Lisa Shock

The serving size change should be good, IMO some manufacturers have given arbitrary serving sizes in the past so that their product appears to be more healthy. I have seen servings listed as 2½ per can of sports drink, or (everyone's favorite) the 14 liquid oz package of ice cream labelled as 4 servings. The other trick that I am sick of is the small portion size to disguise the amount of man-made trans fat in a food, like the deceptive way that girl scout cookies are labelled. (I gave up trans fat in 1991) Many of the cookies have serving sizes stated as 2 cookies and the grid portion of the label says 0% trans fat. But, hydrogenated oil is one of the ingredients. They are allowed to say 0% because each serving contains (barely) less that 1 gram of it. So, if you eat, say, 4 cookies, you get something like 3.6 grams of trans fat. If you eat the whole bag, you get 18 grams, or more. BTW, there's increasing evidence that antibiotics affect our internal microbiome and cause us to become fat without any increase in calorie intake. Farmers have known this for over 50 years and it's why they feed livestock low level of antibiotics -they speed up growth and fattening without any extra feed costs. http://www.wired.com/2012/08/antibiotics-obesity/ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-drug.html edited to correct math

Jon Favreau has a film titled Chef which is opening in limited release today. It won't be showing in Phoenix/Scottsdale for another week or so. Right now, the Rotten Tomatoes score is holding at 88%. Here's the trailer. I like a lot of Favreau's work, so, I am curious about this film and will go see it as soon as I can. Just wondering if anyone has seen it yet, and how accurately the cooking life is portrayed.

Wikipedia is missing some entries, here is a more complete list of American food holidays. I suggest 'Eat Like a Pirate Day' - take a large group of friends out to eat, and spend lots of money and give generous tips (maybe include a piece of jewelry with the tip), like a pirate ship crew on shore leave after scoring a big haul. Pirate attire optional.

BTW, Fry's which is part of Kroger's empire, had these for $1.88 a bag.

What if you made a wine gelee from a really fruity wine like a brachetto, then cut it into discs and layered it into the serving cups? (the bubbles will make it interesting looking) Maybe do dark mousse in the bottom of the cup, then the gelee, then a more milk chocolate or white chocolate mousse on top. Or, make the gelee fairly firm and mold it in fleximolds to make small cups or bowls and pipe mousse into them... Let your boss know that, while tasting wine with chocolate is a common event, mixing the two isn't so common. You have to be careful, both wine and chocolate contain a LOT of flavor components and you're risking getting a muddy mess, flavor-wise.

I tried them, they were all too weird for me to eat more than a few. I got them in Phoenix at Fry's supermarket. The blue bag was too spicy for me, the spice hits you pretty late and then takes over. It did have a distinct smokiness which I liked, I was guessing that it was some sort of chipotle flavor. If it were just not so spicy, I think I'd like this one. The orange bag is kind of odd in that it's sweet and spicy, which normally would not be bad for me, but, it's just coming out as 'wrong' in my head. (I loved Poore Brother's 'Calypso' flavor potato chips.) The red bag definitely has a strong 'Doritos' cheese taste, but is also spicy. It's not bad, it's just not really exciting.

Singapore Rice Noodles might be something to consider. (I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek with the currywurst suggestion. I first heard about it from someone who just raved about it, it wasn't until I looked it up that I discovered that it's just cheap sausage with a mix of commercial condiments.)

Yeah, with convection, it doesn't matter so much. My cheapo stove is not convection, but, being just a couple years old, it heats pretty evenly. (I have tested it.) Yes, the upper rack(s) get a bit hotter, but, I just pull the cookies from there faster, and then move all the other sheet pans up. Anyway, having seven racks instead of two makes a huge difference in the amount of time and electricity (no gas in my neighborhood) I use baking off cookies, crackers, etc. If I get nervous about opening the door too much, I leave my pizza stone on the bottom shelf, where it normally lives anyway. I own a MC steel but have not tested it as heat sink in the bottom of the oven yet.

Gotta love dual ovens that are tall enough for more than a couple racks, that's really a beauty! One suggestion, I don't know how many oven racks came with your stove, but, you might want to check out the manufacturer's website and see if they sell more if you don't have one for every groove/slot. (hopefully, you have a place to store some while not in use.) I'm set up so that my modest cheapo stove can have a rack in every slot, if I wish, and this way I can bake off seriously large quantities of cookies. I don't use them that often, but, when I do, they are very helpful in cutting my baking time way down and using less energy.

Have you looked into vacuum sealing them?

Hmmm, will look for it an my next trip to the super-big asian market. I'll also check out the Indonesian aisle for peanuts. Gonna be a few days, though.

You could always make currywurst from scratch.....

Do you start with raw nuts and roast them before grinding them? I find that roasting right before using the nuts really makes a big difference. I even make peanut butter in tiny batches that I consume in a day maybe two max.That said, different types do seem to have different flavor, I tend to prefer the 'Spanish' ones.

1) plain, unfilled, in a dry container with desiccant packets then fill to order 2) Chocolate and a stencil, however, it will be very delicate handwork as they break very easily.... You could print using one of the sugar icing printers and attach a printed sheet with a dot of chocolate.

Or, if you happen to already own one, this would be a good use for the Modernist Baking Steel.

