Lisa Shock

I checked it on Amazon, it's rare enough that copies are going for $475! That said the cover doesn't show anything that looks like bone-in chicken, whole quail, whole fish with fins, ribs on the bone, etc. I used the Tassajara books in my 20's I have no recollection of any dishes where you place dozens of yuba strips in patterns on top of a structure made of dried tofu to replicate a slab of pork belly, or a whole roast duck.

Ok sorry, I misunderstood. The downside I see is the hard skin bits from the corn. Even ground down, they just have an unappealing texture. I'd buy Ammoretti's popcorn flavor and their butter flavor.

Most of my budget faves are hitting the $9-$12 range now. However, I have been able to get good things (random selections) from Total Wine and BevMo! off their discount shelves. If you don't mind drinking Christmas cheer bottles in January, good deals are to be had in the back of the store. Bevmo! also sells re-packed cases, in plain cardboard boxes (no peeking), of random single beers (ones they normally only sell as 6-packs) for $16 here. They just save up all of the leftover beer when a bottle or two breaks in a 6-pack, then box it when they have 24. You cannot see what you're getting, but, they are always premium bottles -generally from beers which would sell for $8+ per 6-pack, if they had a full 6-pack.

Pastrygirl gets it, I just meant that IMO, this isn't any different than a Nestle Crunch bar. Aside from the butter/oil on the popcorn, the addition is very much like adding Rice Crispies cereal to chocolate. It's not new, innovative, nor should it involve much of a different technique.

Isn't it like a fattier version of crisped rice?

Yeah, Sandra's constant refrain of "your friends will never know the difference!" really upsets me. My friends would know the difference between a real confectionery truffle and canned cake icing rolled into balls! (example from an actual semi-homemade show)

Bisquick -Why pay 3 times as much for some AP flour, trans-fat laden dried shortening crystals, baking powder, sugar and salt? Most people have (or should have) fresh AP flour, oil or butter, baking powder, sugar and salt in their kitchen. It would take maybe 3 minutes to measure them out for yourself. Not only will you save money, it will probably taste better -at least because your peanut oil, or olive oil, or butter will be far tastier and fresher. Plus, you get to control how much sugar and salt and fat you are using. (if you are super lazy, you can pre-mix up tubs of dry ingredients for biscuit making, or pancakes, or whatever) I mean, even if you use Bisquick, you still have to measure out other ingredients to make your dish, so, IMO, you might as well control everything. And, really, it will taste far better. My dislike of Sandra Lee started when I saw her 'chefography' show on FN. In it, she mentions studying at LCB Ottawa. They had a class where they made biscuits from scratch, and her thinking was something like (I don't recall the quote exactly) 'why bother, it's all in a box of Bisquick anyway!' As a poor child who had to cook for siblings due to mostly absent adults, she had used it all the time because a so-called friend recommended it to her. (IMO, friends don't recommend Bisquick to friends!) So, she thought of it as a budget-friendly item and was probably her normative mean for a quality biscuit. Anyway, she didn't stay to make the biscuits in class that day, therefore never tasted the goodness of a from-scratch buttermilk/butter biscuit. She got up and walked out and dropped out of school because she figured she already knew how to do everything. -And, of course, this attitude is why there are so many, many things wrong with her shows. And, how she became so beholden to agribusiness conglomerates.

For me, the pizza related threads were fascinating. So was Jeff Varasano's now defunct pizza exploration website/blog. (before he opened his own place)

Getting producers to reveal 'the split' (%fat - % solids) would be very helpful in many applications.

I like the Moros and both of the black beans. For a simple, peasant type dish, IMO Ayocote Morado is good -it has a thicker skin and just seems more old fashioned to me.

I'd like to visit Pepe in Grani, Caiazzo. On a much more pedestrian note, I am fascinated by variations on pizza fritta which is apparently common street food in several places. If I had funding, I'd open a friggitoria and serve pizza fritta, salads and fried sides.

@Heartsurgeon, where are you getting your vanilla extract? Is it something like Nielson-Massey Mexican extract from the Mexican strain of beans? Or, just some stuff you got from Mexico? If it's the latter, you should probably read up on it and be very careful about feeding any foods you make with it to people other than yourself. " Don’t be tempted by those large, cheap bottles of vanilla available in most gift shops in border towns. They don’t contain real vanilla extract, and they may contain something that could hurt you. That “something” is coumarin, an extract of the tonka bean that imparts to synthetic vanillin an intense vanilla aroma and thus makes it smell like the real thing. Coumarin was banned as food additive in the U.S. in 1940 because of moderate toxicity to the human liver and kidneys. It is listed by that agency among “Substances Generally Prohibited from Direct Addition or Use as Human Food.” Beware, therefore, “bargain” Mexican vanilla. Double check bottles very carefully to ensure that you are purchasing pure vanilla, and if a deal on the extract strikes you as too good to be true, pass it by. "

Those coolers claiming to keep ice for a week or so only do that under specific conditions and if they aren't opened. Make sure to have a plan before you open the cooler and get in and out quickly.

