Lisa Shock

If your water has minerals, like the water in the Phoenix area, bleach will cause whites to yellow slowly over time. After about 20 washings with bleach, jackets have a distinct hue. If you walk the halls of the local culinary schools you can tell who is close to graduating because of their dingy yellow jackets.

You can put OxyClean in the washer, start the machine and let it run just until it's full of water and agitates enough to dissolve the powder. Then turn it off and allow to soak for a half-hour. Then start is back up, add detergent, and let it finish as usual. This will get most stains out. For really, really bad stains, I use White Bright. This stuff is pretty intense, so be careful! It may remove the color from embroidery. That said, it removes accumulated minerals and old bleach buildup -which is often the cause of yellowing of whites over time. For spot treatment before washing, the Spray n Wash stick is very good. A few years back I did some tests of various pre-treat sticks for a corporate client and this one worked the best, you can also treat and wait up to a week to wash. I like to wear a Tide pen in my uniform jacket sleeve pocket. It's useful, and gets rid of a lot of stains. Those it doesn't work on entirely are minimized greatly. (frozen blueberry will become a pale blue haze)

You're dealing with rices with varying amounts of amylopectin and amylose throughout their structure. It would have to be some chemical that changed these starches all the way through each grain. It's easier and cheaper to understand how each type of rice reacts to cooking, cooling and reheating.

PBS still has high quality instructional cooking shows. But, there's a ton of fascinating stuff on

The pacing is too slow and labored for that...

I found also found the show to be annoying. Marcel isn't actually familiar with a lot of modern techniques, as most of the show involved him taking suggestions from others, and then trying to use the method or ingredient for the first time. Most techniques attempted were things that have been commonplace in more advanced kitchens for at least a decade. (I saw the 'egg' demoed at a tourist hotel in 2005, and it was old then.) I was surprised by Marcel's lack of knowledge and experience. For example, the bit with the cheese snake seemed like students messing around in a basics class. I honestly thought they were going to make the high quality processed cheese covered in Modernist Cuisine. -Or something like it. Or maybe something better. But, no, that wasn't going to happen. I understand that failure is an important part of success, but this was just embarrassing. I don't see anyone on that show as being qualified to present the topics -especially since they appear to be learning all of this as they make the show. There's no actual expert doing any teaching here, and the ideas and techniques seem to be self-generated, so the business of them chasing their own tails becomes very tiresome very quickly. Future Food was a lot more fun to watch, and the team at Moto clearly knows a lot more about ingredients and tools.

I've started trying to follow this NYT article's advice.

So, I know that I'm replying to an ancient thread, but, I found one online amateur source online that suggests running the final product through a Brita pitcher filter. I'm thinking of giving this a try. I'm mostly interested in G&Ts, and maybe the Martinez from a final product. And, my expectations are pretty low here. I know that I won't be giving Hendrick's a run for their money any time soon. My projected items to infuse are: dry juniper berries, mahlab seeds, meyer lemon rind, fennel seed, and rose petals. I hadn't thought about separate infusions and a final mix, but that's what I'll try. I have plenty of cheap generic vodka for the project since I purchased three bottles thinking that I'd try three blends. The separate infusions definitely offer a lot more possibilities. I need to go buy more canning jars before starting, so this project may not take off for another day or two.

Thanks for directing me! I searched online and found one guide, but somehow missed that thread here!

Today I picked up three 1.75L bottles of cheapo generic vodka at the supermarket. I am going to experiment with making my own compound gin.

My mom also hated to cook, and while competent at it, has always been uninspired. Her favorite saying is, "There's a reason why God created bakeries." That said, she also had to put dinner on the table almost every night, plus lunches and breakfasts. So, she taught me how to cook basics just to get some help around the house. I can remember being four and pulling a particular chair up to the sinkboard to cut up vegetables for salads. I fairly quickly graduated to moving that chair over to the stove to make other dishes. By the time I was five (I remember the ages pretty well because we moved every couple of years and I remember which house we lived in at the time) I had my own 'house specialties.' I read a lot, and, checked cookbooks out of the library along with my usual haul of science fiction and other non-fiction. I was allowed to experiment as long as I cleaned up and didn't use too many expensive ingredients. Probably the biggest lessons I got early on were in sanitation: wash your hands first thing, wash & mop the kitchen when you're done, and, sanitize the sink every evening before retiring. Once we moved to the country, we did have gardens and raised a lot of our own foods, we even raised cattle for about a decade. I could raise whatever vegetables I wanted from the seed catalog as long as I tended them in the garden, so, I grew some exotic produce like golden raspberries and purple artichokes -just to name a few. And, we did eat a lot of whole grains (my dad prefers brown rice over white, and wholemeal breads) and 'real' (not processed) foods -unlike our country neighbors who seemed to think that boxed mixes were the height of chic. So, as simple as mom's cooking was, at least I was exposed to a lot of different vegetables and grains, and I learned to tend them as well as cook them. Mom also encouraged me in baking, while mostly being hand-off in the kitchen itself. She would take my baked goods to arts & crafts shows where she sold her art, and I made some serious money starting at about age 9. I can recall tabling my own poured fondant for petit fours for a particular client who purchased a lot of baked goods in the summer when I was 10. I was also introduced to hostessing parties and mixology at a fairly young age. My father would have business associates over for dinner, and he was very concerned that everything be perfect. Since I was reading up on French cookery, I often cooked the meals and often mixed a few drinks. Once, my mother was very ill and I was 11 years old. I wound up cooking and hostessing a 'very important' dinner party for my dad's boss and several associates all by myself -fairly successfully.

