Suzanne F

Is that new, or is it a new edition of The Jewish Festival Cookbook (originally) by Fannie Engle and Gertrude Blair. I have to admit that that book, first published in 1954 (I got it through a book club sometime after 1970), has given me better information about Jewish holidays than Hebrew school ever did. If it's the same one, I can definitely recommend the honey cake recipe.

Interesting question. Don't know the answer, but it makes me think of more questions: A waterbath ensures that the temperature surrounding at least that part of the cake will not rise above 212F/100C, if it even reaches that much. But only part of the cake is "submerged;" does that mean that the cake will cook at two different rates -- under-boiling-point below the waterline, and at-full-oven-temp above? Or does the temperature somehow even out throughout the batter?

Done. Scroll down to the date, and yes, there it is for October 22.

Varmint, you have definitely learned how to use that camera! Wow. Wow. Wow.

If you have indeed sold and are just working out the details of timing, tell them that. Yes, some may bolt, but my guess is that the more information you give them, the better their reaction will be. I've been in their situation, sort of (one place announced at almost the last minute that it was closing; another only told me that they were discontinuing brunch service after I had showed up to work my shift and found the place all locked up ). And that last-minute stuff is the worst. But here's a suggestion: How necessary will it be for them to find new jobs? That is, what are the chances that the new owners might keep them on? Will the change be that drastic that the new folks will want all new people, when it might be easier and cheaper for them to re-train your staff? If you can lobby with the new owners to keep on as many of your employees as possible -- and let your employees know that you are lobbying on their behalf -- it might help to diffuse any bad feelings they have.

Ummm . . . no, dear, don't count on it. HWOE still hasn't mastered those tricks in 30 years. That is, he has mastered the "if I leave it, someone else will deal with it" bit, but not the "clean up NOW" bit. Then again, if all he leaves for me to follow up with is the salad spinner, cutting board, and "his" chef knife, I shouldn't really complain.

I'm somewhere in between. I clean as I go while cooking, but often leave everything in the sink after dinner, to be dealt with in the morning. The day of the eG Potluck at Bobolink, I did almost all my cooking on that morning. Not enough time to clean up as well. When we got home, I just felt so . . . dirty -- and not from having stepped on a cow pattie. I just can't stand seeing stuff left there, soiled, when it could have been taken care of while something else is happening. Like Marie-Louise, I do the dishwasher empty/reload in the morning while the kettle comes to a boil.

Mine for this week (and it's only Tuesday! ): overload the fridge with jars of homemade condiments/conserves/leftovers etc., and NOT remove the ones in front while pulling out one from the rear. Oh! my lovely last-of-the-season plum compote. But I'm lying, because I know I will indeed do that again. And again. And again.

I've got, oh, let's see: four timers in the kitchen -- built-ins on the stove and nuker, a manual twisty kind, and an electronic one received in a conference goody bag. I mostly use the stove and nuker ones, because I get distracted when I am 2/3 of the way across the apartment at my desk (on eG, usually ). Always for pasta and baking, not much else. Then at my desk I have a Polder 3-way timer-plus-stopwatch-plus-clock. But that I use more as a clock, for timing breaks, and when I'm doing laundry.

Oh, I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO relieved. I was just worried about the proportions. Did you satisfy its desire to be eaten with thick cream? BTW: there is also a recipe for Baked Treacle Pudding that is also quite enticing. Fergus is his usual self with the comment in the ingredient list: 6 tablespoons Lyle's Golden Syrup (I was advised 4 tablespoons by those in the know, but that is simply not enough)

Yay! Congrats Matt and Batgrrrl!!!!!

If it comes to pass, may I play, too? I scrapple.

Years ago, when Alfredo Viazzi had his restaurants, we sat next to James Coco and the woman who played Mother Nature in commercials (remember: "It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature."?) Alas, Alfredo and his wonderful restaurants are gone, Jimmy Coco is gone (anyone else see him in The Ritz?) But the memory lingers on. I eat in restaurants in Tribeca a lot, and so do a lot of the big shots who live there. We all seem to pick places with good food and no attitude. I wonder why that is? (And when I worked at Zeppole, of course DeNiro showed up a lot, and Harvey Keitel, and Kevin Spacey. Hey, it was just a neighborhood place.)

