Lisa Shock

Ok then. No biggie, I was just working on a seasonal punch recipe, but, I can switch to a more reliable summer fruit, thanks!

Now, we need to get you working on good bread...

Noting that I did read andiesenji's posts on using dried peaches, I am wondering if there are any issues with using fresh peaches or apricots in an infusion? Just got to thinking about the chalkiness that they can have in ice cream/sorbet and was wondering if that also affected infusing.

Not only would it need to be tossed, anything it came in contact with (refrigerator shelves, countertops, etc.) needs to be carefully disinfected. The issue is much broader than looking at getting the meat to 167° and cooking it at that temperature for 10+ minutes -and being absolutely certain about it. Presumably the ground turkey was sold with some sort of wrapper on it. To attempt to cook it, one would have to handle and remove the wrapper safely and then discard the wrapper properly -isolating it from further human contact. Just unwrapping the meat could cause tiny bits to fly around the room and infect other foods/surfaces or even into the open mouth of a bystander. Also, one has to consider that the wrapper may not have been entirely intact. A tiny tear could have infected all sorts of things, causing a lot of trouble even if the original meat isn't consumed. The stuff should be tossed ASAP.

People will try to convince you that the new thing is big flat screens with changing menus and videos and such, but, that drastically changes the look of a place -making it too slick and corporate in appearance for what you're trying to achieve, methinks.

I agree that your most concerning issue is textural. The items started out frozen and stayed cold, so, I don't think there's a big foodborne illness issue here. The steaks are probably one of the safest items, because of their lack of processing they tend to not be contaminated like ground beef. That said, refreezing will affect the texture. Remember, each time you freeze, ice crystals form and they cut up cell structures like little knives. Thawing and refreezing creates new crystals in slightly different places that damage the meat further. Eat as much of these as possible, thawed, now. Any meat you refreeze will have a much greater tendency towards freezer burn, as there will be more water released from damaged cells. Even things like sausage won't be as good refrozen. I'd take a look at making foods that you can freeze once cooked from some of those meats, as suggested above. (stew, cassoulet, etc.) Refreezing delicate items with (formerly) intact cell walls repeatedly will just turn them into soupy mush -berries especially. The berries are fine and safe to eat, just know that they will be very soupy when thawed and might be better in a sorbet, smoothie, jam or pie. The stock should be fine, maybe you'd want to heat it through before refreezing. In a restaurant, you have a 4 hour window to get room temperature food into the walk-in (fridge) and since this stuff started out frozen and stayed cold, I think that you're ok from a safety standpoint.

That would be great. Shipping off heat lamps, induction burners, pots, sheet pans, silpats, torches, toaster ovens, etc. is a pretty big project. The lab would be far easier to manage than doing a setup in the hotel. -And cleanup would be less of an issue as well.

Ok, I wanted to attend anyway. The deal is, teaching sugar would involve shipping supplies and equipment out, plus ingredients. Those are extra expenses I wouldn't incur as an attendee, and could easily cost as much as the airfare. While I might be able to simply attend, adding several hundred dollars onto the bill to teach would probably make it unworkable for me.

If I can get there, I can teach pulled sugar. I wouldn't charge. My only issue right now is that I'm only working part-time and money is really tight for me. And, I live in Arizona, so driving to the event would not really be possible, too many days lost from work. If I could get a little help with a ticket, or the hotel room, it would be greatly appreciated, and help cement my plans.

HERE is a guide to the knife cuts with their modern American names, scroll to the later pages to see examples. Allumette is sometimes referred to as the matchstick cut. HERE is a list of the classic French terms for them.

If you are in the US, Smart & Final stores sell a box of frozen puff that's flat. Catch is, it's a big box and thus a hefty investment. That said, if you have the freezer space, it's very convenient because you can pull out single sheets to thaw and leave the rest frozen.

I'm a potential possible maybe...

I've only done it with isomalt, but, remelting should work. Even if it's crystallized, after all, you started out boiling crystal sugar and water in the first place. You get a spike in temperature once the moisture leaves the boiling sugar. The temperatures for cooking sugar are generally all about water content and inversion. Make sure to wash down the sides of the pot as usual. The only issues with re-cooking involve how stable the food coloring is. Overcooked isomalt tends to yellow a bit giving a weird tinge to food coloring. And, some food colors aren't all that stable and may change when heated to hard crack stage -that's why they get added during cooldown.