I have inquired at a local college's student employment office and gotten groups of strong young people to come in for a very reasonable wage. They're also often glad to get maybe just one hour's work, because they have busy schedules and often cannot work a 4-8 hour shift anyway. One place I worked at, we'd feed and pay them.

Use a stronger light source?

How far away do your friends (from the photographs) live? If you can, I humbly suggest that at some point fairly soon, you cook an actual hamburger with Junior. -Just so he knows what a real one is supposed to taste like. (as opposed to most fast food places)

Mom would let me help prepare the salad for dinner. I was a tall child, and pretty well coordinated, so, just after I turned 4 she let me peel and slice carrots and cut up other salad items with a paring knife while standing on a chair. She also let me make my own toast for breakfast in exchange for teaching me how to set up the percolator so she could sleep in a little bit. Sometime in that year (I could read) I read some of her cookbooks and decided that I wanted to make potato leek soup, and she let me. That became my 'signature dish' for a couple of years. Of course, I had to clean up, too. I swept and mopped the kitchen, and did dishes more often than I was allowed to cook -at first. Then, both my mom and younger brother got really sick with strep and dad was out of town. So, I was left to my on devices in the kitchen for more than a week. I just started checking recipes against what was in the fridge and trying to make it. I made two complete dinners during that time, even though I was the only one able to eat them I tried serving mom and my brother on trays in bed. My father taught me to cook eggs later that year, and he made me a little bench to stand on in the kitchen. Of course, my dad already had me pushing a manual lawnmower around the backyard and digging up dandelions at an early age, too. We weren't allowed to watch much TV, and all of my neighbors were adult empty-nesters so I didn't have any playmates outside of pre-school.

Welcome! Feel free to ask, several of us have experience cooking large quantities of foods and transporting them.

The viscosity will determine if the motor is powerful enough to work for you. This is a bit like when makers of small, home-style mixers state that they are not designed for making bread dough. There's a big difference between mixing watery liquids and, say, making mashed potatoes. Be honest and decribe the types of foods you will be making.

@BetD and @lindag -when you're done, SNL did a hilarious parody of it tonight. (spoilers!)

Lava mix? I have never heard of it. Can you give a brand name so we can research it? Most mixes require fairly faithful adherence to the manufacturer' instructions. In school, I learned that there were two different methods discovered to make lava cake pretty much at the same time. One is a fairly simple cake originally made by Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten which was originally a fortuitous accident of making a cake incorrectly so it retained a runny center. It's pretty easy to make. The other was simply placing a frozen ball of ganache on top of the batter for each portion before baking. (it drops to the center as the cake bakes and then melts as the cake solidifies) And then, there was the Tunnel of Fudge cake from 1966 which is related but not the same as it uses cocoa instead of chocolate.

Do you have access to a farmer's market? When I was a kid and the garden would overflow with tomatoes, my mom would make spaghetti sauce and freeze it, and then, if there were still too many tomatoes, tomato juice canned in glass jars.

@heidih, I have owned that book for years, plus a lot of other vegetarian books. (been vegetarian since 1979) I'm not looking for substitutes exactly, I am looking for this specific type of cuisine where the mock meat is painstakingly structured to look exactly like the real thing. -Like 'ribs' with 'bones' sticking out, whole roasted 'quail', whole roasted 'chicken', 'turkey' legs, a massive intact fish 'fillet', large marbled slices of 'pork' belly, etc. where someone would swear in looks just like meat. Not just random unknown chunks (of seitan strips or tempeh maybe) in a stir-fry. The closest I have ever come is making tofu 'egg' salad, where carefully cut and mixed medium-soft tofu takes the place of chopped egg whites. I am looking to possibly making a fake dish for a competition where I am supposed to produce a 'fish course' which, here in AZ, a landlocked state, IMO is ridiculous.

I just saw a tv show where a professional chef was mentioning that the mark of a professional chef was knowing how to refine the sauce of a curry so there were no oil spots. (I think it was an American show, though!) One solution, depending upon the type of dish, would be to make a quick roux when starting. So, instead of, say, adding ghee to the pot, then spices, then puree of onion, then chunky vegetables, then pureed tomatoes to finish, one would add a some all-purpose wheat flour after the ghee and spices are added and let it cook for a couple of minutes until it is a bubbly paste and the flour is just starting to brown, barely. It is important for the flour to get thoroughly cooked and bubbly, so it does not form lumps in the sauce or taste like raw flour. Let the spice flavors develop then add a little less flour, by weight, than ghee. Normally, the ratio for roux-making is equal parts fat and flour by weight, however, you probably have some dry spices absorbing some fat, so you have less fat available. You're going to have to experiment a bit, but, something like 0.5 - 0.75 flour to 1 ghee by weight should fix the issue. Your pictures may be too large, or too high quality. Try reducing the image (in a Windows PC, use Paint) to 800x600 pixels and see if that helps. Good luck!

Thanks! The best pan-Asian market in Phoenix is a long ways from my house, so, I tend to only visit a couple times a year. I will keep an eye out. None of the markets here are as good as they were before the economic crisis.