Oh, gosh, my reactions are almost exactly opposite. Sausage yes, but cooking green peppers? And fish sauce? (Not shrimp paste , but fish sauce, ) And Worcestershire sauce. In college, we did a production of I Am a Camera, for which I did something or other technical, probably props. In it, Sally Bowles, the heroine, drinks a concoction of raw egg and Worcestershire as a hangover cure. I couldn't keep the bottle away from my nose. And I still love it. Fat Guy: stay away from Agoura Hills, CA: as in some other parts of CA, the ground cover on roadway medians is rosemary. Rosemary everywhere you can imagine. The smell is pervasive. Wonderful if you love it (as I do); hell if not (you). And Mayhaw Man: I used to live across a highway from a Stroh's plant. Not quite the lovely experience you describe.

Wilting from the dressing is not the problem; the problem is the chemical reaction between the acid in the dressing and the chlorophyll in the cooked broccoli. Shirley Corriher explains it all in Cookwise: when the broccoli is blanched, the magnesium in the chlorophyll is replaced by hydrogen, which accelerates the acidic reaction and the color change. She suggests three possible solutions: Avoid acids. Dress the vegetables just before serving. Keep the vegetables raw. Apparently, cooking (even when done uncovered, and followed immediately by a plunge into ice water) makes the color-change problem worse because it breaks the cell walls enough to allow that magnesium-hydrogen exchange and removes the protection around the chlorophyll.

Were they locally grown, Robyn? And if so, Jason: would the hurricanes have put the peppers under stress? I have a trick for testing peppers before I buy them: make a little slit with a fingernail just under the calyx (where the stem attaches to the fruit). That gets me just enough juice to get a sting (or not). Robyn, try that next time. And in the meantime, yogurt also helps. Edited to add: Susan (and everyone else): if you can find a copy of The Pepper Lady's Pocket Pepper Primer by Jean Andrews, ISBN 0-292-70467-4, published by the University of Texas Press, you will never fear peppers again! This book is a font of information, with life-sife color photos of about 50 different peppers in fresh and dried forms, with descriptions of size, color, shape, flesh, pungency -- and other names used, and possible substitutes. And lots more. This is just a terrific resource.

Dijon mustard

The whole idea of sweet onions is that they are best eaten raw. That is their special chemistry. Because of the general chemistry of onions, though, when you cook them, they end up not that much different from any other onion. So the ideas of onion sandwiches, or onion-in-a-salad are the best uses -- anything that uses them raw. Jean Shepherd used to have a story about his uncle who loved to eat whole onions as if they were apples ("A good onion is like a sexual experience."). Anyone else remember this?

Heresy to some, but: season as desired; spread with mayonnaise (oh, all right, use your wonderful homemade if youy wish, but Hellman's/Best Foods works fine), coat with crumbs; bake. The coating gets crisp, the fat melts out, and the whole thing is delicious. This is especially good with shoulder chops that still have a good amount of marbling, so it should work well with REAL pork chops.

It's official: the Broadway Panhandler "Harvest Festival in the Yard" (aka the Fall Yard Sale) takes place Saturday October 9, from 11am to 5pm, rain or shine. I was told there will again be special deals on some Le Creuset and on Calphalon nonstick.

Weighing in on the side of superior texture but inconsistent flavor (at least the flavor can be fixed by brining). The first time I bought a chicken at the Greenmarket, the two of us ended up eating the whole thing, it just tasted so good. But sometimes they are just okay. Still, I do think they have more flavor than supermarket, cottony birds; brining and herb butter under the skin help those chickens only so much.

And one more for me: Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook. Yay!!!!!!!!! I love that it comes in an almost-plain brown wrapper (which I have already stained with lamb fat). But I already found the phrase "ethereal fries" twice in just a few pages. Don't blame me; I offered to work on it.

Uhhhhhhhh, are you aware that Tony already had something like that in another of his books? The Bobby Gold Stories. IMO, his best work of fiction (after KC).

Please pick something more substantial to fight over. I did not say that your mother wears Army boots. I too have gotten high quality foods from them, otherwise I would not shop there. But the last time I was there, some months ago, they did in fact still have pasta in the shape of "2000." Hey, dried pasta can last for eons. And some of the canned goods -- including the coffees -- are perilously close to the expiry. But so what? Again, I said nothing to insult your ethnicity, or anything else, for that matter.

Today, HWOE went on his own, and brought back salad stuff (lettuces, pepper, red and yellow tomatoes, red, green and yellow peppers) and Macoun apples. Oh: and cider from Samascott. Lovely stuff: quite tart, very apple-y. Macouns I don't know. The sign on them supposedly said "tart and crisp" but is that true?