cakewalk

I still eat ketchup with hot dogs. I think it's true that mustard can be difficult for kids to appreciate, I never liked it as a child and always loved ketchup. I love different mustards now, but I still eat ketchup with my hot dogs. Most people think it's pretty gross. (But they're so picky. )

Very interesting responses. I still tend to think that when most people use the phrase "picky eater," the food really has very little to do with it, it's mostly an ego thing. It's more understandable with kids, they're trying to assert some autonomy (i.e., they're growing up), and I think for the most part they should be allowed to make their own choices. (But I don't have kids, so what do I know?) With adults, it's much more tricky. Mostly it's just not a food issue, and if they're my guests the question becomes, "how much of this crap am I willing to put up with?" If an adult refuses to eat food because it's a particular color, well, I have little patience for that. I don't consider him a picky eater, this is not a food issue. But if people dislike certain things, I see no point in getting upset about it. We're dealing with adults here, they're allowed to dislike things, however irrational we may consider that dislike to be. So at what point is someone considered a picky eater? I once had cousins visiting from overseas, and I made a big pot of mujadara only to find out that they couldn't stand onions. I was surprised and even a bit stunned (how can anyone not like onions?), but they're adults, they know what they like and don't like. (And mujadara freezes beautifully.) But does that make them picky eaters? I'm not religious but I keep a semblance of kashrut. I don't eat non-kosher meat, I don't eat shellfish. When I eat at friends' places, they'll either make fish or I'll just eat the vegetable side dishes, I'm fine with that and so are they. Am I a picky eater? I don't think so, but others might. There are many examples. I just don't know how to differentiate between "valid" refusal to eat stuff, "picky" refusal, and just plain nuts!

I agree with that. (So therefore, it's right. )

How are you defining "picky eaters"? For example, there are many people who like canned vegetables. (As well as fresh veggies, not instead of.) But canned just doesn't bother them, it might even be preferable because of ease of preparation, and because they simply like them better. A lot of people on this forum (myself included), for the most part, won't touch them. Does that make us picky eaters? It doesn't matter if we can "justify" not eating canned veggies. Most pick eaters (whoever they are) have some sort of "justification" for their decisions. (In quotes only because I'm not so sure they need any justification for deciding not to eat something.)

Wow. Twizzlers are one of nature's most perfect foods. How can they be improved upon? They are particularly excellent in two scenarios: road trips and movie theaters. Straight out of the plastic, no deep-frying needed. (But it was fun to read about.)

I would like nothing better than to believe this. However, it doesn't seem to be the case. FN is just one small example, as is TV in general. People seem to want what they're given, and the standards keep reaching new depths. Hundreds of channels, very little content. Thousands of channels, even less content. People can't seem to get enough. And books. Have you looked at a "Bestsellers" list lately? Thrillers and romance novels, most of which are repeats of the ones that came before it, the authors have research teams and the books are mostly formulaic. I don't understand how it got this way, but I can't deny that this is the way it is. Critical thinking seems to have bitten the dust quite a while ago.

What a rant. Guy Fieri has A LOT of help! Blaming everything on him is pretty silly. The writer's suggested replacements of "the pacifying voices of Ina, Martha, Nigella, even Mario Batali" also lean towards "food personalities," because that's what everyone is now. (Don't even get me started on the use of first names, and only for the women.) It has nothing to do with whether or not they can cook. Is he suggesting that Bobby Flay can't cook? I think he's wrong. The point is that cooking doesn't sell, at least not in terms of what "sales" implies today. Previously, selling was in a different stratosphere than it is today, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with Guy Fieri.

Interesting. I've used them in cakes (drained well, patted dry), and have liked the results. Added the cherries to ice cream once (an impulsive attempt at Cherry Garcia), they were okay. I do like to very mundanely spoon them over things. But I discovered that I like the syrup more than the cherries, and I usually use the two separately. The syrup (which, BTW, freezes very nicely in a zip-lock bag and happens to have more cherry flavor than the cherries) is great heated with a cinnamon stick, some star anise, a few cloves, a bit of lemon juice and honey, just reduce it a bit and then drizzle it over a slice of almond torte.

