing this kind of project is incredibly gratifying. Holding the first copy of the book in your very own hands is a rather magical moment. Maybe it's the difference in market--I usually write on IT/business topics--but I am amazed by the time between handoff of final manuscript and printed book. The typical lag time on my books was less than 60 days (sometimes a bit less), while yours is almost an entire year! (I've had the topic of a book become almost irrelevant in about that time.) The suspense must be driving you crazy. Does your contract allow you to buy author's copies at enough of a discount for it to be worthwhile for you to pick up a few cartons and sell autographed copies to eG members? Maybe only to members who have purchased a membership if your publishers only want you to sell to smaller groups than the general public. (royalties are tiny and you really should take advantage of your fan base here)

oooh, jheinecke, thank you! i have overripe bananas on my counter and have been trying to come up with something more inspiring than banana bread... i shall have to try those... has anyone tried steel cut oats in cookies? i bought some recently because I had a recipe that required them and now i can't find that recipe (just moved, my life is in boxes) or any other recipe that specifically calls for steel cut oats... so now i have oats without a cause...

So, mkfradin, are you going to share your magic baking settings? Pretty please with a crispy-chewy cookie on top. I know we'd all still have to tweak it for our own ovens, but I just got my first convection oven and I'm looking for general direction, hints, etc. Our new house has one; I didn't even notice it until we moved in because I was so entranced by the cabinets and counter space. (well, that and the resident elk herd across the road...)

i heartily second that! we had a springer for dinner the other night, caught by one friend, cooked by another, and it was melt-in-your-mouth tender... petite tête de chou, are you lucky enough to have access to springers? springers, for those not from the area, are sprink chinook that live up the Rogue River in Oregon... they are known by fishers for the rather serious fight they put up while being caught and by everyone else for their flavor...

what a lovely and appetizing collection of bread! I feel almost off-topic here because I am not baking some form of baguette, but I'll be brave and hopeful and ask anyway... Can we talk about bagels for a minute? I have the sponge for the bagels in the BBA sitting on my counter, waiting for the rest of the flour and stuff to be added and I am really skeptical. It looks like I'd be lucky to get more than another cup of flour into it, let alone more than three. (the recipe calls for a total of 7.5 cups of flour and 2.5 cups of water) Yeah, I know this is stiff dough, but I've been making bagels for years (ok, decades, but that makes me sound old), recently using minor personal variations on the recipe in Crust and Crumb, so I think I have a clue as to desired outcome. And this just looks thick and stringy (gluten is good!) and unlikely to resolve into real bagels given the rest of the recipe. In fact, it looks so unlikely I went looking for Peter's website to see if there was an errata sheet--is it true he has no website? Has anyone made the bagels from BBA? Did you also look askance at it during the process and it turned out anyway? Am I going to break a wrist kneading this stuff? edited to add: Well, that's what I get for doubting Br. Peter's formula... I ended up kneading in the last 2 cups of flour, over the course of most of an hour (alternating kneading and mini-autolyses while working in the flour slowly) but the dough was actually very nice to work with by the time i was done and the bagels are in the refrigerator, looking promising... and since i have lox on hand, i think we'll be having fresh bagels and lox for brunch...

Oh John, listen to the wise person! (even if the wise person is yourself) I am currently working on my first food related book and I <i>wish</i> I'd had someone telling me to write things down for the last 20 years. I don't even really have any excuses either because I've written (non food) books before, I know how the process works, I know how much easier it is if you've been writing things down for a decade already... but smart enough to do it myself? hell no! snowangel, i am with you; there's nothing like teaching people to cook, and if those people are really small it's truly a kick! Diana sounds like a fun one, and smart too. along those lines, i think that one of the most magical things i've seen in the kitchen is when someone who was once a timid cook talks with me about how to do/improve something, then tries it on their own and it works. And not just works as in technically accomplishes the task, but works on a deeper level, instilling some fundamental confidence or sense of mastery. I recently got mail raving about a new friend's purchase of a pizza stone. (We met at a pizza party where I brought the stone, nobody had ever used one. As I am new in town, this helped my reputation considerably with a small group of new friends.) It's a small thing to me, but she's converted from not attempting pizza to confident about the all important crust in one shot...and 3 bucks for a piece of tile. Now, <i>that's</i> magic.

Well at least we'd know who to blame. There are things that I'd love to know who to blame for...velveeta, for one. If I predict the demise of velveeta, and any other food that is named "processed <i>x</i> food" (where <i>x</i> is any food) would it sound too much like wishful thinking?

