Lisa Shock

Yeah, they've got 5 different recipes for the very best blueberry muffin. I made one of them once and liked it, but, I forgot to print it and now have no idea which one it was.

I'd check to see if either kitchen store had a class using the air fryer and attend and test it in person.

Yeah, incorrect cutting technique can cause 30-50% less rise. I agree with using a sharp cutter, floured, and the straight up & down motion is essential. Twisting compacts the edges.

I do have a bottle in my cabinet pretty much at all times, I like to sip it straight or occasionally mix with tomato water. That said, I prefer Jubilæums, but have not seen a bottle in the US for many years.

Four cups of cream plus a half cup of yogurt makes about 3/4lb. I'd say between 1/4 and 1/3 lb, depending on the fat content of the yogurt. Whenever I make it, I get less, somehow. I need to get better cream...

You're in Maryland, how about crab? -Or is that overplayed? There used to be a French restaurant in downtown Annapolis that made a great crab bisque... How do you serve for judging, is it individual bowls or a big pot? If I make a cream soup, like cream of broccoli, I add about a half-dozen drops of lemon juice on top as I am serving. (or, give people a lemon wedge to do their own) I like the contrasting flavors. But then, of course, there's the bisque route, with cognac splashed and swirled in the bowl.

I rarely pull out my Atlas. I wind up using my rolling pin, or other tools, to make non-machine shapes.

I generally don't knead, I make turns like one would for croissants. (3-4 at the most) This makes layers, which, most people seem to like. Like Chris says, don't overdo it. It could be your flour. There's no standard for AP flour in the US, and it varies by mill and by region. Big name flours make their Southern blend more like cake flour because they know more people use the flour for biscuits. The same company's Northern blend will be a higher protein blend, usually somewhere between pastry flour and bread flour, as most people there make bread with it. Western states mostly get the Northern blend, but, that varies. My guess is that you have Northern AP flour. Make sure that you haven't mistakenly used white whole wheat flour, it's hard to tell apart and if it's been placed in an unmarked canister it can fool people. (happened at my house once) Not that WW biscuits are bad, they just don't have the rise of the white flour ones. What kind of shortening? There are newer, transfat-free ones with a bunch of weird ingredients that don't really make good baked goods. (I use an all butter recipes, but, that's a different story.) BTW, buttermilk is slightly acidic, as is, to a lesser degree, some milk. The FF recipe predates modern dairy processing. That's probably the reason for the CoT. The other, really obvious flaw in this recipe is that it uses volumetric measurements for dry ingredients thus guaranteeing randomized results. More explanation in eG's Kitchen Scale manifesto.

Yeah, I was never a fan of the bro attitude, so, I'm disappointed in the final results. Marjorie and Kwame were my favorites.

You could also use it to make cultured butter, just overwhip it in a mixer. You won't get a lot from 2 cups, but, it's an option.

Looks great! Thanks for the link, I think I had balked at doing this because I found several really different recipes and wondered about why they were so different.

Pane di Pasqua (breakfast or brunch) Pizza Rustica aka Easter Pie (dinner) Colomba (dessert)

I'd do a scrape test and see if it's precipitate or corrosion. If it's corrosion, your sister's friend might want to see this and change suppliers. (and possibly get a refund from her current supplier) if I were buying parts that the manufacturer said were stainless and they weren't, I'd make some changes, fast.

Just got a first edition copy of Diana Kennedy's Cuisines of Mexico at a thrift shop for 99¢.

Congrats! You might want to experiment with pureeing various types of potatoes. Some are grittier than others. Sometimes, I sneak and thicken partially with cornstarch. It has to boil then come down in temp to thicken, and doesn't reheat well, so you'd have to adjust your method. That said, it's very silky and people don't expect it in soup. I wouldn't go 100% thickening with it, but, it might give you that extra edge. That said, gelatin might also be useful for a stock-like mouthfeel.

Marjorie talked to the Washington Post this past week. Looks like the producers didn't have to do much editing on Phillip to capture his personality.

