Lisa Shock

I don't have a book to recommend, however, there have been several huge threads on eGullet about the topic. Bento I and Bento II, and Fat Guy's thread about kosher lunches. I think the main thing is to find out what foods schools have banned (probably peanuts and peanut butter, plus tree nuts to start with) and work from there. Also, beware of anything that has a strong odor, kids will make fun of that.

I haven't liked the no boil noodles. Times that I have just used them with my regular ingredients (my family is from the far North, we do things differently) they haven't cooked fully. When I adjusted things and made sure that wet foods were on the noodles, they were kind of 'meh' -too thin to be able to taste much. I tried Barilla, and a more expensive brand that was wavy. I think on at least one occasion, at home, the lasagna was too saucy for me and I actually made some spaghetti and served the lasagna on top of it to get the ratio right. (oh yeah, every frozen lasagna I have ever tried was way, way too saucy) I like to be able to taste my pasta, and, IMO it should taste of pasta not the sauce or whatever. So, overall, I fall into the camp of preferring hydration with just salted water. And, I like thicker noodles. Doing things like THIS just upsets me.

I've been thinking about this, and, I suspect that the challenge was a bit unfair to the contestants. (unless they were to take a lot of liberties with the recipes) The book they had to work with was designed for home cooks putting out meals for 2-4 people. -Not what was present at the judging table plus the one for the camera. Some of the book's recipes are for things like sauteed steaks (bad idea because it would be difficult to to 8+ at once) as Dougie discovered, and others are braises and such but, once again we are talking a lot of prep and a larger pot which takes longer to get to temperature -and three hours just isn't enough time, especially with it broken into parts. I know you could say this about any challenge, but, pre-nouvelle french cooking can be complex. So, kudos to those in the top, they solved a complex problem.

I originally saw this guy (he comes almost every year) at Phoenix's Matsuri festival and then started looking for more info about the art. I found a few info sites about it, but not many and that was maybe a decade ago. I think various artists do what they can with their training and abilities, I have seen several people doing this sort of thing, some blow the sugar, some do not. By the time they are performing in public, I think they tend to have some serious practicing under their belts. It's definitely fun to watch, but be warned about trying it at home, molten sugar is dangerously hot, and being hygroscopic, it will not only burn you it will actively keep burning it's way into your flesh -unlike, say, small amounts of boiling oil which will roll off the steam created by burning flesh. When I was in culinary school, a student burned herself and permanently lost most of the use of her hand because of a few tablespoons of molten sugar. edited because youtube is denying permission to embed

I've done it with quail eggs, that's better for a party, IMO. The regular ones are a pretty large hunk of food. You could make some small sized scones.

The sugar used is different, more corn syrup, although mainly the trick here is that his hands have been burnt so much over the years that he probably doesn't feel much pain. (watch carefully at the beginning, he still winces a little) I have seen this done live. These guys practice a lot, they also tend to make a set series of figures (dragon, cat, alligator, horse) over and over again and they don't vary it much. If you made 20 each of, say, five animals a day, you'd get fast and good at it too. The blowing isn't really that different from what western pastry chefs do, I have seen some famous pastry chefs blow sugar with their mouths as well. You have a lot more control that way. Catch is, it's a health department violation, so you can't do it and call your work 'edible'. Also, it's terrible for showpieces because the air is so humid, the blown item won't last very long. I've seen them go bad in a few hours' time, which is unacceptable in a lot of professional situations where a showpiece is commissioned for a convention and has to last through lunch and dinner.

All of the chefs on the bottom made dishes that they should have known better than to attempt. They simply did not have time to make that number of servings and cook their meat properly. I would have made the aspic de pommes, had I been there.

There was a new episode last night.

Andi, when you made melon syrup, did you add sugar to the fruit?

I make citrus syrup by extracting flavor from the peel with Everclear, then putting some (a few drops to a few spoonfuls) into simple syrup. Some fruit can be extracted well into alcohol, others not so much. A few, like water melon would probably do well centrifuged, with some components then added to syrup.

Agreed that the mainstream appliance makers are building their machines purposefully to wear out faster.

Well, that should freeze just fine. That said, try tossing a cup of frozen corn kernels in (or in the summer, fresh corn straight off the cob), a little brunoise carrot for color, and maybe some finely diced celery to amp up the 'green' flavor. And, of course, diced waxy potatoes like reds are very good too.

How you handle it depends on what you put in it, IMO. I like to put vegetables, like potato cubes, in mine and they, potatoes especially, don't freeze well. I'd start by making a base chile with your meat, the chiles and stock, then split that in half, freeze half and add vegetables to the batch being served first. Then, I'd thaw the second half on the day of the second event, and add the veggies as it's heating up. -In order, carrots take longer to cook than say, corn kernels which only need to be warmed through.

biscuits (the savory bread type, not British cookies), pate choux -then make cream puffs and stuff with savory sandwich things, pate choux -then duchess potatoes, roasting vegetables in general, popcorn, mayonnaise, hollandaise, crackers, laminated dough like croissant or danish dough, pie crust -then make a duck pot pie, roux for sauces and some soups,

350° is too high for cheesecake, a lot of suzie-homemaker recipes call for #25°, but, that's also pretty hot. I prefer to preheat at 350° then reduce the oven to 200°, it takes longer but gives a better, custardy texture.

