MHarney

Sorry to foil your nefarious plans -- please accept this link to another ongoing study as a meager consolation prize. Fascinating if you haven't seen it already, and it sometimes even involves food.

This is actually done quite a bit, particularly in the clinical/therapy fields. The key is that case notes should be the beginning for more rigorous experiments, not the end-all from which to draw conclusions. The article does note that the conclusions about food and mood are part of a larger study on addiction, so who knows. Ah, I didn't know that was true. In this case, when I read "Her findings will be included in a study of addiction to be published later this month," I took that to mean her findings are the study since no other research or authors are mentioned in the article. I'd be less uncertain if it actually said "larger study." If true, that would be a neat trick on my part. I'd like to take this opportunity to opt out of any study.

← At first, I thought, "Is it kosher to backform a study out of case notes when you didn't know you were going to do the study later and weren't really collecting data for it?" But leaving behind my bothersome critical and cynical mind, this list makes me wonder just what in the hell was going on with me a couple weeks ago when I braised sirloin tips low and slow with onions, mushrooms, and garlic for five hours, and had them over buttered egg noodles with a a hunk of baguette, followed by coffee (with half-and-half and raw [!] sugar) and a slice of bourbon cane syrup pecan pie topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Jumpin' Jiminy Cricket.

Thanks for this link -- great fun. Though some of his ideas are a tad stretchy, I decided Kaufman may have something there when I laughed out loud early on, after he spoke of the Food Network's "wacky, strange soundtracks" and they played something from FN that was straight out of the '70s wokachicka-wokachika-wokichicka genre.FN makes it pretty easy for him to posit some of his connections. Examples abound every few hours. Once or twice, I've seen women on "Food 911" whose longing for Tyler Florence was so palpable you could almost see the hormones swirling around the kitchen. I particularly remember a transplanted Southern redhead living in NY who appeared to be flushed during the entire show. Rachael Ray mixed food and soft porn a year or so ago in Maxim magazine. (Soft? Okay, so what was that stuff on her face?!) Then there's Giada's upcoming "look, I've got three new kinds of cleavage" show, "Behind the Bash," sure to include plenty of Hollywood and Manhattan babes milling about. One can only hope they won't be shooting all of them with that wide-angle lens from a foot or so above, which is what gives her that giant-headed look on "Everyday Italian." While I think "clearly a pornographic focus" is a mite strong, I would agree that, in comparative terms, "The French Chef" was completely out of the ordinary in its time, and there were probably a lot of people wondering why they were salivating so much all of a sudden. Julia herself wasn't the focus and even the videography was usually fairly utilitarian (though "The French Chef" did invent many food camera techniques still in use today), but the whole concept at first must have been very odd and...well, exciting. That being said, I refuse to discuss the possible ramifications of the framed pin...um, picture of Julia next to my range.

Article: "Serve up some semi-homemade sweet treats" One recipe calls for "whipped cream in a tub and in a canister," which seems to be rather convoluted code for non-dairy* whipped creme* topping, sometimes known as Fool Whip. Another recipe calls for a can o' corn-syrupy, Crisco-y frosting substitute, which no doubt makes Sandra Lee's blood boil. I can hear Jaundice Woman now, sotto voce, halfway through her first bottle of tequila, eating frosting right out of the can with a big wooden spoon: "That...little...bish." Yet another recipe says, "I want you to buy a roll of uncooked cookie dough" (okay, so I'm paraphrasing), but then doesn't use it. I suspect back-alley payoffs by the Pillsbury dough boy. "Here's your envelope. Hee hee! Please stop touching my stomach." *When I become Potentate of the FDA, these will be among my first rulings: You may no longer use the kind of French "creme" if there is no cow-produced cream in your product. The phrase "non-dairy" will now be replaced in all ads and on all packaging with the phrase "laboratory-fresh." You may no longer add "-y" to a word and use it to describe your product if the substance is completely absent from the product. Witness "chocolatey," "buttery," and "creamy," amongst many others. Minimum content percentage required to use such terms will be specified and enforced, via endless needling and taunting and late at night if necessary. "Foot-long" hot dogs -- or "foot-long" anything, for that matter -- will hereafter be a minimum of 12" long and not 9" long as specified by previous regulations. Now, get your mind out of the gutter. You must now be honest and reveal that the "carrageenan" thickener used in almost all low-cal, low-whatever salad dressings and many other products is, in fact, seaweed extract or, if you prefer a fancier term, Irish Moss Juice. Use of the faux upscale indicator "essence" with respect to this ingredient is barred. Words such as "delicious," "scrumptious," "yummy," and "improved!" may not be used to describe a product unless personally approved by the Potentate.

