Schielke

I will try to pick some up this weekend. I have to say that I am on a Larb kick. It is so damn tasty and easy to make! Katie and I had it again last night as a quick meal before we picked up around my place for the holiday. Ill have to give that sausage a go sometime...how would it work in patty form? I dont have any good way to stuff em! Also the Thai style eggs sound tasty too. I feel a thai cooking kick coming on. Laab Ben

I would like to assume that it meant a skilled tradesperson was deeply involved in the making of the product. It seems that it is being morphed into "handmade". Ben

Awesome, good to hear. I am glad that the four seasons addressed this. Ben

Kathy, I have seen it at the liquor store down in Kirkland that serves Hunts Point. I posted about it in the Best Seattle Liquor Store thread a while back. You might want to call them to make sure they have it. I ordered mine online about 6 months ago from a distributor who works closely with the distiller down in California. Clicka Clicka Ben

I have a bottle of the straight vodka and the kaffir lime in my freezer. I love the taste of the straight and you might want to look into it. The lime is a very intense lime flavor that should be paired with something. I have been meaning to make a cosmo with this. Enjoy! Ben

I would be interested in the $500 one! Do you know if it was an outdoor unit or an indoor one? Thanks! Ben

That salad is pretty damn good, you might want to take a peek at it. It really isnt that much of a salad really. Ben

Larb a-hoy! I made the beef Larb recipe that Mamster posted earlier here: I used some shallots I had growing in a pot out back, they were pretty tiny but that is another story. The only rice I had to make the ground rice with was arborio. It turned out pretty tasty, the rice smelled kinda like peanut butter when it was being toasted. I ground the rice up in my little baby cuisinart and it scared the hell out of sophie and vinnie...they are still a little angry at me for scaring them. I placed the cooked larb on a couple romaine lettuce leaves and dug right in. No time for pics since I was so hungry!!! I'll have to take some next time I make it since I will be making it again for sure!!! I think that my larb was a shade dry and could have used a touch more fish sauce and lime juice too. Overall though it was great and pretty simple to make, Katie loved it too. I think it will become a fairly common dish here. Thanks a bunch for the pro-larb stance that propelled me into home larb-making! Ben

I think that tandoors can use either wood or gas. Most resturaunts use Gas due to its consistency, but traditional ones would probably use wood. The homeade one mentioned earlier used wood or charcoal I believe. The key to the tandoor's heat is not the fire though, it is the heat held in the earthen walls of the oven that is so intense. I believe there is alot of preheating involved when firing up the ol tandoor. Man, I totally want a tandoor, but I would probably burn my house down. Ben

I checked out my Culinaria- France book and found a couple mentions that might be worthwhile. One talked about French monks in northern France being into beermaking. The northern region is second in beer production to Alsace. The book also shows some beer labels: Amadeus Ambre des Flandres Biere du Desert Ch'ti Gavroche Goldenberg Grain d' Orge Gayant Jade JenLain L'atrebate Saint Landelin Sebourg Septante 5 La Biere du Demon 3 Monts Alsatian beer is a definately number 1 in france with seven of their breweries providing 54% of French beer. The oldest running brewery is the Schutzenberger (since 1740). Also Meteor is a family run brewery that still uses traditional methods, so you might want to check that out. Ben

I had a wonderfly crisp alsatian beer (lager I think) at Le Pichet here in Seattle. I am affraid I can be of no further help since I don't remember the name . Good luck! Ben

Yeah, thanks for the lookup Rachel. This recipe is the one that I based my first pop round off of. It gave me the idea for using the easily available plastic spoons for pop holders. I have to say that their recipe is pretty weak. "Ya want puddin' pops? Take our damn puddin, and *#^&*!$ freeze it!" Totally weak. I hope that once I settle on a final recipe that they would take it! Thanks again! Ben

Good point. I have not personally contacted kraft to inquire about any of this but I have seen the result of other requests. Kraft basically says that the market is not there for pudding pops, which is why they pulled them in the first place. I wonder if they would hook a brutha up with the pop recipe though....probably for a fee. Anybody here got the kraft hookup? Ben

Go Klink! A wonderful wrapup to a great project. But you never answered the biggest question of them all!!!!! When are you going to build your own smoking outhouse? It would be a glorious sight indeed. Ben Edit: Whoopsie doodle

Ok, so to avoid thread drift I am moving all non-pudding related kitty pics to my Bio. I plan on making my next batch of pudding pops as soon as I get ahold of some popcicle molds. Frankly I am still eating the first batches! Ben

I would love to see that. How about a streaming web show with suvir and hot oil! hehehe Ben

I tried this recipe for the first time last night and it made a believer out of me! If you have not tried it, go and buy some cauliflower tonight. It couldnt be easier. Here is my result!