Fennel could go mainstream, I am sure weirder tastes have. We're not talking durian, after all. Misstenacity, how do you make your tea? I have a huge jar of seeds from last year and I'd love to try it. My prediction is a backlash against packaged, pre-prepared, GMO, shipped in from unknown place, dusted with unknown chemicals, "food" in favor of local/homegrown ingredients. As more people turn away from buying their food at Walmart, the momentum will help availability of such goods and drive prices down. I live in a hamet of a few hundred (in a county of under 3000) and can get organic dairy delivered to my door from a farmer in the next valley, custom raised beef (marbled my way), fresh fish, and homemade fruit wines from various neighbors. (i am sure there's more but i moved here after the harvest last year so i don't know what the summer farmer's markets have yet) The only thing that's more expensive that way than the local grocer is eggs (3 bucks a dozen for freerange organic) and i can get this morning's non-organic eggs for about a buck. This will also lead to more small gardens, where people will grow a few things they really care about. My mother-in-law grew salads in hanging planters last year; few kinds of salad greens and roma tomatoes, picked fresh every time she wanted greens, and has been converted from a non-gardener to...well, let's just say i want her new greenhouse. And since fennel, once planted, will grow forever, this may help the fennel movement...not to mention boosting the population of mason bees (or whatever those tiny bees that cover my plants are). Oh, one more thing. My cookbooks (writing in progress) will be best sellers.

oops, behemoth, sorry wasn't actually snarking at you--although i can see how it looked that way... slaps hand for clicking to post before checking for directional tags on my sarcasm... (where's the chaGrin smilie when you need it?) and i feel doubly bad because i've learned a <i>lot</i> from reading your posts... 'twas the people who do things seemingly backwards... your explanation of it is most useful, it's the people who decided to do it that way that i'm confused by... but i am sure it makes sense if you're german, and then we're backwards... (tangential backstory) i am a long-time IT person, and Windows has this <i>truly stupid</i> naming convention... the hard drive partition that you boot from is called the "system partition" and the partition that the system is stored on is called the "boot partition"... and they used to make this a question on their certification tests... i think it was purely to trap people who hadn't gone to an expensive class where they reminded you of such things... anyway, when i read your explanation, that is what flashed into my mind... another confusing reversed thing! your explanation actually helped... and then i was inadvertantly rude... i am going to go slink off ino a corner and shut up... (so am i supposed to say i edited this to fix a typo?)

so if it starts with an "e" it's pronounced "i" and vice versa? how <i> helpful</i> i'll have to sit the kid down with this thread when she comes for a visit and see how those french lessons i paid for are working...

Thanks, Mr. Thorsenblorgenstadtlanderen, but eating p*nguin is against my religion (and as I am orthodox, and therefore strictly adhere to the dietary code) the presence of it in a recipe precludes me from using that recipe as I would now see other things used as p*nguin substitutes. I should have told you that before I asked for the recipe, since if you had substituted any other meat I could have gone ahead and used the recipe. But the restrictions of Blorgenstadtism, while arduous at times, are part of the path I have chosen. Oh my, I just noticed something! Your name and the name of our faith, they are *awfully* similar, do you suppose there might be a connection? You know, it might even explain the presence of the p*nguin, since the prohibition against consuming it was added after the church was founded; and in some ways it was in response to the common presence of it in family recipes. After all, in light of what was later discovered about p*nguins, there was certainly no way we could continue eating them! It's just too bad it led to the schism in the church. Is it an old family recipe? Are any members of your family Blorgenstadts? Oops, I just realized, this really isn't an appropriate forum for religious discussion, so I will stop now. (sorry everyone) But it is an interesting synchronicity. Really. Oh, I also found <a href='http://www.healthyelkmeat.com/elkrecipes/elk-meatball-appetizers.html'> this </a> and <a href='http://www.uktvfood.co.uk/index.cfm/UKTVFoodpreview/recipes.recipeitem/ID/4073.shtm'> this </a>. And in reading them, I am thinking that a combination of the two looks like a fair place to start for the meat; but that horrendous sounding "sauce" on the first? I think I'll try something more like the tomato chili relish from the second. Thoughts?

what i want is the recipe for elk balls, if it truly exists... i just moved to a place with a resident elk herd and i have friends who hunt, but wouldn't have a clue what might be an interesting and tasty preparation method... so...? who's got balls?