Here is a supplementary bulletin from the Office of Fluctuation Control, Bureau of Edible Condiments, Soluble and Indigestible Fats, and Glutinous Derivatives, Washington, D.C.: Correction to Directive 943456201, issued a while back concerning the fixed price of groundhog meat. In the above named directive, "groundhog meat" should read "ground hogmeat." - from Write If You Get Work (And Hang by Your Thumbs) by Bob & Ray

I've probably missed a few things, but: Tony loses his luggage but not his composure at the airport "Commoner's" lunch with the President of the Sicily Region Salt harvesting (at Infersa?), in which Tony demonstrates he's no Mark Kurlansky. Salt-encrusted fish and old owner guy talking up salt for lunch. Manual caper harvest including a large feast the guys have daily. Tony finds out lunch isn't free. Overcome by TV star ennui, Tony decides to play hooky and tourist simultaneously Hangs out with scantily clad ladies on a boat, jumps about 75 feet off cliff into the sea Tony plays bocce with random old men, apparently mugs them for their money Lunch on Mt. Etna. Mmmm, sulphur. Visit to a film festival and a Sicilian friend who attended NYU NYU guy snarks on "No Reservations" during end credits

With great respect to the folks circling around this topic and darting in from time to time with often vehement opinions from every viewpoint, and in reference to possible fanciful and/or mediocre writing by one some deem an outsider/landlubber, perhaps a good title for any follow-up would be The Perfect Storm in a Teacup. No denigration is intended -- just my take after reading the whole thread and now worrying a bit about fellow eGullet members' blood pressure. (A small aside: If you thought The Perfect Storm was good, read The Serpent's Coil. You may forget you ever read the former.)

We kind of age our parmesan in only the finest wheel-shaped corrugated boxes, carefully selected by our purchasing manager Eddie and lovingly hand-assembled by Carol over there. Now with extra science!

You got that right -- I was thinking the same thing about the oven last night since my natural gas provider has just asked for a 17% increase and is expected to ask for about 70% over last year's rates by late fall. (Gee, aren't those energy think tanks sponsored by the energy companies so prescient with their pre-Rita predictions?) On the same topic, the prime reason for my trip to Costco yesterday was to get two fully automatic space heaters for the winter. My two automatic power saver air conditioners have both paid for themselves in lower electric bills in the first two years compared to my crusty old units, which used to boost my summertime electric bills almost to the level of wintertime baseboard electric heating in New England (gasp). fifi has commented on the dehydrating already, and I'll post my comments as well once I've got the rack and have tried it. As to baking, I'll see how the oven does with the Molasses Crisps and Flying Biscuits I plan to make in the next week or so. Like fifi, I don't usually preheat the DeLonghi, but FYI, the "I'm at temperature" beeps generally come within 3-10 minutes, depending on the temp. By the way, if you press the Temp button when the oven is on, that both tells you what the temp currently is inside and allows you to lower or boost your preset. No more than when I roast a chicken in the regular oven. The convection fan seems mainly to move the air inside the oven, not to force a lot more than usual to the outside.

