Soupcon

You need salt in the poaching liquid as you need to achieve equilibrium in saline content between the salt already in the chicken and the poaching liquid, otherwise you leach the natural salt content of the chicken flesh into the poaching liquid until equilibrium has been reached. No salt food is not very palatable and if poaching with no salt in the liquid you probably will find the eaters adding excess salt to their food at the table. Try poaching chicken breast in saline and non saline solutions and compare yourself. I bet you prefer the breast poached in the saline solution every time.

Stephen With my fist born,s montessori class (he was aged 3 at the time) I took graham crackers, tons of royal icing made with meringue powder and many different kinds of small candies to make gingerbread houses with them. The royal icing was the glue which held the houses together and acted as snow and a base to glue on the candy decorations. Each house uses pre sized (by you) lengths of crackers for the walls and longer lengths for the two roof pieces. I cut the end house pieces so as to support a peaked roof. The houses require you help the children glue the houses together carefully and apply the royal iceing and ornaments and the let them dry overnight to be taken home the next day. The kids, teachers and parents loved this so much I did this every year my children were at montessori and then for many years of my childrens public schooling years up to grade 6 when it even expanded to include the whole school. You will have just as much fun as they do. When I undertook this activity, the children were the ones to make and decorate the houses with the adults only aiding them (not doing for them) and the children used their fingers to apply the royal icing and candies. They were allowed to apply as many candies in as many ways as their could think of.

Lentils du Puy. YUM. Discovered them TG and love em. I cook them in my rice cooker with a little extra water/stock/wine than I would normally use for the same amount of rice and now have no more burned pans from forgetting about the damn pan on the burner. Turned on many of my colleagues to eating Lentils du Puy as I often take them for lunch.

I have the new edition, not that I had any earlier editions, and I love it. I took it away with me on an all "girl" weekend at a cottage and I barely got it a glance as everyone else lined up to read it. It is a fond of info and insignts. Quite the best cookbook I have read in a long time.

Last week I experienced "the Italian way" to can tomatoes. Four of us were kindly invited to can tomatoes in the garage of a friend one Friday. Two of us duly bought 8 bushels of roma tomatoes, remembering the instructions to make sure that they were ripe. The tomatoes were delivered and left in the garage for the big day. When I arrived at the home of the friend, slightly late I confess, I found canning in full swing. Anna and her husband had been up since 6am washing the tomatoes and setting up the equipment. (Washing 8 bushels of roma tomatoes... my goodness) There were two large metal burners fueled by propane on which the canners - two large oil drums - would sit. Two tressle tables with table cloth were lined up at the back of the garage on which I could see many prepared clean quart canning jars with a few pieces of fresh basil in them. The metal lids and rings were in a bowl on the table. At one end of the table was a large wooden trough with small drainage hole at one end under which I could see a bucket. Beside this trough was THE MACHINE. This machine is like a meat grinder except there is a screen over the length of the screw through which the tomatoe juice and pulp are forced and the skin and seeds are forced through the end into another disposal bucket. The skin and seeds are very dry and contain very little liquid after going through THE MACHINE. The pulp and liquid are forced out the screen and down a guide into another large bucket. One of the burners has a large aluminium stock pot simmering into which 1/2 bushels of tomatoes are dumped to make it easier for the skins to be removed and then the blanched tomatoes are fished out and dumped into the wooden trough to await their turn in THE MACHINE. One of us is working THE MACHINE, using a pusher to force the hot tomatoes through and others and pricking the hot tomatoes with a fork (hot tomatoe juice in the eye or on the face is not pleasant) so the person manning THE MACHINE is less likely to get burnt. Others empty the pail with the tomato juice and pulp into yet another large tub where the salt is added - four circles in the air with the salt box running salt is the correct amount I am told. And still others ladle the tomatoe pulp into the waiting jars. When enough jars are full with appropriate head space and with the lids and rings in place the oil drums are loaded - approx 100 jars per oil drum - with layers of old cotton sheeting, old towels etc are crammed between the jars and between the layers to stop them from moving and possibly breaking while cooking. Then when the drum is full, we all teamed together to lift the drum onto it's burner making sure it was centered and stable, the gas was lit and we were cooking. It takes about 1 hour for each full drum to boil, then they boil for 1 hour and then a few hours to cool down enough to bail out the water and lift the hot jars out. We canned 150 quarts/litres of tomatoes all together that day. This family normally carries out this canning ritual for each of its members and regularly cans 12 bushels or more a day for a number of days in August/Sept of each year and has done so for the past 30 or so years.