Suvir, I ran straight home today and made the crispy yam and peas recipe you sent. On my way I picked up a supply of dried mango powder and asafetida. I had a great time since I dont usually deep fry. I forgot how fun it can be. Wheeeee! I believe that it came out quite good even with my mistakes! Here are some pics for you to critique . My yam chunks frying away! The first batch did not get as crispy as the following ones, but were still quite tasty. This is after I had added the tomato puree, yams, peas, and water. Looks pretty tasty! how is the yam/pea/sauce ratio in this pic? I just guessed since I do not have a good way to weigh items to proportion them correctly. All done and ready for a bite. This is where I took the liberty of messing with the recipe due to dire circumstances...and also screwing up. I was looking through my fridge for the plain yoghurt and realized that I had run out. I decided to substitute sour cream instead and it seemed to fit fairly well, but I could tell it would have been better with the yoghurt. Also, I forgot to put in my newly purchased dried mango powder. doh! Well it just means I have to make it again! I plan on making the other recipe you sent and the great one monica pm'ed me too! Again, many thanks for the great recipes you are so generous with! Ben

snooky, welcome to the board! Since you posted about this event I assume you are a PacNWer. I hope you can make it to this class or any other events planned. Sauces and stocks would be a great class! Lets add that as a seperate option since it could easily fill a whole class. Thanks for the suggestion! Ben

Sorry, still confused by toasted flour. Would you mind elaborating? This dish looks amazing! Thanks, Ben

There is a really great turkey/thanksgiving resource list going on over at Saute Wednesday. rentyourchef, I used the foodtv turkey calculator (listed in saute wednesday's link list) to calculate for 17 people (I counted 5 children as 3 people). The calculator defaults to 2 servings per person and leaves room for leftovers. A serving is not defined though. 2 servings = 25.5 lbs Ben

Pics Pics and more Pics please! The evening must have been so much fun with all the new dishes coming out one after another! Ben

All of those suggestions sound great! Once we have a few more people chime in I can contact William to talk about details and such. Naturally a truffle or foie gras class might cost a little more, so take that into account too. Although I might be partial to a truffle class since I have never had the chance to eat them before. If we do do a knife skills class, does everybody have sharp knives they can bring in? I know that there are a limited number of chefs knives available in the Mistral kitchen. I am also interested in learning more about sauteeing. I have yet to be able to come close to replicating william's perfectly crusted scallops or halibut in my own kitchen and believe it would be interesting to get right up there and try one myself with some guidence. Another possibility would to do a mixed menu kind of thing that highlights different dishes and techniques that we find interesting. Perhaps learning how to sautee a piece of fish or scallop then learning a foie gras technique for another dish and finally touching on something for dessert or the like. William, if you are reading this please let me know any thoughts you have on them if you have time. Thanks everybody! I cant wait until we get this hammered out! Ben

Do you really cook Ben? You look too clean cut too cook in those great pics.. Just kidding.. Being Tommy here.... Email me a note.. and I can attach the recipe and send it your way... Heh heh heh, Well when I cook I make a point not to bathe for a couple days before the process. I get pretty scruffy too. Thanks again! I need to get back into some more indian cooking! Ben

Good heavens--every day I feel grateful that I'm on the PNW board and not one of those regional boards with demanding standards. Whenever I post on the NY board I feel like I'm walking on a swaying wooden bridge over a yawning canyon. And quicksand. I have met many PNW regulars and without exception they are charming, kind, and down to earth. Their only standards are regarding good-tasting food. In other areas, such as pants, they have no standards at all. I look forward to meeting everyone I haven't met yet. thelastsupper, when are we getting together for dinner on Capitol Hill? girlchow, hope you make it to Seattle soon so more people can enjoy the pleasure of your company. Regarding Portland, Matthew and I are both from Portland and love hearing about it. Human Bean, I think Jim Dixon's comment was in no way a slight, but rather an attempt to draw out more fine Portland-area members like you. We are working our way through a bottle of JDOO, the Bettini, and I highly recommend the Don Alfonso. Thanks, Jim! What other special foods will be found at the Portland Farmers Market? Hopefully on a future visit to Portland we can meet up with egulleters there. The new wine bar Jim recommended sounded great (if we can drag ourselves away from Pambiche. I have complete faith in Jim's restaurant recommendations thanks to Pambiche). It's a little tricky because my parents, siblings, and nieces live in Portland, so our visits are family time. But I'm sure it will work out at some point. Yeah, those NYC suckas need to relax. Hey, the reason we have the pants problem in the first place is because of my high standards about pants. I only wear the best or not at all! Also I would say the exception to the PNW rule of charming, kind and down to earth woudl be that bastard Klink. He is a hardass! Actually, I am all out of EVOO right now. JD what do ya have coming in the near future? Ben