I promised an update once I had the DeLonghi AD1079 for a few weeks, and here it is. So far, I've used it to: Rotisserie a chicken: Came out nicely browned and moist inside. The instructions are a bit off compared to the actual configuration, which is that the rotisserie skewer goes from the front left to the rear right (in other words, it's not straight across the middle as you might expect and as one page in the manual depicts). The other thing that's not quite clear is that you load up the skewer with the assembly leaning to the front left, then push the rack in, then tip the assembly to the right rear to drop the skewer end into the motor. Seems kind of kludgey at first, but it ended up working well. The instructions say it can handle up to a ten pound item, and I think that's about right. A bird any bigger would probably scrape against the heating element at the top or the rotisserie pan on the bottom, whether it's trussed or not (I trussed my six pound chicken and had probably 2 inches of clearance top and bottom). Make pizza from scratch using the pizza function: First attempt was so-so as the bottom of the crust ended up very hard. The second time, I ignored their advice to oil the pizza pan and sprinkled corn meal instead. That worked much better and the crust was crunchy but not overly so on the bottom and chewy above. The mozarella I had was only of mediocre quality, so for the second pizza, I also ignored their advice to sprinkle the cheese only in the last few minutes of baking and put it on from the beginning. I liked it better browned, but a good quality fresh mozarella I would put on near the end. Convection bake a frozen pizza (Stouffer's French bread) with pizza function (on the "P3" setting, as instructed for frozen): Came out better than any one I've baked in my regular oven. Very crispy on the outside, but soft and steaming hot inside. Convection reheat fried food: I had a few shopping stops to make after picking up a fish & chips from the only place around here that makes a good one (with fresh haddock; a picture on the wall seems to indicate the owner's pals with someone in Gloucester). I arrived home 45 minutes after picking it up, so it was a good test. When I've reheated in the normal oven, I've usually done 300 for ten or twelve minutes. The results there are only okay, and the fish dries out very quickly. In the DeLonghi, I loaded it up cold, picked convection bake at 300 for 14 minutes (about 4 to get to temp), and was very pleasantly surprised with the result: The fish was piping hot throughout, crisp on the outside (almost -- almost -- as if fresh from the Fryolator), but still moist inside. Fresh at the restaurant = 9 out of 10; reheated in regular oven = 6.5; reheated in DeLonghi = 8. Convection bake a potato while ribs were slow braising in the regular oven: Also came out very crispy on the outside, the way I like it. My regular oven (which I should mention is electric) has never produced such a crispy skin, and if I tried, I believe the inside would end up mealy and dry. Keep warm: Again, works well and seems to keeps the temperature +/- 10 degrees of the advertised 140 (usually gravitates towards 150). I've used this feature on food a few times and have also used this cycle to warm up empty plates for serving. You can also put plates on top, but the surface is slightly curved, so you have to make sure they'll stay. Dehydrating: Still waiting for the dehydrating rack to arrive, so I haven't tried this feature yet. Other features: Haven't had occasion to use the broil or defrost functions yet. Controls, display, signals: Seem fine to me. The manual isn't very good at explaining the various beeps, but the oven seems to beep when it has reached the intended temperature, when it stops, and a few minutes before the end of the pizza cycle (telling you to put the cheese on, I imagine). The beeps aren't very loud -- I've missed the end beeps once or twice when the a/c in the next room had turned itself on. Cleaning: All racks and pans, even the bottom "crumb" pan, come out for cleaning; the top heating element swings down for cleaning access. The "Durastone" surface that lines the entire inside and the pans does seem pretty easy to clean, but I've learned that you should avoid the dishwasher for the Durastone pans (the wire racks are fine in the washer, though). My dishwasher is a very good one, but it seemed to just bake stuff further onto the pans. I found that a no-scratch scrub sponge for use on stainless steel (often blue in color) with a little baking soda was the right cleaning method for baked-on stuff. Arm & Hammer has a convenient shake bottle these days that I keep at the sink next to the dish detergent. The only interior part of the oven that's a bit difficult to clean is the right-hand side, where the fan is -- there's a lot of venting there and things seem to stick more. However, should it get nasty (mine hasn't yet), the panel is held on with three easily accessible screws and takes about a minute to remove (I've done it just to see). Kitchen heat: I'd estimate that the Delonghi heats up the kitchen maybe one third (possibly one quarter) as much as the regular oven, and the heat seems pretty localized to within several inches of the oven. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the oven; I've used it 3-4 times a week for the last month (the regular oven 1-2 times a week in the same period, and I did see my electric bill drop a couple-three bucks), and it has yet to disappoint. The refurbished one I got was definitely used by others before me, but it was nicks and dings only, and you have to peer at it for a bit to see them. If you'd prefer a brand new one, I saw just last week that Costco is now selling them new for $180 (however, I did not see them today at the Nashua, NH Costco). That's only $19 above what I paid for mine with shipping; if Costco had them a month ago, I think I would have gotten a new one there instead.