There is in fact no shortage of food in this world. The problem is location, transportation and cost as a result of the subsidization of crops in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia and the policies of the World Bank in the structural adjustment programs (SAPs) forced on the poorest countries of the world. The SAPs forced the farmers to subsidize the "industrial base" in their country while making farm inputs increasingly expensive and forced many small farmers off the land while at the same time allowing the agribusiness to take over the land once farmed by small sharecroppers for the export markets (bananas for example) - a condition of the SAP (world bank) for exports from each country involved. This allowed Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia markets for their over production of crops due to subsidies and to replace the staple crops once produced by local farmers to be substituted by a taste for the cheaper imported wheat, corn etc. Food aid from these same countries also made sure that the farmers in neighbouring countries to those experiencing crop failure were undercut by tied aid or food aid. So counties which had or should be self sufficient or almost self sufficient in food production are now dependent on imported food. Holding commodities futures has now also become a method used by large investment dealers/traders and countries to offset the decline in value of their holdings in the declining US dollar and the amount if each commodity is finite while the increase of US dollars in world markets appears to be infinite - many dollars chasing after few widgets drives up the price of widgets.

I have smoothies for breakfast daily especially as I have to be at work by 7am and making breakfast any other way at that ungodly hour is not on. I use 250 gm. yogurt, 200 gm. frozen fruit and 30 gm of unflavoured protein powder and add milk to thin. I use a stick blender and take the smoothie with me in the car. I find I don't get hungry in the mornings now with a protein drink for breakfast and my food intake as a result has decreased to the point that I am loosing weight. Yahoooo.

Does anybody know where to buy duck/goose fat (other than Whiteheads where it is priced out of this world) and fresh/frozen duck legs in Toronto or surround?

I have two memorable meals. The first one in.............France. I was on my belated honeymoon and we spent three weeks driving around England (a couple of days) and the rest of the time in Europe. Driving north from Spain, through Perpignan and north up the west bank of the Rhone river we stopped for dinner and the night at an auberge I think near Viviers or Le Teil. Can't unfortunately remember the name of the auberge or exactly where it was except it overlooked the river and was overlooked itself by a ruined castle on the hill across the road from it. The auberge had three or four simply furnished rooms to let and a large dining room well populated by locals. The meal was fab. I had never had food like this before and have spent the last 30 plus years trying to learn how to cook like this. We ordered the PRIX FIXE which started with mussels on the half shell, went on to a dish of local sausage and potatoes, followed by a fish course, a meat course, a salad course and a cheese course. The cheese course was accompanied by a local liqueur, green like chartreuse but not chartreuse and quite addicting. The second memorable meal was at "Au Tournant de la Rivière" just south of Montreal in the townships. A group of us flew from Toronto to Montreal and stayed for the weekend at the Ritz-Carlton - a very old fashioned hotel with tons of character as well as awesome service. Dinner was on Sat night and we rented a limousine to drive us to the restaurant and back. Dinner was fab here as well. Have no idea what I ate but just remember the food was quite out of this world. Mind you this was at least 20 years ago so this restaurant which was the only one in Canada at that time to merit 2 or 3 Michelin stars may have disappeared or have declined in quality by now.

Has anyone made this? http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008...n_i_1.html#more I am salivating just imagining eating this stuff and am on my way out the door to buy and icecream machine - not that I really neeeeeeeded one before - I do now. Wow.

Try drinking eating dairy products from Canada. Being from Chicago you aren't far from Detroit and Canada - perhaps sks in Windsor can oblige. Dairy cows in the Great White North are not fed rGBH by law but probably consume approx the same diet of grass/hay and grains/legumes. So if our milk does not give you the same physical s&s, then rGBH is probably the culprit not that Monsanto will agree.

Corn fed livestock ie the beef you crave, is fed a diet of corn to produce the marbling so prized in high end meat. Corn grown to day is intensively farmed and requires tons of fossil fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. Most of the corn grown in the US and Canada is GMO and therefor under the control of two or three huge multinationals as is fossil fuel. Animals farmed intensively require antibiotics in large amounts to prevent infections which spread like wildfire in such dense populations. Think about the number of resistant strains of bacteria that infect us today and wonder if some of that comes from eating intensively farmed meat fed/injected with antibiotics in order to prevent diseases in these intensively farmed animal populations. One of the benchmarks of an increased standard of living or wealth is increased meat eating. We eat more meat than poor countries. We actually only need three ounces of protein daily to maintain good health. The body cares not what the protein source is.. meat, fish, poultry or plant. So in fact to maintain our lifestyle we use huge amounts of fossil fuel to grow perfectly edible plant protein in the form of wheat, barley, soy, etc which we then feed to cows and chicken which can produce just as good protein in a slightly longer period of time if the cows are grass fed and the chickens are allowed to walk around the barnyard. Why feed the animals these grains when larger human populations can use them for their required three ounces of protein a dayat a greatly reduced cost. And now horrors of horrors we are growing corn, a perfectly good human source of protein never mind its GMO properties, to make biofuel. Madness!!! I am not suggesting we all become vegetarians but buying meat from organically managed farms and buying organically farmed vegetables will reduce the use of fossil fuels, increase the number of small farmers, reduce the number of factory farms which care only about profit (profit is not a bad word to me, I am an economist after all), protect the seed supply from belonging to a few multinationals that are using you as their experimental animals in their GMO lab.

The dishwasher is an old secret. I have used mine to warm dishes for years.