Eventually, I might get around to writing a sanitation guide for eG, I just mostly feel like the ServSafe manual covers it and anything I would write would simply be a rehashing of that. BTW, odor has almost nothing to do with foodborne illness. There are a bunch of microorganisms that cause offensive odors, and most of them have not really been studied much. They appear to be, ironically, mostly harmless. I do not recommend cooking food that smells bad, simply based on the old programming motto: GIGO. (garbage in = garbage out) I will say that salmonella and some infectious strains of e. coli have no odor detectable to humans. Most parasites and many physical contaminants (glass shards, rat poison, etc.) have no odor, either. And, I did find a series of studies that found that with certain foodborne illnesses, salmonella and e.coli IIRC, drinking hard liquor helped decrease the effects of the illness. (Authors studied parties like weddings where large numbers of people became ill from eating the food served at the event. Those who consumed the most hard liquor had the mildest cases of illness.) This makes sense in that alcohol is a poison, and those who drank more hard liquor were killing off part of the illness colony forming in their gut, whereas teetotalers had full blown colonies thriving inside.

Thanks! I knew that older recipes referred to the small dried grapes, but, about 5 years ago picked up some dried blackcurrants at Sprouts which I promptly ate as snacks. (I should have cooked something, but just didn't think of it.) I wasn't certain about newer European recipes.

I have started to experiment with adding bitters to ice cream. So far, I have done just one, added angostura to a batch of Tahitian vanilla flavor: 2 drops per cup of base. It was definitely an improvement, it added a herbal depth to the flavor.

You know, another option, probably in complete opposition to the host's invitation, would be to bring dessert. A Charlotte or trifle is, IMO, the casserole of the dessert world. Verrines are the single-serving versions thereof. The classic traditional dessert would probably be some sort of layered gelatin concoction with canned fruit and 'whipped oil' topping mixed in. If you think anyone would notice, you could make an upscale version with plain gelatin, fruit juice, champagne, and fresh fruits.

I love my Kenwood 7 qt, mine is one of the ones sold under the DeLonghi brand name about ten years ago. It's powerful. I make big batches of bread dough at least once a week. I also use many of the attachments. It's a powerful continuous juicer, I make carrot juice, and can continuously shred and dice tons of vegetables. I occasionally make coleslaw for 300 with it. This 5qt model is on sale right now. ($249.99) The modern 7qt is very pricey, but, has an induction burner in the base. -And it comes with all the attachments you'd have to buy separately with the 5qt unit. I have used it in cooking classes, it's useful for warming liquids for bread and proofing in a cold room.

The best part, aside from being tasty and easy to make, is that people remember you for bringing it.

I'd just take it as a general suggestion, and actually make a real dish like: vegetable fritatta (traditionally served cold) a large pot pie with an assortment of vegetables inside in addition to the meat arroz con pollo a byriani lasagna with plenty of vegetables (a little pre-cooking will reduce water content -you can cut zucchini into thin long strips and roast then use like a pasta layer.) a hearty focaccia with lots of toppings eggplant parm My favorite for hot weather, though, would be a sushi cake. The only thing you cook is rice and maybe some scrambled eggs, no oven is used. Plus, you can use Florida seafood. Here's a basic video, don't worry about the decor so much. Layers can include thinly sliced avocado, cucumber, crabmeat tossed with mayo, tiny shrimp, Japanese scrambled eggs, cooked fish, smoked salmon, caviar, whatever you like on sushi basically. Thosee little containers of furikake and finely cut nori are also useful here, on layers or as a pretty topping. It can be made up to 6 hours in advance, longer if you don't use raw vegetables inside. The colored rice is made by mixing cooked and cooled rice with finely minced carrot for orange, parsley for green, radish (mostly outer layer) for red, well, you get the idea. Martha has a great page of baked pasta dishes, too.