Bacon can easily be formed into roses for garnishes. Take raw bacon and fold over one end to 90° to make a pointed center and roll it up in the same manner as making a ribbon rose. Run a skewer through the base (you can put multiple flowers on one skewer) and bake until very well done. You can also weave raw bacon then place it over an upturned bowl and bake to make a bacon bowl.

I usually serve my avocado sauce over ravioli that I have filled with mashed up baked potato and chipotle in adobo sauce, so that the insides are red and the sauce is bright green. You could add bacon to the filling pretty easily, thus combining both items into one dish.

Saltines. I made them once and they came out almost exactly like the ones from a box, except less precisely docked. Taste-wise there was no real difference in quality. So, I spent over an hour making a quantity equal to a quarter-box of crackers when I could have purchased a whole box for 99 cents at the time. The only upside is that I now have the experience of making saltines and can pretty much top anyone in conversations about odd things anyone has made at home.

I sometimes chop up avocado and heat it up with a little lemon/lime juice, diced seeded green chiles, salt and garlic and use it as a hot pasta sauce.

I don't think you'd do any harm in replacing the liquid, but, I also don't think that they'll improve much, either. I'd make something with them, like egg salad, rather than toss them.

What about paletas? You'll have some of the same issues as gelato, but, no scooping, no bowls, no spoons, etc.

A case of Rosè of Tempranillo to mainly use in making a huge batch of Vin d'Orange. I was gifted a lot of citrus in the past week and decided that it was time to try making my own aperitifs. I used clementines, a Tahitian vanilla bean, one allspice berry and one juniper berry -and infused them in grain alcohol for two days before adding 4 750ml bottles of today's wine. I also picked up a bottle of Massenez Creme de Peche just for fun. I'll try it in a Daisy sometime in the next week or so.

There are a couple of traditional Spanish cookies that use it. Here's a good recipe for Bizcochitos. The final result is crisper than other fats, similar to butter but harder. Obviously, it's lacking 'buttery' flavor, so the final result won't be as seemingly rich as a butter cookie. Since lard is 100% fat, it does affect some formulas (like cakes) that were created for butter, because butter is 20% water. Your current blend won't be radically different because the percentage of lard is low. However, if you are looking to alter future recipes, you might want to look at formulas that call for high ratio shortening, as that also has no water in it. Some recipes rely on the water/fat emulsion in butter to further emulsify other ingredients -like the procedure for making a savory beurre blanc sauce. Be cautious of any recipe where you are asked to beat or mix in small bits of butter over time, like brioche or some sweet doughs.

Pepsi Throwback reigns in my household.

Pastillage would be be my choice. You could cut it out into shapes if it isn't too time consuming.

Italian buttercream is very white and shiny despite being made with real butter. It's the egg whites and boiling sugar that do the trick.

I agree, abandon the Rose's. I see a Tequila Daisy made with fresh lemon juice, a little sugar and the Monin as the dash of flavoring.

When I lived in Santa Fe, Smith's had errors on about 30% of their shelf tags where the per unit price was incorrect -usually much lower than it should have been. So, if a 5lb bag of sugar was $1.50 the per/lb listed in smaller print might say $.20/lb. So, if you were trying to comparison shop brands and just looking at a per/lb prices you could be swayed into buying something thinking it was cheaper than it really was. The store manager did not understand that this was a problem. I still do not trust the per each section of shelf labels. The store brand tonic water would never scan at the price of the store brand soda pop in the same size containers. It was always shelved with the other store brand sodas and marked on the shelf at the same price, but the cashiers and manager would argue that it was a different price because it was a 'special water' not a soda pop.

Sounds like a sweeter, more syrupy version of a shrub -and shrubs are definitely delicious!