Lisa Shock

Make cookies?

Honestly, I go in two directions -as some people don't view some foods as proper in dressing, depending upon where they are from. They aren't really precise, I wing it depending on how many people will show up. My family is from Michigan, so they always did wild rice (perhaps mixed with some brown rice). You simply cook the rice with water and salt. Then take some olive oil (or butter, if they'll eat it) and sautee finely diced onion along with some chiffonade of fresh sage in a large pot (big enough to hold everything at the end. When the onions are translucent, maybe just starting to brown, add some sliced mushrooms, a big handful, and a pinch of salt, plus a very tiny whisper of nutmeg. (onion confit is a great inclusion here, if you have any -so is a drop of liquid smoke) Sautee for a few minutes, then add a little more fat, and stir in the cooked rice(s). It's kind of like an American fried rice. Keep warm in a pan. Can be made the day before and just reheated, add a couple extra tablespoons of water if reheating from cold. A more conventional dressing can be had by cutting various breads into cubes and drying in the oven a few days beforehand. A mix of, say, sourdough and wheat and maybe rye, is good, the cubes will be different colors. Also a few days before (if it's more than 5 days before, make the stock and freeze it)make some vegetable stock by simply simmering some trimmings for 45 minutes and straining. (good things include: any member of the onion family including paper skins, mushrooms, celery, carrot, tomato, fresh corn cobs) (avoid the crucifers like broccoli, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, or anything starchy except corn cobs) Then make small-dice mirepoix -have about 1/8 as much volume of mirepoix as you do bread. This is important as it's part of the familiar taste of bread dressing. In a large pot, add some olive oil and briefly saute the mirepoix. Add some chiffonade of fresh sage. (onion confit is a great inclusion here, if you have any -so is a drop of liquid smoke) Add the dry bread and some salt and toss to coat with oil. Place in a baking pan, and pour the stock over, until about half-full. Cover with a lid or foil, and bake for about 45 minutes at 350° -it will steam itself and be evenly cooked.

A few years back, they did a recipe for Brussels sprouts with hazelnuts and it was 100% roasted in the oven in one pan. It's also delicious, and I would vote for it over the garlic version. (BTW, the recipe calls for olive oil, which is ok, but I have also usedFrench toasted hazelnut oil that I got from Home Goods, and it was sublime.)

Well, it used to contain transfat, which was why I never ate it from the late 80s until the mid 00s. No one seems too bent out of shape about that change....

Amazon still says shipping is on the 7th, arrgh!

Fine milling, and long fermentation times will be your friends. You also want to have at least 50% spelt, if not more. The quinoa doesn't really add much except minerals and protein to the loaf. It's not something that will improve texture -that flour would be better used in a quick bread, like banana bread. It's simply not something I'd use, it doesn't add much flavor and it bogs down the gluten in the spelt. I'd also go light on the chia seeds, they don't help the functionality of the breadmaking either. Personally, I am waiting for Modernist Bread to be released next week. And, I'd use the spelt flour all by itself. Aside from that, I'd look for a bread formula that uses wheat, and oat flour. I's use spelt for the wheat, and the quinoa for the oat flour. Then add a maybe an ounce of the seeds.

The old-school mechanical can opener clamped to the edge of a counter.

How about sunchokes? They aren't related, but have a similar taste. Just remember that they cook pretty quickly.

I should point out that my favorite green chile (sauce or stew) is when I make it from fresh orange chiles -the green ones just starting to turn color. It's only possible to make about 5 days a year, unless a person is able to roast and freeze a lot of orange peppers. And, thanks, @Thanks for the Crepes, those eggs look delicious. I do enjoy the occasional egg. I never really thought about Christmassing them, I generally make New Mexico style migas (scrambled eggs with sauteed day-old tortilla strips) smothered in green chile. Looks like my next breakfast is going to be great!

I gave up on the box grater years ago. I use graters on handles, many are microplanes, but for cheese, I use two specialty graters: for hard cheese like Parmesan I use a skinny one with tiny stars (it makes a fine powder, great for sauces) , and for medium cheeses like cheddar and block mozzarella I use a wide one with holes that allow grating in both directions and a handle setup with a loop on the other end which allows it to be placed on top of a bowl and used horizontally. My larger one is Calphalon brand, gotten at Tuesday Morning, I do not think it's made any more. Anyway, the bi-directionality really is useful.