Everything doesn't infuse into everything else. There's chemistry involved. Vanilla beans are tough husks filled with very oily, very flavorful seeds. Infusing an extra flavor into something oily is possible, but, the flavor compounds have to be fat soluable, and the fat has to be a type which will readily absorb more flavor. Rum gets its flavor from it's ingredients and from aging in barrels. All of its flavor compounds are alcohol soluable, most of them will not be fat soluable. Nobody makes rum (or any booze/wine) flavoring by adding rum to odorless vegetable oil, because it doesn't work. (whereas, with the application of some heat, chile peppers infuse wonderfully into oil) Also, when soaked in alcohol, the vanilla beans themselves lose flavor over time. It takes a while, generally years, but, the rum is getting infused with vanilla, the vanilla seeds (which is what you'll actually be using) aren't being infused with much if any rum because they are mostly oil. So, you're leaving a lot of flavor behind by just pulling the beans out of the rum, leaving the rum behind. There's also the issue of quantities. As John points out, many vanilla extracts are made with rum. I personally added 50% rum to one of my vanilla extract bottles (started with neutral Everclear) and none of my baked goods made with it taste of rum, just Tahitian vanilla. The vanilla flavors are a lot more powerful. To get some distinct rum flavor out of it, you'd have to use a lot -as much or more than you'd use if you just added rum in the first place because the strong vanilla flavor is masking some rum flavor components. And, by the time you used enough vanilla beans to taste the rum, you'd be way, way overdoing the vanilla. Rum or any drinking alcohol, keeps the vanilla beans moist by preventing evaporation (which regular home-use plastic wrap and bags don't do) and keeping them in a solution which happens to have about 50% water, give or take based upon the proof. BTW, some vegetables turn hard in alcohol because they normally have a lot more water in them and the alcohol pulls that water out via diffusion. If you really need the rum flavor without the alcohol, reducing it in a pan and flaming it off (yes, start a fire in your pan) will remove most of the alcohol and the rest should leave as the custard bakes. (alcohol has a very low boiling point) That, or just use a commercial extract, they compound it by using the flavor components (sourced from all over) of rum in a stable base.

I'd use OxyClean before I ever let bleach touch the enamel. Bleach will eat it away over time, I have a relative who ruined a set of pots with bleach, and, I have seen bathtub surfaces ruined by it as well. A quick search of the Le Creuset website's care areas finds no mention of bleach. While the site warns against 'harsh abrasives', Bon Ami does not fall into that category. It does not contain bleach, so it doesn't eat away the surface, and, the original 1886 Formula (look for the red can at hardware stores) is recommended for cleaning glass -even car enthusiasts use it on antique car glass.

About those walnuts: baklava!

There's a small chance that you have a fine, almost invisible layer of protein stuck inside the pan. Like, maybe you slightly overcooked/burnt a stew, and the hardened-on residue is stuck where it was the worst, under the burner. I'd try soaking for an hour, then scrubbing with Bon Ami. However, I'd like to point out that it's probably more likely that the enamel is damaged in those areas, like from being scrubbed too much in the area with an abrasive, bleach-containing cleanser. edited for spelling

There are a bunch of traditional French dessert pies/cakes based on almonds: pithiviers, almond tarts, apple-almond tart, etc.

Don't convert dry weight measure to cups, use a scale. An added bonus is that most electronic scales, even the $20 at the drug store, weigh in both metric and US customary so, you can just follow metric recipes as written. While this item appears to be fairly difficult to make, trying to use measuring cups for dry ingredients may have thrown off your measurements enough to ruin the end result. Most recipes have some 'tolerance' built in into them, so cooks can make errors. But, since using volumetric measure (cups) for dry ingredients can cause the measurement to be 25% too light or 25% too heavy there simply aren't many recipes out that which can withstand such wild swings in ingredient amounts. Try reading eGullet's Kitchen Scale Manifesto. And, remember that there's no regulatory agency in the US checking on the accuracy of measuring cups sold to the public for non-commercial use. So, cups from different manufacturers can hold differing amounts of liquid, meaning that a cup isn't always a cup, or a cup at my house is different from a cup at your house. On day one of my pastry courses, I have students measure a cup of flour however they like and weigh it. Then I have them do it again. No two students in the room get the same number on the scale, and, no student gets the same number twice. And, yes, chickpea flour is VERY different from wheat flour. It does not contain gluten, which is a binder in bread products, so, it needs to be handled differently than, say, AP flour.

You know, we'd like to see pictures of the spread, if possible...

I have baked in similar unglazed cookware, it was from a company that made unglazed posts in shapes specifically for bread. The instructions for their pots had you butter the inside, dust with cornmeal, then soak. Now, this wasn't for no-knead, it was for regular loaves. (you could stop buttering after a few bakes, when it was seasoned) I'd be afraid of the bread sticking if there isn't some sort of layer of fat involved -or parchment paper. If you've baked a lot of chickens in it previously, it should have a seasoned fat coating. If it's new, I'd be careful.

Using butter and oil instead of just butter is a smart move, you generally get moister cakes and longer shelf life with oil.

I have made this pie for clients fairly successfully, changes I made were adding 50% more nuts and changing the corn syrup to dark corn syrup. Once I did half regular corn syrup, half very dark molasses. Anyway, making the brown butter is the key step here, do not skip it.