Prolly won't be exactly the same, but Gale Gand has a recipe for Molasses Crisps. Sounds good, and I haven't used molasses in anything since I made a 7-hour wheyed (on purpose) Indian Pudding from a very old recipe a few months back, so I think I'll try it tomorrow.

I haven't seen the unfilled Pirouettes for four or five years now. I always bought those when I planned to make vanilla ice cream as they were the perfect combination. I have no interest in the filled ones because I like them filled with slightly melty ice cream. Trader Joe's carries a very similar unfilled pirouline cookie, but the PF ones were much better, in my opinion (and were bigger by perhaps 50%). My own attempts at making piroulines (aka Russian Cigars, I think) have produced mixed results. I don't find them easy to make. Per Julia, I've made it a point to develop asbestos hands over the years ("The trick is not minding" - G. Liddy), but those things are danged hot straight off the cookie sheet, and you only have a minute or two to work with them before they set up and won't roll, and I think any kind of protective glove would be too cumbersome. I'd love to see PF's manufacturing process for them. The semi-discontinued Pepperidge Farm cookie I miss the most, however, is the Tahiti, a coconut and chocolate delight. They dropped off the shelves at least a year or two before the unfilled Pirouettes became extinct. Tahitis aren't sold individually any longer, but they're still included one of the large PF chocolate cookie collections -- in which you get four Tahitis for your six or seven bucks. T'huh. A couple of years ago, I noted Trader Joe's carries unsweetened shredded coconut. A bit of further shredding and toasting of that, some melted bittersweet chocolate for coating, and elements of two or three recipes enabled me to come up with a solution to my small gastroeconomic problem. The results of my first attempt were a bit bland, so the second time I made them, I doubled the amount of coconut and increased the sugar by a third. They ain't Tahitis, but they're pretty good. I remember reading a few years ago of a pastry chef who had spent a weekend or so duplicating every Pepperidge Farm cookie then extant -- just to keep his chops up, if I recall correctly. I can't remember where I read it, but this mention may have been in one of Steingarten's books. Anybody know who that was? Say...maybe he has a better Tahiti recipe.

I can't yet say anything about the sturdiness, but I've had that knife on my "to buy" list since my Cusinart gave the Q sign a few weeks ago, and I thought it worth mentioning that my search showed that these guys sell the Tablecraft for considerably less (7" electric knife + second 12" blade + shipping = three bucks more than Acemart's price for the knife alone). Of all the cordless knives I've seen (mostly on the web), this one seems at least to be the sturdiest looking.

Alas, I still don't know if that's the place or if it's another surrounding Folger's. When I called the Broadway Deli's number: "We're sorry, but the number you have reached has been disconnected."

That's good to hear -- after reading that, I found several stories about the Empire just now. The last time I googled "Empire Theater" "Kansas City", about two years ago, I got no relevant results. Now, there's a ton. The latest news (as of two months ago) is that years of attempts to raze it -- it's been shuttered for 20 years and has trees growing on its roof -- have failed, AMC bought it, and plans to restore it as the centerpiece of a 425,000 square foot entertainment area. Interesting tidbits on the theater here: Huh...even cooler than I knew. A recent color photo is here.I'm not sure the Broadway Deli is the place, but it may well be. Wouldn't that be a kick? That name doesn't ring a bell and it was more of a diner (with counter, booths, and tables, I think), but my memory might not be perfect (for example, I can remember every phone number I've ever had except the one in KC). I'm going to give them a call.