I'm envisioning having your book club meet on a lovely summer evening, reading Bourdain's Typhoid Mary book, and you serving a lovely variety of ice creams and sorbets... One of my neighbors is a dietitian for a dialysis clinic, we've been collaborating for a few years now on recipes for specific patients with dietary restrictions. You may be able to forge some sort of friendship over foods your neighbor recommends for people to make at home, rather than the on-site cafeteria situation. Anyway, until you start a club (gourmet supper club, literary comestible salon, etc.) you won't know who is lurking out there just waiting to participate. If no one shows up, well, at least you'll have a better knowledge of the community. For copyright reasons the library probably won't let you screen films or TV shows, but, if you can meet privately, you could have screening nights. There are some good food films out there, and some tv shows, too. (we have threads here on eG about them) (I think IowaDee would like 'Pie in the Sky'.) I mean honestly, even those of us living in big cities don't have it much better. Sure, here in Phoenix I have great markets selling foods from around the world, and some interesting restaurants and food trucks, etc. But, the number of hardcore food enthusiasts in relation to the general population is pretty small. People are just plain cooking less. I joined a gourmet supper club I found on meetup.com and attended an 'all appetizers' event. People brought: pigs in a blanket made with canned vienna sausage and crescent rolls from a tube, krab salad from the grocery deli on Ritz crackers, Ro-Tel queso dip and Doritos, a crudites platter from the supermarket, 'French onion' dip (sour cream and Lipton soup mix) with Ruffles, pre-sliced pepperoni on a plate, and a few other delicacies. The drinks were jello shots and bottled wine coolers. I was tasked with bringing dessert, so, I brought several flavors of mousse and three kinds of cookies. I had to explain to people that they should try small servings of mousse, and tried to show them to scoop it into juice glasses. They didn't listen, they took it upon themselves to load cereal bowls of it, ate some, got full and left a lot behind -which then gave me the reputation with the event hostess that I made desserts that no one liked. I did not return. I am not trying to discourage you, honestly if you can manage to have a better event than that, then you'll really have something. Someone there must at least watch Food Network.

The Fed only regulates dating baby food. A few states regulate dairy. The sell by date is mostly a suggestion. I used to live in a state which regulated dairy, and there, dairy products had to be good for 7 days past the sell by date. For many foods, if they remain sealed and stored at an appropriate temperature, it's a flexible suggestion. However, if your groceries (including a pack of steaks) sat in the car for 3 hours on a 110° day, and then two days later you set those steaks on the counter for a half hour, opened the package, touched it a few times with bare hands, used half, then tossed the uncooked portion loosely wrapped back into the fridge, it's not going to last that long. Here's a guide, from the FDA. Some bacterial colonies can double in size every 20 minutes at room temperature. Normally, 2 hours is pretty much tops for leftovers, reheating to 165°, if thorough, should kill bacteria but, will not get rid of poisonous waste products from them, nor will it kill viral spores. Some foodborne illness makes us sick because it infects us, gets inside and reproduces like norovirus or e. coli. Some, like botulism, don't make us ill, they poison us -they produce poisons as waste. Then, there's the world of parasites and their eggs in/on food. There are conditions which enhance growth: temperature, moisture, available nutrition, oxygen for some, lack of oxygen for others, and pH. If you eliminate some of these conditions, some foods will no longer be potentially hazardous. But, it varies from food to food. Even the world of cold cuts offers a huge variety: room temperature-stable salumi, soft cheeses that go moldy quickly, and everything in-between. In a restaurant situation, for most open foods, one week is the max it can be kept. There are always exceptions, like jars of olives or jam, of foods which do not foster bacterial growth if stored properly. Some foods, are really not very good after a few days. I don't like keeping custards more than 3 days. Commercially processed foods are often made to be kept longer under bad conditions -like ketchup. I can't really answer about your wings. If they went from the deep fryer straight into the to-go container without being sauced or touched, there's a good chance they'll be fine. (sauce adds moisture and food, plus opportunities for cross contamination, and general exposure to people breathing) If you ate half of them bare-fingered, touched a few while grabbing, and talked for 20 minutes with the open container within two feet of your mouth, then they would clearly have a much larger number of bacterial colonies growing. There's also susceptibility to consider. Everyone's personal medical situation is different, and considered confidential. Some people have strong constitutions. However, someone recovering from another illness or even serious physical trauma like a car accident will have a compromised immune system and be less able to fight off an infection or handle a load of toxins. Children under the age of 7 don't have fully formed immune systems. Senior citizens often have weaker immune systems, as do pregnant women, people in chemotherapy, and people taking a myriad of medications. When you add it all up, restaurants have to assume that a goodly percent of their customers are sensitive in one way or another, and have to take measures to protect them. You can make different decisions at home, based on your knowledge of your own situation. That said, foodborne illness is no fun. I had salmonella once and it was horrible: two weeks of continuous nausea and vomiting, with lingering nausea for months. Good luck!