I have always had issues with freezing potatoes and just generally avoid doing so. I freeze stews then reheat with raw potato in them, long enough to cook the potato. I'm not all that fond of frozen potatoes either, and I can spot a frozen french fry a mile away. (frozen fries are terrible if cooked then left to get cold, fries made from fresh are still edible if they sit around and get cold) I just don't think there's an easy solution for the problem. The additives you mention are probably for things like purees, like cream of potato soup. They don't make a lot of sense for a chunky stew where they won't penetrate the insides of a 2" hunk of potato.

I'm thinking a late summer harvest theme. Drink: Daisy Buchanan (cheat: make it as a punch with white wine instead of champagne) For the vegetarians, I often take a vegetable biryani to Thanksgiving meals for vegetarians. It's vegan, so everyone will eat it. (don't make the mistake of thinking that the vegetarians will eat dead animals like fish, or even eggs, unless they tell you otherwise) It's good, and meat eaters take home leftovers and ask for the recipe. I make it with a modified fried rice method: The day before: Cook some Jasmine brown rice (salted water) and refrigerate it. Cooks some garbanzo beans, from dry beans, in water that has salt and cumin in it. Refrigerate when done. Saute carrots in oil with lots of ginger, stopping when they are still a little firm. Keep going with whatever vegetables you have at hand, cook each in a different spice that is compatible with a mild curry but slightly undercook it. On the day of, saute a diced onion and the rice in oil with a little curry paste in it and pour into a chafing dish/hotel pan. (It's supposed to be mildy fragrant with spice.) Heat up each of the vegetables one by one in the same pan/wok and pour into the chafer. When finished, stir to distribute evenly and keep warm. This will keep well covered for hours. Another entree, one that could be made with meat (as well as meatless with beans) and rice, or barley, bulghur, etc. is a medley of stuffed roasted vegetables. The filling can be made days in advance, and softer vegetables (eggplant, bell pepper, zucchini) will roast very quickly so you're mostly just heating them through. You can take this in many directions depending on how you spice it: Middle East, India, French, etc. They can have a sauce (cabbage rolls) or not. (when I do cabbage rolls, I cook red lentils mixed with jasmine or basmati rice and add lemon zest and juice to the water for the vegetarian rolls to give them a bright flavor) Sides could include roasted vegetables, like eG's popular roasted cauliflower, baked potatoes with a toppings bar, roasted root vegetable medley, etc. Make sure to have a great salad. Perhaps a mini salad bar would be in order, with a couple of dressing choices and toppings like sunflower seeds and nuts. The vegetarians will eat the salad, and it can be a fallback for anyone on a special diet. Fresh fruit is also appreciated for those who might have issues with dessert. That said, sorbets are a dessert that most people will eat without arguing over whether or not there are eggs and/or dairy in the shortcake, etc.

I don't know how much this will help, but, you might try soaking the rice for about 45 minutes before cooking it.

The problem I see is that many foods have little quirks that are really specific, for example, ginger will coagulate milk into a custard if cooked at a precise temperature. If you wrote a recipe for a drink that involved milk and infusing ginger in it by heating then cooling, your reader would be surprised to no longer have a drink. You'll also get flavor interactions that you don't expect. I mean, I have thought of things that on paper sounded tasty but turned out to be oddly flavored, bland, and oddly textured. Other times, I have come up with combinations which exceeded the sum of their parts. (butter & teriyaki sauce)

I am just like you with regards to coffee. I can always taste it and it ruins the chocolate. I just add more of whatever liquid is being used (like milk in a cake) plus, I add a dash of chocolate extract. I used to buy chocolate extract and got varying product flavors, nowadays, I make my own. Just get some EverClear then freeze and grate some good chocolate into it and wait about a week, or more if you are patient. Then strain and use. (keep in a tightly sealed bottle) It gets weirdly cloudy and I have not been able to fix that, but it doesn't really matter.

Devil's on Horseback comes to mind.

I used to visit Gandhi at least once per trip, but, I notice that their prices appear to have doubled in the past couple of years and the buffet appears to be gone. It's probably still a decent option, and it's just a block off the strip, but the days of getting dinner for two for under $20 are apparently long gone.

Yes,the chocolate will still work as a barrier, but, you need to be careful. Untempered chocolate is soft, and might get moved around too much or scraped off the crust completely while placing the filling inside if you're really active/aggressive in spreading the filling. Just try to avoid going too deep with whatever tool you are using to spread in the filling.

Sometimes, if the cream has set overnight in a bowl, it's difficult to fill a shell because the cream is kind of chunky -kind of like trying to spread jello cubes around. That said, it usually gives in a bit if you beat it for a few minutes. Anyway, when making cream pies, to protect the crust, I always paint mine with chocolate, mostly white or, sometimes dark. It forms a nice barrier and if you are careful to keep it in temper, it gives a nice snap when cut. -Making the crust seem even crisper. Good luck with your pie!

Fresh garlic would burn, making a really bad flavor, in some recipes where it would be exposed to high heat. Because it won't burn as easily, those are the applications that dried powder/granulated is used for: BBQ rubs, grill marinades, some roast recipes, etc. I've made an oven-roasted wings recipe for a client that turned out terribly bitter when my boss insisted we use real fresh garlic instead of the powder called for in the recipe. And, then, some people use powder for convenience on pretty much anything. I can't really speak to that, I always have fresh at hand and make roasted a couple times a month for variety.