Thanks! Yes, after skimming around with the Google satellite photos for a while, it certainly looks a lot different from when I was there. I don't imagine the beautiful 1930s vintage Empire Theater, formerly mile or so south of that area, is there anymore. The more I look at the Google map and that intersection, the less sure I am that 8th and Broadway is the correct intersection, especially since I found Folger's is variously listed at both 701 Broadway and 330 West 8th, but I definitely remember that the Folger's plant, a tall (maybe 8-10 story) brown brick building, was on the right side of the street as I walked from Walnut Street where I lived to my office (which I think might be a parking lot now), and that the diner was right on the corner across from the plant and on the same side as Folger's.

That's right -- you're swapping from one spoon to the other with a rotating wrist action. Depending on the gloppiness of the mixture and the falutin'-ness of the dish, you might see people doing it four or more times back and forth between the two spoons to make the shape nicer. With frozen items, you can blow warm air on the bottom of the final spoon so it will slide off better. That scoop seems a lot easier, though. That little football shape is popular in French cooking, and not just for mixtures. Watch Jacques Pepin for more than five or ten minutes and he'll likely be carving them out of cucumbers, turnips, or carrots (for the most even cooking).

A photo series showing the process of shaping a quenelle can be found 3/4 of the way down this page.

This is partially off-topic, but...if you happen to be in the downtown vicinity in your travels, I would love to find out if the diner, whose name I cannot remember, across the street from the Folger's Coffee plant is still in existence. I lived in downtown KC for about 18 months back in 1978-1979, and that place had an excellent tuna melt -- close-faced, I'm certain. The best tuna melts I've ever had, though, were those at Polly's Pies in southern California -- very thick-sliced baked-on-the-premises whole wheat butter-grilled to crispy perfection, a thick slice of cheddar, with a tuna salad with onion, celery, mayo, and nothing else. It always arrived piping hot and it wasn't open-faced there, either. (Open-faced tuna melt...t'huh. Who wants to use a fork? Silly.) But the real reason I'd like to know about the diner is this: Every morning at this greasy spoon (which I think had been around since the 1940s at least), they would make 30 or 40 dozen of the most delicious oatmeal cookies you could ever imagine: very thin, a huge diameter of 6-7", crunchy most of the way through but still chewy in the center, and a flavor that the years are only partly making me call otherwordly. If I recall correctly, they'd start selling them, still warm but set enough so they wouldn't fall apart, at about 7am and would usually sell out before 8:30 or 9:00 every morning. When I lived there, I walked the five or six blocks to my job every day past this place (in the midst of the most intense coffee smell, what with the Folger's plant being right there), and it was always a struggle not to stop in there more than once or twice a week to get a dozen. It wasn't a problem at lunchtime (when I would often get their tasty tuna melts, he said, in a somewhat feeble attempt to keep things on topic) since the cookies were long gone by that hour. In the intervening years, I have spent much time trying to duplicate their cookies, but have only come about 9/10ths of the way. Anyway, it's an odd request, I know, but if you happen to be in the area or have relatives there, I'd love to know if the diner is still there and what the heck the name of the place is so I can call them and see if they can send me some of their oatmeal cookies for, say, all the money I have handy. This google map shows the Folger's plant at 330 W. 8th, and I'm almost certain that the diner was at the base of the white-topped building across the street at the upper left corner of the intersection of 8th and Broadway.