This might be helpful: http://www.pastrypal.com/2009/09/orange-lace-cookies/

Don't know if this was mentioned, but it's worth repeating: dark Morello cherries in light syrup. They come in jars. Get several, you won't regret it. I so envy people who have things like shelf and cabinet space.

Look askance at cake??!!

I always stock up on their dried fruit and nuts. And butter, which I freeze.

IMO, Nancy Silverton's recipe. Wonderful clip here, with Julia Child: There are other threads about brioche on eGullet, I suggest doing a search.

I've also had recipes for each staring me in the face for quite a while, I think after Passover I will attempt to make at least one of them. It seems to me that Povitica is a much richer bread than the Babka, and it also seems to have a lot more swirls. A few years ago the Daring Bakers made Povitica, and there are a lot of entries for it on Tastespotting. They're beautiful to look at. So are the babkas, but they're much less "swirly." A lot of babkas are rolled up, I've never seen a povitica made that way. I was looking through Gil Marks's Book of Jewish Desserts the other day and he said that babka is traditionally rolled, jelly-roll style, which was news to me, but he generally knew what he was talking about. I like the swirl style better than the jelly-roll style. (But I'll eat either.)

Yes, I keep waiting for someone to comment on the taste, but all I'm reading here is about the technique. I also love fresh lemon juice, and so far I'm not tempted to try this just for the sake of doing it.

You might want to try the Williams Sonoma recipe for animal crackers, it's actually a very nice cookie, flavored with nutmeg. Your description made me think of them because the cookie cutters also have an imprinted design, which is what gives detail to the shape of each animal cutout. I don't know how large your cookie cutters are - the animal cracker cutouts are quite small - or if that will make a difference, but it might work well. You can Google the recipe, it's all over the place. If you can't find it let me know and I'll send it to you.

What is egg cracking?

I made strudel this weekend, first time ever. What a revelation. The thought of stretching that dough was always so intimidating, but it works, it's like the dough is just waiting for you to stretch it out to all four corners of the earth. Amazing. I think this is going to become a regular thing, and I can't wait to try different fillings. (Yesterday's was apple.) In the Time Life Series "Pies and Tarts" book, they have a recipe that yields two pounds of strudel dough, for a 6-foot square table. (Not the recipe I used, but I read a lot of different stuff.) And they say something like, "with practice, you'll be able to stretch one pound of dough onto the same size table." Now that I cannot imagine, but who knows? I see a lot of strudel in my future.

Aperol. Because I saw these cupcakes on Tastespotting, and I couldn't resist. http://buttersugarflowers.com/2015/02/14/aperol-spritz-cupcakes-sweet-sour-scrumptious/

That's very strange for a lot of reasons. Cronuts became similarly popular here, and then they were imitated all over the place. No one had to steal a recipe. Coming up with the idea is the unique part. (In fact I'd question if the "cruffin" would ever have existed if the "cronut" hadn't been developed first.) But once the idea is out there, anyone who bakes could work out a recipe and a method to copy it. That's what happens all the time. So the theft doesn't really make sense in terms of the cruffin alone. I wonder if he was trying to develop other unique items, and someone wanted to mine his notes for ideas that are still at the unfinished stages. To me the whole thing sounds vindictive more than it sounds competitive. (Or it could be a really nice publicity piece, although I don't really think so.)

Bingo.

Very interesting. I recently bought grape molasses (haven't used it yet), I'm assuming it is used similarly to the date molasses? I have seen recipes that call for it to be mixed with tehina. From what I've read, the grape molasses seems to be more prevalent in Turkish cuisine, whereas the date molasses is more Iraqi. I'm also wondering if date molasses would be the same thing as date honey? (Apparently the phrase "land of milk and honey" refers to date honey.)

Why would unsalted butter be more expensive? Over here I've never seen a price difference between them. (I live in Manhattan.)

That's good for you, but not for everyone else. And recipe developers cannot assume that everyone has access to the particular brand of butter they might use. So I think unsalted butter makes more sense for them. I'm speaking mostly from a baking perspective, but I think it makes sense in cooking as well. You can season food at just about any stage.

I think that is what happens. It just doesn't seem to matter if the butter is creamed by itself first, before adding the sugar to it and then continuing the creaming process.