Fresh pineapple, usually in the middle of the night when mso had to drive many ks to find a fruit store open. And although not a food craving the temp in the house in the winters I was pregnant could not be above C 15* (F 60* for those south of the border) during the day and even had to be colder at night. I would even leave all the windows open and go outside with my coat open in below zero (F 30 *) weather regularly.

Gross is this veg. My mother cooked them to death and to date at least a century or more later (according to my kids) I still can't stand the thought never mind the smell of them. Pure torture it was when I was a kid sitting at the table until at least midnight because we had to eat everything on our plate and we were not allowed to "get down" from the table until the plate was empty. Yuck Yuck Yuck. Ugh. Bleh.

Probably too late but - use the bbq. I was without an oven for 4 months - its a long story - and used the bbq from Sept to mid Jan until my new one was installed. I used it like an oven and it worked wonderfully well. I also use it in the summer when it is too damned hot to heat up the kitchen.

Stephen I bet you have a polder thermometer for oven roasting/baking. The polder can be calibrated in metric ie celcius which is a great way to get use to temp conversion when roasting or baking. I spent a year converting until my youngest son pointed out the teeny weeny almost microscopic (I needed new glasses I guess ) button on the bottom for Celsius or Fahrenheit read out.

If you are thinking of buying high end appliances, you might consider buying in the US and having them shipped to Canada. I bought a Blue Star 6 burner cooktop (which through Prestichef was priced at $8,000.00 Canadian two years ago) from a California retailer I found on the internet selling same cooktop which after shipping, customs, tax, and currency translation cost me slightly over $3,000.00 Canadian. Today this would be considerably less as the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the US dollar. Canadian retailers are charging at least a 25% or more premium just for the privalege of purchasing the same appliance in Canada over the price charged in the US... just 25 miles away.

I was not tring to diminish the importance of diet at all. I was stating in fact what happens in hospitals these days. Over a period of time using the blood sugar history and how a particular patient reacts to specific doses of the prescribed insulin, diabetic teaching nurses - specialists in their field - in conjuntion with endocrinologists will determine the insulin needs of their patients. Over time, some patients will learn to manage their diabetes better than any endocrineologist or diabetic teaching nurse. However the vast majority of patients are given specific insulin dosages for specific times of day (depending on the type of insulin(s) presribed) based on their blood sugar diary. Patients are prescribed an 1800 cal/kilocal diabetic diet routinely but many pay no attention to calories and physicians increase insulin doses over time to compensate for the increased caloric intake of their patients. New diabetics who are overweight lose weight initially but many find that having their insulin doses increased compensates for their desire to continue to eat as before and the weight is regained. Many patients on the other hand do watch what they eat and limit their carb and protein intake accordingly.

As a nurse I can tell you that diabetic exchanges are a thing of the past. People are taught to take their blood sugar prior to eating (at least four times a day - before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime snack) and a give themselves the required dose(s) of insulin for that blood sugar level. Diabetics keep blood sugar diaries so that they become familiar with their eating patterns and their insulin requirements based on food intake and exercise (assuming they exercise which many nowadays do not). Hospitals, diabetic clinics, and endocrineologists spend hours working out the required types of insulin, doseages and timing of these doses to manage each individual well over many months. I have many new diabetics where I work and do most of the diabetic teaching for my patients and diet is a very small part of the management of diabetes today. So prepare what you would normally for any guest as they (your guest) will manage their diabetes as they do normally at home.

Stef Try toasting thinly sliced farmer's rye bread as a foil for the poached eggs. Toasting carmelizes some of the sugar in the bread and the thin rye bread toasted is yummy, especially when dripping with butter and seville orange marmalade. This is my favourite toast for everything and a perfect base for poached eggs.

Potatoes dauphinoise made with heavy (35-40%) cream, no cheese and garlic of course. For those who ask I tell them it is low in calories for and a version of scalloped potatoes for those interested. Most not familiar with this dish can't figure out there is garlic in and I don't tell. Stick buns made with yeast dough. If I am in a hurry I cheat and use yeasted pizza dough you can find at the supermarket for the bread base. People go nuts for these and they are so easy to make and make it look like you have spent all day slaving over a hot stove instead of the hour you really spent.

Tomato season is upon us and I wish to preserve summer for use in the winter. How to? I have canned tomatoes before and will do so again this year but wish also to slow roast tomatoes for use at Christmas or in January next. Clue me in please.

I have ignition problems on my simmer burner on which I spilled hot sugar from not watching the pot. However my trusty barbeque lighter works just as well. The ignition still fires so you know the burner has been turned on but the burner does not light. The ignition quits firing as soon as the burner is lit manually.

I measured accurately everything I cooked until I attended a cooking school for non professionals many years ago, One of the disciplines we had to learn, as we were deliberately not provided with any measuring implements, was to cook without measuring except by weight in the hand, by eye, handfull or partial handfull, pinch, glug, etc. of what ever we were using. Thank God they did that. It freed me up to experiment with food and to never follow a recipe slavishly again except if I want to. I can change a recipe on the fly and really only use cook books for ideas now. In baking on the other hand we weighed everything. I bake little now