John DePaula

Another area when dried herbs win out over fresh is for chocolate ganache. Lowering the moisture content of added herbs, e.g. tarragon, will concentrate the herb flavor and improve the shelf-life of the ganache. As you know from reading Wybaugh, high moisture = short shelf-life.

I know of a couple "of-the-month" clubs: L.A. Burdick Donnelly Chocolates Though I haven't tried their products, the chocolatiers get good reviews. Perhaps in the near future, I'd like to offer something similar as well at DePaula Confections Cheers!

Abra, that sounds wonderful! Great idea!

Well for me, that would have to be when I lived in Atlanta. I went to the Original Pancake House for breakfast. This one had an open kitchen so you could see the workers. My friend and I were chatting when the waitress came to take our orders. As she's describing the specials, all of the sudden a pancake flies out of the kitchen and smacks me in the face! Oh my gawd! The waitress was flabbergasted (and so was I). The kitchen staff was mortified. I grinned mischievously at the waitress, "Ok if I toss it back?" "Uhhh… sure." Toss! Score 2 points for the customer! Needless to say, I didn't order the pancakes. You just never know where they've been.

Love the photo, Brooks. A picture really is worth a thousand words!

I second the idea about the knish! When I lived in Atlanta, Harry's Farmers Market had the most heavenly potato knishes. I tried to make it at home but it was a total flop.

Not at all. These books just show you techniques, procedures, and timelines. A good chef starts with a good recipe and makes it great by putting his/her personal stamp on it. You can achieve a good foundation with these books, and that's why I recommended them.

The Bilheux and Escoffier books are a great way to learn the basics, if that's your goal. We used these books at pastry school in Paris; they were a life-saver. And yes, they will serve you well as reference texts in the future, once you're an experienced pastry chef. Are they the "best" recipes for everything? To know that, you have to have a baseline from which to judge. These books will give you that. Good luck. P.S. If you check around your area, I'm sure that someone has these books so that you can see before you buy.

Yikes! I hope that the paper towel hasn't scratched your molds...

It's important that the mold is clean. JB Prince says that the molds are dishwasher safe as long as you don't use an abrasive. Running them through the dishwasher, (where the water temperature doesn't rise above 50C and no heated drying) helps me keep my molds spotless. It's most important that your chocolate is properly tempered. If it's not, then your chocolate will not shrink enough as it sets and will stick. If you're having some problems getting your chocolate out of the mold, try flexing the mold a bit, or try tapping the inverted mold with the handle of your palette knife. If that doesn't work, pop it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. This can help the chocolate contract a tiny bit more and ease the release from the mold. The PCB colors need to used between 86 to 91.5°F (30 to 33°C). Also room temperature plays an important role. For me, around 70°F (21°C) works best. Keep at it and have fun!

I second the recommendation for the French professional pastry series by Roland Bilheux and Alain Escoffier. These books are excellent and thoroughly cover the classics. Lots of pictures, clear explanations, and helpful timeline tables that indicate how long a project should take. Here are some links from Amazon but you may be able to find them elsewhere too: Doughs, Batters, and Meringues Creams, Confections, and Finished Desserts Petits Fours, Chocolate, Frozen Desserts, and Sugar Work

Nope.

This puff pastry is more difficult to make but it tends to be more delicate and flaky than regular basic puff pastry. One other advantage is that it can be used immediately after cutting to size i.e. you can omit the final resting period. There is also not as much shrinkage as regular puff pastry.

Camellia Dried Red Beans! Their lima beans are great, too. Oh...and the split peas, yumm! Progresso Marinated Olive Salad for making Muffaletta sandwiches.

My regret is missing the opportunity to meet Julia Child. I always felt that she was somewhat of a kindred spirit. And I'm certain that many people around here feel the same way! We miss you, Julia!

I second the comments about Camellia Beans: they're fantastic. Interesting about the "Red-Bean Starter." Need to think about that a bit… Thanks, Mayhaw man.

Yes, I think you're correct. It was somewhat like a curry. I know that 'colombo' is like curry powder. That is to say that it's a mixture of spices. In this case, the spices are ginger, coriander, anise, cumin and cloves. Others? But just adding these spices to sautéed spinach doesn't seem to do the job. Any ideas? Could it be an addition of coconut milk that makes it work? Hmmm...

I usually cook red beans with the lid slightly ajar. Keep an eye on it and if you still have too much water with 1 hour to 45 minutes left in cooking, just take the lid off. Now, here's the good part: if you still have too much liquid when the beans are done, you can mash some of the beans against the side of the pot and it will thicken up nicely and become creamy! Yumm! Hope this helps.

When I lived in Paris, I enjoyed very much a neighborhood restaurant in the 14th, C'est Mon Plaisir. They had a wonderful dish called Gambas roti avec Colombo d'epinards (flame roasted shrimp set atop a creamy fresh spinach side dish). Would someone here be able to lead me to a good recipe for Colombo d'epinards? Thanks.

You can pipe it in with a plain tipped pastry bag, but as I recall we just ladled it in and smoothed with an offset spatula. Hope this helps!

I just uploaded a bunch of images to ImageGullet but it's not letting me get the link for a post. Once ImageGullet is up again, I'll post the images directly in this thread. For now, you'll have to the public gallery and view images there. Someone posted a work-around to the ImageGullet problem...

Wow, he has upgraded the web site and it looks gorgeous! As do the chocolates, of course!!!

Thanks for the beautiful demo, Trishiad!

I second the recommendation for the book Candymaking by Ruth Kendrick. It has a very "no-nonsense" approach to candy-making and it helped me with some problems I was having with caramels. Also has good section on chocolate covered cherries, fondant making, etc. Highly-recommended.

Hi Ruth, Between filling the bonbons and sealing them, it's a long time; therefore, we're talking about two separate tempering sessions. If you're working with a lot of trays, and need to keep the chocolate in temper longer, you can hit the chocolate with a blast of hot air from a hair dryer to melt some of the crystals that have formed and make it less viscous. I think I learned this from Wybaugh's book Fine Chocolates Great Experience. Just keep an eye on your temperature; if you let it shoot up too high, then you'll need to add more seed chocolate and bring the temp back down again. "Don't forget to STIR, Daniel-son!"