'Christmas' isn't really a combination. It happens when making up a plate for service. The enchilada or burrito, or whatever, is plated and then green sauce is poured on half the plate and red on the other half. The sauces (and chile stews which are more substantial) are still prepared very differently. There has also been a great deal of change over time, in addition to changes with regional spread. I have a 1940-ish copyright cookbook from UNM, and it features things like chicken boiled for a minimum of 4 hours with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice -no chile peppers at all. That chicken then gets added to chile, but, it's very different from what any region does nowadays.

Here's a news report about western cities replicated in China.

I went to a potluck a few years ago, and, being vegetarian, wanted to bring something substantial enough to be a main dish for the non-turkeyvores, so, I baked a bean and vegetable biryani. It turned out to be very popular.

Thanks everyone, especially @andiesenji ! I agree that it's probably part of a chafer of one sort of another. BTW, I have seen hundreds of things listed on eBay as the wrong item. Sometimes it has worked to my advantage, most often not. People want to believe that their stuff is priceless treasure.

OK, I could use some help here. A friend of mine has a small sterling silver cup which he believes to be a tastevin. To me, it simply isn't, but I cannot say what it is. Below are pictures. The cup itself is 2" in diameter and a little over 3" tall. (so it's more like a shot glass, whereas a tastevin is shallow and wide, so you can swirl the wine and observe and smell it) It has a smaller base, up to about half of the side is smaller (kind of like the top part of a double boiler) so it appears to have been made to sit inside another container. One side has a curved loop which appears to be designed to act as a hinge, or maybe just perch on the rim of something else. The other side has a stem and handle, about 3" long, which resembles a hat pin. The plastic/bakelite ball is very red. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I have not noticed a smell, but, I do not think it's used with permanent flooring. It's sold to go underneath rugs, in particular, rugs which sit on top of hard, slippery flooring and would move around otherwise. It's not designed as padding so much as it's a non-skid device. (although it does provide a little padding) It's just a couple millimeters thick, with some variation between manufacturers.

It's really dry in AZ and I have only used the stuff outside of the fridge, but it seems pretty inert. Yeah, it's some kind of foam or rubber or something. On the plus side, I have had some under a rug for about 7 years now and it has not broken down. I have run small amounts of it through the clothes washer, too. You could do that a couple of times a year with bleach to sanitize.

Try getting some of the stuff people use to keep rugs in place. You can lay it on the shelf bottom surface, then drape some on top of bottles which are supporting other bottles. The same stuff is also sold as a shelf liner for glassware. It's a foam (maybe?) mesh found at hardware stores that's flexible like fabric and thin. I use it all sorts of places where I do not want things to move around. (like under a cutting board, inside my toolbox, inside my box small cookie cutters, etc.) The rug version is available in larger sizes, but costs more per square foot. Occasionally, this stuff shows up at the dollar store.

Does the tin have an ingredients list? I like many of Kusmi's teas but, I suspect you'll just need to start trying a lot of different teas until you find something similar. Some tea companies process their own teas starting with fresh leaves, others buy from distributors and make blends or simply repackage.

Yeah, 'pretzel salt' is a fine grained salt that gets compressed into relatively soft, large crystal shapes which aren't actually crystals. It's good stuff, lightly crunchy without endangering your teeth. I'd love to get ahold of some of that stuff waxed. I believe that someone used to sell it because I have seen warnings on some of those crackpot fake-doctor sites against eating pretzels because the salt is waxed.

Yes, for the pretzels -especially if one would like to keep them for a couple of days. That and pretzel rolls. @Kerry Beal made some for me. I still have quite a bit, I could send you a cup of it. Check out this thread:

Looks like you could use some waxed salt...

I just found THIS scaccia recipe I think I know what's for dinner this weekend. I may split it in half and try making small loaves, one with yeast and one without.

Just a friend form World Pastry Forum. HERE is some info. I believe he had an apartment in Brussels for a while.

If you run into Rudy Van Veen, say 'hi' from me!