BTW, if you drink alcohol, even simply tossing a handful of raspberries or cherries into a bottle of vodka for a couple weeks will give you a lovely infusion that you can use like a flavor extract in cooking, or drinks, and it will be a delightful reminder of summer when consumed mid-winter.

Would it have been too difficult to remelt and remake them? I know that you'd lose the sticks, but, you might have saved time.

I'd get some Everclear and make raspberry and cherry liqueurs. Jam also comes to mind. Fruit based mousses could be made, as well as pate d' fruit but those would have to be consumed more quickly. I'd start looking for a cool place to store some of the potatoes. I am of the opinion that potato dishes simply do not freeze well. Roasting with herbs is always a good way to use potatoes. This time of year, I also enjoy eating a few potatoes in my salads, just boil new potatoes and add warm or chilled to a basic salad with vinaigrette dressing.

I'd make a sweet squash pie for dessert, zucchini fritters and tomato soup. That said, squash curry with a tomato based sauce and a salad of raw zucchini sounds good, too.

I wouldn't use potatoes like that for soup, I think they'd stay firm and not collapse into the velvety smoothness you try to get in a soup. I haven't tried it, but, it just doesn't seem wise. On the other hand, if the potatoes are cut into an appropriately small size, they would retain their shape well for clear soups like minestrone or vegetable.

Right now, the source of the trace amounts of melamine contaminating foods is not known. The manufacturers aren't deliberately adding it. Their factories have been inspected. This is different from factories where large amounts (orders of magnitude larger) of melamine were added (via equipment installed specifically to measure it into the product) as part of processing foods so that they could appear to contain the protein levels of milk when in fact the factories were cutting the milk with 40% water. -Or routinely adding it to exported commodities like wheat gluten, animal feed, etc. to cheat consumers by not only adding a cheap, poisonous filler but also decreasing the amount of nutrition available in the commodities.

When I was in Japan in October 2008 there was a scandal reported in the news outlets in Tokyo where all sorts of goods, like cookies, that were made in China with dairy products were found to have been deliberately contaminated with melamine. For the entire two weeks we were there, it was big news in Japan as they import a lot of foods from China. Their reporters mentioned that these foods had been distributed globally. But, US news outlets (at least online) didn't carry the story and I saw nothing about it in magazines or newspapers when we got back. This was, of course, after 2007 and supposedly after the food recall system was in place.

I kind of wondered this myself. The asparagus at my parents' house was already in the garden when we moved there, and the house had been unoccupied for about 15 years prior to us purchasing it. That section of the garden, which also had rhubarb, was always treated with care and respect.

The scandals involving worthless counterfeit medications made in China that were flooding the world markets (including supposedly reputable drugstore chains in the US) in the early 2000's were very frightening. For me the final straw was learning about the pet food then dairy products made in factories where it was SOP to add melamine to the product. The factories and machinery were designed to deliver, measure, and incorporate poison into food. That's different from lax hygiene practices and other foodborne illness outbreaks. I have never seen a case of a US manufacturer deliberately formulating a food with a known poison, at least during my lifetime. And, the most recent infant formula scandal was just one in a long series of incidents where Chinese infant formula factories deliberately poisoned consumers. One head of China's FDA left in 2005 after a series of scandals over 7 years that involved deaths from poisonous infant formula and other medications.

I have only heard of the dry root being used in Chinese medicine. We had some in the garden when I was growing up, we never did anything with the roots since the plant is a perennial. I always figured that since the bases of asparagus stalks are woody and undesirable, anything lower down on the plant would be similarly tough. You may have to try steaming a small amount yourself and see what seems to be the best option. My personal vote would be to plant this gift and receive an annual harvest for years to come.

I stopped buying any food from China in 2008. The only thing I miss is a mushroom soy sauce I used to get, but, I console myself with the knowledge that I am now consuming less aflatoxins. I simply don't trust that the ingredients statements on the packages have any basis in reality -literally anything could be in that can or box instead of the real food.

I found this home candymaking book with some recipes. I have never used it in candymaking, I've just seen it in commercial candies as a coating, similar to the nuts referenced above, or in jujubes and such.