I've had the Innova enameled cast iron 7 qt. oval, 5 qt. round, 2 quart oval, and lasagna pan for more than a year now, and am quite happy with all of them. I use the larger two the most, most often for soups, pot roasts, and stews, and the lasagna pan is perfect for gratin dauphinoise à la Steingarten -- it produces a beautifully browned bottom and top. Cleanup is generally a snap -- if heavily crusted after use, soak them for a while and everything just wipes off without scrubbing. So far, each of them looks much the same as the day the UPS guy lugged all fifty pounds of them to my door. All them are very heavy duty, and a glance at shipping weights on Amazon shows some of the Innova pieces are actually a bit heavier than the equvalent Le Creuset items (17 lbs. vs. 14 lbs. for the 7 quart size, for instance). I've never owned a Le Creuset and so can't directly compare, but I can say that, after a year of using them, it's hard to imagine in what way any one of the LC pieces could be worth its list price of three to four times the list price of the equivalent Innova item, unless you consider the French ancestry or color shading of the LC pieces aesthetic imperatives (the Innova are solid colors). On Amazon, you can find all the Innova stuff with a search for Innova color where color is one of blue, green, yellow, and red (or search for Innova to see them all). It looks like some are not stocked at the moment; I don't know if that means Amazon is in the process of dropping them. In the past, you also needed to look at all the items returned in the search, because some third-party sellers on Amazon sold for a price 20-50% higher than Amazon's. Froogle (links to search for Innova blue) shows other sellers out there charging in the more reasonable Amazon range, and they show up on eBay from time to time as well.

Article link: Rachael Ray the new Rosie O'Donnell? Article synopsis: Rachael Ray, newly self-styled magazine publishing expert, giggles creepily as new magazine's editor, design director resign before first issue is published; plans to smile maniacally on cover of each issue; swelling of cranium said to be chronic, untreatable.

As previously discussed in this eGullet thread, it was revealed a while back that it's really one of just two ingredients, not five. From the original New York Times article, "Samurai of Cuisine, On a New Battlefield," January 14, 2005: The same was undoubtedly true of the original Fuji TV series, but as I believe someone noted in the old thread, they never claimed it was secret on the original series, just that it was the theme ingredient. It was a secret kept from the audience up until the reveal, though. Fake chairman, fake cooking academy, fake secret, and now fake ('scuse me...adjusted) facts from Food Network spokesperson...but still fun.

I have a neighbour who has one of those grills, and it's on my list! she says it doesn't even set off the smoke alarm. ← That's true, it doesn't. Heh. I set one off the last time I tried a steak on my cast iron skillet. It wasn't just the light haze that will annoyingly set off most detectors, it was Mt. Etna. Plus, it was au poivre. As I stood coughing and wiping tears away in the yard, I realized that I had created a sort of homemade pepper spray. Needless to say, I'm liking the grill pan a lot better.

Ah, one more item for my rationalization pile! That's good to hear -- I had never read of that side benefit of convection ovens; I think 25-35% cooking time savings is about the only thing I have read. I usually can't finish the huge portions at my favorite fried clam place (an hour's drive away, so it's not too often), and I've found a standard oven reheats them in only a mediocre fashion. They're still edible and still better than anything in, say, a 20-mile circle, but at the place=10 out of 10; reheated in standard oven=7 out of 10.Mottmott: Will do. Once I've had it for a few weeks, I'll post my thoughts in this thread. fifi's message makes me think I probably selected a good one. Regarding cleaning, a few bullet items from DeLonghi's product description make it sound like it will clean easily and well: - Patented DuraStone interior is durable, easy to clean, and distributes heat more evenly - Easy-load rotisserie is simple to remove, load and clean - Drop-Down heating element provides easy access to make clean-up simple I'll be the (modest, sort of) judge of those. Deborah: But that toaster oven is the only way I've ever cooked a decent steak (don't have a grill). Until I recently got a non-stick grill pan that's oven-safe (an Analon), I had similar experiences trying to cook a decent steak. Now: Caramelize on the stovetop, pop in the (regular) 400º oven for a shade under 2 minutes a side, and yum -- complete with grill crosshatching.